Anders – "Nobody's perfect"

Don't really care about Fenris' excuses. Honestly, the only reason I don't give him back to Danarius is because Danarius deserves to die too.



I stand by it, but I mainly said it in response to calling the Chantry a church. "Church" = Christianity related = we're back to associating it with real life religions that haven't been sending roving bands of murderers and rapists around since the dark ages. It's a Chantry, or if you want to go with a generic term for a place of worship. "temple."



Eh. They're only here because Selim reported me.

@spirit vanguard, you are evil, lol.

This is not a Fenris thread, then I will not prove how loyal he or anything, good enough, that Fenris have his own cause, why think so about mages. It is not logical, but fear based thinking.

You may look for analogies, but should not be taken so seriously. This is still a game.

It's actually quite a popular paring. Not my go-to, but I guess I can see the appeal.

We're not supposed to post straight up porn here, which is obvious, but I'm not sure if "suggestive" is ok. BSN mods might've made me paranoid. 

Fenris also don't have fancy title...  Glowing Rose: Anders, Glowing Rose: Fenris? Okay, bad joke. Of course, we can talk about it.

Oh that's right, he doesn't mention Isabela in that scene unless you moved on from Fenris to her, then he'll complain about Fenris as usual and then is all "But Isabela seems happy to help you forget..." I don't think he takes her seriously as a rival for Hawke either way, calling her a "side dish". But if you reject him for her, he'll say what he really thinks, that she'll break Hawke's heart.

Ah, poor Seb and his "precious Anders" line.  

Okay, so a lot was said since I last posted (on my phone) and I'm kinda too lazy to quote it all one by one now that I'm on a computer and can actually pose my thoughts correctly.

love Anders; I won't even bring Fenris into it, that's not the real point. Which one is better is merely a matter of taste.

Anders did warn me, multiple times, that I'd regret being with him. These are the ways Anders hurt my self insert Hawke that friend manced him.

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It might have been when I asked him about the ingredients for what we now know is a bomb or when he wanted me to help him sneak/plant said bomb into the chantry....that he emotionally blackmailed me into helping him. He accused me of not loving him enough, not trusting him enough. That was emotional bullying, through and through. All I had done was have the temerity to ask some questions about what the goal of these things were. That's not nice, it's not loving, and it's not healthy. Emotionally, outside of the game, I felt bruised.

It reminded me of that Christmas my mother told me I either swiped my credit card for $2000 of electronics at Best Buy or I obviously didn't love her and maybe she should just stop talking to me.

In hindsight, I recognize these things for what they were, but in the moment, I was totally sucked in. Not to mention the hypocrisy of accusing my Hawke of not trusting him when he obviously didn't trust her to know what was going on. Then he admitted to lying about what the ingredients were for; so he twisted my emotions to do his bidding, admitted to lying to me, and just shrugged it off.

So, sin # 1 is the emotional bullying/blackmail.

sin #2 is the execution scene. He could have blown up that chantry any good old day, but he waited until that moment. Now, maybe it was because he had second thoughts all the while and couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. Then s*** got real and emotional, and he reacted thus. Then he wanders off to the side, sits down, and waits to die. Whether friend or rival, he does not expect to live through this. So, yeah, he can't imagine life without you, Hawke, but he absolutely expects you to live without him. All by himself, he's decided that you, Hawke, should lose what you may consider the love of your life after all the loss and death you've already been through. Your father, two siblings, and, finally, your mother. And we can all say that he deemed the MAge plight just more important than any private love story, but that doesn't stop it from being so supremely selfish it can make you rage quit right there.

Scenario continuing: Now, maybe he expected Meredith to run him through on the spot. With that expectation, ,however, he can't know that you wouldn't try to stop Meredith from doing so. It's crazy times, an explosion just happened, there is yelling. With such short amount of time to think about it, even if later I may have wished he should be executed, my mind can't comprehend the shift of letting this unlikable woman slash my friend/lover. Habit will cause the battle if nothing else will. This scenario forces my hand; maybe he would have even bet on it? But no, I firmly believe he didn't expect to live through this encounter. Still, he's putting you and your friends in danger in the confused fray. ( It occurs to me that a lot of war in the streets would have been avoided if he'd just blown the chantry after both Orsino and MEredith had walked into it. )

But plot had Meredith gleefully run off to annul the circle and you, Hawke, are left to judge him. So, there he is, expecting to die. And maybe he suspected it would always come down to this. His lover/friend making a choice over whether his life continues or doesn't. And look at that; look at that right there. That decision could break Hawke, considering all s/he has been through. Totally destroy them, leave them irrevocably emotionally scarred. Even I toggled over the murder knife once or twice. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill someone I'd loved for so long; because I knew it would ruin Hawke. My Hawke would rather whip herself for her emotional weakness and break up with him later over the whole toxicity of the relationship rather than kill her own lover. The fact that he forced you into this contrived dramatic situation where you may have to make this choice at all is the worst thing he could have done to you, Hawke.

Which is one of many reasons I rival manced him the second time; I was so intrigued by the idea of Justice and Anders being at odds inside one body. Rather then a meshing, it seemed a true possesion. Seeing that, I feel like it is Justice that pulled the trigger; leaving Anders just tired from all the inner battle, horrified at the act he'd just performed, and honestly wanting to die....rather than proudly awaiting his martydom. I can forgive the former, but the latter? Oh, that Anders just makes me so angry when I think about it now.

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That all said... I love Anders. What did an above poster say? "It's complicated." He hurt my feelz pretty badly, which makes me look at the other available DA2 romance options in a different way, specifically Fenris. Maybe my Hawke could have picked a different person to be with that didn't end up so...complicated.

Complicated because I have two Hawkes totally in love with such a screwed up man and even if I move on to Fenris for more healthy feelz in the future, Anders will be my cannon romance of DA2.

Thank you for reading. It was rather emotional to write.

Isabella and Varric thank you for the extra friend-fiction material.

So...hey everyone. First post. I found this in the BSN Anders thread. I've never rally posted on that forum except for a handful of times because the atmosphere was just too venomous. The first thread I ever read on there was a solid 50 or 51 pages of hating Anders. Not just hating Anders even but sadistic, petty glee at saying that they spared Anders only to force him to fight with the Templars and murder a bunch of innocent mages.

Yeah...I wanted nothing to do with any forum that could give rise to such behavior.


So, if you don't mind, a bit of backstory. I post on a lot of forums, am a big video game fan and RPG fan for most of my life. But until recently, I mainly stuck with JRPG's. I grew up with Final Fantasy and a lesser known series called Xenosaga and that was what captured me. But near the end of 2014, I decided to see what all this BioWare love was about. (lots of my friends love DA, ME, KOTOR, etc.) Naturally, by this point, I had heard all about Anders the absolute worst character ever conceived by man and Dragon Age II, the unholy spawn of Hitler and Satan. Now, whenever I hear opinions like this I just kind of go "eh.....sure, whatever you say." But eventually idecided I wanted to be able to give my own opinion, to play Dragon Age II and judge for myself how good or bad it was. And it was pretty good. I like it just as much as Origins but they each excel in different areas.

As for Anders, my first run I played a Male Mage who Friendmanced him. I also played Origins as a Male Mage and have always been anti-Circle. (to my great shame this made me be a jerk to Wynne who is really sweet and I love her now) So, armed with this opiion and future knowledge of what he'd do, I never had any conflicts with Anders. He never had to force me into anything. I saw no trace of this alleged abuse or blackmail. I just saw a man who wanted to free his enslaved people from a crappy, probably false religion that punishes them for existing. (also hated The Chantry ever since Leliana told me their God wanted a booty call then left everyone to suffer when he got his. At least Leliana's unorthodox beliefs make sense since in her view, The Maker actually still helps people, assuming He exists anyway)

It wouldn't be until much later that I played the DLC like Awakening. And I gotta say.. I prefer DA2 Anders. The people who say DA2 Anders was some horrible mischaracterization, that he bears no resemblance to Awakening Anders, are just flat-out wrong. DA2 Anders tells you right at the end of Tranquility that merging with Justice gave him the ability to fight back against all the wrongs he's seen in his life. And what does Awakening Anders do? Whine about all the wrongs he's seen in his life. He hates the Circle and Templars and wants mages to live better lives but he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. Think A New Hope Han Solo - not a bad person when it comes down to it but too selfish to think about sticking his neck out for others. But Justice gave Anders the backbone he needed to finally act on all his feelings and try to make some changes.

So...in conclusion, Friendmancing Anders feels the most "right" to me in DA2. Him and Merrill are love. I like all the DA2 romances but there's something special about these two. Maybe it's the cause they are devoted to? Fenris also has a cause in a way but it's so personal that it's hard for me to really get sucked in by it. Hawke has never been a slave. Anders an dMerrill have grand objectives - of restoring their race or toppling a huge system of rule - that it's easy for my Hawke to be sucked in by their zeal.

nikkolas, welcome!

I too think Justice must have been attracted to Awakening Anders for a reason. He could have merged with anybody else, but Anders did already have ideas about justice and the circle system. He just didn't think there was anything he could do about it, and he was also afraid to fight back then, not feeling as though he was cut out for battle and being a Warden.

During the banter you will find out that Anders and Isabela may have gotten it on at a bar, in the past. She liked his magical (electrical) fingers or "something".  So maybe Anders can understand Hawke flinging with Isabela since he's done it.    

When the Chantry blows up, the scene is ruined by Seb, for me. Even if I ever had it in me to let one of my Hawke's stab Anders (and I don't have it in me...it will never happen), right then and there, I would not do it just to spite Seb. 

I think it was abundantly clear Sebastian didn't listen to a word Elthina said when he threw that knife at her head after putting up his murder request.

Sebastian is the worst. I could go on for days about why I hate him. Even the other party members don't respect him and constantly keep pointing out how he has "vowed" to return to his home and re-seize the throne but all he's done is hang around Kirkwall doing f-all for six years. And when he asks Fenris about "turning in" Anders or Merrill? Fenris is like "talk to Hawke." Because Maker knows Sebastian could never have spine enough to do something on his own.

He's a hypocrite who is all talk. He is no more a follower of The Chantry than I am, he just likes to pretend he is because it makes him feel all righteous. The only time he gets off his ass to do something is to lead an army against Kirkwall, killing tons of innocent people for no reason since neither Hawke nor Anders were there any longer.

At least Zevran and Morrigan are honest.