Saving the Spider and the Butterfly #DragonAge2 #spoilers

Most of you are probably familiar with how I ranted and raged over the ending of Dragon Age 2. I finished the game for a second time last night, this time as a mage, and I have to say my perspectives have changed. If you haven't read my original reaction post, give it at least a quick skim before reading the rest of this post. Even though my opinion of the ending has been... adjusted... the nitpicky things in my original post still hold true. The 10-year-narrative is still an illusion, locations are even more repetitive the second time around, and the game still desperately wishes to be epic in the way Empire Strikes Back was such a brilliant second-chapter, but fails miserably. What I didn't do in my first post is give a total summary of how I played (like I did for Elissa at the end of Origins), and I have a feeling doing so for each of my two characters so far in DA2 will put quite a bit more perspective on things.

In my first game, I played Marian Hawke, a rogue. In my original post I mentioned that I played her as if she were incredibly close to her younger sister, Bethany, and so in most situations I took the mages' side in arguments with the templars. I refused the entire time to actually side with the mages, though. If a choice let me be diplomatic I took that option while still implying that I leaned toward mage rights, and if sarcasm presented itself while allowing me to mock both parties I took that route instead, implying that I thought both parties were being absurd. Here are Marian's major decisions by act; for the most part, this will just include the main plot choices but there are a few side quest items thrown in.

Act One

• Worked for the smugglers to get into Kirkwall
• Did not accept help financing the expedition from Dougal
• Took Bethany on the Deep Roads expedition
• Allowed Anders to find the Wardens in the Deep Roads to save Bethany
• Chastised Merrill each time she mentioned blood magic or the Eluvian
• Sent Feynriel to the Dalish
• Told the Templars that the apostates from Starkhaven were all killed to give them time to escape
• Convinced Cullen to allow Keran to remain a Templar
• Through the various companion quests, supported whichever tasks were asked of me, except those which went against my tendancy to protect Bethany; if I had to perform any actions which went against my standard mages-are-people-too stance, I did so grudgingly.

Act Two

• Sent Feynriel to Tevinter
• Let the dwarf Javaris escape Kirkwall to get away from the crazed elf during Blackpowder Courtesy
• Hid the disappearance of the Qunari delegates from the Arishok
• Killed Gascard DuPuis
• Followed the blood trail to the foundry where Leandra had been used for necromancy
• Sent Bartrand to an asylum
• Told Isabela to give the relic back to the Qunari, and when she finally showed up in the throne room during the Act 2 finale I gave her to the Arishok to punish for her crimes
• Throughout this, flirted with Isabela (who I had a quick fling with) and Anders, who eventually moved in to the Hawke estate.

Act Three

• Refused to take sides with either Meredith or Orsino in the opening scenes
• "Believed" Anders about the potion to separate him from Justice (I had already read the spoiler about what really happens, but to play in character I had to stand by my man)
• Was shocked & betrayed when Anders blew up the Chantry but stood by him afterward regardless (see above note about Marian standing by her man & combine that with "what if Bethany were turned Tranquil" as motivating factors)
• Tried to make Orsino & Meredith see reason before the Right of Annulment was invoked, and before the final battle
• Agreed to run away with Anders after the final battle

Overall, I tried very hard to be a good person and do what was right, even though family loyalties & personal relationships sometimes clouded Marian's judgement. I wanted so very badly to save everyone, so when Orsino turned to blood magic at the end¹ and it turned out Meredith had been driven mad by the lyrium idol, I felt betrayed not by the characters, but by the game since it didn't give a fuck if I wanted to save everyone. Hell, it didn't seem to give a fuck if I wanted to save just one person. I was trying to save both the spider and the butterfly, and unlike Vash the Stampede² with Knives, I failed horribly. Between the original reaction tweets and my original blog post, it was fairly obvious I felt betrayed by the game and was very seriously considering not making additional play-throughs with the other classes.

...That said, this is Dragon Age we're talking about, and I'm the one writing this post. Of course I ended up going back for additional play-throughs. My second time through I played a mage. I'd originally started as Marian again, but when I started getting the "of the Champion" armors in Act 3 I decided to start over and play m!Hawke instead, because f!Hawke looked absolutely ridiculous in the end-game gear. With Garrett, many of my choices were the same as with my rogue Marian, but with much different motivations. I took @Danielemmons's suggestion and played Garrett as much like Jack Harkness as I could--a bit sarcastic, and willing to love any and every being he encountered.

Captain Jack Hawtness Harkness

And my Garrett loved a lot of people: Jethann in the Blooming Rose, Isabela, Anders, Merrill, and even Zevran briefly in Act 3. I knew that Sebastian wasn't an option for Garrett, but I didn't realize that Fenris is no longer an option once your character has slept with any other. I also tried for Aveline, even to the point of choosing the angry responses when she continued to be oblivious to anything other than Donnic. Needless to say that flirtation is set up to fail by the game. It's a bit disappointing for my love-everyone Garrett, but I suppose five lovers is enough for one play-through.

Anyway, back on topic. My Garrett's response priority first focused on flirting, then on siding openly with the mages against the templars, then for all other questions the sarcastic answers were chosen. Any choices that remained the same as what I did with Marian are omitted in this list, which just has the differences:

Act One

• Worked for the mercenaries to get into Kirkwall
• Took Dougal's money to fund the expedition
• Left Carver home during the expedition (in my original Marian attempt at mage, I took Carver with me & let him die)
• Supported Merrill even in dealings with blood magic and demons
• Killed the templars hunting the Starkhaven apostates

Act Two

• Allowed DuPuis to live
• Asked DuPuis for help once Leandra was kidnapped, then killed him when it turned out he was only hunting Quentin to try and learn necromancy
• Had Varric kill Bartrand to keep him from suffering from the insanity brought on by the idol
• Asked Anders if he wanted a sandwich (skip to roughly 1:38 for the "I'm hungry" discussion)
• Supported Isabela completely against the Qunari, encouraging her to take the relic and facing the Arishok in single combat

Act Three

• Defied Meredith in the opening & supported Orsino
• Helped Anders with his "potion" even though through dialogue my character had figured out Anders wasn't telling me everything
• Scolded Anders after he destroyed the Chantry for not allowing me to help
• Defied Meredith again just before the final battle, and tried to goad Carver into fighting me just so I could kill him (me the player, not my character; god do I hate Carver!) but he ended up helping against Meredith anyway
• Went my own way when everyone split up after the ending.

I'll be starting a f!Hawke for my warrior playthrough soon, and will be strongly anti-magic in that game. Beyond that one quirk & bedding Sebastian & Fenris (through multiple saves if necessary) I haven't decided how to play my last character. Most likely, I'll go the cheap way out and cheat through every quest for 100% on everything available to me instead of playing honestly like I have on my other two saves. Either way, I'm going to try and put a few days at least between finishing my mage save and beginning my warrior.

 

¹I understand that Orsino was desperate when he violated everything he claimed to believe by turning to blood magic and Quentin's research into necromancy. But why and how the hell did he turn into a Harvester like in the Golems of Amgarrak expansion?

²I was already thinking in a vein similar to the Trigun "spider & butterfly" bit while finishing up my mage save yesterday, but Brian randomly started Trigun up on Netflix last night and the analogy kind of got cemented in the game. I still wish desperately that my rogue had been able to accomplish what Vash did and save both the spider (the templars) and the butterfly (the mages) but the game just isn't built that way, and my disappointment with that fact is part of what had me so angry the first time I finished the game--I felt like Vash when Knives kills the spider, I guess. With my mage though, after clearly picking sides, I might have only saved the butterfly, but the ending was more satisfactory that way, because at least I accomplished my chosen goal.

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