Headcanon meme: Cullen, Question 33
I'm skipping around in the order of questions merely because they'll get done much faster this way! Cullen's answer is below and the answer for Basch+Noah+Penelo+Drace will be posted tomorrow.
(for
owlmoose and anyone else who is vaguely curious ^^)
33. Concept of home and family?
A mix of canon and headcanon has me say that Cullen, when in Ferelden, saw his fellow templar recruits and vowed templars as brothers and sisters, that he thought of Ferelden’s circle as his home (both mages and templars were members of that home), and that the traditional notion of family was extinguished from his mind at a young age. Once in Kirkwall, he absolutely never saw the Gallows as a home. Throughout his time in both places he was actually comfortable accepting the idea that he would not have a “traditional” family. To him, it was never his lot in life. (This last bit is contrary to most other headcanon I’ve seen for Cullen-my contrary reasoning is explored in the answers for a few different questions, starting with this one).
Okay, let me unpack that paragraph.
First, starting with canon, Cullen thought of Ferelden’s Circle as his home and he saw the tower’s residents (or, at least some of them) as his friends. Here’s the dialogue, assuming your mage warden picks a path that uncovers it:
Cullen: Why did you return to the tower? How did you survive?
Warden: Is it so surprising that I’ve returned? This was my home.
Cullen: As it was mine. And look what they’ve done to it. They deserve to die. Uldred most of all. Kill Uldred. Kill them all for what they’ve done. They caged us like animals… looked for ways to break us. I’m the only one left… They turned some into… monsters. And… there was nothing I could do.
Warden: Be thankful it wasn’t you.
Cullen: Don’t think I’m not grateful… but why should I live when my friends lie dead, their bodies and spirits broken?
I think it a fair to say that Cullen saw that moment as an “us versus them” situation that legitimately called for self-defense. While a full analysis of the this scene is better left for later, Cullen never lumped the mage Warden or Wynne (assuming she’s in the party) into the same category as Uldred’s followers or any other mages that Uldred may have turned/infected. Instead, Cullen looked at the mage Warden as either a potential ally or as someone who should be his ally. Also, before the attack, he appears reasonably friendly toward mages. (It’s worth noting that before the attack he had never seen an abomination and, quite likely, had made very little use of sword.) Thus, extrapolating those canon facts…
Headcanon: Cullen’s life in the gilded cage of Ferelden’s circle was very comfortable-far more comfortable than his life as a young chantry brother and templar recruit, and incomparably more comfortable than his early childhood with his unwed mother (more on her in a bit). In Cullen’s mind, the mages and templars in the tower led a life of privilege: they received extensive education, they were provided with good food, good clothing, and fine quality equipment, mages were encouraged to do research, and the templars in the circle held highly coveted posts that paid higher salaries than other posts (although still a pittance). Given that Ferelden’s Circle was more progressive than other circles and trustworthy harrowed (adult) mages could earn a variety of freedoms, Cullen wasn’t able to see the circle as a bad or a misguided place. Yes, problems and conflicts occurred and the circle (like all families) was far from perfect, but Cullen’s experiences were limited and, to him, life in the circle was quite palatial. Thus, he saw the circle as his home. That circle that housed a big family and he was a part of it.
Given that he was in his late teens/early 20s when he adopted this unconventional notion of home, he didn’t have a strong sense of home before entering the chantry’s system. I subscribe to the idea that templars’ abilities are not only akin to magic, but that the best (strongest) templars come from families that have mages in their lineage. THUS, headcanon is that Cullen’s mother was an unmarried apostate mage who knew basic healing magic along with simple medical skills (herbalism, midwifery). She and her young boy lived as drifters in rural Ferelden. They were dirt poor and his mother bartered her skills for shelter and money. She died (heroically) when Cullen was twelve and the chantry took him in, knowing what he was. He tested negative for magical abilities but showed promise as a templar. Cullen entered the chantry with no fear of mages and was openly willing to trust mages because, in his limited experience, mages hold the power to help other people. (His mother was a good person, therefore mages have the power to be good, or so his young mind reasoned.)
His initial childhood was spent in poverty. When Cullen was selected to serve in Ferelden’s tower, they may as well have told him he was moving into the royal palace. Life in the tower was relatively easy, people were generally friendly and, most important, he felt safe and comfortable. This experience imprinted on him as the home and family he never had. He honestly hoped that he would someday would become Knight-Commander (after all, his templar skills were outstanding and Greagoir honestly liked Cullen’s mindset: templars work to keep mages safe; mages are people just like the rest of us except they have powers that they need to learn how to properly control so they safely can serve mankind and the good chantry’s system knows how to properly train and test mages).
When Irving identified Neria Surana as the most promising apprentice of her generation, Cullen started daydreaming about a future first enchanter Surana while imagining a partnership between his future self and hers - a truly unconventional notion of family, complete with this first enchanter/knight-commander partnership standing in place of a conventional marriage (completely chaste, mind you!). In Cullen’s daydreams, his and Surana’s future selves were equivalent to being “parents” or “head of household” for all of the other (future) mages and templars in that circle. The daydreams of a naive boy…
After the attack on Ferelden’s circle, Cullen flipped his shit due to a potent mix of acute stress reaction and uncontrollable anxiety; anger/depression due to the horrible loss he and the tower suffered; having survivor syndrome; and, the icing on the cake, knowing that Surana wasn’t going to be with him. (In my canon, the Surana/Alistair relationship was painfully obvious when they visit the circle. Cullen isn’t merely jealous, he’s livid-Alistair is a (ex-)templar! Thus, headcanon pours an ocean of poisonous rejection and pain into his “mages and templars cannot be friends” line. ;)
When Greagoir packs Cullen off to Kirkwall, Cullen partially sees this as him being expelled from his home, although it had become a home he could no longer stay in because it was no longer home. It had been defiled and his dreams of what it could have become had been shattered. Cullen placed the blame squarely on himself: He should have never been so naive to have such dreams, he should have been more vigilant and, thus, he was a failure and someone who doesn’t have what it takes to become a knight-commander, all because because the entire tower was put at risk and far too many lives were lost.
From there on in, Cullen gives up on any notion of having a home. Likewise, family or any sense of family is no longer an option for him. Period.
…Even though my headcanon Cullen develops an offscreen friendship (and a relationship of sorts) with Mari Hawke, he is incapable of associating the concepts “home” and “family” with anything that is part of his life in Kirkwall. Mari sometimes allows him to stay in her home, and Mari (along with Varric, Fenris and, of all people, Merrill) provide him with friendship and emotional support, but Cullen would never consider them to be like family because, as a templar who serves the chantry, he has forsaken the right to put down roots and, in his mind, he just cannot connect with people as family. In a sense, he’s echoing a pattern from early childhood when living as drifter who had no roots. For my Cullen to ever think again about having a home, he would need to radically reevaluate his relationship with the templar order and the chantry. Also, him ever having/starting a family is strongly associated with the words ‘Thou Shall Not,’ not only for the obvious reasons that the chantry uses to keep control of their army, but also because he is a potential carrier of magical ability. (Btw, word of god is that templar vows do not include a vow of chastity).
Headcanon Index
All 50 Questions
Crossposted at http://vieralynn.dreamwidth.org/167377.html.
(for
owlmoose and anyone else who is vaguely curious ^^)
33. Concept of home and family?
A mix of canon and headcanon has me say that Cullen, when in Ferelden, saw his fellow templar recruits and vowed templars as brothers and sisters, that he thought of Ferelden’s circle as his home (both mages and templars were members of that home), and that the traditional notion of family was extinguished from his mind at a young age. Once in Kirkwall, he absolutely never saw the Gallows as a home. Throughout his time in both places he was actually comfortable accepting the idea that he would not have a “traditional” family. To him, it was never his lot in life. (This last bit is contrary to most other headcanon I’ve seen for Cullen-my contrary reasoning is explored in the answers for a few different questions, starting with this one).
Okay, let me unpack that paragraph.
First, starting with canon, Cullen thought of Ferelden’s Circle as his home and he saw the tower’s residents (or, at least some of them) as his friends. Here’s the dialogue, assuming your mage warden picks a path that uncovers it:
Cullen: Why did you return to the tower? How did you survive?
Warden: Is it so surprising that I’ve returned? This was my home.
Cullen: As it was mine. And look what they’ve done to it. They deserve to die. Uldred most of all. Kill Uldred. Kill them all for what they’ve done. They caged us like animals… looked for ways to break us. I’m the only one left… They turned some into… monsters. And… there was nothing I could do.
Warden: Be thankful it wasn’t you.
Cullen: Don’t think I’m not grateful… but why should I live when my friends lie dead, their bodies and spirits broken?
I think it a fair to say that Cullen saw that moment as an “us versus them” situation that legitimately called for self-defense. While a full analysis of the this scene is better left for later, Cullen never lumped the mage Warden or Wynne (assuming she’s in the party) into the same category as Uldred’s followers or any other mages that Uldred may have turned/infected. Instead, Cullen looked at the mage Warden as either a potential ally or as someone who should be his ally. Also, before the attack, he appears reasonably friendly toward mages. (It’s worth noting that before the attack he had never seen an abomination and, quite likely, had made very little use of sword.) Thus, extrapolating those canon facts…
Headcanon: Cullen’s life in the gilded cage of Ferelden’s circle was very comfortable-far more comfortable than his life as a young chantry brother and templar recruit, and incomparably more comfortable than his early childhood with his unwed mother (more on her in a bit). In Cullen’s mind, the mages and templars in the tower led a life of privilege: they received extensive education, they were provided with good food, good clothing, and fine quality equipment, mages were encouraged to do research, and the templars in the circle held highly coveted posts that paid higher salaries than other posts (although still a pittance). Given that Ferelden’s Circle was more progressive than other circles and trustworthy harrowed (adult) mages could earn a variety of freedoms, Cullen wasn’t able to see the circle as a bad or a misguided place. Yes, problems and conflicts occurred and the circle (like all families) was far from perfect, but Cullen’s experiences were limited and, to him, life in the circle was quite palatial. Thus, he saw the circle as his home. That circle that housed a big family and he was a part of it.
Given that he was in his late teens/early 20s when he adopted this unconventional notion of home, he didn’t have a strong sense of home before entering the chantry’s system. I subscribe to the idea that templars’ abilities are not only akin to magic, but that the best (strongest) templars come from families that have mages in their lineage. THUS, headcanon is that Cullen’s mother was an unmarried apostate mage who knew basic healing magic along with simple medical skills (herbalism, midwifery). She and her young boy lived as drifters in rural Ferelden. They were dirt poor and his mother bartered her skills for shelter and money. She died (heroically) when Cullen was twelve and the chantry took him in, knowing what he was. He tested negative for magical abilities but showed promise as a templar. Cullen entered the chantry with no fear of mages and was openly willing to trust mages because, in his limited experience, mages hold the power to help other people. (His mother was a good person, therefore mages have the power to be good, or so his young mind reasoned.)
His initial childhood was spent in poverty. When Cullen was selected to serve in Ferelden’s tower, they may as well have told him he was moving into the royal palace. Life in the tower was relatively easy, people were generally friendly and, most important, he felt safe and comfortable. This experience imprinted on him as the home and family he never had. He honestly hoped that he would someday would become Knight-Commander (after all, his templar skills were outstanding and Greagoir honestly liked Cullen’s mindset: templars work to keep mages safe; mages are people just like the rest of us except they have powers that they need to learn how to properly control so they safely can serve mankind and the good chantry’s system knows how to properly train and test mages).
When Irving identified Neria Surana as the most promising apprentice of her generation, Cullen started daydreaming about a future first enchanter Surana while imagining a partnership between his future self and hers - a truly unconventional notion of family, complete with this first enchanter/knight-commander partnership standing in place of a conventional marriage (completely chaste, mind you!). In Cullen’s daydreams, his and Surana’s future selves were equivalent to being “parents” or “head of household” for all of the other (future) mages and templars in that circle. The daydreams of a naive boy…
After the attack on Ferelden’s circle, Cullen flipped his shit due to a potent mix of acute stress reaction and uncontrollable anxiety; anger/depression due to the horrible loss he and the tower suffered; having survivor syndrome; and, the icing on the cake, knowing that Surana wasn’t going to be with him. (In my canon, the Surana/Alistair relationship was painfully obvious when they visit the circle. Cullen isn’t merely jealous, he’s livid-Alistair is a (ex-)templar! Thus, headcanon pours an ocean of poisonous rejection and pain into his “mages and templars cannot be friends” line. ;)
When Greagoir packs Cullen off to Kirkwall, Cullen partially sees this as him being expelled from his home, although it had become a home he could no longer stay in because it was no longer home. It had been defiled and his dreams of what it could have become had been shattered. Cullen placed the blame squarely on himself: He should have never been so naive to have such dreams, he should have been more vigilant and, thus, he was a failure and someone who doesn’t have what it takes to become a knight-commander, all because because the entire tower was put at risk and far too many lives were lost.
From there on in, Cullen gives up on any notion of having a home. Likewise, family or any sense of family is no longer an option for him. Period.
…Even though my headcanon Cullen develops an offscreen friendship (and a relationship of sorts) with Mari Hawke, he is incapable of associating the concepts “home” and “family” with anything that is part of his life in Kirkwall. Mari sometimes allows him to stay in her home, and Mari (along with Varric, Fenris and, of all people, Merrill) provide him with friendship and emotional support, but Cullen would never consider them to be like family because, as a templar who serves the chantry, he has forsaken the right to put down roots and, in his mind, he just cannot connect with people as family. In a sense, he’s echoing a pattern from early childhood when living as drifter who had no roots. For my Cullen to ever think again about having a home, he would need to radically reevaluate his relationship with the templar order and the chantry. Also, him ever having/starting a family is strongly associated with the words ‘Thou Shall Not,’ not only for the obvious reasons that the chantry uses to keep control of their army, but also because he is a potential carrier of magical ability. (Btw, word of god is that templar vows do not include a vow of chastity).
Headcanon Index
All 50 Questions
Crossposted at http://vieralynn.dreamwidth.org/167377.html.