I know it’s uncomfortable to look at and think about the emotional intensity of Fenris’s trauma bond to Danarius, but how does Fenris’s character even begin to make sense if he wasn’t a huge simp for the guy? Why did he kill all those fog warriors if he didn’t just idolise Danarius to the moon? Why did he stand around pouring glasses of wine while slave children were being used as blood sacrifices? Why is he so afraid of a relationship with Hawke (someone also in a position of power over him) if he doesn’t inherently understand his capacity to eclipse his own personhood and do terrible things just because someone he loves tells him to? Why does he lie in act 1 about how if Danarius doesn’t come hunting him, he’ll return to Tevinter to kill him? Or lie about how his only value to Danarius is the lyrium Danarius is apparently going to skin him for? If he had no affection for Danarius, why doesn’t he deny it when Danarius says as much during Alone? And beyond that- Why did Danarius wipe his memories, isolate him from his family and other slaves, and brainwash him, if he didn’t intend to create someone wholly dependent on him, who loved him alone and obeyed orders without question?

Look, I’m not happy that this ↑ is the only lengthy portrayal we get of a Tevinter slave in these games. I think it’s a real disservice that ‘slave who loved their master’ and ‘slave who repeats white man’s burden rhetoric verbatim about how he is mages are dangerous and need someone looking after them’ is the guy given the biggest voice. I would love to see more slaves and ex-slaves (and, lbr, people of colour) with a greater sense of ambition and their own agency, who never bought into the trap of trauma bonding with their abusers. But-!! Actually-!! I think the game actually does a great job of calling Fenris’s testimony into question! It slaps pretty hard that Varania shows up and tells him he’s full of shit. He doesn’t know what her life was like, and he doesn’t speak for her. Like, sure, Varania is full of shit too. But Fenris doesn’t speak for anyone but himself! He doesn’t speak for all those slaves that were sacrificed in blood magic rituals, because he wasn’t one of them and was never going to be! And, you know what? I don’t have any trouble believing the guy who isolates himself in his manor, who is too traumatised and afraid of even going to the Alienage to be around other elves, has no fucking perspective on their lives!

And, ugh, I love him. I love him soooo much. He and Merrill are my favourite characters in this whole game. I love him being this messy ugly person who loves so hard, and loves so hard he’ll kill whoever Danarius and Hawke tell him to, and loves so hard he buries himself in logic and anger to try to escape from feeling it. Whose best friends are all humans because he doesn’t know how to fucking be around other elves after the way he’s been conditioned. Who just spends the first two acts of the game trying to misrepresent himself as someone way harsher and stronger than he is because, hey, maybe if he says he hates mages enough, he’ll start to believe it. And maybe if he believes it, he can stop himself from giving in and giving up and walking docilely back to Tevinter at Danarius’s side, the way he does if Hawke betrays him. And, ugh, god, I know why people don’t want to look at it, but how do you understand literally anything this character does without it? It’s so frustrating. I love him, and I feel like I don’t even know the guy half the fandom is talking about most of the time.