Summary
“The Will of the Maker” opens the plot up a little bit by introducing our villain contingent and gives us our first real casualty.
This recap of the Netflix anime Dragon Age: Absolution season 1, episode 2, “The Will of the Maker”, contains spoilers.
The second episode of Dragon Age: Absolution, “The Will of the Maker”, immediately changes perspective.
After having heard the name in the premiere, we’re introduced to Razaren here, a Tevinter Magister studying the much-talked-about Circulum Infinitus. He has a personal guard in the form of a Templar named Tassia, with whom he clearly has a relationship that goes beyond the professional.
Dragon Age: Absolution season 1, episode 2 recap – why does Razaren want the artifact?
But we realize immediately that Razaren is rash. He has something to prove, and that makes him willing to use magic in dangerous ways. He starts by summoning a spirit that calls itself Memory to learn more about the Circulum. Dragon Age has a pretty complex version of the afterlife (known as The Fade), spirits, and demons, but Absolution doesn’t really explain any of the concepts very much, so neither will I.
Let’s take everything at face value instead. Memory tells Razaren that the Circulum is the last work of Magister Amelia Pavus. It can, apparently, bring back the dead, which Razaren wants to do, but using it to do so is ill-advised. Apparently, if the artifact ends up in the possession of “the one who seeks it”, all of Tevinter will burn. Razaren wants to use it without spilling any blood, he claims, but that seems like an empty promise. When he pushes the spirit for the identity of the Circulum’s true seeker, it transforms into a demon and attacks, making for another fun action sequence that is slightly different from the one in the premiere because it’s much more magical and otherworldly.
At around the midpoint, “The Will of the Maker” catches back up to Miriam and the gang for the heist itself. Being back in Nessum prompts some flashbacks for Miriam, since she grew up there as a slave, and these sequences give us a sense of how elves are treated in the Tevinter Imperium (not well, to put it mildly.)
The execution of the heist is fun, but the togetherness of the team is short-lived. In the vault, Master Fairbanks betrays and stabs Hira. They fight, and in so doing activate the vault’s security system, which is designed to stop a coup outright by killing everyone in the palace. Oops.
At the very end of the episode, Fairbanks becomes the show’s first real casualty. And, since she’s standing over his body when it’s discovered, it looks very much like Miriam killed him.
You can stream Dragon Age: Absolution season 1, episode 2, “The Will of the Maker” exclusively on Netflix.
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