Arquen wrote...
Every character in DA2 is selfish at least at first. I realized that Hawke is one giant sucker. Hawke is a strong and capable person, willing to do any mundane job for personal gain/family gain/whatever. Varric recognizes the talent in Hawke immediately and approaches him/her right away to take advantage of it. Furthermore, Aveline, Anders, Fenris, Aveline, and even Isabela and Merrill use Hawke for their own vested gains at first. Aveline uses Hawke as a chance to start over in Kirkwall, Anders uses Hawke as a powerful person to help him "rescue" his friend from the Templars and then decides to stick around Hawke because he/she could prove a useful ally in the future he has planned. Isabela wants your capableness to find her relic for her and then ditch you. Merrill wants you as a friend in the city and an ally to help her complete her eluvian.
snip...
The other day, shortly after completing another run-through as a snarky rogue Hawke. It occurred to me that Hawke doesn't really know any other way but to give and give and give some more, of herself, her time, her efforts, even her life if need be. Her entire life has been an endless routine of responsibility, first as the eldest and then later the head of the household once Malcolm was gone. She's been under a constant and neverending pressure of "you have to" her entire bleeping life. By the time she loses her mother, she simply knows no other way of being, until it's her friends and companions that become, for her, family enough she has to be responsible some more. That's what ties her to Kirkwall in Act 3 and that's all that ties her there, I think.
My canon Hawke is the snarky rogue, mind you. She uses humor to cope with the stress she constantly endures, as an eldest child in a family on the run turned refugee. She loses her brother to the Blight and she loses her sister in the Deep Roads. Those are tremendous failures, in her mind, so that protecting her mother becomes that much more precious a burden. That's what makes losing HER, imo, so utterly profound. I'm always moved during the scene where the camera pans along to a silent bedroom, where Hawke is sitting, alone, staring into nothing. I can't begin to imagine how much it would hurt, sitting there in the wake of her mother's murder by a crazy mage, wondering, "I'm alone, there's nothing left, what else have I got to hold me here, what else do I have to live for, there's nothing." And then Fenris walks in.
Fenris is exceptional, imo, because he's the one single person in Hawke's life who stops long enough to consider what Hawke needs, to give back to Hawke, to do for her. Everyone else, it's about what they can get from Hawke. But Fenris really does remain close to her solely because he feels and believes she needs him. If it wasn't for Hawke, I think, Fenris would've skipped out of town on his way to lead his hunters on a merry chase off a cliff of doom. But he stays and he stays, for nothing other than Hawke. He never asks for much, simply a companion and compatriot against Danarius. But he makes it clear it's not a task he would ask for without giving something in return and what he gives is himself, his loyalty, an unending and unswerving level of loyalty.
IMO, he's the least selfish of any of Hawke's companions, because he treats everything about Hawke, everything she provides, every bit of her acceptance and her respect and her love, every bit of her smile, her laughter, her pleasure and even her fear and pain, as a precious and incredible gift that he's just plain not worthy of, can't imagine he's deserving of, so that it awes him utterly, all of it. That's what makes him determined to fight and to care, for Hawke. It's that kind of consideration that just plain sets him apart from all of the others, I think.
Edited to add, since I'm once again at the top of the thread, yay:
Modifié par phyreblade74, 31 mai 2011 - 07:47 .
Retour en haut
and me being stupid didn't save the original documents. I have a new one now with new stories. I haven't got the heart to re-write my old ones. Lost so much.
