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fadedapparition · 2 years

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OH SHIT i have a theory about the friends of red jenny.

for the entirety of inquisition, the player character - and solas, and everyone else - assumes that sera acts as the leader of the red jennies, to the extent that they have one. sera herself claims that the jennies are a loose network of leaderless, apolitical vigilantes. all of them are wrong. the friends of red jenny do have leadership, they do have a set of political objectives, and there are hints to that effect scattered throughout sera's dialogues. the reason you never meet the leadership or discover their motives is because they're smart enough to let you believe all the wrong things about them, their organization, and the role they've decided sera will play.

with sufficient approval etc. you can ask sera more about her past. this is what she says about the circumstances that led to her recruitment into the jennies:

Sera: Denerim, mostly. Before running into another Jenny. He was fun. Had weird friends, though. Sera: I think some of them were a lot more serious about being serious. Got some of them killed.

when sera says "serious" or "weird," she's usually referencing someone with a complex set of driving principles or ideological loyalties. these friends-of-a-friend were political.

sera believes that toppling unjust systems is pointless because hierarchies are inevitable, and to her, all hierarchies look more or less the same. she's deliberately written to be lumpen in her thinking, and because the only information you receive on the friends of red jenny is filtered through sera, the way SHE defines the purpose of the organization becomes the way YOU define it. this conversation is the reveal that there are other jennies with dramatically different priorities, jennies who are "weird" and "serious," people willing to live and die on principle - people who were, at one point, senior figures in the organization and directly involved in her recruitment.

PC: Where are the rest of them? Sera: Some get rich and stop playing so they can do good things with it. One or two don't.

this makes sense. commited, lifelong ideologues are rare, but you only need a few of them to keep a group like this in operation. the majority who burn out or retire to a life of luxury also don't pose a threat. solas points out that the jennies are decentralized for a reason.

Solas: You have already divided your group's membership. That is wise. No one cell can betray all your secrets.

if someone is tempted to abandon the organization - if the call of land, power, or titles is sufficient to seduce them away - then the operatives most likely to gain power within the feudal hierarchy should know as little about the jennies' political program as possible. if they decide to "do good things," then maybe the local cell sees benefits; otherwise, they don't know enough to hurt the larger network. minimize risk, maximize gain.

solas catches on quickly to why the jennies operate the way that they do, and he has some tips. from the same solas-sera banter:

Solas: Once you have the aristocracy weakened, Sera, you will have to redirect your lieutenants. Sera: Oh, this again. All right, what am I doing? Solas: Some of your forces, valuable until now, have no interests beyond creating disruption. Chaos for its own sake. They must be repositioned where they can do no harm, or removed if necessary. You replace them with organizers willing to build a new system and carry out the ugly work that must be done.

emphasis mine. solas is giving advice to the leader of a cleverly-constructed underground people's militia, but it's entirely misdirected. the forces he's describing - operatives who are useful but have no ideology or class consciousness, and should therefore be placed where their natural impulses will lead them to act in your favor - include sera. somewhere out there is the person solas means to have this conversation with, but they're so good at what they do that he doesn't even know they exist.

consider: you are the politically radical central coordinator(s) of a group of loosely-linked guerrilla cells. you get word that a new paramilitary organization, one that transcends borders and claims to be headed by a literal prophet of god, has begun operating in the south. this self-styled inquisiton is recruiting soldiers, collecting allies, seizing territory, and doing so at exponential speeds. if you were to infiltrate this organization, you'd want to do so through a carefully selected operative. you want someone charming enough to win trust, ideally someone religious enough to blend in with a chantry offshoot. you don't want to have to feed them instructions, so someone with strong and consistent impulses who acts predictably enough for you to anticipate their actions. and if they DO gain power, if they befriend this herald and reap all the benefits that entails, they have to be utterly incapable of betraying you to the inquisition. you need to find someone who's worked for you long-term without ever realizing your actual goals.

PC: Seems like there's no way the people who contribute could even know what they're helping with.

this is sera.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #sera #the friends of red jenny #unconfirmed guerrilla leader you are my ANGEL #dragon age theory #dragon age meta

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greypetrel · 10 months

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"Ok, we can adopt another dog from Arianwen. But it's the last one!" "Of course!" "And no one's jumping on the bed!" "Definitely not!" "We'll need discipline!" "I wholeheartedly agree!"

A sequel.

This was too precious to leave in the tag, @shivunin! Of course they'll both run to Amaranthine to see the puppies. And we all know that Cullen is the kind of dog owner who'll say far and wide that of course dogs shouldn't be on beds and couches, that's bad discipline, they have to learn... And then ignore everything. And would you wish to leave poor Chocolate Pudding sleeping all alone? That would be just cruel. (Little Brother is not there because they still haven't found a mattress big enough for him too. And knowing him, he'll kick in his sleep. Aisling's working on it, tho.)

(Josie's still disappointed.)

(the dogs are Bran, Sceólang -the only girl- and Fer Mac, Cullen named them and they're all names from mythology. Amaranthine will be provided with foals and horses for free for a long, long time. Every one will come with food names. Oh and when Dorian will visit, Wen will be formally invited to the farm too, to choose her favourite horse corpse for them to reanimate. They have collected three to give her a choice, isn't that thoughtful. One has so many arrows in its hind that it looks more like a porcupine. Another has an unhinged jaw. The third has its head almost completely severed, but "Nah it's not a problem don't worry. They don't need to eat anyway.". She can have all three if she wants, of course.)

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #cullavellan #cullen x lavellan #dalish inquisitor #dai #da fanart #aisling lavellan #greypetrel #shivunin #I'm not sure how beneficial it is for them to team up #but the feeling will be absolutely mutual for Aisling of course #one of her favourite people instantly whenever she travels with Sera for Red Jenny shenanigans they'll always stop to say hi #and Wen and Zevran are invited to crack at their place whenever #even without sending word before - there's ALWAYS a room at the ready for whomever comes #they want a holiday? free room for them Aisling promises she won't cook

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ghastlytofu · 3 months

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Can't imagine playing DAI without Sera.... she's essential to my Inquisitor's sanity. I cannot fathom being surrounded by oceans of insufferably self-important nobles and the local episcopal see without her to make the experience not only bearable but entertaining. Now where's my guillotine

#also without the red jenny rumours i don't trust these fuckers to mind their manners #unless they're kissing up to someone more powerful #augh sera dragon age thank you for exisiting 🙏🙏#she not only makes the game a joy. but like. she mirrors the themes of the game #her struggle for acceptance. her struggles with faith and identity #remember who scrubs your chamberpot and cooks your food. remember who changes your sheets and cleans your castle #remember the people dying in your name and the families and friends they leave behind #that!!!!! is why she's here and it's what people who insist sera “doesn't fit” the game are missing #because if you want to swan around as a politically-important religious war hero #you need to remember what that ACTUALLY means #and be reminded that you're not better than other people for it #you're just a better target #sera #dragon age #dragon age inquisition

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dragonageconfessions · 2 years

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CONFESSION:

Knowing that Sera was the one we give the music box to in Origins makes me so happy. Hearing that happy little giggle when you hand over the box and knowing you brought tiny Sera so much joy just warms my heart and makes me smile.

#Dragon Age Confessions #Dragon Age Origins #sera dragon age #Red Jenny #Denerim

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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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