War Table missions actually mattering in the context of the game and having reflections through dialogue/scenery/cutscenes would require far too much sense.

Let's not forget Bioware's open favoritism towards the Templars by way of giving them far more content in Inquisition through the War Table then the Mages.

I like to think at that point, their friendship (or love ) is so deep that Merrill knows Hawke doesn't mean what he says when he takes that option, he's just telling the Dalish what they want to hear so they don't get themselves killed, so there's no rivalry gained.

I don't remember this being based on any lore that I know of.

If you think about it, if you combine the 4 Forbidden Ones, with the 4 Forgotten Ones, that gives you 8 to correspond with the 8 Creators, making a pantheon of 16 Evanuris with Fen'Harel standing in between as in the Dalish tales.      The only problem with that is that Imshael is one of them and he didn't seem that impressive.   May be his power is limited outside the Fade.

With rivalry points.

It's very easy to max out her Friendship and then avoid killing the clan with no Rivalry points gained

Personally, I would imagine that the use of "Tamassran" as the ones who perform this sexual service was a slip-up on Bioware's part and Ben-Hassrath was what would've been appropriate.

The latter can be of either gender and they are the ones who handle the "re-education" aspect. So, it follows that if you need a bit of nooky to focus on your blacksmithing, that would fall under re-education.

 

 

Correct, but his conclusion is that she cannot be a warrior, not that she can't be a woman.

Incorrect. He says flat out "You are a Grey Warden, so it follows that you cannot be a woman"

We know Flemeth didn't expressly teach her anything sourced to the elvhen - but that doesn't mean she didn't teach her things elvhen. Look at the shapeshifting magic that she uses that - if given the well - leads her to shapeshift to a dragon, the form reserved for the gods.

Very true. Mahariel can point out the similarities between her magic and Dalish Keepers knowing magic akin to it

Yeah. Basically Sten looks at the Wardens as an organization akin to an army. The army in Qunari lands is comprised of all men. Therefore, what he sees the Fem!Warden as is not someone that shouldn't fight, but someone that should not try and call themselves a woman since they're also a Warden -- which to his understanding, makes her a man.

I guess essentially she'd be seen by the Qunari at large as being trans. Aqun-athlok I suppose.

Sometimes, as much of a hipster as I find the Arishok to be, I think he was right by saying the Qun is a bit too complex to understand. I doubt even the devs properly understand it.

Hell, I doubt even the people who live in the Qunari lands understand it.

I'm telling you guys, the qunari probably use "implements" for their sex therapy. Gender becomes irrelevant.

Fun fact: the vibrator (or rather, its shitty precursors) was originally invented to treat "hysteria" in the 19th century.

https://www.psycholo...story-vibrators

Well, bull does mention a strap-on.

Or at least, that's how I took his one line.

I just want the option to walk up to a Tamassran and say "Give me the booty, show me the booty."

What's the evidence that Dalish is lying about that? The only lie I can recall Dalish telling is about her "bow", which is clearly tounge-in-cheek and not even really meant to be believed. Its just an technical excuse in case any templars get any bright ideas. 

 

I'm out of likes, but I liked this. 

Well, she does have vallaslin, an indication that she was a part of a clan. Given that magic manifests at a young age, and vallaslin is the mark of adulthood, it's easy to see that what Bioware *wants* us to believe doesn't mesh well

TL:DR
 

Morrigan read the instruction manual.

Normally people just throw those out and try to do it themselves (sometimes with poor results). Apparently there is one person who does use them. Fascinating...

IMO better to kill everyone including Shep in ME2, skip ME3 and jump directly to ME:A when it comes out.

So would that be the "Reapers fall, everyone dies" scenario then?

For me, I just avoid ME3.  I still ME3 MP, just no SP at all.

I'll single player Tuchanka and Rannoch (and their associated side quests) and Palaven's moon Menae too.

Hell I'll even do the DLCs. But ME3 def. didn't do the series' themes any justice.

Can't resist the bearded dwarves. Must play this "The Dwarves" game.

Look for the books as well. This game is an adaptation of the first in the series written by Markus Heitz

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

 

If she were romanceable, you'd be saying they used her for sex appeal for the overly sexualized black woman stereotype, because she goes from being a mistress to your sex object for having not much of a role in the inquisition besides that.

This is why it would help if Bioware had more PoC writers, or if Mary Kirby had at least consulted with PoC to get a better sense of what to do and what not to do. Granted, not every black woman in the world will agree on the same things -- some may enjoy something about her while others deem it offensive -- but the act of at least trying to take into account the narratives that black women face daily would've been a boon all on its own.

So now a black woman only has to show one instance of anger for her to be deemed a stereotype. The irony of this is, you talk about racism but it's you that are advocating that they be portrayed as less human by restricting what emotions they can show, to avoid stereotypes... She's human. She doesn't get angry 99% of the time, but everyone, stereotype or not experiences each emotion at one point or another in their lives. It does not define them.

 

And besides, that was hardly "angry black woman" angry. That was her being upset at Cole reading her thoughts.

 

As for Morrigan, you wouldn't have even known that unless Cole read her mind...

Yeah for this I'd have to agree with you. It'd be different if 80-90% of her dialogue was her fuming at one thing or another, but a few isolated cases doesn't make her an angry black woman stereotype.

This is a case of adding 1 and 1 and getting 11. Or 111.

No it comes down to this.

 

No matter what, whether it's a gay character, black character, trans character or what have you, somebody somewhere will always accuse the writer of writing them stereotypically. I know, opinions opinions, but honestly, what is the stereotypical behavior exactly? Can a black character not have some aspects that aren't totally positive without someone saying it is stereotypical or racist or blah blah?

My post on page 2:

 

 

 

ourFunnyUncle, on 22 Aug 2015 - 2:28 PM, said:

 

People keep saying that Vivienne is stereotypically black because apparently she is "sassy", but to me everything about her character screams "power-hungry socialite", which stereotypically I would consider to be a white woman's role. I think of someone like Meryl Streep's character in The Devil Wears Prada.

Edit: In case it's not clear, I don't consider such stereotypes to be a good thing.

 

 

 

I wouldn't say it's just because she's sassy. I'd say (though I'm far from an expert on the matter) t's also because she's relegated to being a Mistress role (even if she cares for Bastien and got along with his wife, the fact that she's a Mistress probably has something to do with it, as that's generally what black women are relegated to), she's unable to be a LI for players (it's not really about BW for that one, but how black characters are treated in media, undeserving of true romance), and how when Bastien dies she's not even allowed, on the part of her writer, the chance to break down and be vulnerable (because black women are expected to be strong and emotionally stable at all times, and if they show emotions are usually chastised for it).

 

Frankly I'd say Vivienne was treated like a tool by Bioware rather then a character. Whether she was stereotypical or not is not for me to say, though I do fear that she was.

 

 

-----

When discussing whether or not a character is a stereotype, you have to look at the outside looking in perspective. That is to say, how we as people can be influenced by social commentary in our society to the point that we start writing these things. 

here's what it comes down to:

Vivienne is not as stereotypical as other black characters in video games or other forms of media. That, however, does not mean she is completely free of being written stereotypically.

 

 

 And let's intervene to give that guy his prayer circle too

Though I get that was your CE's thoughts, what are your own personal thoughts on that?

The Architect is all about science without limit - a death toll of fifty, probably seventy-five percent of all subjects is a success, even if we're talking about 'subjects' in the number of thousands. Or millions. His mad science unleashed a Blight on the world, the only bright spot being in the fact that he also ended up creating darkspawn who ended up killing each other in a civil war. But his intelligent darkspawn were still no less inherently chaotic evil, to borrow an alignment from another franchise - the darkspawn who led the attack on Vigil's Keep, the darkspawn he sent, interpreted 'I want to speak with the Warden' as 'kill everyone but the Warden.' And all he had to say about it was 'unfortunate.'

 

The Architect has never survived an Awakening run of mine, and never will.

The Messenger says hello. He was far from chaotically evil.

The implication of the moon being beneath her right foot indicates a notion of subservience on its part and dominion over it. Ghilan'nain is indeed depicted, by contemporary Dalish lore, as having hair of snowy white. In the older tales hailing from Arlathan per Inquisition, Ghilan'nain was not made into the first halla but was instead the creator of them.

Andruil is a likely person to be depicted here. The hare is a very sacred animal to her -- along with the owl, which IIRC the owl is also shared with another god -- and it's entirely possible it's meant to depict Andruil in a way meant to convey she and Mythal did not get along (since Mythal created the moon).

But I've also always thought that it was Ghilan'nain and was meant to symbolize the relationship between the two -- Andruil and Ghilan'nain -- because IIRC it was rumored that they were lovers. But my memory might be playing tricks on me.