#isnt saying shes anything but a villain becauae she is

[foxx-queen]

honestly I think the reason why corypheus was such a let down as a villain is that he could have been a really good one. like we're told through all three games that the blight was caused by the seven magisters that cracked the black city, which is in turn why mages are locked up in circles etc, which are the two main points of dao and da2. and then we get corypheus who is one of those magisters! like that's huge!! we're essentially given a villain who could tell us so much about what happened! and yet all we're able to get are a few comments that hint at what happened that we can never really talk about or investigate?

like corypheus says that the seat of the maker was empty. he says that the black city was already corrupted. that should be a massive revelation! it means that the blight / taint that corrupted the world came from in the fade! if the golden city / black city was empty and corrupted, were the magisters actually 'thrown out' as the chantry says? if they were, and it wasn't by the maker, who did? was it the forgotten ones? was it something else? if they weren't thrown out, did they explore the black city? what did they find? did they leave because it was black and empty?? like yeah I get that corypheus is insane and wants to install himself as a god because he's discovered there are no gods, but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear what he knows / what he remembers about the black city!

corypheus appearing really should've had a bigger impact on the chantry. like the inquisition, whether or not the inquisitor believes in the maker or is andrastian, is put forward as an army of the faithful led by andraste's chosen. corypheus should've really shaken those beliefs. he has such scorn for the maker and the chantry, and I think it would've been really interesting if he'd started trying to destroy what the chantry teaches. maybe people wouldn't have believed him, but that kind of thing still would've caused chaos. and if he was actively working to break down the chantry, that would've given us more chances to either interact with him, or learn more about what happened.

and because we have such little interaction with him directly, beating him isn't at all satisfying? like he crushes us in haven, but from that point we never directly interact with him until the final fight. and because we succeed in every other main quest without directly seeing him, he starts feeling easy to beat. there needed to be more instances where he beats you. hes a powerful tevinter magister with power over red lyrium and the blight, and yet that's never really directly thrown at us. by the time we fight him in the temple of sacred ashes again, he doesn't feel like much of a threat? even his death scene, which was meant to seem cool and like a triumph, feels lack luster, because of how little we've interacted with him and how easy it feels by that point.

like compare it to meredith stannards boss fight / death. to me that was just? so much better? because a. as the fight begins and the whole red lyrium idol corruption becomes clear, we have that 'oh shit' moment, b. meredith was a constant presence throughout the game, and c. her end was really well done. like the way the red lyrium brings the statues to life, overtakes her body, and shows us how horrifying it is is so well done. I personally feel like the voice actress did a great job here because even though she's a villain and has done horrendous things, I couldn't help but feel some sympathy for her when she's talking throughout the fight and wondering if she's wrong. and then her death scene is so brutal? again it's partly the voice actress, but the way she screams as she solidifies to red lyrium is a really well done moment that for me had some body horror vibes / kind of calls back to the darker vibe of dao. it feels like it has an impact on the characters and the story and was to me such a good end for da2. in comparison corypheus' death just... didn't hit the same way, and I think that's partly to do with there being no body afterwards. like if the final fight had been harder / had had a bigger build up / he'd been a more present villain, I would've been fine with him turning into another idol. like the guy is encrusted with red lyrium, and it might've been a way to link to da2, and also potentially tell us more about the inevitable consequences of red lyrium, which might come up in da4.

idk just. he could've been really interesting as a catalyst to permanently damaging the chantry, or even just a genuinely challenging villain, but in the end he's just. almost comical and its a shame

#corypheus #dragon age inqusition #dragon age meta #meredith stannard #da2 #da4 speculation #sort of #red lyrium #to be clear im v anti chantry (kind of obvious lol) and anti templars so me saying i have sympathy for meredith at her end #isnt saying shes anything but a villain becauae she is #but shes a well written villain #and honestly her fate is. kind of horrifying #i saw a post speculating that like. what if her consiousness is trapped in the idol and like bro. that would be so sjidisa #genuinely horrifying #i also feel like we might see the statue / get call backs to meredith again? from the da4 teaser #anyways sjsiaja #rambling along as always