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ApplesandOranges posted:On the other hand, that means leaving Anora alive.
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Jul 18, 2020 20:37
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Cythereal posted:I loved it with Alistair left. I hated (and still do) the guy, and I consider trading the idiot up for Loghain to be a deal with no downsides. Origins is funny that way for me, I like all the companions except the two most central to the plot. Alistair is annoying for a number of reasons, most of them relating to how his dialog is written, but he's also incredibly lovely from an in-universe perspective. He'll stand by you as you commit atrocities in the name of the greater good, he'll even help you do it, but the second you get in the way of his revenge fantasy he leaves Ferelden to get crushed by the darkspawn out of spite. He's so proud to be a Grey Warden, following in Duncan's footsteps, and then he's not even willing to do the loving job. Never not recruit Loghain.
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Jul 18, 2020 20:39
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So Loghain has: -murdered Alistair's brother and Alistair's mentor -Tried to murder the closest thing Al has to a father -also tried to murder Alistair and his friends multiple times Meanwhile, Alistair has: -stood by you every step of the game. The Darkspawn are only a threat because of Loghain. A pathetic, bitter man who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing and who regrets nothing about killing hundreds of innocent people, trying to sell elves into slavery to fund his mad power grab, and god knows what else. If there is a Karma Scale, Alistair is Jesus when weighed against Loghain's sins.
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Jul 18, 2020 20:56
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Alistair is a big wet blanket and Loghain is a cool dude & class hero. Hated that dumb jock king within minutes, thankfully Loghain did the plot a solid by letting him die.
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Jul 18, 2020 21:00
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Lt. Danger posted:Kreia's main target of criticism is usually RPG tropes - sidequests, morality points, party companions. she criticises "Star Wars" only to the extent "Star Wars" is about jedis and siths, which it isn't There's a video on YT characterizing her as a Randian Objectivist due to her disdain for helping others since you remove their agency and capacity for growth by propping them up. People must be left to sink or swim on their own. Of course, she violates this teaching totally when it comes to the Exile who she loves. What people fail to realize is Kreia is wrong and the game knows she's wrong. Avellone's characters always exist to be proven wrong, whether it's Kreia or Ulysses or Durance. And not by killing them, you defeat them by invalidating their arguments. They're charismatic, intelligent, and profoundly incorrect in their worldviews. Apparently some folks think these are incompatible traits but they're really not. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Jul 18, 2020 |
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Jul 18, 2020 21:05
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In the end you don't beat Kreia by invalidating her arguments, because unless I am forgetting something at no point does the player character get to express any real opinions about the Force. You beat her with lightsabers and that shows you are stronger and therefore she accepts that your morality is more correct than hers and worth passing on.
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Jul 18, 2020 21:11
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she's a nietzschean. not a randian. she believes in a morality of constant self-transcending and self-overcoming. for her: the light side and the dark side are two partialized perspectives of a much greater whole. and it is necessary to succeed and fail in the delimited terms of both of these frameworks in order to properly transcend them -- to embody a position that goes beyond them. she isn't 'wrong' as such. right and wrong are not static certainties for her but shifting moments in a dynamic trajectory of self-development. what she wants in practice is for the exile to learn from her, become something like her, and then ultimately overcome her. Zane fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jul 18, 2020 |
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Jul 18, 2020 21:16
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Fruits of the sea posted:^^^ There are clues here and there, but they are easy to miss. Only the dwarven origins get enough context to see Bhelen might be a better ruler. I choose Harrowmont when playing surfacers, since I don't think they would have enough familiarity with dwarven society to figure out what's really at stake. It soon becomes clear that electing Harrowmont was a mistake but hey, gotta crack some eggs to kill an archdemon It's actually really easy to see, especially for surfacers. Your first meeting with Bhelen he starts talking about how much he wants closer connections to the surface and how he thinks sealing off the city to all humans/elves who arent grey wardens is bad from a supply point of view. Meanwhile harrowmont is like just like 'ah yes we adore the grey Wardens they are true heroes, truly you are the only surfacers who understand our plight. I would throw a feast for you but first I need you to help us!' Then there's all the people surrounding each, or how harrowmont supporters call the casteless deserving of their suffering while Bhelen openly states they need to improve that system. I beat DAO at the beginning of quarantine as a city elf and it felt very obvious who was the better choice. I think the dwarf noble is the only origin that kinda predisposes you against bhelen.
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Jul 18, 2020 21:28
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Bhelen came off to me like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, telling me what he thinks I want to hear, while planning to stab me in the back and twirl his mustache once he’s in power. Turns out all that obvious shadiness was a ploy to cover his sincerity about his goals. Who knew?
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Jul 18, 2020 21:52
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I defeated kreia by leaving her stupid rear end on the boat. everything I need to know about the universe, morality and the proper use of spooky jedi mindpowers I can get from the mandalorian and an assassination droid.
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Jul 18, 2020 22:41
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Oberndorf posted:Bhelen came off to me like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, telling me what he thinks I want to hear, while planning to stab me in the back and twirl his mustache once he’s in power. Turns out all that obvious shadiness was a ploy to cover his sincerity about his goals. Who knew? I find it kind of hard to call it a ploy when he is and remains a bloodthirsty, backstabbing, tyrant. He just happens to have goals that align with what's good for the dwarves over time.
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Jul 18, 2020 22:54
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exquisite tea posted:Loghain is a cool dude & class hero I know that goons love to be contrarians about everything, but maybe this isn't the most accurate way to describe him when he was explicitly funding his war effort by selling elves into slavery. 
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Jul 18, 2020 22:57
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Yeah, Alistair's hissy fit isn't exactly mature, but let's not pretend Logahin is exactly a paragon of virtue especially when his first crime is deliberately leaving his king to die just because he didn't like his son-in-law.
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Jul 18, 2020 23:30
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The worst part about letting Loghain live is that he states he'd do everything all over again even knowing for a fact that he almost hosed the whole world. Dudes a grade A scumbag. Zane posted:she's a nietzschean. not a randian. she believes in a morality of constant self-transcending and self-overcoming. for her: the light side and the dark side are two partialized perspectives of a much greater whole. and it is necessary to succeed and fail in the delimited terms of both of these frameworks in order to properly transcend them -- to embody a position that goes beyond them. This is the best analysis, but something else to bear in mind is that Kreia is a massive hypocrite. She claims to hate the Force and the way it controls people but she loving loves using the Force to lord her power over people, including direct mind control. She also claims to want people to live without the Force but barely registers non-force sensitives as real people and is of course totally dependent on the Force herself. In spite of seeming to have a social darwinist philosophy she's a big racist bitch who refuses to re-evaluate her own opinion on anything. It's these kinds of contradictions that make her such a cool character imo. She's a completely bitter, twisted person there's still a lot of truth and wisdom in what she says. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Jul 18, 2020 |
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Jul 18, 2020 23:51
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Loghain was right to leave people to die. Even Duncan acknowledged that the battle was going to likely be lost, and he warns cailan they shouldn't do it. He charges headfirst regardless because he wants to be a hero king like his father. The best case scenario of Loghain not turning his tail and running is that the king and some more grey Wardens survive, while fereldan's armed forces are completely and totally massacred without any survivors. The first game has him and those loyal to him say this only, but inquisition makes it very explicit that the initial darkspawn horde outnumbered the fereldan army almost 10 to 1. With even getting some of their blood in your eye nose or mouth meaning eventual death, there was no way anyone was surviving that fight. Cailan was 100% an idiot who did not listen to loghain or Duncan. That's not to say he did nothing wrong. He let the most corrupt noble in fereldan handle his financial and political affairs (howe did the slave trade without loghains explicit knowledge because loghain gave him free reign, same with taking the cousland fief and killing the family). He thought he was smart enough to rule, but he was a military genius, not a political or economic one, and his attempt to get around this by trusting a 'loyal' arl who was very skilled at politics and economics just picked the absolute worst person ever. But the games made it clear that his not trying to save Cailan was in fact the intelligent tactical decision for the good of Fereldan. It's more his 'also kill all grey Wardens' where he hosed up there. The wardens are supposed to be apolitical, and as a whole if he had pledged his army and nation to their cause and put himself as an aid to them, they likely would have seen that the fereldan Wardens were a sad loss, but that overall for practical reasons this was better. Of course we the player know he was not wrong to assume that the supposed pragmatic never vengeful Wardens would in fact want his death, since allistar is the warden he would have pledged his army to, and he was angry not only at the Wardens death but his half brother's and his country men's, because Allistar is not actually above politics or nationalism like he is supposed to be.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:18
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You could pick a lot of Origins' plot apart but I still feel like 'every politician continues to feud for power even as an indiscriminate killing mob bears down upon them' is the most easily agreed upon idiot move they all make. Well at least Orzammar has the excuse of 'eh, we deal with Darkspawn all the time anyway'.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:24
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ApplesandOranges posted:You could pick a lot of Origins' plot apart but I still feel like 'every politician continues to feud for power even as an indiscriminate killing mob bears down upon them' is the most easily agreed upon idiot move they all make. Well at least Orzammar has the excuse of 'eh, we deal with Darkspawn all the time anyway'. I remember a lot of people were incredulous about the Council in ME2 still not caring about the Reapers even after Sovereign crashed the Citadel and to me that was the most believable aspect to the whole thing.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:26
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ApplesandOranges posted:You could pick a lot of Origins' plot apart but I still feel like 'every politician continues to feud for power even as an indiscriminate killing mob bears down upon them' is the most easily agreed upon idiot move they all make. Well at least Orzammar has the excuse of 'eh, we deal with Darkspawn all the time anyway'. And yet entirely believable given current events across the globe.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:29
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This reminded me of the dumbest grey warden thing in origins: When you start getting visions of the arch demon, you can ask Allistar why duncan or the other grey Wardens didnt explicitly say 'yes we have the ability to see the archdemon in our dreams' to convince everyone it was a blight (since it's a plot point that a majority of the nobles think cailan is just being out for glory of being a hero of a blight, not it being a true blight, since every other blight featured the archdemon personally participating much earlier). And allistar says 'we did! Duncan told them he had a feeling it was a true blight  ' a feeling is not confirming you and all other grey Wardens have prophetic super accurate loving dreams, Allistar.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:39
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Oberndorf posted:Bhelen came off to me like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, telling me what he thinks I want to hear, while planning to stab me in the back and twirl his mustache once he’s in power. Turns out all that obvious shadiness was a ploy to cover his sincerity about his goals. Who knew? I have a hard time supporting any traditional nobility figure much less one in a gruesomely repressive regime. That Bhelan was like "yeah, the thousands of poors? OFC I'm gonna give them weapons and train them to fight, we're up against a genocidal threat" while Harrowmount blusters about the good old days and gets mad he can't say the d-word.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:44
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Sgt. kylon is the only person in fereldon with any brains.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:49
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KittyEmpress posted:This reminded me of the dumbest grey warden thing in origins: Eh, there's a pretty reasonable explanation: the Wardens haven't told anyone about the prophetic dreams in the past or even that they can innately sense darkspawn. As far as the public knows, there's nothing special about Grey Wardens, they're just specially trained and dedicated to fighting darkspawn. They keep their special abilities a secret for fear of people asking how they got those abilities, and Alistair himself admits that the whole blood ritual thing they do is the next thing to genuine blood magic. Look at how the one dude at the trial freaks out when he learns what Wardens have to do and how they get their powers. The Wardens are afraid that that would happen all across Thedas if the truth about them came out.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:50
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Cythereal posted:Eh, there's a pretty reasonable explanation: the Wardens haven't told anyone about the prophetic dreams in the past or even that they can innately sense darkspawn. As far as the public knows, there's nothing special about Grey Wardens, they're just specially trained and dedicated to fighting darkspawn. They keep their special abilities a secret for fear of people asking how they got those abilities, and Alistair himself admits that the whole blood ritual thing they do is the next thing to genuine blood magic. Look at how the one dude at the trial freaks out when he learns what Wardens have to do and how they get their powers. Plus the whole dark spawn blood coursing through their veins eventually drives them mad and they go commit suicide before it gets too bad thing. That one would hurt recruitment a bit I think. Wow. How many years later and I just realized why duncan is such a shitstain. He's a military recruiter, it's all par for the course.
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Jul 19, 2020 00:55
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KittyEmpress posted:This reminded me of the dumbest grey warden thing in origins: The entire foundation of space civilization is (supposedly) based on Prothean technology in Mass Effect. You have any idea how many people I've talked to who are pro-Citadel Council because "Shepard's visions aren't proof, even thoughthey come from the most advanced people the glaaxy has ever known and the ones all current races pay homage to." The PC always has visions and nobody ever listens to them. FoolyCharged posted:Plus the whole dark spawn blood coursing through their veins eventually drives them mad and they go commit suicide before it gets too bad thing. Also you might die immediately from drinking the stuff. I forget the odds given for surviving the Taint but it wasn't high. Them's the breaks when dealing with corrupted dragon gods.
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Jul 19, 2020 01:32
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If you play the Dwarf origin you can see that Bhelen's father King Endrin also had Bhelen-like tendencies. quote:Endrin was only the second child of King Ansgar Aeducan but became heir to the throne when he convinced his elder brother to fight in a Proving against a convicted murderer, thus resulting in his brother's death. According to Bhelen, Endrin was responsible for the poison found on the murderer's blade. That's from the DA wiki. Granted, Bhelen is the one who told you this, and his word is perhaps suspect, but it makes sense given how cutthroat Dwarven politics appear to be.
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Jul 19, 2020 02:48
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NikkolasKing posted:What people fail to realize is Kreia is wrong and the game knows she's wrong. Avellone's characters always exist to be proven wrong, whether it's Kreia or Ulysses or Durance. And not by killing them, you defeat them by invalidating their arguments. They're charismatic, intelligent, and profoundly incorrect in their worldviews. Apparently some folks think these are incompatible traits but they're really not. You'd think people would see that as totally reasonable since (at least in the UK) we get shown Hitler as that sort of archetype loving constantly. Ginette Reno posted:That's from the DA wiki. Granted, Bhelen is the one who told you this, and his word is perhaps suspect, but it makes sense given how cutthroat Dwarven politics appear to be. Aside from the whole "grimdark" side of the Dwarfs I really really like that they've got stuff from real world cultures that you rarely see in games. Their royal family is quite similar to the scottish one and they've got an Hindu style caste system. It's good and different.
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Jul 19, 2020 08:58
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Loghain's fears that Cailan would make common cause with Orlais is also confirmed when you return to Ostagar.
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Jul 19, 2020 09:28
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Fears of a Ferelden-Orlais alliance is a bit weird, but then again Ferelden is a bit roughshod in terms of politics so Orlais would presumably run circles around them especially if Anora was forced out of power. Wiki also says that apparently Cailan knew Alistair was his half-brother (which paints him in a slightly different light) and that he knew the Battle of Ostagar was a doomed cause, which paints him in another different light, especially when you combined both bits of information with sending Alistair to the tower and away from the frontlines.
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Jul 19, 2020 09:35
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ApplesandOranges posted:Fears of a Ferelden-Orlais alliance is a bit weird, but then again Ferelden is a bit roughshod in terms of politics so Orlais would presumably run circles around them especially if Anora was forced out of power. I don't think it's weird. Being the junior partner in a medieval alliance of crowns is never good and you usually get subsumed into the main partner. I can totally see why they'd be terrified of Orlais. Honestly - Dragon Age's world is really good and it's a shame there's so few games with the level of historical worldbuilding that they have.
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Jul 19, 2020 09:58
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ApplesandOranges posted:Fears of a Ferelden-Orlais alliance is a bit weird, but then again Ferelden is a bit roughshod in terms of politics so Orlais would presumably run circles around them especially if Anora was forced out of power. Remember that Loghain spent his youth throwing Orlais out of Ferelden so getting right back into bed with them is a big ol' nope from him. He thinks Orlais is a greater threat than the Blight, and while he's wrong Orlais is still a major threat.
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Jul 19, 2020 09:59
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The fear is valid, but if he knew that the Battle of Ostagar was doomed, he had no real fear of it coming to fruition anyway. The truth is that Cailan would honestly have been a terrible ruler in the long run since he would have likely paved the way to complete Orlesian rule after his eventual death, whether by assassination or old age. Whether or not that justifies Loghain's moves is up for debate. (Would have been really interesting to see what would have happened if Cailan survived til Inquisition and then Brianna came into play, but alas.) Man, I like the idea of replaying Inquisition, but in practice the game is far too long for my liking. Even if I were to skip most of the optional areas.
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Jul 19, 2020 10:09
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Retconning Cailan into knowing Ostagar was a hopeless battle always felt a bit odd to me since iirc they also established that Duncan and Loghain were trying to talk him out of it, which just makes you wonder why he even went ahead with the battle in the first place. Trying to ally with Orlais would make more sense if he was trying to get their help in repelling the Blight and justify Loghain freaking out more since actually inviting Orlesian troops in Fereldan would trigger every bone in his body. Though Loghain thinking he could sacrifice half their army and still defeat a force that would now be 20 times larger than his and then also stop Orlais from invading is still pretty insane.
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Jul 19, 2020 11:02
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NikkolasKing posted:The Darkspawn are only a threat because of Loghain. That's not true at all. Loghain left Ferelden less able to defend against the Blight after Ostagar, but it's still a Blight. There's no plausible scenario where Ferelden fights off the Darkspawn with ease and only suffers minor damage. Loghain is monstrous, and I wouldn't try to argue otherwise. Nor is any of the heinous poo poo he did justified. But, and I cannot stress this enough, the main character of DAO is trying to stop a literal apocalypse and Loghain could be a valuable asset in that fight. Making him a Warden turns Loghain from the biggest obstacle in the Wardens' way into a weapon against the Archdemon. And as a bonus, it's a (slow) death sentence anyway! Alistair has a mountain of extremely good reasons to want Loghain's head on a pike. But in the end he decides that his personal grudges are more important than saving the world. That is completely inexcusable. Mr. Baps fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Jul 19, 2020 |
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Jul 19, 2020 11:11
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Nephthys posted:Retconning Cailan into knowing Ostagar was a hopeless battle always felt a bit odd to me since iirc they also established that Duncan and Loghain were trying to talk him out of it, which just makes you wonder why he even went ahead with the battle in the first place. The logic seems to be 'the people need morale, if we keep fleeing that's going to seriously hurt that'. Cailan is a bad ruler but he's one that's beloved by the people. If they seem him falter than there's a lot of potential despair. Of course, him dying doesn't solve it either, so he was kind of stuck there. Even if he'd listened to Loghain and retreated, considering how little Loghain trusts the Wardens, it'd be hard to get a unified opinion on dealing with the Blight. For better or worse, Cailan's death paved the way to a unified Ferelden.
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Jul 19, 2020 11:15
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ApplesandOranges posted:The logic seems to be 'the people need morale, if we keep fleeing that's going to seriously hurt that'. Cailan is a bad ruler but he's one that's beloved by the people. If they seem him falter than there's a lot of potential despair. This doesn't make much sense to me, since the whole point of Cailan is that he's rather shallow. What you see is what you get. If he was subtle enough to lead his army into certain defeat and play it off as a grand adventure, then he would also have the discretion to make overtures to Orlais (or at least the wardens in Orlais) without letting Loghain butt in until it was too late.
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Jul 19, 2020 13:51
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I think the whole point of Cailan is him thinking it's a high fantasy story. The origin story might already be a wake up call for a player coming from Baldur's Gate or KotOR. But Joining and Cailan death are probably there to make you realize this is indeed a new poo poo.
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Jul 19, 2020 16:27
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Fruits of the sea posted:This doesn't make much sense to me, since the whole point of Cailan is that he's rather shallow. What you see is what you get. If he was subtle enough to lead his army into certain defeat and play it off as a grand adventure, then he would also have the discretion to make overtures to Orlais (or at least the wardens in Orlais) without letting Loghain butt in until it was too late. That is the perception fostered by people working against him but I think the evidence is on the side of "Cailain is smarter than they want us to give him credit for." I like Cailan a lot and I've written about it a few times. quote:A character I've loved ever since I first played Origins was the late King Cailan. While not a victim of quite as much hate as major characters like Anders or Sera, he also gets a really unfair reputation in the fandom. Also the entire battle strategy at Ostagar was specifically Loghain's idea. So whatever fault lies with that lies with him, a veteran military general, national hero and BFF of Cailan's father. I'm sure Cailan thought there was no more trustworthy man in all of Ferelden. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jul 19, 2020 |
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Jul 19, 2020 16:42
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Cailen was definitely an idiot because that city elf line is prompted by the belief that the racially separated slum in his home city of the country he ruled was in fact, a fine and lovely place. His and Duncan's response indicate that he was in fact that ignorant of things it was literally his job to deal with. But yes, he was a good man, which meant he was doomed to death in the grim derp world of dragon
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Jul 19, 2020 16:55
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ilitarist posted:I think the whole point of Cailan is him thinking it's a high fantasy story. The origin story might already be a wake up call for a player coming from Baldur's Gate or KotOR. But Joining and Cailan death are probably there to make you realize this is indeed a new poo poo. This was my take. The whole "heroic fantasy story" feeling starts feeling like its going wrong about the time you're sent to the tower. Feels really wrong when you meet the ogre at the top and it's definitely over by the time you wake up in the swamp witch house and Alistair is in shock. To say nothing of the cutscene where the battle goes rather badly.
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Jul 19, 2020 22:11
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I liked Loghain. I always induct him into the Wardens because the level of loyalty he inspires from his soldiers is fantastic and his battlefield experience is incredible. I'm not gonna let Loghain go to waste just because Alistair can't let a few minor kerfuffles go. What a drama llama.
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Jul 20, 2020 17:39
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