anders – Page 34 – Queer Fortress

carriagelamp:

Okay I
just read a post about how low Anders’ standards can be for approval
– oh you’re not going to
slaughter these innocent people? Anders Greatly Approves.
And I just??? don’t know how to cope with how true that is? I mean,
especially in conjunction to such delightful lines as “You have
been a good friend to me… better than I deserve” which never fail
to make me want to cry and wrap the feather mage up in a blanket and
hug him

I
mean Anders is great at acting confident and cocky, especially in
Awakening, but if you think about it… it actually makes a lot of
really awful sense that he would have some major self-esteem issues.
Like as a kid growing up he was definitely surrounded by the “mages
are evil mages aren’t people” sort of rhetoric and he probably just
internalized that without thinking about it. After all, he wasn’t a
mage, mages were those other people that needed to be locked away.
Until, whoops, actually.
And suddenly he needs to cope with the fact that he is
that person, he now fills that
role he was already taught to fear and hate and he’s, what, twelve?

Then
his parents, the people that should be there to love and protect him
unconditionally, let him be taken away by huge, imposing strangers in
armour with swords, and he’s thrown into a tower where he doesn’t
even speak the language of anyone else there. People get mad at him,
exasperated, as he’s alone and fucking terrified and barely
understands any Trade. Then people start calling him Anders, and
yeah it sort of makes sense but that’s just one more fucking layer of
disconnect added onto him. You never get to learn his real name,
he’s given a label for convenience’s sake when he’s twelve because he
can’t speak Trade – and let’s be honest, in those early years it
was probably meant to be mocking as much as it was meant as a
nickname – rather than just getting a fucking interpreter to help
the kid out.

So
now he’s growing up through his formative years with the constant
reminder that he is dangerous, he is something fearful, he is a
monster, normal people can’t be around him. And even if he rebels
against that it doesn’t stop it from being something he’s constantly
internalizing. Imagine telling this to a thirteen year old every
single day of his life without a single person there to say
otherwise.

Throw
in a few escape attempts. Maybe in the beginning he’s even able to
feel like the hero from a story, someone trapped who is righteous in
trying to free himself. How long do you think that would last? He
makes, what, about three escape attempts while he’s still a child?
And templars aren’t exactly gentle with apostates, never mind that
they’re just thirteen year old who are scared and missing their
parents. So each time he manages to escape he then gets dragged back
shortly later by templars, and has to accept the fact that each time
he’s caught there is no one out there that’s going to help him.
People would stand back, maybe even in fear, maybe even those who had
prior to this been helping the poor lost child, and let his captors
drag him away because the captors are good and just and Anders is
something awful and dangerous that can’t be loved or protected.

Then
there’s also the fact that he’s preparing for his Harrowing. He’s
studying because that is the extent of what he’s worth. He’s cursed
to be a mage, but if he isn’t a good enough mage then all he deserves
is either death by the hands of a demon, a templar, or magical
lobotomy. If he avoids all of that and comes out the other side then
being allowed to continue to live with his mind intact in that prison
is a reward. That is
the most generous thing he can be given. And this “throw
the mage into a life or death situation that grown, seasoned warriors
can falter at and hope for the best”
thing happens when he’s, what, about twenty? Holy fuck when you go
into the Fade with Hawke every single one of your companions, from
Fenris to Aveline to Varric, can get possessed and they’re grown ass
adults who have been dealing with weird awful shit all their lives.
Anders’ is about my age when he has to go through with this. He’s
still a child, don’t even fight me on this, and you think the Circle
offers therapists to deal with Harrowing trauma? Ha. You can’t
speak about it to the templars because any weakness shown might mean
Tranquility and the other mages are all dealing with their own
trauma, so you have Anders trying to come to terms with whatever
awful shit he saw in the Harrowing chamber on his own. (And if
you’ve ever heard Cole and Vivienne’s dialogue about her Harrowing
just imagine Anders in that situation, jesus fuck)

Well,
at least that’s over with, maybe things can begin to get better now?
Except no, because Karl, Anders friend who helped him survive
childhood in the Circle, who went through his Harrowing at around the
same time, who knows what Anders is going through, who has become his
lover – he’s sent away. One person Anders loves and who loves him
back is sent away never to be seen again at the whim of the templars
because that’s how much a mage’s affection comes down to. And of
course right after Anders meet Hawke he will find out that Karl was
made Tranquil and will beg for death by Anders hands. Anders will
have to personally kill his lover because it’s the kindest fate he
can offer him.

Of
course that won’t happen for, what, almost a decade? So fast
forward, fast forward, more years of abuse at the hands of the
templars, more escape attempts (each time, of course, means that
while he is temporarily free he’s also free in a land that fears and
loathes the very thing he is, a world that would like nothing more
than for him to be locked away again), oh and solitary
fucking confinement for a year.
Being completely stripped of any and all human contact, no matter how
good or bad that contact might be, for a year.
The only living thing he has to care for in that time is a cat
and even that he sees get possessed and killed.

Finally
we have his last escape attempt which must have been an emotional
nightmare because he gets captured again. Freed when the darkspawn
attack. Caught again, in a sense, when the Grey Wardens witness him
standing over templar corpses, and then cornered by another templar
along with the fucking king who’s
here to take him back for real. Except then have the Warden
Commander of Ferelden Grey Wardens, goddamn Hero of the blight, not
only someone in power but basically a complete stranger, step in and
say fuck that he gets to stay free because I say so. Conscripted,
mine, you can’t touch him ever again. And, yeah, he needs to risk
certain death again and become a Grey Warden to hold onto that
freedom but for once someone stood up for him without a second
thought and gave him that chance, said he deserved the right to be
free.

The
right to be free. Like holy
fuck this was probably the first time ever someone not only said he
should have that right and gave him the power to have it. And yeah
travelling with the Warden is probably more than a little terrifying
but he has friends and he has a cat
(seriously, someone listened to him venting about Circle life and
instead of ignoring him and brushing him off he actually paid
attention? And got him a cat just because he mentioned how much
liked cats???) and for a while things are probably pretty good.

Except
it doesn’t stay good. The Warden Commander is busy and ultimately
leaves Anders with the other Grey Wardens where, at the end of the
day, he is still being ordered around and really only has limitted
freedom. And then some asshole takes his fucking cat.
Like what the fuck.
The Warden gave Anders Ser Pounce-a-lot and someone made
him get rid of his fucking cat because it was “making him soft”.
Holy shit yeah, continue to tell
the mage that if he’s weak he has no worth and love makes him weak so
he shouldn’t be allowed any of that. If my Warden ever got
wind of this there would be hell to pay I’m still so fucking mad

So
Anders eventually joins with Justice because Justice is a friend and
he needed help, and when it comes down to that Anders doesn’t have
all that many friends and even fewer who are sympathetic to his
plight. And then they go to Kirkwall where he has the pleasure of
being surrounded by so much antagonism towards mages it’s almost mind
boggling, and lives in the sewer trying to help people while also
hiding his existence from templars and Wardens.

Finally,
in comes Hawke. And I can’t actually deal with how much shit Anders
has had to deal with and how insecure he is in his friendship with
Hawke because he has been taught over and over and over again that
he’s someone that can be cast aside, that needs to prove his worth,
that isn’t important or deserving or lucky enough to have things like
human affection because he was born a mage. Sure, he loudly
denounces that sort of thinking but you know it was internalized.
You know it every time he looks at Hawke who has dragged him into all
sort of bullshit and thinks there’s no way he deserves to be this
lucky, how he tries to warn Hawke away if Hawke romances him, how at
the end of everything he turns to Hawke and geuninely, without a
doubt, expects Hawke to kill him outright. Even if he fights it he
still feels it, is still secretly waiting to not be good enough
anymore.

Just
ANDERS guys, I cannot deal with Anders, someone give him a hug
please

mikkeneko:

From a certain perspective, Elthina’s character is actually a very interesting examination of the concept innocence. Where ‘innocence’ is described entirely in terms of “does not do bad things,” Elthina is certainly innocent. She does not do bad things. She also doesn’t do good things, and more critically, she doesn’t do necessary things. She stands aside in full knowledge of bad things that are going to be done, which she has both the power and the duty to prevent, and does not do the necessary things to prevent them. Hundreds to thousands of people died because of Elthina’s inaction, but because it was inaction rather than action, she is still technically “innocent.” Her hands are clean.

This stands in contrast to Anders, whose hands are bloody. Anders does good things (healing,) bad things (killing,) and necessary things. I’ve commented before that Anders and Elthina are placed in opposition to each other throughout the game, with the tension between them driving much of the plot. High vs low, rich vs poor, change vs stasis, institution vs insurrection. If Elthina is innocent, Anders is not; but if Elthina defines innocence, is innocence really what we want?

As others have pointed out, the problem with a story setup where you define inaction as virtuous and all action as bad is that you then have a situation where, since your good guys are required to be passive and incompetent, the bad guys have to drive all plot and advancement, and thereby become much more interesting characters that threaten to capture the attention and sympathy of your audience.

Much of the art and framing of the game paints an opposition-duality-conflict between Orsino and Meredith, with Elthina as an innocent bystander. I would rather say that the dualities that push the game ahead are Anders vs Elthina and Meredith vs Hawke, with Orsino as a powerless bystander.

Meredith is not Anders’ enemy; Meredith is Hawke’s enemy – even in a completely pro-Templar playthrough, Meredith still must die, since she bars Templar-Hawke’s path to the viscountship. Meredith was doomed because she made too many enemies – she turned even the nobles of the city against her, and could not have held on through sheer force forever.

But Meredith is not Anders’ enemy, because she is the product of a corrupt system rather than a producer, and her death would change nothing in the long run. If Elthina had survived DA2 and Meredith didn’t, Elthina would have tsked, shaken her head sadly, and appointed a replacement Knight-Commander just like her.