Lack of sleep is normal for me.
I do not wish to dream as most nights these dreams turn sour.
There are places within my mind that should never be disturbed, for once
awakened they delight in tormenting me with faces and events of my past.
This was such a night. Instead, I took
to the pathways and talked with those on the watch; listening to their thoughts
and concerns allowed me to shift the focus away from myself and place it
squarely on the well-being of those under my command.
Even the Rest seemed subdued; light
music filtered through the open windows, but without the usual ruckus. I could
have spent a few hours in the warmth of the tavern, but still I walked on,
through empty rooms and quiet battlements. I climbed the far tower, greeting a
few of the Templars in residence, and continued up to the lookout.
A light rush of wind now and then
reminded me of my chosen solitude, and I scanned the mountainside and area as
far as I could see. I realized something in that moment; in that simple admission
I understood the truth of what keeps me from my rest-more than the nightmares,
more than our responsibilities. I promised to try; I swore to write what I
cannot speak aloud and even though I’ve known it for far longer than should be
possible, the truth is-no matter how much I want to deny it-I was outside
looking out across the expanse for one reason. I miss her.
a moment of silence please because today is the day lily, james and harry potter crashed their car into a crocodile which ate harrys parents and then took out a knife and gave him a lightning bolt scar. This is such a tragic day for eveyone around the world
This is exactly how I see Leandra too. There’s an element in there, of course she doesn’t HATE her children, but there’s such an incredible amount of resentment between her and her eldest child that to write it off as simply grieving is a misnomer, I think.
I think it’s fairly clear that she resents Hawke for a number of reasons: knowing Malcolm better than she does (implied at the end of Legacy), failing to save him/acting as the head of the family despite the fact that she’s clearly not stepping into the role or even trying, the dead twin, etc. Moreover, I think it’s fairly obvious that Leandra and Malcolm were very much what would have happened if Romeo and Juliet hadn’t had a typically tragic ending: they were young, impulsive, and in “love,” but once you’ve given up everything, what does that really leave you with? A partner you barely know, who you’ve put all your trust into despite that, and despite however much Leandra says she puts love above all-else, we see even in her conversations with Gamlen that this very much isn’t necessarily the case, and she carries a lot of her bitterness with her. She wasn’t ready for what running away really meant, she was young enough to have very likely acted impulsively on a romantic ideal that didn’t pan out in any way she’d actually hoped.
It’s a really dysfunctional, bittersweet relationship, and I can’t at all blame Hawke for thinking this. Hawke’s already got a guilt complex a mile wide, no matter how you really play it; there’s a reason they take on all this responsibility that isn’t even necessarily theirs. With Malcolm, it’s all responsibility, and honor, and doing the right thing no matter how hard it is, and with Leandra, it’s all guilt, residual affects of growing jaded with where unchecked romance really leads.
She can be a caring figure, certainly, when she feels like it, but finding her to be a truly supportive one it a little harder for me, when she relies on her eldest child the way her younger children do. There’s such a lack of responsibility on Leandra’s part: something must always be someone’s fault, because surely SURELY there must still be some good left to come out of a foolish decision she made as a teenager. Their status in Kirkwall is Gamlen’s fault (which is true enough, but he DOES have a point in that she’s been away from home for 25 years; anything he does to drag the “family name” into poverty and squalor is his own doing, and while it’s hard to support his methods, he’s at least grown up enough to recognize the reality of his situation. Is Leandra’s anger at her brother entirely unjustified? No, but at the same time, she continually fails to recognize that she gave up her status, her family name, and her inheritances, and this attitude doesn’t come out of nowhere, suddenly rekindled after two decades of “hiatus.” It’s a failure to take responsibility.
TL;DR, I seriously appreciate just how incredibly fucked up and dysfunctional Hawke family dynamics really are. It’s a family full of love that Hawke would and continually does put their life on the line for, but it’s not a healthy one. It’s not a supportive one. And I find it really telling that despite Malcolm’s questionable allegiances as an apostate, it’s THIS name that Hawke chooses to symbolize and hang onto, despite the fact that Leandra is clearly very ready to step back into the role of a noble that she’d “left behind.” Is it any surprise that Hawke seems so used to the responsibility, so easily stepping into the role as head of household when their parents are so embittered, disillusioned, and in Malcolm’s case, paranoid and uncommunicative?
Hawke’s so used to being the parent, being the one to take up responsibility that of course it’s going to kill them when they fail; they’ve been conditioned to impossible responsibility and the constant looming threat of guilt.
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