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Apr. 7th, 2015 06:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysThe Dalish clan in the Exalted Plains ends up being really important to Lewen, partly because they’re a comforting reminder of home but mostly because they always greet him as though he belongs there. All through the story, he quietly, privately fears losing himself in small increments to human influences; exchanging lethallin for Lord Inquisitor, putting aside his own tongue in order to gain fluency in another’s argot, living behind stone walls and sleeping in a four-poster bed and eating food prepared in a closed kitchen. (Skyhold belonged to the ancient elves, but Lewen isn’t ancient elven – he is Dalish, and that is a conversation he and Solas needed to have and probably didn’t.)
He would never have considered himself malleable, yet moments of concession keep slipping under his guard, wrapped in the cloak of necessity. He orders his soldiers according to a human hierarchy. He uses human phrasings in letters that will be stamped with an Inquisition seal. He might have hated damn near every single blasted second of the ball, but he still allowed them to teach him the steps and dress him up in the outfit and parade him past the sneers because it had to be done – and all the while he fears that other Dalish wouldn’t agree that there was such a need. Or, worse: that they would see a betrayal and be right. His clan was not, on the whole, derisive towards city elves but he knows how the rhetoric goes and it would greatly hurt him to be accused of losing touch with his people when he’s already struggling with his physical severance from them.
So it matters enormously that this clan – none of whom share any connection with him save their racial heritage – welcomes him without suspicion, calls him da’len, and generally treats him as they would had he still been padding along at Deshanna’s side. Though they express reservations towards the Inquisition, they are in spite of his place within it, not because of it. They’re even impressed enough by the Inquisition’s acceptance of a Dalish voice so high in their ranks to eventually trust him with the care of a clan member, which is about as solid assurance as he could ask for that he is still regarded as one of their own.
I like to think that towards the end of their stay with the clan, after Lewen has explained some of how a Dalish First has come to end up as Herald of the shems’ religious icon, Keeper Hawen invites him to participate in a small ceremony – not in the role of an apprentice, but as a fellow Keeper. It’s entirely symbolic, but it’s a symbol of great meaning to Lewen, who has come to realise that there will be no returning to his former position. Even if all goes well, even if the Inquisition were to step down as a power afterwards, his future is just too uncertain for his clan to put their hierarchy on indefinite hold. He will always be Lavellan, but he is no longer their First and will never be their Keeper, and so being granted this one small moment to give a final acknowledgement to his entire life’s work…it’s an act of understanding and compassion from the elder, and a moment of much-needed closure for Lewen.
He would never have considered himself malleable, yet moments of concession keep slipping under his guard, wrapped in the cloak of necessity. He orders his soldiers according to a human hierarchy. He uses human phrasings in letters that will be stamped with an Inquisition seal. He might have hated damn near every single blasted second of the ball, but he still allowed them to teach him the steps and dress him up in the outfit and parade him past the sneers because it had to be done – and all the while he fears that other Dalish wouldn’t agree that there was such a need. Or, worse: that they would see a betrayal and be right. His clan was not, on the whole, derisive towards city elves but he knows how the rhetoric goes and it would greatly hurt him to be accused of losing touch with his people when he’s already struggling with his physical severance from them.
So it matters enormously that this clan – none of whom share any connection with him save their racial heritage – welcomes him without suspicion, calls him da’len, and generally treats him as they would had he still been padding along at Deshanna’s side. Though they express reservations towards the Inquisition, they are in spite of his place within it, not because of it. They’re even impressed enough by the Inquisition’s acceptance of a Dalish voice so high in their ranks to eventually trust him with the care of a clan member, which is about as solid assurance as he could ask for that he is still regarded as one of their own.
I like to think that towards the end of their stay with the clan, after Lewen has explained some of how a Dalish First has come to end up as Herald of the shems’ religious icon, Keeper Hawen invites him to participate in a small ceremony – not in the role of an apprentice, but as a fellow Keeper. It’s entirely symbolic, but it’s a symbol of great meaning to Lewen, who has come to realise that there will be no returning to his former position. Even if all goes well, even if the Inquisition were to step down as a power afterwards, his future is just too uncertain for his clan to put their hierarchy on indefinite hold. He will always be Lavellan, but he is no longer their First and will never be their Keeper, and so being granted this one small moment to give a final acknowledgement to his entire life’s work…it’s an act of understanding and compassion from the elder, and a moment of much-needed closure for Lewen.
