16179 réponses à ce sujet

[Jedimaster88]

I wanted to have some dialogue options about the warden at the well of sorrows. Something like "What about Kieran? What about your beloved? Are you going to throw all that away because of this? You have a family that loves you, dont waste it!!!"

 

I hope that after the end, Morrigan doesnt get any ideas and will return to the warden as she said she would. I want my warden to be reunited with his family and then they can plan their next move together.

[Lord_Anthonior]

 

[Andrew Lucas]

I wanted to have some dialogue options about the warden at the well of sorrows. Something like "What about Kieran? What about your beloved? Are you going to throw all that away because of this? You have a family that loves you, dont waste it!!!"
 
I hope that after the end, Morrigan doesnt get any ideas and will return to the warden as she said she would. I want my warden to be reunited with his family and then they can plan their next move together.

I really want to see a scene of them reuniting after the Calling thing is resolved, they don't even need to talk, a simple hug would be perfect, and seeing The Warden interacting with his son would be the best thing ever :')

 

Years pass and Morrigan looks even more beautiful.

[Brockololly]

I wanted to have some dialogue options about the warden at the well of sorrows. Something like "What about Kieran? What about your beloved? Are you going to throw all that away because of this? You have a family that loves you, dont waste it!!!"

 

I hope that after the end, Morrigan doesnt get any ideas and will return to the warden as she said she would. I want my warden to be reunited with his family and then they can plan their next move together.

 

Yeah, kind of wanted some acknowledgment of the Warden again when Morrigan was getting ready to leave in Skyhold. There is some dialogue option in the Temple of Mythal where you can ask about why she'd be willing to deal with the Well having Kieran and she gives some sort of vague "Oh, he'll be all right" sort of statement. I'll have to find that dialogue.

 

 

Anyway, I was looking around the DA:I files in the mod tools and found the character description for Morrigan. Its nothing we don't know already but kind of interesting to see what her official description is in DA:I

 

<CharacterName>Morrigan</CharacterName>
                            <Gender>Female</Gender>
                            <CharacterDescription>This is the character from Dragon Age Origins-- a "Witch of the Wilds" who has lived apart from the rest of society in the marshes of the Korcari Wilds for most of her life. She is abrasive, mysterious, and very much has her own agenda... which is to preserve the ancient magic that the stupidity of mankind has been destroying for centuries. She is contemptuous of the Chantry and pays little heed to fools. Most recently she has become a Rasputin-like figure within the Orlesian court, dazzling the Empress with her knowledge of ancient lore until the Empress appointed her a close advisor. Nobody trusts her, but she doesn't care. She is in the court for her own reasons, and sees little reason to explain those reasons to anyone.</CharacterDescription>
                            <SpeechPattern>Sarcastic, sometimes abrasive. Her voice should be educated but not prissy-- she speaks in a straightforward manner, with an archaic lilt that marks her as "foreign" to most speakers.</SpeechPattern>
                            <Accent>British</Accent>
                            <Race>Human</Race>
                            <Appearance> Dresses in an exotic manner-- even in the Orlesian court, she'll wear a gown but it will be black and very different from everyone else's dresses. She enjoys standing out and even shocking people. Little attention to modesty, and she rather enjoys the effect that dressing provocatively will have on others.</Appearance>
                            <CharacterArchetype>Secretive Witch </CharacterArchetype>

 

Kind of disappointed in her Orlesian dress actually now that I think of it. The actual dress was pretty much the same as so many of the other Orlesian ones, minus her jewelry and the feathers. Or at least it wasn't quite as "exotic" as I might have figured, nor was it more like the red and gold trimmed dress Leliana teased Morrigan about in Origins.

 

 

 

[Terra_Ex]

Ok Brock (and fellow Morri fans), let's do this once more... I have endeavored to keep this short, but failed miserably so apologies for that. Thankfully these new collapsible spoiler regions allow me to disguise the true size of this post. So let's start with a familiar face.

Hello again to any Morri thread old-timers, it's been a while since I last posted here- years in fact, and no this isn't a massive rant, lol. In this post, I'm going to set out my initial thoughts on just about everything Morrigan related I saw in the game, I'll also address Brock & Ash Wind's points and we'll see where this goes. I'm doing this as it's fitting to follow through on it after the lengthy discourse and rants we had in this thread over the years and just as it's necessary to call Bioware out on some of their antics, I also think it's worthwhile to go through, highlight and applaud their successes, in this case how they handled Morrigan. There's also been a disturbing lack of Morrigan-based discussion in general post-DAI from what I've seen, so I'll do my bit to remedy that. We need a new subtitle for the thread as well, come to think of it.

 

My original line of thinking with regards to Morrigan's future differs a little from what Brock outlined in the other Morrigan thread though I feel his interpretation is possibly the more likely scenario to happen since the writers love dragging old characters back into the story. However, due to large body of evidence - Gaider's interviews indicating a need to "reboot" DA after a while, the intent to take Morrigan to a more human place, DAI as Morrigan's "moment" and the apparent desire to shift the focus to northern Thedas moving forward, I thought it would be worth writing up my initial thoughts as to why I *think* Bioware may have intentionally wrapped up both Morrigan's story and the remaining Origins questions that we had pre-DAI (though perhaps not entirely). I'll note this line of thinking was from before the dev notes were discovered (well, before I got around to reading them anyway) but I've mixed in some stuff covering them too.

I could be off the mark (and recent PMs with Brock have shifted my interpretation of some things a bit, or at least prompted me to explore some alternatives) but I got a distinct impression that a lot of DAI was about closing off those Origins and DA2 plot points before shifting the focus to somewhere else and cutting off problematic elements like Morrigan's possible statuses, which will probably help them move forward with a clean slate. Not to mention having all the old DAO characters show up in northern Thedas will further reinforce the problems with small world syndrome we're already seeing. Which way they intend to go with Morrigan, I'm not sure as in-game events point in one direction imo while these developer notes may seemingly point in another.

That said, I'll also give my thoughts on the possible Mythal/Inheritor side of things as well, but that will come later in the post. So in the spirit of the good old days in the Morri thread- my thoughts and ruminations on Morrigan in DAI, much lengthier than I originally intended... Many spoilers and references to all DA games will follow so, you've been warned. I've helpfully scattered some Morrigan pictures throughout to keep things interesting.

On Morrigan meeting Alistair again, if she's been living with HoF

Spoiler

This was a pretty cool exchange and I liked the Origins callbacks - after meeting HoF's son, Alistair accuses Morrigan of running away from HoF (again) which probably stings considering that's what she did in Origins and she corrects him with an appropriately direct response. I only saw this scene on youtube as I don't have the time to repeatedly play the same game anymore just to see slight variations (my Alistair is king) but I did like this exchange and its many variations, despite being short it does show how both characters have grown.

 

Sorrow and regret

Spoiler

Tying into the above, I loved how this was mentioned, basically in a variation on the Alistair scene above, Morrigan says that she returned to Ferelden to look for her child's father if the HoF chose not to go with her through the Eluvian in Witch Hunt. This harked back to the sorrow and regret slide from DA:O for me; where we saw or rather felt via Morrigan's ring, a Morrigan who was deeply regretful of her choices, only this time it is brought about if you chose not to join her in mirror world. Really nice touch that Morrigan returned to look for the warden, but at that time it was too late for both of them - helps hammer home the point that they both only really had one shot at being together and it's a fitting punishment for wardens who didn't trust her I suppose, though sad that it ended that way. Although it's not something that we see on screen, it adds to the believability of the whole thing and helps it feel less one-sided in that it isn't always the player character doing the chasing, hearing Morrigan ultimately did a 180 on her beliefs after WH was gratifying (and ties into the growth we see in DAI), even if the outcome in this scenario is melancholy.

 

On the OGB

Spoiler

That GW emblem... Morri is secretly a GW fangirl

 

Oh yes, the OGB, I haven't forgotten about this one and apparently neither had Bioware. So I'm gonna come at this from another perspective rather than the obvious one. On the face of it, there's a lot of talk on how Bioware nixed the OGB by having Flemeth take the soul away from Kieran (and by extension Morrigan). Further to my points earlier about the more human side to Morrigan that Gaider wanted to explore, perhaps since BioWare decided it would be difficult to create divergent story content based on the OGB, they brought OGB itself into the humanising of Morrigan. To explain, think about how a Morrigan who had an OGB would have raised them (assuming her plan had gone as expected and her child had JUST the OGB soul, which was likely the original intent of the plot), would the OGB act like a normal child or anything like Kieran, could it instead of lead her down another path to power? Had they gone down that route, they'd have needed a divergent path, which I suppose is what a lot of us wanted a few years back.

I think in handing you a more nuanced OGB outcome, it kind of plays to a recurring theme with Morrigan - ie: Morrigan did get the OGB soul, but she also got the regular soul of Kieran as well, basically her plan didn't play out as expected.

 

You see these same, unexpected outcomes follow Morrigan around through the games - if you sleep with her but deny her the OGB, she ends up pregnant with regular Kieran at the end of DAO, playing off the irony of the whole thing. With Flemeth, she thinks one thing, but it's actually something else. With the warden, she didn't think she'd grow close to him, but did and despite her struggles with her emotions, she seemingly settles on accepting it (provided the romance path is pursued). And of course, with WH, she again denies wanting the HoF to go with her yet if the player accedes to this demand, she ultimately has a turnabout on that as well, regretting that they didn't accompany her. Likewise from DAO>DAI, I think we see the transition from a Morrigan who is obsessed with power (outwardly) to one who can at least accept and express her feelings.

I think by doing this, and showing you this specific aspect of failure or just random chance, it gives Morrigan more room to grow as a character (she has this awesome power, Urthemiel, but she also has a child and her priorities have shifted). The major payoff to the nuanced discrepancy between a regular Kieran and a Kieran with Urthemiel's power comes in the scene with Flemeth where all Morrigan's older pretences of wanting nothing but power have been stripped away and you just have a powerless Morrigan begging for the life of her kid, desperate not to have him taken away from her. So in one fell swoop, they covered both the OGB and regular baby scenarios AND gave Morrigan a really important choice in the form of Flemeth's proposition. Basically when the **** hit the fan, Morrigan always chooses her child over power, so we can say that she would do so again, regardless of whether Kieran is OGB or not. By removing the OGB aspect from the equation I think it speaks more of the development she's undergone than if the OGB soul had remained in Kieran.

Long story short, I think we got the payoff we wanted here, just not in the expected fashion - I think we were originally expecting Morrigan to do something with OGB - whether it be nefarious or otherwise, but I didn't expect this. She says that Kieran had a destiny but doesn't seem too cut up about the fact that the soul of Urthemiel was lost, but is instead gladdened that her child is safe. I think when you consider her choice in this situation and contrast it with how she was traditionally marketed and known/shown - like the old DA:O Morrigan poster, I'm too lazy to take a picture of the one I have but here's one from the internet -

The quote that really sums up Morrigan's attitude at the onset of Origins - Power is all that truly matters, compare and contrast that with her last choice in DAI and I have to say I appreciated what they did with Morrigan in this game. While the warden certainly makes great progress in cracking that harsh shell in DAO (especially in terms of a warden who romanced her can see the person behind the facade, so to speak), we don't really see the true outcome until DAI. I think the only thing that could have elevated it higher would have been some direct involvement from the HoF in that particular scene, but BioWare saw fit to tie that possibility up with a neat little ribbon which I'll address later.

TLDR: Morrigan/OGB resolution = good, about as good as I'd expect considering we have a different PC, though considerable emotional opportunity was lost by not tackling this with some involvement from the warden, especially if Morrigan was romanced. If I'd have been controlling the HoF when a panicked Morrigan was frantically searching for her son in the Fade, then bumping into an old benefactor I'd slain at Morrigan's behest, I'd have been *that* much more invested in that scene. It's a shame that this series will never be able to hit those heights because they so rigidly want to stick with the one PC per game format. Especially when you have series like Suikoden which pretty much did what Dragon Age is trying to do years earlier, and they ramped it up to the max in the third game with 3 different protagonist povs and even a hidden one for the antagonist (who was also a hero from the previous two games). Oh, the things Bioware could do with the series if they'd just explore a multi-protagonist approach... Alas that ship has sailed and is dashed on the rocks.

 

On the Warden's presence/input in this game

Spoiler

So, putting aside the apparently insurmountable task of giving the warden some screen time (hello Hawke - and no this isn't a cue for someone to jump in and tell me it's easier to bring Hawke back due to three smiley face icons), I thought this would be an interesting talking point and amusingly it's also even addressed by Morrigan in-game (as it is with the other LIs). She says that she's glad that her warden isn't in the vicinity while all the stuff with the Grey Wardens is going down as he'd probably be in the middle of it.

Now, on the one hand I think when the Inquisitor knocks down the door to Adamant, having the insanely powerful HoF Warden Commander on the other side waiting to greet (stop/stomp) them would be all kinds of cool but I think the Warden would probably have ended up getting offed in a classic Gaider'd moment had that been the case. So in that sense I am kind of glad he wasn't there, given the plotlines and his own quest, I can buy him not being there on this occasion.

I also can't help but feel the Corypheus taking control of Wardens and generally just being very dangerous for wardens to be around, plus the rumours about Weisshaupt and the warden order at the end was a specifically contrived construct to cover people like myself who really wanted the Warden to be present in the culmination of Morrigan's plotline whilst also trying to astroturf over the old Origins players who really like the wardens as an organisation. Don't get me wrong, I did like the GW plots that were in this game, and Morrigan's perspective on it as a blight survivor and lover of HoF was welcome, but I did kind of get the feeling this was the writers saying to me "look you warden fanboys, you can't have the warden here, and here's why! Ha!" Whether that was intentional or not, I don't know, but I'll give the writers the benefit of the doubt.

The bit at the end with the wardens almost disappearing or something - this seemed somewhat counter-intuitive considering we are supposed to be heading up in that vicinity for the next game and also the HoF is supposed to be finding a cure that will help not only himself, but all wardens would be pretty useless in the bigger picture if they were all gone... I hope this isn't another example of the epilogue slideshow being too far-reaching and having to be reined in and retconned as hearsay later on. And seriously writers, don't kill off the wardens, they're awesome and you don't need to upset the Origins fans again.

Also, the personalised letter from HoF to the Inquisitor if Morrigan was romanced (mine was bugged, naturally) was really nice, fitting to the character and reflecting the respect HoF has for Morrigan. Was touching to see the line about looking after HoF's family in that letter, so good work from Bioware on that front.

 

On romance recognition for Morrigan

Spoiler

Can't really complain with this, we got a lavish banquet laid out for us compared with what I thought we would get. I was particularly pleased with the callbacks to Fiona and Avernus from Morrigan, helped make the whole thing much more fitting and in keeping with HoF's character because my Warden totally kept Avernus around doing his research with a view towards extending his life and ultimately conquering the Calling. I found that very fitting with the Warden's choice to escape death by partaking in the ritual at the end of DAO. Morrigan's descriptions of her time shared with HoF and Kieran were extremely well done while also knowing when to put the brakes on in terms of getting too personal. Though I was slightly less pleased that a big hint that would likely help HoF accomplish his goals, Fiona, was sitting right there in Skyhold while he was off elsewhere...

Of particular note, I loved the inference that despite not having the luxury and opulence afforded to a queen or prince of Ferelden, from the picture Morrigan paints in conversation with her, it seemed that her family was ultimately the happiest and she experienced the most personal growth and payoff of the DAO love interests. Really nice to see that wardens who didn't powergrab by making themselves prince and threw it all away for the witch got the payoff and I must say it was gratifying hearing Morrigan discuss her recent life and express a genuine happiness with how things turned out for her up to that point. What's going on over at Bioware towers Gaider? Times have changed and my expectations were subverted.

Now thankfully I think that Morrigan went into enough detail to justify HoF's absence while convincingly painting the image of a persisting relationship and development of a family (which was unexpected frankly, but very welcome), which continued on in the game world beyond Origins and that's all we were asking for really, for the warden to have a presence in game(as opposed to the "Warden's story is over lolol") because to some players the ongoing events that happen with Morrigan are equally important to their HoF. Our worst fear was either offscreen death or a one line handwave. When you look at the forum and see so many people saying how Morrigan has grown as a character and mother, I think that speaks volumes as to why people like Brock and myself pushed for the Warden to be involved rather than disappear - the implication that they/you've created a actual family unit within the chaos and uncertainty that was the Morrigan romance, that elevates the whole thing and her character even higher in my estimation. The method that Bioware chose wasn't the one I expected but I came away from the game with the feeling that HoF was still very much in the picture as far as Morrigan's life is concerned and that's chiefly because they didn't relegate it to a one line wonder. Whether that feeling will remain if Morrigan starts turning up in future games with further creative excuses as to why HoF is never around remains to be seen though...

Morri's reaction to the prospect of contacting HoF & her reaction/expression to his letter were beautifully done, the warden doesn't even have to be there yet he can still tease her and push her buttons. Her reaction was just so... "Morrigan" and very cute to watch. Seeing the change wrought in her from DAO, where we only got glimpses of her softer side by getting close and seeing that side emerge more publicly while still being true to her character was fulfilling, also a great mirror image with what was happening with Leliana who was sliding backwards for a good portion of the game.

 

And of course, Morrigan's lines regarding Kieran and her discussion of her family life (in her own, unique Morrigan-esque way) really delivered the goods if you romanced her, they could only have topped it if HoF was there. The glimpse inside the Eluvian crossroads was also a plus.

 

The best line from Morrigan

Spoiler

So we often hear that the warden can't appear in-game because [insert reasons here, my warden is teh dedz, etc] but for something that apparently can't be quantified I think this line just might be the best in the game. It truly does sum up the dynamic and wordplay games we saw in DA:O and was brilliant continuation of how she might speak about a romanced warden who has outplayed her:
"He will think this means I miss him of course. *sigh* He will be insufferably pleased with himself."
Yes, Morrigan, yes he will. It's pure gold and Claudia's delivery of the line and the inflection used was just perfect- took me right back to those chats with her in the Origins camp (which I now miss). Dammit Gaider, you can't put lines like this in and not expect me to wish for HoF to just walk into a future scene to frustrate and fluster Morrigan again through dialogue.

 

On optional character development over a multi-game series

Spoiler

So this is going to come back to some of the points me and Brock were making years ago. What I always wanted out of DA, was to see things like an optional choice/romance/friendship of a character that was clearly important to the larger universe of that game see some divergent content, branching and development over multiple games, that's kind of the ultimate in reactivity in my book and obviously very tricky to get right. I first saw hints of this possibility in the BG1>BG2>ToB continuity and recognised that it could be something really special if/when done right. Problem is for these AAA companies, they're scared of scaring away new customers by continuing with a previous story/character, so when the dream scenario of a BG1>2>ToB style arc of progression was slipping away (when DA2 was unveiled) I think it's fair to a lot of the old Morri thread regulars were disappointed, I was certainly one of them. The amazing potential of that DR choice and the possibility of a romance and major decision bleeding into a overarching, continued plotline looked like it would be squandered...

I think with Morrigan, they have succeeded (with small caveats)- it wasn't in the way I envisioned, certainly, but they were able to develop the character, give a new perspective on her relationship with her son & HoF through conversations with the Inquisitor (yay, no one-line references) and provide a much better sense of closure to the Origins chapter with this game. It has been 5+ years since the DAO ending and the DR, but I think they have *almost* closed off that chapter of DA with a satisfactory conclusion, which as you've probably guessed makes me a very happy man.

I really don't think I was expecting her to have such a turnabout, obviously those people that romanced her originally saw through the harsh exterior, we even have a nice little callback to the wordplay Morrigan and the Warden often had, which was great.

I know myself I was concerned that we were gonna get some one-line handwave, but no, that fairly candid conversation with her about her life with her family played out fairly well. Hell, I really liked how she introduces HoF through those two conversations - Morrigan drip feeds the inquisitor info on who her lover is in then first conversation and then later in the second casually drops/boasts, "Oh, you might know him as the Hero of Ferelden", he's almost like a trophy husband. It was cool, we saw aspects of her possessive nature from DAO, but now somewhat less constrained by the need to keep up an outwardly hostile appearance. It added a bit of nuance to the Inquisitor/Morrigan conversations because your PC doesn't know exactly who he's messing with and what their connections are. And that's what I wanted from this; a character's goals, thoughts and feelings to change meaningfully in subsequent games, akin to the additional development you saw in ToB and at the time, I couldn't see them doing justice to that without either the warden as PC or least being directly present. Although some opportunities were certainly wasted I'd say overall they did a pretty good job but there is the major caveat that since they seemingly haven't definitively wrapped up Morrigan's arc, we're still kind of stuck in the "well, what's next for Morrigan" headspace that we were in post Witch Hunt. And for those of us that romanced her, that raises concerns over how generous Bioware are feeling with regards to the optional elements as we move to a game developed 5+ years after DAO. As we move further from DAO, I think there's a real concern Bioware will play down those elements in order continue on with a more generic Morrigan. That the default worldstate is no romances, no OGB, no HoF makes me wonder how many of those elements will be diluted/wiped away if Morrigan is brought back again in the future, citing telemetry of a certain percentage of players using a default worldstate as the reason not to create content for these nuanced branches.

Oh yeah, Claudia Black and Kate Mulgrew both did fantastic jobs with their lines, also some really nice cinematic & facial animation work with both in that Fade sequence- Morrigan especially looks very harried and panicked, excellent scene overall.

Seriously, look at this sad Morri expression, just... damn.

 

On returning PCs - the "My Warden/Hawke wouldn't say that" aka the Leliana Bakery saga

Spoiler

So a certain PC returned to this game, not the one I wanted, (it's not even funny at this point Bioware, you couldn't have found a more effective way to troll me), but there you have it. Not much to say really except I actually liked what Bioware did here, I'm reading a lot of "my Hawke wouldn't do that" posts which are veering into Leliana + Warden bakery fantasies again but in my one and only playthrough of DA2, I remember playing as a funny Hawke who used Blood magic. Now regardless of whether he used BM as a gameplay mechanic in the game, the fact that he's changed to be extremely bitter and resentful of BM is completely believable and in keeping with his character based on what happened to him. I saw nothing in my playthrough which I would say was inconsistent, considering he lived in BloodMageCity for 10 years, I saw the humourous Hawke shining through on occasion and I also saw the Hawke that had been deeply hurt/scarred by past events, nothing wrong with how he was portrayed at all, imo.

Now I don't even like Hawke particularly (I did play the DA2 dlcs just before DA3 and I found I'd mellowed to the character somewhat over time) nor his romantic interests but goddammit, that scene with Varric if Hawke was the one to make the sacrifice. Holy **** man, I just couldn't do it, I had to reload and pray that Stroud didn't have a family out there in the world. (But I expect they would survive anyway, truth be told, likely as a vassal of that Nightmare thing though.)

So with that in mind, I got to thinking- what if the warden had been in the game, and what do I think would most likely have happened. Indeed, if the warden did not accompany her into the Eluvian, Morrigan also expects to see/find HoF at Adamant. I'll address this in the Morrigan is the Inheritor section later on.

 

On the wardens

Spoiler

The wardens remain one of my favourite factions in the DA universe and this game has only cemented that feeling, it was very cool to see that plotline play out like it did. Another thing I liked was Fiona's comment about how some of her fellow wardens felt she'd cheated death by escaping from the Calling, this is something that Brock mentioned in the past while discussing future uses of the Warden, and it did make me think it would have been cool for the Hero of Ferelden to be interrogated post-Origins about how he survived slaying the Archdemon, to get some perspectives from other wardens at Weisshaupt and it could also have lead into the Witch Hunt dlc itself if the wardens learned of Morrigan and her ritual (although maybe it was kind of used as the rationale for that dlc, I forget now.). But if DA4 heads where I think it is, I sure as hell better see some more Grey Warden stuff.

 

Witch Hunt gift

Spoiler

So romanced Morrigan at least takes credit for setting the Warden on his current current path to cure the Calling if they are involved. Does she do the same if non-romanced, are we to presume that this was the mystery gift from the end of witch hunt or has that been discarded/forgotten about?

 

Morrigan and Flemeth's Master Plan(s)

Spoiler

So in the Morrigan thread, we've always been quite keen on figuring out what Flemeth and Morrigan's ultimate aims/plans are (when we're not worrying about worst case scenarios and feeling sorry for ourselves of course). To that end and tying it into my new theory about this game possibly being the last big thing I expect Morrigan to do, I wanted to address this. This nebulous, overarching plotline has hung over the series from DA:O and is especially relevant to the dejected warden club, I mean Morrigan romancers/fans. It has frustrated us no end, especially with the whole "warden's story is over, Morri's isn't" saga yet we've never actually been able to nail down a definitive end goal that either witch was working towards up till this point.

I think this "guess what Morrigan's master plan is" ambiguity is further supported by how many plots she has that have gone awry - Killing Flemeth, OGB, Well of Sorrows, all of which haven't gone as planned. For Morrigan, something always goes wrong or gets in the way whenever she pursues these goals. So the conclusion I came to was, what if from the writing perspective, there never was a plan as such, merely the notion that Morrigan/Flemeth "had" a plan but in reality it is just smoke and mirrors to showcase the relationship between them and develop that over time instead. Sure, you have the dev notes discovered regarding Flemeth's plan being to pass along the god essence to Morrigan, but that's something that could have been cooked up to fit just for DA3. Flemeth herself fuelled this idea with her endless cryptic babbling and Morrigan supports it with her repeated plans gone awry (and the fact that's she's seemingly changed gears now)- there's always another "backup" plan to gain power, but that will fail too in some key aspect, etc. Flemeth herself even questions what Morrigan's end goal is with regards to her desire to preserve things and it's apparent that she doesn't really seem to have one.

 

Well of Sorrows & Flemeth encounter

Spoiler

Dammit, Morrigan, what the hell!?

 

Well this is actually the exact type of choice I did not want to make as a different PC, so I was none too pleased with this one, nor the way it was handled and presented, I'll get into the reasons below. For me, the Well of Sorrows would probably be Bioware's major blunder with Morrigan in DAI. These two events (Well of Sorrows & meeting Flemeth) are the low stakes/high stakes issues Morrigan deals with in the game, or rather the Well is perceived as a low stakes risk by Morrigan in a moment of hubris and well frankly, stupidity. Let's take it from the top.

So, coming into the Temple of Mythal, you have a Morrigan who is very driven and she easily gets caught up in the wonderment of the whole venture. Fairly quickly, her initial hypothesis is proven wrong (again, another plan/theory gone wrong) and you can even call her on it and admonish her. Additionally, if you have Solas along with Morrigan you get more perspective on the whole thing but ultimately you encounter Abelas who Morrigan disagrees with as her compulsion to preserve/acquire knowledge takes over. You then hit the Well choice itself and that's where the problems start for me.

To begin, I did find the choice disturbingly similar to the DR in terms of it being a somewhat contrived late game choice - again you have little info to go on and just like last time you have Morrigan going "Oh, me! Me! Pick me!" only this time it's worse because you're potentially inflicting suffering on Morrigan's entire family by extension and she's happy to go along with it... So yeah, this just felt like forced entrapment to me. I'd have hoped that the new Morrigan would be a little more cautious but the situation is framed to throw her under the bus, by and large.

So let's think about what scenarios it would make sense to deny letting Morrigan take the risk herself - you could justify it with a Inquisitor who has heard of the HoF and spoken to the people he helped over the course of the game. You hear stories from Dagna, Morrigan, Leliana directly as well as references from people like Bhelen via war table actions who are all too willing to help out your cause because of HoF's past actions. So in that particular circumstance, especially if the warden has requested that the Inquisitor look after his family, it's plausible that the Inquisitor would take the hit at the well for a fellow hero, or even to avoid incurring his wrath. Perhaps HoF should have written an extra line in his correspondence stating that Morrigan has a tendency to hatch mad schemes that don't end well and that he shouldn't go through with it if anything like that crops up.

It feels that this choice is so loaded that there is little incentive not to throw Morrigan to the wolves in this part unless your inquisitor was "encouraged" to look after them by a supremely powerful HoF or they are an elf or they are power hungry. Funny how a completely unrelated and uninvolved character manages to undo much of what your previous PC worked towards preventing in DAO in one fell swoop because a mystery power is dangled before Morrigan and she just needed the thumbs up to go grab it...

Besides that, if you wanted a method to give Morrigan super dragon powers, why not just use the Urthemiel's spirit to accomplish it...

 

If there was ever a moment to have previous actions influence a character, this was it, rather than relegating it mostly to info dumps. I was expecting something akin to this:
-Romanced Morrigan still with warden & son (OGB or not) - would give advice, flirt with the idea of doing it herself yet ultimately would think better of it and refuse to do it.
-Morrigan who went through Eluvian alone/friendly to Warden, no child - would give advice and offer to do it, might need pushing a bit to take the risk.
-Morrigan who underwent minimal/no personal growth in DAO - would give selective advice and offer to do it without needing prompting.

So here's my take - the Mythal/Flemeth encounter and Well of Sorrows choice was another OGB type scenario but this time one they could enforce, or rather force on the player, by giving the choice and consequence within the same game - ie: the Well tempts Morrigan (and potentially entraps her) and then Flemeth later gives her a choice between power/freedom/family etc later whilst simultaneously underlining Morrigan's folly if she drank from the Well.

 

When you first ask Morrigan if she's willing to use the Well despite the danger that it indirectly poses to her son she's ready to do so, maybe a little hesitance in her voice but she's willing to do it. But then a short time later when the **** hits the fan and Flemeth is about to take Kieran away (high stakes) her son takes precedence which was good to see.

So it's very much when the stakes are low (or at least perceived as low), Morrigan is more prepared to take a risk. When the stakes are high and very real (when Kieran is directly threatened by Flemeth), she opts to protect her family. However, I'm not sure this excuses her earlier stupidity/naivety in the Well. I did kind of like that Morrigan got a bit of a smackdown regardless of how things play out, she had it coming after all the "No, I won't tell you my plan" instances from the last game.

If Morrigan drinks, if spoken to, Leliana comments that Morrigan looks pleased with herself (before the Flemeth event) and that she becomes more like her mother each day. (Can you read more into this maybe, is/was Flemeth bound by geas to Mythal but hasn't disclosed it?)

My thoughts on the matter are that Morrigan's attitude towards the Well choice would have been better decided from the perspective of how you treated Morrigan in the past. So if she was romanced and has Kieran, she's less willing to jump at the Well opportunity than she would be otherwise, maybe even outright refuses to do it when pressed about her son. Just seems to me that in lieu of the warden being there to consult with as her partner, this should have been her choice, but it felt more liked a forced contrivance by the writers to me. However, you could argue that she reaches this desired moral epiphany/revelation immediately after- when Kieran's life is threatened, only then it's too late to remove herself from the threat posed by the geas. It's a look before you leap scenario but I do wish they'd have done it a bit differently or at least had more options/reactivity for Morrigan. I think it's bordering on the shift towards a more generic Morrigan that some of us feared would happen.

When you think of the variations of the scene, Morrigan's well choice is further reinforced as being a writer's contrivance:
-Kieran's father could be dead or missing, which would leave Kieran completely alone in Skyhold and the world. This does not strike me as something motherly Morrigan would want. Her excuse of "oh Kieran will be fine without me" doesn't follow with happens a short time later when he does go missing. Though, there is the low/high stakes caveat to this that allows you to reconcile it logically, however the way the scene and choice were framed was very forced in my opinion.

-And this is to say nothing of the fact that should Morrigan perish, she would also lose the ability to preserve/protect the soul of Urthemiel within her son. So she's going to  risk her own life, her family's and the OGB soul that she went to so much trouble to save and hide from Flemeth on a gamble...

So to take it one step further, you could posit that although Morrigan is deeply appreciative of her good fortune in stumbling into what has been a relatively happy period of her life, she hasn't fully realised just how much her son means to her until the stakes are actually at their highest.

Her pivotal moment with Flemeth shows us that she has come to value the familial bond with her son more than her original plans and desire for power and also more than current plan regarding preservation. The reasons for this are obviously the bond with her son is the parent/child link that she never had as a child (and that's why tying the OGB into an emotional decision for her was a good choice) and her relationship with the HoF is obviously diametrically opposed with how Flemeth wanted her to behave around men. So I guess you could say her realisation of this doesn't fully click into place until that one moment where she stands to lose everything, at which point she will offer to give up her own freedom.

So, while I didn't like the Well choice nor how Morrigan behaves in it, you can still reconcile it as discussed above, however, coming back to mine and Brock's many lamentations over the years, in a future game, if Bioware decides that this level of nuance, influenced by events 3 games earlier isn't important enough to keep following through on, it could definitely be squandered in favour of a more generic Morrigan (which is why I'm kind of hoping they let Morrigan's story end here). So, you can read into that, at least at this time, they feel it was important, which would somewhat support the idea of a lesser role for her moving forwards, so as not to have to deal with yet more branching.

TLDR - Morrigan postures too much and assumes too much knowledge, Solas calls her out on it but she persists and she does ultimately pay the price for it one way (drinks Well & is bound to Mythal) or another (terrified by mommy Flemeth and is left in a self-doubting introspective state). Bioware could/should have done more here to get more reactivity out of Morrigan in the Well choice scene, as is, the greedy, selfish Morrigan from the very start of DAO is forced into the forefront, even though her motivations are veiled.

Then again, I suppose GW Alistair and Hawke also don't come off much better either with their potential fates, only Leliana is truly laughing it up since she's immortal.

 

Morrigan cooks up enough ill-considered schemes as it is without adding mystery voices into the mix, thanks

 

Flemeth was a shitty mother to Morrigan and her frosty personality can be attributed to her mother who seemingly tried to shape Morrigan in her own image, this was hammered home again in DAI which leads me to ask: would Morrigan want Flemeth's god essence, seeing what she could become over time, thinking back to the two Osen, Conobar tales from DAO, I'd like to think Morrigan has now been shown enough times that having the most power does not equal "I win". She even explicitly states in DAI that she doesn't want immortality (and maybe godhood, iirc). So through that ending I think we might have seen some course correction for Morrigan and Flemeth. Flemeth realises Morrigan won't become what she wants her to be and defers her grander wishes/designs to Solas while Morrigan re-evaluates her own plans. I got the sense that Flemeth might have given up on whatever plan she had for Morrigan, I feel there was an air of finality in their final conversation in the fade. Ultimately it could go either way. I can see the Mythal inheritor route playing out but by opting to leave Morrigan where she is now- I don't think they'll find another ending that hits the same high notes with all of the most interesting personal aspects of Morrigan's arc now played out.

Let me also address this here:

 

cool. I have 2 issues.

 

1. what you mention at the end..

 

2. her attitude during the whole well of sorrows business. Its as if, dangle a little power in front of her, and its F Kieran,; F the warden.... there's an ounce of power to be had so **** my family..  I detest her responses during this mission.... Kieran is a special lad, he will thrive with or without me.... That's Bullshit, he's a little boy who needs protecting..... it contradicts BOTH the doting mother she has become AND her preconcieved notion that Survival has value.

 

Hey, little boy, your mother is now stupidly dead and your father is either dead or in parts unknown.... but hey, you're an ophan now, go off and thrive...

 

I loved the Romanced Warden talk, but Morrigan completely betrays this at the well of sorrows.... the one and only way this can be reconciled is if Morrigan knows about the Well of Sorrows, and knows it won't be fatal....  otherwise, she has ABSOLUTELY no Growth, absolutely little change.

I think you've hit upon the problem with Bioware's handling of returning characters here. Morrigan's reactivity of DAO events/choices is primarily reflected during cheap, non-cinematic dialogue in Skyhold. The reasons for this are obvious but it speaks to a larger problem of continuing to bring back old favourites and retaining nuance and divergence. Morrigan desperately needed different attitudes in the Well scene beyond "I want the power... just because" paired with dialogue branches that loop back on themselves. This is reflective of the Morrigan that we saw in DAO, not so much the one we witness in DAI and I imagine it's one of those points of convergence we hate, much like oh I don't know- the Dark Ritual - "You must sleep with me, give me the Old God soul, I'm going to leave, we'll never speak again, bye". Morrigan's desire to throw herself into unknown danger in the scene is so blatantly a writer's trap I think it lets her character down somewhat. With full knowledge of the events you can see someone desperately wanted to push the poetic irony of tying her to Mythal/Flemeth. Now, IF this choice had been Morrigan's and it had been based on how you treated her in DAO, they'd be no problem with the scene.

But given how the Morrigan we're dealing with (assuming most posters here romanced Morrigan and had Kieran) has spent a fair deal of time growing as a person, mother and partner, her eagerness to take this risk belies the strength and wisdom HoF claims she possesses. And that's why the Well of Sorrows was one of the more disappointing aspects of the game for me.

 

Morrigan, after making a smart choice

 

Solas parallel

Spoiler

And now Solas is telling tales of Flemeth...

 

So I'm wondering if Morrigan or Morrigan/Flemeth could possibly have been functionally replaced with Solas. With Flemeth gone/absorbed, you lose another aspect of what made Morrigan's arc compelling - so now OGB, Flemeth are gone, Kieran is a normal child and HoF has stage fright... I'm not seeing much left really beyond forcing a new plot twist on her. Will she fight against Solas in the future, maybe, but the dev notes suggest otherwise.

Anyway, to the point- by comparing and contrasting Morrigan and Solas, we see Solas is never swayed from his path, however Morrigan wavers at the end of DAO (even with the cut content we still see that she's troubled by the whole thing), she changes enough to allow the Warden to accompany her in WH and is ultimately willing to sacrifice herself to save her child in DAI. This flexibility and changing of her character could be what keeps/dissuades her from taking a more active role in the future. When you also consider the manner in which OGB was written out and how it added an extra facet to Morrigan's choice in that scene this idea too gains weight. We know there have been content cuts and changed plans with DA over time, that's the nature of the beast and we also can surmise that the cancelled expansion for DA2 probably had something to do with Morrigan. This mounting evidence is what fuels me to think that Morrigan may have become a difficult character for them to use moving forward, which is why they may have shifted responsibility for that arc to Solas/Dread Wolf. I haven't played his romance, but from what I'm given to understand with how it ends, there are parallels with Morrigan's, I've seen his romancers using the same arguments Morrigan fans used back in the day - that the Inquisitor should be involved in wrapping up Solas content/arc, etc. So I'm wondering if he has been crafted to adopt Morrigan/Flemeth's original role? Considering he's swiped Flemeth's power, likes elven artifacts/gods and seems quite determined to effect some change regarding the elven gods, hell he's practically a more competent version of Morrigan.

This doesn't necessarily mean I think Morrigan has been fully written out, I could still very much see her having a bookend type role in a later game to round off the series inheriting Mythal's power or something (more on that elsewhere) but due to the different Morrigan's that exist, their different states and well, us constantly bitching, maybe aspects of the story that may originally have been intended for her will play out differently and through another?

 

No Morrigan, neither do I. Why do you keep making yourself, and us, so sad?

 

Flemeth possession

Spoiler

I mentioned to Brock in PM about how Flemeth's explanation of this is DAI was potentially a bit of a retcon or at least handwaving - Flemeth explaining that Morrigan was wrong all along seems a bit of weak reason to me (but then again, Morrigan's plans and theories are far from sound). So I'm wondering specifically about the possession aspect - how exactly would it work, the story of Flemeth has been around for a good while, yes? So let's say for the sake of argument that Morrigan agrees to let Flemeth possess her, we know that Flemeth has Mythal tethered to her, much like how Kieran had Urthemiel. So, if Flemeth possesses Morrigan, does that force out/overwrite Morrigan's soul with Flemeth's, or does something else happen? Assuming Flemeth isn't actually ageless, has she had to switch bodies multiple times in the past? For those daughters to have accepted and Flemeth's will to have persisted, surely the original soul of the body must disappear. Yet the dev notes suggest that Flemeth wants Morrigan to inherit Mythal, suggesting that possession was not her goal, yet if she were to do this, would this not also entail her own life ending and Morrigan having a greater degree of control over Mythal? Why is Morrigan the special case? Or is the goal of raising a daughter and possession to craft their personality into one that mirrors Flemeth's own beforehand, in which case the original Flemeth may have died a long time ago, with the daughter adopting the mantle of "Flemeth" to such an extent that they actually believe they are the original?

 

Anders / Justice / Vengeance - Morrigan / Mythal

Spoiler

My initial thoughts a week ago which are woven throughout this post up to this point were that a lot of DAI served as wrap-up to old DAO events, plotlines and characters. Looking at say Alistair & Leliana's comments regarding HoF and indeed Leliana's potential state as Divine (a presumably very restrictive role that would prevent her doing much else in the narrative). Both of those characters make it *very* clear that after Corypheus is defeated, they'll go find HoF again in the near future. Morrigan does this too, but is hit by the major end game events leaving her on an introspective note. By applying the same logic, I interpreted that ending as a possible end to her arc or at least major participation in plotlines moving forward. After bouncing some ideas off Brock, I looked into the alternatives, specifically the Mythal aspect and how that might be used if they go with the dev notes plan to continue Morrigan's involvement in that plotline. Though as I pointed out to Brock, those notes aren't necessarily to be taken as an absolute plan moving forward, they may no longer be relevant (looking back Origins toolset notes) and indeed plans may change specifically because they have "leaked" so to speak. I ultimately settled on those notes simply framing Flemeth's plan up until DAI, but not necessarily as a charter for where things may go in the future. But nevertheless, I'll explore it here.

They do have a convenient way to have Morrigan show up again of course to further any other potential story, whether she went and rejoined the warden at the end of DAI or not, they can simply use Eluvian teleportation to have her show up practically anywhere in the world they like. You'll get your HoF update - he'll have successfully cured the Calling and they'll have a nice life together still, however he couldn't come along today because it's his day off.

So I got to thinking about Anders and how the Justice spirit became twisted into Vengeance and then thought about how maybe a similar setup might be used in a future Morrigan plotline. Could setting Morrigan up with Mythal's soul or whatever be intended to do the opposite of what happened with Justice? So instead of reinforcing Mythal's anger and hate toward the world, Morrigan's world experiences and life will  influence and guide Mythal back down a more noble path.

So maybe when Morrigan calls Flemeth a terrible Mother, Flemeth realises that Morrigan can do what she cannot? But I dunno how that'd play out if Morrigan was compelled to follow Mythal's whims via geas, was Flemeth compelled in the same way in the past maybe.

Perhaps if Morrigan drinks from the Well and is bound by geas, Mythal stays bad and vengeful, while if she doesn't she has a chance to turn things around. Thus it is in the world's best interests that Morri not develop a drinking... problem

With regards to Mythal's spirit, now I'm not the biggest DA lore junkie so maybe someone else can help me out here, but assuming they were to follow down the road of Morrigan inheriting Mythal's spirit/power/immortality whatever (I don't know, is Flemeth's essence of godhood/immortality separate from Mythal?) and assuming she got it back from Solas (which doesn't seem to be a motivation of hers right now or Morrigan finds whatever is in the Eluvian, you would want to explore how that'd shape her character.

One thing to consider is how Flemeth dealt with Morrigan in that final sequence - did she ultimately decide that Morrigan was unsuitable for the role she had planned for her, had having Kieran and becoming a different person changed her so much? Had that Morrigan travelled so far off the destiny Flemeth intended for her that Flemeth decided to cut her losses and either let her go or change her plans? Or does she still recognise Morrigan as an intended future host of Mythal, and Flemeth thinks that's Morrigan's worldview and experiences would positively impact Mythal's spirit. What I'm getting at is, is it possible the host and the spirit sort of feed off and influence each other (as Anders influenced Justice), has Mythal & Flemeth's desire for vengeance sort of built up and reinforced this sort of malevolent world view that vengeance must be attained and host and spirit basically support each other through circular logic and feelings. Does Flemeth perhaps think that if Morrigan were to host Mythal, some of her, new, "good" attitude and feelings would positively influence Mythal and essentially break the cycle?

I suppose if Mythal is supposed to be some kind of motherly goddess, that might be what they intended to explore. The only thing I'm not sure I like about it is in some ways it goes against much of the spirit of Morrigan's rebellion and ultimately she was mistaken all along and should have listened to Flemeth to get the power she sought, a sort of "the journey is different but the destination is the same" kinda thing - Morrigan sought power, kinda got it but didn't, ended up with a son, clashed with Flemeth and ended up with the power she wanted anyway, seems a bit meandering but I guess it might work... Although we've also seen Morrigan state that she doesn't want immortality and it would sort of clash with her choice of family over power in the Fade scene. Which is why I tend to lean towards Flemeth just releasing Morrigan being the intention of that final scene they shared, to end her story on a more personal growth basis rather than destiny (and it also works as a definitive ending for both possible Morrigan/Flemeth DAI confrontations). I think both outcomes could happen but bringing Morrigan back again seems to have to deal with a hell of a lot of possible variables and with Flemeth and OGB pretty much written out, I'm wondering if that was really the intent.

But to round off that line of thinking and summarise- maybe Flemeth/Mythal fed off of each others toxicity toward the world and Morrigan's change through DAO>DAI reminds Flemeth of something she forgot long ago and that she could be the one lead Mythal back onto the right path.

I dunno, I'm not into the elven pantheon side of the lore too much and just gave it a cursory once over to formulate this thoery so I don't know if such a thing is possible or not. Provided they don't go down the route of setting Morrigan up as another Flemeth in terms of long lifespan, it could work out, otherwise, given Morrigan's possessive nature and relatively fleeting moments of happiness relative to a potentially immortal lifespan, I could see her reacting quite badly to the deaths of HoF and her child while she still lives on and the negative cycle could continue... But I'm rambling at this point, so I'll end there.

 

Ending

Spoiler

So Flemeth was doing something with an Eluvian in that ending credits scene, what are the possibilities here? Is this linked to those developer notes - has she deposited something in the crossroads for Morrigan to find?

Then there are other theories that Flemeth put a piece of herself in there so she could revive... A possible Morrigan bodysnatch in the crossroads then... That doesn't seem to fit with how they parted and I'm pretty sure that whatever Solas did would preclude the ability for Flemeth to revive in such a manner. Is Flemeth necessarily putting anything inside the Eluvian? Morrigan was touching it in a similar manner in Witch Hunt but I'm pretty sure she wasn't putting anything inside it.

Or thinking more on that end scene, Flemeth laments that Solas gave Coryrpheus that Foci orb. Does Flemeth have one too, is that what she was putting inside the Eluvian. I can certainly see that being used as a plot device- Morrigan finds an elven orb - what could possibly go wrong?

Morrigan finds the elven orb left to her by Flemeth. With giddy abandon she rushes home to HoF and her son to study the device.
"Oh what's that you've got there Morrigan?"
"'Tis some elven artifact I found in the Crossroads."
HoF's eyes narrow, he knew where this was going, "Ok, but be careful, you know what happened last time."
Morrigan dismisses her husband's warning with a scowl, a huge explosion follows soon thereafter, there is only one survivor...

 

On Morrigan's lack of death

Spoiler

So again we find Morrigan can't be killed and we've previously used that as a measure of how much narrative a character can still provide to the series, except Leliana who is clearly immortal. I also note that it appears that the majority of the DAI cast cannot be killed in such a way (unless I missed something) so perhaps this is no longer an effective means as to measure if someone is "done" in the DA world. Is she plot armoured still or following on from my theory of her being written out into a lesser role, have they just decided to metaphorically let her walk off into the sunset, we're three games in and despite some people's claims I've never seen her do anything particularly awful (she's alluded to some pretty nebulous plans for change and whatnot earlier, but I think DAI is the first time we've seen her have a concrete plan - preservation and it's far from the world-ending calamity some players were expecting her to unleash), hell the first thing she does after getting sort of screwed in the Well of Sorrows is help your team out so the old theories that Morrigan is a bad person are full of holes.

 

Morrigan is the Inheritor line

Spoiler

Thinking back to Kieran's Inheritor comment (this is another wishy washy arcane sorcery type comments that I don't want to read too much into) but I'm thinking the next age comment means we might not see Morrigan again except at the extreme tail end of the series if at all.This is also the reason why I've brought up the concept of immortality both here and in PM, because the "next age" bit is implying longevity/long life, etc. Hopefully the warden and Kieran will still be around and they don't play up the immortality angle too much if that's what they go with, hopefully not as I'd like to think she's past the power is the only thing that truly matters doctrine of Flemeth and it was great to see her breaking free under her own will in this game. But looking at what Brock said earlier, I think there is a risk Morrigan will be forced into some type of "watcher" role like Flemeth was in which I can't say I'd be particularly happy about... But then again, I am biased and admit that I'd love a happy ending for Morrigan especially after this game.

It's a tricky line to read into, because is this "Inheritor" role something that Morrigan has told Kieran. Is this something Urthemiel has told Kieran? How does Kieran have knowledge of what Morrigan is to inherit even before she herself does (and if he does, why has he not shared it with her?) This presupposes that the inheritor comment refers to Mythal of course, but it does support the theory of putting Morrigan into a Flemeth-esque role (maybe even as something to leave the series with).

Like I mentioned earlier, if that's the case, does that not risk Morrigan ending up in a situation where she is either ageless or immortal or at least "persists" in a similar manner to Flemeth (or does she, could Morrigan just pass the power on to a trusted descendant or something, I would imagine so) and runs the risk of becoming equally as bitter as Flemeth. That doesn't seem like a great place to end her character arc to me, not least if HoF & Kieran both die naturally of age yet she persists. Or maybe Morri could/would pass down her power to someone else, I don't know.

If you think about say the Adamant Fortress section of DAI, and imagine that HoF had been there and the Inquisitor was forced to slay them (let's just pretend that were possible) and they had to go back and tell Morrigan that he just killed her husband. I think, given the level of nuance surrounding Origins Morrigan and the development she's undergone, bearing in mind that HoF is the only man she's ever actually loved and shared legitimate feelings for, I think she'd react incredibly badly to such an event. So running with that idea, would a God-Morrigan be emotionally mature enough, even in the future to cope with losing the most precious things in her life. And this nuance is one of the things we stand to lose with a more generic future Morrigan. Is there a possible connection/parallel with Flemeth's past in this regard?

Raises a lot of troubling questions for the character really, imo. There's poetic irony in there sure and something about fate inevitability etc, but I'm not convinced such an ending is as thought provoking, clever or satisfying as the devs will likely believe.
And it's a shame, because they likely won't have such a perfect confluence of all these aspects again and Morrigan's ultimate fate is going to feel very detached from the Origins experience, the HoF, Kieran and so on - the things that made her interesting basically. She will have evolved into a likely different beast over time and multiple cameos... I still say that at least for the moment, interpreting both Morrigan/Flemeth conversations as Flemeth releasing Morrigan is a valid interpretation, it was my initial one and it's the one which resonates most strongly with me. the existence of dev notes outlining Flemeth's plan to this point and Kieran's comments before the event doesn't necessarily guarantee that will be the plan going forward. I can see how things could play into that and have explored that above, but that would likely be at the expense of the more resonant, personal ending which is available now.

 

Any things/changes people would have liked to have seen in how Morrigan was handled?

Spoiler

So as another talking point, I'll list here some of the small tweaks I've have liked to have seen with Morrigan in DAI. Aside from the non-presence of a certain character which I won't dwell on, I think I'd have made a small tweak in the fade scene where Morrigan is challenging Flemeth. Leliana is also another interesting aspect to touch upon here as well.

 

#1

I'd have liked to have seen one of Morrigan's lines change slightly to emphasise that Kieran is not only her son, but also the HoF's (a sort of callout to the relationship and raise the stakes and personal investment on the part of the player) - something like "He is our son, mine and..." and segue that into a comment from Flemeth about Morrigan's relationship. That would have been something I'd have been interested to see- Flemeth's current perspective on that relationship, given her own history of betrayal and the fact that she didn't want Morrigan growing genuinely close or developing feels for HoF or anyone really, Flemeth's thoughts on Morrigan shacked up with the man who once slew her would have been a great perspective to round things off on a personal note, would have been a nice way to involve the HoF in the scene despite his non-presence. I suppose we'll never see that now though. Little things like that though, add a whole lot to games and the whole narrative for me and it's a shame when they aren't fully realised. The family aspect of Morrigan's story especially seems to resonate strongly with a lot of posters in the Morrigan thread (and beyond) I notice, so it might be the best place to end her story.

 

#2
Here's another interesting thing to mull over. So regardless of any rivalry that existed between Leliana and Morrigan for HoF's affections, for us the end result was HoF would choose Morrigan over her and one of the more likely worldstates would be romanced Morrigan + friendly Leliana in terms of their relationship to HoF. So they kind of touched on this if Morrigan ends up bound to Mythal as Leliana says she is worried about Morrigan (or something to that effect). I'd kind of hope that despite Leliana's issues with Morrigan she would seek to guide her away from obvious dangers (or least look out for her) just out of gratitude/friendship to HoF. That said she doesn't exactly paint a great picture of Morrigan to the Inquisitor prior to her introduction in Winter Palace (another point of convergence for generic Morrigan/Leliana?) I dunno, in Leliana's own words, HoF is one of her closest friends who she even writes to for advice, so painting a negative impression of his partner who Leliana hasn't even interacted with in years... yeah, I can't say I was too impressed with Lel at that point. I'd say she should have put a little more trust into the judgement of her "close friend". Tricky to address directly without infringing on Morrigan's role as the source of HoF information, but I'm sure they could have done something with it.

 

#3

A minor trifle really, but you seem to find yourself in Morrigan's... Lady M's quarters in the Winter Palace. Again, could have been a nice opportunity for a HoF callback, some letters from him, the golden mirror perhaps.

 

To those who left the franchise with Origins because of potential Morrigan mishandling

Spoiler

So I wanted to address this as well, I also had the feeling (though it was more an issue with DA2's direction as a whole for me) and was indeed absent from these forums for a good long while. I'm still ready to rewind to the most desirable headcanon moment if Morrigan gets screwed over in a future title but as to the question is it worth investing in Inquisition to see more Morrigan despite the fact that certain things may be dealt with in a way you might not like (no warden involvement etc).

It's a tricky one, but I'm going to go with yes. They were able to do things with a new PC that they couldn't do with the warden as PC, but by not having the warden as pc or even present they did forgo some pretty damn cool things that they could have done with that approach. I found the reasoning for the warden's non-presence to be satisfactory within the plot of this game and Morrigan does talk about it fairly extensively which is nice, but she also tells you take a hike in her typical fashion if you dig too deep. The flipside is for me, that kind of only works for one game, if Morrigan starts making more appearances ala King Alistair's frequent cameos, given her larger plot role the continued absence of her partner would almost certainly grate on me, which is one reason I really hope they end it here. Compared to other forms of media and indeed continuous narratives within games, having a previous important character simply vanish and only be referred to in passing doesn't sit well with me.

If you're concerned about it trampling all over your dream ending with Morrigan in Witch Hunt, I wouldn't be because it doesn't do that and that was far from a dream ending anyway, more a correction in terms of adding dialogue options that were not present in the DR. However I would say only take the leap if you can deal with Gaider potentially deciding that Morrigan's story is not over yet and dragging her back again in the future. Personally, we're now what 5 years after origins and I'm not sure I can tolerate another game's worth of HoF is in another castle but Morrigan's story must continue theatrics. I honestly don't think the devs will find a better emotive "off ramp" to let the old fans say farewell to the old LIs than what we got in this game and I think Morri's return again would undermine that, for me at least. But I will say that I could see how they could still play out a Morri/Mythal plotline and still have a nice ending for the character.

 

Final thoughts

Spoiler

I didn't follow the game much prior to release and I wasn't sure if I wanted to carry on with the series after DA2. So I'm looking back at interviews and stuff now and DAI was described as Morrigan's moment. Reading between the lines, seems the devs want to shift the setting for the next game as well so my question is, have the devs said whether Morrigan's story is now over? You can say Morrigan got what she wished for by being bound to Flemeth, the irony of that is pretty much an immediate consequence since all she wanted was to be free. The end dialog seems to jettison and close the Morrigan vs Flemeth story as Flemeth presumably no longer exists. It seems a powerful moment to end Morrigan's personal journey on but I'm wondering about those designer notes where Flemeth's ultimate plan was to pass on the god essence to Morrigan. Now considering the character descriptions in the original Origins toolset were just a guide and the final product differed from them what do people think, will we/do you want to see more with regards Morrigan getting the powers from Flemeth or maybe, after Morrigan told her what a terrible mother she was, did Flemeth abandon that plan after witnessing the change in her daughter and elect to let her go free? Added to this Bioware seems to have taken the OGB out of the equation too.

For the moment, having described the benefits of ending her major roles as it stands right now and also having explored some of the Mythal possibilities above, I personally am taking the notes as a guideline to frame the scene around what Flemeth's plans were up until that  point. I don't think there's any evidence to support the fact that Flemeth still wants to go after Morrigan in-game so I suppose it just remains to be seen if they'll leave it there or act on those notes.

So, has Bioware finally tied off all of the old origins casts fates with a neat bow and ribbon? Not complaining if they have, there was some pretty nice wrap up and revisiting old locations was very cool. After the OGB fiasco which in some ways mirrors the Well of Sorrows choice in this game, and taking into account all I discussed above, I'm not expecting the Well choice to deliver any major consequences beyond a final test/lesson for Morrigan. I've been wrong before but things seem to be tied up pretty neatly with regards to the south.

The scary thought is this is actually the first time I'd be happy to leave the whole origins cast behind and to me that felt like a welcome, concerted effort. They fixed the "oh, lol the warden disappeared" handwave and while I would preferred to see them on screen. I do feel that their presence in the world was reaffirmed through both Morrigan, Leliana and their letter. Wouldn't say no to a HoF reappearance though, especially if a future game is in the Anderfels. Am I just seeing what I want to see or have Bioware actually addressed the recurring issues & questions we have voiced for years. So long as they don't enact small world syndrome with the location shift and start dragging everyone but the warden back into the spotlight, haven't they finally provided the sense of closure we felt was lacking post DAO?

I'd like to avoid a Mass Effect 3 ending type scenario, where Bioware tries to get too clever with their endings and conclusions to their stories and forget that one of main draws to their games are the characters themselves, more so probably than the stories. I get that they wanted to play off the tragic romance angle in Origins, job done, feelings were hurt and later mended. I get that they REALLY wanted to put Morrigan in that Orlais storyline that Origins pointed to, job done. I get that they originally probably had bigger plans for the DR and OGB and that those plans changed and they did their best to salvage something out of that choice, job done. I get that they wanted to make the Morrigan/Flemeth meeting a big thing, job done. To me, its played out now, certain elements not as effectively as I've have liked but I would say that they have now fully explored all the mystery and nuance of Morrigan from Origins and developed her well in Inquisition. I found her struggle for free will and realisation of what's truly important in her life to be the most satisfying aspect of her journey and am now in the camp that feels she should probably not return or have any major role moving forward. I'm kinda feeling like I'm in the same spot as say the Alistair fans, where King Alistair keeps showing up just because... If its all about Thedas then take your own advice, move on from the Origins plot and characters, surely if the world is the focus there are enough heroes and stories out that can stand on their own without needing past companion cameos to prop them up.

So I guess my main question in closing is - do you end on a high note for that character - be it a major narrative game-changer or just a kind of personal revelation or turning point in a character's thought processes/world view? Look at say Obsidian's history of allowing you to talk down their final bosses through dialogue - is that any less satisfying because you didn't get a big explosive climax in the endgame? Do you think that change we saw where Morrigan chose her son over power & personal freedom is the high point/take away of her story or do you gain more by furthering the "inheritor" of Mythal's power arc down the line, even if that possibly goes against the growth of that character and dilutes the impact of past events in the process (though as explored above, both could indeed compliment each other but those Origins connections and anchor points become ever more distant in doing so)? What I mean by this is- the only *real* outcome we got from OGB was giving Morrigan that additional facet of choice in her exchange with Flemeth. Power vs personal freedom vs family instead of just the Power/Freedom theme, so on that basis would it be "right" to overwrite that personal growth and development with a forced inheritor of Mythal storyline? Does everyone else prospectively get a nice happy ending while Morri fans arduous journey under a cloud of doubt continues, say it isn't so, Gaider.

At least I hope that closing off the old Origins questions with a view to moving on is sort of what they were going for, otherwise it just reminds me of those TV shows that run on for 1-2 series too long and sour you on the whole thing by stretching things out too much. Hopefully, the devs expressed desire to shift the story elsewhere, the concerted effort to address Morrigan/Flemeth/OGB in this game and various interviews are pointing towards them moving on from this plotline, we shall see...

 

But my favourite part of DAI, the part that truly struck the Dragon Age Origins note and the one that Morrigan thread veterans will best appreciate the irony of, was when

Spoiler

Cassandra said she leaving the inquisitor at the end of the game.

Well played, Gaider, well played.

 

So to sum up my thoughts on DAI in general - I'm not sure I'd classify DAI as my goty or even if it'd make my 2014 list with the likes of Divinity and Dragonfall being released in the same year, now that I can't have my silent protagonist I look at the series with a different lens so to speak. That said I did enjoy the majority of DAI, there were times when it did hit some of those Origins high points. Meeting Dorian and dealing with alternate Redcliffe & Alexius, the assault on Adamant and Crestwood all stick out in my mind. Crestwood especially should be recognised by the devs as striking the correct balance between area scale and content, if more areas mirrored that approach, the overall experience would have been better. DAI definitely proves the less is more adage, more focused content as opposed to sprawling lands would have been in its favour. The combat didn't displease me, though the tactical camera - if you're going to pretend that your console-first game is taking the strengths of the PC into account, you need to do a better job of disguising it than this. The tactical camera is frankly abysmal in its current implementation, everything from the angle to the zoom factor has its roots in console play and there was just no excuse for its flaws on PC. Companions and overall writing has returned to a good standard, voiced PC and dialogue wheel (how I loathe thee) isn't as annoying as last time through better paraphrasing, though there's nothing that matched the gut punch that was Morrigan leaving in Origins for me and for as long as they keep using an undefined voiced PC, I doubt there will be again. Corypheus fell flat due to pacing issues and lack of a tangible presence, but overall, a good game.

And now to disengage fanboy mode and return to Earth.
 

Kind of interesting in the Leliana version how she mentions the land west where the Hero of Ferelden went

Spoiler

is unaffected by the Blight

.

So Morrigan and HoF get to go off and spend the rest of their days skipping through fields of flowers, right, right!? The shed won't paint itself and bread won't bake itself either.
 

But everything that was there was about as good as it could get without having the Warden show up in a playable form.

Thanks for summarising the content & general sentiment of my long-winded post in a single sentence I know we probably differ on this point, but I'd be happy enough for them to show up as an NPC, though a potential starting origin in a future DA game featuring wardens or going the multi-protagonist route would also be more than acceptable.
 

Not sure if anyone cares (other than those interested in fanfiction), but I figure this is the appropriate thread to drop it in:

 

http://forum.bioware...st-inquisition/

 

Started writing a post-Inquisition story as a fun buffer for my college work and original stuff, and it revolves around the Warden and Morrigan. Though it only has elements of romance. The focus is more adventureish than anything.

See, I used to write fanfiction for various franchises (this was a good while back) but I can never bring myself to do it for franchises like this where the devs can and likely will invalidate the work in a sequel. For me, I need the devs to draw a line under a particular story/character before I feel comfortable taking it any further. My work was always very popular but I could only do it immediately after finishing up a game, beyond that I wouldn't be able to get into the mindset of the characters. That's always acted as a barrier to me, odd though it is.
 

Yeah, my only wish there was that they had a little more of a shout out to the Hero of Ferelden at the very end,

Spoiler

when Morrigan is saying where she's going and what she's going to do next.

Yes and no. Like I mentioned above, in the Fade scene I would have also liked Morrigan to emphasise that Kieran is not only her son but also the Warden's - would have been nice to Flemeth's reaction to that seeing as how she sent Morrigan off with the warden and her take on that relationship and it would have been a great Origins callback.

But, I suppose you have to draw the line somewhere and most of the romance specific stuff was loaded into the middle conversation with Morrigan in the garden. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that, since there was downtime during that section of the game, but I do agree that considering what can befall Morrigan after she states her intended plans, confirmation of them in the epilogue would be nice, but this is kind of asking for Gaider to throw us a bone when honestly he gave us a whole heap of MorrixWarden bones in this game.
 

My main qualm with Morrigan and the romance recognition is mostly just at the end when

Spoiler

she's all full of doubt post Flemeth's encounter and she says she's not sure what she'll do next. Yet earlier like in the video, she says how she'll certainly rejoin the Warden. Kind of wish they had her mention that again at the end instead of just getting the generic one size fits all version where she says she doesn't know what she'll do next.

Yeah, I get that. But I also certainly don't want to open a can of worms that will result in not knowing what Morri is up to post DAI and getting aerated over it until DA4 releases, so I'll just go with she's doing what she said she'd do earlier rather than choosing to invent problems where none yet exist.

I can see why they *wouldn't* do that, as you know, you could take it as supremely blatant pandering to Morrigan romance fandom (which I'd be okay with, naturally), a special epilogue slide just to assuage our concerns (it'd be bugged anyway, ha!) I think we got enough to deduce what she'll do next, at least in the short term. Maybe they're saving the definitive "Morrigan strode off into the sunset" slide for a future game? We've levied a fair amount of criticism at Bioware but I do think they were pretty damn generous with how they treated Morrigan fans in DAI, so while I have concerns about her returning again (especially now that the OGB & Flemeth climax cards have been played) I won't complain (too much) about this particular omission as I don't think it's a big issue really. Like I mentioned earlier, I don't think leaving her on that introspective note is a bad thing, it could very well mark the end of her journey and her penchant for leaping into the unknown without thinking and I think that's something enough for her to contemplate as she hopefully goes off to find HoF.
 

These next bits I'm swiping from Brock's post in the other Morrigan thread and responding to here, hoping he doesn't mind:

Spoiler

Basically, if the developer notes on the post credits scene are true, I can sort of see how going forward, the developers could basically make Morrigan develop as a character such that she realizes Flemeth wasn't a threat necessarily and she accepts her "gift" so to speak by taking on the soul of Mythal and/or Urthemiel. That way if Morrigan was to show up again, the writers could basically hand wave away any power discrepancy between a Well Drinking Morrigan and a non Well Drinking Morrigan by just giving her the actual soul of Mythal anywa, giving her the same sort of super powers regardless of the Well choice.

 

Spoiler

"What is Flemeth's ultimate plan for Morrigan? My take was that it seems Flemeth basically gives Morrigan the thumbs up as being a worthy successor as holding on to Mythal when she shows herself as more mature when dealing with Kieran  in the Fade, thus maybe why Flemeth gives up her soul to Solas to pass on to Morrigan when the time is right?"

 

Spoiler

What do you think would be the ramifications of making Morrigan drink from the Well going forward? Obviously Well Drinking Morrigan has access to tons of eleven knowledge and can dragon shapeshift but is seemingly bound to Mythal. Whereas non Well Drinking Morrigan doesn't have to worry about whatever coercion Mythal might bring.

 

I think I've pretty much addressed the first two points earlier so rather than repeat it here, I'll just wait and see if you have any thoughts on these issues after reading my post. I'm pretty sure Morrigan comments that she doesn't actually want super powers or something to the effect if you press her on it (during the start of the Fade sequence iirc). You're right though, they could write anything in as justification over the passage of time.
 

With regards the third paragraph, honestly, nothing, or very little

Spoiler

(with the exception of if they do the Morrigan influencing Mythal's spirit thing I discussed earlier)

, simply because of how it mirrors the OGB situation - it's a late game choice, once again it's involving Morrigan and holds two possible states. The power/knowledge then being split between these two states (Morri drank/Inquisitor drank). Plot wise it seems set up for Morrigan, a fitting testament to her latest blunder and lack of understanding, however those dev notes indicate that the negative aspect of the Well (the geas) would be cancelled out in short order anyway. If the Inquisitor drank I'm gonna have to play my "the inquisitor's story is over" card, I'm afraid. Ultimately, I view it as a flavour choice, one that will perhaps humble or dissuade Morrigan from further reckless action, but one that will cancelled out nonetheless.

Look at the OGB choice - what were we expecting from it, in truth likely something to impact the world at the very least provide power to Morrigan or Kieran. What we ultimately got was simply added flavour/nuance to Morrigan's confrontation with Flemeth, another facet of temptation or test of character if you will and you could even argue you got the consequence of the Well choice in that very same scene. I think in order to lend weight to that it's important that Morrigan's final choice there isn't overwritten. My line of thinking is that this is a flavour choice and a possible red herring (given how Flemeth acts in the scene - notice how quick in both scenes she is offer the chance of freedom to Morrigan, she may even outright say it in the non-Kieran version), I think the "consequence" of that choice is shown should you or Morrigan choose to attack Flemeth. We've built up a similar, bigger decision to be a huge deal in the past and that ultimately only provided a slightly different scene, so yeah, probably nothing.

Unless of course they plan to shift Solas' plot to wherever the new location is, they can very easily have Morrigan appear anywhere and cover themselves with the Eluvian teleportation story... Though I get the feeling that the choice was meant to put the brakes on Morrigan's rampant naivety though (hence why she always ends on that self-doubting, introspective note) and show her there are consequences to acting without forethought. I'm not sure furthering the Morrigan/Mythal angle through Solas would be particularly satisfying but it is certainly possible, though not really what I'd want to see at this point.

Well, that's one possibility. The other goes something like this (assuming Morrigan drinks):
It's the final Dragon Age game. Morrigan, of course, has returned because her story isn't over yet. After months (years?) of panicking and worrying, the game is finally in your hands. You play it through with a mix of excitement and trepidation- it's a good game, not Origins good, but decent enough. As you defeat the big bad and the epilogue begins to roll, narrated by Morrigan, you're saddened that the HoF still hasn't shown up. With Avernus's research, it's already been confirmed he's still around and in good health and through a series of letters and conversations you've learned that he's beaten the Calling and is now waiting patiently for Morrigan to return. And the best part is, BioWare has told you that this is the last Dragon Age game, so you're sure in your mind that they'll conclude the arc. It's looking good; Morrigan's still alive, her epilogue slide shows up: "After completing my arduous journey, 'tis time to return to my love." You jolt upwards, liking where this is going, you hurriedly click to advance. To your complete surprise, the character creator pops up, prompting you to recreate your HoF. You're in tears - this can't be happening. You painstakingly recreate the man of legend, eager to see him stroll off into the sunset with Morrigan. You rub your hands together in glee - this is it! You've waited a long time for this, it's been a decade since Morrigan broke your heart in Origins and you will not be denied this final reward. You confirm your character and proceed onwards, the scene loads and plays out just how you'd imagined in your mind for all those years - the scene is picture perfect, the idyllic shed-painting, bread baking thatched cottage scenario from your dreams - there is a romantic embrace, a passionate kiss and everything is looking great. You breathe a sigh of relief, BioWare didn't let you down, Gaider didn't assassinate Morrigan in a epilogue slide, all is well. Then it happens, Flemeth reappears from nowhere wearing a confident smirk. "Thought I'd forgotten that you'd killed me, great hero?" she sneers, "Morrigan, would you kindly be a dear and kill that nasty man for me?" Mythal's geas, long since forgotten and handwaved by fans takes effect, compelling Morrigan to kill the warden.

So yeah, that's the other way it could play out...
 

And was anyone else sort of disappointed in how mellow Morrigan was? I understand why she was that way (especially if she was romanced or had the OGB) and it works but still... I missed the snappy, derisive Morrigan from Origins that was incessantly ripping on Alistair. Kind of made her feel a little boring even. If Morrigan does go all godlike in some future game I just hope they don't keep mellowing out her personality to the point she's just some stoic god figure mumbling cryptic jibber jabber like Flemeth.

No, not especially, given the passage of time. I found it to be fitting and the tonal shift itself was the consequence of your actions in DAO as opposed to actual plot divergence, ie: if Morrigan had not become close with the warden in DAO and/or had Kieran, her old world views would be reinforced and she'd still be openly hostile and mistrusting of the world around her, which is kind of sad. I'd say you should go back and listen to some Morrigan quotes from DAO. I really think it's an important aspect of the whole package, as the younger Morrigan scoffs, balks and hits back against the notion of love, marriage, family, etc (remember the painting shed/breaking bread conversation and how quickly she shuts that line of thought down, with venom and hostility) and the only parent child relationship she'd ever known was Flemeth who goes around smashing mirrors. After experiencing it herself and getting the opportunity to give her son the paternal relationship she never had, I personally had no issues with her new outlook on things.

So no, I'd say that the time spent with her family brought out the best in her over time. The snarky side is still there of course, it's just more reserved, you can see hints of it here and there. Or if you want to look at it another way, Morrigan grew smart enough to realise that tossing out insults towards everyone else in Skyhold wouldn't be the smartest plan if she didn't want to get herself and her son thrown out in short order. I really liked the progression actually, was actually one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game for me.

I think you also got a hint of it if you ask her about getting the HoF's help, the "He will think this means I miss him, he will be insufferably pleased with himself." was a nice callback to their heated wordplay and Morri's frustrations at not being to outmaneuver the warden in dialogue. You can just imagine the battle of words that's brewing there as she'd deny it to HoF's face.

 

But you do have a point regarding the limits and limitations of dragging old characters back. If it gets to the point where a given character is quintessentially no longer true to themselves because they're a writer's pet so to speak, what's the point? But that's more of a concern for the future.

 

And while it pains me to do this Brock, I'm gonna have to side against you on the Morrigan appearance issue, I think Morrigan in DAI is better looking than DA:O whilst also being fairly true to her DAO likeness (though I'm not sure why they're randomly adding moles and such to old characters). And that just makes me even sadder that HoF isn't currently around to reap the benefits, so to speak.

 

Certain lighting conditions are also quite reminiscent of her sacred ashes and concept looks, like this:


On a related note, you can also now buy this:

Which, in addition to looking nice, will ensure that Morrigan can never run away again! /creepy
 

 

Just WOW...

 

 

Found this on youtube.... Some serious Morrigan chatter in DAI regarding the HOF, whether or not the Dark Ritual was performed. I found it awesom. There is also Leliana  chatter but Morrigan's chatter is something I've not seen before. Particulary her (Warden did not got through the eluvian) chat inquiring if the HOF was at Adamant.

 

Sweet stuff.

Holy ****, is Morrigan still longing after living HoF who didn't go into the Eluvian with her at around 4:40, perhaps hoping for a reconciliation? Or at least allow him to meet his kid. Can't process these emotions, Bioware, make it stop. Nice to think that there might still be a faint hope for that to work itself out (although we won't actually see it). This kind of stuff is why the Morrigan romance is held in high regard, so many layers, they really carried the sorrow and regret aspects of Morrigan's character forward through the games...

 

I really want to see a scene of them reuniting after the Calling thing is resolved, they don't even need to talk, a simple hug would be perfect, and seeing The Warden interacting with his son would be the best thing ever :')


Years pass and Morrigan looks even more beautiful.

Oh man, just don't even go there, I can't even handle the feelings after typing up this post.

 

I did have a random half-serious, half not thought of how they could have brought HoF back for the briefest of cameos sans voice. Could have been as simple as walking into the garden at Skyhold triggers a cutscene where you see a long distance shot of someone talking to Morrigan (you could probably re-use the CC for this) then just as you're getting all excited thinking "this is it!", the figure waves to Morrigan and Kieran and walks through the Eluvian door. Inquisitor comes up, "Who was that", "Oh, that was the Hero of Fereldan, just dropping by to visit his family", Inquisitor (who is a huge HoF fanboy) - Dammit."
Morrigan approves +5

 

And that's that, I have to end here anyway since I'm not allowed to quote anymore posts, but that does pretty much exhaust everything Morrigan related I can think of at this time. Hope some of you enjoyed the post and at the very least gave you something to think on/talk about.

 

Oh actually, I do have a question - I think I read somewhere that Morrigan gets an announcement during the Orlesian winter palace section but I never heard it. Is she ever announced or does she even enter the ballroom?

[Andrew Lucas]

Wow, that was one hell of a post *applaud* I even saved this page on my browser because you really know what you're taking about our favorite witch. You gave me some nice perspective, one that I'll need with the current fanfic about HoF and Morrigan, I really appreciate that you took your time to write such a magnificent post. And I really loved your idea for their reunion, that would definitely give me feels : 3 That's the only thing that I want to see, the whole family united.

And sorry, I don't know if Morri gets an announcement on the palace.

[Brockololly]

Well hell, I now know what I'll have for my weekend reading.

[Lord_Anthonior]

Now that's what I call reading material. I remember the long posts of old during the time of the Blight hehehe. I shall read them very soon.

 

At the moment I'm still busy with my third playthrough and I'm halfway at Emprise du Lion, then the Exalted plains and afterwards off to Halamshiral to save Celene and meet Morrigan (again). My reason to go all over again with the game is I want to make Vivienne the Divine because the inquistor won't lose Cassandra to the chantry nor do I want to put my best spymaster on the sunburst throne (yeah I've been playing this game a lot since it was released but at least I already finished AC:Unity sometime ago hehe) 

 

So, it's acceptable to go all fanboy mode regarding Morrigan and the Warden? Hehehe good to know. 

 

Thanks for the link of the fanfiction! A Warden & Morrigan post inquisition romance story...sounds MOST intersting.

 

I don't think Morrigan gets an announcement at the winter palace, walking around the main hall there's an announcement of some ezio evariste or something, the easter egg is easy to catch on but one has to walk around near the door where the announcer is located to activate that, though I still haven't heard anything about Morrigan nor do I think I might, she would like to keep things secret so it would make sense for Leliana to talk to inquisitor outside the ball room.

 

Tumblr photoset.

 

 

 

 

[Lord_Anthonior]

Oh actually, I do have a question - I think I read somewhere that Morrigan gets an announcement during the Orlesian winter palace section but I never heard it. Is she ever announced or does she even enter the ballroom?

 
As I said I haven't heard any announcement either but I found these images
 

 

 
So at some point she is in the Ball Room.
 
I've been trying to find the reason or how to get these images as well.

 

Spoiler

 

[Andrew Lucas]

Oh yeah, fanfictions about the Warden and Morrigan are always welcome! I'm more into Cousland x Morri, it's what I'm currently writing, so yeah, fire the fics away! : 3

[line_genrou]

I wish we could have more fanfics with cousland/morrigan

they are so rare 

 

also I can only read if it has the default cousland name  aedan, any other name turns me off

[Andrew Lucas]

I wish we could have more fanfics with cousland/morrigan
they are so rare 
 
also I can only read if it has the default cousland name  aedan, any other name turns me off

I've seen a lot of Female Cousland and Morrigan fics than the 'correct' ones. Kinda bugs me. I'm writing one about them because of that, it's rare to find good fics about them. I understand that, in my fic, the hero is only mentioned as "Warden" or "Cousland", I think that it's easier to people insert their characters in that way, while keeping the game's choices mentions at minimal.

[line_genrou]

I've seen a lot of Female Cousland and Morrigan fics than the 'correct' ones. Kinda bugs me. I'm writing one about them because of that, it's rare to find good fics about them. I understand that, in my fic, the hero is only mentioned as "Warden" or "Cousland", I think that it's easier to people insert their characters in that way, while keeping the game's choices mentions at minimal.

 are you still writing or did you post somewhere?

[Andrew Lucas]

are you still writing or did you post somewhere?

Not yet, I started to write it after finishing the first draft of my Trev and Cass one. It will probably be a series of one shots set through the trilogy, mostly focused on the romance. I think that I post it in a few days, but I will share the link here when possible

[line_genrou]

Can't wait for it 

[Terra_Ex]

Wow, that was one hell of a post *applaud* I even saved this page on my browser because you really know what you're taking about our favorite witch. You gave me some nice perspective, one that I'll need with the current fanfic about HoF and Morrigan, I really appreciate that you took your time to write such a magnificent post. And I really loved your idea for their reunion, that would definitely give me feels : 3 That's the only thing that I want to see, the whole family united.

Yeah, in the Morrigan thread's distant past, we used to have big dreams, now we have small dreams...

 

 
As I said I haven't heard any announcement either but I found these images
 

 

 
So at some point she is in the Ball Room.
 
I've been trying to find the reason or how to get these images as well.

 

Spoiler

 

I'd guess those are all created in Source Filmmaker or similar using extracted models from DA:I, ie: they're not actually in the game. Seems like there's no shoutout for Morri at the Winter Palace then.

 

Well hell, I now know what I'll have for my weekend reading.

Well you didn't think I was going to disappoint you did you Brock?

[Ash Wind]

Now that's what I call reading material. I remember the long posts of old during the time of the Blight hehehe. I shall read them very soon.

 

At the moment I'm still busy with my third playthrough and I'm halfway at Emprise du Lion, then the Exalted plains and afterwards off to Halamshiral to save Celene and meet Morrigan (again). My reason to go all over again with the game is I want to make Vivienne the Divine because the inquistor won't lose Cassandra to the chantry nor do I want to put my best spymaster on the sunburst throne (yeah I've been playing this game a lot since it was released but at least I already finished AC:Unity sometime ago hehe) 

 

So, it's acceptable to go all fanboy mode regarding Morrigan and the Warden? Hehehe good to know. 

 

Thanks for the link of the fanfiction! A Warden & Morrigan post inquisition romance story...sounds MOST intersting.

 

I don't think Morrigan gets an announcement at the winter palace, walking around the main hall there's an announcement of some ezio evariste or something, the easter egg is easy to catch on but one has to walk around near the door where the announcer is located to activate that, though I still haven't heard anything about Morrigan nor do I think I might, she would like to keep things secret so it would make sense for Leliana to talk to inquisitor outside the ball room.

 

Tumblr photoset.

 

 

 

 

Booooo the Orlesians suck, Defacto Wife and Constant Companion of the Hero of Ferelden, defeater of the fifth blight.... they could have done so much more with her introduction.

 

Thank the maker this is the version we get, and not the first trailer version which seemed to imply our favorite Witch of the Wilds had taken up boxing (bad face, atroicious nose).... so much better!

[Lord_Anthonior]

My witch of the wilds...

 

 

 

 

 

"Intruder? and just how are these your wilds?"

 

"We may never know. Courtly intrigues and all that..."

[What?]

 

See, I used to write fanfiction for various franchises (this was a good while back) but I can never bring myself to do it for franchises like this where the devs can and likely will invalidate the work in a sequel. For me, I need the devs to draw a line under a particular story/character before I feel comfortable taking it any further. My work was always very popular but I could only do it immediately after finishing up a game, beyond that I wouldn't be able to get into the mindset of the characters. That's always acted as a barrier to me, odd though it is.
 

 

Fair enough! I was just posting it, in any case other Morrigan fans were interested in reading it. And it makes sense; right after a game, the impression is still fresh, making it easier to get into their minds.

[What?]

 

Thanks for the link of the fanfiction! A Warden & Morrigan post inquisition romance story...sounds MOST intersting.

 

No problem, though it's more or less written as an adventure story with elements of romance. Still, hope you find it to be an enjoyable read, should you choose to read it. I figured it was sort of unnecessary, and a bit overkill, to solely focus on the romance. They're pretty much married. There's not much really left to expound on.

 

 

Oh yeah, fanfictions about the Warden and Morrigan are always welcome! I'm more into Cousland x Morri, it's what I'm currently writing, so yeah, fire the fics away! : 3

 

Unfortunately, the story I linked isn't about Cousland and Morrigan; it centers around Surana and Morrigan. Still, if you read it, hope you like it! It's just a fun side-project I started. It's not really anything I'm super seriously working on. In fact, the narrative is kind of a mess; I'm trying to work with it. Maybe if I find time, I'll write a new draft for it down the road.

[line_genrou]

How old you think Morrigan is in DAI?

I think she's around 29/30

In DAO I believe she was 19, with warden cousland 20 at most

[What?]

How old you think Morrigan is in DAI?

I think she's around 29/30

In DAO I believe she was 19, with warden cousland 20 at most

 

Given the fact she sounded like somebody who read too much Nietzche and Rand while binge-playing Alkaline Trio in DAO, I wouldn't be surprised if she'd only been nineteen in Origins. And she doesn't look too old in Inquisition, save a few very faint frown-lines around her mouth, so thirty sounds pretty probable.

[Ash Wind]

What a freakin’ post. Terra has always been a serious contributor to the Morrigan thread and this awesome post is just confirmation of that! I will respond to a few thoughts/feelings to what he has posted, though I am sure it will not be as eloquently stated or as thoroughly thought out…

 

On Morrigan meeting Alistair again, if she's been living with HoF

Spoiler

This was a pretty cool exchange and I liked the Origins callbacks - after meeting HoF's son, Alistair accuses Morrigan of running away from HoF (again) which probably stings considering that's what she did in Origins and she corrects him with an appropriately direct response. I only saw this scene on youtube as I don't have the time to repeatedly play the same game anymore just to see slight variations (my Alistair is king) but I did like this exchange and its many variations, despite being short it does show how both characters have grown.

 

Ash Wind:

Actually, while a treat to see (or rather hear, Alistair is always made King in my playthroughs), I didn’t care for this one. Despite what she says in the game regarding reuniting with the Warden, this seems, and bitterly so, that she’s implying the Warden deserted her. It would have been far more satisfying to hear her admonish Alistair for his foolishness [as only DAO Morrigan could] and to say they are still together and he’s being a pud. Just my opinion. The other versions are cool as well, the '...I could have had them both.' line was especially sweet and sad.

 

On the OGB

Spoiler

Oh yes, the OGB, I haven't forgotten about this one and apparently neither had Bioware. So I'm gonna come at this from another perspective rather than the obvious one. On the face of it, there's a lot of talk on how Bioware nixed the OGB by having Flemeth take the soul away from Kieran (and by extension Morrigan). Further to my points earlier about the more human side to Morrigan that Gaider wanted to explore, perhaps since BioWare decided it would be difficult to create divergent story content based on the OGB, they brought OGB itself into the humanising of Morrigan. To explain, think about how a Morrigan who had an OGB would have raised them (assuming her plan had gone as expected and her child had JUST the OGB soul, which was likely the original intent of the plot), would the OGB act like a normal child or anything like Kieran, could it instead of lead her down another path to power? Had they gone down that route, they'd have needed a divergent path, which I suppose is what a lot of us wanted a few years back.

I think in handing you a more nuanced OGB outcome, it kind of plays to a recurring theme with Morrigan - ie: Morrigan did get the OGB soul, but she also got the regular soul of Kieran as well, basically her plan didn't play out as expected.

 

You see these same, unexpected outcomes follow Morrigan around through the games - if you sleep with her but deny her the OGB, she ends up pregnant with regular Kieran at the end of DAO, playing off the irony of the whole thing. With Flemeth, she thinks one thing, but it's actually something else. With the warden, she didn't think she'd grow close to him, but did and despite her struggles with her emotions, she seemingly settles on accepting it (provided the romance path is pursued). And of course, with WH, she again denies wanting the HoF to go with her yet if the player accedes to this demand, she ultimately has a turnabout on that as well, regretting that they didn't accompany her. Likewise from DAO>DAI, I think we see the transition from a Morrigan who is obsessed with power (outwardly) to one who can at least accept and express her feelings.

I think by doing this, and showing you this specific aspect of failure or just random chance, it gives Morrigan more room to grow as a character (she has this awesome power, Urthemiel, but she also has a child and her priorities have shifted). The major payoff to the nuanced discrepancy between a regular Kieran and a Kieran with Urthemiel's power comes in the scene with Flemeth where all Morrigan's older pretences of wanting nothing but power have been stripped away and you just have a powerless Morrigan begging for the life of her kid, desperate not to have him taken away from her. So in one fell swoop, they covered both the OGB and regular baby scenarios AND gave Morrigan a really important choice in the form of Flemeth's proposition. Basically when the **** hit the fan, Morrigan always chooses her child over power, so we can say that she would do so again, regardless of whether Kieran is OGB or not. By removing the OGB aspect from the equation I think it speaks more of the development she's undergone than if the OGB soul had remained in Kieran.

Long story short, I think we got the payoff we wanted here, just not in the expected fashion - I think we were originally expecting Morrigan to do something with OGB - whether it be nefarious or otherwise, but I didn't expect this. She says that Kieran had a destiny but doesn't seem too cut up about the fact that the soul of Urthemiel was lost, but is instead gladdened that her child is safe. I think when you consider her choice in this situation and contrast it with how she was traditionally marketed and known/shown - like the old DA:O Morrigan poster, I'm too lazy to take a picture of the one I have but here's one from the internet -

 

The quote that really sums up Morrigan's attitude at the onset of Origins - Power is all that truly matters, compare and contrast that with her last choice in DAI and I have to say I appreciated what they did with Morrigan in this game. While the warden certainly makes great progress in cracking that harsh shell in DAO (especially in terms of a warden who romanced her can see the person behind the facade, so to speak), we don't really see the true outcome until DAI. I think the only thing that could have elevated it higher would have been some direct involvement from the HoF in that particular scene, but BioWare saw fit to tie that possibility up with a neat little ribbon which I'll address later.

TLDR: Morrigan/OGB resolution = good, about as good as I'd expect considering we have a different PC, though considerable emotional opportunity was lost by not tackling this with some involvement from the warden, especially if Morrigan was romanced. If I'd have been controlling the HoF when a panicked Morrigan was frantically searching for her son in the Fade, then bumping into an old benefactor I'd slain at Morrigan's behest, I'd have been *that* much more invested in that scene. It's a shame that this series will never be able to hit those heights because they so rigidly want to stick with the one PC per game format. Especially when you have series like Suikoden which pretty much did what Dragon Age is trying to do years earlier, and they ramped it up to the max in the third game with 3 different protagonist povs and even a hidden one for the antagonist (who was also a hero from the previous two games). Oh, the things Bioware could do with the series if they'd just explore a multi-protagonist approach... Alas that ship has sailed and is dashed on the rocks.

 

Ash Wind:

The Dark Ritual implied ‘some’ possibly sinister repercussions, if not only because it was titled as such, but because it A.) was the climatic choice at the end of an awesome game that determined if your character survived or perished (how far will you go to save yourself?) and B.) was originally derived from Flemeth.

 

While on one hand, I think it is possible OGB might have had more dire implications if the Warden had continued as the PC… and before those of you who totally bought the lie you were sold when the reaction to DA2 hit the forums, and desperately want to hit the reply button to declare **blah blah blah DA was never supposed to be about one character** (total BS btw).... don't bother, either way, the simple fact is we’re now 2 ½ games later (if you include Awakening) and still have next to no info on the DR meaning or its possible consequences. Quite frankly, I am done with it… or any ‘serious’ choice in a DA game again. There is only so long you can dangle a mystery in front of people without answering it... after a time, its meaning loses its importance. This is an epic failure of the writing staff. Solas appears to be the new flavor of the month and quite frankly, I couldn’t care less, and have little doubt it will be handled in the same weak and uninteresting manner as the OGB.

 

On the other hand, I also think it’s possible that the DR was put in DAO without a real plan as to what to do with it. It might have been an awesome idea that originally had next-to-no originally planned payoff and BW is just now trying to milk the interest in it for what it’s worth. Why do I say this…? As previously stated, we have had Awakening released; DA2 released and now DAI, and still have next to no info on it or its possible consequence. I recall a number of interviews with DG regarding DAO and him loving the idea of a strong woman, with an agenda of her own, who would even forsake true love for the sake of her own agenda. And that’s what we might have here, Morrigan and the DR don’t have a purpose, they elucidate a strong female character who leaves her love for her own agenda, if not a pre-concieved consequence. 

 

All Morrigan can say at the end of DAO is that she has to leave... I leave, and you do not follow me... ever; she has to leave, it would be unwise to stay; she has to leave, there’s so much more I could have done for you…; do not follow me.... harder words I have never spoken; etc. Not one reason is ever given, or even hinted at, only… she just has to leave. Sounds more like plot contrivance than story necessity. There is never even the slightest hint as to why, it’s just trust me… “It Just Has To Be This Way… You Know, Because.”

 

Then (not sure of the timeline, post Awakening) 12-18 months later in Witch Hunt… its come on down Warden, lets head off to the Crossroads and face the future together... there's absolutely no reason not to. If your canon Warden performed the Ultimate Sacrifice because of the possible consequences of the DR... you're dead... with not all that much to show for it. RIP.

 

On romance recognition for Morrigan

Spoiler

Can't really complain with this, we got a lavish banquet laid out for us compared with what I thought we would get. I was particularly pleased with the callbacks to Fiona and Avernus from Morrigan, helped make the whole thing much more fitting and in keeping with HoF's character because my Warden totally kept Avernus around doing his research with a view towards extending his life and ultimately conquering the Calling. I found that very fitting with the Warden's choice to escape death by partaking in the ritual at the end of DAO. Morrigan's descriptions of her time shared with HoF and Kieran were extremely well done while also knowing when to put the brakes on in terms of getting too personal. Though I was slightly less pleased that a big hint that would likely help HoF accomplish his goals, Fiona, was sitting right there in Skyhold while he was off elsewhere...

Of particular note, I loved the inference that despite not having the luxury and opulence afforded to a queen or prince of Ferelden, from the picture Morrigan paints in conversation with her, it seemed that her family was ultimately the happiest and she experienced the most personal growth and payoff of the DAO love interests. Really nice to see that wardens who didn't powergrab by making themselves prince and threw it all away for the witch got the payoff and I must say it was gratifying hearing Morrigan discuss her recent life and express a genuine happiness with how things turned out for her up to that point. What's going on over at Bioware towers Gaider? Times have changed and my expectations were subverted.

Now thankfully I think that Morrigan went into enough detail to justify HoF's absence while convincingly painting the image of a persisting relationship and development of a family (which was unexpected frankly, but very welcome), which continued on in the game world beyond Origins and that's all we were asking for really, for the warden to have a presence in game(as opposed to the "Warden's story is over lolol") because to some players the ongoing events that happen with Morrigan are equally important to their HoF. Our worst fear was either offscreen death or a one line handwave. When you look at the forum and see so many people saying how Morrigan has grown as a character and mother, I think that speaks volumes as to why people like Brock and myself pushed for the Warden to be involved rather than disappear - the implication that they/you've created a actual family unit within the chaos and uncertainty that was the Morrigan romance, that elevates the whole thing and her character even higher in my estimation. The method that Bioware chose wasn't the one I expected but I came away from the game with the feeling that HoF was still very much in the picture as far as Morrigan's life is concerned and that's chiefly because they didn't relegate it to a one line wonder. Whether that feeling will remain if Morrigan starts turning up in future games with further creative excuses as to why HoF is never around remains to be seen though...

Morri's reaction to the prospect of contacting HoF & her reaction/expression to his letter were beautifully done, the warden doesn't even have to be there yet he can still tease her and push her buttons. Her reaction was just so... "Morrigan" and very cute to watch. Seeing the change wrought in her from DAO, where we only got glimpses of her softer side by getting close and seeing that side emerge more publicly while still being true to her character was fulfilling, also a great mirror image with what was happening with Leliana who was sliding backwards for a good portion of the game.

 

And of course, Morrigan's lines regarding Kieran and her discussion of her family life (in her own, unique Morrigan-esque way) really delivered the goods if you romanced her, they could only have topped it if HoF was there. The glimpse inside the Eluvian crossroads was also a plus.

 

Ash Wind:

Can’t complain or contradict a point here. It’s far more than I expected, and was in fact a great treat. Yes, BW did this absolutely right. For the romanced Morrigan Warden, I don’t know how you could (except for an appearance in-game) ask for more. Morrigan, is a doting mother (the seething exception comes later), and while she won’t submit to the idea of being recognized as married… she and the Warden are effectively a nutty ole married couple (who happen to be bad asses in this world) and loving it, and still have the capacity, as Terra notes, to press each others buttons. With the wonderful voice acting, when she states “Kieran misses him greatly,” I can almost hear her continue under her breath “…as do I.”

 

There is just the right balance between fan service and being a kiss ass, and I think this part hit it absolutely right. Just enough to say they are a happy (if not normal) family without having to say, alright, I get it already, STFU.

 

Add to that the real treat: when Morrigan takes the IQ to the Crossroads, there was a particularly satisfying line of dialogue. Though she often refers to the Warden as ‘her love’ (both in DAO and DAI) I don’t recall her saying ‘I love you,’ so there was certain awesomeness to hear her say in the Crossroads, “I had a respite with the man I loved.”

 

The best line from Morrigan

Spoiler

So we often hear that the warden can't appear in-game because [insert reasons here, my warden is teh dedz, etc] but for something that apparently can't be quantified I think this line just might be the best in the game. It truly does sum up the dynamic and wordplay games we saw in DA:O and was brilliant continuation of how she might speak about a romanced warden who has outplayed her:
"He will think this means I miss him of course. *sigh* He will be insufferably pleased with himself."
Yes, Morrigan, yes he will. It's pure gold and Claudia's delivery of the line and the inflection used was just perfect- took me right back to those chats with her in the Origins camp (which I now miss). Dammit Gaider, you can't put lines like this in and not expect me to wish for HoF to just walk into a future scene to frustrate and fluster Morrigan again through dialogue.

 

Ash Wind:

Hard to choose a single line, most that referenced the Warden were too cool. That line was certainly awesome. So were others… ‘A lofty title, though he wears it well.” (a.k.a. yes, my hubby’s all that and a bag of chips too!) Or the pride (bragging) and sheer delight in her voice when she states, “Leliana gave me the letter the HoF included for me…”

 

Morrigan and Flemeth's Master Plan(s)

Spoiler

So in the Morrigan thread, we've always been quite keen on figuring out what Flemeth and Morrigan's ultimate aims/plans are (when we're not worrying about worst case scenarios and feeling sorry for ourselves of course). To that end and tying it into my new theory about this game possibly being the last big thing I expect Morrigan to do, I wanted to address this. This nebulous, overarching plotline has hung over the series from DA:O and is especially relevant to the dejected warden club, I mean Morrigan romancers/fans. It has frustrated us no end, especially with the whole "warden's story is over, Morri's isn't" saga yet we've never actually been able to nail down a definitive end goal that either witch was working towards up till this point.

I think this "guess what Morrigan's master plan is" ambiguity is further supported by how many plots she has that have gone awry - Killing Flemeth, OGB, Well of Sorrows, all of which haven't gone as planned. For Morrigan, something always goes wrong or gets in the way whenever she pursues these goals. So the conclusion I came to was, what if from the writing perspective, there never was a plan as such, merely the notion that Morrigan/Flemeth "had" a plan but in reality it is just smoke and mirrors to showcase the relationship between them and develop that over time instead. Sure, you have the dev notes discovered regarding Flemeth's plan being to pass along the god essence to Morrigan, but that's something that could have been cooked up to fit just for DA3. Flemeth herself fuelled this idea with her endless cryptic babbling and Morrigan supports it with her repeated plans gone awry (and the fact that's she's seemingly changed gears now)- there's always another "backup" plan to gain power, but that will fail too in some key aspect, etc. Flemeth herself even questions what Morrigan's end goal is with regards to her desire to preserve things and it's apparent that she doesn't really seem to have one.

 

Ash Wind:

I really don't know, and quite frankly, that ship has sailed. I find myself caring less and less. They've had multiple chances to enhance this part of the lore, but consistently seem to say, its so awesome, it can't be revealed until DA8. At this point... whatever.

 

Well of Sorrows & Flemeth encounter

Spoiler

Well this is actually the exact type of choice I did not want to make as a different PC, so I was none too pleased with this one, nor the way it was handled and presented, I'll get into the reasons below. For me, the Well of Sorrows would probably be Bioware's major blunder with Morrigan in DAI. These two events (Well of Sorrows & meeting Flemeth) are the low stakes/high stakes issues Morrigan deals with in the game, or rather the Well is perceived as a low stakes risk by Morrigan in a moment of hubris and well frankly, stupidity. Let's take it from the top.

So, coming into the Temple of Mythal, you have a Morrigan who is very driven and she easily gets caught up in the wonderment of the whole venture. Fairly quickly, her initial hypothesis is proven wrong (again, another plan/theory gone wrong) and you can even call her on it and admonish her. Additionally, if you have Solas along with Morrigan you get more perspective on the whole thing but ultimately you encounter Abelas who Morrigan disagrees with as her compulsion to preserve/acquire knowledge takes over. You then hit the Well choice itself and that's where the problems start for me.

To begin, I did find the choice disturbingly similar to the DR in terms of it being a somewhat contrived late game choice - again you have little info to go on and just like last time you have Morrigan going "Oh, me! Me! Pick me!" only this time it's worse because you're potentially inflicting suffering on Morrigan's entire family by extension and she's happy to go along with it... So yeah, this just felt like forced entrapment to me. I'd have hoped that the new Morrigan would be a little more cautious but the situation is framed to throw her under the bus, by and large.

So let's think about what scenarios it would make sense to deny letting Morrigan take the risk herself - you could justify it with a Inquisitor who has heard of the HoF and spoken to the people he helped over the course of the game. You hear stories from Dagna, Morrigan, Leliana directly as well as references from people like Bhelen via war table actions who are all too willing to help out your cause because of HoF's past actions. So in that particular circumstance, especially if the warden has requested that the Inquisitor look after his family, it's plausible that the Inquisitor would take the hit at the well for a fellow hero, or even to avoid incurring his wrath. Perhaps HoF should have written an extra line in his correspondence stating that Morrigan has a tendency to hatch mad schemes that don't end well and that he shouldn't go through with it if anything like that crops up.

It feels that this choice is so loaded that there is little incentive not to throw Morrigan to the wolves in this part unless your inquisitor was "encouraged" to look after them by a supremely powerful HoF or they are an elf or they are power hungry. Funny how a completely unrelated and uninvolved character manages to undo much of what your previous PC worked towards preventing in DAO in one fell swoop because a mystery power is dangled before Morrigan and she just needed the thumbs up to go grab it...

Besides that, if you wanted a method to give Morrigan super dragon powers, why not just use the Urthemiel's spirit to accomplish it...

 

 

If there was ever a moment to have previous actions influence a character, this was it, rather than relegating it mostly to info dumps. I was expecting something akin to this:
-Romanced Morrigan still with warden & son (OGB or not) - would give advice, flirt with the idea of doing it herself yet ultimately would think better of it and refuse to do it.
-Morrigan who went through Eluvian alone/friendly to Warden, no child - would give advice and offer to do it, might need pushing a bit to take the risk.
-Morrigan who underwent minimal/no personal growth in DAO - would give selective advice and offer to do it without needing prompting.

So here's my take - the Mythal/Flemeth encounter and Well of Sorrows choice was another OGB type scenario but this time one they could enforce, or rather force on the player, by giving the choice and consequence within the same game - ie: the Well tempts Morrigan (and potentially entraps her) and then Flemeth later gives her a choice between power/freedom/family etc later whilst simultaneously underlining Morrigan's folly if she drank from the Well.

 

 

When you first ask Morrigan if she's willing to use the Well despite the danger that it indirectly poses to her son she's ready to do so, maybe a little hesitance in her voice but she's willing to do it. But then a short time later when the **** hits the fan and Flemeth is about to take Kieran away (high stakes) her son takes precedence which was good to see.

So it's very much when the stakes are low (or at least perceived as low), Morrigan is more prepared to take a risk. When the stakes are high and very real (when Kieran is directly threatened by Flemeth), she opts to protect her family. However, I'm not sure this excuses her earlier stupidity/naivety in the Well. I did kind of like that Morrigan got a bit of a smackdown regardless of how things play out, she had it coming after all the "No, I won't tell you my plan" instances from the last game.

If Morrigan drinks, if spoken to, Leliana comments that Morrigan looks pleased with herself (before the Flemeth event) and that she becomes more like her mother each day. (Can you read more into this maybe, is/was Flemeth bound by geas to Mythal but hasn't disclosed it?)

My thoughts on the matter are that Morrigan's attitude towards the Well choice would have been better decided from the perspective of how you treated Morrigan in the past. So if she was romanced and has Kieran, she's less willing to jump at the Well opportunity than she would be otherwise, maybe even outright refuses to do it when pressed about her son. Just seems to me that in lieu of the warden being there to consult with as her partner, this should have been her choice, but it felt more liked a forced contrivance by the writers to me. However, you could argue that she reaches this desired moral epiphany/revelation immediately after- when Kieran's life is threatened, only then it's too late to remove herself from the threat posed by the geas. It's a look before you leap scenario but I do wish they'd have done it a bit differently or at least had more options/reactivity for Morrigan. I think it's bordering on the shift towards a more generic Morrigan that some of us feared would happen.

When you think of the variations of the scene, Morrigan's well choice is further reinforced as being a writer's contrivance:
-Kieran's father could be dead or missing, which would leave Kieran completely alone in Skyhold and the world. This does not strike me as something motherly Morrigan would want. Her excuse of "oh Kieran will be fine without me" doesn't follow with happens a short time later when he does go missing. Though, there is the low/high stakes caveat to this that allows you to reconcile it logically, however the way the scene and choice were framed was very forced in my opinion.

-And this is to say nothing of the fact that should Morrigan perish, she would also lose the ability to preserve/protect the soul of Urthemiel within her son. So she's going to  risk her own life, her family's and the OGB soul that she went to so much trouble to save and hide from Flemeth on a gamble...

So to take it one step further, you could posit that although Morrigan is deeply appreciative of her good fortune in stumbling into what has been a relatively happy period of her life, she hasn't fully realised just how much her son means to her until the stakes are actually at their highest.

Her pivotal moment with Flemeth shows us that she has come to value the familial bond with her son more than her original plans and desire for power and also more than current plan regarding preservation. The reasons for this are obviously the bond with her son is the parent/child link that she never had as a child (and that's why tying the OGB into an emotional decision for her was a good choice) and her relationship with the HoF is obviously diametrically opposed with how Flemeth wanted her to behave around men. So I guess you could say her realisation of this doesn't fully click into place until that one moment where she stands to lose everything, at which point she will offer to give up her own freedom.

So, while I didn't like the Well choice nor how Morrigan behaves in it, you can still reconcile it as discussed above, however, coming back to mine and Brock's many lamentations over the years, in a future game, if Bioware decides that this level of nuance, influenced by events 3 games earlier isn't important enough to keep following through on, it could definitely be squandered in favour of a more generic Morrigan (which is why I'm kind of hoping they let Morrigan's story end here). So, you can read into that, at least at this time, they feel it was important, which would somewhat support the idea of a lesser role for her moving forwards, so as not to have to deal with yet more branching.

TLDR - Morrigan postures too much and assumes too much knowledge, Solas calls her out on it but she persists and she does ultimately pay the price for it one way (drinks Well & is bound to Mythal) or another (terrified by mommy Flemeth and is left in a self-doubting introspective state). Bioware could/should have done more here to get more reactivity out of Morrigan in the Well choice scene, as is, the greedy, selfish Morrigan from the very start of DAO is forced into the forefront, even though her motivations are veiled.

Then again, I suppose GW Alistair and Hawke also don't come off much better either with their potential fates, only Leliana is truly laughing it up since she's immortal.

 

Morrigan cooks up enough ill-considered schemes as it is without adding mystery voices into the mix, thanks

 

Flemeth was a shitty mother to Morrigan and her frosty personality can be attributed to her mother who seemingly tried to shape Morrigan in her own image, this was hammered home again in DAI which leads me to ask: would Morrigan want Flemeth's god essence, seeing what she could become over time, thinking back to the two Osen, Conobar tales from DAO, I'd like to think Morrigan has now been shown enough times that having the most power does not equal "I win". She even explicitly states in DAI that she doesn't want immortality (and maybe godhood, iirc). So through that ending I think we might have seen some course correction for Morrigan and Flemeth. Flemeth realises Morrigan won't become what she wants her to be and defers her grander wishes/designs to Solas while Morrigan re-evaluates her own plans. I got the sense that Flemeth might have given up on whatever plan she had for Morrigan, I feel there was an air of finality in their final conversation in the fade. Ultimately it could go either way. I can see the Mythal inheritor route playing out but by opting to leave Morrigan where she is now- I don't think they'll find another ending that hits the same high notes with all of the most interesting personal aspects of Morrigan's arc now played out.

Let me also address this here:

 

I think you've hit upon the problem with Bioware's handling of returning characters here. Morrigan's reactivity of DAO events/choices is primarily reflected during cheap, non-cinematic dialogue in Skyhold. The reasons for this are obvious but it speaks to a larger problem of continuing to bring back old favourites and retaining nuance and divergence. Morrigan desperately needed different attitudes in the Well scene beyond "I want the power... just because" paired with dialogue branches that loop back on themselves. This is reflective of the Morrigan that we saw in DAO, not so much the one we witness in DAI and I imagine it's one of those points of convergence we hate, much like oh I don't know- the Dark Ritual - "You must sleep with me, give me the Old God soul, I'm going to leave, we'll never speak again, bye". Morrigan's desire to throw herself into unknown danger in the scene is so blatantly a writer's trap I think it lets her character down somewhat. With full knowledge of the events you can see someone desperately wanted to push the poetic irony of tying her to Mythal/Flemeth. Now, IF this choice had been Morrigan's and it had been based on how you treated her in DAO, they'd be no problem with the scene.

But given how the Morrigan we're dealing with (assuming most posters here romanced Morrigan and had Kieran) has spent a fair deal of time growing as a person, mother and partner, her eagerness to take this risk belies the strength and wisdom HoF claims she possesses. And that's why the Well of Sorrows was one of the more disappointing aspects of the game for me.

 

Ash Wind:

<Insert seething exception> Simply, I detest Morrigan’s attitude during this mission. It is DAI greatest failing. It’s so completely incompatible with her character throughout the rest of the game as to make one wonder if each were written by 2 different writers, who’ve never met each other. I completely discount it. Should I do another play through I will do this portion with the sound off and the subtitles turned off. Its just done so poorly and so wrong. Period.

Any things/changes people would have liked to have seen in how Morrigan was handled?

Spoiler

So as another talking point, I'll list here some of the small tweaks I've have liked to have seen with Morrigan in DAI. Aside from the non-presence of a certain character which I won't dwell on, I think I'd have made a small tweak in the fade scene where Morrigan is challenging Flemeth. Leliana is also another interesting aspect to touch upon here as well.

 

#1

I'd have liked to have seen one of Morrigan's lines change slightly to emphasise that Kieran is not only her son, but also the HoF's (a sort of callout to the relationship and raise the stakes and personal investment on the part of the player) - something like "He is our son, mine and..." and segue that into a comment from Flemeth about Morrigan's relationship. That would have been something I'd have been interested to see- Flemeth's current perspective on that relationship, given her own history of betrayal and the fact that she didn't want Morrigan growing genuinely close or developing feels for HoF or anyone really, Flemeth's thoughts on Morrigan shacked up with the man who once slew her would have been a great perspective to round things off on a personal note, would have been a nice way to involve the HoF in the scene despite his non-presence. I suppose we'll never see that now though. Little things like that though, add a whole lot to games and the whole narrative for me and it's a shame when they aren't fully realised. The family aspect of Morrigan's story especially seems to resonate strongly with a lot of posters in the Morrigan thread (and beyond) I notice, so it might be the best place to end her story.

 

Ash Wind:

In addition to what's mentioned above, as the scene played out, I thought it would have been awesome if Flemeth had lamented on the Warden's 'Bad Influence' on her, and further lamented pairing the two up, which she directly did by saving the Warden at the Tower and sending Morrigan off with him. Missed opportunities.

 

In the end, I DAI was good but not great. The romance Warden gifts were awesome, but, still it seems they could have done so much more with it. Still, I can't complain too much. I feel I got my money's worth, and I got to see a grown up Morrigan who values (rather than sees as an instrument) her son and her significate other. That alone was almost worth the price.

[Brockololly]

By the time I'm done I'll probably have a monster post in response to Terra. But for now, I've been messing around with the modding tools and trying to give myself a crash course in making textures and mucking around in 3ds Max and Zbrush with some, uh, interesting results.

 

In any event, I made a little modded texture to get rid of Morrigan's random moles and pock marks!

 

I started just using the heal brush in photoshop to get rid of the blemishes/ moles on the diffuse map then got carried away and started mucking around with her lipstick color (made it more purple like Origins), and tried to mess with her eyeshadow and eyebrows.  Then I started messing with the normal and specular maps and quickly got in over my head.

 

 

 

Inquisition Morrigan looks pretty good all told but I'd still love to see someone far more talented than myself try to tweak Morrigan's face model, specifically tweaking the nose, eyes and maybe the lips. The one annoying thing I've found are the eyebrows. In Origins she always had this kind of chill look to herself even when she had her brow furrowed whereas in Inquisition any angry face results in crazy angry looking eyebrows.

 

[line_genrou]

I loved the moles on Morrigan's face

Actually, overall she looks way better in this game than in DAO

I especially like how she looks like her character mod I used in DAO