Maker's Breath.... (Official Cullen Rutherford discussion)

I still find it a bit odd that he drew the line at Hawke.

what? did you do that adonniel ?

We have to differentiate that the way the Templars perceive Meredith is very different than the way we see her.
 
First of all, until Meredith went completely nuts, I don't think the rest of the Templars would have supported Cullen in dismissing her from duty. Our perception is shaded because we have a lot of foreknowledge, but this is still my first DA2 game and I can see it more as they do. I'm at a point in the game where Meredith asked Hawke to find three escaped mages. When Hawke talks to her, Meredith is behaving very much normally. I've asked that stupid guy who ran off to the pub to return to the circle and then asked Meredith to take it easy on him and she said calmly that she won't do anything to him. In personal interaction she was reasonable. At least when it comes to this specific mage Hawke didn't get validation that Meredith was going to boil him in lava or treat inhumanly. That's how she appears to the rest of the Templars. If Cullen had spoken out against Meredith at that point he would have been arrested or dismissed from duty himself. This would have been completely pointless and futile in terms of making a change.

Secondly, there is the isolation notion. Cullen isn't the type to skulk around questioning others whether they might have the same suspicions as him. He won't ally with mages. Hawke is really a distant person to him. He has no clue if other Templars feel the same. In order to cease power from a higher up effectively, you have to go into conspirator mode. This goes completely against his personality.

Thirdly, just because you lose your current banner, doesn't mean you immediately have another to rally under. Up to that point he stood with Hawke as a neutral power. Even if you are growing increasingly suspicious that a cause you've worked for all your life has grown corrupt, there is an abyss between that realization and converting thought into action. Even more difficult is to convert it into an action that will be productive. I don't think it was just Hawke that pushes him there. At that moment he sees that other Templars are also against Meredith and this gives him validation to act because he sees that he'll gain allies he could trust. He's never team Hawke. He's always team Templar.

Really? He's doing nothing for his guilt? He's a general of Inquisition who works 25 hours a day - how does that qualify as doing nothing? Although, it's absolute Hell he stays in Kirkwall and leads the Templars to assist survivors. How is that doing nothing? He always remains - voluntarily - in every bad situation through the absolute worst of it. Unlike Hawke by the way who gets his ass out of the city when it's burning. The person who stayed behind in the aftermath to do all the gruesome work of putting it back together was Cullen. Try to remain and rebuild after a catastrophe, not just break and grab all the glory of slaying the big bad boss thing before running off.

Cullen openly admits his mistakes to the Inquisitor and shows regret that he hadn't seen through Meredith earlier. I have no reason to believe that he's concealing something or that he's lying.

He works more than anyone else in Inq to repair the damage. I rather prefer that he demonstrates his desire to fix things through hard work rather than empty blabbering.

1. The man has nightmares.
2. He openly admits to his mistakes.
3. He expresses guilt that he hadn't seen through Meredith earlier.
4. He works daybreak to daybreak to fix it.

That's not enough for you?

ofmg! He obviously isn't feeling guilty enough! He should suffer more!

Do you want some kind of guilt scene where he rolls around beating his head on the floor and cries what a horrible person he was?

Aveline also ceases her power from the previous Captain of Guard who was corrupt as hell and responsible for gruesome stuff too. She also blames herself for not seeing it earlier, but I don't see anyone going around blaming her for it. Nobody blames her for the crimes of that Captain, but it's all good to do that to Cullen.

Cullen may blame himself - but frankly I don't see why it should be pwned over him to the extent to dubbing him moral criminal because he didn't attempt to dismiss Meredith earlier. Everyone has their snapping point and his came when it did.

And no - the argument of 'criminal through passivity' actually doesn't apply here. Passivity implies having 100% clarity that something is wrong but doing nothing. He had no such clarity for a very long time to commit to a radical action of destroying everything he had believed in his entire life. He was struggling through a psychological trauma in a situation where where the world was literally upturning. He acted when he was ready to.

If Hawke sides Mages, Cullen and the Templars consider him/her PART of the problem. They do NOT want them to stay and put Kirkwall back together.
If Hawke sides Templars, s/he is made Viscount. And is actively part of the rebuilding efforts. Until red Lyrium caused paranoia and perhaps orders from Corypheaus have them pressure Hawke to leave or be assasinated/rebelled against.

Hawke does not run away. *Hawke love defense club member*

I didn't import any Viscount Hawkes. How does the game explain him/her stepping down? I kind of always just assumed they left their post to deal with the Corypheus situation. But now that I think about it, by the end of DA2, Cassandra has no idea where Hawke even is!

Sorry, I guess that's my fault, somehow? I still have no idea what I said

In any case, the desk scene I think proves this to be mostly true...  :amirite:

So who she will leave behind/sacrifice?

Cullen or Alistair?

Who is "she"? And when...?

I heard the addition of Cullen as a romance was last minute. I wonder if they had it planned all along, would we have seen a little more of this throughout a romance arc? 

*rolls up newspaper*

*hits self with it*

Be nice, in expressing opinion yer contentious woman!

Sorry about that. My bad.

can't promise i won't do it again