15. B) Did your Hawke stay in or leave Kirkwall? Where do you think they are now? Who has remained with them?

Obviously, after the mess Selene and her companions made when confronting Meredith they were forced to leave Kirkwall, because they all were considered renegades after the Champion of Kirkwall standed for (even if she didn’t approve them, not one bit) Anders’ actions and the mages’ benefit. She was actually happy to do so, because she was starting to grow tired of the city, their inhabitants and their problems, even if she missed the city in some extent. But she had Merrill by her side, and also her sister, who quitted the Grey Warden order to be with them, just like in the old times. If Selene is to be found somewhere, the most obvious place would be Antiva, back into the criminal business to protect Merrill and Bethany from the templars. Everyone else had to part of her sides, although saying goodbye was difficult, specially to Varric, her best friend. 

DLC Bonus Prompt: Tell us about your adventures in Legacy. (And that hellish battle with Corypheus…) Did it change your Hawke’s feelings about Malcolm?

There isn’t much to tell about what happened in the Legacy events, other than a powerful dislike for the Grey Warden order (Selene learned there what were the consequences of becoming a Warden, and regretted she condemned her own sister to that horrendous fate. Also, she understood better why Anders left the order and how he became what he is now) and the horrible feeling she had done something very, very wrong even after she defeated Corypheus. She went against Janeka’s desires to freed (and control) him, and she felt she did the right choice after learning what was Corypheus exactly, but after Larius left the prision and they did the same, she was at unease, and she can’t explain exactly why. Even so, she is thankful of being alive after fighting a magister of old with the Taint. And about her father, she didn’t think less of him after learning what he did. On the contrary, she came to admire him even more and understand better some things. She was surprised at first to know her father had to use blood magic to make the prison work, but at the end it was (like everything he did) for his family. Also, she understood better Merrill’s motivations for doing things, even if she didn’t approved of the method.

In my head canon, Legacy’s events started for Selene somewhere between the Deep Roads Expedition and the start of Act II’s events. So she could talk with her mother about Malcolm and discover some facts about them. 

14.B: Choose one decision your Hawke had to make [examples: killing the Arishok instead of giving up Isabela, taking Torpor’s deal], and explain the motives and aftereffects of that decision.

Trying to get on the Arishok’s good side: When Selene first met the Arishok, she wouldn’t expect she had to deal with him on the Viscount’s behalf, three years later. Specially because she thought the Arishok had her for an opportunist who only cared for the money and material things, such as Javaris Tintop were. It seemed her decision of telling him about the saarebas’ affair and about sister Petrice was a good one after all. The reason she started to tell the Arishok about issues that concerned the qunari was because, after all, she held some respect for the qunari leader since the beginning (see Selene’s relationship with the Arishok in the section which is treated on). Also, it impressed her greatly that Ketojan told her that, if she was converted to the Qun, her role would change little. She wanted to know in which extent that would be, and she found agreeing to some of the premises the qunari held. It was their ways of doing things that confused her and could never understand, but at least she tried.

Even if she wouldn’t know that by the time she started to do that, the diplomatic visits to the Arishok and the qunari compound affected her greatly in the years that followed. She started to change her behavior, becoming less careless and passive about people around her and more serious. This was more obvious after her mother’s death, when she became bitterer and started to tolerate less some things. Very possibly, if Isabela came back with the tome of Koslun after all, she would have handed her to the Arishok because of what she did first to her. Maybe it was for the best she didn’t reappear after all.

13.B Does being Champion of Kirkwall suit your Hawke, or would they rather have done something else with their life? Has their emotional well-being suffered, or were they made stronger?

Let’s make one thing clear: Selene is a protector, and a leader, by nature. She will defend her family, or what she considers her family is (her friends, after her mother passed away, because Bethany is out of her reach when she is with the Wardens), with teeth and claw. But one thing is defending a little group of people, and another is taking care of a whole city and their problems, all of them becoming more and more annoying and out of control for her. She doesn’t mind a little something of attention at first, but later she will grow tired of it, of the templars, the mages and their mothers and preferred she stayed underground working for smugglers. She wasn’t exactly anonymous there, and it was not an easier life than she had later, but at least she didn’t have to take care of things that doesn’t really go well with her… specially attending nobles. That’s the worst thing of all. Of course, she knows she can’t turn her back on the mage/templar conflict because it feels personal to her, and she’ll make a stand there. And after what happened to the Chantry, that was over.

As for her emotional being, it clearly was scarred after she lost her mother. She was bitterer, sometimes even brash, and she started to tolerate less some things, such as Merrill’s behavior with the mirror and the disaster that came after that. She then became more mistrustful too, and lost some of her starting carelessness. She covered her feelings with sarcasm most of the times, as always, but what she covered the most was anger and frustration. And although she claims it has made it stronger, it also make her weaker in a sense. 

12. B: Your Hawke’s opinion of the following characters: First Enchanter Orsino, Knight-Commander Meredith, the Arishok, Saemus Dumar, Feynriel, Keeper Marethari. [Extra Credit: Sandal.]

Orsino: In one word: disappointing. Selene put more faith in the First Enchanter than she should, believing he was one of the only sane mages left in Kirkwall (even including her own companions) and he was a voice of reason, one the city needed badly. She sided with him, and mages, since the beginning; even she found him somehow attractive although she is not usually attracted to men, and found hilarious he even flirted a little with her. She couldn’t expect how bad he would lost his mind at the end and transform himself in that… thing. Neither that he could have had some connections with her mother’s murderer. Looks are deceiving, after all. (in my own headcanon the whole Harvester thing didn’t even happened because it was an AWFUL tour-de-force in the plot which didn’t have any sense story-wise when you side with the mages, let’s face it, but well… stitching to the game, will be)

Meredith: She was a crazy maniac of a woman, Selene was pretty sure of that. She would never know how much of her madness was caused by the red lyrium idol and how much was previous to that, but imagines the idol had a LOT to do to augment her (she believes) already ill mental condition. That doesn’t mean she would ever sympathise with her in any point. Having opposites points of view, Selene would have gone against all Meredith believes helping more the mages than the templars (obviously her background influenced her greatly), and surprised her Meredith even named her Champion of the city after all she had done against her and the templar order. The only time she helped the Knight-Commander was because she very nearly threatened her and her companions to do so. Selene doesn’t like abuse of power in any case, and Meredith wouldn’t be the exception. She had to be stopped by all costs.

Arishok: Selene’s relationship with the Arishok was… kind of complicated, to be fair. She would never understand him nor the ways the Qun work, but even so, she found them sort of fascinating, in a way she can’t explain. It became that to the point she fully accepted the diplomatic role the Viscount gave to her so she could try to be closer to the qunari, and more so, try to be honest and on their side, informing the Arishok of the things that concerned his people and never hiding him anything. She still doesn’t know how she gained the Arishok’s respect, and think it is an irony that, in another different scenario, she could have been in a very similar position to Isabela. But she came to respect him, as well. A pity she had to kill him, even more because her efforts were for nearly nothing at the end. As well as it was with so many other things.

Saemus: More than anything, she pitied the poor guy. Not only he became romantically involved (idealistic speaking more than anything, although there was that thing with Ashaad) with the Qunari and those ideas would be his end, but he had to deal with the other nobles (and his own father’s) moral. He would never survive to the court intrigues if he lived, and wouldn’t be a better viscount than his father at the end. But he was a good boy, and Selene was frustrated to know she couldn’t do nothing for him at the end. Even more, with his death, the things got worse than before and it was, to Selene, the point of no return in the Qunari negotiations. More than Isabela’s actions, she thinks. This is why she put most of the blame in Petrice.

Feynriel: Selene could understand apostates very well because of her personal experience with her family. Apostates are, in a way, like her family (not all of them, of course). That was why she helped Feynriel all she could. The first reason she helped people like him was not only because of empathy and affinity, but because she strongly believe fear and uncertainty wouldn’t help mages to avoid becoming abominations. Specially in Feynriel’s case. And because of that, she sent him with the Dalish, and later, to Tevinter. She was a little afraid of his special abilities as a somniari, she had to admit, but in her opinion it was better the boy was educated in it properly and without the Circle’s exhausting scrutiny that making him Tranquil or killing him. She doesn’t have the heart to do that to anyone, no matter how potentially dangerous.

Marethari: She was seriously in awe with the Dalish Keeper and her gentle aura, her grace and her wisdom. She was nothing Selene expected of a Dalish leader, specially having in mind how the other Dalish behaved when confronting humans. The Champion considered her not only a powerful ally with all that concerned to Feynriel, but also the closer Merrill had to a motherly figure, and because of that she reverenced Marethari even more; she was one of the very rare people whom Selene bended her knee to, such was her respect for her. Even if she considered the Keeper was wrong in some of her actions (such as turning the whole clan against Merrill because of blood magic), she understands her to a point, and it really shocked her she sacrificed the way she did for Merrill, the way she loved her to do such an action. And because it had to come to such a tragic ending, Merrill’s actions angered her even more than before. It didn’t had to come to that. It was unfair for everyone.

Sandal: Selene felt moved by Sandal, and at the same time, a little terrified and intrigued about him and all the mystery that surrounds the little dwarf. Although she believed he was more than capable of defending himself after what they saw in the Deep Roads, she wanted to take care of him and his father in some way, rather than the other way around. She didn’t requested many “enchantments” of him, although she was curious of the way he worked and came to see him sometimes. Also, she was amused to see how him and her mabari were so good friends.

11. B: Your Hawke’s favourite weapon and/or spell(s).

Her favorite daggers are ones of elven manufacture, which she fancied the moment she saw them and bought from Master Ilen as a reward for doing favors constantly to Merrill’s former clan. Much to her surprise, they didn’t oppose much to the idea of Selene having them, primarily because of the unusual respect she had for their culture, very different from other humans they knew. Those are her favorite because of their double edge, and how quickly and easily she could handle them. She would have a quite large collection of daggers, and she fought Orsino and Meredith with the Bassrath-Kata the last of the qunari gave her and Finesse, the dagger Zevran gifted to her in gratitude for saving his hide from the Crows, but the ones she was more fond of were the elven ones. Also, because she is a Shadow and her fighting style comes out from hiding behind illusion and disorient her opponent, she has a large collection of bombs and grenades of different kind she likes to have at hand at every moment, specially smoke grenades. 

10.B: Your Hawke’s favourite thing to do in their free time.

Judging previous answers in this meme, I thought this was pretty clear. Selene’s favorite thing to do is being with her friends in the Hanged Man. They are rather well known there, so they most of the time have their drinks free, specially when Selene became Champion. In there, she likes to chat and gossip with Varric, play Wicked Grace with the guys (and cheat, even more shamelessly than Isabela), and, in general, laugh and relax of her adventures, something she is in constant need. Sometimes she tries to have her moments alone with Merrill, which are quite few to be honest, and most of them are in her house in the Alienage, since she understands the elf feels a little out of place in Hightown. And when she begins to crave adventure and feel bored about relaxing, then she take her companions with her just to see what lies out there for them. Which most of times means more problems.

9. B: With whom does your Hawke get along least, and why? Is there anything that would help them get along better, or is it ‘just the way it is’?

In this category, apart from Varric, Merrill and (loosely) Bethany, would fall… everybody else. But just because she feel less attached to them doesn’t mean she doesn’t care for them… at least in all cases. Let’s treat them one by one:

Anders: It’s hard to deal with someone who is not entirely himself and, even if he needs help, he doesn’t really want to be helped. For Selene wasn’t hard to sympathise and (in a extent) agree with Anders in many ways, but she didn’t like the whole deal with Justice/Vengeance, the way it affects and clearly damages his mind, and, as the years pass and he starts to break down and give up to radicalism more and more, she likes it even less. She doesn’t find it hard to deal with him most of the times… EXCEPT when he makes it hard to do so. She wants to help him in a extent, but she finds out she doesn’t know how to do that with him and his host-spirit… and his, sadly more than often, destructive ways.

Aveline: Aveline and Selene, most of the times, agree to disagree, because of their different ways of seeing life. Aveline is good at keeping problems at bay within the law and order; Selene is FOND of problems and sometimes of causing them, and she doesn’t mind to ignore the law whenever she likes or she feels necessary to do so. Because of this, they argue a lot, and the situation can’t be helped much the way it is. But Selene acknowledges Aveline’s moral in a way, she sees her as a very competent, loyal woman in who she can relies when things are difficult. Although it’s hard to making her see things the way she herself do, they like to trust at each other… at least professionally.

Fenris: Even more difficult is to deal with a former slave who only knows the abuses of the magisters and has biased points of view about that. She gained his loyalty slowly, standing at his side about the slavery thing (which they both loathe) and trying to get closer to him and understand his situation better, but it’s hard to change his mind about how how he sees mages, because of his personal situation… and because Anders and Kirkwall mages don’t always make that easy. However, at the end he stood by her side, even if he considered it was a mistake to taking sides on mages. She is in a neutral position with the elf: she lets him be most of the time, tries to teach him what freedom means; they respect each other, even if they don’t like some of the actions or beliefs of the other, and that’s what matters to her at the end of the day.

Isabela: The situation with Isabela was a little difficult… and sad. Those two are more alike of what they like to believe; they even like each other, had a little of comradeship. But maybe because they are too much alike they always had some sort of veiled rivalry between each other, and Selene possess a sense of duty and honesty Isabela doesn’t have. That was what made them part ways. After Selene told Isabela to give back to the qunari the tome of Koslun, the pirate ran off with it anyway, and never was to be seen again. And Selene resented that a lot. If she is going to see Isabela again someday, their meeting is not going to be very friendly. It never is with people who has betrayed her trust.

8.B: Details of your Hawke’s relationships with their family members (including Gamlen).

(The main problem with this, this is just the game canon… which is not the same as MY head canon. So I have neglected the meme because of that, and have made up a lot of things. Maybe I SHOULD post my real canon stuff later, just for the hell of it. But, because I made this meme game-canon-y, I shall attach to it at first.)

Malcolm: Her father was always like a hero for her, for obvious reasons. Of the three brothers, it was her who take more after him… except for his magic abilities, something she always resented for herself. He was, for the most part, pretty mysterious to her, even if they could talk for hours about trivialities, because that was what they were confortable doing. She later regretted she didn’t had her curiosity took the best of her to know her father better. When he died, she had to assume the role of protector of the family. The first of the responsabilities she would had to take. The first in which she failed.

Leandra: Her relationship with her mother was kind of bittersweet. Selene loved her deeply, but it tormented her she couldn’t be the perfect lady-like model her mother always desired her to be. And more, she is the main reason to feel guilty because she failed in the role of protector of the family, first with Carver, later with Bethany, and finally, her, taken all of her side by the most horrible and wicked ways. Even if Leandra stopped putting the blame on her, Selene always felt, and always will feel, guilty for this. A punishment of sorts for her carelessness and putting herself in danger in her early days. 

Carver: Apart from tormenting her little brother a bit (because that’s what big brothers and sisters do), the relationship with him was pretty diminished. She knows he always made a big deal of her being the protector of the family and he being at her shadows along with his twin sister, but she wouldn’t care if he would have taken that role himself. That is why she was okay to let him enlist in King Cailan’s army. As for herself, she didn’t go with him to Ostagar because she didn’t really care about it at all, although she went to search for him after they heard the battle in there was lost, not hearing her mother’s advice to wait for his return in Lothering. And she would regret deeply the moment she lost him to an ogre. Her mother putting the blame on him would had make that even worse.

Bethany: Her relationship with her sister was at first the same as the one she had with Carver, only that she felt more like a friend (being a girl like herself) than her little sister. She was always jealous of her magic abilities, even if they would bring her (and the whole family) trouble. Even with that, it was easier for her to feeling like her protector than with Carver, which personality was always a little more difficult to deal with. After Malcolm and Carver’s deaths, they became more attached to each other, even if Selene would always have to keep her big sister-protector role about her (because she felt like she HAD TO, more than anything). At first, she was not going to follow her to the Deep Roads expedition, but because Bethany pleaded her not to be left behind, Selene took her with Varric and Anders, much to Leandra’s dismay… and it would be her greatest regret ever. She always feared her sister hated her because she forced her to be a Warden, something that Selene knew it wasn’t going to be easy because of Bethany’s personality. But it was that or to lose her forever… either to premature death in the Deep Roads alone or to the rigid templar laws in Kirkwall. Neither of them she was going to admit. She felt she chose the lesser evil, even if she doesn’t fully understand the price for being a Warden. At the end, Bethany is the only close family she has left. 

Gamlen:  She feels for Gamlen a mix of disdain and pity. She would never forgive him to have sold the family state because of game debts, and hiding that fact to Leandra through all these years, even if she was the favorite child (or because of that). Selene later learns his uncle can’t do any better than that, and that he suffers from a deep lack of affection, but the man doesn’t make things any easier with his personality and she gave up of trying to getting along with him. Even if they don’t meet eye to eye, he is still her family, although she doesn’t feel so close to him as she felt to her sister for example, but she tries sometimes to look a little after him because he helped her and her mother and sister when they first arrived in Kirkwall. But not too much. After all, the man is old enough to know what is doing with his life and his money. Or so she thought before the incident with Charade.

Charade: Even if she scolded her for putting her father in danger (even if she had to deal with it instead of him), Selene sort of liked her newly discovered cousin, and encouraged her to meet Gamlen. She felt she would do more good to him that herself could ever do. And after that, they maintain a little of contact by letters, although not very often. After all, the Champion is a very busy person.

(Yes, yes, I know I’m some days late. As always.)

7.B: Does your Hawke sympathise with the mages or the templars? Why?

It was easier for Selene to sympathise with mages, all of her life, because even if she isn’t a mage, magic runs in her family and it’s part of her indirectly. She has always been fighting so her little sister could do a little of normal life in their circumstances and feel like a person, not like a living weapon in a cage. She knows very well magic is dangerous. Their father always would told them that. She has seen it for herself. That doesn’t mean she could not empathize with their suffering. In a way, their suffering was her own.

At the beginning of Act III, her support to mages was obvious. She always gave reason to Orsino, which she would regret later, but never regret what she meant. Even if some mages *coughAnderscoughcoughcoughMerrillcough* didn’t really trust her and messed things up in one way or another. She couldn’t help then to feel upset because her efforts were for nothing at the end and mages were forced to exile and hide even more than before. 

6.B: Your Hawke’s favourite location in Kirkwall (or the outer reaches).

The Hanged Man, with no question. It would be “a hive full of scum and villainy”, as Aveline would retort, but precisely because of that is the place for her, where she feels more confortable, even more than her own home. She would hang out with her friends after some quest, playing cards or drinking or talking about something, and she would stay there for hours. The only time she wouldn’t go there for a while would be after Isabela ran off with the Tome of Koslun and never returned. The place reminded Selene a lot of her in some ways, as well as the good times they had all together when she was in the group, so it was difficult to return and assume the facts altogether. She doesn’t dislike going to the Blooming Rose as well, but she (of course, before she starts her relationship with Merrill) rarely goes there if not because of a quest because of the (for her) excessive prices. And because she didn’t want to find her uncle there when she goes. It IS awkward.

Outside Kirkwall, her favorite place is the Massive Head Trauma Bay… ahem, sorry, the Wounded Coast. When she doesn’t have to fight all the time, of course. A little fighting and kicking some raiders’ ass is exciting and fine, but when she has to do it constantly it doesn’t feel much like it’s so fun. In general, she prefers to be in mountain and valleys rather than beaches, but it’s difficult to like a place when she has to be in constant alert of enemies and evil creatures. Even if she has to fight some enemies there from time to time there anyway, it’s less stressful than in the streets of Kirkwall at night, and she consider the place to be kind of relaxing sometimes and less unnerving than Sundermount, which at the beginning she liked, but she started to hate going there because of the tense ambient between the Dalish and Merrill and the constant raise of the dead spirits and such.