regalswag:
maggiemagpieme:
hwills456:
mydadisindianajones:
regalswag:
WHY I HATE VIVIENNE: THE HOUSE MAGE.
SO HERE’S VIVIENNE.
EVERYONE LIKES HER.
SHE’S REASONABLE. COOL, EVEN. SAYS NEAT STUFF.
HELL. SHE’S EVEN PRO-CIRCLE.
AND THEN YOU FIND OUT…
… SHE DOESN’T EVEN LIVE IN A CIRCLE???
WAIT. SO SHE WANTS THE FUCKING CIRCLE BACK SO OTHER MAGES CAN BE PUT IN IT, WHILE SHE’S BANGING DUKE SILVER?!?
TO CLARIFY.
WHILE MAGES IN KIRKWALL ARE BEING MURDERED, MOLESTED, OPPRESSED… AND THEY REBEL BECAUSE THEY CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE…
SHE’S EATING GREY POUPON OFF CROISSANTS AND DRINKING JUS D’ORANGE W/ THE EMPRESS AND SAYING, “NAH Y’ALL NEED TO DO WHAT THE CHANTRY SAYS. GET BACK IN THEM CIRCLES.”
IN ORDER TO PROTECT HER OPULENT LIFESTYLE, SHE WOULD CONDEMN HER FELLOWS TO A LIFE OF OPPRESSION AND SERVITUDE. WHAT A MONSTER. WHAT A FIEND.
SHE IS THE TRUEST OF ALL ABOMINATIONS: A BOUGIE DEMON.
FUCK VIVIENNE.
SHE’S THE CATCHER FREEMAN OF MAGES.
This is why I don’t like her. I mean shes charming, sympathetic when you do her peraonal quest, but she claims to represent a set oppressed people when she has no idea what they’re dealing with. I may not agree or even like Anders, but I completely understand why he did what he did. It was time for unheard voices to get a platform, and its too bad it had to go the way it did. I wanted to like Viv, I
really > did.
This is actually why I find her fascinating. She’s so amazingly out of touch that she thinks most mage circles are like hers. All she had to do was submit a request to the first enchanter to live outside the circle. She’s heard that some circles may not be quite as liberal as hers, but they can’t be all that bad. And the horror stories are surely the minority.
So many people are just like her. If they haven’t experienced it themselves, they can’t seem to fathom what it’s like for others.
I don’t think she actually is out of touch. I think she’s very firmly in touch, and that’s part of what makes her character so complex. There are massive spoilers in all of this reply.
Vivienne implies at one point that she worked very, very hard to get out of the Circle and into her position in the Imperial Court, and someone later says that Vivienne was the first person to turn the Imperial Court position into one of real power. Achieving those goals takes a hell of a lot of motivation - so what is that motivation? On the surface, it would seem like she’s after power for power’s sake, but I think that’s too simplistic.
There are a few things Cole says during party banter that give a lot of insight into Vivienne’s character. One thing he says is, “The Circle made you afraid.” I think her motivation is that she’s seen too much of the circles rather than too little. I think she internalised the circle/templar power structure because doing so meant she could survive it - she learned how to manipulate it to keep herself safe, which is why she wants it back because without it, how can she guarantee her own safety? I think she’s convinced herself that she likes and approves of templars for the same reason, even though some of Cole’s insights imply that she’s actually terrified of templars. If she’s on their side, after all, then surely they won’t attack her.
Cole repeats some truly horrific memories of what she saw happen in the White Spire when the mage rebellion began, which goes a long way towards explaining her antagonism towards the mage rebellion. Basically, the second that mages were free, people she knew died violently. That can only have reinforced her internalised view that circles are the way to go.
Vivienne is full of contradictions and she’s a master at obscuring her true intentions. However, the single most telling thing about Vivienne is that if she becomes the Divine, she reinstates the circles and templar order, but she doesn’t recreate them exactly as they were. She leashes the templar order firmly to her and allows the mages much more freedom and responsibility. It’s a short-term plan that would only work while she’s around to control things, but the fact that she enacts reforms on both the circle and the templars is very, very telling.
Vivienne grew up in the circle, and she is afraid of her magic, afraid of demons and afraid of the templar order because that’s what the circle taught her to be. However incorrect her internalised beliefs are (and I’m not so sure that all of her fears are incorrect - remember Connor?), they still motivate and guide her actions. She genuinely believes that the circles are the best way to protect the mages and protect everyone else from mages, but given the chance, she changes the circles to allow mages more freedoms and responsibilities - her actions say that she believed the circles as they were before the rebellion were too restrictive.
I think Vivienne’s attitude towards mages, templars and the circle can best be summed up in one line Cole reads from her:
"No, I will not fall. No one will control me ever again."
First and foremost, Vivienne is a survivor.
I’ve always felt like some people make excuses for Vivienne’s honestly antagonistic, elitist, and callous nature because she’s the first black companion we’ve had and they want her to be some kind of power wagon (and just to avoid future drama, I’m black and saying this. That doesn’t make my opinion more valid, but I just want to head off any calls of racism. I think she’s an interesting character that should be discussed beyond that merit, is all.) If you consider everything she does and says, she’s honestly the Morrigan of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which is interesting considering the Morrigan in Dragon Age: Inquisition is nothing like the one in Dragon Age: Origins.
Where you see her motivations as being a survivor, I’d say they’re akin to nearly every Orlesian supremacist who is also a survivor “in the Game.” That’s what this ultimately is to her — the Game. Her desire is to gain more power and influence, and if you talk to her she makes it clear she’s never felt particularly victimized by anything. She’s an elitist and in order to be an elitist you have to people that aren’t as privileged.
Her manner of addressing the reasons/actions leading to the rebellion is too indifferent throughout the game in order to really give her any credibility for having some greater agenda of mage equality at her heart. It’s kind of like, when someone brings it up she says “yes, but they can’t ALL be that bad, darling” and is dismissive of these very real situations we’ve seen. Certainly as the Divine she doesn’t want the mages to rebel again so she lightens the collar, but that she keeps it there is really the problem. To say she’s justified in her views of returning people to pretty much alienages because she saw some bad things is like saying the templars should be disbanded because of Red Lyrium. Why is there a double standard there?
She’s an antagonistic person who keeps reminding others that this world is one built around mages needing to be kept in captivity. She kind of hand waves their feelings of dismay as their overreactions, which yes she may not understand but that doesn’t excuse it. We have other characters that are mages and fans of circles — Minaeve (I believe?) is the elf researcher you get and she says she misses the structure and the order, but while she can say that as she lived in it: Vivienne had a private residence and a prestigious position and was playing the game like no one else had before her. I’m sure she’d ‘fix some things,’ but why would she want to ruin her drive for power?
Ultimately, she reminded me a lot of someone that’d step on others to get where she wanted. I didn’t see her as a good person at all. But I suppose our opinions differ on that.