I finished the Dragon Age trilogy by reading Dragon Age: Asunder

 

We made it everyone. We’re here for the last of the Dragon Age trilogy by David Gaider. This time around it’s Dragon Age: Asunder.

The blurb says that in the majestic White Spire, at the heart of templar power in Val Royeaux, tensions have reached the boiling point. The seekers, a powerful and secret segment of the templars, arrive to take command and restore order no matter the cost. To make matters worse, a mystical killer stalks the White Spire’s halls, invisible to all save one lone mage. As Rhys is the only one who can see the killer, he is drafted into an expedition traveling deep into the western wastelands of Orlais. There, his fate will become entwined with that of a beautiful templar, a tormented soul, and Wynne – heroine of the Blight. Together they will uncover a secret far greater than they imagined. One that will change the fate of mages in Thedas forever.

First of all, huge fan that this is, once again, another book in this trilogy that’s seemingly unrelated to the other two. Like, the blurb of this one didn’t even mention Maric this time… so there was no chance of him sleeping with an elf in this book. And thankfully, he didn’t turn up – despite there being unnecessary straight romance in this book, like the other. I also was an immediate fan of seeing Wynne’s name on the blurb too, knowing that she’s one of the companions that you can get in Dragon Age: Origins. Saying that, I think I barely ever used her. I think I’d always either play as either a rogue or as the healer. It was one of those things that I could never rely on anyone else for healing, so I just did it myself. I do have memories of having her in the party when I played as a rogue, though. It was her, Alistair, and then some third person – who was probably another attacker or tank type, if we’re being honest.

We open on Cole, The Ghost of the Spire, who is more or less a ghost. Only select people can see him, so I took that to mean he was the killer that only Rhys could see, before we got to Rhys. And then he kills this girl who’s being kept prisoner in the depth of the mage tower. He mentions how he’s lost when she asks whether he’s a ghost or demon. Popping over to Rhys, we’re immediately let in on the information that he likes women, god forbid anyone think anything different. But he’s a mage approaching his forties and in this fraternity of mages in the Circle. The Templars know about the murders, just not that Cole is the one committing them. One night, Rhys sneaks out of his room and heads to where Cole is being held and then straight up asks Cole whether he’s the one committing the murders. And even though Cole comes across as a ghost that people can’t really see, or a spirit, or whatever he was, he still just appears as a man to Rhys, which I found interesting. I was wondering whether, to Rhys, that Cole was just another person in the tower or not. You do get the answer as to what Cole is. I believe the answer was that he was a demon that had managed to convince himself and forget that he was a demon after the real, original, Cole had been murdered in the tower.

Cole was probably the best part of this book, and I wish there had been more focus on him, rather than what it was like to be a mage in the Dragon Age universe. I will talk about Cole more in a bit, but I thought there really was something with Cole, as in the whole book could have been centred around him, rather than the mages we had. Since he didn’t know what he was, the book’s plot could have been around discovering what he was, and why he was murdering the people he murdered while in the tower. And you know what? I am hashtag team Cole, and I will let my voice be heard on social media and in the comments. I personally found the book to be at its strongest when it was following him and definitely thoughts the bits in between him dragged since it felt like next to nothing was happening for so much of the book.

The besties of this book go into the Fade at some point, and that was puss caboodle. People, besides Rhys, couldn’t see Cole unless he was about to murder them. So to send everyone to a place where they could all see Cole, I was a fan. Especially since prior to them entering the Fade, everyone was just side-eyeing Rhys, thinking that he was making up that there was an invisible man, or some demon trying to get him to do something. It was a shame that everyone slowly started forgetting Cole once they made it out of the Fade, and I’ll also be honest, I don’t even remember why they went into the Fade in the first place – that’s how much of an impact this book made on me.

The beautiful templar mentioned in the blurb is Evangeline, and she and Rhys end up together at the end of the book – oddly. I say oddly because I understand that it was set up that Rhys was, sadly, Straighty McHet, like every other protagonist in these three books, but there was literally nothing romantic that happened in this book between Rhys and Evangeline. Like, I genuinely don’t know why they got together, since there had been no romantic set up, or at least any that I could remember throughout the book. That’s a point in itself, that I barely remember anything that happened in this book, despite it being 400+ pages. I remember Adrian confessing her feelings for Rhys at one point, and him turning her down, and then us getting a quick, “By the way, she did this before and got rejected before, too”, and then we moved on. It was so strange. Rhys and Evangeline getting together was fully something that just felt like it was tacked on at the end, like the author was thinking, “What the hell, sure” and then just stuck it in. I don’t know who Rhys and Evangeline getting together was for if I’m honest, because it straight up added nothing to the book.

I know it never would have happened, but honestly had Rhys and Cole gotten together, or at least confessed their feelings for each other. As a spoiler (this book came out in 2011, I don’t care), Cole ends up separated from everyone at the end of the book. But the whole relationship between Rhys and Cole was such a promising set up. Cole is this murderer in the mage tower, and a being that only Rhys can see. And in the time that they’ve known each other, Cole considers Rhys to be his only friend, and someone who has constantly protected and defended him – mind you, this is something that also happens consistently throughout the book (unlike Rhys and Evangeline) – so, for me, it would make perfect sense for there to be some kind of romance, or romantic feeling between the two of them. And here’s the thing, I wouldn’t have even needed the two of them to have gotten together, just to have acknowledged the feelings. There’s definitely a part of me that’s projecting queerness onto characters that are not queer, but, but I’m not even sorry about it, I think it would have made this book better had Rhys and Cole been into each other.

You know, I’m not even sure where I’d place this book in the three that I read. The best way I can describe this book is that I was given a pile of mud, and it was up to me to find the treasure that was buried in it – that treasure being Cole. And, yes, I did find him, it’s just a shame I’m now covered in mud from the rest of the book. I think the second was definitely the strongest of the three, and then the first and this one are in a battle for a mediocre second. I’d probably put this one last since it committed the cardinal sin of just straight up boring me when Cole wasn’t the focus. So, I’m so sorry to Dragon Age, as I write this, I am replaying Origins, so I am still a fan. This book was just so close, and I think had it re-routed its focus to be more on Cole himself, rather than the state of mages, I would have loved it, because, once again, I really enjoyed the parts of the book that were about him.

I love Cole – and, yes, I will headcanon him as being in love with Rhys.

Okay, bye!