The main purpose of DA2 for me was following Hawke´s exploits, which were sumed up in the phrase "rise to power". I played my hawke as a loghain-like character who thought only she knew what was the best for the city, and wanted to become viscountess. So naturally she sides with Meredith and in the end is elected.
She also romanced Sebastian and persuaded him to retake Starkhaven.They shared common goals and opinions ( on mage-templar issues, on the chantry, etc.). The union was hinted at in the romance, and would allow Hawke to rule Starkhaven + Kirkwall with him.
Flash forward to DAI, Hawle has now left her position as viscount to pursue Corypheus, i am fine with that. This is what the codex says about viscount hawke:
While our legitimate viscount has indeed vacated her office (temporarily, I am promised), much of her short reign was spent girding our wounded home. No doubt your leaders heard this is where the ripples of rebellion began. That is true, but it is also where that rebellion was first opposed. As those ripples travel outward, our viscount and Champion contends that the center has earned some calm.
So we can extract from the codex that Hawke promised Bran (the seneschal) that she would be back to reassume her position. This fit quite well with my custom hawke´s motivations: after dealing with Corypheus she would go back to rule Kirkwall an unite with Sebastian.
Flash forward to the Tresspasser dlc (SPOILERS)
And Varric has been elected by Kirkwall´s noblemen as viscount. He justifies that it is because
1) He contributed to the reparations of the city: i understand this point, sure he spent a lot of his money in getting things back up and running. However other people were also helping the city out, most notably Aveline, if not investing money then maintaining order and security. I don´t see why a dwarf would be elected viscount of a human city juts because he invest money on it, there are better candidates, other noblemen who were likely also interested in seeing the city restored. Unless nobody told me that Varric is now Kirkwall´s top millionarie - Hawke also went to the deep roads expedition, so it´s not like she doesn´t have money or interest in investing in her home city.
2) Nobody wanted it, as noblemen think it is cursed: this makes no sense to me if your previous viscount is the champion who defeated the qunari. It makes some sense if the last viscount was the templar´s puppet Dumar, who was beheaded by the Arishok.
So Varric becomes the viscount even if he never liked politics (just talk to the guy in DA2, specially rivalry side), and Hawke is relegated to helping him rule Kirkwall in the dlc epilogue.
Sorry, but that makes no sense. Maybe for some Hawkes it does, but certainly not for mine. Specially when i built her around the concept of "rise to power": she started as a refugee, then noblewoman, then champion, then viscountess. It felt like a natural progression, considering that Hawke is not special (no dragon-blood or magic thingies), so having her rule one city state or co-ruling two with sebastian, made sense for me to be her accomplishment.
Bioware just decided to radically alter my Hawke´s personality by allowing her to: give up the position she promised Bran to keep, and then allow Varric to take over instead. If at least Hawke had went with Sebastian to rule Starkhaven, and had left Varric in Kirkwall - then it would be passable, still annoying but fine, force the dwarf there if you really want to.
Just don´t go and make my PC who was power-hungry and had a rivalry with varric, to give up her position and serve king varric instead as her courtier. It is just stupid. I´m disappointed to say that decisions in DA games are showing to matter next to nothing, they don´t carry over because all save states are equalized, like the OGB becoming a normal one.
What do you think about Varric taking over Kirkwall? Did that conflict with any of your characters?
I apologise for the wall of text, i needed to get this off my chest. Rant over.
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