Gamerisms

ouyangdan:

Brief Morrigan Appreciation Post:

Because we are right, I think she needs a bit more love.

One thing I will never do is fault a woman for feeling she has to play to the Patriarchy to survive in the world. It has become such an institution that it isn’t always possible to just say “well, screw it, I’m going to eschew all their ideals and do my own thing”. I know women who work in jobs where they must dress and look a certain way in order to keep their jobs (for instance, I know lawyers who must dress very conservatively in heels and stockings for Court, even though they would never dress that way normally and dislike the dress code, because it is really their clients who would suffer if they tried to buck the system).

Morrigan tells a story of being accused by a Chasined man of being a Witch of the Wilds. She explains how the other people around mistook the situation as him cursing her. She says (and I am paraphrasing because I didn’t fraps it) “Two things men are always willing to believe about women; That she finds him attractive and that she is weak”. She goes on to explain how she was able to escape with her life by playing up to that.

I don’t really believe every man is that way, hardly, but it is true enough that society really does function that way over all. One of the messages that comes through in Morrigan’s character and writing is that survival is important, and she does get by with her cleverness and a certain amount of going along and pretending that she adheres to these oppressions. I don’t personally approve of all her methods, but is there any character with whom we really do? I’d be surprised if there was even one.

Morrigan admits to and recognizes the Kyriarchal structure that exists even in a setting that is supposedly as progressive as Ferelden, flawed though Ferelden is. She recognizes, much like many women do, that she must, at times, at least pretend to follow the rules set up by those in power in order to survive.

This is a message that I understand all too well.