A Whole Lot of Silence and Trousers - Harriet Amell and the Chamber of (Intro) Sequence (Part 3)

DRAGON AGE ORIGINS [DAO] STORY - Circle of Magi Intro
Content - Occult, Demonic Possession, Non-conesensual Drugging, Incarceration, Lobotomy, Self-Harm.

Our story begins when Harriet Amell* is dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, dosed with lyrium and sent unarmed and unprepared into the spirit world to face a demon.  The Ferelden Circle is the worst Hogwarts ever.**

The Fade is a yellow sky, floating islands and random art assets that make sense in other parts of the game.

As I think about this sequence, I start to wonder about things.  My first wonder is what the win condition is for a mage undergoing their harrowing.  It's not explicitly to go kill a demon (except when it is), because that's not how Harriet's harrowing goes, and a lot of the mages in the Circle really don't seem like the demon killing type.  It's not a timed thing, at least not in the sense "last 2 hours in the Fade without getting possessed;"  it is timed in the sense that, if you take too long (for undisclosed and possibly whimsical definitions of too long), a Templar will sword you.  It might be a matter of getting back out again (except when it's not), but that's not clearly communicated, either.

What does happen is that Harriet meets the ghost of someone who was a little pokey in their Harrowing and got sworded.  This is Mouse.  Mouse is all "this Harrowing thing sucks and it's unfair and the Templars are salivating over the thought of getting to sword your currently uninhabited body the way they did to mine.  Also, I can turn into a mouse."  Thus the name.  Mouse shows you the arena where you're supposed to fight a demon, so maybe you are supposed to kill a demon and bring its ectoplasmic hide back to hang up on the tower's wall.  That would kind of make sense.

Not far from the arena, there's a glowy Templar who is, apparently, a spirit of Valor, and not a demon at all.  He offers to let Harriet tool up out of his toolbox once she's proven she doesn't need aforementioned tools.  This is accomplished with her starting spells and an even more awkward than usual fight sequence.  Equipped with a mage staff, Harriet can now throw 3 point little blasts of light ever second in addition of the 24 point blast every 15 seconds.***

The only other thing to talk to in this area is a Sloth Demon**** that looks a lot like a shaved bear with random extra twisty horns.  This is not the hide Harriet has to tack up on the tower wall, and he's not very interested in helping, harming or hindering you, because sloth demon.  Mouse suggests that you could talk the bear into teaching him how to a be a bear.  This sounds fishy to Harriet, and she leaves, but soon realizes her actual demon target is not going to arrive until she convinces the sloth demon into doing what Mouse wants.  This she does and then she and Bear!Mouse head back to the arena.

The rage demon that's supposed to be her target shows up and gets its ass kicked in short order.  Then Mouse congratulates Harriet for being much stronger and smarter than all the other apprentices he's helped, and prettier, and BTW, can I hitch a ride back to the physical world with you?

Yeah, so Mouse is a demon, and Harriet asks him just how dumb he thinks she is.  Mouse turns into a Pride Demon, 15 feet tall, all lightning bolts and ridiculous elbow spurs. Harriet is a level 2 mage, at this point, and even on casual, there is no way she's getting out of this one.  The Pride demon ganks her and possesses her body, except, no, that's not what happens at all.  Instead he warns her not to get cocky and lets her go back to her body unmolested.

So the object of the Harrowing is to hang out with a surprisingly reasonable and, hell, even charitable demon, and kick around some jerks with his help?

Anyway, whatever the object, Harriet Calvinballs her way into it, and the next thing she sees is her Ron*****, an ostensible shlmozzle named Jowan. Jowan is all impressed that his bestie managed to ace the Harrowing (and asks her what it entailed, which she is NOT ALLOWED to tell, and hell, I don't think she could, because I don't know what it entailed, and I was fucking there), and really upset that he hasn't been called to do it, which means he's likely to get the forehead brand of magic lobotomy or the sword of Templar stress-relief.  But Harriet's got to go visit First Enchanter Dumbledore Irving and talk to him about things.  Also, if the dialogue options are any indication, Harriet doesn't think very highly at all of her friend Jowan

On the way, Harriet meets a couple of people - a sweet, slightly senile enchanter, a brusque elf-jerk enchanter, and Cullen, a blond boyscout of a Templar that has Thedas' most obvious crush on Harriet. He was also assigned the task of swording her if she took too long, which I don't think is a good way to tell a girl you like her.******  Irving is talking to Duncan, who's at the circle looking to recruit mages for the king's army at Ostagar, and making the Knight Commander's blood pressure spike.  Knight Commander allowed seven whole mages out of the Circle under strenuous protest and that should be enough for anyone.  Also, he really wanted to make Cullen sword Harriet, if the looks of disgust and hatred he gives her are any indication.  Meanwhile, Irving crows about Harriet acing her Harrowing and Duncan is certainlt considering putting the girl in his Warden punch line.

Harriet meets Duncan.  This part is pretty much the same as the sequence Sooney went through, so we'll spin on.  Jowan really wants to talk to Harriet, and Irving asks if she's noticed him acting squirrelly, and if she didn't mind, would she make her first assignment as a full fledged mage narcing on him?

OK, so Jowan is in the chapel with a perfectly vacuous looking Chantry sister whose name I already forget, and don't care to look up.  They're in love.******* She knows that the order for Rite of Tranquility has been put in for Jowan and wants you to help them break into the place where they keep the phylacteries and break his so they can escape.  Harriet thinks this is an endeavor doomed to fail and since my dialogue cues are that she doesn't care much for him, she chickens out on it.

But Irving wants to talk to her again, and a little way into the conversation, Harriet admits what Jowan and Chantry!GF are trying to do.  Irving says he knows already and he thinks it's a great idea for Harriet to help and then Judas Jowan and his lady over to the Templars.  His reasoning is that if he stopped the whole thing before it began, the Chantry would say that Jowan blood magicked his lover into helping, and the only way she'd take the fall is if they were both caught red-handed.  Jowan's fate is sealed, but he wants a little blood from the muggles.

And that's an order.

Fuck you Dumbledore.********

Actually performing the task isn't really worth relating in its entirety.  There's some fetch questing, attacking statues, a creepy talking statue, a cursed staff that Harriet steals, and Harriet's conscience finally convincing her to confess that she's a plant, Irving knows everything.  Jowan is upset, but before they can try to figure out how to all be fugitives together, the Irving and the Knight Commander pop up and bust the lot of them.  Irving says Harriet was acting under orders, but the Knight Commander wants two dead mages and a Chantry sister in Azkaban, and Irving better shut his mouth unless he wants it to be three dead mages.  Jowan then reveals himself as a schlemeel all along, assuming the soup in question is actually blood magic.  Big flash, exit Jowan, stage ...Fade?  Maybe?

Knight Commander is now suffering from a semi case of blue sword (SEE WHAT I DID THERE), but there's one mage for him to punish for this.  Then Duncan steps in and sword-blocks, and says "Nope, she's a Grey Warden, sucker."

Needless to say Harriet can't agree fast enough.  She doesn't even get weirded out when Duncan later kills Wedge.

* The Amells show up in DA2 as a family from Kirkwall, but somehow Harriet ended up in the Ferelden Circle.  Girl has no idea how lucky she's got it.  The horrors that inevitably visit the Ferelden Circle are what they call "Tuesday" in Kirkwall.

** This leads me to wonder what would happen to Hogwarts if it was full of magically roided up US police.  I can just see the T Shirts with some handgun bearing the words Avauda Kedavra.

*** I have no idea what I was going to footnote here.

**** There are five canonical categories of demon, in rough order of ascending power - rage, sloth, not appearing in this game, titties and pride.  DA:I introduces two more - those burrowing motherfuckers and those flying ice dicks.

***** And Ron is ok, age 11 to 17, but Jowan looks about 32, when the charms of Ron-ness is long since worn off.

****** I could be wrong.  Some people might be into that.  Harriet is not one of them.  Also, her dialogue options don't let her make any decisions about Cullen's apparent feelings or even acknowledge them.  But being told by someone who has a crush on you that they were assigned to pierce you with a sword... It doesn't seem like an opportune time to confront feelings, requited or no.

******* I'm not sure if the mages are supposed to be celibate.  None of them seem to be married, and since magic is hereditary, you'd think they'd strongly discourage known mages making babies.  You learn from Anders in DA2 that celibate or no, none of the Ferelden Circle mages were chaste, but it's strongly implied that the Kirkwall Circle mages are expected to be chaste.  And Knight Commander Meredith just does look like a panty-sniffer, anyway.  It's implied that the sister is an ordained sister and therefore supposed to be celibate and chaste.  In any case, tranquil aren't able to feel, let alone requite attraction or love, so that's all academic.

******** He comes off as unbelievably petty and spiteful, here, but petty spite is the alpha and omega of his actual power, so I kind of get it.  But still.