I believe that Anders’ action at the Chantry was completely justified and there were no options left for him in Kirkwall anymore. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll pretend that that was an easy decision for him in any way.
It’s why I love him so much- he risked everything dear to him, even if it meant losing Hawke and his own life. He struggled so hard with what had to be done, and he could have taken the easy way out, just live his life as a relatively safe apostate, without caring for other mages. But he didn’t. He gave himself wholly to what he believed in, because he believed that there were things more important than himself.
He knew there would be consequences, he knew people were going to died because of his actions. It wasn’t easy, far from it. But he still made the impossible choice.
And I think that’s the ultimate tragedy of his story, if his story were to have ended there.
Everyone acts like it’s somehow easy to make these kinds of decisions; as if Anders woke up one day and decided “welp, gonna blow up the chantry cuz i ran out of options and I don’t wanna put any more effort into this.”
One of the biggest things I run into when it comes to my disagreements with others is that they keep insisting he should’ve tried other things before resorting to that. And every time I ask what else he could’ve done,I have never received an actual answer to that question. Especially since they seem to list things he’s already done!
The irony and tragedy of the whole thing(in addition to the above) is also that a lot of the audience seems just as blinded by the issues as those inside the game – so intentional or not, players rather make a martyr out of Anders thinking they are the heroes of the games/of the world by doing so when instead they will be marked down as anything but that in Thedas’s history books (assuming the chantry doesn’t write it at least)
This is topped off with all those fantasy stories of you playing someone, or following, the protagonist that suffers under an oppressive group or knows the people who are suffering you’re going out of your way to help. I mean…Hunger Games, Star Wars…but apparently it’s only okay to blow up a Death Star or shatter a dome if you’re the protagonist. And plenty of players don’t seem to recognize this just b/c they didn’t get the chance to blow up the chantry themselves.
“it’s okay to blow up a Death Star or shatter a dome if you’re the
protagonist. And plenty of players don’t seem to recognize this just b/c they didn’t get the chance to blow up the chantry themselves.”
Queer Fortress 