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[Eyes_Only]

So a little back story first.

 

In DAO my hero of Ferelden was from the noble family, the Couslands. While reluctant in his role as warden but driven by a desire for revenge and duty he rose to the occasion. Thanks to him the elves, mages and dwarves rallied together and ended the 5th blight. Alistair during the whole event did not want to lead and seemed content to let my Sir Philip Cousland do all the "talking" and all the hard work. He even strongly and verbally disagreed that he should be king. Despite the fact that he was the only one left of royal blood. Seeing this my noble Sir Philip Cousland rose to the occasion once more, this time settling the lands meet and supporting Anora as queen. But ONLY if he was made king so that nobility remained in the royal bloodline. Queen Anora agreed and with the blight ended, they married. Of course unknown to the queen, Sir Philip Cousland had his lover/mistress Morrigan who was now with child.

 

Alistair simply vanished, perhaps getting drunk somewhere. Who knows. He had sworn before the landsmeet never to try and take the throne.

 

Some time passed and eventually my HoF Sir Philip Cousland found himself at Vigil's Keep where he performed his duties as Grey Warden Commander, a role Alistair should have taken and left the king Sir Philip to attend to courtly matters. However... Sir Philip's heart grew heavy as his thoughts dwelled on the absent Morrigan and the child he never saw. Then one day, he simply vanished. An elf woman said she helped him find a witch matching Morrigan's description and that he had gone through a mirror with her.

 

Meanwhile over in Kirkwall, my lady Kaileena Hawke was stirring up quite the mage rebellion. Openly supporting mage freedom and was known by her friends as a practitioner of the forbidden Blood Magic. Despite the fact Blood Magic was involved in the death of her own mother, Hawke saw many benefits of using it. The battlefield was hers to control. But then perhaps fearing for her life after the events at Kirkwall with the chantry and the Knight Commander, Kaileena Hawke vanished as well.

 

Now here before my inquisitor, Lady Kaileena Hawke talks with anger towards blood mages, despite the fact she is a powerful one. She talks about how blood magic is evil and blah blah blah... Totally unlike her character in DA2 who was a sarcastic in your face type blood mage who went nose to nose with the Knight Commander at the beginning of act 3 and dared her to try and arrest her. "I'm not afraid of you or your Templars." She even turned her back on her brother, feeling betrayed when he joined the Templars. Beliefs before family...

 

And then there is Alistair. 10 years just about killed his odd sense of humor and his memory it seems. he talks of Sir Philip as if the man betrayed him. How Sir Philip walks a dark path. How he seeks power and took the throne out from under Alistair's nose and married Anora. How together they banished Alistair from Ferelden. Talking with him now and you'd think my HoF was as much a traitor to Alistair as Loghain was to the previous king.

 

wtf is this crap? DAI has smeared the memory of my HoF and turned my badass DA2 Hawke into a two faced lying mage. What gives?

 

I should be able to put something in the Keep that says my mage not only was a mage but was a blood mage. That she openly and supported blood magic. Why does Alistair make my HoF out to be a traitor to their friendship?

 

I know its to late to write in better scenes but come on bioware. I know you can do better then this.

[WhoopinYourA55Mate]

Wait and you are not worst traitor then Loghain by stealing his throne and siding with some random woman you just met over one guy that you traveled with? If Alistair backstabed you just to gain throne with some random woman over you I bet my a55 you would want to kill him for it! And you wonder why he hates you!?

[Shimmer_Gloom]

Alistair makes sense. He is a new man. He's changed In the ten years (as has Lelianna as has Morrigan as has all the DAO characters by DAI). We often change our understanding of the past based on who we are today. That's good writing.

Hawke is different. Hawke's General feeling of distrust of blood magic is due to the massive FUBAR situation of Kirwall's mage/demon problem. Which makes sense for 90% of the Hawke's people played. If you play a mage Hawke not many of us played him being down with blood magic. And there isn't a flag in the keep to tell them there is.

But think about EVERY OTHER Hawke possibility out there. Blood magic killed her mom. Blood magic (Tehrane's) planted the seed of mistrust in Meredith. Blood magic created Kirkwall's thin veil. Hawke is uniquely qualified to see the horrors of blood magic gone awry.

Blame that I the keep not having (Hawke is cool with blood magic) flags. Not the writers. From a writing standpoint it's solid.

[Masque]

I gotta admit, Sir Phillip sounds like a jerk. 

 

I'd be a bit bitter too, if I were Alistair. 

[Eyes_Only]

I guess from my point of view from my experience with my HoF and Hawke, they seem very out of character.

 

First off Alistair wanted nothing to do with leadership. Even though he was the senor grey warden. The ONLY one in Ferelden at the time. Sir Philip was not the senor warden. Heck he hadn't even had arch demon dreams yet or could detect darkspawn. Alistair could yet he refused to make a decision of any kind. Seems like poor qualities to find in a prince who would be king. And when Alistair outright told his uncle "Anora can have the throne" Sir Philip saw again Alistair's lack of leadership, noting that blood does not make one a king. But like the Arl said, noble blood needed to remain on the throne and Anora was the daughter of a farmer who was raised to the ranks of general. Heck Sir Philip even let Alistair kill Loghain. Alistair even know Sir Philip had decided to support Anora as queen and he was fine with it. Well ten years ago he was.

 

Perhaps he was a jerk when he decided Anora was more then fulfilling her role as queen when he slipped away to find his true love and his child. I can't fault him for that. He is a warden with a short life span compared to most. Family is more important.

 

But on the subject of blood magic. It should have been included in DAI. heck I believe the writers could have done better to acknowledge the fact you used it in both DAO and DA2. The death of Hawke's mother hurt her deeply but she never blamed blood magic for it. No more then she blamed manure for being the catalyst to Ander's bomb formula. Fire was just as deadly as blood magic. And being the hot headed sarcastic Hawke that she was, any edge over the enemy seemed fair enough to her.

 

But I guess I am only 10% of the players out there that followed more "forbidden" paths. I'm probably the minority of players who played a shape shifting blood mage in DAO.

[Dr. rotinaj]

Blood magic should never have been included as a specialization because a disproportionate amount of effort must be spent on fitting it into the story. IIRC, the writers mentioned that a lot of the game was written before the specs were implemented so there couldn't be much reactivity for blood magic. In terms of gameplay and story segregation, the specs fell completely into the gameplay category so its the equivalent of a set of armour or a weapon (i.e no narrative value) even though blood magic absolutely should be important outside of gameplay.

 

So yeah, Hawke was never a blood mage. Being disappointed about that is like being disappointed that Hawke is using that dinky staff of parthalan instead of the staff of violation you get from Orsino. Not exactly what I'd call ideal, but making blood magic a spec in the first place was a mistake.

 

As for Alistair, he's been a Warden for over 10 years. They don't really have an easy and fun job.

[thats1evildude]

So you're confused why Alistair is bitter after you spared his greatest enemy and exiled him from Ferelden? I'd be more confused if he WASN'T bitter.

 

Isn't it plausible that Hawke walked away from blood magic after the end of DA2? Maybe Orsino's transformation was the final wake-up call that maybe this "practicing dark magic" thing wasn't such a great idea.

 

Blood magic should never have been included as a specialization because a disproportionate amount of effort must be spent on fitting it into the story.

 

And you just hit the nail on the head as to why blood magic isn't a specialization this time around.

[Todrazok]

It doesn't surprise me at all that Hawke would hypothically stop using blood magic and dislike it after all the **** that went down in Kirkwall.

[Masque]

It's all just a matter of perspective really.

 

Through your eyes Sir Phillip taking the throne was admirable; he stepped up to the plate when an unhardened Alistair didn't want to. But from Alistair's point of view it was treachery. The two of you had struggled through many trials to unite Ferelden against the Blight - as Wardens that was pretty much the sole purpose of the entire game, as Alistair's royal birthright wasn't known until Redcliffe. He probably perceived Sir Phillip's throne grab as just a power play and a betrayal of everything the two of you had endured to end the Blight. 

 

Alistair is completely loyal to the ideology behind the Wardens - it meant giving up everything, including titles, to serve and protect the people of Thedas against the darkspawn. He was completely willing to forgo becoming King because that's what Wardens do; they sacrifice their own ambitions for the greater good. That is why it takes hardening him through his personal quest to get him to accept that ascending to the throne was a way for him to still serve and protect Ferelden, possibly at an even greater capacity than a Warden could and that it wasn't a betrayal of the Warden code to want to do so. Add into all of that the fact that Sir Phillip becoming King was completely unnecessary. He wasn't first choice (Alistair was) and despite Anora's somewhat shaky claim to the throne, she was capable of being Ferelden's sole ruler. 

 

So yeah, knowing Alistair the way I think I do, I can see why he would be upset. I doubt Sir Phillip's decision to have a mistress on the side hurt him nearly as much as Phillip's seemingly treacherous throne grab. (Although that was probably adding insult to injury in his mind.)

 

That all being said, it's things like this that makes gaming so great. You can agonize over a choice, weigh the consequences of your actions, finally decide that this one is the best and surprise.. it really isn't. Or at least Alistair doesn't think so. 

 

[Orian Tabris]

With my blood mage Hawke, I justified it by lying about her beliefs about blood magic, or else has no faith in other blood mages.

 

Any time Hawke might have mentioned being a blood mage but didn't, was just Varric hiding it from Cassandra. When I romanced Fenris and mentioned being a mage, it was either Varric altering the truth, or her trying to win Fenris' favour by referring to herself as an apostate, rather than a maleficar. She was your stereotypical evil blood mage, who wasn't above lying, so it made sense for me.

 

As for Alistair, if he really didn't want to become king, it must be BioWare's failing. Why would he care about the Warden becoming king? It's not like he shows regret over his choice to not. If he's unhardened, I can understand him being adversely affected, but only if he actually wanted the throne. Alistair always either died or became king in my playthroughs, so I'm just guessing.

[Orian Tabris]

Blame that on the keep not having (Hawke is cool with blood magic) flags. Not the writers. From a writing standpoint it's solid.

 

So we should blame those that beta tested the Keep? Assuming they offered that choice, and it wasn't just BioWare not implementing it when given the feedback to, that sounds like a good idea.

[Ieldra]

My Hawke was out of character, too. Not necessarily because of her summary rejection of blood magic - that makes sense after all she's experienced, even though she thought differently back in DA2 - but because *how* she talks about it, in that altogether ideological way "It's never worth it, no good ever comes from it" which I hate so much that none of all the characters I've ever played has ever talked like that if I could avoid it.

 

The thing about evil - and let's restrict blood magic to the "human sacrifice" type for the sake of debate - is that it actually *does* give results. Else people would never do anything evil, there is no other justification for an even remotely rational person to do anything evil than "it works". The idea that evil never pays is a conceit of mainstream storytelling, and it's completely false. A delusion. Even in this specific case, it's easy to imagine that the Wardens' new plan could've worked. 

 

So yeah, my Hawke was drastically out of character for embracing ideas I think are stupid, false and delusional. Bioware could've been a little more intelligent about this, but they chose not to. I hate that.

[thats1evildude]

The thing about evil - and let's restrict blood magic to the "human sacrifice" type for the sake of debate - is that it actually *does* give results.

 

Debatable. While it is definitely a shortcut to power, when has any use of blood magic in the setting actually worked out for the betterment of the user?

[Robert Trevelyan]

Your HoF sounds like a proper Jerk. I'm with Alistair on this one.

[Orian Tabris]

Debatable. While it is definitely a shortcut to power, when has any use of blood magic in the setting actually worked out for the betterment of the user?

 

Define "betterment" in relation to one person, as opposed to "mankind." Because blood magic has helped Hawke and the Warden, so far as combat is concerned. Even if there was never any need to use Blood Mage over another specialisation, it has helped many players win battles.

[KaiserShep]

My Hawke was out of character, too. Not necessarily because of her summary rejection of blood magic - that makes sense after all she's experienced, even though she thought differently back in DA2 - but because *how* she talks about it, in that altogether ideological way "It's never worth it, no good ever comes from it" which I hate so much that none of all the characters I've ever played has ever talked like that if I could avoid it.

 

The thing about evil - and let's restrict blood magic to the "human sacrifice" type for the sake of debate - is that it actually *does* give results. Else people would never do anything evil, there is no other justification for an even remotely rational person to do anything evil than "it works". The idea that evil never pays is a conceit of mainstream storytelling, and it's completely false. A delusion. Even in this specific case, it's easy to imagine that the Wardens' new plan could've worked. 

 

So yeah, my Hawke was drastically out of character for embracing ideas I think are stupid, false and delusional. Bioware could've been a little more intelligent about this, but they chose not to. I hate that.

I wish that sarcastic Hawke made more jokes about blood magic than getting all dour and serious about it. Like, what happened to Hawke's wish to meet spit mages?

[Orian Tabris]

I wish that sarcastic Hawke made more jokes about blood magic than getting all dour and serious about it. Like, what happened to Hawke's wish to meet spit mages?

 

That is a good question. My aggressive Hawke always seemed to say the exact same things as my sarcastic Hawke did. IIRC, the Keep does acknowledge your Hawke's primary personality trait.

[RawToast]

Your warden sounds like an ass but i did feel Alistair was a lot more bitter about my warden then i expected. I played a pretty good natured character and i felt they left on good terms. But apparently he feels differently. Then again i did make him go through with the dark ritual. 

 

Hawke i felt was oofc too. She was cautious of blood magic but never outright condemned it. Though it's not a major gripe with me. I can work around it.

[Jerkules17]

This is something I always wonder  , what happens if you exile Alistair aka drunk Alistair in DA:2,and play DA:I?

[Wulfram]

That is a good question. My aggressive Hawke always seemed to say the exact same things as my sarcastic Hawke did. IIRC, the Keep does acknowledge your Hawke's primary personality trait.

I'm pretty sure there are minor differences in dialogue based on personality. But they are minor.

[Ieldra]

Debatable. While it is definitely a shortcut to power, when has any use of blood magic in the setting actually worked out for the betterment of the user?

The betterment of the user is not what I'm going for when I use blood magic. I aim to solve a problem, and if a problem can conceivably be solved by the functions blood magic provides, it is implausible for a story to exclusively show bad outcomes.

 

Consequently, you should ask why the stories are always contrived to have bad outcomes for users of blood magic driven by human sacrifice? It's the ideology - the stupid, delusional, false idea that evil doesn't pay - that drives the storytelling. Tevinter works as a society, even if it's not a pleasant one, but as soon as characters come on-screen, the tables are turned.

 

I should mention that personally, I dislike playing tyrants and jerks. But even playing good characters loses all meaning if what they avoid would never work in the first place.

[zahra]

I agree with most, Sir Phillip sounds like a bit of a jerk.

 

But I also agree that Hawke didn't sound right. Alistair on the other hand: Its been 10 years, he has seen a lot of ****. He still cracks jokes however, I believed this was the Alistair we went adventuring with.

[turuzzusapatuttu]

tl;dr

[CloudJ]

I think what Alistair meant by "walks a dark path" refers to the fact that you performed the dark ritual with Morrigan. At least, that's what i took from it.

[berelinde]

This is something I always wonder  , what happens if you exile Alistair aka drunk Alistair in DA:2,and play DA:I?

No one mentions Alistair again. Anora is queen and Loghain shows up on the ramparts.

 

With regards to the OP's complaint, I thought Alistair was fine as a Warden. Ten years of exile would make him bitter, and I appreciated that his customary sarcasm had turned dark.

 

Hawk... dunno. My diplo Hawke sounded great. Everything he said was perfectly in character, IMO. He was diplomatic, mostly, but an earnest supporter of mage rights. My aggressive Hawke... no so much. And while he was a warrior himself, he supported mage rights and was Merrill's lover. He had no qualms with magic, not even blood magic.

 

But we can't have everything. They did warn us that if our characters came back, we might not like what they did with them.