On that Inquisitor problem, and why you can’t go home again.

Crosspost. Originally posted on dreamwidth on 06/22/20, when I was still in the middle of what would eventually be my first complete playthrough.

I am currently post-“In Your Heart Shall Burn” and pre-“Here Lies the Abyss” and “Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.” As my current playthrough has progressed, my human mage Inquisitor is definitely working better for me in terms of investment than my dwarf rogue was, much as I still love that character. Completing “In Your Heart Shall Burn” and the move to Skyhold gave me the opportunity to think more about what works, or doesn’t, about the Inquisitor in their various forms.

Initially I had pretty much pinned the whole investment problem on the Inquisition being inextricably rooted in the Andrastian faith. And to be clear I do still think that is kind of a big problem, though there is at least some effort put into mitigating it. The Inquisitor can declare themselves faithful or not in early game dialogue choices, and can express their own motives for leading the Inquisition when their position is made official at Skyhold and they hoist the silly sword in the air. The threat itself is universal: the Breach in the sky, and then Corypheus and his archdemon. Even the song led by Mother Giselle on the retreat from Haven, “The Dawn Will Come,” is notably more of a folk song about hope in dark times than a religious hymn; it doesn’t mention the Maker or Andraste at all, and that seems intentional both on the part of the writers and on the part of Mother Giselle.

And yet, depending on who your Inquisitor is, that still may not feel like quite enough to really answer the question, “Why am I doing this? Why am I here?”

I think an underlying but equally important problem is that Inquisition does not do as much as the previous games to establish that the Inquisitor cannot go back.

Let’s look back to Origins for a moment: a story in which the hero can come from a whole variety of backgrounds and beliefs, and still feels motivated to carry out their quest. So why does this work? Well, we have the universal threat of the Blight, to start, and that’s something Inquisition gets right. Then too, we have the Grey Wardens as the great equalizer. Anyone can be a Warden, and the Wardens are respected and distrusted in about equal measure. So again, that’s a problem in Inquisition, that the institution of the Inquisition lacks the universality of the Grey Wardens.

But I think the other big thing that makes the Warden work as a playable character is this: every origin establishes beyond a doubt why the Warden cannot go back. Whether fleeing the murder of their family, struck by Blight sickness, convicted of murder, etc, the Warden is unceremoniously expelled from their old life and conscripted to the Grey Wardens (who also have the convenient right to conscript anyone they choose).

If Eleanor Trevelyan is working out well for me in this game, I think it’s because I accidentally created a character whose backstory fits that “can’t go back” model pretty much perfectly. Her being a Circle mage actually turns out to be just as important as her being an Andrastian; she can’t return to the Circle because there is no more Circle. And for Eleanor in particular, she’s not even on good enough terms with her family to run back to them if they’d have her. It’s not just that Eleanor is the only one who can close the Breach; it’s that she also has nowhere else to go, and no one else to call on for help.

In an odd way, Adaar might actually be the next best set up for this. Though probably not an Andrastian, Adaar also doesn’t come affiliated with any particular faith, and as a mercenary, well, they might not have any other strong ties to turn to and maybe the others in their company were also killed at the Conclave. (Edited to add: they’re explicitly not, it turns out, so never mind.)

Cadash, the Carta dwarf Inquisitor, could sort of go either way—it isn’t unheard-of for dwarves to be Andrastian and a surface dwarf might be more likely to have picked up the faith, though it’s still uncommon. But more critically, while Cadash could conceivably return to the Carta for resources and strategy, their mercenary background means that, like Adaar, it doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable for them to look at the resources and power being basically thrown at them by the Inquisition and saying, fuck it, might as well use this.

It’s the Dalish elf Inquisitor that’s the hardest sell, I think. A Dalish Inquisitor not only has a faith of their own and a clan to return to, they have every reason not to stay with the Inquisition. While there are exceptions, the Dalish generally do not like or trust outsiders, especially humans. Furthermore, the Dalish have mages, and it seems pretty reasonable actually that in the time it takes the Inquisitor to hoof it to Redcliffe and sort shit out, Lavellan could send word to all the clans within reach and bring together the best of their own people to close the Breach. Lavellan is the Inquisitor who, at least from their own perspective, would have the least need or desire for the Inquisition’s help. And the icing on the cake is that of the two elf companions the Inquisitor can pick up, both of them vocally dislike the Dalish!

None of which, of course, is going to stop me from rolling a Dalish elf Inquisitor in a future playthrough, nor should it stop you! But it does bring into clearer focus for me the obstacles to immersion in this game for me, and at least tells me what questions I need to ask about my character in order to roleplay around them.

the inquisitor had bde right? it’s not just me?

A summary of my feelings regarding star wars: