cailantheirin:

blackwall giving advice to trevelyan about the different horses available to them at first and laughing when they ask him whether or not they could ride anything more interesting, telling them that horses can be interesting enough if you make them angry.

blackwall smiling to himself when lavellan finds themselves drawn to the stables as much as the garden, listening intently when they tell him they worked with their clan’s halla and had a certain amount of innate skill with animals.

blackwall helping adaar pick out a mount that suits them and will willingly carry the heftier load, explaining that there were wardens just as big as them and chargers that could carry even heavier burdens and still run as fast as ponies.

blackwall giving cadash a boost (much to their pleasure or displeasure) when they need it to get into the saddle, petting over the horse’s mane and instructing them to do the same while he leads them around the yard so they can get a feel for each other.

fuckyeahcullen:

inquisitorwren:

zevransbutt:

bunabi:

maleficaar:

okay but think about this: dorian isn’t just a mage but a mage from tevinter and a former apprentice to a magister and yet cullen is still sitting down and playing chess/w/e with him and can relax and make jokes and holy shit we’ve come a long way from “i hope your compassion hasn’t doomed us all” and ”mages cannot be treated like people” and “perhaps it’s best to keep our enemies close”

image

well in all honesty

going from distrusting mages to tolerating mages isn’t that big of a leap in character

it’s hard to pat him on the back for playing nice with Dorian without acting wild

Okay but if you’re going to point that out how about also mentioning that a good chunk (if not all) his distrust towards mages at this point stems from suffering mentally, emotional and physical torture thanks to blood mages and demons? And how about mentioning that him chilling with Dorian isn’t the first sign of him working through his PTSD or his hatred of mages instilled into him but the chantry, considering he helps defend the innocent circle mages in da:2 and also knowingly lets Anders operate his clinic?

Are we really going to ignore his character progression from da:o to da:2 by pretending the only actions of his that count are what he said while he was trapped in a demon bubble in the very first game, or what he said to Hawke who he’s literally just met in da:2? Is that what we’re doing?

Because honestly it kinda is a big deal that someone who was likely raised with preinstalled prejudices against mages (thanks to the chantry) and had those prejudices all but proven true to him perosnally in his lifetime happily put them aside to make nice and chill with a tevinter magister.

So. Y’know.

Oh God I was thinking about this and someone put it all into words for me.  There’s nothing to say.  Excellent commentary is excellent and deserves a dozen donuts at least.