Dragon Age: Origins/Headscratchers/Part II: Difference between revisions

** A) Who said they ''couldn't'' have whores? Cailan had "his women", according to Anora, and if Alistair gets set to marry Anora while you're romancing him, if he's been convinced to do more what he wants ("hardened"), you can talk him into keeping you on the side. B) Ferelden's kings can't "do whatever they want" - Ferelden's rulers maintain power by maintaining favor with the Bannorn. If the Bannorn disagrees with the king, and disagrees strongly enough, the Bannorn can cause massive problems for him, up to and including outright revolution. Since the various banns and teyrns in Ferelden supply the majority the King's troops, they wield a hefty amount of power in Ferelden. Its been the same way throughout history for just about any ruler in a fuedal system; Ferelden simply makes the power-politics of historical fuedal courts into an actual acknowledged institution.

** Aside from social stigma, there's also the issue of children. A king and queen are expected to produce an heir to the throne as soon as possible for their nation. The child of a king or queen will ''be'' a king or queen later on. This way, even if the current king or queen end up dead (say, by stupidly running into a horde of darkspawn and getting crushed by an ogre), the country will still have a ruler (in training, at least). Without an heir, you end up with the kind of political mess that we dealt with in this game. If the king has a kid with someone who isn't the queen, things get complicated ''very'' quickly. Issues of bloodline, morality, qualifications, and all sorts of other mess can snowball into issues that can haunt a kingdom for ''centuries''. People in feudal societies like their government stable. Nobody wants to risk a [[Succession Crisis]] or revolution because the king couldn't keep it in his pants.

** "Hardening" him means he thinks more of himself, and toughens up in general. He is willing to make you his mistress when he is hardened. Why? Because he thinks more of himself, and less how his wife and possible children or you might feel in the future when he's cheating on the both of you. He can't marry you because you can't have children. Marriage for a king is political, not romantic. It's not a lie. [[Word of God]] confirms that you can't have children. You will never have children. Six years of marriage will not produce children. Why he hasn't found a queen we don't know--maybe he just doesn't mention her if she's not Anora.

** Then why doesn't he suggest the mistress arrangement right off the bat? If he loves her so much why is any persuasion required? He was the one who said he wasn't going to let HER get away, and then he just drops her like a hot potato and reconciliation at the end isn't an option? If he has the guts to curb her why doesn't he have the guts to put his foot down and hold onto her tight? Why did anything in the relationship need to change, why couldn't he just secretly keep her on the side like a bajillion male rulers in the course of world history have done? Nobody cares if the king has lovers, it's perfectly normal and they can't tell him what to do if he's not getting married to her. If he really loved her he would have done that. If he really loved her he would've held onto her fast and worked SOMETHING out himself. Dumping her forever completely just ugh makes no sense and totally breaks this happy light hearted character. She didn't even choose to become a Warden. His own mother a common elven Warden for goodness sake. And who needs natural kids? Why not just adopt a kid or something? Someone who's smart and will be a smashing ruler.

**** Or maybe he'd rather forget about the whole thing.

** It's possible Alistair just doesn't care about the child as a person. He hates Morrigan, he's very suspicious of forbidden magic, is rather religious so the whole "soul of an old god" thing might offend him on that level, and more than anything he could consider that the child isn't a human so much as it is a tool for Morrigan to use for wicked ends, and in all likelihood a humanoid abomination at that. So its possible he just wants to put it out of his mind and hope it doesn't come back to bite him. Conversely, it's possible for the pc to be all of those things and have a similar opinion, but just be more proactive in hunting Morrigan down. (the pc wanting to raise their child goes hand in hand with them loving Morrigan).

 

== Human Noble Origin ==

 

== New Address ==

** Well it could be that it is a custom unique to the Free Marches, its use by Fereldans is an embellishment created by Varric's recollection.

** And the Fereldans in DAII have been living in the Free Marches for a while. If it is a Free Marches custom, they're just picking it up naturally.