DA 30 Day Challenge Day 5: Your Least Favourite Love Interest
Art by the magnificent Cave-Fatuam of Alistair and Miranda Cousland from my fanfic Beginnings. Despite the content of this post, I still sodding love Alistair. Ok? GOT THAT. Cave also does commissions. GO GET SOME.
I have a confession. I’ve never romanced Leliana, and I’ve never romanced Merrill. On the other hand, though, I do INTEND to eventually romance Merrill. I don’t intend to romance Leliana, and seeing as my last post was about her, I’m not going to go into the reasons why I don’t want to. They’re all in my previous post.
So I’m going to talk about my least favourite love interest as one that I’ve actually done. This is much harder because I actually love them all. A lot.
I’m going to have to go with Alistair though. And that’s… hard for me. I was such a dedicated Alistair fangirl for such a long time, and really, the romance is adorable in every way. Just the right mix of angsty and tragic and funny. It was the romance that ripped my Amell’s heart out of my chest (to an extent that every mage I’ve played since has had to be a Surana - poor poor Una is the only one for me) the romance that formed the basis for my first ever fanfiction. But in the end, it’s unsatisfying for me.
I think the main reason I don’t like Alistair as an LI is because, with the time line of DA:O it seems too rushed. I don’t like the fact that he’s a virgin when he first sleeps with your warden - and he first sleeps with your warden during a time of crisis. Yeah, sure, it’s a game, but my head is shouting alarms at me about relationships based on shared trauma.
Part of me thinks that any attachment he ends up forming with your warden is fundamentally… just not healthy.
I am very much aware that this is a personal opinion. It’s probably coloured by the fact that I’m a little older than most in the fandom, and happily married. It’s probably coloured by my prior relationships with young virgin-ish types. There’s nothing in the writing of him as a character that indicates he would be a bad partner for your warden if they end up queen, or off in the wardens together. I just… don’t like it.
My canon warden, Alim, ended up being best friends with Alistair and I loved that dynamic, and that’s probably got something to do with it as well. Once I went there, did the whole game with him as a friend and not an LI, I kind of realised that he was just fine like that. Unlike unromanced Anders in DA2, he doesn’t pine away for your PC - he’s not WardenSexual the way Anders is Hawkesexual. If he survives the Archdemon there’s every indication that he’ll live on as a productive, happy warden or king - unless he’s betrayed at the landsmeet, when, you know, who cares? He’s got booze!
This in no way means I dislike Alistair as a character - he’s still one of my favourites. I kind of look at the Alistair romance a bit like I look back on my first boyfriend - sweet and fumbling and lovely, but now? OVER.
