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[Heidenreich]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
The thing is, the whole dominant and submissive idea is much subtler than people imagine. The role of the rescuer or the protector is seen as dominant, and that's the aspect of "dominance" that appeals to me, rather than the control that is most commonly the first place the mind goes.

Protector, maybe (if it's not excessive). Rescuer? I'd find that unappealing if someone is looking for me to "save" or "rescue" them. Help them, sure.

And yea, I am trying to go back to this and avoid terrorism (and the butter thing that's going to make me puke).

EDIT: though I am guessing it's semantics at this point, as to what is dominance and submission outside of bed.
I am actually not sure whether I'd prefer perfectly equal, or me leading the relationship while being challenged once in a while.

Ahahaha, The funny thing is, the latter is one of the more popular forms of D/s relationship potrayed in literature. The *ahem* stern templar and the naughty apostate, for example.

Anyway, yeah I have a bit of an Utena complex. If someone's in a bad situation, I want to show up on a white horse and get them out of there. I knew that I liked rescuing people before I knew I liked boys. It's not required of course, but it is appealing.

I definitely don't think Hawke is always in a particular role, and I think all the romances are left fairly open to interpretation. It's only Fenris's relationship that implies some form of submission on his part, and even that can be subverted. I have him and Garret in a kind of co-dependent relationship, where Hawke relies on Fenris to protect him physically and to provide stability while Fenris relies on Hawke to make decisions. When it comes to Anders, though, there are so many ways to interpret what happens, and I can happily read fics where he is all over the spectrum.

Aside: A Dance With Dragons came out and I didn't notice? Well I was pretty busy yesterday but still. STILLLLLLL. Ugh. I just get back from the Farmer's market, and now I have to go out again, apparently. Also, I should have been rereading the first books, but instead I reread Jingo and Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency for some reason. I regret nothing.

Yes, it did, and I'm waiting very impatiently because I ordered it via amazon when I should have just bought it at Borders like a sane person.. but I didn't want to go oooooooouuuuutttt and borders is 15 minutes awaaayy *whine*

I want my book



DAMNIT, top again...



Aimo!

Modifié par Heidenreich, 12 juillet 2011 - 10:28 .

[YamiSnuffles]

beckaliz wrote...

Aw, I'm not saying it's obvious. I'm just giving my reasons for why it comes across to me that way. It's no fun talking about things with people who agree with you completely. And highcastle and I... seem to see the exact same thing. o_o There's nothing to discuss there.

Ok, well it is kind of fun going "OMG WE R BOTH AGREED WE R AWSUM AMIRITE? {smilie}", but. ^^;

Well, it's more a matter of me having trouble articulating myself beyond some sort of Arishok like, "No." But I'll give it a try.

When it comes to the romance scene, that seemed like a mostly equal exchange to me. However, just for the sake of argument, you can also easily say Hawke is taking charge there. She's essentially saying, "No more excuses. No more trying to get out of this or warn me off. I want this. We're doing this."

When it comes to sexual experience, I'm sure Anders has way more than Hawke. When it comes to real world experience, it's not very clear. Anders has spent a lot of his life in the Tower. Emile is proof that Circle life hardly gives you the right experience to deal with the real world. Hawke, meanwhile has been out dealing with the real world every day. On the flip side, Anders still might know more about the darker side of life, having perhaps witnessed suicides, rape, etc. So together they have varied experience which could lead them to being more or less equal outside the bedroom.

For the heartbreak issue, every relationship ever has to have some sort of trust that the other person isn't going to crush you. If you don't have that trust, you can't really go very far. As for Anders warning Hawke, Hawke could just be confident that she can survive whatever hurt/heartbreak that gets thrown her way. Which could amount to foolishness or arrogance, but certainly doesn't automatically mean she is submitting herself to Anders care. Sure there can be Hawkes that are placing all their faith in Anders taking care of them, but nothing in the game made me think this is the only way it goes down. It certainly wasn't the impression I got from playing the game. Granted, this in part comes from someone who always plays as f!Hawke. So my way of dealing with Anders saying, "Nooo, I'll huuuurt you" is just to be like, "Whatever. I can deal with it."

As for Hawke having to "fall in line" in the Justice quest... I just don't see it. Or rather, I don't see it as a necessity. If Hawke has been working in her own way to help Anders/mages, then this is just one more thing to do. I went blind into playing DA2, so I had no idea what Anders was going to do. I also have zero knowledge of chemistry or whatever, so I didn't get what the ingredients meant. So I think I can safely say that I knew as much (or as little) as my Hawke did. Anders was obviously lying and obviously hiding something. Hawke could either just say "no" and cut her losses, or help because she trusts that Anders knows what he's doing. She knew she'd always agreed with what he was trying to do on his other quests. She knew he was up to something suspect and that it had something to do with the Grand Cleric. Anders clearly thought it was vital to the mage cause. From the information she had, she could still make a semi-informed decision. She decided to trust Anders in this case. Was it mostly blind trust? Sure. But that one instance of blind trust doesn't spell out to me that Hawke is always submissive or always goes along with anything Anders says.

EDIT: So, yes, sorry for the wall of text. To sum up, Hawke's relationship with Anders can be (to an extent) what you want it to be. I'd prefer to think that they mostly have an equal relationship, with a certain amount of give and take.

Modifié par YamiSnuffles, 12 juillet 2011 - 10:32 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Yami,

Right now it's like a billion degrees at my house and also I haven't had coffee, but that's exactly how I see Anders and my main Hawke's dynamic most of the time, too. It varies depending on different Hawkes, of course, because they're all very different. I had a much more submissive Hawke, but he ended up with Fenris somehow.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 12 juillet 2011 - 11:07 .

[beckaliz]

It sure is hard to write stuff when you have people talking around you and pizza arriving. @_@;;;

Anders's view of the darker side of life would include all the insane stuff that happens in Awakenings. It wouldn't just be the Templar brutality in the Circle that he'd have been exposed to. All of that puts him into the position where he sees a larger part of the world, and not just geographically. He's more exposed to world-wide and far-reaching dangers. Hawke has been focused a lot on taking care of family. Two factors that we don't have definitive knowledge of though is their ages, and that would determine how long they've each been out in the world. I know that the Hawkes had to move around a lot, but they did finally settle in Lothering, and had been there for a long time. The fact that they didn't have to move again until the Blight came and destroyed everything means they probably weren't having any huge problems.

This is jumping around a little. Sorry. :\\ But definitely until Hawke him/herself has been through the Deep Roads I would see Anders as something of a knowledgeable authority figure, or at least a guide.

The biggest reason why I think that Anders wouldn't come off to other people as knowing what he's doing, as far as "Justice" goes, is from what the codex says about his state of mind between Act 2 and Act 3. That, plus his conversation during "key to your heart" or whatever it's called, gives me the impression that Anders is coming off as more overtly desperate. And he sure does his best to get Hawke to go along with what he wants to do, with his guilt trip blackmailing. All the "if you love me you'll help me with this".

Although, as you say, Hawke does certainly have the option to say no.

I'll have to think about this more.

Modifié par beckaliz, 13 juillet 2011 - 12:03 .

[YamiSnuffles]

@beckaliz

Well, no matter how old Hawke is, Anders has still only been outside of the tower for a set amount of time. Thus there is only so much real world experience he can have vs. Hawke. But I wasn't discounting his Awakening experiences. It's why I just said "etc" instead of going on and listing everything Anders might have ever seen in his life. All the same, Hawke was at Ostagar and dealt with darkspawn while fleeing Ferelden. So it's not like Hawke doesn't know anything about them. As a Warden, I would still obviously put Anders as the authority on them in this case, but that doesn't translate to much to me. All it means to me is that he would have more experience in the Deep Roads. Not that he would thus be more dominate in the entire relationship just because he knows more about darkspawn. Which is another reason I didn't bring it up originally. His experience with darkspawn really doesn't have much of anything to do with his and Hawke's relationship. It changes how they interact for the few weeks in the Deep Roads, but not as a couple on a whole, which is what I thought we were talking about in the first place.

I know some people see a rather large age gap between Hawke and Anders (I don't), but even that would hardly change my opinion on their dynamic. They both have experience in different areas. Hawke has a greater amount of everyday, ordinary experience since s/he's lived a sort of normal life compared to Anders. S/he knows how to run a household, pay the bills, and all sorts of other things. Anders, on the other hand, has more extraordinary experience, like darkspawn and the like. Thus my original point of them complimenting each other.

As for the Justice quest, yes, whether he knows what he's doing is definitely up for debate. That's not what I was getting at. I was just contending that Hawke going along with him in that case doesn't make him/her submissive to Anders which is part of what Hi-C was contending.

Modifié par YamiSnuffles, 13 juillet 2011 - 12:27 .

[berelinde]

YamiSnuffles wrote...

When it comes to the romance scene, that seemed like a mostly equal exchange to me. However, just for the sake of argument, you can also easily say Hawke is taking charge there. She's essentially saying, "No more excuses. No more trying to get out of this or warn me off. I want this. We're doing this."

That's because you are running a female Hawke. When Iain leads Anders to the bed using the exact same cinematics, he is saying "I have waited for this moment for years. I'm yours." It probably would have been different if Hawke's mannerisms weren't so darned feminine in that scene. I'm NOT saying that to bash femininity, masculinity, or any shade of gender preference. I'm just saying that in that scene and in the bedroom scene where Hawke brushes imaginary lint off of his Estate clothing for the very first times, Hawke moves like June Cleaver.

When it comes to sexual experience, I'm sure Anders has way more than Hawke. When it comes to real world experience, it's not very clear. Anders has spent a lot of his life in the Tower. Emile is proof that Circle life hardly gives you the right experience to deal with the real world. Hawke, meanwhile has been out dealing with the real world every day. On the flip side, Anders still might know more about the darker side of life, having perhaps witnessed suicides, rape, etc. So together they have varied experience which could lead them to being more or less equal outside the bedroom.

In terms of sexual experience, I would lay real money on the probability that Anders has more than Hawke. In terms of life experience... hate to disagree with you, but I might still lay money on Anders. Just not as much. Hawke was an apostate his (or her) entire life. His/her family moved around whenever the templars got too close. While it is possible to imagine a worldly Hawke, It is also possible to imagine an awkward, reclusive one whose very first taste of the world was the flight from Lothering. A person can be introverted and still be a leader, although it's not as common as an extrovert leader. Many, if not most, introverts learn to use their game faces in public. They build a tough facade that they show to the world while the softer, more vulnerable person they are inside remains protected and intact. That's the route I'm going with my canon Hawke, a shy, somewhat naiive introvert who has to learn what he needs to survive in a hurry. But then, this is just Iain. Everyone else's will be different, even other Hawkes I've run.

For the heartbreak issue, every relationship ever has to have some sort of trust that the other person isn't going to crush you. If you don't have that trust, you can't really go very far. As for Anders warning Hawke, Hawke could just be confident that she can survive whatever hurt/heartbreak that gets thrown her way. Which could amount to foolishness or arrogance, but certainly doesn't automatically mean she is submitting herself to Anders care. Sure there can be Hawkes that are placing all their faith in Anders taking care of them, but nothing in the game made me think this is the only way it goes down. It certainly wasn't the impression I got from playing the game. Granted, this in part comes from someone who always plays as f!Hawke. So my way of dealing with Anders saying, "Nooo, I'll huuuurt you" is just to be like, "Whatever. I can deal with it."

Of course, you never get these dialogues if you run a male Hawke. There's still the sense that Anders is holding back deliberately and that he's doing it to protect Hawke, but it isn't laid on quite so thick. I kind of took it as "I'm a mage on the edge with a Fade spirit inside my head. You don't want this."

As for Hawke having to "fall in line" in the Justice quest... I just don't see it. Or rather, I don't see it as a necessity. If Hawke has been working in her own way to help Anders/mages, then this is just one more thing to do. I went blind into playing DA2, so I had no idea what Anders was going to do. I also have zero knowledge of chemistry or whatever, so I didn't get what the ingredients meant. So I think I can safely say that I knew as much (or as little) as my Hawke did. Anders was obviously lying and obviously hiding something. Hawke could either just say "no" and cut her losses, or help because she trusts that Anders knows what he's doing. She knew she'd always agreed with what he was trying to do on his other quests. She knew he was up to something suspect and that it had something to do with the Grand Cleric. Anders clearly thought it was vital to the mage cause. From the information she had, she could still make a semi-informed decision. She decided to trust Anders in this case. Was it mostly blind trust? Sure. But that one instance of blind trust doesn't spell out to me that Hawke is always submissive or always goes along with anything Anders says.

Well, I went in spoiled and IRL, I'm a chemist, so I knew what he was asking for, but it didn't matter. My Hawke does not know these things. His training in magic has been practical rather than theoretical. Anders might as well tell him that the Tevinters were researching trans-dimensional butt-plugs. Sparkly ones. (sorry) What matters to my Hawkes is that the man he loves asked him to run errands for him. He's done far more odious things for far less compelling reasons.

To sum up, Hawke's relationship with Anders can be (to an extent) what you want it to be. I'd prefer to think that they mostly have an equal relationship, with a certain amount of give and take.

Funny how I'm not agreeing with you all that much in this post, but we get to the same place in the end. Mostly equal, give and take.

[SurelyForth]

Not all Hawke's are mages. My Warrior Hawke was doing light sword-for-hire/scavenging stuff before going to Ostagar. She and Carver outran darkspawn for months before getting to Lothering and again afterwards. Then she was a smuggler for a year, managing to protect her sister even while they were high profile enough that Varric knew about them.

That being said, Anders probably does have more practical experience with Bad Things, but it doesn't come up in the game. Besides the "little girl/boy" line if you go aggressive when you first meet him, there's no sense that Anders views Hawke as an inferior or less-experienced than he is. You can call on him for his Special Magics in quests, and he speaks up a few times, but he never tries to take control away from Hawke the way Sten can, or openly challenge Hawke like Wynne or Leliana can challenge the Warden. 

Modifié par SurelyForth, 13 juillet 2011 - 12:44 .

[berelinde]

SurelyForth wrote...

Not all Hawke's are mages.

True. And not all Hawkes are warriors. Or rogues. Once you're at that point, speculating about canon!Hawke life experience is probably meaningless. There is only headcanon!Hawke, and since no two people have precisely the same head, their Hawkes will be different, too.

[YamiSnuffles]

@berelinde
I said- multiple times- that this was coming from the perspective of a f!Hawke. But as far as the warnings go, I only brought that up as a response to what beckaliz was saying. I was only illustrating that a Hawke who is warned of heartbreak and yet enters into a relationship has to be submissive. I never said that every Hawke was explicitly warned. I know that the dynamic is different with an m!Hawke. But even with an male, Anders demonstrates exactly how dangerous before Hawke can enter a relationship with him.

As for their differing experience, I'm honestly not sure what you are arguing with me about. I said that Anders undoubtedly had more sexual experience. And I said that it wasn't clear who had more worldly experience. This is clearly something that varies depending on what kind of back story you imagine for you Hawke, but there are always certain facts. Hawke has always lived free. Hawke also seems to have been made the head of the household once Malcolm died. Introvert, extrovert, whatever. It doesn't matter. Hawke still found a way to take care of his/her family. No matter how you rp it, Hawke has found a way to spend a lifetime in the real world.

I also don't know what you're arguing with me about as far as Justice. I just said that Hawke doesn't have to simply "fall in line" in order to do what Anders wants for that quest.

Quite honestly, I don't know why you chose to respond to my particular post. My entire post was just about theoretical ways in which Hawke's relationship were equal as opposed to dominate/submissive. Obviously everyone will have a different interpretation for different Hawkes. That's precisely why I said the relationship is what you make of it.

EDIT: As for the romance scene... I completely understand that it read differently between a male and a female. AGAIN, it was just a case of me offering a different interpretation to the one that had been offered before.

Modifié par YamiSnuffles, 13 juillet 2011 - 12:58 .

[berelinde]

YamiSnuffles wrote...
Quite honestly, I don't know why you chose to respond to my particular post,

Sorry, didn't mean to come across as antagonistic about it, and wasn't really trying to argue, so much as present another set of possibilities. As for picking your post, it was convenient and happened to cover the points I wanted to talk about, all laid out neatly and in a logical format. I always feel as if I need to apologize for talking about my Hawke. Like there's a certain fixed number of acceptable Hawkes, and while I appreciate your Hawke, and Noah, and Wil, and other well-known Hawkes from frequent posters, I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm happy with the idea that poor Iain isn't acceptable because he isn't quite like them.

Can we still be friends?

[ademska]

berelinde wrote...

That's because you are running a female Hawke. When Iain leads Anders to the bed using the exact same cinematics, he is saying "I have waited for this moment for years. I'm yours." It probably would have been different if Hawke's mannerisms weren't so darned feminine in that scene. I'm NOT saying that to bash femininity, masculinity, or any shade of gender preference. I'm just saying that in that scene and in the bedroom scene where Hawke brushes imaginary lint off of his Estate clothing for the very first times, Hawke moves like June Cleaver.

i... really hope that in using your personal hawke's name, you're reacting from his role-played perspective and not making an observation of the scene in general right now, because if you are, that's mired in unfortunate implications.

yami said that she saw the bedroom scene as equivalent in power dynamic, and by saying that she's right only because she didn't run a male hawke, you're making some pretty bad implicit statements. switching out genders of hawke with no other changes in cinematic shouldn't have any bearing on how you perceive the scene unless you've got some subconscious baggage going on regarding gender stuffities.

i'm trying my best to not be rude about this or assume too much, but, uh, yeah.


edit: phwoar harumph and now you've said it too, yami. help me out, guys, rationalize this.

Modifié par ademska, 13 juillet 2011 - 01:09 .

[YamiSnuffles]

berelinde wrote...

Sorry, didn't mean to come across as antagonistic about it, and wasn't really trying to argue, so much as present another set of possibilities. As for picking your post, it was convenient and happened to cover the points I wanted to talk about, all laid out neatly and in a logical format. I always feel as if I need to apologize for talking about my Hawke. Like there's a certain fixed number of acceptable Hawkes, and while I appreciate your Hawke, and Noah, and Wil, and other well-known Hawkes from frequent posters, I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm happy with the idea that poor Iain isn't acceptable because he isn't quite like them.

Can we still be friends?

No, it's fine. I'm hot and it's probably making me cranky.

Actually I'm someone that loves hearing about different Hawkes. I like to see how everyone approaches the game in different ways. I guess I was just confused about the point that you were trying to make. I think I get it now. You're basically just saying that your Hawke is very different from mine and yet we still see Hawke's relationship with Anders in a similar fashion?

Feel free to talk about your Hawke and his relationship with Anders. Other viewpoints are always interesting to me.

[Heidenreich]

ademska wrote...

berelinde wrote...

That's because you are running a female Hawke. When Iain leads Anders to the bed using the exact same cinematics, he is saying "I have waited for this moment for years. I'm yours." It probably would have been different if Hawke's mannerisms weren't so darned feminine in that scene. I'm NOT saying that to bash femininity, masculinity, or any shade of gender preference. I'm just saying that in that scene and in the bedroom scene where Hawke brushes imaginary lint off of his Estate clothing for the very first times, Hawke moves like June Cleaver.

i... really hope that in using your personal hawke's name, you're reacting from his role-played perspective and not making an observation of the scene in general right now, because if you are, that's mired in unfortunate implications.

yami said that she saw the bedroom scene as equivalent in power dynamic, and by saying that she's right only because she didn't run a male hawke, you're making some pretty bad implicit statements. switching out genders of hawke with no other changes in cinematic shouldn't have any bearing on how you perceive the scene unless you've got some subconscious baggage going on regarding gender stuffities.

i'm trying my best to not be rude about this or assume too much, but, uh, yeah.


edit: phwoar harumph and now you've said it too, yami. help me out, guys, rationalize this.

There is no Rationalization in this conversation, because in the end, the right response is , "NU UH, MY HAWKE WOULD DO X"


on the whole, we all seem to agree, as the relationship goes, its an even give and take, with maybe Hawke being a bit MORE in later chapters due to Anders slow and inevitable decline. 

[berelinde]

ademska wrote...
i... really hope that in using your personal hawke's name, you're reacting from his role-played perspective and not making an observation of the scene in general right now, because if you are, that's mired in unfortunate implications.

edit: phwoar harumph and now you've said it too, yami. help me out, guys, rationalize this.

Uh, yeah, that's why I used his name directly. That's his take on it, as I said in the post. Other Hawkes have different perspectives.

I was trying to participate in the discussion. That seems to be frowned upon. I'd probably better go.

[YamiSnuffles]

ademska wrote...

edit: phwoar harumph and now you've said it too, yami. help me out, guys, rationalize this.

Wargh, it's too hot for this. I'm way too hot to be arguing.

All I was trying to say is that people are likely to read a scene differently based on if it's male or female Hawke. I honestly don't see any inequality in the scene. I love how it was done and wouldn't change a thing about it or the animations. But I can understand how some people might interpret the same actions differently depending on if it's male or female Hawke in the scene. And yes there are... unfortunate implications to that, perhaps, but I will acknowledge that it reads differently to different people.

I don't even know if I'm making sense any more. Blegh.

[ademska]

berelinde wrote...

Uh, yeah, that's why I used his name directly. That's his take on it, as I said in the post. Other Hawkes have different perspectives.

I was trying to participate in the discussion. That seems to be frowned upon. I'd probably better go.

i'm... not mad? and neither is yami? i was legitimately curious, and since you were talking specifically about your hawke, nothing else in my post applied to you.

keep the thread moving, by all means! i love the hawke/anders relationship, everyone's take on it, and i'm so tired of coding php right now oh my god.

[ipgd]

ademska wrote...

i... really hope that in using your personal hawke's name, you're reacting from his role-played perspective and not making an observation of the scene in general right now, because if you are, that's mired in unfortunate implications.

yami said that she saw the bedroom scene as equivalent in power dynamic, and by saying that she's right only because she didn't run a male hawke, you're making some pretty bad implicit statements. switching out genders of hawke with no other changes in cinematic shouldn't have any bearing on how you perceive the scene unless you've got some subconscious baggage going on regarding gender stuffities.

i'm trying my best to not be rude about this or assume too much, but, uh, yeah.

It kinda does, though. Like it or a not, a woman doing What Is Expected of her by the society she was raised in often carries different connotations from a man doing something that isn't necessarily. But hey, there it is! GENDER WANKERY

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Don't worry, berelinde... nobody's mad. I think everyone's a bit punchy today. I blame the heat wave. Also, SOCIETY.

My brother is bothering me to try out a new MtG Deck and I just got my Dance of Dragons (man everything is happening today), but this conversation is sooooo tempting. I keep telling people "wait a minute I have to go... check on something" and then running to my computer hoping to contribute.

I think one of the reasons I like Bioware romances so much is that one side is left entirely to the player. In most film and television, I don't like or identify with the female character at all (mostly because in most romantic comedies she's been acting like a complete moron for the last hour. OMG Bridesmaids... I know that the point was that she was self destructive, but I honestly wanted to burn her house down for how she treated that absolutely adorable man. *breathes*). I actually identify with the guy a lot, but I don't see that as me preferring male characters, rather I see it as a result of women being written a certain way a lot of the time. The romances in Mass Effect and Dragon Age have hit closer to home than the romances in basically any media have for years (other than Pratchett books and Girl Genius, that is).

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 13 juillet 2011 - 01:24 .

[YamiSnuffles]

berelinde wrote...

Uh, yeah, that's why I used his name directly. That's his take on it, as I said in the post. Other Hawkes have different perspectives.

I was trying to participate in the discussion. That seems to be frowned upon. I'd probably better go.

No, no. Please feel free to participate. Like I said, I'm hot. That may have made me come off as cranky. Honestly all I ever was is confused. Not mad. At all. Talk about your Hawke and Anders all you want. I said it before and I'll say it again, I love hearing about other Hawkes. I just happened to have gotten confused this time about the direction of the conversation. It happens on the internet sometime.

Feel free to ignore me. I think I'm rambling now. Did I mention it's really hot?

Modifié par YamiSnuffles, 13 juillet 2011 - 01:25 .

[beckaliz]

The way I was hoping the conversation would go is just sharing different interpretations of the same in-game stuff. The different ways in which the same events with Anders can be viewed are really amazing. It just goes to show that Anders has so much depth to him that he comes across so differently based on how Hawke interacts with him from the player's perspective. I don't think Fenris can inspire this much variation.

I'm not sure how to word my thought on the point about Anders and the Awakenings stuff and worldly experience. There are greater concepts than just darkspawn involved in that situation. But from all of that I get the feeling that Anders would have more a view of the whole forest, aside from just the trees. He would have had to. Why I think this matters is because I think it affects how he relates to other people and the world around him. Like his focus is so far beyond everyday life, that things like... I don't know, maybe petty annoyances wouldn't have as big an impact on him? Like, "oh balls I stubbed my toe... BUT MAGES MUST BE FREE! a stubbed toe does not matter!" Hawke definitely had everyday worries as a greater priority. And in Kirkwall, taking care of her/his family is still a big priority for Hawke.

Let's see, consolidating my point... I just feel like an Anders who would be putting aside everyday trivial matters would make fewer changes and concessions, and Hawke would be the one having to do more adapting, be more flexible and compromising. Which seems submissive to me.

.... For what it's worth, you can send some of that extra heat over here. It's nice and cool where I live right now. ;d

Modifié par beckaliz, 13 juillet 2011 - 02:13 .

[berelinde]

Know what you mean. I'm a menopausal woman in a 100year old house in New Jersey with painted-shut-for-decades windows and no air conditioning. Between the heat, the humidity, and the hot flashes, I'm lucky if I can frame a sentence. I'm also making a tentative, very cautious return to writing after getting seriously, seriously burned, so I'm a little touchy about things that have nothing to do with diminishing estrogen.

I'd offer you hugs, but it's really super hot. How about a strawberry smoothie? With extra ice.

[LT123]

Anders glows; Garrett Hawke is impressed. They're apostate and spirit healer buddies-Hawke's romancing Merrill. He's also wearing one of the few mage robes that doesn't scream "I'm an apostate."

And it's too hot for me to add anything more intelligent than that, but I like reading the discussions.

[berelinde]

That glow looks thermally cool. That's all I'm sayin'.

[YamiSnuffles]

@Beckaliz

I think I get a bit more of what you're saying, but I still don't see how it relates to who is dominate/submissive in the relationship. Honestly, I think Justice has more to do with his current world view than anything that happened in Awakening. Experience/seeing more of the world isn't what forced him to look at the big picture. Having a spirit crammed in his head is what did that. But I suppose that's really beside the point.

Let's take this on from another angle. I think the ability to be flexible can be a strength. Hawke can take Anders' single minded obsession and twist it one way or another; see the difference in rival Anders vs friend Anders. Hawke's ability to adapt is what helps him/her survive. Anders lack of the same is part of what can break him. While Anders is falling apart, Hawke can find a way to stay in control and survive. Which is why I don't see Hawke's flexibility in the relationship as making him/her submissive.

But again, I think this is a matter of different Hawkes. For a Hawke that just ends up just passively going along with Anders, making concessions could be a sign of submission. For a passionate, revolutionary type Hawke, there really aren't many concessions to be made with Anders.

I think that sort of was on topic and responding to what you were saying. I really ought to be asleep right now.

berelinde wrote...

I'd offer you hugs, but it's really super hot. How about a strawberry smoothie? With extra ice.

Sounds good to me. Although at this rate I would just take a bucket of ice to dunk my head in, haha.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Roles often shift inside and outside the bedroom. It's almost a stereotype in the community: the powerful man who seeks to relinquish control behind closed doors. (Also, as a note - I run in and talk with circles far more depraved than I am personally, so don't assume anything I say is first hand.) Anders is interesting in that he's such a flexible character that I can see him go either way easily, there have been well-written, believable fics putting him in every possible role. Ahem.

I've been thinking of this thread all day, so I'm going to spin out the different dynamics between Anders and all my Hawkes (not all of them have full playthroughs yet, but I know how they're going to react anyway).

My main Hawke, Lir, is "in charge" even during the deep roads. She sees that Anders is uncomfortable (claustrophobia, nightmares, etc) and takes up her usual protector role, watching out for him as she would have watched out for Beth, if she'd been along. (Another interesting fic idea... Hawke asking Anders' advice regarding whether to bring their sibling along on the Deep Roads. I almost always take Carver and leave Bethany, but I don't know how much of that is metagaming.) Despite the fact that Anders knows more about pretty much everything, she's braver, because Lir is insanely brave, nearly to the point of self-destruction. She's also aware of her Hero Aura and uses it deliberately. All of the crap that comes her way, all the loss, she handles it like a hero, like a warrior. At the same time, she values Anders because she sees him as a being of immense strength, so their roles are equal because in her mind they're both incredibly powerful and epic. She's the least human of all my Hawkes, and in a lot of ways she's as crazy and hubristic as Anders. She sees their love as a grand adventure, another chapter in the story that her life is going to be. When she sees the Chantry go up, whatever emotional reaction she would have is pushed back, and her first thought is "what would a hero do in this situation?" She's also the only Hawke I have who I could see actually being the main character in DA3: she is waiting for the time in her life when she can lead an army to change the world.

I almost wish I had a version of Garret who ends up with Anders, because the dynamic would be entirely different. Garret was my "opposite of Lir" playthrough: a humble and shy mage dude (who ends up with Fenris), rather than a crazy outgoing Templar lady. They make many of the same storyline choices for very different reasons, though. Garret doesn't end up with Anders because he does listen to Anders warnings, and he sees the violence in him... not because of Anders' romance dialogue with him, but because of how Anders acts in general. Finally, when he shows up and calls Fenris a beast, Garret knows he's not prepared to take what Anders is going to be dishing out, and sends him home. If they had stayed together, Garret would have probably felt just as betrayed and helpless as most Hawkes feel at the end. As things were, with Fenris there he was able to keep things together, leaning heavily on the Elf (I wish there were a way to romance Anders and then go back to Fenris in Act 3, as sort of a reaction to Anders going down the drain and distancing himself.)

Crow is my sociopath, so I don't know if her dynamic even matters in a real discussion for humans. She keeps Anders around because he's sexy and didn't wander off like Fenris and Isabella did. She's using him, plain and simple, just not in a way that results in her kicking him out of her house after they sleep together. She is definitely in control, but in a really unhealthy way.

Esk is my new character, and she's kind of an apology to Anders for Crow (and Garret). She's everything he wants: mage, sympathetic, beautiful, understanding, supportive, gentle, all that stuff. I think she's going to be the kind of magnanimous submissive, where she thinks "Anders, you need so much. I can provide whatever you need, I'm here for you." I'm struggling with her personality a bit right now, for reasons that I might put time into writing up later... I have an old draft of a post on the interesting limitations of the Hawke character that might be useful.

What I'm having trouble doing is RPing a Hawke who has the normal emotional Arc for a fanfic Hawke (not that there aren't many fanfics that go outside this arc, but it's the most common one I've encountered so far), of feeling helpless watching their love fall apart, and betrayed and broken at the end when the chantry goes. Garret was the only one capable of that, and he ended up with Fenris. I guess I could play his act 2-3 over and see how that goes, but I don't know if I will. Maybe I'll just enjoy it vicariously through fic.

I'm still waiting to see a fic where Hawke's response to Anders is a very strong one, no matter the gender. One where Hawke says "I can handle this" and means it. So far I've read many a lovely fic where Hawke has a beautiful, angsty breakdown at the end and that's all fine and interesting and probable...  but now I've read very similar breakdowns a dozen times with little variation. I've seen post-game fics with mage!Hawkes who support Anders, and one of my favorite fics is a post-game reuinion with a rival!Rogue Hawke who was of the 'never got attached because I never let him close' variety. Their relationship is poisonous, but I like that, because no matter what Anders always loves Hawke. No matter how hateful or evil or abusive, he loves Hawke, and in cases where Hawke isn't good for him, that's part of his tragedy.

Then again, the entire time I was watching/playing/learning about the game, I had already been spoiled, but only so far as "Anders does something TERRIBLE at the end," so when the Chantry went up I thought "Oh, is that all? Ahaha, you had me worried for a second there, champ." I know that's not the typical thought process at that point and that's not exactly what my Hawke thought, but I wonder if I would have reacted differently completely unspoiled. I don't think it would have been too different.