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description=The blog of Katherine Cross: Academic, Writer, Critic;

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ide such a thing from someone called the inquisitor after all orlesian custom is a spiderweb of decorum metaphor and implication and i realised this when both women discussed how they parted ways in very gentle almost unassuming terms celene says that briala wanted change for the elves and thought i should be the one to deliver it even though she expresses regret and says she should ve dared more she steels herself beneath her mask and insists the locket meant nothing to her briala for her part is shocked that celene kept the token which she had long ago gifted to celene in honour of her coronation but her thoughts immediately turned to how impolitic and un strategic it was for her to keep it that orlesian understatement however hints at something far greater and far darker bioware writer patrick weekes tried his hand at writing a dragon age novel the first penned by someone other than david gaider and acquitted himself mightily with the masked empire the backstory behind everything that came to a head in wicked eyes and wicked hearts in the process he provides a blueprint for writing queer women as believable flawed and troubled people this book is where it all began over a year earlier the civil war the elven rebellion gaspard s ascendancy and celene and briala s breakup briala herself is brilliantly portrayed as a permanently compromised woman an elf with the ear of an empress using her not inconsiderable influence to steadily improve the lot of her people in a kingdom that despises and ghettoises them every day she lives with the conflict of knowing she is an elf and at once more powerful than most of her people yet still subject to the empress whim she knows the alienage of val royeaux well yet stands as a woman apart from its residents better dressed and infinitely more privileged from them above their quotidian struggles neither is she of the purist nationalist ideology that pervades the dalish clans who roam the countryside trying to live in accordance with an ancient culture that humans long ago destroyed despite it all and despite all the rumours and sniping from the shadows she strives to use her position to improve the lives of elves getting them admitted to thedas oxford the university of orlais for instance or allowing elven merchants to sell wares outside the slums and alienages to which elves are normally confined this life of compromise of being the outsider insider who runs between worlds and belongs nowhere is a brilliant picture of what it means to be a relatively privileged and fortunate member of an otherwise marginalised group forever caught between the conservative tendencies of power and the radical will of the oppressed who want and need change right now celene meanwhile is the perfect portrait of the moderate liberal whose desire for progressive change is sincere but mired under layers of old prejudices and imperial disdain for those she sees as beneath her briala knows that as much as they love each other celene still sometimes sees briala as one of the good ones a thought that guts her i won t summarise all the events of the book and instead rush to spoil the main bits due to political manoeuvring gone awry celene violently puts down an elven rebellion in the city of halamshiral murdering hundreds or even thousands of elves just as briala was attempting a more subtle targeted solution that might have calmed everyone down celene justified this as an unavoidable response to the elven rebellion and a necessary evil that would prove her tough enough to keep the throne and making small incremental change despite herself over the course of a long journey through the wilderness briala seems to forgive celene and commits herself to getting her love back to val royeaux where she can reclaim her throne after an ambush by gaspard drove her into temporary exile later in the book celene s champion michel duels gaspard honourably for the throne of orlais gaspard loses and bares his neck to the blade of his opponent in that precise moment briala calls in a favour that michel owed her the favour yield and allow gaspard to live for those who played inquisition the ramifications of that decision are clear had gaspard died there would have been no civil war a throne war requires a usurper after all and gaspard s cult of personality drove the revolt against celene s supposedly weak and effete rule instead briala took away the very thing that mattered most to celene the stability of her empire she lit a fire before celene and walked away from her the palace staff and her old life in val royeaux both women were heartbroken but briala did what she needed to even after she and celene had burnt down a dalish village where they were being held prisoner briala did it both because she had lost faith in the dalish who she now saw as the enemies of her people in thedas alienages for their aloof scorn of their flat eared kin and to help celene celene did it for herself to make her escape back to orlais proper only for briala to stop it all and give her benediction to a civil war that took away nearly everything celene wanted including the love of her life the blood on both women s hands is undeniable and without measure each chasing after a distant moral goal and ruthlessly compromising whatever it took to reach it convinced that they alone knew what was best for the millions who milled in the world beneath them two of a kind sitting on my throne i see every city in the empire if i must burn one to save the rest i will weep but i will light the torch empress celene the masked empire briala became a revolutionary for her people but could never quite admit to herself that she saw little people in much the same way as celene chess pieces to be moved in a grand game with grander goals neither of course expected the chess pieces to understand their motivations briala and celene both were convinced that their actions however violent were in the ultimate service of a better society and indeed they were hemmed into that terrifying calculus by the very brutality of thedas itself a murderous world where one lives and dies by the sword and where elves are treated like game animals by humans briala knew some compromise was necessary such compromise would cost her in the eyes of some of her own people including those she sacrificed so much to help in inquisition you can find an elven servant who despises briala now she wants to play revolution but i remember she was sleeping with the empress who purged our alienage she seethes scorning her as celene s pet briala in her more unassuming guise briala and celene despite existing at opposite ends of a power spectrum were more alike than either cared to admit it is telling that briala s act of vengeance against celene for halamshiral was political rather than something purely personal she met celene s burning slum and raised her a burning empire it was a terrifying bloody dance that only these two women in love could perform if you bring sera along with you to the winter palace upon meeting the bitter servant and hearing her confirm briala and celene were lovers she remarks knew it i did and i bet the hate made it feel real good she s perhaps more right than she knows briala was resented as a flat eared elf by some seen as a knife ear by humans and too privileged to understand the alienages by others she preached the gospel of compromise even as she struggled with terrible existential questions how far do you sell out before the bad outweighs the good what is worth sacrificing now for gains down the road when do you fight prejudice and when do you grin and bear it celene meanwhile compromised from the other direction how radical could she be without ceding the very power she needed to enact change how many nobles could she turn against her while still saving lives one is left to wonder how much of this terrible conflict both women worked out upon each other the perfect videogame protagonists briala s mother framed the mother of another servant girl in the palace to position her daughter beside the young princess who would be queen her whole life was a series of dances in orlais deadly game the often deadly political intrigues that serve as an unintentional metaphor for videogaming if ever there was one celene and briala are both the stars of their own stories with everyone else even each other at times a supporting character to be set alight if expediency to the win condition demands it they re the ultimate videogame protagonists in that way your inquisitor who already cut a bloody swathe through thedas by the time wicked eyes wicked hearts begins is no different but celene and briala s tortured love for one another provides an especially twisted reflection through which to understand this phenomenon empress celene where did the revenge end and the revolution begin for briala after she let gaspard live after all she took over a network of eluvians ancient elven mirrors that allow for instant travel over vast distances inaugurating a spy network and rebellion that actively prolonged the bloody civil war briala started all this in the name of creating space to help the elves of orlais slums and alienages it s hard not to wonder if celene wouldn t have been proud behind her anguish both women after all saw the world from ten thousand feet both were master strategists who were not above sacrificing what they saw as pawns on a grand board at the end of wicked eyes your inquisitor can choose to reunite briala and celene while gaspard is finally put to the sword that briala had mercifully spared him from a year earlier in that event celene keeps her throne and briala becomes the marquise of the dales the first elf to hold a noble title in orlais fitting that it should occur in halamshiral where the two lovers set both their lives aflame not long ago the only way they could truly reconcile was through a night of deadly political manoeuvres that saw everyone from nobles to tevinter mages to servants die in the palace s gilded halls a bloody game that both women knew could end with one or both of them losing for the last time as they give their victory speech the gathered nobility listen while celene talks about the cornerstone of change being laid and briala speaks rousingly of how the night s events are a triumph for everyone in keeping with the way elves and humans alike fought against the ancient tevinter imperium centuries ago pitch perfect politics and briala reveals herself as every inch the equal of celene even when delivering an historic speech for the benefit of the entire nation what the crowd did not see was the blood that trailed behind both women as they held hands in the dark gaming briala game criticism romance nuclear unicorn now on patreon march 21 2015 march 21 2015 katherine alejandra cross leave a comment hey there nuclear unicorners as you re probably all well aware the vast bulk of my work has since moved to a variety of other websites and publications but given that freelancing doesn t always pay the bills and the fact that i would like to put some of my essay work back here i thought it was time for me to start my own patreon only of course after the bludgeoning love of many friends and colleagues who encouraged me to do so if you notice the stretch goals involve funding more writing here and over the long term i would like many of my colleagues in gaming criticism like to have a healthy personal blogging presence as well as a presence in the wider gaming press if you like what you ve seen here and elsewhere please feel free to donate and thank you so much in advance click below to donate news state of the corn my 2014 in review december 28 2014 january 1 2015 katherine alejandra cross leave a comment a drawing of me by the wonderful applecidermage of the justice points podcast where i appeared this year for a chat the background of my hometown was added by one of my partners rachel for regular readers of this blog it has doubtlessly not escaped your notice that i ve been a rather infrequent presence here this past year much of my writing lives elsewhere these days i ve been a frequent contributor to rh reality check i have a regular column at feministing and i have contributed features to bitch magazine 2014 has been one hell of year and especially in light of the hells and furies wrought by its final quarter it s quite fashionable now to festivus style air one s grievances in any attempt to look back on the year having stood in the midst of gamergate i certainly have plenty of cause to want to turn the book on this year and be done with it but the year does not belong to them and if i were to look back on 2014 i would say that on the whole what will endure for me is the fact that this year has been tremendously good for my growth as a writer and scholar and that it was the first year that i have truly been able to live the professional life i want to while it is popular these days to for one reason or another lament the state of the video gaming world i remain very optimistic although a number of challenges remain the recent backlash has a lot more to do with the fact that the changes made in the world of gaming are here to stay as are the people who are the faces of that change the wider world of politics is something i m a good deal more concerned about for reasons that should be obvious to anyone following the news i ve written extensively this year about different manifestations of racism and police brutality without further ado however here are some of my favourite pieces of my own writing from this past year video gaming perhaps the most cited piece of writing i ve done this year about games has been we will force gaming to be free a lengthy and unexpectedly popular essay i wrote for first person scholar about how gamergate quickly came to resemble classic examples of out of control revolutionary movements and had fully given itself to violent ends justify the means thinking i ve written a lot for bitch magazine this year but the most fun i had writing for them was this feature on erotic roleplaying subcultures in the world of gaming both video and pen and paper the artwork they commissioned is also my favourite amy martin s incredible depiction of erp is both artful and accurate another widely read piece was this now tragically prescient editorial i wrote for polygon about how a terror dream spawned by past censorship battles wracks the gaming community making it vulnerable to perceiving any criticism as an attempt to take our games away also in polygon i wrote about the tragedy of how violence is the idiom of progress in too many games and that developing gaming as a medium requires coming up with new ways to win and with thinking beyond the idea of winning in the first place i wrote extensively about gamergate as many know i was one of the first to cover it for a non gaming news outlet writing an editorial essay for rh reality check about what it revealed ...