On the topic of the DA2 romances doing their own fair share of not cool things, my headcanon for my Hawke was that she purposely taught herself Templar techniques on the hopefully-small-but-not-impossible off chance that Merrill wound up losing control of her blood magic and needed to be shut down with a vengeance - not because she’s afraid of Merrill, but as a mercy to her girlfriend to prevent her from being driven mad, possessed by demons, or worse. My Hawke was a proactive sort like that.
It’s kind of a bummer for me that almost all of the female romances in Inqusition are just… not worth it in some way or another. Apart from Josephine, who is best girl and I will tear open the Fade if anybody says otherwise, we have Sera who is horribly immature (and not in the funny way) and treats magic like the plague (which means if you’re a mage and try to romance her, it’s 50/50 odds she’ll break up with you based entirely on what you are - admittedly, that conversation happens right on the heels of some severe magic shenanigans occuring, so she’s probably still a bit frazzled from that, but even before, and long after that incident happens, if you say the word “magic” around her, she all but dry heaves in response.) And there’s also the fact that, as my roommate pointed out during her own playthrough, Sera casually outs Krem as trans without permission of any sort, and also misgenders Krem in the process, if I’m not mistaken, neither of which are in any way, shape or form cool.
Then there’s Cassandra, who’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but she can be a tiny bit too zealous in her ideals sometimes, and she also tries to kick Varric’s ass for hiding Hawke from the Chantry (who Varric and Hawke both assumed at the time were after their heads, not helped by Cassandra’s interrogation of Varric, which was perhaps not as gentle as it could have been), and like, sorry Cassandra, but Varric’s my bro, if you two are constantly gonna be at each other’s throats all the time, then this ain’t gonna work out between us. Plus, Cassandra’s straight, but my mage Inquisitor is very much a lesbian, so we were incompatible anyhow.
I don’t know if Vivienne is romanceable or not, because I hold firm to the belief that I would have to actually be clinically insane to give her a snowball’s chance in hell in the first place. I have no doubt in my mind that she would casually slit your throat without hesitation if it meant getting ahead in the world. Hell, her entire reason for even joining the Inquisition was as an attempt to grab power by aligning herself with this new, upstart world power and demonstrating to Thedas how she “selflessly” aided a noble cause and helped put the world back to rights.
Then there’s Iron Bull, who is also best girl, but I don’t wanna get in the way of him and Dorian, you know?
And doesn’t the heart also speaks with the late Empress’ voice? So, there’s also coercion by the Outsider in the mix. I feel like it speaks for itself that, free powers or no, you should definitely not trust anything the Outsider says or does.
