Postcards From Kirkwall - Meta/Analysis + Fic through the eyes of two Hawkes

Here's something I'm blogging about on Tumblr, daily(ish).  I'll also post here for archival reasons.

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Popular media rarely resonates with me at a deep level. Far too often I feel like big budget movies and games tap into someone else’s stories and fantasies. 

When I first played Dragon Age 2, about a dozen hours in I realized — HOLY SHIT! — someone wrote a (reasonably) big budget game just for me! (My next thought was, “hmmmm, I bet lots of gamers dislike this game…”) 

DA2 has its problems and I have a list of things I would've liked to see done better but, by the time my first Hawke began the initial quests in Act 3, I had been sucked into a very real, personal nightmare. I was riveted. I empathized with Hawke’s painfully difficult situation. Any hope of playing a defiant, swoop-in-and-fix-it hollywood-style hero had been snuffed out of that character long before the Chantry went Boom. I projected feelings and motivations into Hawke that felt real. Hawke felt vulnerable and, given that I was unspoiled on how the game ends, I believed anything could happen, good or bad, and Thrask’s death only increased my Hawke’s sense of vulnerability.

I blogged semi-privately about this experience during January-February 2012. Thinking back to that time still fills me with strong emotions that are difficult to describe.

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