168 réponses à ce sujet

[Maria Caliban]

Helena Tylena wrote...

I think you might be able to compare the seeker role to an interrogator-MI6 agent kind of thing...
By the way, what if she's simply a goth?

Religious secret police? Nope, not evil at all.

Then it would be harder for me to kill her and steal her armor.

[SDNcN]

Maria Caliban wrote...

I have no idea if trying to be intimidating is part of her job description. I'm not sure what a Chantry Seeker does, actually.

It would be great if she were the main villain but attractive females usually aren't unless they fall into the 'seductress' camp.

 I think David Gaider answered that in one of the live chats he gave at PAX. They investigate other Templars and report directly to the Divine, kind of like an Internal Affairs division for Chantry.

[Helena Tylena]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Helena Tylena wrote...

I think you might be able to compare the seeker role to an interrogator-MI6 agent kind of thing...
By the way, what if she's simply a goth?

Religious secret police? Nope, not evil at all.

Then it would be harder for me to kill her and steal her armor.

Come now, the Chantry does a lot of good work.
Like...
er...
Hm.

[Maria Caliban]

Helena Tylena wrote...

All depends on how you define 'evil' really.

"Would errent_knight or Lady Shayna consider this action unacceptable?"

Upsettingshorts wrote...

The Blood Mage who begs you to let her go in the Tower was kinda cute, if I remember right. She'd count if Blood Magic itself counts.

But these are incredibly minor characters I'm coming up with so they don't really disprove any "evil characters look evil"  theory.

People will cite Anora, potentially, but I will vigorously object to anyone citing her motives as anything but perfectly reasonable given the circumstances. Or I won't, but assume I would.  

Anora looks evil?

I should probably add that I have no problem with "evil looking characters are evil." Computer games are a visual medium and, as I said, "character design is meant to express character personality."

If Cassandra is an important villain she ought to look imposing and sinister.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 07 novembre 2010 - 01:06 .

[upsettingshorts]

Yeah, the Chanters Board was full of evil tasks. I was murdering children just so the Chantry could get its jollies off. And I remember that quest in Redcliff where I had to do a favor for the local Chantry before they would even open their doors and help out. Er...

And from the perspective of almost all of Thedas - ones that don't believe in the Maker or aren't human excepted - their imprisonment and regulation of mages is good work.

I try not to judge the Chantry through my modern, post-Renaissance humanist views.

Maria Caliban wrote...

Anora looks evil?

I mean the opposite.  Anora is attractive but is often referred to as evil - at least on the boards I used to go to - but I've disputed that before and would again.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 07 novembre 2010 - 01:04 .

[Maria Caliban]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I mean the opposite.  Anora is attractive but is often referred to as evil - at least on the boards I used to go to - but I've disputed that before and would again.

Well...

One can look evil and attractive, many female villains are. The Queen in Snow White, for example. Evil doesn't mean ugly, though it is sometimes monstrous looking.

Characters who appear good, but are actually bad, are common in fantasy and fairytales. The house of candy holds a canabalistic witch. The handsome man who offers you his green velvet coat is the devil. That wolf who gave you directions has plans to eat you.

I mean character who appear evil but are actually good. There are some stories about women who marry beastmen and make them rich and attractive with their love and obedience, but that's about it.

[upsettingshorts]

Yeah, I see what you mean. I can't really think of an example in DA.

[Ortaya Alevli]

Anora's "evil" is less evil and more self serving, I think. Darkspawn, on the other hand...

[Helena Tylena]

The werewolves?

[Fortlowe]

Flemeth?

[Ortaya Alevli]

Eamon?

[GodWood]

Enchantment?

[Maria Caliban]

Helena Tylena wrote...

The werewolves?

I mentioned them and Ruck on the previous page and I'm still undecided.

The majority of them were mindless monsters. The few the Lady of the Forest saved tried to be good, but it seemed to me that they were one bad day away from going on a bloody rampage.

I mean, that one woman who just turned begged you to kill her because she was so close to losing control.

"They're not evil. They're just full of constant murderous rage that they sometimes fail to contain."

I suppose instead of saying that an evil looking character will be evil, I could say that an evil looking character will be evil, monstrous, violently insane, or a combination of the above.

To think this all started when I saw her picture and thought she looked like Malificent.

[upsettingshorts]

Maria Caliban wrote...
To think this all started when I saw her picture and thought she looked like Malificent.

Well, I think you're right in the OP.  But as usual my early responses to the thread were me getting distracted by people and facedesking all over the place.

She's got something Lawful Evil about her.  Though my first instinct is to guess she's an "ends justify the means" person sort of like Renegade Shepard.  But we'll see I suppose.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 07 novembre 2010 - 01:34 .

[blothulfur]

They could be throwing us off the scent by designing her as creepy looking but then again I thought they were doing that with loghain when they showed the first gameplay demo because it seemed too obvious and suspected duncan would be the bad guy, so i'm kind of crap at guessing.

[Fortlowe]

I was serious about Flemeth by the way. So, far all we know about her really is that she is an insanely powerful apostate that keeps saving the heroes ass. Everything else is just hearsay. All we know about Cassandra is that she is interrogating a known criminal; Varric. That she looks like she into BDSM, that might only mean she's into BDSM.



I....I hope she into BDSM.

[ErichHartmann]

Fortlowe wrote...

I was serious about Flemeth by the way. So, far all we know about her really is that she is an insanely powerful apostate that keeps saving the heroes ass. Everything else is just hearsay. All we know about Cassandra is that she is interrogating a known criminal; Varric. That she looks like she into BDSM, that might only mean she's into BDSM.

I....I hope she into BDSM.

I think that could apply to many women in DA.  Lets see...Morrigan, Isabela, Flemeth, Leliana, Anora, and maybe Wynne.

[Seagloom]

I am surprised Cassandra is getting tagged as lawful evil. A lawful evil character would be someone like the Operative in "Serenity." Maybe Cassandra is on that end of the spectrum, but what little we know of her job description and her design scream lawful neutral to me. Templars with unwavering faith in the cause are valued over those with noble intentions, right? I imagine becoming a Chantry seeker means possessing a fanaticism above and beyond a typical templar. Acting as personal agents to the Divine implies that too unless she keeps them all in the dark.

The other issue I have with Cassandra being evil, presuming she is an actual villain and not merely evil in nonapplicable to the story moral sense, is that she is not proactive, but reactive. In the majority of stories villains are the characters who go out there and raise hell trying to get at whatever it is they want. Heroes retaliate when a villain's actions force them for one reason or another. Some heroes might pursue adventures and help with minor concerns, but the big earth shattering stuff occurs when a villains starts things. There are very few stories of a hero not falling from grace trying to instigate sweeping changes across the land unless that land is dominated by corrupt powers.

Cassandra visits Varric presumably after Hawke has already risen to power and shaken the land to its foundations. If she was a villain, she would be a pretty sucky one, as the tale's hero has her beat by several years. Catching up from years behind would only work if DA2 was an elaborate prologue to Cassandra's plot o' evil in another game, which I doubt.

Flemeth on the other hand works as a villain (if not necessarily this game's villain) because she is setting events in motion by manipulating the Warden and now Hawke. The Darkspawn were suitable as villains by invading Ferelden. Loghain works as a villain because of the actions he takes to secure Ferelden's freedoms. The Warden is reacting to all this in the role of heroine/hero. If Cassandra is a villain, she is probably fairly minor. Except, making her a minor villain after giving her the role of co-narrator seems weird. Combining that with what little I know of her personality, and I still think she is a side character or maybe a party member at best.

Modifié par Seagloom, 07 novembre 2010 - 03:31 .

[Helena Tylena]

^Quite possibly the most sense thusfar.