Sera

AKA:
Red Jenny
Somehow Also a Friend of Red Jenny
Unelfish Elf
Loser of Bows
Cookie Maker
Buttercup (Varric nickname)

I promise I won’t just write down the lyrics of Sera’s song (yes, she has her own song) and pass it off as an entry. Though I will bring it up and make sure more people know about it, because the song annoys her. Sera was born in Denerim’s alienage, orphaned young, and raised by a local, childless human noble named Lady Emmald. Though the Lady provided for the young elf, she also inflicted deep psychological wounds on her before she died. After that, Sera refused her inheritance and struck out on her own. At some point, she fell in with a mysterious group called the Friends of Red Jenny, and now is Red Jenny, kind of, because that’s just the way that organization, if it can really be called that, works. The group’s, and Sera’s, main goal is to protect the lowborn citizens of Thedas from the tyranny of the upper classes, or avenge them if need be. This can take the form of everything from public humiliation to petty thievery to assassination. Sera eventually moved from Ferelden to Val Royeaux, as it was the capital of Orlais and therefore the stuffiest, most noblish place she could think of, meaning she could cause the most chaos there. I first met her in the back alleys of said city when she pulled me into one of her schemes and we clicked immediately. She agreed to travel with me as one of my companions so long as the Inquisition remained a force that fought for everyone, not just the noblity. The relationship between the Friends of Red Jenny and the Inquisition has been a strange one, but ultimately proved very useful for both sides. My people weren’t the ones to come up with the devastatingly effective and hilarious tactic of throwing jars of angry bees at our enemies, that was all Sera. The elf herself also just wanted things returned to normal so that she could keep playing how she wanted, and saw the Inquisition as the best road to that end.

It’s really kind of hard to describe Sera, as she’s just so uniquely Sera. Her peculiar upbringing resulted in her being a mess of contradictions and false fronts that took a supreme effort to understand, let alone penetrate. Like I said, we hit it off very quickly, and I was able to understand her nigh-incomprehensible messages far easier than most, but that doesn’t mean I always knew exactly what was going on. I learned early to simply go with the flow, and that the goal Sera was aiming at wasn’t always clear to anyone else, but was something worth attaining. That’s not to say we didn’t butt heads repeatedly, of course, as Sera can be unflinchingly rigid, almost to the point of absurdity, in her beliefs and dismissive of everyone else’s. She is distinctly unelfish and rejects the ideas held by both city elves and the Dalish. If you recall, I’m Dalish, so we definitely needed to work through some issues. Fortunately, I’m apparently not very elfish either, and my natural skepticism towards, well, everything, loose belief system, and ability to quickly accept and adapt to the craziest of situations ultimately meshed well with her. Sera was instrumental in keeping my feet on the ground as Inquisitor, reminding me that, in addition to the Empresses and Kings I often dealt with, there was also a myriad of “normal people” who were just as important. A constant source of levity and fun amongst the doom and gloom of battling an aspiring god and his various minions, Sera was one of my greatest friends in the Inquisition. I treasure every joke, prank, argument and occasional actually serious conversation we shared throughout our time together, and look forward to many more in the future. And if you don’t like her, too bad, this my story. Also, I’d watch out for flying pies, if I were you.