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[ipgd]

Atrilial wrote...

Maybe that just means he's a very complex character?

Complex and confusing aren't the same thing. I'm the kind of person that spends months fretting over and writing long pathetic essays about video games and I still can't figure Fenris out. I'd like to, but he's not very... established.

You have a character like Anders who is very contradictory and messy and tangled up, but most of the core parts of his character are concrete and his internal contradictions are central to his person and self-acknowledged throughout the narrative of his character arc. You need hedge clippers to wade through that mire, but if you spend the time, he at least makes sense within his own context. With Fenris, he's just sort of... I don't know. He's a little of a lot of things but not much of anything.

[upsettingshorts]

autumnyte wrote...

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but I'm curious why specifically you feel Fenris is any more open to interpretation or malleable than any of the other companions.

(snip example)

I could think of  similar examples for each of the companions. So, how does Fenris differ, in your view?

I'm not sure yet.  At this stage it's just a feeling, and that feeling is that I think the interpretations of Fenris' character posted so far - by both thread regulars and folks like me who just dropped in for this particular tangent - seem more inherently contradictory than the others.  And we've all played the same game.

In your Aveline example, only the evaluation of her performance as city guard seems to be directly contradictory, and even that is something we could take aside and evaluate objectively.

[fighterchick]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Yes and no. The former is simply due to the fact different people have different preferences, but in some way connect with something solid that they can all relate to.

The latter could be the result of ambiguity, confusion, or subtlety. The difference would reveal itself by asking, "Who is (character)?" versus "What do you like about (character)?"

Having a variety of answers to the first question is really different than having a variety of answers to the second question.

The reason I can't decide if it's good or bad is because if the difference in interpretations is created due to unintentional ambiguity or confusion borne of contradictions, that would - at least to me, be bad. If it is due to some incredible subtlety that I'm missing, though not discounting the possibility of - that'd be good.

But in some sense, it's very possible that it's both. Ambiguity and confusion can be interpreted as subtlety and vice versa.

That he may have been written this way on purpose, or ended up this way by accident I'm not sure. The notion that he is this way has just occurred to me, though, and it may be related to my other issues with his character's role in the story.

I think that he appeals to a lot of people because he's pretty.  People are willing to overlook a lot of things, silly or otherwise, just because a character is good looking.  It might be more of a people see what they want to see than he's written a bit ambiguous/open to interpretation.

[Atrilial]

Pseudocognition wrote...

Hekateras wrote...

No. People are not claiming that he is hopeful and optimistic. People are claiming that he's gotten better at those things in the course of the game. Which he has. Compare "Fenris after the Deep Roads" with him not having much contact with anyone outside of mercenary missions, and "Fenris three years later", who "wouldn't miss" card night with Varric, meets up with Donnic every week, occasionally goes praying at the Chantry and works with Aveline to root out slavers.

Yet he claims to have no friends during Alone?

I think this is more a brief moment of despair and confusion with everything going on/wrapping up/what-have-you, than what his life actually is by that point.  He just forgets that he isn't alone anymore when dealing with the aftermath of killing Danarius and all that goes with that.

[upsettingshorts]

@fighterchicks:

I try to avoid that particular argument despite its validity because there's no way I could bring it up - given my overall demeanor in this discussion and others - that wouldn't come off as dismissively condescending. The closest I've really been getting is when I compare Fenris to Thane, a character who I feel has similar plot-significance issues who was explicitly designed to be an appealing love interest and... not much else it seems.

So while I'm going to acknowledge it, I'm not gonna stick to it very much.

[Hekateras]

Pseudocognition wrote...

Hekateras wrote...

No. People are not claiming that he is hopeful and optimistic. People are claiming that he's gotten better at those things in the course of the game. Which he has. Compare "Fenris after the Deep Roads" with him not having much contact with anyone outside of mercenary missions, and "Fenris three years later", who "wouldn't miss" card night with Varric, meets up with Donnic every week, occasionally goes praying at the Chantry and works with Aveline to root out slavers.

Yet he claims to have no friends during Alone?

His sister - an actual source of hope and optimism for the future, remember - has just sold him out to the person he hates most AND has been revealed to be not only a mage, but a Magister-in-training, with everything that implies. He has also just found out that a lot of his identity (the parts revolving around "These markings weren't given to me by choice!") has been based on falsehood, and he has trouble coming to terms with what he's learned of his pre-amnesia self.

Yeah, I can imagine how he might be having an emo moment after that.

Some empathy, please!


Also, tell me honestly you've never said anything like "Nobody likes me" in the presence of people who obviously or potentially do just to provoke them into reassuring you. It's a perfectly natural behaviour mechanism to extract comfort.

I feel that a lot or even all of your criticism has been very... technical in nature. "Oh, he does this, but it contradicts this!" Please take the time to put yourself in his psychological shoes.

[Atrilial]

ipgd wrote...

Atrilial wrote...

Maybe that just means he's a very complex character?

Complex and confusing aren't the same thing. I'm the kind of person that spends months fretting over and writing long pathetic essays about video games and I still can't figure Fenris out. I'd like to, but he's not very... established.

You have a character like Anders who is very contradictory and messy and tangled up, but most of the core parts of his character are concrete and his internal contradictions are central to his person and self-acknowledged throughout the narrative of his character arc. You need hedge clippers to wade through that mire, but if you spend the time, he at least makes sense within his own context. With Fenris, he's just sort of... I don't know. He's a little of a lot of things but not much of anything.

Well, maybe the issue is more that we haven't had enough opportunity, given the constraints of the game, to really dig into Fenris.  Mind you, with Anders, we had all of Awakening to get to know both Anders' base personality and Justice' as well.

Edit: Also, on the line of him being pretty as the draw, I know for myself and my husband as well, we were set at the beginning to dislike him as a stupid emo character.  It was over the course of befriending him (while I romanced Anders ) that both my husband and I grew to like him a great deal.  We both agreed that we had never so completely misjudged a character.  He was much more interesting than either of us anticipated.

Modifié par Atrilial, 22 avril 2011 - 12:32 .

[upsettingshorts]

To be fair, while the "Does this guy's life suck?" approach to character criticism does demand a certain amount of empathy, I'm not sure, "How well is the fact this guy's life sucks conveyed by the narrative? does.

Those questions aren't specifically tied to the Fenris discussion, but you get the idea.

Atrilial wrote...

Well, maybe the issue is more that we
haven't had enough opportunity, given the constraints of the game, to
really dig into Fenris. 

That's plausible, but it also recognizes that an issue exists, doesn't it?

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 22 avril 2011 - 12:31 .

[Pseudo the Mustachioed]

I found it pretty easy to empathize with the other characters, which is why my supposed difficulty empathizing with Fenris among other reasons has lead me here.

Modifié par Pseudocognition, 22 avril 2011 - 12:31 .

[autumnyte]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I'm not sure yet.  At this stage it's just a feeling, and that feeling is that I think the interpretations of Fenris' character posted so far - by both thread regulars and folks like me who just dropped in for this particular tangent - seem more inherently contradictory than the others.  And we've all played the same game.

In your Aveline example, only the evaluation of her performance as city guard seems to be directly contradictory, and even that is something we could take aside and evaluate objectively.

Interesting. You may be right.  I'll admit that I tend to get a different sense of Fenris each playthrough I do, depending on my character, class and relationship with him.  How much of that is due to character design vs. me viewing him through the lens of my choosing? I can't really say. 

Maybe I'm unusual in this, but I will say that I also tend to have radically different feelings for Anders each playthrough. During certain playthroughs, he feels very self-serving, disingenuous, hypocritical and wishy-washy. Other times, he strikes me as giving, selfless, compassionate and dedicated to his cause. 

The rest of the companions leave me with a relatively static impression, so I'm not sure what accounts for the difference. 

[Hekateras]

Weird, I don't see anything about Fenris as confusing. A lot of it is intriguing and makes me want to know more, but in my in-game experience, learning more never resulted in me going "Wait a minute! That doesn't make sense at all!"

There are some details you're surprised to learn, like his sort of devoutedness to the Chantry. There are things you're also surprised to learn but that make sense in hindsight, like the illiteracy thing. There are things that are surprising and that you couldn't have suspected by yourself, but which explain a great deal, like the Fog Warriors story.

Just because we're able to pick apart his character for many pages on end doesn't make him confusing. Could we have more specific examples of what makes him confusing, please?

[Atrilial]

Hehe, we are confused on whether he's confusing. Sorry, ignore my stupidity.

[upsettingshorts]

But like igpd was saying, those seemingly contradictory aspects of Anders' character begin to make sense when you examine him under the lens of his own internal consistency. Take selfless vs. selfish for example: His selfishness can manifest itself in selflessness because his internal desire to serve the demands of justice (the superego) - clouded by his own mortally biased views of mages - dictates it does. In that sense, when he is selfless it is due to fact he (Anders' ego) is satisfying his new id (Vengeance).

This is especially interesting because Anders' friendpath helps him to reconcile his id and his ego, whereas the rivalpath forces a conflict and mental breakdown in which the id is victorious.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 22 avril 2011 - 12:41 .

[Hekateras]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

To be fair, while the "Does this guy's life suck?" approach to character criticism does demand a certain amount of empathy, I'm not sure, "How well is the fact this guy's life sucks conveyed by the narrative? does.

The story game isn't about Fenris. There's no reason why it should go out of its way to convey how much his life sucks. He has his own story within that story. It takes effort and taking him everywhere and thinking and feeling for him to get the most complete image of who he is and what he's been through, yes, but I don't see why it should be any different.

I mean, we have Anders - the guy driven to terrorism by his obsession - and we learn practically nothing of why his life sucks, specifically, to make him this way. He's never directly impacted by anything the Templars do that he doesn't bring on himself. He sees other people suffer, yes, but the only stated reason for why he's no selfless enough to go out of his way to improve the lives of others is just that "Justice helps him do it". It's basically stated in what he says - he wasn't courageous/strong enough to actively pursue that cause, then he merged with Justice, now he is. And yet people are nitpicking about Fenris for his suffering not being showcased enough?

[lizzbee]

ipgd wrote...
Complex and confusing aren't the same thing. I'm the kind of person that spends months fretting over and writing long pathetic essays about video games and I still can't figure Fenris out. I'd like to, but he's not very... established.

You have a character like Anders who is very contradictory and messy and tangled up, but most of the core parts of his character are concrete and his internal contradictions are central to his person and self-acknowledged throughout the narrative of his character arc. You need hedge clippers to wade through that mire, but if you spend the time, he at least makes sense within his own context. With Fenris, he's just sort of... I don't know. He's a little of a lot of things but not much of anything.

Anders isn't that messy from a pure character standpoint.  You've got two people within Anders-- a straight-up idealist, and a more fun-loving happy-go-lucky type.  As the game progresses, it's pretty easy to chart where his personality is going as he steadily becomes more radical and his old self is subsumed by the new.  I didn't need too many hedge-clippers to see he was falling apart, especially when he advertized his conflicts to me in each conversation.  He's pretty straightforward to me, TBH, though the "Goddamnit!" moment still got me my first playthrough.  Anders is also an extravert-- and a loud one at that.  Doesn't make me like him any less, but he's definitely not that complex.

Fenris is the opposite.  He's inward-focused, and is trying to build his own identity after having it erased.  He slowly opens up as he starts to trust Hawke, but it takes time to establish that trust.  Introverts take a long time to truly get to know, from what I've heard from non-introverts.  Can't really say for sure myself, considering I am one.  I see him as a character who is slowly working his way up Maslow's Heirarchy, working from base survival to more high-level needs like companionship, love and self-esteem.  These things take time, trust, and changing circumstances, especially for more inward-oriented people.  They also require at least a little bit of hope

[Hekateras]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

But like igpd was saying, those seemingly contradictory aspects of Anders' character begin to make sense when you examine him under the lens of his own internal consistency. Take selfless vs. selfish for example: His selfishness can manifest itself in selflessness because his internal desire to serve the demands of justice - clouded by his own mortally biased views of mages - dictates it does. In that sense, when he is selfless it is due to fact he (Anders' ego) is satisfying his new id (Vengeance).

This is especially interesting because Anders' friendpath helps him to reconcile his id and his ego, whereas the rivalpath forces a conflict and mental breakdown in which the id is victorious.

The ego/ID/superego model is popular, but it's just a model invented by some guy many years ago, and not taken seriously by any psychologist nowadays. It's also just a way of looking at things, at categorising them. I don't see how the ability to fit Anders into that model makes him more complex or less confusing. If anything, I don't think the ability to be fit into neat boxes or labels speaks that well of a character.

Again,  I have to ask what exactly about Fenris doesn't make sense when examined under the lens of his own internal consistency.

EDIT: Lizzbee said it beautifully. I honestly don't see what's confusing about Fenris at all. Maybe it IS just an extrovert/introvert thing, though. Maybe you have to be closer to introverted to get it. That would explain a great deal of the rather binary  "unable to empathise with him" vs. "totally empathising wtih him" issue here.

Modifié par Hekateras, 22 avril 2011 - 12:46 .

[upsettingshorts]

@Hekateras:

I believe the point of contention here is that dedicated, intelligent people have made attempts at getting that complete image and either failed or believe they've succeeded, but this results in contradictory interpretations even among his most devoted fans.

With regards to the story not being about Fenris, I'm not sure that's the argument you want to be making to me, as I kind of hate that. Why can't it be about Fenris, too? Why must he simply be there, like an isolated solitary Rubik's cube?

With regards to Anders, specific examples of his character not encountering the issues he describes seems an issue of gameplay/story segregation, which clearly is not limited to his character but permeates the whole game.

That this particular tangent is nitpicking the ambiguity/confusion/subtlety of Fenris' character is an attempt, at least on my part, to answer my initial question.

[Tanathir]

Maybe Fenris is confusing some people because he is written with more true to life characterization.  I know in real life, people are not consistent with their own personalities, or they say or do things that seem out of character.  Fenris has contradictions up the wazoo: he dislikes abuse of magic (not mages, as has been pointed out) but he befriends/falls in love with a mage Hawke, he loses his temper but is introspective and melancholy, he is stuck in some ways but changes and develops over the years.

Fenris is a round character, is the term used in writing.  He sees his own flaws but temporarily forgets them and later realizes the need to apologize.  He emos about being a slave but works toward changing that mentality.  He is justified in having a temper.  He is subtle in many things yet a powerhouse too.

I admit, the voice and the attractiveness was what first hooked me.  Then I took a deeper look at Fenris and found even more appeal.  If he was only a white haired pretty boy, my like for him would have fizzled out already.

[lizzbee]

Pseudocognition wrote...

Hekateras wrote...

No. People are not claiming that he is hopeful and optimistic. People are claiming that he's gotten better at those things in the course of the game. Which he has. Compare "Fenris after the Deep Roads" with him not having much contact with anyone outside of mercenary missions, and "Fenris three years later", who "wouldn't miss" card night with Varric, meets up with Donnic every week, occasionally goes praying at the Chantry and works with Aveline to root out slavers.

Yet he claims to have no friends during Alone?

Depends also on when you do that quest.  Usually it's my first out of Act 3.

[upsettingshorts]

Hekateras wrote...

The ego/ID/superego model is popular, but it's just a model invented by some guy many years ago, and not taken seriously by any psychologist nowadays. It's also just a way of looking at things, at categorising them. I don't see how the ability to fit Anders into that model makes him more complex or less confusing. If anything, I don't think the ability to be fit into neat boxes or labels speaks that well of a character.

Then why aren't you in his thread, doing what I'm doing now?  Maybe you'll run across a better interpretation?  That's just the first thing that came to mind for me.

Hekateras wrote...

Again,  I have to ask what exactly about Fenris doesn't make sense when examined under the lens of his own internal consistency.

I'd suggest going back to when I first brought this up, and keep track of how many different responses I either criticize, accept and try to defend from additional criticism, or indeed how many sidetracks created by the discussion result in tangents debating the nature of Fenris' character to begin with.  Because the general feeling of whiplash I got from that whole discussion is the one I'm basing this theory on now.

Tanathir wrote...

Maybe Fenris is confusing some people because he is written with more true to life characterization.  I know in real life, people are not consistent with their own personalities, or they say or do things that seem out of character.

Yes they are and sure they do.  They do, of course, defy simple labels.  But people are situationally very consistent.  Or so my limited education on the subject has led me to believe.

The situation part is key.  Like how Anders can be selfless when it comes to cats and mages, but is pleased when you sell Fenris into slavery, or blow up a building and start a war to satisfy his conscience.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 22 avril 2011 - 12:50 .

[Addai]

ipgd wrote...

Atrilial wrote...

Maybe that just means he's a very complex character?

Complex and confusing aren't the same thing. I'm the kind of person that spends months fretting over and writing long pathetic essays about video games and I still can't figure Fenris out. I'd like to, but he's not very... established.

You have a character like Anders who is very contradictory and messy and tangled up, but most of the core parts of his character are concrete and his internal contradictions are central to his person and self-acknowledged throughout the narrative of his character arc. You need hedge clippers to wade through that mire, but if you spend the time, he at least makes sense within his own context. With Fenris, he's just sort of... I don't know. He's a little of a lot of things but not much of anything.

Seems perfectly and logically established to me.

DA2 characters just aren't that developed as a whole IMO.

[Hekateras]

+1 to Tanathir. It's odd, because extremist people like Anders or Merrill presumably aren't actually people most players are experienced in dealing with in real life. However, such characters are frequently used in stories, so we're more familiar with them.

Fenris's issues and traits are less straightforward. I agree that he seems more like a round character, like someone who could feasibly exist as a person. Anders... I don't know, he feels a bit too caricature-like to me. The same goes for Merrill, and especially Isabela, despite her depth, though it's more a result of the writers milking every opportunity to highlight her "hot pirate wench" persona than anything else (too much, IMO).

Fenris is the only one (apart maybe from Varric and Aveline) who makes me forget that I'm playing a game when I'm talking to him. He's there, and he reacts in these sometimes unexpected ways and his emotions go this way and that and he complains, then apologises, giving the conversations themselves a realistically unpredictable dynamic. He feels *real*.

And I still really want to hear what precisely about him is confusing or doesn't make sense when analysed with the lense of his internal consistensy.

[UrsulaCousland]

Hekateras wrote...

His sister - an actual source of hope and optimism for the future, remember - has just sold him out to the person he hates most AND has been revealed to be not only a mage, but a Magister-in-training, with everything that implies. He has also just found out that a lot of his identity (the parts revolving around "These markings weren't given to me by choice!") has been based on falsehood, and he has trouble coming to terms with what he's learned of his pre-amnesia self.

Yeah, I can imagine how he might be having an emo moment after that.

Some empathy, please!

Amen. And this holds whether we think his sister was being led on by Danarius or not.  I can only imagine coming a little unglued while trying to make sense of all that. This is one of the many places where I think it's very easy to see Fenris as a sympathetic character, if you've been around him enough to figure out he isn't just an anti-mage emo ****.

Hekateras wrote..
Also, tell me honestly you've never said anything like "Nobody likes me" in the presence of people who obviously or potentially do just to provoke them into reassuring you. It's a perfectly natural behaviour mechanism to extract comfort.
*snip*

Oh, I've done this. Far more often than I care to admit. Has it ever been true? No. (Thank the Maker.) I would imagine that's true for practically everyone here. 

[autumnyte]

Tanathir wrote...

Maybe Fenris is confusing some people because he is written with more true to life characterization.  I know in real life, people are not consistent with their own personalities, or they say or do things that seem out of character.  Fenris has contradictions up the wazoo: he dislikes abuse of magic (not mages, as has been pointed out) but he befriends/falls in love with a mage Hawke, he loses his temper but is introspective and melancholy, he is stuck in some ways but changes and develops over the years.

Fenris is a round character, is the term used in writing.  He sees his own flaws but temporarily forgets them and later realizes the need to apologize.  He emos about being a slave but works toward changing that mentality.  He is justified in having a temper.  He is subtle in many things yet a powerhouse too.

I admit, the voice and the attractiveness was what first hooked me.  Then I took a deeper look at Fenris and found even more appeal.  If he was only a white haired pretty boy, my like for him would have fizzled out already.

Well said. I don't find Fenris to be confusing, and I find I enjoy his contradictions because they make him seem more real and three-dimensional to me.

While I do find myself discovering new and different aspects of his character each time I play through, I think that speaks to him having depth. 

[upsettingshorts]

Heh, it's amusing to see you use that terminology because my Hawke - a character devoted to peace and stability - viewed Fenris and Anders as the extremist zealots in the party that gave him the most headaches. Merrill's particular brand of crazy seemed far more self limiting.

Anders could have been a character in The Looming Tower and he wouldn't have been out of place to me.

In terms of the realism of characters and which ones make me realize I'm talking to a digital actor voiced by some guy in a studio... I don't think we're going to find much common ground there given how the discussion seems to be going.