NaBlo #2: Cullen’s Personal Growth During His Quest For Trust (and a preview of two problems this po
In yesterday’s essay I wrote about Cullen being one of Dragon Age’s best kept secret. In it, I mentioned how Cullen has a character arc with a “fall and rise” plot structure but the player’s choices will reveal more or less of his story, providing either a richer or weaker variant of his arc. Today’s essay takes a look at what is arguably Cullen’s most interesting and most complete arc-the arc that gives him the most screen time, the most personal growth, and the greatest explanation for his on-screen actions.
To give Cullen the most screen time requires three things: (1) playing either the male or female mage origin. Playing as a human mage warden results in one extra line of dialogue during Act 2 of DA2. (2) Always making choices that maximizes the amount of PC-Cullen dialogue, even though some dialogue lines are mutually exclusive. (3) Playing the templar ending of DA2, which gives Cullen an important extra scene in the Gallows during battle.
Uncovering a story that shows Cullen experiencing the most personal growth ends up being a subjective refinement of giving Cullen the most screen time possible. I feel that any choice made by the Warden or Hawke that challenges Cullen to rethink the Templar’s position on mages, magic, and mage rights will create a story that shows him experiencing more growth. To me, the most important scene would be in the templars ending of DA2 where Cullen attempts to stop Meredith from killing every mage, innocent of blood magic or not. Hawke has the option to let Cullen speak in the defense of a group of mages. After Cullen speaks, Hawke can support Cullen’s plan (protect the mages) or support Meredith’s plan (kill all mages). I would argue that having a mage Hawke support Cullen’s plan to protect mages results in the most transformative experience for Cullen. When Cullen later bows to Hawke, presumably supporting him/her as Viscount, this scene becomes far more meaningful if Hawke is a mage.
Finally, uncovering a story that provides the greatest explanation for Cullen’s actions is also subjective, but a few of Cullen’s lines during Act 1 of DA2 have greater weight if Cullen had a crush on the female mage warden from DA:O. These include Cullen’s “mages cannot be our friends, they must always be watched” line when he suspects Wilmod of meeting with friends who escaped the Circle, and Cullen’s comment about Meredith not being fooled by a pretty face. Additionally, Cullen’s lines during DA:O’s Broken Circle quest have far more depth when Cullen is infatuated with the female mage warden. In my opinion, Cullen’s Broken Circle lines are much more poignant when the female mage has reciprocal feelings for him.
Based on these criteria, I’ll provide a plot analysis for Cullen that involves a female Amell mage warden who reacts positively toward Cullen without pushing him into deeply uncomfortable situations, and a mage-sympathetic mage Hawke who sends Feynriel to the Gallows (this opens up extra dialogue with Cullen), who supports the templars during the The Last Straw, and who supports Cullen’s desire to save the mages who surrender during battle in the Gallows.
By doing this I don’t mean to say that other paths through Cullen’s story are less canonical. For instance, Cullen’s dialogue in the male mage origin is different from the female mage origin and those differences suggest bits of interesting backstory that would be otherwise missed. All I’m doing is selecting one reference arc for Cullen that is information rich. With a reference story arc defined, all other possible arcs for Cullen can be compared to it.
.
Here is a visual overview of Cullen’s reference arc with a summary. Below I describe a summary of this reference arc. Detailed examinations of the DA:O and DA2 script will appear in future essays in this series.
(Click for larger version of this graph)
When we first meet Cullen, he trusts mages. He starts off in Ferelden’s Circle and he is relieved that the “talented and brave” female mage just survived “the quickest, cleanest Harrowing he’d ever seen.” Better yet, she seems to be willing to talk to him. At this point, life is good. Cullen’s crush has proven to be a remarkable mage, not a tragically dead one. Maybe Amell will become his friend? Maybe they’ll spend time together?! (Cue a hopeful, blushing Cullen.)
Unfortunately, Cullen’s happiness is short lived. Amell is caught helping a blood mage, Jowan, escape from the Circle because Jowan wants to continue his illicit affair with a Chantry initiate. Amell is taken away by the Grey Wardens as punishment for helping Jowan. Although we don’t see how Cullen reacted to this incident, this is the first time in his arc that blood magic interferes with his happiness.
In the weeks or months that follow, Uldred returns to the tower and his blood mages stages a revolt. Most of Cullen’s friends die and his “home” is wrecked. (Cullen refers to the tower as his home in a dialogue option available to mage wardens during the Broken Circle quest.) During the attack, Cullen is mentally tortured as blood mages attempt to control his thoughts by planting visions in his mind. When the mage warden finds Cullen, he believes the blood mages are using his sinful, shameful, ill-advised infatuation with Amell as a means to control his mind. Cullen denounces his prior interest in the mage warden and declares that he had previously been naive. He believes that it is his duty to oppose mages. Although all of his words are spoken under extreme duress, his ability to trust mages has been shattered.
After Uldred has been defeated, Cullen is fearful that blood mages are controlling the other mages who survived the attack. Greagoir shuts Cullen down whenever Cullen insists that blood magic is controlling people’s words and that demons are lying dormant inside of others. As a result of the shock and stress Cullen experienced, he seems to be having paranoid thought patterns. This is a common response that people can have after experiencing a severely traumatic event.
If the mage warden returns to the tower after the Broken Circle quest is completed, Cullen can be found in the library. His short bits of dialogue make him appear depressed.
At this point, Cullen believes that even templars can fail to see how dangerous mages can be. Greagoir decides to transfer Cullen to Kirkwall because Cullen will now goes “to any lengths to enforce the Chantry’s rules” and Greagoir “feared it unwise to let Cullen watch over the men and women he deemed responsible for his torment” (from the DA2 codex). To me, this sounds like the kind of paranoid, hyper-vigilant behavior and thought patterns that may occur immediately after someone experiences a traumatic event. For some people, these thought patterns develop into long-term PTSD and, for others, the troubling thought patterns eventually diminish over time. Either way, Cullen is being characterized as someone who is experiencing a serious anxiety disorder. He trusts no one because the ordeal he experienced in Ferelden’s tower left him “convinced that even templars fail to see how dangerous mages can be” (from the DA2 codex). At this point, Cullen trusts no one. The entire world is dangerous because of the powers that mages possess.
During DA2’s Act 1, Cullen oscillates between having congenial interactions with Hawke and exhibiting fear-driven beliefs about the dangers inherent in all mages. Despite Cullen’s fears, we never see or hear of Cullen wishing physical harm to mages, he is willing to admit to a middle ground, and he considers how “better education” might help mages refrain from dangerous behavior. Although, Cullen believes Chantry dogma stating that the Harrowing and the Rite of Tranquility are necessary safe guards. At this point, Cullen has put all of his trust in the Chantry and the Templar Order.
By DA2’s Act 2, Cullen begins juggling potentially conflicting beliefs. Much like Fenris, Cullen appears to have divided the magical world into “weak mages” and “strong mages,” although he never directly states this belief and we can only imply this from his words and actions. Weak mages are unable to resist temptations and run the risk of succumbing to demons. According to Cullen, the Rite of Tranquility is a mercy that saves the lives of weak mages and the people around them. Strong mages are clearly people like the Amell Warden (female or male) and, potentially, mage Hawke. If Hawke is a mage, Cullen arguably knows this fact by Act 2 (while he does not confirm that he knows Hawke is a mage in Act 3, but he will give a friendly warning to mage Hawke near the end of Act 1 regarding how he has been hearing rumors about Hawke being a mage, and he hopes the rumors aren’t true). Cullen still trusts the Templar Order and the Chantry, but he is starting to show signs of extending trust to mages who prove to be “strong” because they can resist demons. Throughout Act 2, Cullen never expresses malice toward mages, even when those mages are “weak.” For instance, if Feynriel is sent to the Circle in Act 1, Cullen expresses concern for the boy’s deteriorating condition during Act 2.
In DA2’s Act 3, Cullen begins to question Meredith’s leadership and he expresses doubt over how Kirkwall’s Templar Order is run. He knows Hawke is a mage, respects Hawke’s opinions, and arguable thinks of Hawke as a friend. This is a far cry from his “mages cannot be our friends” attitude during Act 1!
If Hawke chooses to side with the templars for The Last Straw, Cullen voices a litany of doubts while he stands in the courtyard before the final series of battles. He doesn’t believe an annulment is correct. Once the battle begins and with Hawke’s backing, Cullen will directly defy Meredith’s orders to slaughter all of the Gallows’ mages.
Cullen states that even though the situation Ferelden had been more dire, many mages had been saved. When Meredith declares that there is no way to know if any circle mage is innocent of blood magic, Cullen provides a reasoned defense for why the mages before them probably do not. Despite Meredith’s protests to kill these mages, Cullen orders his men to defy Meredith’s orders. Cullen leads a unit of templars who takes the mages to safety. This marks the moment when Cullen begins to trust mages in the same way that he trust non magical people: as long as someone is behaving reasonably and posing no direct, obvious threat, he is willing to apply logic to their argument and trust what they say.
Finally, at the end of The Last Straw, Cullen is forced to choose between Meredith and Hawke for the final time. Without any prompting, he protects Hawke by physically putting himself between Hawke’s body and Meredith’s lyrium-enhanced blade. If Hawke is a mage this scene and all that follows is profoundly transformative because Cullen has decided that a mage is a better leader for Kirkwall than his own Templar Knight-Commander. (The other possible endings are also transformative and I’ll discuss them in another essay.)
Overall, the reference character arc I’ve selected for Cullen has a classic “fall and rise” shape. Cullen starts off as an innocent person who naively trusts others until he undergoes a tragic experience that wipes away his ability to trust anyone, even the Templar Order. Once he is transferred to a staunch, hardliner branch of the Templars, he is able to place his trust in the Order once again. After a few years pass, he apparently decides he can also trust “strong” mages. A few years later, he learns to trust himself and, by extension, judge each templar and each mage as individuals who may or may not be trust worthy based on their own actions. Cullen emerges from this classic “fall and rise” journey as an older and wiser person.
.
To me, Cullen’s arc through the two Dragon Age games provides a satisfying story that ends with closure. Innocent Cullen was hurt when his ability to trust was stolen from him. He goes on a seven year quest to regain his ability to trust others. As a result, an older and wiser Cullen learns to trust himself. True, we do not see his story unfold in detail, but a complete arc is there. Cullen’s journey is so dramatic that a number of his fans have pointed out how he, an NPC, undergoes more character growth than some of the companion characters.
When I first heard that David Gaider was considering a future for Cullen in the Dragon Age series-a future with a lot of angst-I wondered whether this was a good idea. I agree that Cullen has a lot of potential in a story that shows how the Chantry’s power weakens and how the Mage-Templar war unfolds. I honestly would like to see Cullen’s story continue.
Yet, the following two issues concern me:
- Can the writing team successfully convey Cullen’s personal growth to players who have only seen a truncated version of Cullen’s arc?
- Will the flavor of dramatic angst that Gaider sees for Cullen’s future be believable for a person who has undergone tremendous personal growth?
These questions will be the subject of tomorrow’s NaBloWriMo essay (although I’m very curious to read any thoughts that you have).
Crossposted at http://vieralynn.dreamwidth.org/182526.html.