Manipulation doesn't have to be subtle. It can be as subtle as a sledge hammer. I didn't even say she was doing it deliberately, because people do horrible things all the time without realizing they're doing them. It doesn't have to be planned. It doesn't even have to be deliberately malicious. But people still do them.
Just to make it clear, I don't think Sera's sitting up at her window gleefully steepling her fingers like a Disney villain and pondering all the ways to make the Inquisitor's life hell (because I don't think she's doing that all). I think she, like many people in real life the world over, just doesn't grasp that some of the things she does are as awful as they are, because, again just like many people in real life, every action she takes is perfectly justified and reasonable from her perspective. I think she loves the Inquisitor. I don't think she intends to hurt them, or do things to them that can be construed as abusive. I've already said I think she has her heart in the right place. But just wanting to do good doesn't mean you do, and I don't think that negates the fact she does do things that aren't good to people she cares about. Then she refuses to own up to them. That's an issue.
trying to manipulate you into doing something which they never give you the option of doing
If I understood that right, then yes, actually, you can save the relationship at this point? There is the option. You just have to parrot back the words Sera feeds you and she's fine with the relationship again (which, again, I don't think is intentional. To Sera this is a perfectly rational response because so long as it gets her the end result she wants, exactly the way she wants it, without having to acknowledge that there was a problem at all, then everything's fine and they can be happy again--that isn't evil, it's just immature, like a kid trying to ignore the broken vase on the floor--and getting angry if anyone else points out the broken vase on the floor--because if she doesn't acknowledge it then it doesn't exist and no one has to get upset, and isn't that better for everyone?). She isn't ending it, she's just using the threat of ending it and the Inquisitor losing her good regard as a way to get you to do what she wants (which, again, I don't think is deliberately malicious or poisonous. I think it's Sera trying very hard to "save" the relationship as she prefers it--holding on too tight to the bird because you love it and forgetting in the process that you're crushing it, kind of). If you don't drop your entire stance and agree with her right then and there, no opportunity for discussion, then she ends it. Like I said, I don't mind her ending the relationship over belief differences, I mind the way she gets to that point.
But we've already established we took that scene in wildly different ways. I'm not going to ignore that I saw things that disturbed me, but I know not everyone sees it that way. I can't say I'm more any more correct than they are.
(And, because I think I need to repeat this: I don't hate Sera. I don't think she's secretly the greatest evil in the Thedas, cackling away in her tavern tower. I can acknowledge there are good things about her character. It's just that a lot of what she does skeeves me out in ways that override the good parts for me.)
No, I said nothing of the kind. What I said was it was a scene in which Sera ended the relationship and not a scene in which Sera was trying to manipulate you. I made no judgement about how much I approved of her method. Personally I thought that rather than cold or harsh it was, in all honesty, quite poignant.
All right, I misunderstood. We still disagree.
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