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anneapocalypse · 2 years

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You Miss, Then You Don't: On Sera's Archery Skills and the History of Red Jenny

The Sera Series: Exploring Sera's Character and Background

Sera is a skilled archer, and this comes up as a point of confusion both in the game and in supplementary materials. Multiple characters seem confused as to where she learned her archery skills. In early conversations in Haven, Sera tells the Inquisitor she had no teacher, that she just "picked it up here and there." She admits that it takes some work, but adds, "I mean, you miss, then you don't. Is it that hard to see when it's wrong?" When the Inquisitor asks if it's an "elf thing," Sera only laughs and replies, "Most I know couldn't find an arrow sitting on it."

In The World of Thedas, Volume 2, a note from the Antivan Crows poses a similar question:

I get it. They all wear the same mask. The rest is bullshit.

The elf, the voice says Denerim, a mutt. But she's got a trainer who must be somebody. You don't split flies like she does without someone teaching you how to nock an arrow. Who gets that at birth? No one the living are supposed to know. (p. 236)

Sera has annotated her usual answer in the margins. "Is it so hard for everyone? You miss, then you don't."

I think it's very easy to misread aspects of Sera's character if you take things she says early on in the game and in party banter literally and at face value. Initially, I accepted her answers as such myself. Later, as I got to know Sera, I realized that her early answers are really non-answers, which she gives specifically to deflect what she sees as nosy and invasive questions.

One thing I was sort of taken aback by, when I was just getting to know Sera, is how much she dislikes Maryden's song about her. Sera likes girls, Maryden seems to like Sera, Sera even comments that she thinks Maryden is "chatting her up." You'd think she'd be flattered Maryden wrote a song about her, right? Wrong. Big wrong. In her journal, she calls the song "creepy." Later, in Trespasser, after Sera offers the Inquisitor the chance to become a Red Jenny, Maryden can be heard starting up the song, abruptly interrupted by the sound of breaking wood, followed by Sera's final declaration, "Creepy song is creepy. Ugh!"

Sera has… let's say, a particular dislike for people being too nosy about her life.

Look at it this way: in Haven, Sera has just met the so-called Herald of Andraste. And she is taking a big chance on them. They're not the "Big Hat" yet, but they're already surrounded by nobs and Important People and Sera's whole thing is she wants to see if they're worth knowing before they get too big to bother with. That's what she says when she meets them: "Get in good before you're too big to like." So when she talks to them in Haven, she's not sure if she likes them yet. She's feeling them out.

So, when Sera's just met the Herald and is asked, "Who taught you to use a bow?" and she says, "No one" … that's not really an answer. It's like when Dorian asks the same, if she just picked it up one day and was a natural, and Sera's response is, "Not your business if I do or didn't. Like I don't ask if you 'naturally' shoot fireballs out your arse, or just opinions."

It's not an answer, at least not literally. It is an insight into Sera's character, but not in the sense that it's telling us she's a natural born archer who never had to work at it a day in her life. (I mean, she even walks it back two lines later after the Inquisitor prods her further, saying that it does take work.) But what's she's really saying is the same thing she's saying to Dorian: "None of your business."

It's not like it would even be so weird if Sera was a self-taught fighter. As I brought up in a previous Sera post, I think there's some in-universe prejudice in the incredulity characters have about a city elf being good at fighting. No one repeatedly interrogates Duncan about how he learned to stab people good with a dagger.

But that's all beside the point. Because once Sera likes the Inquisitor, she tells them something different.

After raising Sera's approval high enough to get the cookie cutscene—a scene in which she opens up about her painful childhood—the Inquisitor can ask her more about herself. Sera still expresses reticence but is now willing to answer more questions. Let's have a look at that conversation.

Inquisitor: I'd like to know more about you, now that you're comfortable. Sera: Suppose. It's embarrassing enough now, might as well. Inquisitor: Anything more to say about where you came from? Besides hating cookies there. Sera: Denerim, mostly. Before running into another Jenny. He was fun. Had weird friends, though. I think some of them were a lot more serious about being serious. Got some of them killed. I suppose they were like family. Better than Lady Emmald ever was. You know why? They didn't give two squirts about who or what you were. It was all what you did. Inquisitor: So where are the rest of them? Sera: All over. Or they stopped to let new people go all over. Some get rich and stop playing. They can do good things with it. One or two don't. Eventually, someone asks for a favor against them. So don't get like that, you hear? Inquisitor: Denerim is a long way from Orlais. How'd you get there. Sera: By stinky horse? Inquisitor: Sera... Sera: Denerim wasn't much fun after the Blight. Everyone trying to recover, you'd even feel bad for the nobles. But Val Royeaux... that's a fat city full of fat heads. They just don't know when to stop. You saw it. Orlais is rich and stupid. Ripe for the picking. Inquisitor: So is that who showed you how to fight? Gave you your skills? Sera: Nobody gave me anything except a chance. And maybe some lessons to start. But mostly just the chance. I took that and ran.

And maybe some lessons to start.

There it is.

She's not a natural born archer. Maybe she had a normal level of affinity for it, but she didn't magically know how to archery without ever being taught or practicing because of elfy reasons or magic reasons or whatever other tinfoil hat reasons. She had some lessons. And then she practiced. And then she got good. Simple, ordinary people reasons.

And if you read between the lines here I think it's implied who gave her those lessons to start.

You see, the Friends of Red Jenny seem to have originally been a minor assassins' guild. And by "originally" I might right up until the time of the Fifth Blight. Also from World of Thedas Volume 2:

The knives I found think the Friends of Red Jenny started in Ferelden, maybe a hundred years back. Could be longer—they're hard to track. Don't know if the name is a rank or what, but pretty sure it's older than they are. They were assassins back then, but I doubt they competed with true guilds. They were cheap, small, and made a habit of paying urchins to get information or plant weapons. They recruited that way, but that doesn't seem like a way to get skilled people. The Friends had some teeth, and they weren't shy about getting bloody if their people were threatened, but they were strictly local.

It's recent that the Friends have been more active. Since the Blight, mostly. A new Red Jenny at the head—or seems like—in Val Royeaux. And in Kirkwall. Maybe more. Thing is, they might be doing more, but they stepped back from being assassins. And there are a lot fewer of them. Could be Blight—it killed a bunch of everybody. But my gut says different. They didn't just move; they changed how they work.

I found Red Jenny herself, or one of them, I guess. Tall for an elf. I approached her plain, figured we'd talk guild to guild. Her answer was two fingers. She could move, she's proper skilled, but I don't think she's competition. What she and her friends do has nothing to do with us. (p. 236)

The first we hear of the Friends of Red Jenny is in Dragon Age: Origins, when the Warden finds a small painted box in the quarters of First Enchanter Irving, then a note on the body of one of the Crows who ambush the party. The note indicates where the box is to be taken, and is signed "Friends of Red Jenny.” To complete the quest, the box must be delivered to a house in Denerim, where the player can hear the sound of a young girl laughing. No further information is given in that game.

In Inquisition, in conversation with Sera, the Inquisitor may ask her about the Blight, to which Sera replies, "That was ages ago. I was playing with small painted boxes and burying stuff I stole." It's possible this is just meant to be an easter egg, but for the sake of the argument let's assume that Sera does in fact mean that small painted box—that she was working with the old Jennies in Denerim. That one of them gave her that box to play with. Maybe they only needed what was inside it.

I initially read that "more serious about being serious" line as Sera referring to some Jennies who were more actively revolutionary. But I now think I was missing the bigger picture there. Sera was referring to the earlier Red Jennies, the ones she met in childhood before the Blight—the Jennies who were not merely tricksters but assassins.

This dialogue also really frames meeting that other Jenny as a turning point in Sera's life, and from it a picture of her life after Lady Emmald's death emerges for me. Having refused the estate, and still a child, she returned to the streets of Denerim where she met an assassin—a man who was "fun" but had "weird friends." They were "like family," she supposes. "Better than Lady Emmald ever was."

Someone fun with weird friends who took a liking to this little street urchin, perhaps. Gave her tasks to perform for a coin or some food. Gave her some trinkets to play with. Gave her a few lessons with a bow. Never cared that she was an elf, didn't bring it up constantly or tell her it was why people hated her.

Why didn't she just say that from the start? By the time you make it to the end of the cookies friendship cutscene in Skyhold, you've probably figured out that Sera's whole childhood is a painful, difficult subject that she doesn't like to talk about. She's not avoiding the subject of Denerim and her past because she's trying to be difficult; she's avoiding the subject because it's traumatic and a period of her life that she's trying to leave behind. She didn't ride all the way to Val Royeaux by stinky horse because she just loves clopping through miles of wilderness and woods full of the elfiest elves. Denerim is full of painful history for Sera, and I think the old Red Jennies are a part of that painful history. Her voice softens, gets quieter, when she talks about how being "more serious about being series" got some of them killed. World of Thedas Volume 2, in speculating about how the Friends of Red Jenny shifted from assassins to pranksters, notes that the Blight may have played a role in their shift, as it "killed a lot of everyone," so perhaps that contributed. Either way, I think Sera lost friends in Denerim. People who were "like family." There are things there that hurt to remember, and to talk about.

Sera's initial insistence that she didn't have a teacher might not be strictly a lie, especially if she only had a few starter lessons and did the rest herself. If she was observant enough, she might have picked up certain skills simply from watching the assassins she was around all the time. But it's also worth remembering that Sera is very resistant to talking about things that make her uncomfortable or bring up bad memories. Before she knows the Inquisitor well, when they push her to talk about her past, she'll say, "It's complicated. I don't like complicated. Let's leave it at that." Her commentary in the margins of the notes on her life in World of Thedas are mostly flippant, sarcastic, but one of the few that sounds really angry is the note after the old Marcher tavern song "She of the Red," which certainly sounds like it's about assassins and not merely pranksters:

She of the Red, Oh, She of the Red, She's under a lake with no water, it's said. As friendly as any, and then you are dead. "Forgive me; I've killed you," lies She of the Red.

Which Sera has annotated: "Frigging. Piss. Off!"

We might take from this that Sera simply doesn't like having songs written about her (given how deeply unimpressed she is with Maryden's efforts), but I get the sense she also really dislikes people bringing up what the Red Jennies used to be. I wonder if she was even fully aware as a child what the guild was really doing. But she must have made a conscious decision to take the Friends in a certain direction when she took over.

And I do think she took them over after the Blight. World of Thedas notes that Sera "appears to hold seniority, earned at a very young age." She was very young, still a child, when Emmald died. She fell in with the Red Jennies, began to learn archery. Then the Blight tore through Denerim, and a lot of people died. I suspect that the assault on Denerim (whether the attack itself or the ensuing disease) wiped out most if not all of the old Red Jennies, leaving Sera and whatever other urchins the guild had taken under their wing. She'd lost yet another family.

So Sera decided she'd be Red frigging Jenny.

But she didn't want to get people killed. Whatever she knew of the old Red Jennies' line of work, she was aware that it was dangerous. She'd lost friends. And besides, assassins are beholden to people with the coin to hire them—most likely nobles. And there's no one Sera hates more than nobles.

So Sera remade the Friends of Red Jenny into something new. She remade them in her own image and took them to Val Royeaux. They spread north to the Free Marches. I wouldn't be surprised if they're all over Thedas by now. Probably for the best that they're no longer anything the Crows would see as a threat.

But if you're a noble stepping on little people, best look out for arrows. And mind your breeches.

#sera dragon age #dragon age sera #red jenny #friends of red jenny #dragon age inquisition #world of thedas #world of thedas volume 2 #dragon age meta #dragon age #blunders of thedas #sera series #sera

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dareactions · 1 year

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This might be convoluted but please stay with me. Imagine: Warden is the Inquisitior. Don't ask me how, but they contact the Arishok (Sten from Origins), and he shows up at Skyhold. He still calls them Kadan. People's reactions to that. Especially Bull.

djwklae Sten calling me Kadan gave ME LIFE. my husband, love of my life. he holds my hand when i kill things w my blood magic <3 this is now canon to my warden!inquisitor, thanks

Iron Bull: There are moments in everyone's life when they see all the choices they've made laid out before them. To Bull, this is when the Arishok walks in and looks at the Inquisitor with fondness in his eyes, and the words 'kadan' leaves his lips. He isn't sure how to feel whatsoever, how the hell is he expected to feel? He just stands there with his mouth agape like a fucking idiot for ten minutes straight until he get spoken to. He needs alcohol, stat.

Cassandra: She is considering handing in her resignation, a little bit. There are only so many things she can handle and this is for sure not entirely one of them. What is she supposed to do beyond act polite? If the Inquisitor catches her glaring at them, that's her business.

Blackwall: I would love to write some really in-depth thing here but I think he literally just emotionally clocks out and calls it a day.

Dorian: Dorian is laughing his fucking ass off behind closed doors. He pats them on the shoulder and goes 'good job', because not everyone can score an Arishok- as a friend or lover for that matter. He keeps almost laughing every time he looks at Bull and he feels dreadful for it but it's so funny.

Sera: She feels a bit weird about it? Like the Qunari have always been a mixed back and apparently, the Inquisitor is like- in a relationship with one, right? That's what that means? She thinks, at least. The guy also looks intimidating enough that Sera knows better than to make any comments so she just stands there before deciding its very much not her problem.

Varric: He thought Hawke had questionable taste and now he has to write apology letters to them.

Vivienne: She doesn't even want to think about the political implications of this.Vivienne just keeps her mouth shut unless asked in which she still keeps her mouth shut. The Arishok is a frightening man and not someone she even wants to dare to comment on the relationship of if he is in the same building.

Cole: I honestly don't think the lil man cares. He is just happy they're happy!

Solas: Honestly, any thoughts he has is overshadowed by the amusement he feels when everyone freaks out a bit. Sure, it's not what he expected but- fair enough? It does make him question how the hell he is going to go forward with his other plans but he'll figure it out.

#sten #sten is the arishok always #solas #dragon age writing #dragon age inquisiton #dragon age companions #dragon age reacts #vivienne de fer #cole #sera #red jenny #dorian pavus #cassandra pentaghast #the iron bull #iron bull

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subway-sandman · 1 year

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THIS THING IS SO FRICKEN COOL

I SWEAR IF I DONT SEE IT IN DREADWOLF (I know I won't) IM GONNA BE SO MAD

#i finished inquisition.#i once again have no new games to play #guess ill just play DA2 on repeat til dreadwolf comes out #if ever #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #red jenny #dragon age sera #dragon age inquisitor #dragon age dreadwolf

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biowho · 1 year

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Check out my pinned post for the BioWare blorbo beat down list

#oghren #red jenny #sera dragon age #bioware blorbo beat down #< this is the tag you’ll want to block to not see any of this

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nanowatzophina · 9 months

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They’re gonna break so much shit.

Meet the newest Red Jenny! (Definitely not the inquisitor, what are you talking about?)

#dragon age inquisition #their friendship is everything #wlw and mlm solidarity #besties #sera #halier lavellan #art #digital art #sketch #red Jenny

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wildlymish · 1 year

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I had the pleasure of taking part in a multifandom Secret Valentines and got @euryalex

I hope you like it. Sera and Elisabeth were so cute to draw together.

Happy Valentines Day 💝

#secret valentines #secret cupid #valentines day #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #red jenny #sera dragon age #imquisitor trevelyan #sera x trevelyan

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grimweaver · 5 months

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youtube

Cute!! 😁

#Red Jenny #Dragon Age Inquisition #Dragon Age #Dragon Age Sera #Inquisitor Adaar #Qunari #Elf #Youtube

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nerd-elf · 2 years

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I figure that Sera would be pretty shaken up about everything. Not only it messes up with her beliefs, but you can tell that she grew to like Solas over time.

Part 1

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greypetrel · 2 years

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I get by with a little help from my Friends 🎶

SO, I needed some time to warm up to Sera, in game, but when I did... She’s honestly such an interesting character with an interesting point of view, and I was so moved with her Codex entries in Trespasser... So yeah, my Quizzy decided to disbandle the Inquisition -formally, at least- and help out by becoming a Red Jenny and bringing happy little mayhems here and there.

Red Jennies back to work with pettiness and glitter under the cut!

---

“Wait, Sera, don’t-“

She huffs, struggling a little with her grasp on the edge of the roof as the other elf gingerly makes her way towards the other end of it, her toes barely touching the other roof below, but not quite enough to kick up and push herself over the ledge with just one hand to grab it. A year has passed, and she feels functional again. But that’s her first actual presence on the field, and there’s just so much you can exercise and try about moving stealthily in a big town, when you live in a farm complex in the middle of fucking nowhere. Thankfully at least she decided to leave her staff hidden under her mattress in the small room they rented together, to avoid being recognised and, now, to avoid having one thing more to haul up roofs. Random thief with only one arm? Random elf terrorist who got unlucky in the past, mildly recogniseable but anonymous enough. Random MAGE thief with only one arm and Dalish tattoos on her face? Inquisitor going nuts. Dagna’s latest prosthetic offers little gripping power, beside being quite heavy and not really helping along in the process. They both had miscalculated that particular step of the climb. So much for telling Cullen it wasn’t so vital to build muscle, that she did without much all her life, she will go on as she did, sure, venhan, you’re fussying too much. Mages DO need muscles, Dorian was right and she hated them both because they were right and she was paying for her stubbornness.

Sera luckily hears her and comes to help, crouching down to grab her under her armpits and helping her up, the lack of dignity and elegance another hit to her wounded pride, but at least they’re now both there.

“You should stop eating all those sweets, Quizzie, you’re getting freaking heavy.”

“It’s your girlfriend’s contraption that weighs a shitton, not me.”

“No more cookies for both, then.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“I would! More for me and Cully.”

“Eeew, I can’t still get used to “Cully”...”

“He neither!”

They snicker together, with Aisling finally up the roof and standing and following Sera on the tiles. For a minute it feels like they're just two friends having a walk and chatting, albeit in an unconventional place. Which is the truth, missions with Sera never truly felt like “work”, but there’s someone waiting for them two roofs over.

They jump from one roof to the other hand in hand, keeping voices down but never really stopping cracking jokes between them. As they reach the top of the second and their target comes into sight, they stop. The whole of Denerim is around and below them, somewhat closer as a softer introduction to travelling again, and somewhat of a personal quest they both felt important to accomplish when the request from a Friend came over. Right in front of them, across a lane three stories below, there’s an open window, which opens to show a peacfully sitting Bann Teagan Guerrin.

Aisling sighs, still not sure they should go through with it. Some Friends reported some dirt about him, showing off for having had his way with the Inquisition with servants, a renewed sense of importance making him snappy and cruel with the household staff. Aisling can’t really say she has been surprised. She looks at him now, with no grandeur and fancy clothes he looks just like any regular man going into old age, even if his mouth has some cruel cut to it. And yet…

“Are you sure this isn’t a petty revenge?” She asks, somewhat gloomily.

“I am! He’s been awful, someone has to take him down a couple of steps, remind him he’s not untouchable…”

“Mh.”

“Hey, we’re just making him shit his pants a little, it’s a prank.”

“A prank with arrows.”

“So, the best kind!”

Sera smiles and elbows her, encouragingly. She has grown patient with years and friendship, and if once she would have complained about her showing pity to a noble who didn’t deserve it, she’s now more lenient with her and knows her motives. They’ve really gone a long way, smoothed up corners and found a balance. It wasn’t always easy, between Aisling’s being a Mage, an elfy-elf and one that’s really ok with spirits and the Fade and stuff that’s not explained in the Chant of Light and Sera being spooked by pretty much all of this. And yet, they made it work, and now look at them.

Aisling smiles back, a little unsure but convinced, nodding to signal that she agrees. Sera grins and hisses up an enthousiast “Yesss!” that makes her giggle. She’s a new Jenny, after all, it’s only right she puts some trust in the original Red Jenny.

So, they get to work, both of them aiming at the target and concentrating. Aisling crouches down and props her prosthetic on one raised knee, the corresponding foot planted solidly on the tiles below. She aims a little higher than the noble’s head the crossbow that’s now her makeshift arm -Dagna’s work, on Sera’s idea, she still has to ask Varric if she can name her crossbow Bianca the Second. Sera hands her her own special bolt, that she charges carefully and minding the vial on the point, lest to make it burst before time, and takes a deep breath concentrating. It’s just like the usual, it’s just like launching lightning against Darkspawn, breathe, aim, shoot, it’s just all less metaphysical. Nothing has changed, not really, and she feels thrilled of being back into action. It’s good and she feels useful again, and she feels herself fully, after a year of frustrating re-learning to do everything and relying on her husband and found family for so, so much. She has never felt so loved, but she isn’t one to stay at home and enjoy the peace and silence idly. This, this feels like her, this feels familiar and soothing, and she has to fend off tears of relief. She sniffs, shakes her head and steels herself up.

It’s just like when she did it at home, really.

Breathe in. Keep it in, focus on the target alone…

Shoot.

The quarrel launches forward, and Sera’s arrow follows suit. She concentrates some more, calling on old magical muscles and-

-And as the tiniest spark of lightning makes the ammunitions on the points of the arrows explode in colour and glitter, investing Teagan fully and making him scream, the girls launch in a small woo-hoo. Sera jumps in place, and Aisling can’t but watch with a smile at the Bann screaming bloody murder… Dripping in pink paint and covered in glitter. A servant rushes in, and they can see the newxomer elf covering their mouth and rolling down in laughter, the noble still screaming and waving his arms. It feels good, it feels REALLY good, and Aisling cries between laughter.

She keeps at it when Sera takes her hand and laughing urges them both to run away before getting seen. The way back and down is much easier and light with merriment and ease. They stop in a dark alley, comfortably far away from the Redcliffe estate, waiting for laughters to subside and their breath to catch up.

“Soooo, Quizzie, was it so terrible? Should I call you Josie?”

“It was WONDERFUL, Sera, thank you!”

She can’t reply anything else, she’s genuinely happy and she hugs the other elf.

She was honestly surprised at the Exalted Council to casually read her notes and noticing not only that she knew the Anchor was acting up and taking a toll on her, but that she was actually, seriously scared to lose her and lose her without assuring her that she had friends who loved her. And she had also acted upon it, bringing her lemon cakes she knew Aisling loved, cheering her up and helping her in the Crossroad and being as worried about her health, all in all, as Dorian was, even if Dorian knew the real extent of the issue and she didn’t. She has been moved, then, and she is moved by the memory now still.

Somewhat more than a year later, when betrayal and worry and frustrations has but gone in the back of her headspace and she feels the first true spark of a real way forward which isn’t waiting to get better again… She hugs her friend tighter, and she feels loved and grateful and she feels so, so lucky.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #da fanart #sera #inquisitor lavellan #lavellan #dragon age oc #dragon age fic #red jenny #traditional art #doodle #da:i #fantasy art #oc love

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