fairandfatalasfair

(originally a response to someone on tumblr asking 'why do people ship Anders and Fenris? no hate, I just don't get it')

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Obviously this is dependent on my personal character interpretation, but I really do think they really do have a *lot* in common. And of the things they don’t have in common many are where they could support each other and grow together.

They’re both survivors of extreme, long-term abuse and dehumanisation that has shaped their personalities and their interactions with the world.

They’re both thoughtful and intelligent and put real consideration into their decisions and opinions. They have strong opinions, but they take other people’s opinions seriously and will go home and think about it and adjust their thoughts accordingly.

They’re both compassionate and unable to walk away from people in pain, and they both kind of hate that about themselves. They know that continually interfering in other people’s abuse gets them into more trouble than they can afford, and they keep telling themselves that *this time* they’re going to walk away and then five minutes later there they are fighting a horde of people to save someone who couldn’t defend themselves.

They’re both tremendously angry about the things that have been done to them, and are still being done to other people, and are struggling to find effective ways to deal with that.

They’re both witty and lean heavily on humour as a way to control the tone of a conversation, as well as genuinely enjoying a good joke. They’re both kind of shit disturbers and like fucking with people’s perceptions and assumptions.

There are differences, but I think they’re differences that could be complementary rather than conflicting. Anders’ anger is tempered by hope. he actually believes in a better world, believes that things can be changed, and the world can be fixed. Fenris doesn’t. He’s cynical as hell about oppressive systems, and while he’ll condemn slavery when he sees it, it’s not until after the Chantry boom that he starts trying actively seeking out opportunities to stop it. I honestly think having some hope in his life would be good for Fenris - not just hope that he personally can have a life and be the exception to the general shittiness of the world, but a belief that the world doesn’t have to be awful. I want someone to give Fenris hope not just for himself, but for others too.

Fenris’ anger is tempered by patience and practicality. He believes in doing what he can do in the moment, and not holding himself to impossible standards. He’s not beating himself up over the fact that the imperium didn’t spontaneously fall when he left. He understands that there’s still value in helping one person, even if you can’t help everybody, and I think sometimes Anders loses sight of that - forgets to celebrate his small victories because the larger victory is still waiting. I think Fenris has a realism and grace for individual limitations that Anders sorely needs.

Anders also has a firm belief in his own value. Even when he’s depressed and condemning himself for this or that, he’s absolutely unyielding in his belief that he did not deserve what happened to him. And I think that certainty in his own right not to be hurt is something that Fenris still struggles with.

None of this is to deny that they have a very contentious, high-conflict relationship in canon! They absolutely do. But their conflicts are not around any fundamentally opposing values or irreconcilable difference of opinion. Their conflicts are mostly the result of clashing triggers and ignorance. Anders sets Fenris on edge because he’s a mage and posessed. Fenris sets Anders on edge because he’s uncomfortable with mages. Fenris treats Anders’ trauma callously because he genuinely doesn’t know it exists and it’s happening to people who scare him. Anders treats Fenris’ trauma flippantly because the scaremongering he was given about Tevinter overemphasized magic and under-emphasized that it was a corrupt oligarchy that practiced slavery (y’know, like Orlais.) Anders feels the need to talk about his trauma a lot because his entire culture is bent on ignoring it and silencing anyone who talks about it. Fenris feels the need to be in control of when and with whom he talks about his trauma and doesn’t want to be confronted with it in the public street, etc.

Add on to that the fact that Fenris is pretty recently escaped when you first meet him, and hasn’t really had a chance to trust anyone since the fog warriors, and yeah they clash immediately. Fenris decides Anders is pushy and a threat, and Anders decides Fenris is an intractable bigot, and then they never really revisit those characterisations. By the time Fenris tries to reach out and actually have a conversation and build some understanding, Anders is in a downward spiral from 6 years of gaslighting and seeing the few good things he has been able to accomplish in the city fall apart, and he is absolutely primed to take everything as hostile. He lashes out, and Fenris doesn’t push it.

But the thing is, none of those differences are actually insurmountable if they *do* get a chance to revisit their assumptions and start actually trying to understand each other. Clashing triggers can be accommodated. Ignorance can be remedied. And as pointed out above they actually do get along pretty well when they’re not talking about triggering topics. It’s just that the things they most need to discuss in order to understand each other are the areas where they have clashing triggers, and once they get triggered they’re not in a good state of mind to actually listen and understand where the other person is coming from.

I can’t speak for everyone else, but for me I just see it as a relationship of missed opportunities. They *are* in conflict a lot, and they do dislike each other’s company, but I think a lot of that could be avoided or changed with a little understanding. There are a lot of ways they could support each other and be good for each other if they could just get past that initial suspicion and misunderstanding, and the only thing stopping them is communication problems. And I like them both a lot and I want them to have that good relationship that I think would be possible if they could avoid getting triggered long enough to actually hear each other out.