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[Catwall]

Blackwall is a challenging, if not downright polarizing character, and there is potential for both drama and reconciliation. It doesn't fit easily into either of the categories you mention. I really like it, personally, whereas I found Solas's romance tepid and flimsy. YMMV.

[Bugsie]

I love Solas as a character because of, well, who he is and the lore he brings to the story, but I can't say the romance is one I'll bother with having seen it play out. I want to know more about him of course. The romance seems a little idealised - all these pics I've seen with him with dreads and stuff, but ymmv. I'd hope for a DLC exploring more, and it does indicate that, but still doesn't make me keen for a romance.

Cassandra's romance sounds fantastic and when I get time I'll roll a dude just for her.

Blackwall, well let's say, I thought very little of him prior to the game. In the game once I played? He hit me like a tonne of bricks. Or alternatively, the wall fell on me as I was scaling it!

[Hanako Ikezawa]

After completing my mage playthrough where I took Blackwall a-lot I have gained crazy respect for Blackwall. Yeah sure he's a imposter but frankly he's a imposter with a heart for justice. I am sure there are a-lot of people that want to fake be someone else and do something for the greater good. Yeah sure you would be living a lie and would have the truth bite you in the *** somewhere down the line but if people have crazy respect for you one way or another I feel like that's all that matters. It shouldn't matter who or what you are you are judged by the actions you make.

"A man who truly aspired to be righteous would not lie. He would earn respect, not steal the respect due another." - Cassandra

[CredulousAlloy]

Aaaand here we go again.

[mordy_was_here]

Aaaand here we go again.

 

lol

 

you want me to make the popcorn? I make great popcorn. you bring the lawn chairs

[Catwall]

Aaaand here we go again.

 

lol

 

IKR? I put that broken record on ignore a looooong time ago. Feels good man.

[CredulousAlloy]

lol

 

you want me to make the popcorn? I make great popcorn. you bring the lawn chairs

 

Is is salty or sweet? This is Very Important.

[Catwall]

I can bring the beverages. Spiked punch? Full bar? Chocolate milk? I have it all.

[mordy_was_here]

I can bring the beverages. Spiked punch? Full bar? Chocolate milk? I have it all.

 

okay stay with me here, i want chocolate milk but you have to bring it to me like the Kool-Aid man

 

and i will need a bendy straw

 

Is is salty or sweet? This is Very Important.

 

 

salty! no, sweet! COMPROMISE WITH SALTY SWEET!

[Hanako Ikezawa]

That was as far as I was going with that, actually. The person I replied to even liked my post. 

[Catwall]

okay stay with me here, i want chocolate milk but you have to bring it to me like the Kool-Aid man

 

and i will need a bendy straw

 

 

 

salty! no, sweet! COMPROMISE WITH SALTY SWEET!

I will comply, but only because it's you!

[mordy_was_here]

I will comply, but only because it's you!

 

ahahaha yes!

[CredulousAlloy]

That was as far as I was going with that, actually. The person I replied to even liked my post. 

 

Fair enough. Still gives us an excuse to plan a thread picnic!

[KealaFerret]

I'll make some chocolate chip cookies and bring some rootbeer. Since I'm allergic to everything, having cookies I can eat is important. Cookies are Serious Business. Sten can tell you. 

 

I can't get that cheesecake thing out of my head now. Ever. :: flailing ::

 

Got to gush about DA with a friend for over an hour, he just got to Skyhold. The whole time I'm like noooo I can't talk to you about this....! I do find it funny that everyone says yeah I'm playing DAI... hey who did you romance? Does anyone else have to answer that question a lot? Does anyone else feel like they need a shirt that says "I SCALED THE WALL AND I LIKED IT"?

 

To answer the questions about the romance - I personally thought it was pretty well balanced. Some angst, but the kind that makes the good moments (and when things work out) all the more awesome. Tough decisions to make, a bit of emotion, and at the end of it all, totally worth it. That being said, there's also a bit of room to read into things differently depending on your point of view; he's a polarizing character, and people end up viewing him quite differently based on their own experience. And taking him everywhere with different characters results in some awesome banter.  

 

If you like beards, emotional rollercoasters, happy endings, and believe in redemption and the human spirit, then it's a good romance. If you don't like beards and don't feel like some people can ever be redeemed... then not so much I'd guess.  

[Joe25]

If they did back story DLC for the charcters of DAI what do you think Blackwalls story would be like? I know that we get a lot of Blackwall's story, but a wonder how his perspective would be.

[veeia]

I really sincerely hope it would just be him bumbling around Orlais/Marches as a young man, probably tripping balls, definitely shirtless, betting on nugs and being an arrogant ladies man dirtbag. Then something horrible happens and he cries!!! Maybe in the shower? And then he decides to be a better man and puts on his babby Resolve face, but we all know he hecks up later and that doesn't work out for a long time .


I'm a woman of simple tastes.

[mordy_was_here]

 

If you like beards, emotional rollercoasters, happy endings, and believe in redemption and the human spirit, then it's a good romance. If you don't like beards and don't feel like some people can ever be redeemed... then not so much I'd guess.

 

we need to put this in the OP of this thread in big ol' bold print, it was save us and potential romancers a lot of grief

 

 

If they did back story DLC for the charcters of DAI what do you think Blackwalls story would be like? I know that we get a lot of Blackwall's story, but a wonder how his perspective would be.

 

I'm gonna have to go with Veeia's hope of a 'young Rainier' DLC, if nothing more than to get to know him before all this shiz went sideways

 

@veeia you know if they did a shower scene they'd have him in his freaking armor Traynor style just to hurt our lady-feelings

[Joe25]

I really sincerely hope it would just be him bumbling around Orlais/Marches as a young man, probably tripping balls, definitely shirtless, betting on nugs and being an arrogant ladies man dirtbag. Then something horrible happens and he cries!!! Maybe in the shower? And then he decides to be a better man and puts on his babby Resolve face, but we all know he hecks up later and that doesn't work out for a long time .


I'm a woman of simple tastes.

 

I like the way you think.

[KealaFerret]

we need to put this in the OP of this thread in big ol' bold print, it was save us and potential romancers a lot of grief

 

 

We should also get the OP updated with lots more FAN ART. 

 

Or we could always start a new thread and reserve like 3 posts for all that kind of stuff and then start the party alllll over.

[Ryzaki]

Aaaand here we go again.

 

Oh man. Now you got this song playing in my head.

 

(they played that video so many times it furrowed in my brain)

YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.

 

_{I'm joking.}

 

_{Also I'm a shallow human being and fully admit I be fonder of Blackwall if he looked closer to Cullen.}

 

_{/no remorse}

 

_{Least I'm honest about it.}

[MrsHairyMcLummox]

I found this on deviantart

 

This is a compilation of all my recent ramblings about Blackwall and all the crap he's getting by some fandom, plus some sentences I read on the web but are not my own. I'll be happy to give credits if somebody should ask.

Everyone is absolutely free to use this or part of this to reply to haters in any forum or blog without crediting me. Just spread the love.
 

Blackwall - good vs bad

 

The good:

 

- He saves the Inquisitor’s life blocking and arrow directed to his/her head. I would never execute a man who saved my life, whatever he might have done.

 

- He spent the last 5 years of his life defending commoners from the darkspawn, and those who played Awakening should have an idea about how badly they affect farmer’s lives —-> tons of human lives saved.

 

- Giles, a farmer you find in the Hinterlands, tells you that he saved the refugees from the demons coming from the rifts —-> more human lives saved.

 

- He puts all his knowledge at disposal of the Inquisition, like the Treaties and all the wardens artifacts, plus his great professionality as a warrior. He doesn’t spare himself waiting for someone else to fix things unlike many who just watch, do nothing, and judge.

 

- He gives himself up to justice to avoid an ‘innocent’ man to die (innocent is in quotation marks because I’m not a fan of the ‘I was only following orders’ thing)

 

- He fights alongside the Inquisition in countless battles, helping to save the world and thus earning the title of hero like the real Blackwall did before him. 

—-> world saved

 

The bad:

 

- he accepted a job as mercenary to kill a man who was playing a dangerous Game, someone who, I’m sure, hired his own mercenaries to kill his opponents as well.

 

- he witnessed, petrified, a crude scene when he was just a small, helpless kid and did nothing to help while two urchins tortured and killed a street dog. I’d be more concerned about the small kid being traumatized instead of focusing on the dog but we don’t all have the same priorities I guess… I wouldn’t even put this thing if there weren’t so many hypo… ehm… people reporting this as something terrible he did. I'm sure there were many adults as well who witnessed the scene but simply didn't give a damn. 
Orlesians didn’t give a damn not even for a starving orphan named Duncan who was forced to thievery to survive, imagine for a street dog. Little Thom, the dreaded puppy killer (!) CARED about the dog and LEARNED that the best way to let evil win is that the good people do nothing. He cared, he suffered, he learned a lesson, he put it into practice.

- he lied about being a warden, well, if you believe that being a warden is all about the Taint.

 

---

 

I have my idea about why Blackwall is so hated while other characters who did the same things, if not much worse, are instead loved.

 

When you first meet Krem he says about The Iron Bull: "He’s professional, we accept contracts with whoever makes the first real offer […] We’re loyal, we’re tough, and we don’t break contracts. Ask around Val Royeaux, we’ve got references."

 

This means that what Blackwall/Rainier did only once in his life, i.e. accepting a hire job to kill an Orlesian Grand-Gamer, was in fact Iron Bull’s daily bread and butter. The Iron Bull and his chargers made a living out of killing shems, as Skinner will later say in Skyhold - and she seems to enjoy it a great deal too. The Iron Bull accepted every contract if the offer was good enough.  Blackwall/Rainier did it only once in his life and has become the monster who kills innocents for money. The Iron Bull did it on a daily basis and he’s ok.

 

Krem: "You’re the first time he’s gone out of his way to pick a side."

This means that The Iron Bull wants to stop being a mere mercenary and wants to fight for the greater good…. BUT, he doesn’t join for free like Blackwall, he wants to be paid good money for it. "How much is this going to cost me exactly?"

 

So...

why is Blackwall getting all the hate?

 

Let's talk about Solas, the old god in disguise who gave the orb to Corypheus nearly causing the destruction of the world. Compared to him Blackwall is uncool, he's just a man, his faults are petty and mundane. Second, his feeling guilty makes him vulnerable to people’s judgement. 

You can do questionable things and then be ‘Yes I did it and I'm proud of it, so what?’ like The Iron Bull, and people will exclaim ‘Aww you’re a such a badass!’ 
Feel guilty, and you’ll find an army of predators ready to feed on your naked heart. 

 

Solas is but the earthly disguise of an old god, his body is about 40something and his soul is not just old, but ancient. Despite all this Blackwall turns out to be the old bastard of the party and the one who lied about his identity. The fact imho is simply that Blackwall turns out to be LESS than expected, he’s not even a warden! —-> UNCOOL

Solas instead turned out to be MORE than expected. Hey my love is a god! —-> COOL!

All the fuss about morality is just hypocrisy: Blackwall’s faults are simply uncool, and furthermore he focuses the player’s attention on them because he’s feeling guilty.

Other character’s faults are even bigger but they have already come to terms with it, like Cullen when he says that he’s not proud of the man he had become. Josephine said that Cullen is like a hammer who sees everything as a nail. His options at the world table often are: a maybe-sympathizer with the venatori? Kill him! Someone has a venatori advisor? Ambush the bastard when he leaves town and slaughter everyone else.

 

But men can change.

Many wardens were criminals and it doesn’t matter what they did when they join the Order. The only difference with Blackwall is that we know all the details of what he did while ‘having been a criminal’ is more vague. If your only idea of justice is an eye for an eye Blackwall must die. If not, he already atoned spending 5 years of his life fighting darkspawn to save many more lives than those he had taken, and then he helps to save the world, well, if you allow him to do it.

Heroes are made, not born, who knows what the 'real' Blackwall did before he became a Grey Warden, perhaps he murdered dozens of people. Does it matter? He became a hero and gained the silver wing of valor for…valor. If he ever met that kind of 'justice' instead of being recruited in the wardens the men he saved would be dead as well and the world would lose a potential hero and all the good he could do.

May I add that Rainier didn’t know Callier was traveling with his family and that Callier’s opponent tricked Rainier into that mess, and that it’s not Rainier the one who killed the children, but his men? They were not an army of brainless zombies, they could have stopped before striking children to death without any order shouted at the last minute. They were as guilty as him, if not worse, imho. It wasn’t Rainier the one who killed them, his men did. Funny, his men, the real murderers of children, have become other poor victims of ‘Rainier the monster’. 

 

Callier for his part was not a poor victim. I think most of Blackwall's story is about his commoner background. He is not noble by birth, he is just a random common soldier that earned a better position and liked money [not so far away than any of us -and Iron Bull- just saying]. He accepted to kill a single man to get more coins, but happened that such man was travelling with his whole family. Obviously, the powerful people that hired him - and knew - did not say a word for helping him. Blackwall is a character about how high classes can mess things up and get better results than those who are from lower classes who have to live the daily ****, inspired by the idealization of the heroes, understanding that they never could be one.

Blackwall has a lot of self-esteem issues based on class, and also a lot of bias and hatred towards powerful people that gives a **** about those who are under them.

 

----

Last but not least, the 'Blackwall is a rapist' issue because of the 'rape by deceit' thing simply makes me laugh, especially if it comes from those who romanced Solas, the dread wolf in disguise.

[Xetykins]

I bet the real Blackwall wherever he is is happy that his name helped a man changed to better himself.

[Bugsie]

I just took a break from the DA universe and saw 'Dr Who symphonic spectacular' hosted by Peter Davidson. Bringing back all those Dr Who Feelz! Really got me thinking about how music is used in science fiction and fantasy for great effect.

I really like some of the music in Dragon Age too (and Mass Effect, the suicide mission score still a highlight of one of my fave gaming moments)

Now it's back to thinking on Inquisition and thinking how I can get Blackwall into some AU fic, but I feel I need some nerd appropriate music to write to now!

@Ryz I knew it!!! LOL

[veeia]

Ryz, same, only the opposite, lmao. If Cullen looked more like Blackwall I'd be more into getting cavities from him, haha.

[Catwall]

 

_{Also I'm a shallow human being and fully admit I be fonder of Blackwall if he looked closer to Cullen.}

 

_{/no remorse}

 

_{Least I'm honest about it.}

But Cullen is such an oatmeal cookie! A drug-addicted, likable oatmeal cookie, but still! ( I was all psyched for Cullen back when he was the ultimate spaghetti dropping nerd in a skirt, but somehow he just didn't click for me in Inquisition.)

 

I'll stick with Blackwall- he's more of a brownie. A brownie of TORMENTED GLANCES and MURDER though, I'll concede.