YMMV / Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Cailan's death scene, where he shows that he's very much Maric's son and pretty much proves Loghain wrong in regards to mostly everything the latter says about him in the game.
• Crazy Is Cool: Faren sometimes does this, particularly when he's in Dark Wolf mode.
  • It seems that, whenever things go to hell in a handbasket, this is Raonar's way of coping, especially when he feels responsible for things getting worse.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Just as author gives Bhelen the Ron the Death Eater treatment, he also completely ignores any of Lord Harrowmont's faults. The author even insists that Lord Harrowmont would be a better leader for the casteless, completely ignoring Lord Harrowmont's stagnant policies and obvious distaste for the casteless.
• Fridge Logic: The author uses this method in order to adapt some talents and spells from the game, as well as to try and explain how the Fade works, among many other things like why two handed weapons are so freaking huge. The fact that characters end up in situations where such reasoning is required and all the explanations come naturally and become part of the plot itself is a nice treat.
• Heartwarming Moments: Again, more than one.
  • Faren's nightmare and its resolution.
  • Trian and Raonar's reunion.
• Nightmare Fuel: Kallian gets a rather strong dose of this when she starts to go through her calling prematurely, before Avernus's potion saves her. Thankfully, her memory is jumbled and she didn't really understand what the darkspawn wanted to do to her, so she got away without much trauma.
• Ron the Death Eater: Bhelen is a stupid, pathetic idiot and so is anyone who likes him, as we are told in the long (and we do mean long) endnote of chapter 48. Especially bizarre because canon Bhelen is already a pretty shitty person, so there should be no need to make him worse.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • Raonar goes off on Isolde for keeping Conor's magic a secret from Arl Eamon and not sending Conor to the Circle, and Raonar claims that her motivations are entirely self-serving. Even though Isolde is the fandom's Scrappy, it isn't hard to see she has a point. Anyone familiar with the DA setting knows that anyone caught with magical talents have to belong to a Circle, where they stay locked up in a tower. Mages have no rights to property, family, titles, etc. They are forever under the watch of the Templars, who, at any moment, can invoke the Right of Annulment. The system is so broken that at least half of the mages of Thedas are willing to enter a violent rebellion to end it. To top it all off, staying in the Circle does not even guarantee that the mage will not fall to possession, as evidenced by the events at Kinloch Hold. In that light, is it really a surprise that she would want to protect her son from that? While there are also arguments for keeping the Circles, and Isolde did mess up epically, to say that her motivations were fueled by selfishness is completely absurd.
  • At one point, Raonar yells at Wynne for giving Kallian advice on Grey Warden conduct. The justification the fic gives for it is that, as a non-Warden, Wynne cannot possibly know what the Wardens are going through, and therefore it isn't her place. Apparently getting an outside perspective isn't a thing among the Grey Wardens. To top it off, the reason for Raonar's outburst was because Wynne had discouraged Tabris from getting into a relationship with Brosca because it would interfere with stopping the Blight. Except, not only is Wynne not the only character in DAO to have concerns (Morrigan will ask a romanced Alistair what he would do if he had to choose between his lover and the greater good), but later in the game, if your Warden romances someone, another NPC will use that to try to manipulate the Warden into taking an action that would have an impact on the main plot. In that light, Wynne has every reason to be concerned.
• The Woobie: As is par for the course in the world of Dragon Age. Faren has the crown for this.
  • Iron Woobie: Gwenith and Raonar qualify.

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