Merrill was such a failure of a character. She could have shown us that blood magic isn’t evil and that it can be used for good - but her whole story arc was basically “La la ~ I am so innocent~ Oops, a demon took advantage of meee! Help, Hawke!” And that’s it. She came across as stupid and naive. And she did nothing to improve my opinion of blood magic.
You are so wrong I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong you are.
Merrill was firmly aware of the price she was paying making a deal with a demon, but she had decided that what she would be regaining for her clan would be worth that price.
When she calls on Hawke to help her out in Act 3, it’s to put an end to her if something goes wrong. I’d say that’s pretty damn responsible.
She’s not innocent. Merrill knows exactly what she’s doing. More than Anders does, definitely. More than Orsino does, more than Marethari does.
You are wrong about Merrill and you should feel bad about it.
(I really have to talk about Merrill someday.)
This.
Merrill’s characterisation in DA2, like a lot of the characters and issues in DA2, took advantage of stereotypes in western fiction. It subverted our expectations and used them against us.
In a stereotypical western fantasy story, Merrill would have fucked up. She would have overestimated her own strength and failed against the demon.
But here’s the thing: that doesn’t happen.
She doesn’t fuck up. She doesn’t slip up. And she doesn’t slip because she knows precisely how dangerous her chosen path actually is, and she guards against it. She doesn’t overestimate her strength, and she doesn’t underestimate the demon’s strength.
All the way through DA2, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop with Merrill. And then the other shoe did drop, and it wasn’t Merrill.
It was Anders.
Merrill was the red herring. She went into her deal with the demon with her eyes wide open, and I think her innocence was a deliberate choice on the part of the writers to make us assume that her choices were naive. She does have a good deal of naivete, but all of it is to do with humans and cities - when it comes to magic, she is far more knowledgeable and powerful than anyone else in the group, including Anders.
Because Anders was the one who let a spirit into his body and thought everything would be all right. Anders was the one who changed himself irrevocably through good intentions and wishful thinking. Merrill also had good intentions, but she didn’t rely on wishful thinking to guard her. She took multiple precautions against demonic possession, up to and including asking Hawke to kill her if those precautions failed. Anders just closed his eyes and hoped for the best, then retreated into denial when it became apparent that hoping for the best hadn’t worked.
Merrill is living proof that it is possible to use blood magic and not be tainted by it. She’s also living proof that fear of blood magic from other people can cause more damage than blood magic itself.
Merrill’s storyline would have been vastly different if Marethari had been a little less condemning and a little more neutral - Pol would be alive if Marethari hadn’t spread stories about Merrill and demons, for one thing, and Marethari herself might not have chosen to be possessed if she had allowed herself to trust Merrill even a little bit.
Honestly, if you think Merrill is stupid and naive, or that she let a demon take advantage of her, you either haven’t finished the game yet or you weren’t paying attention.
This is really good commentary
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