I just read the news that the forums are going to be removed in a month. Despite the trolls that would occasionally pop into this little thread, I had a great time discussing, dissecting, and appreciating Samson in here. Thanks to everyone who participated and thanks to Jo Berry for popping by to share her insights and her fantastic Samson sculpture with us!

I think it depends on what kind of Inquisitor you have making these decisions.

Keeping Cullen on lyrium can be seen as "cruel" but it can also be seen as very pragmatic. Having your general potentially die (and most of Thedas is under the impression that templars that try to go off of lyrium die in the process) in the middle of a war is not a smart decision. Conversely, supporting Cullen's desire to get off of lyrium is an emotional choice and not a pragmatic one.

I suppose it also depends on what the goal of telling this story, is. Are you trying to illustrate that Cullen's no different than Samson if he goes clean, despite what Cullen thinks? Cullen watches himself and Samson brought to the breaking point by trying to go clean. Or to showcase how the two handle their detox and sobriety differently? How they support or sabotage one another (relapses aren't uncommon and a very real threat to sobriety)?

Are you trying to highlight Samson's compassion if he's around a Cullen who is told to keep taking lyrium? Or Samson's internal struggle about seeing Cullen unsupported in his choice just like Samson was back in Kirkwall?

Either way, this is a very delicate subject and it all sort of hinges on what the story is that you want to tell.

Jesus Christ, just where did my posts imply addiction was a character flaw?  

 

I was talking about Cullen having flaws like any ordinary character, rather than being this IDEALISED MAN with superior morals that is impervious to corruption and mostly anything.

 

Of course he would suffer if he kept taking lyrium. That's what long term addiction does to you. You cease to be who you were completely and become a degraded person. But some people think he's better than Samson or any other templar, when they forget that:

 

A) Samson is much older than Cullen and thus began showing "erratic behaviour", as Meredith called it, when Cullen began serving in Kirkwall, a fact Cullen's fanbase tends to conveniently forget when drawing comparisons on both characters. 

 

 <---WTF B ) By the end of Trespasser, Cullen is a lot closer to Samson's age when he began loosening his moral standards to help mages in return for more lyrium. So Cullen's fate is just like Samson's fate in the end. Both men become homeless beggars, having been destroyed by lyrium, like every templar does. Which shows that Cullen and Samson could have had similar lives and are therefore not different because of superior morals or whatever other exceptional quality Cullen's fanbase wrongly and sttubornly attributes to him.

 

That is my point.

I understand the point you're trying to get at, but using the example that Cullen isn't as morally superior and incorruptible as the fandom makes him out to be because he can potentially become a homeless beggar is still painting addiction as a character flaw. You're using the idea that Cullen being an addict makes him corruptible, makes him flawed, and that's using addiction as a character flaw (which is harmful).

The actual character flaws that lead Cullen to becoming a homeless beggar are his inability to find his own purpose, his stubbornness, his inability to live for himself, his fear, his doubt, but not his addiction.

Cullen is an addict regardless of the choices the Inquisitor makes for him in-game. Addict Cullen retires from the Inquisition and makes a templar recovery facility, Addict Cullen retires with the Inquisitor if he's romanced, Addict Cullen becomes a homeless beggar. His addiction doesn't factor into his character, his addiction is omni-present, it's what he chooses to do about his addiction that factors into his character flaws.

Again: I understand that you're trying to say that Cullen is just as flawed as Samson is, but the homeless beggar Cullen slide proves the truth of this by showing how difficult it is for Cullen to survive without a sense of purpose (and his inability to find that on his own), rather than that his addiction was always waiting to drag him down.

It's not his addiction that shows Cullen is imperfect, it's his inability to deal with his addiction that shows Cullen is imperfect.

So, the idea behind Samson's creation of the red templars is that he thought that all templars were completely unable to break their lyrium addiction, and as such, he might as well give them something better so that they could die more happily, possibly, fighting for Corypheus?

I wouldn't say "die more happily", I'd say more like "die inflicting as much pain on the Chantry as the Chantry had inflicted on them" as I interpret it. Samson knows the Templars will die, he's just decided they won't die quietly. 

I wonder, would samson and Cullen be in their same situations had they been in different places. Would we have commander Samson if he was in Ferelden and red lyrium Cullen if he was Kirkwall?

I should probably say up front that I'm not a big fan of the role-reversal of Samson and Cullen, and usually because it's not explained well enough to make the reversal fit their characters, to me.

If we go back far enough, like you've hypothesized, I'm not sure how much of their original characters we're left with? Being at Kinloch Hold is an event that makes Cullen who he is as a person. Being caught with Maddox's letters, being kicked out of the Templars, is an event that makes Samson who he is as a person. I don't know that Samson would have survived Kinloch Hold like Cullen did. Cullen did because he is a very determined person, Samson is a compassionate person. I don't know how long Cullen could have lasted in Kirkwall under Meredith. Would he have submitted to her will at all if he hadn't experienced what he had at Kinloch Hold? He believed in her methods because he'd seen with unchecked magic could do and it terrified him.

Samson works as the Red General because his fears can be exploited. Samson isn't afraid of mages, so he's not afraid of working for Corypheus or working with Calpernia. Samson's compassion and pain and hurt can be twisted to Corypheus' own ends. Corypheus can take Samson's anger over how Templars are treated and use it to build an army with. What would Corypheus use as a legitimate motivator for someone like Cullen in an effort to remake the world?

Cullen works as the Commander of the Inquisition because he wants to fix things. He wants to put things right. He wants as far away from the Order as he can be. I think the Cullen we meet in DAI is starting to come to terms with what he participated in, and starting his road to redemption. While the Templar order pulls away from the Chantry, they have Kirkwall's then knight-commander joining their forces. It's a huge show of good faith on behalf of the Chantry. What could the Chantry offer Samson? He doesn't (potentially) re-join the Templars at the end of DA2 because he believes in the cause. He wants his lyrium, he wants to struggle less in his life.

 

 

What I don't understand is why Samson above everyone else. The whole storyline, to me anyway, is not plausible and there wasn't enough explanation as to Samson's sudden rise to power. I'm not sure that is fair to him as a character. But that's just my opinion.

You might find some clarity in his short story Paper & Steel. It goes into the events of how he came to be recruited by Corypheus. It's a mixture of his natural resistance to lyrium, to the Blight, and he had motivations that Corypheus could exploit: his rage at the Chantry's treatment of Templars, his fear of dying in the streets, his twisted compassion for the plight of Templars across Thedas, and his natural leadership skills (WOT2).

Sorry, my post was obviously badly written. I thought I'd mentioned that I didn't mean to single out one person or another on the thread. I didn't mean to highlight you personally and I agree with what you've said. 

 

I have no idea if it was deliberate or by accident but I think it's quite a 'good' parallel for BioWare to have drawn. The scenarios they have created with Samson and Cullen ie some more popular than others, are ones that play out in real life every day which is hugely sad. 

No worries! I'm not offended, I just wanted to make my point as clear as possible, and lament both the way addicts are portrayed in this game and how they're received by the fandom. It's a topic that means a lot to me, and I've written about ad nauseam in this thread, so I don't want to rehash what I've already said.

There's no excuse for Samson's actions in the game, no one here has offered excuses for what he's done. All we've done is offer explanations and motivations for why he does what he does.

Also i feel bad 'cause i encouraged Cullen to take lyrium, and i thought i was helping...

To be fair, if you think about the scenario from the point of view of your Inquisitor, it's not a bad decision.

As far as Thedas knows, Templars die or go mad when they stop taking lyrium (and this is true. Two templars die going off of lyrium in Last Flight), so to have the leader of the Inquisitor's army telling them that he's gone off of lyrium in the middle of trying to stop the world from ending, it would't be strange to tell him "lets do this at a better time. You can do this, just not right now."

Sure, you can feel bad because of the ultimate outcome, but it's not a bad decision to make if you keep the POV of the game in mind.

Last week I wrote up a little story imagining Raleigh Samson's father telling a story about how he met Raleigh's mother. I was lucky enough to inspire Tumblr artist art-by-g to draw a young Raleigh, and draw young Raleigh and his mom Deidre:

[source]

[source]

But don't forget, addiction doesn't affect everyone in the same way. It is unique to each individual. Samson's addiction to lyrium hardly came into it for me in terms of story. I didn't think he was portrayed as weak. It was all rage at how the chantry treats templars.

I haven't drawn any comparisons between the two men and their addictions, at any point. I've written about how Cullen and Samson differ in their recoveries based on the resources they were given and their personality traits.

What I highlighted was the lack of sympathy in the fandom for a canonically homeless and addicted Samson in DA2 in comparison to the hypothetically homeless and addicted Cullen at the end of Trespasser. I specifically said Samson in DA2 in each of my posts.

One addict is overlooked by the fandom during the darkest part of his addiction (Samson in DA2), while the other is "saved" in fics and in art during his (Cullen) and that's a shame.

When we meet homeless beggar Samson in DA2 he hasn't done what Cullen's done by the time he becomes homeless at the end of Trespasser (overlooking abuses at in the Gallows), though. There's no fan art of Hawke "saving" Samson from the street in DA2, no fic of Hawke or an OC helping Samson. Although Samson does turn down Hawke's help in-game, there's still little to no content showing any kind of sympathy for DA2 Samson's situation.

Granted, we "know" Cullen more as players, I'm still disappointed that addiction used as a character flaw for Samson in DAI, but used as a tool to evoke guilt or remorse from the players for Cullen. Addiction is an equal tragedy for both of them, it ruins both of their lives as it does every templar, but its only portrayed as a horrible thing for Cullen.

Just watched the Cullen ending of Trespasser. If he is still addicted to lyrium, his future is quite a revelation:

 

Spoiler

He ends up curled in the gutter, dirty and unshaven, irrecognisable as the once Commander of the Inquisiton's forces. Completely abandoned by his friends, he now spends his days begging in the streets for a few coins to buy lyrium.

 

Do you know who does he resemble in that last slide?

 

Samson.

 

The very templar the fanbase despises and uses an an example of the opposite kind of man that (they believe) Cullen is.  

Yeah, I've talked about this a little on Tumblr.

It's disappointing to see the theme of addiction used to evoke pity for Cullen but used as a reason to portray Samson as broken or weak. Granted, both men get to this point in different ways (Samson had no choice, Cullen lost his purpose and support) but the theme still stands. Cullen even reprimands Samson for his addiction after his judgement, knowing full well that he's just as addicted (although I see this as Cullen projecting his own fears onto Samson).

The outpouring of sympathy that I've seen in the fandom over homeless beggar Cullen (including LI's finding him and "fixing" him with their love) compared to the amount of sympathy a canonically homeless beggar Samson in DA2 is also disappointing.

W E L P. We certainly learned more about him, hahah!

(My Hawke put him back in hoping he'd be her "inside man", that he could get out even more mages once he was back in the Gallows. Oh man.)

I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I made a little photo edit.

You know even if Samson can't be saved by something like the joining it might help other red Templars who's corruption isn't complete. The joining is a mix of the taint, blood from an archdemon and Magic, and red lyrium is lyrium affected by the taint so...

BUGSIE. The wardens could refill their ranks with ex-red templars already surviving the corruption. I mean, not all of them might survive the joining but maybe their exposure to red lyrium increases their chances? We know the wardens want good fighters, and templars are trained fighters.

We also have five ex-templars joining the wardens in Last Flight...

What if Warden Samson becomes Warden-Commander Samson and gets all his Templars in and they are their own squadron of Red Wardens or something.

WHAT IF. WHAT IIIIFFFF.

Since we are apparently getting calpernia's armor in tresspasser, think we'll get a version of samson's armor?

We get his sword, Certainty, but with what he said about putting on the armor feeling like he was on fire, I dunno if anyone would want to wear his armor.

Maybe Dagna could make a blue lyrium version if you choose to have him studied by her during his judgment? I mean, either way, lyrium isn't good for anyone to be in contact with, and Calpernia's armor is just leather.

Realistically: We're not gonna hear anything about him, or we'll get a codex entry about him dying from the red or the blight in a prison cell, alone (and I will cry).

Would be great: He's alive and walking around Skyhold. Maybe he's hanging out with Dagna, or Cullen, or hanging out in the Herald's Rest, or the courtyard, or training troops, or hanging out with the Chargers.

Would be even better: Warden Samson.

Would be the best ever, but I know won't happen: Samson is a companion that we can talk with and take out for missions.

Ok everyone, if Samson makes an appearance in Trespasser, what would you hope has happened to him in the two years since getting rid of Corypheus?

Yeah, I mean unless we can see Samson's corpse, it's conjecture that he's dead. Like I said earlier, he could just be in the dungeons awaiting execution until the Chantry explosion and Samson escapes in the chaos. We see Leliana die, but we don't see Anders or Samson die.

I commissioned a little sketch by shutterboneson Tumblr of Lady Calpernia, I thought this'd be a good place to share it!

He.. looks.. like he smoke... to much... marijuana

He smokes elfroot to take the edge off. It's a stressful trying to burn the world to the ground

So... you like... that?

What do you mean by "that"? Do you mean Samson? Since there's almost 50 pages of discussions here, yeah you could say that.

He's an interesting character: someone who's rage was fueled by both hate and compassion, who's drive to help ultimately hurts the person he's helping and himself in the process, and couldn't even get his templars a "good death" by going out in a blaze of glory. The Inquisition and the Chantry still stand, while his Templars do not. It's a beautifully tragic story.

Is there something in particular you wanted to discuss?

But yet, if you recruit the mages, he is Corypheus' general is he not? That would make three people that Bioware (potentially) uses necromancy on [along with Nathanial Howe and Leliana]. I usually am very lenient when it comes to Bioware, but three people? That's stupid, sorry.

Yep, it's a pretty bad case of necromancy, no doubt about it. You forgot about Anders, too. He can be killed at the end of Awakening, but says he faked it in DA2: 

Leliana we actually watch die, but I'm sure Samson's "death" can be explained away just like Anders' since we never actually see Samson's dead body. Not saying that's a good thing, but there it is.

Here's a little sketchy-sketch I commissioned of Samson:

As far as I know, yep - he's killed. He doesn't appear in the Gallows for the final fight or in Lowtown, so as far as we know he's "dead". There's no in-game confirmation, it could be explained away as him just being in the dungeon until they had time to execute him, and he breaks out during the chaos after the Chantry explosion.

I'm going to get an Xbox One probably next week, but tell me what happened in the DLC? (under the spoilers tag please.)