247 réponses à ce sujet

[grillz]

You know I just noticed, how come all the males have ex's? what about females, I know Lel had Marj, but she was more a mentor to her then a lover.

[casedawgz]

Alistair was a virgin.

[grillz]

casedawgz wrote...

Alistair was a virgin.

oh yea, alistair................

[casedawgz]

grillz wrote...

casedawgz wrote...

Alistair was a virgin.

oh yea, alistair................

Though of course, you were talking about MEN so that point might be moot.

[Saibh]

grillz wrote...

You know I just noticed, how come all the males have ex's? what about females, I know Lel had Marj, but she was more a mentor to her then a lover.

You mean, how come they have living exes? I think the thought process behind giving the men all dead spouses is wife = commitment = sexy, but divorcé = douche. So they kill them off for fun and profit free drama, giving them feelings, and getting the pesky wife thing out of the way without him being somehow a poor husband.

Men don't think that way, I guess, or at the least the writers don't think so. I believe that Aribeth has a dead fiance (don't you meet him in the beginning of the game and he gets hanged or something?), and Jaheira has a dead husband. I think Jack has that one guy that was kind to her. To the best of my memory, you are never compared to them, but you guys do have the...Carthette...Aribeth...syndrome on occasion. Leliana is the only case of "still alive ex" I can remember--and she does compare you to Marjolaine.

You know, who in their right mind does that when they're attracted to someone?

Modifié par Saibh, 08 octobre 2010 - 01:09 .

[FieryDove]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...

 I am a TVTropes fan.  I know that Tropes Are Not Bad.

That being said, this whole dead ex/deadbeat dad trope?  Let me list out the ways in which it exists in BioWare's games.

I don't mind companions past, they all had lives, seem more realistic to me. If the were all stuck in a temple (Alistair like) then no of course they wouldn't have much of a past or baggage of ex's dead/alive.

You had to go mention Carth...One of my fav NPC's. And not whiny!!! Grrrrr

[grillz]

I liked when Oghren asked Morrigan about the Warden, and she hoped he wasn't refering to Alistair, then makes that comment "Does Alistair even like girls."  I lol'd

Modifié par grillz, 08 octobre 2010 - 03:55 .

[grillz]

Saibh wrote...

grillz wrote...

You know I just noticed, how come all the males have ex's? what about females, I know Lel had Marj, but she was more a mentor to her then a lover.

You mean, how come they have living exes? I think the thought process behind giving the men all dead spouses is wife = commitment = sexy, but divorcé = douche. So they kill them off for fun and profit free drama, giving them feelings, and getting the pesky wife thing out of the way without him being somehow a poor husband.

Men don't think that way, I guess, or at the least the writers don't think so. I believe that Aribeth has a dead fiance (don't you meet him in the beginning of the game and he gets hanged or something?), and Jaheira has a dead husband. I think Jack has that one guy that was kind to her. To the best of my memory, you are never compared to them, but you guys do have the...Carthette...Aribeth...syndrome on occasion. Leliana is the only case of "still alive ex" I can remember--and she does compare you to Marjolaine.

You know, who in their right mind does that when they're attracted to someone?

Like I said, Leliana scared my males and females, killed all the men she slept with and had a psycho mentor she thought was her lover. lol  Some reason this makes me think of "Scott Pilgrim vs the World."

Then getting the whole comparing to Marj, I was like "mhmm, she's crazy."  Then again I felt bad for her after playing her dlc, and seeing Marj was the same person. lol

What about Morrigan? LI's with crazy mother issues.

props for BW for giving female LI's with someone trying to kill them.

It's a romance to die for, get it, get it. lol 

[Gegenlicht]

Saibh wrote...
You mean, how come they have living exes? I think the thought process behind giving the men all dead spouses is wife = commitment = sexy, but divorcé = douche. So they kill them off for fun and profit free drama, giving them feelings, and getting the pesky wife thing out of the way without him being somehow a poor husband.

Er. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but isn't that statement implying that not only is there someone to blame in a divorce, but it's definitely the guy if not both of them? Not to mention that judging someone on whether they're divorced or not seems like an awful thing to do in general. Divorces happen for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes, one party is to blame, sometimes both, but there is also a case where neither is to blame.

[pizoxuat]

Gegenlicht, both sides in a divorce get mountains of blame heaped on them regardless of the actual situation. Marvel thought that having Peter Parker and MJ divorce would damage Spider-Man so much that a deal with the devil was a more reasonable way to break them up.



I'd be down with romancing a nice divorced guy in an RPG, but I'm a 30 year old woman, not exactly the target market.

[Saibh]

Gegenlicht wrote...

Saibh wrote...
You mean, how come they have living exes? I think the thought process behind giving the men all dead spouses is wife = commitment = sexy, but divorcé = douche. So they kill them off for fun and profit free drama, giving them feelings, and getting the pesky wife thing out of the way without him being somehow a poor husband.

Er. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but isn't that statement implying that not only is there someone to blame in a divorce, but it's definitely the guy if not both of them? Not to mention that judging someone on whether they're divorced or not seems like an awful thing to do in general. Divorces happen for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes, one party is to blame, sometimes both, but there is also a case where neither is to blame.

As I said, this is my theory on why the writers choose to have so many dead exes/wives. Because to most,"divorce" is synonymous with "baggage", for whatever reason. No matter the reason for the divorce, I think very few women see it as a positive trait, because it means somehow he (assuming you are romancing the divorcé) made a wrong decision--in getting married, in how he treated her, in why he stayed with her. Whether he is to "blame" is irrelevant. Killing them off is easier for the reasons I listed above.

Why must everything said on a gaming forum be a social commentary?

[Sable Rhapsody]

oenis wrote...

Sorry if I yelled but I really don't think whether a VA is recognizable or not impacts their level of talent that much. As I said, Steve Valentine, Claudia Black, Simon Templeman, all very recognizable and have played titular roles. Also, Carth association is often used to sully Kaidan's character when really they are nothing alike in personality. If people are willing to overlook other actors sounding similar in a variety of roles, why is Sbarge the exception?

I've heard Raphael Sbarge in a few other things.  Avatar the Last Airbender is the first one that comes to mind, and I didn't notice his voice there until it was expressly pointed out to me.  I think the problem for poor Kaidan was that Sbarge had previously voiced a romantic lead for the female protagonist who was essentially a straight-laced space military guy.  I agree that the characters have significant personality differences, but they're similar enough in role and concept, and there's no difference at all in the VA.  No filter, no difference of inflection or pitch, nothing.  To top it all off, Carth was a polarizing character.  Since Kaidan's relatively un-polarizing and the association with Carth's VA is present, it can make it difficult to judge Kaidan as his own character.  At least, that's my train of thought.  To Kaidan's credit, I didn't dislike him intensely as I did Carth...and they both died in my games, so I guess it's a net win for Kaidan? 

FieryDove wrote...

I don't mind companions past, they all had lives, seem more realistic to me. If the were all stuck in a temple (Alistair like) then no of course they wouldn't have much of a past or baggage of ex's dead/alive.

You had to go mention Carth...One of my fav NPC's. And not whiny!!! Grrrrr

I don't have a problem with backstory.  I like backstory.  You might say I've got a fetish for good backstory.  But I like VARIETY in my backstories.  Garrus, Mordin, Canderous, Sten, and a slew of other characters were not "stuck in a temple" and managed to have interesting pasts, baggage, and character issues without the dead ex thing.

[Gegenlicht]

People are like celestial bodies. All circling the same centre in the end, but all with their own orbits. Some are stable, some erratic, some slow, some fast. And like real stars and planets and whatnot, they exert gravitational pull on one another when their orbits bring them in close.



Sometimes that'll only serve to slingshot one body away from the other, sometimes the attraction will be so great that they'll crash and burn into one another, leaving nothing but stardust and an afterglow. Often, they'll simply dance around one another, each one pulled from their solitary orbit, influencing one another and guiding each other onto a new path, in parallel or in tandem, or forever whirling around one another. But as cosmic forces keep exerting their pull, as entropy sets in, these shared orbits may not last. Heavenly bodies may drift apart again, or crash, or even violently repel one another when the pull to get away gets too great.



It's the way of the world. If people want to blame someone, they can go blame the universe.





(Still not saying blame was actually laid. I'm strongly hoping I misread the post. I just like using that imagery, and I was in the right mood.)

[Gegenlicht]

Saibh wrote...

Why must everything said on a gaming forum be a social commentary?

Cause we're all completely different. Well, except for that one guy. Can't stand him.

And because text-based conversation isn't always as transparent as we'd like it to be.

And of course because people react to certain triggers when they stumble over them. Never been married, personally, so never been divorced either, but the statement just seemed to use a very thick brush that managed to paint over the topic and tickle my nose or something, especially since it collided with my own personal experience. The reasons why relationships fail could fill books; I just can't agree with the idea of there always being someone to blame. Of course my opinion doesn't necessarily reflect that of the game designers, and neither does yours, so it's a bit pointless.

In the end, I was really just wondering if I read that right, cause it seemed a very undiscerning statement for a smart person to make, and I don't think you're stupid.

[tmp7704]

Saibh wrote...

You know, who in their right mind does that when they're attracted to someone?

Lot of people do that. Whether they actually express it tends to be loosely related to how much you've pissed them off at the moment, but the comparisons themselves are pretty inevitable.

"and yes, he was bigger. and better!"

[Gegenlicht]

tmp7704 wrote...

"and yes, he was bigger. and better!"

Heh. That's a very special case though. In general, I've personally found it best not to talk about exes at all if it can be helped. Especially not the dead one.

[grillz]

well what what about "crazy mother issues."

[Gegenlicht]

grillz wrote...

well what what about "crazy mother issues."

Aren't there only two of those (and Matriarch Benezia was under Sovereign's spell at any rate) so far or am I missing some?

[grillz]

Well in a way all DAO characters had mother issues if you think about. Liara is the only me character i can think of.

[Sable Rhapsody]

tmp7704 wrote...

Saibh wrote...

You know, who in their right mind does that when they're attracted to someone?

Lot of people do that. Whether they actually express it tends to be loosely related to how much you've pissed them off at the moment, but the comparisons themselves are pretty inevitable.

"and yes, he was bigger. and better!"

Haha.  I don't know.  IRL, I prefer not discussing exes, mine or otherwise, unless it's actually relevant and important.  In fact, it's a topic I avoid like hell.  I will, of course, make comparisons in my head--that's pretty inevitable.  "Hey, my current boyfriend is significantly less of an **** than my ex!  That's good!"  But it's rarely something I say out loud--I've just found there's no good way to say things like that.

[Gegenlicht]

grillz wrote...

Well in a way all DAO characters had mother issues if you think about. Liara is the only me character i can think of.

Hrm. I can kiiind of see the point for Leliana, though hers wasn't exactly crazy, just dead before her time. If you're playing a City Elf, your PC might count though, at least in the eyes of the other City Elves.

[Sable Rhapsody]

Gegenlicht wrote...

grillz wrote...

Well in a way all DAO characters had mother issues if you think about. Liara is the only me character i can think of.

Hrm. I can kiiind of see the point for Leliana, though hers wasn't exactly crazy, just dead before her time. If you're playing a City Elf, your PC might count though, at least in the eyes of the other City Elves.

Family issues in general are another BioWare favorite.  Seriously, I love my ME2 crew to bits, but I felt like I was on the SSV Family Issues, featuring Shepard making everyone else suck less.  And then with Lair of the Shadow Broker, the people who DIDN'T have family issues get family issues.  After ME, my Earthborn Shepard is convinced that families should just be abolished for, I dunno, sanity concerns or something.

At a certain point, characters like Sten who killed a bunch of dudes and Grunt who just needs to murder things because he's going through krogan puberty feel like a breath of fresh air.  

[AllThatJazz]

First, it has to be said that I'm also getting bit fed up of the old 'Hey, you've got a dead wife - do I remind you of her? Yeah?  Oooh, I feel shmexy, can I sleep with you?' thing (though I adored Sky and Valen and the Jaheira romance is still one of my all time faves). Speaking as someone old enough to have plenty emotional baggage of my own, I think a character with living ex partners and the issues that may come with would be a breath of fresh air, but I can understand why the 'deceased ex' device is used more often than not. 



There has to be a limit to how complicated a romance between the PC and a LI can be - or the poor writer is condemned to volumes and volumes worth of romantic exposition (which I'd be okay with personally, but I guess they need to write an actual story at some point, too ). Somehow the dead spouse/lover thing is a less thorny issue than a divorce, and is also a closed book to a greater extent. After all, the spouse is dead - nothing is going to bring them back, and the surviving partner eventually moves on (with the PC). It's narratively more neat and tidy. There are fewer questions to ask,  maybe less ways to make the LI come across as an unappealing romance choice.



A break up (even a fictional one) has more elements to it that can affect the present and future - where is the ex now? Might they reappear? Could there still be feelings of love/lust between the ex and your new LI? Or is there residual bitterness and hurt? Was there blame involved in the divorce, or was it just a matter of two people no longer getting on? If the former, what blame and whose? If the latter, why the hell not? Not impossible to  write answers to all this stuff, but a bit trickier to do, or can the writers skirt the various issues a bit and still maintain the integrity and depth of the romance? I s'pose Lel falls into this category - the betrayal/revenge thing is good, but done recently. 


The alternative to this would be an Alistair type - who has no romantic baggage because he's never been in love. Which was great in Origins, but they can't really do that again so soon either.



Hmmm, how to make a universally interesting romanceable character with lots of lovely depth and history, but who doesn't have a dead ex (or family problems in general, gah!) , but who also doesn't have a living ex who is in any way capable of threatening my Lady Hawke's position as Ultimate Goddess of All Things. I sure don't envy you, Bio writers :happy:

Damn, did I really write that much? Soz. 

Modifié par AllThatJazz, 08 octobre 2010 - 10:31 .