CONFESSION:

This is my opinion, but I don’t think Sera and Vivienne are so disliked because of their personalities or beliefs. It’s because they don’t have satisfying narratives arcs. Even similar “mean lady” characters, I’ve loved because the story made promises about them that it delivered on.

If there, someday, is a show set in Thedas/The dragon age setting (though I highly doubt it) I want there to be an elven character that stares into the camera any time there is anti elf racism or a human gets praised and rewarded for unearthing and discovering ancient knowledge while all the elven characters get shunned for it

*Cough cough*

Morrigan getting her eluvian knowledge by stealing from the dalish while treating all elves quite badly (even vocally considering the deal with the tevinter slavers in the alianage) and then getting to go into the well of sorrows, while Merrill who built an eluvian basically from scratch gets called stupid and naive and the token bad boy who is dismissive to other elves, who by the way are heavily based on and inspired by real life indigenous people and their treatment and who can be massacred in nearly every installment in the series including the books, like most other elf companions, which includes a queer woman who will make fun of the player character, their people and culture, as well as says that she's pretty much not like other elves, I won't speak on solas because that would make the post too long, but anyway Fenris can tell her that it would be better if she died instead of Marethari. And then Merrill pretty much gets ignored... Which honestly could be the better outcome with how much the writers hate elves and especially the dalish.

Sera could be an example of how to make a terrible disservice to a character

An essay, by me.

I tend to be really cautious when the general public doesn’t like a video game character. Sometimes it’s just a specific aspect of them that tends to make people hate them - sometimes it’s even an unfortunate line, or a character doesn’t truly fit the setting, and even if they have very interesting, hidden side not many people get to see it. And sometimes just people jump on a bandwagon and hate for its own sake. I generally try to give characters a fair chance to get to know them.

That being said, I don’t really like Sera. I went through the full friendship route and throughout the majority of it, I felt that something’s off. It probably wasn’t the fact that her dialect wasn’t always well translated - she always seemed to stand out from the background, but not in the best way. I wondered what’s wrong exactly - she has some endearing qualities, she likes to have fun, she can pack a punch when needed. It bugged me for a long time, but finally, after thinking it through, I think I’ve got it.

The problem is twofold: one, her characterisation is inconsequential - and two, she doesn’t seem to fit the tone and overarching themes of DA:I.

Why do I think Sera was written in a way that doesn’t make her fit well into DA:I?

Well, what do we know about Sera?

She’s a great archer, she is skilled at guerilla warfare (especially urban guerilla warfare, if the Red Jennies’ general area of operation suggests anything), she’s an agent of a powerful (albeit decentralised) organisation, she’s a Robin Hood-esqe rogue and she’s all about having fun. That’s unfortunately where the problem in her characterisation begins. Sera sees the injustice and opposes it in many instances, but what she expresses as her main motive to joining the Inquistion is for the life to get back to what it was before the crisis, which may seem selfish on her part. She is usually acting rather consistently as a rebel to the established power dynamics, but she seems to know that she - or the Inquisitor, for the matter - doesn’t have the power to overthrow the current state of things. She craves change, but on her own terms. Her apparent conservatism (wanting for everything to be back to normal) is in fact the fear of the unknown more than the actual fear of change, but the execution of her character makes it look like she’s a walking contradiction. Her very personal sense of right and wrong, imbalanced by the unusual situation she’s found herself in, makes it pretty hard to predict her reactions. Her quick judgement, which undoubtedly was an asset for a Red Jenny put her at a disadvantage in a situation she doesn’t understand, and make her look completely unpredictable.

DA:I was often described as a game about politics, and the political themes seem to be more prevalent than in DA2, or even DA:O. Very often we hear that we have to secure the influence in a certain region, we have to negotiate, politically we have to be everyone’s best friend and hold everyone at a knifepoint - often in the same time. We have to get involved in the Game, whether we like it or not. Sera fits into it very weirdly, or rather, doesn’t fit in at all - put into a situation where you and the members of your inner circle have to maintain cold blood and consider the consequences, she’ll act in accordance to her own principles - that is, overthrow the board, or outright refuse to play by the rules. She’s got a heart in the right place, but logically speaking, she’d work way better as an agent, than as a member of an Inner Circle, where almost everyone knows and respects the stakes. Wherever You’d need to sow chaos and undermine the existing authority, You’d send Sera in and she’d do what she does best; instead, if You take her with You on any quest important for the main plot, she’ll be understandably dissatisfied, because while the Inquisition’s goals align with her own, its methods don’t.

That’s especially frustrating, because her rebellious attitude isn’t in itself a flaw. You could just put her in Kirkwall and she’d do great - in a cast of intense characters who drive the story and are for the better or worse trapped in a terrible city, a street smart archer who's pulling the strings behind the scenes to help the poor would be an instant favourite. Hawke’s crew is a walking trouble with law and authority already, they already have a pirate queen and an important figure in the local *cough cough* Merchant Guild onboard, and I’d love to see Sera’s point of view on the situation. I feel that practically any installment of Dragon Age would be a better playground for a character like her except DA:I. I would even argue that if her and Sebastian switched places, both characters would benefit from it. In Kirkwall, place with rampant social stratification, Sera would definitely have a lot to do - her personal history and her difficult relationship with her identity as an elf could be explored in a more complex way. Instead in the Inquisition, Sebastian’s arc would allow the Inquisitor to get deeper into the meanders of Freemarcher politics. That’s also not to say that there ISN’T a way to fit a rebellious rogue into a politics-heavy, high-stakes narration. Thronebreaker does it amazingly well, making Gascon a fan favourite and a left hand of main character who does the job brilliantly. The difference is that despite being a comic relief at times, his personality traits align with what could make him a respected leader of a bandit group in the first place. He is always prepared, he always has a backup plan, he knows how to negotiate and threaten. He can be selfish, ruthless and cruel - but at the same time, he knows how to gain and maintain common people’s support and he will react if he thinks the main character is going against their interest. He will always do things his way, he can be an exhausting opponent or a formidable ally.

What could Sera’s intended role in the Inquisition be, either plot-wise or narration-wise?

Speaking from the plot point of view, she’s a high ranking agent of a widespread secret organisation - it’s implied she has access to a lot of intelligence and she has quite a bit of favours to call, if she needs to. This makes her a perfectly reasonable asset for an Inquisition. However, there’s two problems here: one, her characterisation as an impulsive, trigger happy chaotic neutral rogue doesn’t fit someone who would work at the high levels of a secret organisation. And second, her being a Red Jenny seems terribly underutilised. Outside of a personal quest and a few errands at the War Table she doesn’t feel like someone with actual influence in the world - for sure not more than Varric, and he plays his influence down on purpose.

Narration-wise the important angle of Sera’s presence in the Inquisition could be being a voice of a common person, a representation of common folk’s pent-up anger over suffered injustice. She might be a character reminding the Inquisitor who they are really fighting for. Except that her treatment in-game makes this sort of narration ridicoulous, because young and inexperienced, she’s constantly dismissed and her claims seem to be more of a personal angle than an actual representation of wider norms.

The majority of people in-game also isn’t shown as valuing her input - the Inquisitor can dismiss her anytime, she’s considered a questionable ally at best by the advisors, she’s repeatedly described as an unpredictable wildcard in-and out-of game. Her supposed influence as a Red Jenny is almost never discussed or agknowledged. She seems out of her depth, and she isn’t easily persuaded. She seems to be a paragon of self-determination, but she makes no effort to understand those different from her (e.g. the Dalish inquisitor, the mages, or Cole). Her judgement is rarely the Okham’s razor you’d expect it to be if her role was to provide a sort of an “outsider’s perspective” to the issues You face.

It’s not to say that her characterisation doesn’t make sense - she seems like a believable portrayal of what does it mean to be a young person in a world full of injustice, where crisis never ends. But in context, she both seems like a person who’s notably difficult to cooperate with, and a character which is weirdly static in comparison to the others. Her arc is supposed to be about overcoming the consequences of lies she’s been told when she was young, but at the end of it her worldview, particularly her approach to elves - those from alienage or Dalish - doesn’t change at all. It seems to me that she has a lot of unresolved issues and for sure there is a lot of opportunity for character development in there, but it. isn’t. utilised. It isn’t only limited to Sera - in the Inquisition there’s more characters who don’t really change in the course of the game, but she’s maybe the most glaring example because her relatively young age and new experiences should make for a pretty dynamic character. In this way, the writers not only made disservice to her by the choosing to include her in a heavily political plot, but also did her a disservice because she seems disengaged from the player’s influence - she can applaud our choices or be upset with them, and she’s an occasional comic relief, but the interaction with the player doesn’t influence her otherwise.

I will never be over how Sera was raised by a noblewoman who left everything she had to her in her will (which was a sizable fortune and would've set her up for a long time, if not for life), and then that inheritance was stolen from her by the government through a variety of excuses because she was an elf, and she still insists that elves aren't "little people". Like... she was a noblewoman. The game tries very hard to gloss over that fact, but she was adopted and raised by a noblewoman from a young age and all of said noblewoman's holdings and possessions were left to Sera in her will. Sera was absolutely a noblewoman. And that was stolen from her because she was an elf. How the hell do you live through that and still claim that elves need to stop complaining about their lot in life and any elf who chooses to spit in the face of human oppression and hold onto their own ways is too elfy? In fact, how do you live through that and deem the noblewoman who raised you and left you her entire fortune lying about a baker hating elves out of foolish pride as more worthy of mention than the Fereldan government stealing your inheritance because you were an elf?

Like... that's the bit that really gets me. Sera went from quite possibly one of the most privileged elves in all of Ferelden to having nothing because the Fereldan government refused to let an elf have that power. Even with the cookie story the whole lie only worked because enough people hated elves that Sera didn't question being told that this particular guy also hated elves. And she still refuses to accept that elves face constant discrimination to the point where even elves who manage to claw their way to a position of some power and privilege can lose it all in a second if their own people and government get sick of having to see an elf who holds power and no one will step in to help them. I can almost understand Sera's fear of magic, since if she ever met a mage it would've been an apostate and they would've been keeping a low profile. But Sera faced the way elves are mistreated head on, and she still acts like they aren't the very definition of "little people"? Come on.

irt the sera discussion from yesterday I would like to add that she's also dismissive of city elven culture—it just doesn't come up as much bc inquisition does its very best to ignore city elves' existence. the most memorable example for me is a quote from her WOT entry—"stupid tree. didn't go, didn't stay" or something like that. You're definitely right, her whole deal is just internalized racism, it's not strictly prejudice against the dalish like some people claim lol. (I believe anneapocalypse has a meta on this exact subject actually) very frustrating that there's barely a hint of growing out of it though—if it were some other flaw, maybe id be fine with it (I do love when characters get worse.), but given that it's a white writer writing internalized racism. well. but that's a subject that's been meta'd to death by better writers than I.

yeah, i love @anneapocalypse's sera meta, it was very compelling to think about!!! and idk! unfortunately, i DO know people irl who are like this (and don't seem to be getting any better about it). again, on its own, i think there's a lot of value to sera's story, even if it's not my story - the problem comes when we look at specific details in sera's writing and how her writing fits into the overall portrayal of elves - and dalish cultures, as well as city elves which as you've pointed out are almost entirely erased in dai which is truly horrific when you are directly dealing with the aftermath of the slaughter of thousands of elves in WEWH.

from that perspective, coupled with how minimal sera's growth is (especially if you're a lavellan that didn't romance her but had to deal with her internalised racism with no way to call it out as the PC without resorting to ableist insults) (and i use minimal here not to discount that her growth exists but how tiny it is compared to what we have to face in-game in terms of her internalised racism, and how most of her growth is shoved into codex entries or into trespasser and even then it's a couple of throwaway lines, at best)... it starts to feel a lot less like a well-intentioned portrayal of internalised racism, with some hits and misses, with the intention of resolution and self-love being the outcome.

and again, what IS IT with bioware and having their white characters dealing with fantasy racism??? like, i'm sorry, but sera is literally white. there's a black woman IN GAME and no one even ACKNOWLEDGES that racism/colourism towards her exists except for one tiny banter with cole for a SPLIT SECOND... and vivienne, a black woman growing up in a heavily andrastian-influenced circle of magi with chantry values... literally has no character arc... even though she's a black woman supporting incarceration of her own people... but the white elf's got an entire arc about internalised racism???????????????? what is the narrative reasoning behind this???

AND ANOTHER THING! the issues with sera are also an issue present with a lot of the other characters in dai - you discuss slavery once with dorian, where he gets defensive of it, and even as a lavellan romancing him, it never gets brought up again until bloody tevinter nights, which isn't even in-game material. you can't argue with cassandra to disseminate the cure for tranquility or get to change her mind on ANYTHING; you can't argue with cullen about mages; you can't argue with vivienne about the circles (not with actual logical arguments with any kind of nuance, which is a limitation OF THE GAME when they can give vivienne lines of nuance for her arguments for why the circle should exist); you can't argue with varric's centricism, etc, etc. even if you do get to confront them, it's one or two lines that are then mysteriously never touched on again in game. in da:o and da2, they didn't do this well either, but at least they had leliana come up to an elven warden after they correct her to apologise - there's clearly an acknowledgement of where she went wrong, and an intention to be better, etc, which is SUCH a fascinating writing direction. you don't have that in... any of the other games. none of the characters are allowed to be wrong, unless they're pushing for justice or equality or freedom in which case they will do something evil (like slavery or mass murder) to make you doubt the validity of their argument. instead they're representations of a specific stance and you're expected to just accept what they say as fact - which is incredibly ironic for a game that hides most of it's deep lore via conflicting codex entries for a sense of realism when it comes to reporting real life events.

it's incredibly exhausting.

So, just curious how many writers and creators will have to be forcibly outed by relentless harassment before we acknowledge that "This queer characters was written by a cishet person and that's why they're bad" is not good criticism.

Body type + Height headcanons

Name a bigger downgrade, ill wait

Emily And Sera Should Have Been Mother And Daughter

Seriously, they give me more mother/daughter feel than sisters. They really should have been made that instead of siblings.

This one was a reply rather than an ask, but I had to do it!! 🐝🐝🐝

Thank you for the suggestion @esteemedestbastard <3

CONFESSION:

So depressing that on tv tropes for dragon age, I’m reading up on dai characters and it’s so obvious whoever wrote it hated Vivienne.

Meanwhile Solas section he got excused for any racism, bigotry and hypocrisy. Every bad point of Solas was softened to make him sound better.

Vivienne, for her own bigotry and hypocrisy, gets absolutely slated and the whole thing just saddens me.

People in this fandom will bend over backwards for any subtext for a male character to prove that they’re kind and not at all bad deep down but God forbid they get a female character that’s the same.

If Vivienne or Sera were male, people would actually love them.

And I hate that because I like them, even with their flaws because they have them for a reason. It’s their backstory.

🌌The Seraphim sisters redesigns!🌤️

I made Sera look powerful,serious,majestic and made her a starry night sky themed.

I made Emily a cloud theme since she is optimistic.

I make them dark skin and not ashy.

Also the colour white and the paleness blinded my eyes. Sera and Emily doesn't look powerful to me since I first saw them also their angel form is ugly

Like the sun and moon.

Sera likes showing Emily the beauty of nighttime on Heaven and Earth since Heaven is a cloudy sky city since Heaven can send sinners to hell or a new soul of human to earth in the purgatory.

Backstory

When Adam and Lilith was created Sera was the guardian angel or a guidance whenever they have the problem Lilith always comes up to Sera talking about her relationship with Adam. When Sera sees what Lucifer had a relationship with Lilith and having sexual relationship with Adams 2nd wife God was furious and disappointed as Lucifer fell. Sera was worried and devastated as she saw Lucifer fell to hell with Lilith. She was worried that her sister Emily will fell as well like Lucifer Morningstar as she kept Emily away seeing the truth behind the exterminations in hell. When Charlie and Charlotte arrived in heaven Sera was aware that the daughters of Lucifer Morningstar is in heaven. Sera was afraid that Emily will be fallen like Lucifer since she is protective of her.

Okay, I... think these are all in order? But for some reason my screenshots folder spread them all out, so if some of these lines are out of order I apologize in advance. (I also spent an excessive amount of time messing around with the screenshots, so if they don't match the order of the text: it's the screenshots that are wrong.) With that said, let's get into it.

Sera: I mean, it was impressive and all. Makes the Dalish look like tits for living in the woods. But so what? Sera: I get it, you're an elf. Be all elfy. But this... Sera: There can't be a bunch of gods and the Maker. Don't matter how much or little you believe, those don't fit. Sera: So call me stupid, but I believe the stuff not made up by dead people who failed. Mythal is a ruin full of demons. Alaris: The evidence is hard to ignore. I believe it. Sera: No, now you're stupid. You can't think that, because it's stupid. Sera: You're the frigging Herald of Andraste! Every time you open your mouth, you'll sound like an idiot. Alaris: It's not as if it matters what I believe. I've already denied being the Herald. Sera: Not for me to say, yeah? Just saying. Sera: Anyway, believe what you want. So long as we kill Coryphifish. Whatever.

...No. No, this is not "whatever". This is not a situation you just get to gloss over like it's nothing, Bioware. Sera pointed an arrow in Alaris's face and then got mad at him for telling her not to do it again, for one, thinking he was possessed or no that is simply not on, but this? Sera looks her friend in the face and tells him actual proof of his gods existing is fake and nothing but demon shit, solely on the grounds that she's decided that the Maker and the Dalish gods can't exist at the same time and she's decided that it's the Maker that's real. She's bringing his faith, the one thing that's kept him going this long, down to just him "being all elfy". And when he insists that he does believe that what he saw���which, again, was proof of the existence of his gods after nearly a year of being forced to play a good little Andrastian—she calls him stupid for it. Because he's the Herald of Andraste, which according to her means he's not allowed to hold to his own religion. "Don't matter how much or little you believe"... so long as you believe the Maker is real and not the Dalish gods.

And then when he points out that he's denied being the Herald every time it's come up, she just completely waves it off! "Not for [her] to say"... after she's told him to his face that he's an idiot for believing in his own gods, his people are idiots for living in the woods (as if they do that just because and not because they'll be killed or forced into slums otherwise), and his gods are actually all demons? That just means she can't think of a good argument. Everything she's said and done in this entire conversation has been incredibly shitty, and instead of apologizing she's just going "Well, as long as you kill Corypheus I guess it doesn't matter", as if Alaris pointing out that his faith has been ignored and disrespected from day one and the Herald of Andraste thing is being done entirely against his will is just him whining about nothing.

Basically I feel like the dialogue options in this conversation are nowhere near strong enough and Alaris should have the option to just fucking snap.

Hey I saw your Sera ask earlier and I def agree with what you said, I can definitely understand why Sera does what she does and why she feels a certain way. What frustrates me is that of the two elven companions we get in DAI, they're both so incredibly dismissive of the Dalish, with Sera's issues and Solas' smug "oooo the Dalish are so silly for daring to try to reclaim their heritage im so much smarter than them lol" and like comparing that to irl indigenous groups trying to reclaim their heritage after centuries of colonization, and having the Dalish be relentlessly mocked for trying to do the same without a shred of nuance is just such bad writing. Actually all of the companions dumb throwaway lines about how the Dalish are "Just as bad" drive me up the fucking wall. Also there's no way to gently challenge Sera on her beliefs, its either "I agree completely with you" OR "youre crazy and make no sense" like I'm all for maladjusted characters but let me help them and actually watch them grow and change for the better!! Anyways sorry to rant, you don't have to respond if you're not up to it, but Sera had such potential but her bad writing and other examples of bad writing for the Dalish overall just irritates me lol.

no i absolutely agree but i feel like these are two separate issues when it comes to sera. there's a faction of fandom who find her annoying - which is fine, but instead of just... saying that... i suppose to dodge accusations of lesbophobia or something? people often criticise her writing for flaws that it doesn't actually have.

some flaws her writing does have (not an exhaustive list):

lack of alternative perspectives. as you mentioned, both the elven characters in the party care little about or for the struggles of dalish elves or city elves (sera generally focuses on class and ignores the intersection between class and race entirely).

inability to respectfully engage and challenge her ideas, without calling her insane/crazy/or otherwise being ableist

her reduction of characters' gender to their genitalia/transphobia

lack of clarity for her character's background, motives and arc (which as i've said, i think is the direct result of sera being white in-game; her character point of internalised racism would be easy dots to connect if she was a person of colour).

antiblackness - specifically towards vivienne.

but then there's other criticisms which just don't really seem like writing flaws to me. sera's story, her reactions, are all fairly accurate representations - in my experience - of dealing with internalised racism. within the frame of the narrative, city elves and dalish elves are oppressed by humans in different ways; sera's dislike or rejection of dalish culture and religion is reflective of her internalised racism, not racism. sera is also an elf; the history of arlathan and the dales belong as much to dalish elves as they do to city elves. sera dunking on the elves is upsetting, sure, but it's not comparable to human characters doing the same - sera is a city elf directly as a result of orlesian colonisation, which led to the creation of the alienages in the first place. this is her culture, her history, and the fact she's slamming it so hard is a symptom of her internalised racism.

and there's further criticisms still that are applicable to multiple characters in the story because it's the result of dai's shitty writing, which isn't limited to sera. but some people act as if it is, ignoring entirely their male favs who do the same thing. idk! i think some people who find sera annoying should & can just say that - i also think she's immature, which can be grating to deal with - because some of the logic offered for not liking her seem to miss the point of her character entirely.

Sera😇🪽