A Look at Marethari from Dragon Age II

[Winter]

(sigh) I'm not saying that Blood magic is good, it's just magic nor am I saying that the problem here is social taboo or the law, (in fact I've never said that) the problem here is that no one dies because of Merrill's choices. Marethari didn't have to stay around Kirkwall, but she did. Merrill even points out that the clan should have moved on years ago but Marethari keeps them in this almost literal hell hole in the hopes that Merrill would admit that she was wrong and come back. She didn't have to exaggerate about Merrill's deal with the Spirit/Demon but she did.

The ultimate failing of Marethari is that she refuses to see anyone's else's point of view (where do you think Merrill got that trait from?) and does everything in her power to prove that Merrill is wrong and does all she can to make Merrill see her point of view and the only way to do that (the making Merrill side with Marethari's POV not joining the clan again as that's never going to be an option) is for Hawke to be an absolute twat and become Merrill's rival.

Let's take a quick look at blood magic. As I've said magic is magic it only matters in how one use it and at the end of the day every mage in DA is guilty of blood magic due to the whole Lyrium is titans blood so blood magic is inherently bad and will only cause harm is proven wrong as there are, in fact, more good blood mages then bad. We can't use the fact that Merrill is a blood mage as a point of evidence to show she is in wrong or in the right.

The only thing Merrill using blood magic effected in her whole arc was cleansing the dark spawn taint from the Eluvian. That's it. Marethari's lies about how the Spirit/Demon influenced Merrill does more damage then Merrill being a blood mage does.

Again, Pol died because of what Marethari had told about Merrill not because of what Merrill did and the other members of the clan that was killed because of the monsters was because the clan had stayed in Kirkwall and they were only in Kirkwall because Marethari kept them there because she refused to let Merrill make her own mistakes.

The monsters that killed Pol and the others had nothing to do with Merrill's blood magic, they were just a couple of monsters who just happened to live in the area and Merrill tried to save Pol and saved more lives by killing the monsters in question. And Marethari tells Merrill that the clan hates her because of her being a blood mage and that Pol ran from her and got himself killed because of Merrill's choices.

But again, we're going in circles so again, can we agree to disagree?