characters

Dorian Pavus: Coping Study

Greetings!

Though I’m not finished with Inquisition, Dorian is easily one of my favorite characters and with this piece, I’d like to pull back the curtain and show the coping mechanisms behind the man.

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SPOILER ALERT

And now, on we go!

• • • • •

Quick summary for those who need the recap: Dorian Pavus is a human mage of the Atlus caste in Tevinter society. The Altus are considered to be descended from dreamers/magisters that could speak to the Old Gods when in the Fade, and they are exceedingly well regarded in the Tevinter Imperium.

This influences him growing up as it would anyone– both with the pressure to meet that ideal and also being considered great from birth, particularly because he’s from an affluent family as well.

He had a natural talent for magic, and of course, he’s Dorian… So he flourished under the envy, at least on the surface. After being expelled from a Circle at 9 years old for injuring a Magister’s son in a duel, he continued to rotate through mentors and Circles, each ending in a new fiasco.

It wasn’t until Alexius found Dorian and offered to take him as an apprentice that Dorian found the focus he needed to truly prosper. And that he did, earning merit and stations inside four years of study in the Minrathous Circle.

…then Felix, Alexius’ son and a dear friend of Dorian’s, got the darkspawn corruption and Alexius’ wife died in the same tragedy. Two years, Dorian poured into finding a cure for Felix. But a fight between Alexius and Dorian severed their ties and immediately, Dorian was off the path to greatness again.

Between reveling in excess and loudly rejecting every flaw in his homeland, Dorian faced only hardship and scandals from then on in Tevinter. His father tried to use blood magic to “cure” his homosexuality, keeping him hidden as he slid back into old habits after his fight with Alexius…

This is the state he’s in when he joins the Inquisition. An outcast in his own nation, his trust in his own family destroyed, and completely adrift. [Backstory recap source]

So what does this all mean for Dorian’s coping mechanisms? He’s known to be very sure of himself and prefers wit on nearly every occasion, and let’s see how he uses both his bravado and humor throughout his backstory, either successfully or not.

Consider his first expulsion from a Circle at 9 years old, which was caused because he injured another child in a duel. A Magister’s son, no less, and at this point you can already presume that Dorian had a difference of opinion with most of his countrymen while still absorbing the doctrine of holding life in alarmingly low regard.

Whatever their disagreement was, Dorian would not yield. Although I’m sure he wasn’t as adeptly cunning as a child, it’s a safe bet that he pushed buttons with the Magister’s son until it came to a duel… Which he would not back down from to the point of actually injuring a fellow child.

Now there is where you behold two sides to Dorian: his general belief in morality and his inevitable acceptance of certain parts of Tevinter culture.

If he backed down from the duel, it wouldn’t be mercy, but weakness. Because it was a Magister’s son, he was expelled from that Circle… But the damage was done. He’d harmed a child in what was likely an intellectual disagreement.

And intelligent as he was, he knew that he could’ve been the one hurt or worse had the Magister’s son sucked a little less. And if that had been the case, Dorian would probably still have been the one expelled because he’s not a Magister’s son.

Dorian was an intelligent, gifted child who knew something was wrong there but didn’t have the direction, the guidance to figure out how to change it– simply how not to be affected by it.

If he was bound to expelled from the Circle regardless, and he knew he was once that argument began, why not at least show the brat his place? This is where bravado and humor comes in, and where Dorian’s… unsavory… behavior continued.

Tevinter is inherently a place where you can trust no one once you reach a higher standing, which the Pavus family held.

But ambition only doesn’t work for Dorian. A man of heart, he is internally and externally destructive without connections and a greater purpose. Given his backstory, with family alone as he is before Alexius, he’s reckless and overly aggressive. With purpose alone as he is after Alexius but before the Inquisition, he’s reckless with no regard for himself.

In the Inquisition and the Inquisitor, he finds both. Of course, this doesn’t change who he is or how he faces the world. Even as he confesses friendship with the Inquisitor, he leans on humor to make it safely through his honesty.

Such honesty was a serious risk in Tevinter culture, and factoring in the betrayal of his father and Alexius – two people he trusted most – and he’s opening himself to that all over again by admitting out loud that someone is his friend in this context:

“Perhaps it’s odd to say, but… I think of you as a friend, Inquisitor. I have precious few friends. I didn’t think to find one here.”

When the Inquisitor goes to respond, Dorian cuts them off to say, “Don’t speak. I detest confessions, and I’d like to get this over with.” He’s half kidding, mostly serious, but honesty suits Dorian far more than ambition and more than he’d care to admit.

And he needs that humor to bond over his genuine friendship with the Inquisitor. Dismissing a serious matter as light reduces its weight on him and makes him feel less threatened by the rules of the culture he grew up in: one where you don’t trust anyone and seek only power.

He can confess to being close to someone and all the solace that provides as long as he has redirection and hospital humor to get him by. And it’s not the only instance where he used these tactics to cope, not by any stretch. It’s nearly constant.

For example, in the Templar timeline, Dorian appears to warn the Inquisition at Haven. His first line of dialogue is, “if someone would open this [the gate], I’d appreciate it”. When someone does, he’s on the verge of falling over and held up only by his staff.

After trying to stand and falling onto Cullen, using his help to stand, Dorian describes himself as “a mite exhausted” and says “don’t mind me”. These are all examples of how Dorian uses levity to draw attention away from the issues he’d rather be hidden. In that case at Haven, he was on a time crunch to put it lightly, but the mentality stands.

Of course, there are those who don’t understand his perspective and view it as arrogance at best, indifference at worst. But this is part of the beauty and complexity of Dorian, and while I could go on… That concludes this study. Perhaps another time, my friends!

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Sirius: Heroism & Denial

Books and movies alike, Sirius is one of my favorite characters in the Harry Potter series (and I’m a huge analysis dork, as you’ve likely gathered). So why not combine the two in an analysis of Sirius? My thoughts exactly.

Many Harry Potter characters have hidden depths, of course, but Sirius is among those I find most compelling for the way he handles the defining moments in his life.
Moving right along, I hope you enjoy the read!

On to the fun part!

Also: spoilers ahead.

To know a character, you typically have to start with their backstory. For Sirius especially, this is true. Sirius was born into a long line of a pure blooded elitist family, and he fought that image with all that he could muster.

To upset his parents, he put permanent sticking charms on Gryffindor banners in his room as well as pictures of motorcycles and Muggle girls in bikinis and other such things they would object to.

He was the first Black family member to be in the Gryffindor House as well. But if you look at all these actions, you see a case of two extremes: Light and Dark.

His family glorified the Dark Arts and purity of blood, going so far as to disown any Squib family members (such as Sirius’ uncle). When Sirius rejected this family tradition, he instead embraced the ideals of heroism and bravery as told in legends. Also recognized as the attributes of goodness or Light.

Embracing these traits would lay the foundation for how Sirius approached most things in his life, so it is crucial to understand how much they really meant to him. Think of his advice: “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”

And frame that in his childhood and time spent at Hogwarts. He aggressively chose light, every hour of every day – as if to compensate for the darkness in his family lineage. He was creating his own image in defiance of what his family and name had tried to force on him.

And this mentality of light and heroism was the cornerstone of his independence. To be free of the Black lineage, he had to be everything they weren’t. And he did truly enjoy his Gryffindor friends and the life he’d earned for himself (even at the expense of his familial connections).

Again, compare this to the typical hero’s story: a struggle for what’s right, loyal friends, and a just cause.

He struggled to be good and light, and he was rewarded with loyal friends (or so he thought). He had James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew – The Marauders.

In light of that need for loyalty, it’s no surprise that he illegally became an Animagus with James and Peter for Remus’ sake. Just as he defied Black tradition to be good, he defied laws to be a true friend when Remus needed him.

This act reflects his belief that a good cause is worth any risk. He risked his family’s constant disdain to be who he wanted to be and he risked legal punishment (and perhaps worse should anything go wrong with their secret transformation to Animagi) for Remus.

Now what he needed was an antagonist. Then came Snape, the personification of everything the Black family worshipped. Sirius described him as “this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts” and instantly disliked him, especially because of the existing hatred between Snape and James.

Snape was destined to be hated by Sirius on at least two counts: Sirius’ need to reject of the elitism and darkness Snape represented made it possible and loyalty to James made it inevitable.

To Sirius, bullying Snape was not something to be ashamed of as a 15-year-old. In later reflection as an adult, he tells Harry he’s not proud of what he did, but he still resents Snape fully. Treating Snape poorly wasn’t wrong because to Sirius, he was the antagonist of a heroic tale– the Darkness to his Light.

James and Sirius eventually stopped tormenting him, but never apologized for what they did simply because they weren’t sorry.

Worse yet, Sirius did put Snape’s life in danger when he told him about the Shrieking Shack and left out that Remus was in there for his transformations.

And had he died, Sirius would also have put the blood on Remus’ hands. But to someone thinking in pure light and dark terms as in heroic legends, that’s a morality too grey for even adult Sirius to understand. His exact response was that it “served Snape right”.

That moral ambiguity was lost on Sirius and he continued life undaunted by its implications for himself, Snape, and Remus.

I do believe that Remus was more willing to believe that Sirius was a traitor because of this incident– he’d shown he was capable of moral wrong-doing with no remorse. All it takes is one seed of doubt, but we will return to that.

At 16, Sirius was adopted by the Potters. The good, light family he wanted to be part of and another piece in his heroic story – right down to his family’s accepted uncle sympathizing with him and leaving a large inheritance for Sirius.

Of course it would work out for the protagonist, it always does in heroic tales! That mentality had worked for Sirius until that point and he was well bound up in it by then.

He had a new family, a proud image of being good, an antagonist, and then the First Wizarding War happened.

Sirius joined the Order of the Phoenix with his friends and there he had his noble cause at last. Everything led up to this, a glorious battle. They were to fight against Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters at his side to protect both Muggles and the Wizarding World.

Sirius could scarcely have orchestrated a task better suited to his need for heroism. To add to it all, he was selected as the godfather to his best friend’s first child! The fact that he believed Remus to be a potential traitor was horrible, but… Every story must have its antagonist, as we recall.

Only this was not a legend of heroism, and there was a far less “obvious” traitor among them. Pettigrew did more than I believe Sirius could’ve imagined when he killed James and Lily.

But to successfully frame Sirius for mass murder, forever putting his godson out of his reach (not to mention landing him in Azkaban), was even further from his ability to fathom. This didn’t follow the hero’s path like Sirius had expected…

And even if it had, situations like this passed. The hero’s allies rush in and turn the tables when things are at their gravest. Only Remus did not come. Dumbledore did not come. Rescue never came.

To get revenge seemed the only natural course of action, the last scrap of his hero’s tale that Sirius had. James and Lily were dead. The only Potter alive either didn’t know him or knew him as the person who murdered Pettigrew and twelve Muggles.

Sirius was ultimately known for the one thing he’d always struggled against being: an elitist, murderous wizard of the Dark Arts who was willing to put his cause before any human life.

And Remus? He wasn’t coming to Sirius’ defense anytime soon, a betrayal in itself. One he couldn’t bear, especially not in Azkaban, where he would face dementors on a daily basis. Sirius needed every happy memory he had and denial was the only he’d keep them (and his life by extension).

Revenge gave him purpose, but denial gave him hope. And when he did escape at last, Sirius was bound to recreate the life he clung to in his memory through Harry.

Despite saying he felt badly for how he treated Snape, he fell right into the rhythm of treating him with disdain when they met again after his escape. And he held onto his friendship with Remus over any need to ask him why he didn’t defend him, why he let him sit in Azkaban for 12 years for something he did not do…

He didn’t want Remus to be the antagonist, he was the last original Marauder that Sirius could still call a friend. Pettigrew was his target and beyond that, Sirius only longed for the life he used to lead at the start of the war.

When pressed, you could see some of that animosity bleed through, but it was always collected– if only because Remus (in the case below) saw the damage done to his friend and didn’t want to push him too far.

He had enduring friendship and glory back then, and he needed that still… For more than just warding off dementors by that point. His mental state was weakened by his time in Azkaban. Sirius needed something to believe in beyond revenge now that he was free, and that belief was the idea that his life would return to normal after James and Lily were avenged.

Although unspoken, I do think Remus saw the extensive damage done to Sirius’ psyche during his time in Azkaban. There could be no true healing for Sirius because it required acceptance, and denial kept what was left of him going.

But Harry didn’t know this, and it wasn’t clear to him until Sirius’ final moments. He was a man tortured both literally in Azkaban, by constant threat and neglect, and mentally through the numerous and severe traumas he’d faced.

When he said, “Nice one, James!” to Harry, it was an instinctive reaction based on his coping mechanisms. Sirius lost James and Pettigrew for good, Remus and Harry temporarily, and lastly, he’d lost the reputation of goodness he’d spent a lifetime building.

All in the course of that single night when Pettigrew murdered Sirius’ best friend.
He could not cope with the loss, but instead had to rebuild it in his mind with the next best thing. Sirius is undoubtedly a powerful person as a wizard and in sheer willpower, but Harry also wanted to see him that way. As a replacement for the family he didn’t have.

But it was in that last moment that Harry had the key he needed to see the full extent of Sirius’ mental state. Harry saw at last that he wasn’t the only one making a substitute for James.

While the quote from Sirius, “the ones that love us never truly leave us” is accurate and heartwarming, Sirius took it very much to another level. He needed that life to still exist in however many fragments he could scrounge together.

Because what was revenge worth if it was for a life gone past? What would Sirius live for after? For Harry, for Remus, for the life he had to believe was still there if he was to keep going. But denial does not hold, it does not last.

Eventually, Sirius would have to face everything he’d been through, and with how he was in the books and films… He likely couldn’t endure it. Sad as his death was, it was almost merciful in comparison to the life of denial and trauma he’d be facing otherwise.

And that concludes my somewhat sad analysis of Sirius.

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Thank you for reading!