Hekateras wrote...
Those are what I consider to be the most convincing arguments against Fenris having a background of sexual abuse. He is indeed nowhere as twitchy about issues of sex as one would expect an abuse victim to be.
However, I see one potential problem with this approach.
You guys are comparing him to the behaviour of someone who was raised normally, with normal values, and then had their trust and feeling of self-worth violated horribly through sexual abuse, in a way that leaves a deep imprint on their personality and sense of security.
That is not Fenris's situation. He was memory-wiped. His initial personality, values and understanding of right and wrong, normal and abnormal, have all been shaped by Danarius. In a very real way, if anything happened to him, it can be compared to child abuse. He could have experienced it and assumed it to be "normal", because that's the kind of world he "grew up" in. Consider actual victims of childhood molestation - it is very common to have a sort of detachment about what happened, particularly if the abuser was a trusted adult who manipulated the child into a feeling of acceptance. It is not uncommon for the abuses to become a repressed memory. And of course, there's the fact that a relationship that includes repeated sexual abuse (especially if the victim finds themselves feeling pleasure at any point) is also very prone to Stockholm's Syndrome and the victim deluding themselves into thinking that the abuser must genuinely care for them, if they "care" enough to sexually exploit them. Lima Syndrome - the inverse of SS - also seems to provide a more believable reason for Danarius to keep chasing Fenris after all these years than the rankled pride and financial investment issues Fenris keeps citing. It's a very warped and twisted way of thinking that seems entirely at home in the Tevinter Imperium.
Consider again that all of Fenris's impressions of an alternate way to live came first and foremost from the Fog Warriors and then the people after them. Before the Fog Warriors, he had never even thought of escaping. Just let that sink in for a moment. Afterwards, he would only have been able to learn what they happened to teach. I think it perfectly plausible that certain aspects of his worldview received a reality check and broke free of what his master ingrained into him, while other aspects had yet to catch up.
Fenris's lack of twitchiness, for lack of a better word, at others' sexual advances, can easily stem from some level of failure to emotionally process what happened to him, as in accepting or repressing it. If it doesn't stand out compared to everything else he's suffered, there's no reason for it to affect his interaction with the others.
On an entirely different level, consider how the talk with Danarius is written, listen to the voice acting, the animations, the word choice. Danarius's line about jealousy and Fen being "rather skilled" are immediately preceeded by calling a female Hawke Fenris's new "Mistress" and describing her as "lovely". That certainly sets the tone for how "jealousy" is to be interpreted. There's also Fen's reaction to either that or the "affection" line. "Shut your mouth, Danarius!", complete with defensive hunching over, ready to pounce. It also feels very much like him trying to prevent further humiliation or some unpleasant part of his past coming out - it's one of the few times in the game when Fenris sounds genuinely ashamed. There's also the time Hawke listens to Fenris's tale of Seheron - they both very carefully tiptoe around any mention of his sexual experiences during his time of slavery.
Completely up to interpretation, of course. Implied at best. But this is Bioware's writing team that already brought us no shortage of dark things that I hardly need to list. They could not have put those lines there without noticing how it might look and above all sound. If they chose to leave them there, I consider it justified to take those implications to one of the logical conclusions, namely that a lack of sexual abuse, in particular for Fenris (with his oft-remarked upon "pretty eyes", lanky build and exotic markings), seems a bit too good to be true.
...And that's definitely enough writing for now. O_O
I tend to agree with all of that. The only other interpretation I could see is that Fenris was sort of Danarius' bodyguard/furniture prop/valet during some very intimate times with Hadriana, and, well, everyone else who might want a piece of magister. As a slave, he does the dressing after. Danarius doesn't strike me as the sort who knows how to put on his robes straight without extensive assistance. So, even if he's not intimate, he's involved and a witness to everything going on. I also thought it was telling that one of the things he appreciated about the Fog Warriors was how "free" they were with affection. I got the distinct impression that if there was some kind of intimacy in Fenris' past as a slave, it wasn't exactly by choice. Even if he wasn't actually physically compelled, he likely witnessed a lot of power plays in the sexual arena. The Imperium is a cutthroat society, and I imagine a lot of that must extend to sexuality as well.
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a hot-button subject involving © a popular character, we're about one step below sipping tea out of fine china with our pinkies out. I appreciate your sentiment, but it's misplaced in a discussion in which most of the players have already been quite explicit about understanding that this is a subjective matter and consensus is impossible.
