303 réponses à ce sujet

[tool_bot]

mousestalker wrote...

I like Cauthrien. She's a well drawn example of a good person who is serving the wrong cause.

Depends on who you think is right.

Either way it gives you something to think about afterwards. Would have been nice if they followed upon her post Landsmeet (esp for the Loghain crowd) but I still don't feel all that much for her. If I stopped to think about the morality of every person I'd killed up to that point Alim would never have time to actually combat the Blight.

She's in the way. All that really matters.

[Xilizhra]

You know, most of the people who get in your way, you don't have the chance to talk to, making a fight inevitable. Fighting Ser Cauthrien is not inevitable.

[tool_bot]

Xilizhra wrote...

You know, most of the people who get in your way, you don't have the chance to talk to, making a fight inevitable. Fighting Ser Cauthrien is not inevitable.

I know but it doesn't particularly matter. She's a zealot (with whatever good intentions you want to throw at her feet) and she's going to send you to your death. You can persuade her out of it and are welcome to try but to be honest, I see no reason to jump through any hoops for it. You need to get into the Landsmeet and she's willing to kill you. Not much else matters at that point to me.

[Xilizhra]

Getting into the Landsmeet without being killed/injured, maybe? And without killing the guards around you as well? I don't know about you, but I prefer to enter combat as a last resort.

[Elhanan]

Xilizhra wrote...

Getting into the Landsmeet without being killed/injured, maybe? And without killing the guards around you as well? I don't know about you, but I prefer to enter combat as a last resort.

Maybe, but being in another political  arena puts my Warden in a foul mood. Besides, I like having matched swords on the wall.

[tool_bot]

Xilizhra wrote...

Getting into the Landsmeet without being killed/injured, maybe? And without killing the guards around you as well? I don't know about you, but I prefer to enter combat as a last resort.

I suppose that depends on the character but I, personally, wouldn't try to talk my way through if I didn't think it was possible and knowing nothing of Cauthrien or why she is so faithful to Loghain (except that she is very passionate about him) or even where to take the conversation if I did hope to talk her down, I'm likely to conclude talking won't get me anywhere.

[Xilizhra]

If it's impossible, then you lose nothing by trying. It's not like either side can attack from surprise by this point.

[tool_bot]

Xilizhra wrote...

If it's impossible, then you lose nothing by trying. It's not like either side can attack from surprise by this point.

But I don't know I can talk her down and I've been in more then one situation where I've been forced to fight a large group of 'innocents' because I need to get through. The peasants outside Lothering, the Harrowmont fanatics who try to kill me for supporting Bhelen, half the people in Haven ect. My Warden knows perfectly good people see him as evil or a threat or somehow feel his death is a must. He can't stop moving forward or who else will stop the Blight?

[Xilizhra]

None of them ever gave you a chance to talk them down in the first place, though; Cauthrien has. It's totally possible to get through this without violence, or at least try to do so, unless your Warden is a few bricks short of a wall.

[Tigress M]

Mister Mida wrote...
I never managed to persuade her to stand down at the Landsmeet, but I always take great pleasure in killing her.

You have to have your coercion at lvl 4 for it to work (not sure how high cunning has to be since I generally have outlandish cunning as a Rogue). 

As for Cauthrien herself, I really hoped she'd play a bigger role in DA after seeing her obvious conflict of emotion at being told to sound the retreat at Ostagar.  What I fabbergasted me the most was her rudeness at Arl Eamon's estate in Denerim.  That was such a let down since I'd hoped she was smarter than to blindly follow Loghain so loyally. 

[Addai]

Xilizhra wrote...

None of them ever gave you a chance to talk them down in the first place, though; Cauthrien has. It's totally possible to get through this without violence, or at least try to do so, unless your Warden is a few bricks short of a wall.

It all comes down to your RP perspective and none is more valid than any other.  At that point you could well decide that it is in your interest to mow down a lackey of Loghain's that keeps showing up trying to hinder you.  When you've been hunted for well over a year, after your whole order was destroyed, you might be forgiven for being a little aggressive.

I do agree that it's worth trying to talk to Cauthrien at least once to hear her dialogue.  Her most moving line IMO is "would that I had died at Ostagar."

[Xilizhra]

Eh. No one was hunting me remotely competently, and it's not like any of the common folk believed Loghain's charges enough to help him. That never particularly worried me IC.

[Addai]

Xilizhra wrote...

Eh. No one was hunting me remotely competently, and it's not like any of the common folk believed Loghain's charges enough to help him. That never particularly worried me IC.

Cauthrien hunts you pretty competently.  If your PC is not worried about that room full of archers and mages at Howe's, she's got more than one nut loose.  Either that or her player needs to turn the difficulty up.  LOL

[Xilizhra]

I meant, throughout the game as a whole. Being found by a bunch of guards in enemy territory doesn't really count as "hunting" in my opinion.

[Addai]

Xilizhra wrote...

I meant, throughout the game as a whole. Being found by a bunch of guards in enemy territory doesn't really count as "hunting" in my opinion.

The point is that you have plenty of in-game justification for thinking Cauthrien needs to die.  No one really has to defend that game choice, just because the option exists in some cases to talk her out of fighting.  As hard as she tries to hinder you and as difficult as it is to talk her down (in my games I have to have surrendered to her once in order to do it), it is perfectly within rights to say "alright, let's settle this here and now."

[Xilizhra]

Obviously, no one has to defend it. I just find it a regrettable choice.

[FellowerOfOdin]

 If you're a HN which is no guarentee. Plus, from what the conversation when you try to claim blood rights indicates, it has to be announced and done with a bit more legality than 'I see you, you die' which is what it was. Imprisoning a GW is not, in fact, treason. Why would it be? You can consider wearing red to be high treason and it doesn't make it so. You can feel free to consider it morally repugnant and crossing all sorts of lines but treason is about legality not morality. Imprisoning a noble would get him in trouble, yes, but just because he breaks the law every time he turns around doesn't make your actions legal. As such, arresting you is also legal. It might be a horrible idea for you and you can't afford to let it happen but that doesn't make it legal and so I don't see that Cauthrien DESERVES to die for what she does. Maybe she needs to anyway because you don't have much of an option, but it doesn't make Cauthrien stupid or deserving of death.

I always play HN and thus everything I say is based on this very view. Then again, I would always kill her as being imprisoned is not an option. I mean, we all know that you will be given a chance to break out of the prison, but the Warden does not. Imagine the war with the warden being imprisoned.

First of all, the Warden is (if a HN) a noble. Secondly, your allusion is not only non-fitting but downright wrong. You compare ethics to attitude. Howe is obviously attacking the order the Warden is part of thus offends his fellow brothers, giving him the right to strike back. And yes, killing someone who is well-known for being a vicious murderer, torturer and traitor is a good deed - it actually is the BEST one can do if he consider himself being good as you kill one person to help countless others. Would you also consider someone being wrong or "evil" if he decided to kill a dictator? I certainly wouldn't.

Cauthrien is not stupid, no, as I already said, she just does her job. Wrong place, wrong time, that's all. And I really doubt that she'd be allowed to imprison the Warden, a noble, without any sort of decree or any kind of reasonable backup. She just steps in the room and wants to arrest him, then attacks him first and dies as a consequence. 

Wrong place, wrong time, too focussed on her duty instead of common sense, that's what really killed her.

[Xilizhra]

Well, technically you chose to kill her; there was always the option of bringing everyone out alive.

[FellowerOfOdin]

Xilizhra wrote...

Well, technically you chose to kill her; there was always the option of bringing everyone out alive.

She attacked first. She could have tried to listen to the Warden or could have let him go to delay the decision but she chose to immediately fight the Warden.

When we assume that she is not a stupid person, we all have to agree that she knew that she is only a puppet for Howe / Loghain who want to get the Warden out of the way for political reasons. She accepts that. She further accepts if not welcomes the cowardish murder of the Warden's family. Seriously, she even accepts killing children as being a legit way to gain might. Sounds like a trustworthy person to me.

[Addai]

FellowerOfOdin wrote...
Cauthrien is not stupid, no, as I already said, she just does her job. Wrong place, wrong time, that's all. And I really doubt that she'd be allowed to imprison the Warden, a noble, without any sort of decree or any kind of reasonable backup. She just steps in the room and wants to arrest him, then attacks him first and dies as a consequence. 

Wrong place, wrong time, too focussed on her duty instead of common sense, that's what really killed her.

It really boggles my mind that out of 6 origins, people would replay DA but only play one of them.    Boggles... but never mind... 

As far as the legality of what Cauthrien does, that all depends on the Warden's view of the legitimacy of Loghain's regency.  If you believe he's a usurper (heh, the ironies), then it doesn't matter if Cauthrien has paper in hand, her actions aren't legal in the higher sense.  She's still just the underling, but she represents Loghain.  In fact, if your goal really is to weaken Loghain, then it behooves you to take out his most trusted lieutenant if you can.

[Xilizhra]

When we assume that she is not a stupid person, we all have to agree that she knew that she is only a puppet for Howe / Loghain who want to get the Warden out of the way for political reasons. She accepts that. She further accepts if not welcomes the cowardish murder of the Warden's family. Seriously, she even accepts killing children as being a legit way to gain might. Sounds like a trustworthy person to me.

And then all of this leads to her ultimately backing down outside the Landsmeet and begging you to stop Loghain.

[FellowerOfOdin]

Xilizhra wrote...

When we assume that she is not a stupid person, we all have to agree that she knew that she is only a puppet for Howe / Loghain who want to get the Warden out of the way for political reasons. She accepts that. She further accepts if not welcomes the cowardish murder of the Warden's family. Seriously, she even accepts killing children as being a legit way to gain might. Sounds like a trustworthy person to me.

And then all of this leads to her ultimately backing down outside the Landsmeet and begging you to stop Loghain.

Then tell me why she suddenly gets the idea to listen to the Warden just before the very last opportunity and not when she tries to imprison him. She backs down because she knows that everything is lost and that her master will go down (allowed to survive yet lose his might). There's regret and then there's regret.

She did not take the chance to help the people dying at Ostagar.

She did not take the chance when Howe slaughted women and children.

She did not take the chance when the Warden did justice on Howe.

...and then, in the very last moment, she suddenly changes and begs the Warden to stop Loghain?

As I said, there's regret and then there's "regret".

[Sarah1281]

Wulfram wrote...

Sarah1281 wrote...
 The slavery thing was a secret. Anora probably knows just what the 'unrest' is but she's the freaking queen. Everyone else is shocked to hear this. Expecting her to have common knowledge doesn't include that.

Cauthrien's response to being told about the slavery is to try to justify it, not to deny it.  To me, that implies she was aware of it.

Yes, if you bring it up you get confirmation that she knows about it. If you're saying - which you did - that you expect her to know what everyone else knows then the slaving isn't one of those things that she should know because everyone else does.

[Xilizhra]

FellowerOfOdin wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

When we assume that she is not a stupid person, we all have to agree that she knew that she is only a puppet for Howe / Loghain who want to get the Warden out of the way for political reasons. She accepts that. She further accepts if not welcomes the cowardish murder of the Warden's family. Seriously, she even accepts killing children as being a legit way to gain might. Sounds like a trustworthy person to me.

And then all of this leads to her ultimately backing down outside the Landsmeet and begging you to stop Loghain.

Then tell me why she suddenly gets the idea to listen to the Warden just before the very last opportunity and not when she tries to imprison him. She backs down because she knows that everything is lost and that her master will go down (allowed to survive yet lose his might). There's regret and then there's regret.

She did not take the chance to help the people dying at Ostagar.

She did not take the chance when Howe slaughted women and children.

She did not take the chance when the Warden did justice on Howe.

...and then, in the very last moment, she suddenly changes and begs the Warden to stop Loghain?

As I said, there's regret and then there's "regret".

She couldn't possibly have done anything about Howe's actions at Highever or the Ostagar debacle; I personally don't think Loghain did anything wrong at Ostagar anyway, and Highever was nowhere near Cauthrien's sphere of influence. And at Howe's estate, Cauthrien was under orders to arrest you; I doubt she'd ever back down from a direct order. At the Landsmeet, she seems to be acting of her own accord, and so wouldn't need to worry about disobedience.

[Sarah1281]

Would you also consider someone being wrong or "evil" if he decided to kill a dictator? I certainly wouldn't.

Did I say that killing Howe was wrong or "evil"? No. I said it was ILLEGAL. Cauthrien is trying to legally arrest you. Your purposes aren't compatible and you may decide not to risk getting arrested. All I'm saying is she has the law on her side and trying to enforce the law isn't something that causes her to DESERVE death.



And I think my comparison works just fine. You want to consider something treason that isn't and I said that someone else might consider something less serious to be treason and, guess what, it still isn't. Treason isn't about ethics. It's a legal matter.