One Last Journey Through The Mirror

Well, as I sit here and write this rather than spending my NYE weekend partying, you’ll be happy to learn that I have completed the final DLC of Dragon Age Inquisition: Trespasser.

It’s sad to finally come to the end; the past two months have been phenomenal spending my first time in Thedas exploring new horizons. Hell, whenever I completed a playthrough of the Mass Effect trilogy, I would just start one up again! RPG games are meant to be replayed because of the different possibilities.

Anyway, this DLC was full of the most surprises and there’s a lot to say.

It’s easy to miss something important for an achievement when you travel through one mirror to another.

Two years after the defeat of Corypheus, everyone reunites at the Winter Palace. Divine Victoria is dealing with ambassadors from Ferelden and Orlais questioning the Inquisition’s future. So, you know what that means: We have to make a big decision at the end! Sound familiar? We arrive at the Winter Palace and get to go around spending time with companions. I enjoyed distracting Bull long enough for the Chargers to bring him a birthday present; he even started talking about sex toys and that’s more proof that he is a Dom but a much more responsible one than he-who-must-not-be-named. I played a few pranks with Sera, went to the spa with Vivienne, and went to an opera with Josephine. I could have sworn there was one thing I missed before going to the council but I’ll get it next time.

With no decision in sight, the Inquisition turns their focus to one last threat: Qunari forces that are using Eluvians (elven mirrors used to travel places) to attack us. I haven’t seen any other Qunari in this game. If I had chosen to save the dreadnought instead, there would probably be more, and these ones are loyal to the Qun. They wish to attack the Inquisition and eliminate the remainder of leadership in Southern Thedas for Qunari occupation, and they are using a high dragon along with explosives. But, their plans are being interfered by someone serving Fen’Harel that is associated with the Inquisition. Finally, to make matters worse, the Anchor appears to be getting unstable.

It’s a lot to take in, but it’s definitely something that makes it a good way to end things here. I feel from what I’ve learned about the Qunari, is that they are conquerors and their society is also very strict. They just don’t have enough so it’s no wonder Bull wanted to get away from it.

So, after traversing through many Eluvians in hopes of learning of the plot, and noticing some foreshadowing about Fen’Harel, we soon met the leader of these Qunari and the dragon part of her plot.

“Please boss, tell me we’re going to fight it!”

I felt like this was going to be a tense moment, before the final push I told Bull I loved him and he said the same. I wish I got a passionate kiss scene with him before storming the library but I guess not. Once again it falls to me to picture that myself. I’m sure anyone would want the same for whoever they romanced.

This was also a DLC where trust between others is questioned; there was the smuggler and then the Viddasala was like “Hissrad, stop the Inquisitor before it’s too late!” and Bull was like, “Not a chance ma’am!”. The truth is I stumbled upon suggested Dragon Age videos about Bull’s potential betrayal and prayed it would not happen to me; however, this I discovered was after I had already saved the Chargers, so I didn’t know the impact until now. I obviously did not watch the videos but it was still a spoiler. There’s no way I wanted to kill the Qunari I love! So, it turns out that saving the Chargers is worth it because it grants you his unconditional loyalty. But, letting them die makes him part of the Qun again and to lose your men that you treat like family, you’d turn against the people who made you do that. Aside from this playthrough, I would never in future playthroughs sacrifice those Chargers now! I love Bull and I’m just one of those fangirls who doesn’t wanna get heartbroken.

The dragon wasn’t so tough to fight but after that was the part that really infuriated me.

It was the final push through the elven ruins in the Hinterlands to stop the Viddasala from reaching Solas, who surprise surprise is not the Fen’Harel agent, but is Fen’Harel himself. Now, the fight between the start and reaching Solas wouldn’t have been so bad, but it wasn’t the enemies I had a problem with, it was the Anchor. I normally used the new ability of the Anchor while traveling in the Deep Roads and places between worlds near elven artifacts to activate or light my way. I found that as I progressed, the Anchor started to get worse and those ruins were the tipping point. I didn’t even press the combination of buttons for it to work, instead it would just go off on its own and damage me and my party at random moments.

The worst part was fighting Saraath, twice. For a final boss, Corypheus is nothing compared to this guy. I swear it on the Maker he was pissing me off using his tractor-beam like ability and I was trying to attack and every time the Anchor acted up, whether it was my intention or not, that put me at a major disadvantage and I almost lost the battle. I was angry and didn’t come that far to lose! I’ve lost boss battles in this game before, but this one felt too important to fail the first time. But I got lucky and got everyone back up to bring him down and stumble into the Eluvian.

My God, Solas the greatest heartbreaker to all the elven Inquisitors

Solas, I don’t know what to say, but yes I had a lot of questions for him. I knew there was something fishy about him from the start. I never particularly liked him at the beginning of the game, though I wanted us to get along. I don’t know if I’m describing this accurately, but not only is he Fen’Harel, he secretly helped foil the Qunari plot and desires to restore the world of his time for his people. He created the Veil after the many Evanuris killed Mythal, but this cost his people the immortality and much of the magic they possessed. Since then he seeks to once again restore that time of the elves regardless of the damage it does to Thedas itself.

In order to undo what he did, he worked with Corypheus and gave him the Orb of Destruction, hoping unlocking it would kill him. If this worked, Solas would have used it to tear down the Veil from the Breach to restore the world of his time. But since I interrupted that, the Anchor went to me instead. Corypheus would have used it to become a God and Solas would have used it to restore his dream world. Apparently, only he could properly wield the Anchor without it harming him in the long run, yet he was only able to stabilize it for us. I guess that’s why in his absence, it eventually became unstable. Only Gods can wield it permanently! But seriously, we all felt played by him didn’t we? I tried to redeem him but instead he departed and removed the Anchor forever by magic disintegrating my forearm. That I did not expect, I was like, couldn’t there have been another way to permanently remove it? I guess I shouldn’t complain, Bull can get on about life with only one eye, so how bad can one arm be? Do they have prosthetics in Thedas? I hope so hahaha!

At the end, I decided to have the Inquisition stay as a peacekeeping organization under Divine Victoria. You never know when we might be needed again! Then got to hear what happened to everyone afterwards. Cassandra continued to reign as Divine, Vivienne became Grand Enchanter, Varric became Viscount, Bull and his Chargers continued to restore order to Thedas and he always wore his necklace that I gave him on every job so that we’d always be together (and we would definitely spend time together when possible!), Cole returned to the Fade, and Blackwall started down the path of redemption. I don’t remember all of it but yeah, there you go!

And that concludes my rambles. In fact, the DLC’s make the game even better! So my rating has not changed, it’s like there’s not a single bad thing I have to say. I can imagine a sequel being about looking for Solas and he is the main antagonist this time but I’m willing to wait and play the other two games while at it. No matter how many times I play through this game in the future, you always remember the first time you did. So what will be next for me? Elven mage? Two-handed Qunari warrior? I’ve been strongly considering one of them for my next playthrough of this game; though I don’t know which one should come first…… maybe I should put that aside think about what I’ll be in DA: Origins, because believe me I do want to check out the rest of the trilogy! All I know is, I will definitely be coming back to this game. Bet you dollars to donuts I’ll be unable to resist my dear sweet Bull and romance him again!

So which DLC is my favourite in this game? Well, that’s a hard one because they’re all great. Jaws of Hakkon gave me a lot of new stuff to do, the Descent had the best story, and this one certainly answered the questions we had at the end of the main story! 

Yep, not my last post of 2017 after all! I can already feel the urge to start a new game but for now, it’s time to start Origins and expand our horizons in this universe that is Dragon Age.

👽Emily