Catching Fenris

[owlmoose]

An update to my last post (minor spoilers at that link): thanks to some excellent advice and encouragement from the folks on Tumblr, I went back to an older DA2 save (a few hours earlier in Act Two), ran a couple of quests differently to up the Rivalry, and got the outcome I wanted. Fenris romance, activate!

Although as it happened, Hawke was the one to slam Fenris against the wall, not the other way around as I have heard previously reported. I don't know whether this is because Marissa has an aggressive personality, or because the love scene didn't happen immediately after A Bitter Pill, but either way, yesssss. I like. And afterwards, when he can't stand to stay because it hurts too much to remember his life before, makes for nice tasty angst. I kind of wish I hadn't known that was coming, because I think it would have been more affecting, but on the other hand it's useful to be aware that there are no dialogue options you can pick that will make him stay. This time, it really is him, not me. It's fairly obvious, though, that romance remains quite active: I got a "so, you and Fenris, huh?" *nudge nudge wink wink* scene with Isabela, and then the most adorable party banter ever, with Merrill teasing Fenris about his "puppy dog eyes". The idea of Fenris and puppy dog eyes is simultaneously heart-melting and hilarious. It was more than worth losing about five hours of gameplay to make this work.

Some thoughts on romancing Fenris from a gameplay perspective, because the Dragon Age wiki is misleading, and I want to share both my experience and the advice I got on Tumblr. First off, I've heard many people say that you can't spend the night with anyone else and still end up with Fenris, but that's not strictly true -- you can sleep with anyone you want, but then you have to break it off. It does seem to be true, however, that if you sleep with someone else after Fenris, it automatically ends the Fenris romance. The other bad information I had was from the wiki, which suggests that you have to have the Questioning Beliefs conversation with Fenris before running A Bitter Pill, or that conversation will never trigger. (Questioning Beliefs is a series of companion conversations, one for each, that triggers in Act Two when you reach 50% Rivalry or Friendship, and in some cases after the personal quest for the act is complete.) This is definitely not true, because I actually triggered Questioning Beliefs during A Bitter Pill, and it remained available afterwards. Fenris won't stay the night until you've had the Questioning Beliefs conversation, but it's perfectly fine to finish Bitter Pill and then go to his mansion for his Questioning Beliefs. After that, if you keep the romance alive, he'll be waiting the next time you go back to the estate. That's what I ended up doing, and it worked like a charm.

My other thought is that I suspect it is very difficult to Friendmance Fenris while playing a mage, especially an aggressive one who isn't an all-out Templar sympathizer. I had been hoping for a friendly romance, so I left him behind on all the missions where I expected to be helping mages, but that made it hard to get enough interaction with him to move the Friendship/Rivalry needle at all. If I had just embraced the Rivalmance from the start, this would have all gone much more smoothly.

As for my thoughts on the romance itself... I think I'm going to hold that until Act Three. I've heard bits and pieces about how it goes, but I'm really looking forward to experiencing the rest of the whole.

Comments

[cumuluscastle]

I heard it's more tricky as a mage, but not necessarily difficult. I guess you just have to smash a lot of slavers and make sure that he's always along for the trip. Plus, you have to let him make his own decisions for his personal quests (no matter how bad those decisions may be).

[owlmoose]

That was my original theory, but I don't feel like I made much headway with it. Especially as the major quest where you fight slavers in Act One is in the process of helping Feynrel, who is a mage. I am curious to try it sometime, still, if only for the challenge.

[cumuluscastle]

I don't think what you do in act one is nearly as important as some other parts of the game. There's this guide on the Bioware forums. Honestly, the last time I played through Fenris liked me very much even without me trying. Then again, after Anders made me very upset I much prefer to just enjoy Varric's repartee.

So it's kind of like Diet Fenris/Merill, if I think about it

[zen_monk]

I've been playing the Rival card in Fenris' romance, and I really gotta say... that dude is really angry. Especially when I'm a mage who is neither a die-hard activist like Anders nor am a kind of self-hating apologist who would consider herself essentially dangerous. I guess my Hawke is more of a "it seems like a good idea at the time" kind of person? It's interesting how that kind of middle-of-the-road kind of person gets a lot more flak from both mage/templar parties than those who have a definite stance.

Maybe they're trying harder to convert me.

I can easily see that in this role that Hawke would be either the more patient one in the Rivalmancy relationship, in that despite Fenris' occasional hostility she knows what she wants and she wouldn't force change upon herself or Fenris, or actively butting heads with him in a kind of belligerent sexual tension. At least that's how it works in my head.

And isn't that just adorable how Merrill was like "You're in L-O-V-E~!" and he's all "No I'm not, hmph! >:(" like he's trying to fix his face back to a perpetual scowl instead of puppy eyes.

Re: So it's kind of like Diet Fenris/Merill, if I think about it

[owlmoose]

And isn't that just adorable how Merrill was like "You're in L-O-V-E~!" and he's all "No I'm not, hmph! >:(" like he's trying to fix his face back to a perpetual scowl instead of puppy eyes.

That's the one. :D I love it. I love how your friends react to your choices, to the romances, both in banter and in conversation, including Varric and his "very concerned friend" lecture (and what's funny is that he gives you almost the exact same lecture if Hawke is romancing Anders, which is yet more evidence that he and Fenris are just different sides of the same coin).