Spirits & Demons: Perversion of Purpose

ustice – Corrupted into – Vengeance, Sloth**

I remember at one point it was said demons were supposed to be their idea taken to excess, hence why things that are not necessarily negative (pride, hunger, fear, etc) are depicted as such.

I would also like to add that the ravens of Dirthamen: Fear and Deceit, known from the elven legends, may have previously represented Knowledge and Truth, as Dirthamen is the god of knowledge and secrets. There is also a theory linking them to the Nightmare (Fear demon) and Envy (whose modus operandi is based on deception), respectively.

Mouse does try to possess you.
First he tricks you into thinking he's just another apprentice, lost in the fade after his harrowing. Then he works to earn your trust by "helping" you prepare for a battle with a weak demon. Then he suggests to you that you could save him, take him back to the real world, let him in. He tries to get you to let him possess you not through some demon deal but through deception and sympathy.

But the MC realizes what he is at this point and then he starts to show his true form and the harrowing ends, cause he was the real test.

But even in that dialogue option the pc doesn't agree to let him in. And he would know that when they go back to their body and ask the other mages to help him they'll get told what he really is. His first attempt at possession simply seems to have failed, as for why he didn't make a second, it's possible that
a) there may be a discernable difference between possessing someone willingly or possessing someone by force that would make the second attempt not worth it. Perhaps the Templars & Mages watching would be able to notice an apprentice trying and failing to resist a possession whereas they wouldn't notice him quietly slip into a willing host?
Or perhaps it's just easier to control, and you get better use out of someone you got to agree then someone you had to break into. Or perhaps the moment the apprentice successfully resists possession the harrowing ends, so the demon doesn't get a second chance to attack you, that's why everything fades to white shortly after you refuse him as he transforms into his true form.

We don't know the exact details of the harrowing. Only that your mind is projected into the fade and a demon summoned for you to face. And that a harrowing ends when the apprentice resists a demon or are possessed.

But we've never been told how the harrowing spell/mages recognizes that they have resisted and therefore bring them back out of the Fade.

or c) you pass your harrowing when the demon either dies or leaves and this demon simply left. Perhaps the particular Pride demon takes pride in possessing people in a particular way. In taking advantage of their own pride and decieving them. He would not lower himself to possessing someone by attacking like a common ballistic rage demon. The more complicated and powerful spirits do have varying personalities.

Regardless I don't think there's any reason to doubt his first attempt was genuine. He asks the mage to let him in. And you are given no dialogue option to say yes to that request - because that would be a game over screen. Same as refusing to become a grey warden would be.

Justice – Corrupted into – Vengeance, Sloth**