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May. 10th, 2015 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysLewen and Sera get on infinitely better than anyone (including me) would have suspected given their starkly different views on certain central things. Proudly Dalish Lewen could be expected to think poorly of Sera’s rejection of all things traditionally elvhen, while Sera’s nervousness around magic should be set off by someone who insists on leaking magery from every pore.
And yet.
Somehow the common ground they found (both very invested in helping those in need and standing against abusive power structures) was enough to stand on despite the conflicts, and they ended up quite close by the end of the game. As much as it would disgust Sera to hear it, their shared elvish background played a part; Lewen’s affront at her rubbishing his culture was tempered by puzzlement over how another elf could be so hostile about their own heritage, and it lead him to insistently reach out to her rather than snub her as he might a bigoted human. The once-future Keeper in him couldn’t help but want to untangle the perceived knots of Sera’s prejudices and help her understand that the Dalish seek to provide and preserve an alternative to being assimilated by the cultures of those that bear them so little respect. In turn Sera, if not exactly shy about sharing her opinions to begin with, found that Lewen was willing to actually listen to what she was saying and so began to make more of an effort to articulate her experiences to him in an attempt to get him to understand that the Dalish weren’t always so respectful themselves. More than one related discussion ended with both parties throwing frustrated hands in the air and storming away in opposite directions, but the discussions continued to happen and were able to happen and they did, over time, learn from them.
(Like many people I have issues with how Sera’s conversations in particular tend to put the player character in the position of either passively agreeing with her opinions or harshly rejecting her as a person. I like to extrapolate on the moments of compromise that do exist, one of my favourites being when Sera admits a mage Inquisitor sets her a bit on edge but then all but rolls her eyes and exasperatedly shoves them should they gently tease her about it.
I don’t seek to rewrite Sera’s character – she remains Andrastian, disinterested in lengthy introspection, and reluctant to acknowledge wrongs, but she comes around to classing Lewen as a decent enough sort without having to disregard his Dalish and mage identities in the process (ie, dropping the “in spite of” / “for an x” backhanded insult), and subsequently stops immediately slamming the door on these things in general. The Dalish are still snobs in her eyes – but she’ll grudgingly concede that there’s more to their lifestyle than sitting all hoity-toity on their fancy deer talking about how shite the city elves are. Fine. Whatever. And they can make an alright bow. Nothing to get all smug about, your lordyship, and you better not be expecting her to get freaky face doodles any time soon!)
All of this was further facilitated by the fact they quickly developed something of an older brother / younger sister dynamic that made it easier to process injured feelings – squabbles between siblings are to be expected, after all. This also provided Lewen with the sorely needed family connection that he had lost in being separated from his clan. The Inquisition approached leadership and hierarchy very differently to the domestic bonds of the Lavellans, and Sera ended up getting lumped with much of Lewen’s pent-up need to fuss over somebody. Sera’s cheeky idiosyncrasies never much fazed Lewen, who was well-accustomed to shepherding entire creches, and in fact she became one of the most likely to draw out a more relaxed, playful side that was quite willing to go as pettily low as humming “Sera Would Never” just to get her goat.
As for Sera…a family connection was rather lacking on her end too, so though she had no qualms about telling him to shove off if he was getting patronising, he rarely failed to recognise her independence or talents and thus she was more likely to preen than rankle under his attention. It suited her to have him be The Responsible One of their strange pair, but she would also fondly class him as a country bum who doesn’t know when to take a break, and so would argue she did some of the looking after too, in her own way. The end result was a close familial friendship that bemused a lot of outsiders and meant all kinds of hell getting rained down on enemies who managed to land a blow on one in front of the other.
…and then as a quick side note, there’s the bonus fact that Sera and Dorian canonically get on pretty well as per party banter, meaning that they kind of ended up forming the Young and Super Gay Trio and being even more of a soggy family unit thing once Lewen and Dorian started making eyes at each other.
*
Conversely, Lewen and Vivienne have a, er…difficult relationship. Friendly courtesy quickly fell apart the face of their differing opinions on mage ethics, and by the time the gang settled in at Skyhold they’d devolved as far as unmasked hostilities, complete with petty sniping and teeth-clenched ‘debates’. There’s just not much common ground between them; they disagree on the Circles, they disagree on the nature of magic and the Fade, and they disagree on basic tenets of civil behaviour and some really key values.
They’re both good people, however, and that prevents true enmity from developing. Vivienne thinks the Inquisitor is an ignorant backwoods apostate willing to risk the stability of nations for the sake of playing with revolutionary fantasies – but he attends to her requests and suggestions as fairly as anyone else’s even when his dislike for her is plain, and he’s quietly compassionate in the wake of Bastien’s passing. Meanwhile, Lewen thinks Madam de Fer is a two-faced hypocrite who has prioritised herself over her people to the detriment of those most vulnerable – but she takes it upon herself to parry political blows for the sake of the Inquisition (including canonically defending he and Dorian from a sneering outsider!), and she proves an invaluable advisor in his preparation for court when she could just as easily sabotage him. They’ll never be friends and rarely qualify for friendly, but they can’t quite help but admit (very privately) that the other has their merits, and so in spite of their arguments they share a grudging respect and a scrap of something that resembles loyalty if you knock back about a pint of vodka and squint.
Many are relieved when they start being coolly cordial again, but none so much as Josephine, who was present for the entirety of the “training a Dalish elf in the ways of the Orlesian court” montage and credits all the grey hairs on the right side of her head to Vivienne and the left to Lewen.
And yet.
Somehow the common ground they found (both very invested in helping those in need and standing against abusive power structures) was enough to stand on despite the conflicts, and they ended up quite close by the end of the game. As much as it would disgust Sera to hear it, their shared elvish background played a part; Lewen’s affront at her rubbishing his culture was tempered by puzzlement over how another elf could be so hostile about their own heritage, and it lead him to insistently reach out to her rather than snub her as he might a bigoted human. The once-future Keeper in him couldn’t help but want to untangle the perceived knots of Sera’s prejudices and help her understand that the Dalish seek to provide and preserve an alternative to being assimilated by the cultures of those that bear them so little respect. In turn Sera, if not exactly shy about sharing her opinions to begin with, found that Lewen was willing to actually listen to what she was saying and so began to make more of an effort to articulate her experiences to him in an attempt to get him to understand that the Dalish weren’t always so respectful themselves. More than one related discussion ended with both parties throwing frustrated hands in the air and storming away in opposite directions, but the discussions continued to happen and were able to happen and they did, over time, learn from them.
(Like many people I have issues with how Sera’s conversations in particular tend to put the player character in the position of either passively agreeing with her opinions or harshly rejecting her as a person. I like to extrapolate on the moments of compromise that do exist, one of my favourites being when Sera admits a mage Inquisitor sets her a bit on edge but then all but rolls her eyes and exasperatedly shoves them should they gently tease her about it.
I don’t seek to rewrite Sera’s character – she remains Andrastian, disinterested in lengthy introspection, and reluctant to acknowledge wrongs, but she comes around to classing Lewen as a decent enough sort without having to disregard his Dalish and mage identities in the process (ie, dropping the “in spite of” / “for an x” backhanded insult), and subsequently stops immediately slamming the door on these things in general. The Dalish are still snobs in her eyes – but she’ll grudgingly concede that there’s more to their lifestyle than sitting all hoity-toity on their fancy deer talking about how shite the city elves are. Fine. Whatever. And they can make an alright bow. Nothing to get all smug about, your lordyship, and you better not be expecting her to get freaky face doodles any time soon!)
All of this was further facilitated by the fact they quickly developed something of an older brother / younger sister dynamic that made it easier to process injured feelings – squabbles between siblings are to be expected, after all. This also provided Lewen with the sorely needed family connection that he had lost in being separated from his clan. The Inquisition approached leadership and hierarchy very differently to the domestic bonds of the Lavellans, and Sera ended up getting lumped with much of Lewen’s pent-up need to fuss over somebody. Sera’s cheeky idiosyncrasies never much fazed Lewen, who was well-accustomed to shepherding entire creches, and in fact she became one of the most likely to draw out a more relaxed, playful side that was quite willing to go as pettily low as humming “Sera Would Never” just to get her goat.
As for Sera…a family connection was rather lacking on her end too, so though she had no qualms about telling him to shove off if he was getting patronising, he rarely failed to recognise her independence or talents and thus she was more likely to preen than rankle under his attention. It suited her to have him be The Responsible One of their strange pair, but she would also fondly class him as a country bum who doesn’t know when to take a break, and so would argue she did some of the looking after too, in her own way. The end result was a close familial friendship that bemused a lot of outsiders and meant all kinds of hell getting rained down on enemies who managed to land a blow on one in front of the other.
…and then as a quick side note, there’s the bonus fact that Sera and Dorian canonically get on pretty well as per party banter, meaning that they kind of ended up forming the Young and Super Gay Trio and being even more of a soggy family unit thing once Lewen and Dorian started making eyes at each other.
*
Conversely, Lewen and Vivienne have a, er…difficult relationship. Friendly courtesy quickly fell apart the face of their differing opinions on mage ethics, and by the time the gang settled in at Skyhold they’d devolved as far as unmasked hostilities, complete with petty sniping and teeth-clenched ‘debates’. There’s just not much common ground between them; they disagree on the Circles, they disagree on the nature of magic and the Fade, and they disagree on basic tenets of civil behaviour and some really key values.
They’re both good people, however, and that prevents true enmity from developing. Vivienne thinks the Inquisitor is an ignorant backwoods apostate willing to risk the stability of nations for the sake of playing with revolutionary fantasies – but he attends to her requests and suggestions as fairly as anyone else’s even when his dislike for her is plain, and he’s quietly compassionate in the wake of Bastien’s passing. Meanwhile, Lewen thinks Madam de Fer is a two-faced hypocrite who has prioritised herself over her people to the detriment of those most vulnerable – but she takes it upon herself to parry political blows for the sake of the Inquisition (including canonically defending he and Dorian from a sneering outsider!), and she proves an invaluable advisor in his preparation for court when she could just as easily sabotage him. They’ll never be friends and rarely qualify for friendly, but they can’t quite help but admit (very privately) that the other has their merits, and so in spite of their arguments they share a grudging respect and a scrap of something that resembles loyalty if you knock back about a pint of vodka and squint.
Many are relieved when they start being coolly cordial again, but none so much as Josephine, who was present for the entirety of the “training a Dalish elf in the ways of the Orlesian court” montage and credits all the grey hairs on the right side of her head to Vivienne and the left to Lewen.
