*Almost missed this post...
Face it, buddy. We're ALL biased. We can only see the world only from our own perspectives and thus can only be subjective. You're no different. You're just as biased and subjective as you accuse others of being, you've just deluded yourself into thinking you're Right.
Your view and your character's view of Duncan and the Grey Wardens is just as biased as Alistair's because you're coming from different life experiences and perspectives, yet you think yourself less biased, less subjective, and more clear-thinking just because your life experiences that formed your opinions are somehow Right and Normal while his are not?
"Bias" and "subjectivity" are two different things. Not all subjective opinion = bias.
I have my own subjective opinion about the Wardens, sure. I do not have any biases against them. I mean, I may have RP'd my character to feel bitter about going, but I don't truly empathize with him from where I'm sitting. It's just more fun for me if my PC is railroaded into fighting the bad guys. I do, OTOH, have some biases in favor of them: I am required to play as one in DA:O, and it's human nature to place greater value on things which are "yours," but I'd say this one is rather negligible and I'm pretty neutral on them for the most part.
So YES, on the topic of the Grey Wardens, I'm definitely more unbiased than Alistair. I'd be hard pressed to think of anyone more biased.
How narcissistic of you to see nothing wrong with belittling the experiences of others because it doesn't line up with Your experiences and worldviews. Because, of course, you are Right, you see things Clearly, and you Get It. Everyone else? Oh, they're just biased and not thinking clearly. If only they experienced what You experienced in life, saw what You saw, and think how You think. Then they would have the One Corrrect Way of seeing and perceiving because they saw it Your Way... wait, what?
Maybe Alistair sees nothing wrong with comparing the two because that's actually the way he feels.
Let's be clear: I have no problem with Alistair mourning the loss of those who were close to him. I just feel like he needs to come down to Earth about the Grey Wardens. They're an organization, committed to one goal and welcomes anyone that can help them achieve it. So Alistair seeing them as "family" is a problem, evidenced by the fact that he'll renege his duty if you conscript any perfectly good combatant that he doesn't happen to want "as a brother" [sic].
If he learns to stand up for himself, though, and not trust others to do so on his behalf (as no one but a parent would), it will save his life in this scenario (where were Alistair's friends, then? Not like any party member fought for him).
Why? People are emotionally, psychologically, and socially capable of forming close familial bonds with others not related by blood. "Sometimes family is who you love and who's there for you, not just who you're related to," and all that fluffy stuff. That's why adoption and fostering exists.
Pft! That you think that just goes to show how out-of-touch you are with reality and the things countless people experience every day.
So, according to you, people are emotionally and psychologically incapable of forming familial attachments unless they're biologically create someone or are created by someone, and are therefor required to trigger emotional attachments in the brain--unless there's something seriously wrong with them to form attachments with someone not they did not create or were not created by. Friendships, adoptions, surrogate families, etc? There's no real love or attachment between anyone unless one sprang from loins of another. Unless someone carries your genetic makeup, you are emotionally and psychologically incapable of forming any bonds--and those that think they do are just damaged and deluding themselves.
I think you placed WAY too much value on biological parent/children and WAY too little on the bonds, friendships, attachments of... virtually every other kind of human relationship. Take half of the reverence you place on biological parent/children relationships, put it toward those of every other emotional bond ever made by every type of person (grandparent/grandchild, sibling, friends, romantic, surrogate filial, etc) and I think you'll be closer to the spectrum of actual human emotions.
How it is that you can be idealistic and misanthropic at the same time? You say that parents are the only ones that truly give a **** about you "unless they're broken individuals." I can turn that around and say maybe the people who can only give a **** about someone if they're their genetic offspring are the ones who're "broken individuals." I mean, how emotionally bankrupt do you have to be to be incapable of caring about someone unless they carry your genetic makeup, and thus you only REALLY care about them because they're an extension of yourself? (Which, when you think about it, means that, by your definition, parents aren't "the only people in the world that give two shits about you... without some strings attached," because there are strings attached. They want you to live and succeed because you are an extension of themselves, and seeing to it that you thrive means they thrive by extension.)
At any rate, we see biological parent and child relationships that mean squat in the game. We see in the game that Alistair doesn't have a deep personal relationship with his blood family because none of them ever acted like a family. He could have been fathered by a stable hand for all the shits Maric gave him. His brother could have been Connor instead of Cailan for how much time they spent together. Flemeth was all Morrigan had growing up and it's never made clear whether they're biologically related (though Maric's run-in with Flemeth in one of the books implies it could be the case), regardless, both are willing to use, cast off and kill each other to get what they want. Biological or not, they have all the love of cannibalistic spiders being willing to eat their own.
-- Your friends have to like you, and you need to be a friend to them in return.
-- Your lover needs to be attracted to you, and you need to reciprocate those feelings.
-- Your bosses (what Duncan is to Alistair) need to get some production out of you, and you get things from them in return.
You can lack all those things to your parents (liking, beauty, work)... and they'll still love you!!
I did think of adoptive parents myself when I was writing that post. Here's the thing, though: they see their adopted as "their" children, even if they are biologically not. What sets them apart from all the other children in the world other than that? Nothing. It's because you're their child that they love you (though if they also have biological children, and all things are equal, I can tell you right now who they love more), which is kind of my point.
Is Duncan equivalent to an adoptive parent to Alistair? It's possible. However, I highly doubt it (as I explain at the bottom). And on the topic of fluff, here's one for you: "Blood is thicker than water" (though admittedly, I don't care much for adages -- they're not always accurate).
Lastly, Flemeth is anything but the norm when it comes to parents, or humans in general. She's an abomination at best, something even more frightening at worst. As for Maric, I think giving away his child was more difficult for him than one may think, and it may have truly been the best for Alistair. Isolde disdained him for the mere thought he may have been Eamon's bastard, how do you think Rowan would have handled it?
And you think Alistair is the one that has something wrong with him because he doesn't form emotional attachments exclusively with his biological parents (at the exclusion of all other people) even though his life experiences taught him that (contrary to Your life experiences) parents are NOT "the only ones that give two shits about you" because his only known biological parent never gave two shits about him?
No, I get him forming an attachment to someone, I just think he's naiive and lacking a sense of scale. Here's what it comes down to, for me: if Alistair couldn't be conscripted, would Duncan still care so much? I rather doubt Al would have ever seen him again, in that event.
Truth hurts, sometimes, but it's better to live with your eyes open.
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