YMMV / The Masked Empire

• Abandon Shipping: About killed the view of reconciling Celene and Briala as being the preferred ending for the "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts" quest Dragon Age: Inquisition, given the reveals that Celene not only killed Briala's family and lied about it for years, but that she also views elves as a whole as expendable and only wants to improve their lot so they will faithfully serve her for it. Many fans who read the book also came to view almost everyone in Halamshiral in a far more negative light, given the sheer extent of the cruelty elves put up with on a daily basis from the human nobles.
• Designated Hero: Empress Celene. A number of readers deeply doubt that what she did to Halamshiral was the tragic necessity she considered it, even before getting into what she does to Briala specifically.
• Harsher in Hindsight: As violent protests of excessive police brutality against minorities erupt in the US, the catalyst for Celene and Briala's breakup being Halamshiral elves rioting over being serial murdered too much, which Celene responded to by massacring the elves to protect her own power, her actions being framed as a Tragic Necessity born from The Chains of Command, and the reader being expected to feel sorry for Celene because she lost her elven girlfriend as a result can leave a bad taste in a lot of reader's mouths.
• Moral Event Horizon: The revelation that, on top of everything else she's done, Celene murdered Briala's entire family as a publicity stunt, then lied about it for years so that she would continue to be her lover. Compounding the betrayal is that when confronted with this fact, she continues to justify it as having been necessary for her own survival, even while the other characters present poke holes in this logic.
• Squick: Some fans take issue with Celene and Briala's relationship due to the incredible power imbalance between them, the racist abuse the former exacted on the latter when they were children, and her placing more importance in her own power rather than an entire city of elves.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Felassan is about the most universally beloved character in the book (some consider the only good part of the book) due to his wit, humor, trickster mentor tendencies to Briala, Mysterious Past, and many interesting tidbits and insights into Elvhen history and lore. To the point that a lot of readers were hoping he would become a Breakout Character. He dies at the end of the book.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Almost everyone makes morally questionable choices, to the point that Briala pulls a Screw This, I'm Outta Here and Takes A Third Option.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: As haughty as they were, some readers felt Imshael's slaughter of the Dalish Clan, including children^note World of Thedas Vol. II clarifies that Imshael spared the children, for whatever that was worth, but the main characters were not aware of this was excessively brutal and horrific, and felt the main characters casually shrugging it off as "something they brought upon themselves" was a little too callous.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • In a meta sense, many fans who played the game first feel this way about Celene and Gaspard after reading the book. Learning the full extent of their crimes and cruelty in The Game especially against Briala and the elves made it impossible for many players to see crowning either of them, or reuniting Celene with Briala as anywhere near as positive a choice as the game tries to portray.
  • Michel de Chevin is a slightly more straightforward case, as while he is framed as a tragic figure for his internalised racism about his elven mother, the fact that he participated in the Chevalier 'graduation ritual' of killing innocent elves in the street in revenge for an insult that he knew was probably fabricated, as well as his consistent racism against elves expressed throughout the book, makes it a bit difficult to sympathise with him in this book and casts doubt on his 'redemption' by the time of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
  • Celene, as stated under Designated Hero.
• Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: Learning that Celene murdered Briala's entire family, lied about it for decades to keep her as an unwitting lover and personal spy/assassin, and then massacred a whole city of elves to secure her own power has left some fans wondering how Briala could even consider taking Celene back even with the Inquisitor's help in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

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