Again, that's not easy as much as it's myopic. Not only is the dialogue wheel vague, I actually used the take responsibility path the first time through and was shocked when in place of us as Hawke taking responsibility for the murder we take responsibility for Merrill's blood magic... wtf Bioware, that's not what the prompt said! But the simple fact that those retards are willing to let us go if we take responsibility for her blood magic but not if we try and explain is beyond stupid. We all but admit to killing the keeper with blood magic and they let us go, but they attack us on sight if we actually try to explain she was a pride abomination and based on Merrill's lack of communication with the demon had probably been one for quite some time?
As for :
Honestly, I'm genuinely confused at how many people got that ending. The game did a good job of telegraphing the way to avoid the "bad" ending for things. The game makes it clear the Daelish are scared shitless of Merill, they love their Keeper, and that they kinda trust Hawke. All you need to do is take Merill away and preserve the memory of the Keeper.
Seriously Charles, you are a much more insightful man then I will ever be. For me all that tells me is that Marethari has been seriously shit talking Merrill behind her back. A hunter died because she lied about how dangerous Merrill was and she continued to give that impression to the other Daelish despite knowing her own actions had already taken a life - for another 3 years! Then, in the cave we're told the Demons plans as if she could actually know them. And before you say she could know them since she was possessed. She would have had no reason to actually let it possess her if she didn't "know" the pride demons plan beforehand.
From the wiki, there are three options:
1. Marethari was possessed - the
literal truth
2. Stand down - there is a good chance we killed a Varterral, at least once, and they know we summoned a high dragon on top of the mountain 6 years prior and lived. And of course whatever else they might have heard of our exploits, drakes, dragonlings, dragons, high dragons, dark spawn, giant spiders, templars, blood mages, Pride and Desire demons etc, etc. *
3. I'll take responsibility - that Merrill won't use her blood magic against you or your people mind you, not for your keepers death... sigh.
* - actually, now that I think about it, why did Marethari warn her people of Merrill and not of us - Hawke - and the rest of our party? I mean, Isabella is probably the lowest of the low when it comes to rank in our party and she's a former see captain that is the literal cause of the Qunari invasion. Varric is in bed with the Cotori, Aveline - oh, dreamy Aveline - is the captain of the guard in the nearby shemlen city, Fenrris is a fucking Tavinter magic experiment. Anders... Anders is a Grey warden, a darkspawn taint barer and a literal abomination... a literal abomination, sigh.
And we are Sera Fucking HAWKE. It doesn't matter if we have a vagina and a nice rack or a cock and a nice pair of balls, we are The Sera Hawke, a literal living legend. There are literal ballads written about our exploits - ok, they are written by Varric for the most part, but they exist. We have survived the blight, we have had dealings with Asha'bllanar. We have slain countless bandits, mages, BLOOD MAGES, Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, giant spiders, dragonlings, ABOMINATIONS. Hell, we probably kill more then a mage circles worth of blood mages in every fucking act. If we have Sebastian, the rightfull hair to Starkhaven with us we probably killed a desire demon that caused the fall of his house, a named desire demon. Depending on our playthrough we could have probably killed at least one of the 4 Forbidden Ones. Hell, by the time of this quest how many pride demons have we killed? and at least one of them, Hybris, was named. And don't even get me started on how we killed the Qunari Arishok after he and his men took control of the entire city. The remnants of one single ship's worth of Qunari, after countless numbers of them had already defected and become Tal-Vashoth were more then enough for Kirkwall's entire guard and army and we took care of them. Hell, by act 3 we are probably the 4th most important person in Kirkwall, after Meridith, Elfina and probably Orsino.
And who does Marethari warn her people against? Us, the doom that came to Kirkwall? Or maybe our Guard captain friend? or maybe our literal Abomination friend!? No, she warns then about the one person that technically doesn't do anything wrong. Ironically enough, everything bad that happens around Merrill happens because of the way other people react to her choices and not because of anything she does.