#out of this convo (basically like… ensuring that we will stay in each other’s lives despite this) kinda happened but it was so like.. idk | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

runespoor7 · 6 years

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Iris’ Broken Circle: the end

She ends up letting the desire demon and her bewitched Templar go, because I managed to convince myself I don't have any other Warden that might do that (...*side-eyes Mahariel anyway*), and you can let them go by saying the situation they're in is intriguing, rather than because you're touched by the love story.

Now, on to the Fade!

- fourth time playing it (or maybe fifth? I don't remember if I'd gone so far with Aeducan the first time, before I decided I wanted to play it otherwise) if I count the time I was just watching Dem play. I still love it, the gameplay is so different from the rest of the game, and I always love “voyages to the centre of the mind”. This time, I had Morrigan and Zevran with me as opposed to... Alistair and Leliana... so that might have helped with my impression that I was doing new things. Iris is also the first mage I'm playing through the Fade, and Mana Clash makes short work of a lot of things. Golems are huge threats, but aside from that...

- the entry vision: it's a given that for a lot of PC it's not going to be much their characters wish for (aside from the assurance that the Blight is over), but in Iris' case it was almost a total misfire. It wasn't more of a misfire than it was with Tabris, but...”You've been at Weisshaupt for some time now/The Gray Wardens shall be keepers of history. We shall tell tales […] of a more tumultuous time, that others may rejoice in knowing that that time is past./Can you not be content with the peace I offer” is pretty much guaranteed Iris kryptonite. What about the travels. What about the thrills??

- upon meeting Niall, I learnt that Iris had decided he's a demon. Apparently her rule for the Fade is “if it's not me, it's a trick”. Not that she minds: if it's not her, it means she can trick it, or negotiate with it, or otherwise deal with it, as the case may be. But still, as far as she's concerned, Niall is Fake!Niall.

- after running around trying on four other shapes (it is pretty cool, she's tempted to ask Morrigan for how to do it), she finally stumbles into... Zevran's nightmare.

- At this point I note that Zevran's mind is casting two Dalish elves in the roles of his Crow torturers, which reminds me: canon/early canon said that Dalish are considered adults after they've earned their vallaslin. Which involves enduring the tattooing without crying out. If you do, you're considered immature, and the Keeper stops; better luck in a few months! I remember fans wondering why we never saw people with half-finished vallaslin (there's a Doylist answer, but let's assume for a moment the devs would make the assets for a background NPC), and now I look at Zevran, with his tattoo on half his face, and with his story that he'd fled to join the Dalish once but the reality didn't live up to his expectations, and with his mind deciding Dalish would stand in for the Crows, and I wonder.

(in case you're wondering, Zevran's tattoo doesn't look that much like a DA:O vallaslin, however unfinished, unless you assume that different clans have their own takes on each vallaslin – which seems much more likely to me than assuming they're all using the same without regional variants! If we're admitting variants, based on the available designs, Zevran's tat could be part of a vallaslin of: June, Dirthamen, or Andruil. I feel Andruil would be a good design for Zevran, perhaps even the best suited to him with Falon'Din. But if Zevran was ditching the Crows, would he have stuck to an identity as a hunter? It's less unlikely than “friend of the dead”, probably.)

- she still gets Fade!Zevran out of there. (Me, I note that Zevran's first reaction being “but you're not supposed to be here!” when the Warden says something is incredibly pleasing to my shipping Iris/Zevran.) Then Fade!Zevran starts to disappear and she reaches out, and then he's gone and she finds herself a bit nonplussed as she puts her arm down and wonders if that Zevran was real or not. Probably real. The nightmare held similarities to her own entry vision in, it felt like an illusion meant to keep Zevran trapped. She remains staring at the rack for a minute after Fade!Zevran's disappeared.

- then she finds Morrigan, and Morrigan is-- oh, Iris cannot imagine a demon impersonating Morrigan with such accuracy. It's the real Morrigan, and she's as aware of Fake!Flemeth being a fake and she in the Fade that Iris has been for a while now. She's also exceedingly annoyed with the proceedings, both the interactions with the spirit, and her subsequent disappearing, in a manner that I-the-player finds absolutely hilarious. (Not related: I note that Fake!Flemeth slaps Morrigan for not showing respect, and Morrigan says “there, that's more like it!”. I assume it's because Fake!Flemeth's attempts at cloyingness were even faker than this, but I don't think I'll take it for meaning Flemeth was physically abusive with Morrigan, especially about “respect”. I can imagine Flemeth hitting Morrigan when she'd returned with her mirror, though.)

- Wynne's nightmare is so very very creepy. The part where the dead apprentice speaks and asks her to stay with them in the embrace of the earth. Iris thought that was creeeeepy, and that's not a reaction she has very often. Connor was grotesque; Amalia's fascination with the talking cat was disquieting and kind of creepy; dead apprentice begging their teacher to join them in death? Creeeeeeeepy.

Wynne says she's always had an affinity for the Fade, and Iris' gut reaction was to think that she, Iris, really doesn't, but she's had to pause her reaction. She does find navigating the Fade easy, or at least... kind of pleasant. She can obtain what she wants from its inhabitants. Isn't that having an affinity, too? It's like since her Harrowing, and with the multiple opportunities she's had, she's good at this. Before, most of what she knew about the Fade came lectures on the dangers of the Fade and assigned readings. They made it sound so boring. And it was never practical, of course, so it was just... endless lecturing... no wonder she'd liked spellcasting better. Making things go boom = much more fun! And even so they had to go oh so slowly. Again, no wonder Iris had to try things on her own. ...despite Jowan's fear that she would get in trouble. She was careful, though, partly to humor him and partly because she knew better, she's always known better. So very often she had to be content with imagining how her spell would go if she cast it like so and so, as her testing time was always limited. So even on her own, it was slow, she had to hide, and then sometimes she had to come up with a clever lie on the spot, when she was just a little too good at something they weren't supposed to have studied yet. ...Until finally Irving took her under his wing.

- to truly understand how easy playing as Iris made soloing the bosses, you need to remember that three of the four bosses are magic-based (demons and such), so Mana Clash does them in. And the last boss is blocked behing a Massive Door, so you can just cast Tempests and Shocks and Cones of Cold until he dies, without ever opening the door.

- Iris is almost entirely lacking in empathy regarding Niall, to an extent that I find surprising even for her. She finds him whiny. She talks the talk of saying right-ish things because he's dying, but she's got things to be doing here. (“can't he die any faster” - not an actual thing she's thinking but the gist) Up to the point where he starts talking about his mother, and how she used to tell him, before the Circle, that he was meant for greatness, greater than their ancestors ever dreamt of, and then Iris snaps. “Are you done reminiscing?”

Then we're out of the Fade again, and then we meet Cullen.

...yep, so Cullen is pretty lucky there's no option to fight and kill him, because I wouldn't do it as he's a returning character, but I would sure need finagling to ensure Iris doesn't. If Iris wanted “to guarantee that no abominations […] live”, she'd start with him. Only way to be sure, right? How long did he spend with only blood mages and demons for company, how is he any less a risk as the others up there? He as good as admitted to demons tempting him and showing him things he wanted, right?

On the bright side, Zevran comments on Cullen revealing that he has a crush on Amell. (“Someone was quite the little heartbreaker when they were an apprentice. My, my.” I am playing the perfect character for this, I am so satisfied.) On the less bright side, it's actually less rewarding than what Iris thought – she thought it was... she basically thought she was exploiting a crush and Cullen being very much a templar apprentice*, see. If it turns out that Cullen was in love with her, well, suddenly, nothing she did mattered. It wasn't that she was good at manipulation, it was just that he'd fabricated something made-up in his head.

*I would love to get why there where only male templars in Kinloch Hoch. Doylist explanation is that Bioware decided it shouldn't be gendered after the game was out, but I want a Watsonian explanation... ;_; are we supposed to imagine there are also female templars in Kinloch Hoch? ...probably, actually. (;_; it's very hard given what we see in Broken Circle) See Templar lady chasing Anders. Or maybe Greagoir sends templar ladies on the roads and keeps only guys standing watch on the actual Tower. Maybe because it's supposed to keep down the risk of fraternization?

But on the other hand, it means that when Cullen's going off the deep end in Kirkwall, Iris can look back at her past self and kick herself for not making more of an effort to put him down when she could have had the opportunity! (the problem was Wynne.)(chances are Iris never will, but you never know, right?)

- the convo with Uldred is so different from every other confrontation with Uldred I ever made! There's an option to say “I suppose we are similar, in some ways” unprompted which I don't remember seeing before – it's probably because Iris is a blood mage – and I hastened to take it. I like that I was able to play this confrontation in an IC manner, that was pretty fun, from Iris saying “of course [some mages] are [stubbornly resisting you]! You're trying to destroy their lives!” to “No, I think it is you that should serve me” (that latter was mostly because she got a kick out of saying it, but you never know with demons). At the very end of the fight, Zevran fell, and Iris had no choice but to turn to fueling her last couple of spells with her own blood, so that was something. When Uldred addressed Irving to tell him she was there, she suddenly wondered if Uldred was going to tell Irving she was a blood mage, she knows Uldred could tell.

- Iris' feelings about Irving are complicated and so better shoved in a drawer in the darkest corner of her mind and sealed.

- ...she does have the most inappropriate moment of glee when Irving says “curse whoever insisted the Circle be built in a tower.” Ha, take that, Alistair! ...and then she immediately chides herself because that's Irving making a joke, and being mentally friendly with Irving is no-no.

- and then it's back to Greagoir and Iris wishing she got Cullen killed, and then Iris wondering if Greagoir didn't get stealth possessed or something because he thanks her and tells her she's proven herself to be a friend of both the Circle and the templars, and Iris has never been the friend of either of the two one day in her life and if she could drown all the people who'd talked about killing the mages in the Tower she'd do it in an instant and not feel a hint of remorse?

- I the player am not shipping Irving/Greagoir any less than usual but I think Iris has big enough blinders about both of them not to think about it rn. I think she considered it when she was younger, and now their interactions are just their interactions. It's not something worth analyzing whether they're fucking or not, it's just business as usual. It could come up at some point if Zevran asks her about her life or that return to the Circle or if she ever finds it in her to open up about how complicated her feelings about Irving have gotten.

The complicated feelings about Irving that Iris is totally not having aren't getting any less complicated by the convo with Irving himself. “I am glad you arrived when you did. It's almost as though the Maker Himself sent you.” So she's going to answer that as neutrally as she can, because no feelings, feelings are bad. “The Blight drove me here to seek aid.”

Holy shit I had forgotten you can turn down Wynne's offer to join. ...That's... a little bit tempting, because blood magic. But Iris isn't a Circle mage anymore, Grey Wardens aren't bound by the Circle's rules, and there is a Blight to be won.

#warden iris amell #broken circle #zevran arainai

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