Great character. Bioware could have made the most interesting fictional culture ever for their game, but without a captivating personality like Sten to act as envoy and representative of that culture, it might not have amounted to anything.
“I trust you with my life but it is not my life at stake” and “Be careful, kadan” get me, I love Stens friendship and that little confrontation in haven so much
I'm baffled by the Qun sometimes. They claim that their mages are beasts who don't learn. It's hard for them to learn if they're treated like animals and never taught anything. They also claim all magic is evil. And while fighting tevinter for hundreds of years could skew that view, they have evidence of magic being more beneficial than harmful. Plus with the qunari capturing and taming literal dragons it cant be that hard for them to train mages and treat them as thinking people
Just because people have evidence of something doesn't mean they'll do the rational thing. Magic always presents potential danger of possession by Fade spirits in this setting. Sten's analogy of magic is honestly perfect, stating that it's like the sea to a sailor. Useful, but still deadly to the user. They decide to eliminate the risk by not letting it propagate.
“Kadan” can mean a lot of things. For Sten it means “Friend”, for the Iron Bull it means, “Love”. Context is very important for certain words of Qunlat. Usually the Qunari would explain their meaning. Kadan: Literally, "where the heart lies;" friend. An all-purpose word for a "person one cares about," including colleagues, friends and loved ones. Also means "the center of the chest."
2:35 ish is a moment that stuck with me years after playing the game. Stens beliefs and bioware essentially saying "this isn't exactly the most stereotypical fantasy setting" makes one of my favorite moments in all of dragon age.
