Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2011-03-16 04:03 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2011-03-16 04:03 pm
[ SECRET POST #1534 ]
⌈ Secret Post #1534 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 108 secrets from Secret Submission Post #219.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 - too big ], [ 1 2 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
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Also, YES. Having a backstory helped a lot. I felt like he had his own story, and I got to join it. It was almost a mutual thing. (The game could have been about him, hypothetically.) For the others, I didn't feel that way, even when they had "quests", like Merril and Isabela... or god forbid Sebastian. (Also, though Isabela was in DAO, her backstory wasn't much. Anders had more, but... well, going through DA:A doesn't help you understand DA2 Anders, as you've noted...!) Also, I was shocked he was right about so much. I figured he'd be the one you were EXPECTED to Rival, and then change his mind at the end. But actually, having played the game, he changed mine. I was definitely not expecting that. Like, how many mages in this entire game never become blood mages? ... Bethany? You, if you're a mage? I mean come on! (Also apostates are always trying to murder your ass, even when you're on missions to help apostates? The fuck?)
Also, you're utterly right about the self-awareness, too. I get where it's a bit self-pitying, but it felt natural for him, and boy was it EVER better than Anders going loco because he couldn't handle the idea of sensibility, compromise, or that his own values could be flawed. And let's be fair, Fenris being a bit self-pitying... well, they justified that pretty damned well, I think. Alders, less so. (Like, they never even bust down his stupid little clinic or anything. Waaah, Karl, yeah whatever, compared to what Fenris went through that's pretty lame beans.) Fenris also seemed more open in theory, he just never had a reason to change his mind because, seriously, every single mage ended up being a douche or a danger to other people.
I can't not romance Fenris either, haha. Well, if you don't, he's probably stuck squatting in that dirty-ass house forever! (SERIOUSLY FENRIS I WILL CLEAN IT FOR YOU JUST GIVE ME A MINIGAME. I'll pay your utilities too, turn on the fucking lights!) ... Okay, seriously though, he does seem like he genuinely needs someone to help give him emotional support, not to steel him when he's on some sort of fucking crusade like Anders, but instead to help fix himself and moderate his personality (especially his temper). He also seems really unselfish in the romance. I get where some people might not feel that way when he dumps you, but it didn't feel malicious or anything, just like he was in a position where he didn't believe he could emotionally handle things. I felt like he was trying to do it for Hawke as much as anyone--it clearly wasn't something Fenris felt he could deal with and it wasn't fair to put that on someone else, you know?
And it's okay, I'm tl;dring this super bad myself. Also if anyone is reading this feel free to chime in, I'm curious what others might think too! (Although this is definitely my best DA2 convo yet!)
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The game really needed more good/harmless mages - (there were plenty with good intentions but all of them ended up badly) I seriously can't think of any besides Hawke/Bethany -
- Anders becomes a crazy terrorist
- Merrill leads to at LEAST the Keeper dying
- everyone you have to go retrieve becomes an abomination
- Danarius/Hadriana/Fenris's sister are just awful awful awful
- Orsino becomes an abomination
- Feyndriel or whatever becomes an abomination if you don't help him AGAIN
- blood mages kidnap templars and turn them into demons
- the mages you save in the cave COME BACK AND TAKE YOUR SIBLING HOSTAGE IF YOU LET THEM LIVE
- mages KILL HAWKE'S MOTHER
- all the mages that are working with the templar try to kill you anyway even if you side with them
and well there's that one pathetic and gross but harmless guy who just wants to sleaze on girls but oh come on that's really not earning sympathy points.
Honestly the only thing that'd make you side with the mages in the game is by principle (the main thing, "genocide is bad") and the semi-OOC knowledge that "hey some mages out there are like Hawke/Bethany/Morrigan/Wynne." I mean supporting the mages is kind of the obvious better-moral choice to save "innocents (that you never see)" but the actual mages in the game give you no reason to support them at all. ):
You said a lot about what I like about the Fenris romance! It feels less "hurr ur hot/I SUDDENLY AM IN PURE TRUE LOVE WITH YOU" than reaching some kind of understanding - there's a lot more... TALKING in general in his companion conversations compared to the others, that was something that really stood out to me. It's more like Hawke is helping someone deal with their issues as opposed to their literal -problems-of-the-moment- if that makes any sense. Anders' romance had a lot of potential with that but never followed through and went straight to I LOVE YOU I ACHE FOR YOU NEVER LEAVE ME, let's just completely ignore the fact that I'm going slowly crazy! Isabela's is nice and hilarious and pretty upbeat the whole time and wonderfully brotastic and casual for a relationship but... you never really get the sense that she needs Hawke's help for anything. Or that she couldn't find the same kind of relationship somewhere else. And Isabela ever being in a committed relationship is kind of strange to even think about period.
And while we're on romances, I have serious issues with the Hawke/Merrill (especially with a male Hawke) romance because oh god, Hawke gets SO CREEPY WITH HITTING ON HER AAAA. It looks SO GODDAMNED PEDO and she acts so uncomfortable I literally can't force myself to go through with it on a male Hawke (F-Hawke is better with this, that's how I finally got through with it, but it still creeps me a little). ):
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I mean, in my first playthrough, the only in-character thing I could think of is "my sister is a good person", but even then she was so bland it was hard to really rally behind that thought. (I mean, she seriously could have been Tranquil. Who'd know?) The mage v. non-mage thing reminded me a lot of the driving conflict in X-Men. (I don't know much about the X-men, so I mean in like the movies and the old FOX cartoon.) Except, the thing that makes the X-Men work is that the main cast is, like, made of PROTAGONISTS. If there were an X-Men movie were every single mutant turned out to be an evil person trying to kill others and steal their lives, I, uh, don't think they'd get to be considered the good guys any more? And yeah, some are getting killed and made Tranquil, but shutting them in doesn't even seem that bad because we never SEE them suffer in the Gallows. HELL, Bethany sends you letters suggesting it's NOT THAT BAD. And people apparently are able to escape it all the time. Sounds like minimum security prison or something. Of course that gets worse over time, but it would have been more effective if it were worse from the beginning. (Also it needed to differentiate itself better from the fairly benign Cirle Tower in DAO which seemed cramped but not grossly oppressive.)
As for the Fenris romance, yeah, definitely. Maybe it's just the dialogue options I chose, but Hawke didn't seem NEARLY as weird in that one. I have to admit, some of the options you get in the Anders dialogues are insane. Anders like, bears his soul to you and reveals he's in horrible guilt-based agony and your response is basically "Blah blah okay can we shag now?" With Fenris, you had to get to know him a little bit before it really felt like a romantic path had been initiated--enough time to know his basic deal, anyway. Also, Fenris is much more tentative about it at first, obvious receptive but not clingy at all. You're also right in that it focused on his long-term problems, which made the romance feel a lot more meaningful and worthwhile.
[...]
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And yeah, they had the right idea with Merrill and Anders being in your party - supposedly. Mages that are apostates/blood mages/joined to spirits and pretty okay! Yaaay for examples of good mages! But then THEY TURN OUT TO RUIN THEIR OWN LIVES/LOTS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES TOO and it's just aaaaugh what was the point of that? (though I did find it hilarious you could KILL OFF THE WHOLE DALISH CAMP and it doesn't get mentioned by anyone ever again. Consequences, what are those?) By the end of A3 if your Hawke isn't a mage, Bethany starts being more of a convenient plot/blackmail device than a character, too.
We hear stories from Anders about the Gallows but they really never hit home because he doesn't go into detail. We're never shown people who have actually suffered and sane to talk about it - they're either all crazy blood mages or that pathetic guy sleazing on girls. Maybe if they'd shown how bad it was, or something? With Bethany at least? Or having Hawke be confined in there for a while if s/he's a mage after Act 2, before public outcry made them let Hawke back out again? SOMETHING. Even the "Tranquil Solution" never hits home hard because you see so few Tranquil mages so unless you knew about it from DA:O's mage origin it's like what even is that?
It just ends up "well templars are good and bad, there are creepy ones like that pedo Alric or whatever but then good ones like Cullen and Thrask and Keran and more who think Meredith is going too far and actually tell you so!" versus "well mages are good and bad, there are bad ones like the whole game but good ones like ....... uuuuuuuuuh. Bethany."
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But as you were saying, too true on the companion mages. I mean, Anders and Merril are like picture-perfect examples of the fact that if--even IF--you are trying to be selfless and do purely good, mages end up as weapons which ultimately harm the innocent far more than they help.
I think the Gallows was probably one of the biggest aspects they needed to change to make the conflict hit home. See, all I could do was compare the Gallows to, for example, Darktown, and it seemed to me that it couldn't be that much of a step down, aside from the lack of freedom, and there are probably fewer random gangs of thugs in the Gallows, come to think of it. So the mages are still living better than a sizeable portion of the population. Add to that the fact that no one is ever straight with you about what it's like in there, and yeah, you have a problem. Maybe if they'd made the Gallows sound more like a literal prison, it would have worked. In the game, they throw around the word "prison" but it's clearly metaphorical or at least not elaborated upon. If Bethany had written back and described how they wear ill-fitting dirty uniforms, sleep on thin cots, and are made to work all day creating fliers or something, then that would have conjured up some seriously dark mental images. That would have gone a long way towards getting me incensed about the treatment of mages, blood mages or not. As it stands, it comes across as them living in a shitty apartment complex where they won't hurt others (more like a boring asylum). And the Tranquil seem to just be calm people, and Karl even makes it seem like the process might hypothetically be reversible!
Also yeah, way too many of the Templars are sympathetic people compared to mages. (That is, a fairly good percentage of those you talk to vs. ... none outside your companions. Fantastic.) I realize it was tough for them to arrange ways for you to encounter friendly mages, but they could have done it. Heck, they could have done it as part of non-violent quests. (Not enough of those.)
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...but wow I think I'm actually all ranted out now. That was fun!
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And I have a semi-related question but it's sort of off-topic to DA2 so I'll PM it to you!