fuckyeahcullen:

fereldanwench:

pragtergeist:

fereldanwench:

becausedragonage:

fereldanwench:

macklemormont:

Cullen shouldn’t even be leading the Inquisition armed forces. This is the guy who could barely talk to a female Amell/Surana without creaming himself. Blackwall should be leading them.

He ran away from a woman who was persisting in trying to have a romantic entanglement with him that he perceived as immoral ten years ago from the starting point of DAI.

That has zero to do with his ability to lead an army. 

Things that do relate to his ability to lead an army:

• The templars are a military force. 
• He lead the templars in Kirkwall, and there’s evidence to suggest that he was more in-command and respected by his knights than Meredith by Act 3.
• His role of commander and advisor will likely have an administrative nature, which he would have had experience with as a Knight-Captain.
• He has strong convictions, but will also entertain new arguments and revise his opinions when he feels necessary.
• He, like Hawke, was at essentially the starting point for the Mage v Templar War. 
• According to his bio on the DAI website, he helped rebuild Kirkwall post-Chantry explosion.

And I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: I think he’s going to be a competent leader, but there’s nothing saying that he has to be the best choice in all of Thedas. He was at Kirkwall the same time as Cassandra, and she saw him as a capable and willing leader. His appointment could easily be more opportunistic than anything else. 

Exactly. A small clip of him from a decade ago (in game time) is no way to judge him.

I’m not sure why Blackwall would be in charge. If he’s not a Warden Commander or Warden Constable then his leadership skills might not be what some might expect. Even if he was, commanding an army is an entirely different affair from commanding a smaller specialized force that generally carries out missions on a much smaller scale and rarely  engages in large scale battle. 

Spot on. I think it’s interesting that a lot of people feel Blackwall should be in charge when we know even less about him than Cullen. What we do know about him is he is extremely committed to the Grey Warden order, an order than has some very enigmatic motivations and can be incredibly ruthless. Plus, Wardens aren’t really supposed to get involved in political matters, and the Mage v Templar war (among other events we’ll see in DAI) is very heavily rooted in the politics of Thedas. 

Cullen also has intimate knowledge of how the Templars operate, to the point that he might even know some of the commanders on the Red Templar side. That’s going to be important on that battlefront bc he’ll be able to predict their movements better than anyone. He’s also likely to draw in other ex-Templars who, if nothing else, have a useful set of skills when it comes to battle. 

Another great point. I want to say that I read that the Inquisition’s starting army is actually composed of templars who are following Cullen, but I’m not positive if that was official or speculative. The templars are a huge force, regardless, and having the ability to draw from that pool of already trained soldiers is probably going to play a beneficial role to the Inquisition. The Grey Wardens are smaller comparatively, and like mentioned above, operate differently since their purpose is very different. 

Just leaving this here for the commentary.  Everyone gets donuts for this.