You know, I always feel a little sorry for Master Dennet. The Inquisitor is like, hey, I need a horse expert! Here is a horse expert! And he comes along to be your horse expert.
And for a while all is well. He brings his own fine horses, and the Inquisitor adds to the stable as she finds new breeding stock—often excellent. Where she got the charger from, he doesn’t know, and he feels too honored by having it in his care to ask.
And then the Inquisitor starts coming back with like… deer. And Dennet scratches his head, because he knows horses, and just because it has four hooves and you can put a saddle on it doesn’t make it a horse. Hell, the food and space and exercise requirements for a cob and a draft horse aren’t the same—a goddamn deer is presumably completely different. But he goes around Skyhold rounding up Dalish elves until he finds one who knew something about halla, on the principle that that’s probably the closest thing, and they work it out. (He’s always respected the way Dalish treat their halla, so it’s not that big of a leap. And even though Dalish—the Charger—doesn’t know anything much about how to raise halla, he looks the other way when she wants to spend half a day in the deer’s box stall being all affectionate at it. Can’t hurt.)
But deer of various kinds are at least still… well… grass-eating hoofed animals. Things don’t begin to really go sideways until they bring back the first dracolisk.
It’s a lizard. It’s a giant meat-eating lizard. Dennet is a master of horse, and he will stretch that to deer in a pinch, but asking him to figure out the care and feeding of big spiky lizard things is a bit much. It is—he tries to explain, first to Cullen and then to Josephine and finally to the Inquisitor herself—as if someone had decided that because you knew how to knead bread, you were obviously a master pugilist, because both things involved punching things. For his trouble he got a friendly clap on the shoulder and a “Just do your best! We can free up some funds to hire you more help!” (help from where? was he to hang up fliers somewhere for dracolisk handlers? where exactly was one supposed to go for that?).
(We will not even discuss the zombie horse with a sword through its head. We will not. The zombie horse got a stall to itself and was studiously ignored, on the principle that it was dead, and not much Dennet did could either help or hurt it.)
Dennet knew that he was in over his head and then some when the Inquisitor showed up with a charming grin and a giant fucking nug, and all he thought was, “Better see if any dwarves know what to feed it.” (Dagna does, but he’s a little afraid because she keeps having these ideas for ‘experimental feed,’ and….)
Look, if you think that Cullen is an irredeemable tool because he was once a dedicated Templar, then that’s your prerogative. I’m not here to tell anyone how to feel about fictional characters.
BUT.
In my opinion? The fact that he came out of DA2 defending mages was a goddamn miracle, and speaks to the quality of his character.
Let’s look at his arc:
Cullen is a rookie kid. He’s sympathetic enough towards mages that he can potentially form a crush on one. He knows that this is inappropriate, given the power imbalance at work, and so doesn’t follow up on it. He wants to do the right thing.
Cullen is tortured by blood mages for weeks or possibly months. Meanwhile, all of his friends are brutally murdered in front of him.
Cullen has a breakdown and lashes out at mages.
Does this case Cullen’s commanding officers to send him off to a nice, quiet monastery for some recuperation time? Nope. Apparently not. Instead they ship Cullen off to Kirkwall, aka the blood mage capital of Thedas.
In Kirkwall, Meredith takes a shine to Cullen because of his ongoing freakout, and promotes him to the post of Knight Captain at a very young age — likely bypassing several intermediate ranks.
Cullen spends the next six years being regularly exposed to demons and blood magic. Some of there experiences are probably triggering.
At the same time, Cullen is surrounded by people who would have encouraged and rewarded his worst authoritarian tendencies.
Somehow, in spite of this, he forms doubts. He comes to (re)recognize the humanity in mages and decides to defend them, turning against the mentor who had faith in him when he was a broken young man.
thedrunkquisitor said:Prompt: So This is the end? Pairing: Cullen/Inquisitor Category: angst (what else?) Au: Red Templar!Cullen
My Note: I’m putting this under Nirah for reasons.
Blood smeared from the corner of her lip, eyes focusing past him, refusing to give into his demands. She took a few steps back, her feet cautious of where she stepped. Nirah knew this room just as well as he did.
“Look at me.”
She blinked, lashes fluttering slow. She gave a slight shake of the head, the most response she gave to him since he strolled into her room besides screaming at him. He followed her movements, heavy steps hitting the rug. She needed something between them, but he moved to force her to the window instead of the desk. She stole a glance at him, his eyes locked on hers. Red coursed its way through the golden hue of his irises. His face looked gaunt, dark circles under his eyes giving him the image of death. The clothes he wore instead of his armor hung off of him like he was nothing more than flesh and bones.
“Look at me.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head once more. “You were supposed to come back last week. You weren’t supposed to go near -”
He slammed his fist onto the desk, papers strewing about as she flinched. Nirah never broke her gaze with him now. The glance turned into watching him. That same hand had struck her minutes prior, that same hand had loved her tenderly just a week ago, clenched into a fist as he moved past the desk.
“I told Samson that I won’t kill you.”
Nirah released a bitter laugh, backing away and towards the window. “I’m already dead, Cullen.”
The red lyrium jutted from the backs of his wrists, twisting them and opening his palm out towards her. “Come with me, then. You don’t have to die for this cause. We can be together still. Always.”
She swiped at his hand, knocking it away from her. He grasped her wrist in that movement and pulled her closer to him. Nirah attempted to squirm away, shaking her head as more tears fell from her eyes. “So this is the end?” she whispered, feeling his grip tighten, feeling the blood cutting off from her wrist.
He dipped his head down, forcing her to look up at him, to lock her eyes with his. His forehead pressed against hers, the faint traces of memories still lingering fresh in his mind. “For the Inquisition.”
She steadied her other hand against his side, focusing her powers quick, feeling the energy of the spirit blade form in her hand before letting it rip through him. His grip on her wrist tightened, pulling it up once as his face contorted in pain, leaning into her and pushing her against the pane glass. “For you.”
So probably everyone knew this already but I just found out about it and am freshly heartbroken, so: apparently if you let the Chargers die during Iron Bull’s quest, he’s tormenting himself thinking Krem’s last thoughts were of betrayal, but Cole tells him his last thoughts were “horns pointing up”. But if Iron Bull isn’t there, he’ll tell you what his last thoughts actually were: “Copper on the lips, Dalish lies dead-eyed beside me. He’ll come. He’ll call. He won’t leave us. Horns pointing up.”
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