Anders

Anon on, screening on, hit me up if you want to discuss how I'm doing. I promise I'm very reasonable.

Let's all be decent with each other.

OOC INFORMATION

Name: Leah

Contact Information: malea.botor[at]gmail[dot]com

Personal Journal: N/A

Age: 25

Characters Played: None.

IN-CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name: Anders

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Age: 37

Canon Point: Just after the end of the game.

Original Universe or Alternate Universe? OU

Personality: There’s a prevailing fallacy amongst Dragon Age fandom that Anders was a substantially different person in Awakening than who he is in Dragon Age 2. This is very shallow thinking: he may be more prone to jokes in Awakening, more serious, sad, and fervent in DA2, but there is a natural progression between the two. Exacerbated by the new presence of Justice, perhaps, the spirit he took into himself, but building off of aspects that have always been a part of Anders.

Despite thinking of himself before Justice as out for himself, Anders has always been concerned with the well-being of others. When you first meet him in Awakening, he has just been found in a very suspicious situation, surrounded by the dead bodies of the Templars who were sent to bring him in. It would be in his best interests to run as soon as he’s given the opportunity. However, even if you tell him to leave, Anders shows up just before the boss of that area, waiting for you and asking if he can help. This, it seems, isn’t his first time helping when it would have been safer to stay on the run. He comes into your party in Awakening equipped with the “Fox’s Pendant”, which he apparently received as a reward for saving the life of Bann Ferrenly, his first time escaping the Circle. He has also always been outraged by the plight of the mages, in Awakening there are a few points where he rants to your character about how mages are enslaved, or how he wants such simple things but he’s seen as dangerous. Justice, when Justice is still separate, asks him why he doesn’t “strike a blow against his oppressors” to which Anders first says it sounds difficult, and follows it up by mentioning that he doesn’t want to die.

In DA2, when he’s taken in Justice, his natural inclination to help people expresses itself in a couple of ways. Firstly, his free clinic in Darktown, a place full of the poorest people in Kirkwall. He works himself endlessly to give help to those who wouldn’t find it elsewhere, mages or not. And then, in terms of the plight of the mages, one of the reasons he took in Justice in the first place. But even then, in Act 1, he’s still repressing that, hiding and helping in small ways as he was before Justice. He’s in Kirkwall to try and help his friend escape from the brutalities of their Circle, and that’s all. When Karl is made Tranquil just for exchanging letters with Anders, this serves as the impetus to have Anders trying to strike a greater blow against injustice. In Act 2, he joins the mage underground, helping mages escape from the Circle, helping refugees and runaways. He also starts to write a manifesto, arguing why he believes that mages should be free, and that their imprisonment isn’t by the will of the Maker, but by the will of people in power. When the Templars take control of the city in Act 3, and the Commander of the Templars and the High Enchanter are locked in a disagreement while more mages are abused, Anders’ last desperate attempt to help the mages leads to an act of terrorism, setting off an immense explosion in the Chantry, which apparently kills hundreds. He is still trying to help, but at this point, his simple attempts to help have been corrupted by desperation, and the simple singlemindedness of the spirit in his mind. The mages need Justice, and if the Templars and mages are in a stalemate forever, the mages will never have it. It’s very clear that this is a corrupted version of basic Anders, however. He isn’t in his right mind, sitting and waiting for Hawke to kill him to bring justice to those who “had” to die for the mages’ cause. He also says that the carnage after the explosion is worse than he’d thought it would be. With Justice, he was thinking in terms of concepts, simple ideas that are clean on paper, but messy in real life.

Anders still tells jokes in DA2, although the frequency becomes less and less as the years pass. When you can clearly see the anger underneath the joking exterior in Awakening, when he’ll say something serious about the mages and then follow it up with a diverting joke, it’s clear he’s using the joking as a shield. He’s unhappy and trapped, depressed, and the jokes are a diversion until the depression and helplessness are too much and his focus becomes solely his cause. He constantly tried to escape the Circle, running away at least seven times and always being rounded up and brought back by the Templars. He wanted to feel free, but he never could, not even when he finally escaped. There was always a Templar watching him, or the risk of being recaptured. He couldn’t live his life free of the fear of being killed, or made Tranquil.

He is also a deeply lonely person. If Hawke romances him, Anders explains that you could never truly risk getting attached to another person, or letting the Templars know you were involved with another person, because then they could use that person against you. His life is one of self-imposed isolation, setting himself apart with humour, with words, by running away. This was exacerbated when after the second-to-last time Anders tried to run away, the Templars put him in solitary for a year, where his only company on occasion was the Tower’s cat. Even when he adopted a cat himself, the Grey Wardens made him get rid of it. He hasn’t been allowed much friendliness or humanity in his life. People who are important to him leave, or are taken away, or killed. His own father was afraid of him, thought he was a punishment from the Maker for having magic, and he was taken far away from his home and home country to be raised at the Ferelden Circle rather than anywhere in the Anderfels.

The thing about Justice is he’s come to the point where he no longer believes he’ll manage to have anything good for himself, he believes he has to sacrifice it in order to make justice happen for mages. That’s the major difference, besides the motivation that Justice gives him. He can’t think of himself as a deserving individual anymore. He’s a means to an end, and so is exploding the Chantry, and so is dying to bring justice to the people who died, and to become a figurehead for the cause. He’s never been permitted much personhood as a mage, so with Justice setting everything up for him as a concept, it’s difficult for him to look beyond concepts and ideas. He’s slowly losing himself as a person.

Is this character immune? Yes.

Background: Anders’ personal history. As far as things which can change…
Awakening
- He was left to defend the Keep and survived, not faking his death.
- He was friends with the Warden.
2
- He was in a supportive and friendly romance with Hawke.
- Hawke helped him find the ingredients for the Chantry explosion and didn’t kill him.
- Otherwise, the history goes as works with the in-game Hawke.

Inventory:
- His second, black REEEEEBEL outfit, including feathery overcoat, quilted undercoat, tunic, trousers, boots, a pouch full of healing herbs and cloth bandages, a coin purse, a bunch of other bandages, and a small knife which has gone missing. THOROUGHNESS.
- This stave turned into a plastic replica
- a small pillow embroidered by his mother
- Tevinter Chantry Amulet (which is just jewellery, not anything useful)
- Ser Pounce-A-Lot, a now rather large ginger cat
- A Hawke-shaped body pillow
- A snow globe containing the Mage's Tower from Ferelden
- a book titled "Controlled Explosives: Directing Your Blasts Where You Want Them"
SAMPLES

NETWORK SAMPLE: Anders is stuck to a wall.

LOG SAMPLE: Awkward chats with Aveline.