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sarasa_cat The funny thing about being a fan of Ser Cullen is that when other Dragon Age fans say they don’t understand why Cullen has fans, they have good reasons.
Although Cullen has a satisfying story arc with a “fall and rise” plot structure, many of his lines in DA:O and DA2 are missable or skippable. Furthermore, most of his required scenes show him at his very worst. Cullen’s arc begins in the mage origin story and ends during the final quest in DA2, but the player’s choices influence which parts of his story will be seen. In my opinion, the most complete arc requires exploring the mage origin in DA:O, visiting Cullen regularly at the Gallows, outside of required DA2 quests, and making certain choices during the templars ending in DA2. Overall, this makes Cullen’s story an easter egg hunt, and one that requires unpopular player choices.
Cullen can come off as a flat, one-note character when players only interact with him during five scenes he appears in that are required for the main plot regardless of the player’s choices. These five scenes are: Broken Circle outside the harrowing chamber (DA:O), Enemies Among Us at Wilmod’s Camp (DA2-Act 1), Enemies Among Us at the Gallows after Keran’s rescue (DA2-Act 1), Best Served Cold after the battle on the Wounded Coast (DA:2-Act 3), and The Last Straw while confronting Meredith in the courtyard before the final boss battle against her (DA:2-Act 3). Cullen’s Broken Circle scene shows him at his lowest low as he demands the Warden to kill everyone in the harrowing chamber regardless of their innocence. His two scenes in Enemies Among Us show him kneeing a hapless recruit in the groin, declaring that templars and mages can never be friends, and, finally, he delivers his infamous “mages aren’t people like you and me” line. Together, these scenes paint Cullen as a staunch templar hardliner. When the player’s only other memorable interaction with Cullen is his required scene at the end of DA2 with Meredith in the Gallows courtyard after Orsino’s death, Cullen comes off as a person who does too little, too late, and who holds viewpoints that appear to be just as hardline as Meredith’s.
I think it is easy to see why a segment of fandom side-eyes David Gaider when he talks about Cullen as one of the good templars. Here’s a quote from David Gaider that has been ripped apart by fans who loath Cullen:
“I like Cullen. […] And there are things I think can be done with Cullen. I like the idea that he has confronted probably the worst that the mages have, he’s encountered the worst of what mages can do. Yet he hasn’t done what some Templars have done, like Meredith, or—I keep wanting to call him Knight Divine—Lord Seeker Lambert in the novel, how they have reacted is to become very anti-mage and very judgmental and to paint all the mages in the same basic plot, a few bad apples spoils the bunch. Cullen to me represents another side of Templars which is a side that we need to keep active. Not all Templars are these heartless bastards who would happily torture mages, that’s not true, there are Templars who are good people. I think Cullen is a good man who recognizes that there are dangerous in magic, dangers that have to be dealt with, but he doesn’t lack for compassion and doesn’t try to say, “Well, let’s take the hard approach and kill everybody and let the Maker sort them out.” —David Gaider
I think of Cullen as one of the better kept secrets in DA:O and DA2 because a player needs to make specific choices and go out of their way to see why Cullen isn’t a heartless, anti-mage hardliner.
I’m going to use a number of my NaBloWriMo blog entries to discuss these scenes and, because I’m a nerd, I’ll create plot charts and dialogue trees to expose all of canon Cullen in his totality. But, I’ll also post blog entries that included headcanon and other fannish thoughts. Although, before I start posting analysis Cullen’s plot arc, I want to say a few things about how I feel about Cullen—a character I could have easily missed.
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Had I not played a mage during my first play through of DA:O, I’m pretty certain that I would have ignored Cullen in DA2. My first Hawke wouldn’t have made special trips to visit Cullen in the Gallows Courtyard to see what he had to say. Whenever Cullen raged about the dangers of mages in his required scenes in DA2’s Enemies Among Us, I would have taken his words at face value. I would have never known the Cullen who started off as a sweet, emotionally honest person, someone who was not only sympathetic toward mages but who clearly states that his duties as a templar left him feeling morally conflicted. I would have never realized that Cullen held views similar to Keran and Wilmod before Uldred’s attack.
Throughout DA:O and DA2, it might not have occurred to me that Cullen was struggling between being a lawful templar versus being a good person who does what is right for others and for himself. Had I not played the mage origin in DA:O, I wouldn’t have been inclined to listen to Cullen in DA2 as he doubted the direction of the templar order and Meredith’s leadership. Finally, it would have never occurred to me to allow my initial Hawke — a mage-supporting mage — to risk siding with the templars during The Last Straw, purely with the hope of finding Cullen and seeing if he could help minimize damages or stop Meredith’s annulment. That would have meant I would have never seen Cullen step up and do something heroic that not only saved mages lives but marked a one-hundred and eighty degree turn from words he had shouted seven years earlier while caged during Uldred’s attack in Ferelden.
When I played Dragon Age: Origins for the first time I knew very little about the game. Without knowing the differences between the six origin story, I selected the mage origin at random, a female character because it is rare to have this option in a game, and an elf purely because that gave me better magic stats. I grew up on RPGs — both the paper & dice kind and video games — and this has made me into a slow, thorough player. Immediately after my mage’s harrowing and her initial discussion with Jowan, I heard other apprentices gossiping about a templar named Cullen and how he had feelings for my mage PC. As the gossip girls gossiped and Jowan sought my mage’s help with his own illicit love affair (and playfully teased my mage when she finally spoke with Cullen), it became clear that life in the circle was not a black and white affair. Cullen appeared sympathetic as he bumbled and stuttered, relieved to put the mage’s harrowing behind him. He eagerly assured my mage that not only had he meant her no harm, he actually hoped she would stop by to talk with him whenever she wished.
Early on, it became obvious to me how Cullen’s interest in the mage PC was deeply problematic. My mage’s interactions with Irving, Jowan, and Lily made clear how the Chantry and the Templar Order controlled the lives of everyone living within the circle. The imbalance of power between Cullen and the mage PC, along with Cullen’s macabre duty during her harrowing were never lost on me. Yet, despite the Chantry’s strict proscriptions on Cullen’s behavior, he appeared no different from any other normal person who was experiencing normal desires. His need for companionship felt painfully human as he fidgeted and undoubtedly blushed. It was a natural response for a young man cooped up with people who should have been his peers had they not been born mages.
Although Cullen plays a small part in the mage origin, his role in the female mage origin story affected me. When my mage met Alistair at Ostagar (which also marked the first time that I met Alistair), Alistair immediately pointed out that mages still saw him as a templar—an identification that caused problems. Due to my prior experiences with Cullen, I decided that it was in character for my Surana to have complex feelings about mage-templar friendships, and to feel comfortable with Alistair once she established that he wasn’t a mage hater or a religious zealot. Thus, Cullen shaped how I role played Surana’s initial responses to Alistair. He gave me reasons for why Surana became chummy with Alistair so quickly and why she reached out to Alistair as a friend (and potential love interest) rather than push him away merely because he had trained as a templar.
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So, why is Ser Cullen one of my favorite Dragon Age characters?
Often it’s easier to like characters who are underdogs, who have unwavering moral convictions for just causes, or who cynically thumbs their noses at the powers that be. Cullen is none of these things. Instead, Cullen is a serious and earnest member of a powerful religious army that “protects” a persecuted group by imprisoning them. It is easy to argue that Cullen is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
While some fans dislike Cullen because he does not directly challenge a broken system, this aspect of Cullen makes him more interesting to me. Cullen is neither a classic hero nor villain. Instead, he is the “everyman,” a cog in a machine, a person who is victimized by the same institution that grants him his coveted privilege. Yet, he stages his own tiny rebellions whenever he quietly bends rules for the greater good. Despite some of his hardliner statements early in DA2, Cullen is never an absolutest who shuts dialogue down. He listens to a pro-mage Hawke’s point of view even when he isn’t ready to see possibilities that exist outside the system he understands.
To me, Cullen is the kind of person who needs to be brought on board before real change can occur. He isn’t the hero blowing the horn and leading the charge. Instead, he’s the worker who must be convinced to throw a monkey wrench into the system’s gears. He isn’t the visionary who changes public opinion with rousting speeches. Instead, he is the manager who needs to be converted to a cause so change can be implemented.
Although other characters take on heroic roles or represent the causes of the underprivileged, I appreciate how Cullen represents the tipping point rather than the leading edge. Convince someone like Cullen and it is possible to tip the scales.
In DA2 during the “support templars/back Cullen in defying Meredith’s command” variant of The Last Straw, we start to see the scales tip when Cullen decides insists on saving mage’s lives in direct defiance of Meredith’s orders. This is how true political change occurs—not by grandstanding, blowing things up, and skipping out of town.
What I find most appealing about Cullen how his inner strength is juxtaposed against his emotional honesty and his feelings of uncertainty and doubt. This mix of traits creates a characterization that is beautifully human and, at times, so openly vulnerable that I want my Warden or Hawke to reach out to him and reassure him, comfort him, provide counterpoint, or to back him during an action he finds difficult to do.
Thedas, in all of its morally grey glory, gives us good templars, misguided templars, and abusive templars who all work for the problematic system run by the Chantry. Cullen experiences much of what is wrong with the system and sometimes he embodies the system’s problems. Yet, he is also hurt by the Chantry’s system and he is willing to raise questions and bend the system’s rules.
We watch Cullen struggle for seven years over what he wants, what he believes, what he thinks is right, and what he knows he is expected to do. I often feel like he is seeking a balance that he cannot describe or define. Sometimes he succeeds at bravely rising to the occasion, sometimes he passes the buck, and sometimes he speaks infuriating, hurtful words. All of this makes Cullen human and flawed, cautious yet striving.
I understand what David Gaider is getting at when he describes Cullen as a fundamentally good person. Cullen’s problems stem from him navigating the world with a skewed compass manufactured by the Chantry. Cullen makes mistakes. At times he says regrettable things, but he also stands up for what he believes and he repeatedly puts other people’s needs in front of his own. Despite the worst that Cullen goes through, despite him witnessing the call to annul two circles, he never clings to the false certainty of absolutism. He knows that the world is colored in shades of grey and that answers are not easily found. Given the religious indoctrination that Cullen has been exposed to, I find it refreshing when Cullen attempts to do his job without zealotry or jaded cynicism. There is something downright precious about this aspect of him. Cullen surely isn’t perfect — but he feels very real in all the ways that a person is complex, messy, emotional, contradictory, and irresistibly human.
Also x-posted on tumblr
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Date: Sunday, 4 November 2012 02:31 pm (UTC)This was fascinating to read, I look forward to more of your posts!
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Date: Monday, 5 November 2012 08:46 am (UTC)It's interesting comparing a pro-mage and an anti-mage Hawke's interactions with Cullen. Cullen's dialogue often suggests that he expects Hawke to be pro-mage although he is always willing to listen to the pro-mage point of view, and will even act on it in a few scenes where Hawke can influence Cullen's actions. There are two scenes in Act 3 that I need to replay as a staunch anti-mage Hawke to see how Cullen responds and I suspect it will be a little depressing because in at least one of those scenes Cullen has switched to a more pro-mage point of view.
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Date: Monday, 5 November 2012 12:37 pm (UTC)I wanted to do something new with my second guy and since I purposely killed Bethany, there really isn't any reason for him to be pro-mage at all, especially since he just experienced the fun that is All that Remains. And he is, of course, romancing Fenris. Thus, mages at teh evil!
Still prepping for the fact that this means he's going to kill Anders in the end.