Crown of Thorns, Chapter 1, Part 1
Nov. 24th, 2017 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libraryseraphHi, my name is Emma and I really like Dragon Age. Really, really like Dragon Age. Even as it come to the (frequently immense) writing flaws and the game’s less than successful attempts at imitating a Bethesda open world in Inquisition, I’ve sunk far, far too much times into these games. So, what better way to show that than by sinking far too much time into ripping apart a bad fanfic of it? Probably many ways, but I’m still doing it.
Chapter 1: The Prince and the Pauper (this is technically Prelude one but having 6 chapters of prologue is stupid so I’m ignoring it)
Our story opens with an in-universe quote which really sums the whole thing up.
"Thieves and assassins that put on the appearance of honor just to advance their own status. These are the so-called nobles, those entrusted with the fate of our people and those whose greed and pointless pride have always been a greater threat to our city than the Darkspawn that have hounded our steps for centuries. Theirs is the treachery that may destroy us even sooner than the mindless beasts that lurk in the shadows.
I am Aeducan, Shield of Orzammar, and though I may be cast out and reviled by my own, I shall protect my people even from their own folly."
Excerpt from "Biography of Raonar: Paragon, Peacemaker, King of Kings" by Shaper Gertek
Below the signature, words are scrawled in a different hand.
Could the author make the prose any more flowery? The guy would facepalm if he were here to read this. He never said anything as overdone as that! And who the sodding Pit came up with King of Kings anyway?
First of all, Raonar is our Stu’s name. So, we already know he’s going to be famous enough to have biographies written about him. Biographies with titles like THAT. It’s a gven in a Dragon Age Origins fanfic that the main character or (characters when doing a multi-warden fic) will become super-famous and well-known, but this is a bad sign. Secondly, the in-universe annotation illustrates one of the main problems with this fic. Karmic Acumen wants to write a flowery amazing fantasy saga with his protagonist as the bestest specialist hero ever who wins all the fights and knows all the answers. But he also wants to violently send up the fantasy genre to prove how cool and smart and knowledgeable he is for not taking things seriously. So, what we end up with is this awful shambling amalgam that doesn’t do either. Also, that “facepalm” introduces our first count tally, with one for What Doth be Up, Mine Homies.
WHAT DOTH BE UP, MINE HOMIES: 1
The fic proper starts with our Stu, Raonar, preparing for his presentation as the new commander for Orzammar, the dwarven city-state, just as the canon Aeducan origin does. His second in command, Gorim, enters and we get one of the weirder things in this chapter.
Gorim ignored his deadpan and just continued his spiel. "Also, the Grand Provings have opened in order to allow young fighters to test their mettle in your honor." Really, it was like Gorim never had enough of "playing it safe" in case Raonar somehow forgot things. Obvious things. Things he'd checked on in advance. By weeks. Oh well.
Gorim does that in-game bc he’s the NPC who explains things abt your origin to you. There’s no narrative, non-gameplay reason for him to do these things, so we can assume in a solely narrative medium, he wouldn’t. therefore, including it just so Raonar can think abt how it’s not necessary just makes Raonar seem like, well, a condescending asshole, which is not an isolated incident.
“And in the meantime, I assume the Lords and Deshyrs will bore my father with petitions and petty grievances." He sighed. "I can see them now, this lord had my cousin killed, this lord seduced my wife, this lord did the exact same thing I planned to do to him but he did it first."
Wow, you’re an asshole! It’s not even “These people are bad” it’s “these people are bad and that bores me.”. He’s not even jaded by all the garbage he gets a front row seat to as a prince, he’s not thinking abt how he could change it, he’s just whining about it. and we’re meant to like him. Like I’m not saying Raonar should be completely fine with dwarven politics, it’s still fine to have a character not believe in a system they were raised in, but this blatantly reads like an outsider looking in, instead of someone who’s been raised at the top of an extremely insular society and has no other point of comparison.
Raonar walked across the corridor somewhat lost in thought (outwardly, anyway),
I don’t know what this was meant to say but the stuthor basically just admitted Raonar is an airhead who looks profound and I love it.
And now things get creepy
when the door to his little brother's room suddenly opened and a young, red-haired lass walked out and called out Bhelen's name. Needless to say she was immediately startled when she saw the Prince and ran back into the room.
Raonar’s response to her leaving is to follow her back into his brother’s room, but it gets worse.
All signs pointed towards someone of respectable station, except for the brand on her face which immediately struck a cord: Noble Hunter, castless woman who seeks to bare a noble lord's son to increase her caste status.
Yeah, in Thedas, the dwarves have an extremely regimented society, with castes that it’s virtually impossible to move out of. The casteless, at the very bottom, are barred from pretty much all legitimate work, so they pretty much end up either doing drudge work, resorting to crime, or trying to have a son with a highcaste man to get their caste changed to match their child’s. They’re marked with a huge fuckoff tattoo on their cheeks as well, so they can’t impersonate a higher caste, either. The other dwarven warden option is casteless, and is actually the younger sibling of this poor girl. Now, I’m going to post chunks of the next scene, and I want you to keep in mind that Raonar, as a prince, has literally unimaginable social power over Rica.
"Of-of course. It was presumptuous of me to assume he'd return to... I am sorry. I will show myself out, with your leave My Lord."
"Not yet," Raonar suddenly said. "Just how long have you been seeing my brother? How many times have you met that you are already allowed to wait for him in his quarters? Now that I think about it I might remember seeing you around the halls..."
~
"I... well..." She was obviously nervous and struggled with her words. "My name is Rica. I have only met your brother a few times but... Forgive me if I caused you any inconvenience."
~
She grew increasingly impatient and started fidgeting under his stare.
~
After a while, Rica could find no more words and could only keep her head bowed.
~
The Prince who suddenly drew near, placed his right hand on her cheek and slowly drew her face closer to his. She froze underneath his eyes when they got so close that there was nothing but them in her field of vision…Of course he would treat you well," he said in a shrewd whisper. "A beautiful lass like you, with such fire in your eyes and a demeanor that says you would do anything to please him. That's what all men like to see in a woman: submission, especially from someone like you."
And after this, he acts like he’s going to force a kiss on her before backing off. Ignoring the “fire in your eyes”/”submission” contradiction Raonar invades Rica’s personal space, demands details on her not exactly socially acceptable relationship with her brother, touches her face and talks about how much men love her submission, and any resistance on her part would probably lead to her being legally punished in some way. And we aren’t meant to see this as a “what the hell, hero?” moment, either. It’s not like Raonar somehow means well and is just so isolated from the realities of what it means to be casteless that he doesn’t understand that this reads like “I am literally about to rape you”. It’s not like Raonar genuinely sees casteless as lesser and needs to unlearn that to be a hero.
Nope! He was just…testing her or something.
Second count Introduction
Our Hero, Ladies and Gentlemen: 5 (one for each snipped and one for the kiss)
Also, during this segment, we get our first hints of what’s going on with Raonar.
Of course, his unusual eye coloring since that utter disaster of an expedition he ran off with three years or so prior had that effect on people as a matter of course. That his hair had gone white as snow…Lyrium overexposure wasn't kind, if dwarves were careless enough to undergo it. But that was neither here nor there.
So, we now know Raonar was somehow exposed to lyrium. Lyrium is the physical substance of magic in Dragon Age (leaving out all the lore reveals about it in dragon age ii and dragon age: inquisition). Consumption of it boosts the abilities of mages and can give non-mages quasi-magical powers, and it can be worked into enchantments and runes to access magic without the help of a mage. The thing is, it’s also highly volatile: exposure to enough, or to raw lyrium can kill, and processed lyrium is addictive. The reason dwarves run most of the lyrium trade is because dwarves don’t have magical potential, so it affects them less. It can still affect them, and when it does it caused symptoms similar to brain damage. Apparently Raonar has been exposed to enough lyrium to turn his hair white and is still functional, which doesn’t happen. There are more counts for this exposure to lyrium and the stu-per powers that result, but they don’t come up until the second game, and I’m waiting for the fic to reach the point where it was released to talk about that, but when we do there will be words
SO
MANY
WORDS
So Raonar backs off and says he admires her strong will in a way that is one step up from the creepy villain going “I like a girl with spirit!” and gets condescending about Rica
She was neither old nor trained or experienced enough in handling noble whims,
She’s in a relationship with a damned PRINCE. That’s the end goal of all noble hunters; it doesn’t matter how experienced she is or not.
"You were angry that I was going to take advantage of your position, and of mine, but in the end you closed your eyes not out of cowardice, but to restrain yourself from hitting my head with that rather sturdy cup you're gripping,"
It’s a shame she didn’t bash your head in, jackass. You know, most authors would have not written a scene where their hero sexually harasses a woman, rather than writing a scene where their hero does that and then make out some way for it to be ok because he didn’t mean it or it was a secret test of character or what the fuck ever.
"Where is he now?" Maybe a mood whiplash would work again. "Why doesn't he do something instead of letting you do this to yourself?"
And he still refuses to back off! Also he has no need to know this, this is just to establish that Rica’s younger sibling exists, which, since this is an all wardens au and Origins runs on the idea that all origins happens it’s just that only one character is rescued from theirs, we already know! It’s unnecessary and if I were Rica I’d be terrified Raonar wanted my whole family dead bc I slept with his brother!
Then she suddenly felt a soft touch on her shoulder as Raonar slowly turned her around. It was a good thing he'd had a lot of practice in seeming supportive. Mostly because he rarely actually faked it, but practice was practice.
No, author, words mean things. You can’t say that Raonar had to practice to seem supportive and then act like he;s still sincere most of the time, because the words you used say that neither the actual reaction nor it’s appearance come naturally to him. So if you want me to think Raonar is the best dude in the world you should-well, first you should have eliminated this entire scene- but you shouldn’t have him think about how he’s glad he can fake sympathy. If this was intentional and Raonar was consciously aware that he had to work at being good to others I’d be more forgiving, given how rare sympathetic characters with low empathy are, but it’s not. He’s just a poorly written dick.
One of these days Raonar would have to figure out why he so easily caused such extreme reactions in people.
WHY DO YOU THINK
Unfortunately, after this Rica gives into the stu aura and collapses crying about what happened to her brother. The Brosca (casteless dwarf) origin canonically happens a few weeks prior to the Aeducan origin. At the end of their origin, they end up rescued from imprisonment by Grey Warden Recruiter Duncan. If Brosca isn’t picked in game, they die there. However, in this case, Brosca still shouldn’t be imprisoned. Duncan the Grey Warden recruiter should have already rescued him. That wouldn’t let Raonar crowbar his way into everyone else’s plot, but that shouldn’t be your primary concern.
Hi-LORE-iously Wrong: 1
"Are castless even allowed on the grounds? Wait, I suppose this Beraht did something to let him in, wanted to rig some fights to win some bets no doubt. So you don't know where he is?"
“I know this because my author’s played all the origins!” (and, yes, this author refuses to spell casteless correctly)
And Raonar decides to go save her brother because, well, the plot demands it. It’s certainly not because he;s such a nice guy, even if the fic says it is.
Splitting here bc both Karmic Acumen and I are extremely verbose. Next time, we continue with chapter 1 and Raonar gets Stuff.
Chapter 1: The Prince and the Pauper (this is technically Prelude one but having 6 chapters of prologue is stupid so I’m ignoring it)
Our story opens with an in-universe quote which really sums the whole thing up.
"Thieves and assassins that put on the appearance of honor just to advance their own status. These are the so-called nobles, those entrusted with the fate of our people and those whose greed and pointless pride have always been a greater threat to our city than the Darkspawn that have hounded our steps for centuries. Theirs is the treachery that may destroy us even sooner than the mindless beasts that lurk in the shadows.
I am Aeducan, Shield of Orzammar, and though I may be cast out and reviled by my own, I shall protect my people even from their own folly."
Excerpt from "Biography of Raonar: Paragon, Peacemaker, King of Kings" by Shaper Gertek
Below the signature, words are scrawled in a different hand.
Could the author make the prose any more flowery? The guy would facepalm if he were here to read this. He never said anything as overdone as that! And who the sodding Pit came up with King of Kings anyway?
First of all, Raonar is our Stu’s name. So, we already know he’s going to be famous enough to have biographies written about him. Biographies with titles like THAT. It’s a gven in a Dragon Age Origins fanfic that the main character or (characters when doing a multi-warden fic) will become super-famous and well-known, but this is a bad sign. Secondly, the in-universe annotation illustrates one of the main problems with this fic. Karmic Acumen wants to write a flowery amazing fantasy saga with his protagonist as the bestest specialist hero ever who wins all the fights and knows all the answers. But he also wants to violently send up the fantasy genre to prove how cool and smart and knowledgeable he is for not taking things seriously. So, what we end up with is this awful shambling amalgam that doesn’t do either. Also, that “facepalm” introduces our first count tally, with one for What Doth be Up, Mine Homies.
WHAT DOTH BE UP, MINE HOMIES: 1
The fic proper starts with our Stu, Raonar, preparing for his presentation as the new commander for Orzammar, the dwarven city-state, just as the canon Aeducan origin does. His second in command, Gorim, enters and we get one of the weirder things in this chapter.
Gorim ignored his deadpan and just continued his spiel. "Also, the Grand Provings have opened in order to allow young fighters to test their mettle in your honor." Really, it was like Gorim never had enough of "playing it safe" in case Raonar somehow forgot things. Obvious things. Things he'd checked on in advance. By weeks. Oh well.
Gorim does that in-game bc he’s the NPC who explains things abt your origin to you. There’s no narrative, non-gameplay reason for him to do these things, so we can assume in a solely narrative medium, he wouldn’t. therefore, including it just so Raonar can think abt how it’s not necessary just makes Raonar seem like, well, a condescending asshole, which is not an isolated incident.
“And in the meantime, I assume the Lords and Deshyrs will bore my father with petitions and petty grievances." He sighed. "I can see them now, this lord had my cousin killed, this lord seduced my wife, this lord did the exact same thing I planned to do to him but he did it first."
Wow, you’re an asshole! It’s not even “These people are bad” it’s “these people are bad and that bores me.”. He’s not even jaded by all the garbage he gets a front row seat to as a prince, he’s not thinking abt how he could change it, he’s just whining about it. and we’re meant to like him. Like I’m not saying Raonar should be completely fine with dwarven politics, it’s still fine to have a character not believe in a system they were raised in, but this blatantly reads like an outsider looking in, instead of someone who’s been raised at the top of an extremely insular society and has no other point of comparison.
Raonar walked across the corridor somewhat lost in thought (outwardly, anyway),
I don’t know what this was meant to say but the stuthor basically just admitted Raonar is an airhead who looks profound and I love it.
And now things get creepy
when the door to his little brother's room suddenly opened and a young, red-haired lass walked out and called out Bhelen's name. Needless to say she was immediately startled when she saw the Prince and ran back into the room.
Raonar’s response to her leaving is to follow her back into his brother’s room, but it gets worse.
All signs pointed towards someone of respectable station, except for the brand on her face which immediately struck a cord: Noble Hunter, castless woman who seeks to bare a noble lord's son to increase her caste status.
Yeah, in Thedas, the dwarves have an extremely regimented society, with castes that it’s virtually impossible to move out of. The casteless, at the very bottom, are barred from pretty much all legitimate work, so they pretty much end up either doing drudge work, resorting to crime, or trying to have a son with a highcaste man to get their caste changed to match their child’s. They’re marked with a huge fuckoff tattoo on their cheeks as well, so they can’t impersonate a higher caste, either. The other dwarven warden option is casteless, and is actually the younger sibling of this poor girl. Now, I’m going to post chunks of the next scene, and I want you to keep in mind that Raonar, as a prince, has literally unimaginable social power over Rica.
"Of-of course. It was presumptuous of me to assume he'd return to... I am sorry. I will show myself out, with your leave My Lord."
"Not yet," Raonar suddenly said. "Just how long have you been seeing my brother? How many times have you met that you are already allowed to wait for him in his quarters? Now that I think about it I might remember seeing you around the halls..."
~
"I... well..." She was obviously nervous and struggled with her words. "My name is Rica. I have only met your brother a few times but... Forgive me if I caused you any inconvenience."
~
She grew increasingly impatient and started fidgeting under his stare.
~
After a while, Rica could find no more words and could only keep her head bowed.
~
The Prince who suddenly drew near, placed his right hand on her cheek and slowly drew her face closer to his. She froze underneath his eyes when they got so close that there was nothing but them in her field of vision…Of course he would treat you well," he said in a shrewd whisper. "A beautiful lass like you, with such fire in your eyes and a demeanor that says you would do anything to please him. That's what all men like to see in a woman: submission, especially from someone like you."
And after this, he acts like he’s going to force a kiss on her before backing off. Ignoring the “fire in your eyes”/”submission” contradiction Raonar invades Rica’s personal space, demands details on her not exactly socially acceptable relationship with her brother, touches her face and talks about how much men love her submission, and any resistance on her part would probably lead to her being legally punished in some way. And we aren’t meant to see this as a “what the hell, hero?” moment, either. It’s not like Raonar somehow means well and is just so isolated from the realities of what it means to be casteless that he doesn’t understand that this reads like “I am literally about to rape you”. It’s not like Raonar genuinely sees casteless as lesser and needs to unlearn that to be a hero.
Nope! He was just…testing her or something.
Second count Introduction
Our Hero, Ladies and Gentlemen: 5 (one for each snipped and one for the kiss)
Also, during this segment, we get our first hints of what’s going on with Raonar.
Of course, his unusual eye coloring since that utter disaster of an expedition he ran off with three years or so prior had that effect on people as a matter of course. That his hair had gone white as snow…Lyrium overexposure wasn't kind, if dwarves were careless enough to undergo it. But that was neither here nor there.
So, we now know Raonar was somehow exposed to lyrium. Lyrium is the physical substance of magic in Dragon Age (leaving out all the lore reveals about it in dragon age ii and dragon age: inquisition). Consumption of it boosts the abilities of mages and can give non-mages quasi-magical powers, and it can be worked into enchantments and runes to access magic without the help of a mage. The thing is, it’s also highly volatile: exposure to enough, or to raw lyrium can kill, and processed lyrium is addictive. The reason dwarves run most of the lyrium trade is because dwarves don’t have magical potential, so it affects them less. It can still affect them, and when it does it caused symptoms similar to brain damage. Apparently Raonar has been exposed to enough lyrium to turn his hair white and is still functional, which doesn’t happen. There are more counts for this exposure to lyrium and the stu-per powers that result, but they don’t come up until the second game, and I’m waiting for the fic to reach the point where it was released to talk about that, but when we do there will be words
SO
MANY
WORDS
So Raonar backs off and says he admires her strong will in a way that is one step up from the creepy villain going “I like a girl with spirit!” and gets condescending about Rica
She was neither old nor trained or experienced enough in handling noble whims,
She’s in a relationship with a damned PRINCE. That’s the end goal of all noble hunters; it doesn’t matter how experienced she is or not.
"You were angry that I was going to take advantage of your position, and of mine, but in the end you closed your eyes not out of cowardice, but to restrain yourself from hitting my head with that rather sturdy cup you're gripping,"
It’s a shame she didn’t bash your head in, jackass. You know, most authors would have not written a scene where their hero sexually harasses a woman, rather than writing a scene where their hero does that and then make out some way for it to be ok because he didn’t mean it or it was a secret test of character or what the fuck ever.
"Where is he now?" Maybe a mood whiplash would work again. "Why doesn't he do something instead of letting you do this to yourself?"
And he still refuses to back off! Also he has no need to know this, this is just to establish that Rica’s younger sibling exists, which, since this is an all wardens au and Origins runs on the idea that all origins happens it’s just that only one character is rescued from theirs, we already know! It’s unnecessary and if I were Rica I’d be terrified Raonar wanted my whole family dead bc I slept with his brother!
Then she suddenly felt a soft touch on her shoulder as Raonar slowly turned her around. It was a good thing he'd had a lot of practice in seeming supportive. Mostly because he rarely actually faked it, but practice was practice.
No, author, words mean things. You can’t say that Raonar had to practice to seem supportive and then act like he;s still sincere most of the time, because the words you used say that neither the actual reaction nor it’s appearance come naturally to him. So if you want me to think Raonar is the best dude in the world you should-well, first you should have eliminated this entire scene- but you shouldn’t have him think about how he’s glad he can fake sympathy. If this was intentional and Raonar was consciously aware that he had to work at being good to others I’d be more forgiving, given how rare sympathetic characters with low empathy are, but it’s not. He’s just a poorly written dick.
One of these days Raonar would have to figure out why he so easily caused such extreme reactions in people.
WHY DO YOU THINK
Unfortunately, after this Rica gives into the stu aura and collapses crying about what happened to her brother. The Brosca (casteless dwarf) origin canonically happens a few weeks prior to the Aeducan origin. At the end of their origin, they end up rescued from imprisonment by Grey Warden Recruiter Duncan. If Brosca isn’t picked in game, they die there. However, in this case, Brosca still shouldn’t be imprisoned. Duncan the Grey Warden recruiter should have already rescued him. That wouldn’t let Raonar crowbar his way into everyone else’s plot, but that shouldn’t be your primary concern.
Hi-LORE-iously Wrong: 1
"Are castless even allowed on the grounds? Wait, I suppose this Beraht did something to let him in, wanted to rig some fights to win some bets no doubt. So you don't know where he is?"
“I know this because my author’s played all the origins!” (and, yes, this author refuses to spell casteless correctly)
And Raonar decides to go save her brother because, well, the plot demands it. It’s certainly not because he;s such a nice guy, even if the fic says it is.
Splitting here bc both Karmic Acumen and I are extremely verbose. Next time, we continue with chapter 1 and Raonar gets Stuff.
