57020 réponses à ce sujet

[OldMan91]

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but for any Phoenix Wright fans out there... you'll get the reference.

[Sarielle]

By definition though a deus ex machina is something that was not foreshadowed and comes out of nowhere to resolve a plot. Justice was there all along, and there was plenty of foreshadowing.

[beckaliz]

Collider wrote...

Anders Loves You

.... WHAT the.....??? HA HA HA.

[Sialater]

Addai67 wrote...

ademska wrote...
you may not personally like this style of narration, but it is decidedly not a deus ex machina in any way.

I said Justice was a deus ex machina.

Ask yourself- would Anders without Justice have ever blown up a Chantry building?  If you answer yes, my next question is going to be why we needed Justice in the story at all.

That doesn't make Justice a Deus Ex Machina.  It makes him a character.

[Jean]

Collider wrote...

I've been wondering this since I haven't really been following the Dragon Age fandom until now. Is Anders a more popular love interest for female players than Fenris?

Overall I would say Fenris was made to appeal more to the mass of the female audience. This forum certainly isn't the mass of fans who play the game, but whether he actually does I couldn't tell you..

[ademska]

Addai67 wrote...

ademska wrote...
you may not personally like this style of narration, but it is decidedly not a deus ex machina in any way.

I said Justice was a deus ex machina.

Ask yourself- would Anders without Justice have ever blown up a Chantry building?  If you answer yes, my next question is going to be why we needed Justice in the story at all.

Sarielle wrote...

By definition though a deus ex machina is something that was not
foreshadowed and comes out of nowhere to resolve a plot. Justice was
there all along, and there was plenty of foreshadowing.

exactly.  justice is a character himself, as CGG has already gone to great effort to explain, and his influence over anders ultimately leads anders to take the chantry action, but it doesn't come out of nowhere.  i'm just not understanding why you believe a character's influence over another character that has been obvious from the outset is deus ex.

i mean i understand the fundamentals of your argument, that justice is not the same and we never saw the character development toward vengeance and thus vengeance isn't featured enough in the narrative to warrant his presence

and that, if you don't embrace the nuance of spirithood etc, is a valid argument

but it is not deus ex machina

Modifié par ademska, 13 juin 2011 - 08:06 .

[maxernst]

Does anybody else think that it was a mistake to introduce Justice to the player so early? I think my Hawke might have grown to like or even romance Anders had he not known about Justice from the start. As it was, he was leery about having someone around who might lose control, when he had other options for magical aid, and I used Anders only when I went into the Deep Roads, where I thought I might want a Grey Warden. The next time I had him in the party was Dissent...and then when he kills the mage, my Hawke wanted nothing further to do with him. He had given him the benefit of the doubt and Anders had proven to be an abomination.

Also, taking my cue from Justice's own comments in Awakening, I feel that Justice was already corrupted before he entered Anders. Persuading living mortals to allow a spirit in is what demons do. He's just more subtle than most, and he's even managed to dupe Anders into thinking its his own anger responsible. Justice feeds off his feelings of anger at injustice, but that's not the same thing as being warped by them.

[SurelyForth]

maxernst wrote...

Does anybody else think that it was a mistake to introduce Justice to the player so early? I think my Hawke might have grown to like or even romance Anders had he not known about Justice from the start. As it was, he was leery about having someone around who might lose control, when he had other options for magical aid, and I used Anders only when I went into the Deep Roads, where I thought I might want a Grey Warden. The next time I had him in the party was Dissent...and then when he kills the mage, my Hawke wanted nothing further to do with him. He had given him the benefit of the doubt and Anders had proven to be an abomination.

Also, taking my cue from Justice's own comments in Awakening, I feel that Justice was already corrupted before he entered Anders. Persuading living mortals to allow a spirit in is what demons do. He's just more subtle than most, and he's even managed to dupe Anders into thinking its his own anger responsible. Justice feeds off his feelings of anger at injustice, but that's not the same thing as being warped by them.

While it would have made the reveal more dramatic, people would have hated Anders even more for keeping that a secret.

[ademska]

maxernst wrote...

Does anybody else think that it was a mistake to introduce Justice to the player so early? I think my Hawke might have grown to like or even romance Anders had he not known about Justice from the start. As it was, he was leery about having someone around who might lose control, when he had other options for magical aid, and I used Anders only when I went into the Deep Roads, where I thought I might want a Grey Warden. The next time I had him in the party was Dissent...and then when he kills the mage, my Hawke wanted nothing further to do with him. He had given him the benefit of the doubt and Anders had proven to be an abomination.

Also, taking my cue from Justice's own comments in Awakening, I feel that Justice was already corrupted before he entered Anders. Persuading living mortals to allow a spirit in is what demons do. He's just more subtle than most, and he's even managed to dupe Anders into thinking its his own anger responsible. Justice feeds off his feelings of anger at injustice, but that's not the same thing as being warped by them.

CGG and others are more eloquent than i, but no, i think introducting justice at the outset was good for pacing.  moreover, anders' first quest is meant to pack a wallop early in the game about the issue of tranquility, it's serious foreshadowing, and having anders NOT react in a way that brings forth justice would require a fundamental change to either of their characters

you don't have to kill that mage, you know  i didn't on my first run, which i'm sure colored my perspective on anders first time through, certainly made my slightly batty hawke go bananas for him.

now that's just your interpretation regarding justice, though i'm not going to outright argue that kristoff's memories didn't corrupt him in some way, because it's a distinct possibility.  however, what i think is concretely established in canon is that demon vs spirit is not binary, there are plenty of shades in between. to cast justice/vengeance so simply as a "demon" and anders as an "abomination" does a disservice to the characters.  they weren't written to be simple.

[beckaliz]

CulturalGeekGirk asked if we thought that our Warden PT in DAO would influence whether we sided with Mages or Templars in DA2...

Actually, I'm really curious to see how things will go down in DA3 considering that my Warden is a mage who freed the Ferelden Circle and my Hawke sided with the Templars against the Circle in Kirkwall. He did, however, spare the mages that came up and said "OH MAH GAWD WE'RE NOT DOIN BLUDD MAJIK PROMISE!!" He didn't like Meredith but he also didn't like all the psychotic blood magic taking over the whole city. In his mind, the blood mages are as much a danger to their own kind (mages such as Bethany) as to everyone else. To his thinking, at least the Templars aren't sneaking out and doing ghastly things to people. He is torn, because he loved and respected his father and adores his sister Bethany, but what happened to his mother deeply affected him.

It would be nice to know just how many of the mages actually did attempt to surrender from the Circle. You only see like four or five but since it's a video game I think it's generally safe to assume that there was a greater number of them, and they were limited by animation restraints?

I've had too much coffee so I'm not sure if I'm articulating myself very well. XD;;

[maxernst]

ademska wrote...

maxernst wrote...

Does anybody else think that it was a mistake to introduce Justice to the player so early? I think my Hawke might have grown to like or even romance Anders had he not known about Justice from the start. As it was, he was leery about having someone around who might lose control, when he had other options for magical aid, and I used Anders only when I went into the Deep Roads, where I thought I might want a Grey Warden. The next time I had him in the party was Dissent...and then when he kills the mage, my Hawke wanted nothing further to do with him. He had given him the benefit of the doubt and Anders had proven to be an abomination.

Also, taking my cue from Justice's own comments in Awakening, I feel that Justice was already corrupted before he entered Anders. Persuading living mortals to allow a spirit in is what demons do. He's just more subtle than most, and he's even managed to dupe Anders into thinking its his own anger responsible. Justice feeds off his feelings of anger at injustice, but that's not the same thing as being warped by them.

CGG and others are more eloquent than i, but no, i think introducting justice at the outset was good for pacing.  moreover, anders' first quest is meant to pack a wallop early in the game about the issue of tranquility, it's serious foreshadowing, and having anders NOT react in a way that brings forth justice would require a fundamental change to either of their characters

you don't have to kill that mage, you know  i didn't on my first run, which i'm sure colored my perspective on anders first time through, certainly made my slightly batty hawke go bananas for him.

You DO have to kill that mage, unless you've maxed out your friendship or rivalry points with him, which my Hawke would never be able to do without metagaming.

[ademska]

maxernst wrote...

ademska wrote...

maxernst wrote...

Does anybody else think that it was a mistake to introduce Justice to the player so early? I think my Hawke might have grown to like or even romance Anders had he not known about Justice from the start. As it was, he was leery about having someone around who might lose control, when he had other options for magical aid, and I used Anders only when I went into the Deep Roads, where I thought I might want a Grey Warden. The next time I had him in the party was Dissent...and then when he kills the mage, my Hawke wanted nothing further to do with him. He had given him the benefit of the doubt and Anders had proven to be an abomination.

Also, taking my cue from Justice's own comments in Awakening, I feel that Justice was already corrupted before he entered Anders. Persuading living mortals to allow a spirit in is what demons do. He's just more subtle than most, and he's even managed to dupe Anders into thinking its his own anger responsible. Justice feeds off his feelings of anger at injustice, but that's not the same thing as being warped by them.

CGG and others are more eloquent than i, but no, i think introducting justice at the outset was good for pacing.  moreover, anders' first quest is meant to pack a wallop early in the game about the issue of tranquility, it's serious foreshadowing, and having anders NOT react in a way that brings forth justice would require a fundamental change to either of their characters

you don't have to kill that mage, you know  i didn't on my first run, which i'm sure colored my perspective on anders first time through, certainly made my slightly batty hawke go bananas for him.

You DO have to kill that mage, unless you've maxed out your friendship or rivalry points with him, which my Hawke would never be able to do without metagaming.

it doesn't require maxing, just being 50% friendship.  which, if you bring him along even some of the time, by act 2 is VERY easy to do.

on a playthrough that was pro-mage but more pro-money, where i took rivalrly hits with him for dialogue options and didn't even romance him, i still easily had the 50%.  i think i've only killed her once, on purpose.

[Addai]

Sialater wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

ademska wrote...
you may not personally like this style of narration, but it is decidedly not a deus ex machina in any way.

I said Justice was a deus ex machina.

Ask yourself- would Anders without Justice have ever blown up a Chantry building?  If you answer yes, my next question is going to be why we needed Justice in the story at all.

That doesn't make Justice a Deus Ex Machina.  It makes him a character.

a) He's not a person- he's an embodiment of a human virtue, a force.

Even if he did have some complexity in Awakening, that's gone by DA2.  So he's nothing other than an impersonal force who makes big plot things happen that wouldn't otherwise.

[Ryzaki]

I think the term you're looking for Addai is plot device. Not that I agree with your assement. 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 13 juin 2011 - 08:41 .

[maxernst]

ademska wrote...

maxernst wrote...

ademska wrote...

maxernst wrote...

you don't have to kill that mage, you know  i didn't on my first run, which i'm sure colored my perspective on anders first time through, certainly made my slightly batty hawke go bananas for him.

You DO have to kill that mage, unless you've maxed out your friendship or rivalry points with him, which my Hawke would never be able to do without metagaming.

it doesn't require maxing, just being 50% friendship.  which, if you bring him along even some of the time, by act 2 is VERY easy to do.

on a playthrough that was pro-mage but more pro-money, where i took rivalrly hits with him for dialogue options and didn't even romance him, i still easily had the 50%.  i think i've only killed her once, on purpose.

I thought it was max, but even so, my Iain still wasn't going to bring him along much because he has two other mage options with more stable personalities.  It became a little more tempting to bring him in in Act 2 because I lost Bethany and Merriill can't cast a simple healing spell, but he just seemed too risky a companion to hang around with in a city crawling with Templars, particularly given that the Templars have a hostage to use against me.  I had troubles justifying bringing along some of the DA:O companions as well, but you can argue that the Warden needs any help he can get.  Hawke's circumstances are much less desperate.

[Addai]

Ryzaki wrote...

I think the term you're looking for Addai is plot device. Not that I agree with your assement. 

A DEM is a type of plot device, sooo... that's a bit redundant.

But let's not get hung up on terminology, shall we?  I explained what I meant.

[ademska]

maxernst wrote...

ademska wrote...

it doesn't require maxing, just being 50% friendship.  which, if you bring him along even some of the time, by act 2 is VERY easy to do.

on a playthrough that was pro-mage but more pro-money, where i took rivalrly hits with him for dialogue options and didn't even romance him, i still easily had the 50%.  i think i've only killed her once, on purpose.

I thought it was max, but even so, my Iain still wasn't going to bring him along much because he has two other mage options with more stable personalities.  It became a little more tempting to bring him in in Act 2 because I lost Bethany and Merriill can't cast a simple healing spell, but he just seemed too risky a companion to hang around with in a city crawling with Templars, particularly given that the Templars have a hostage to use against me.  I had troubles justifying bringing along some of the DA:O companions as well, but you can argue that the Warden needs any help he can get.  Hawke's circumstances are much less desperate.

yeah, if i do dissent as soon as it becomes available, i tend to max him in the aftermath of it, tbh.

i can understand your reasons for not bringing anders along if that's how you interpret both his character and the potential danger posed by kirkwall templar forces, though i personally disagree with both assessments and also tend to allow for minor gameplay/story segregation. i also tend to imagine any mages in the party keep their magic only to battles where they won't be outright seen using magic.

but if you can't justify it that way, you should really try rolling a battier hawke who would have no qualms lugging anders around. getting more interaction with him might lend you some cool insight

[ademska]

Addai67 wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

I think the term you're looking for Addai is plot device. Not that I agree with your assement. 

A DEM is a type of plot device, sooo... that's a bit redundant.

But let's not get hung up on terminology, shall we?  I explained what I meant.

not really. a square is a type of rectangle, not all rectangles are squares. yeah, a deus ex is a type of plot device, and you could argue with some validity that justice in da2 is a plot device (though many including myself would disagree), but you're just outright incorrect to label him a deus ex.  he simply does not fit the definition.

and semantics are 90% of philosophical arguments so

[ejoslin]

Justice is not a Deus Ex Machina by the definition of the term even if you stretch it. Justice was there from the start and even had development -- what he made happen is consistant with the way he was before in the story. Therefore, not a DEM. And just because something is a force doesn't make them a DEM -- Gods and Spirits can be in stories without being DEMs, even if they make something major happen.

Edit: Though you  could call Meredith's sword a DEM.

Modifié par ejoslin, 13 juin 2011 - 09:14 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Addai67 wrote...

a) He's not a person- he's an embodiment of a human virtue, a force.

Even if he did have some complexity in Awakening, that's gone by DA2.  So he's nothing other than an impersonal force who makes big plot things happen that wouldn't otherwise.

I still think he's an entity, not a force. But even putting that aside... he's also a source for one, very specific character development.

Namely: the literal inability to just ignore terrible things and say "that's not my problem"

What was achieved with justice could have been achieved via non-magical character development, but it would have taken longer, taken more pointless exposition, and been less convincing. It could have been done, though.  But for me, one of the benefits of being in a Science Fiction and Fantasy universe is that we can deal with concepts more directly, more physically.

I've said this before, but Anders character development could be explained just as simply as someone who has consciously given up the ability to ignore injustice and simply do nothing. He's given up the "not my problem" response that every human must develop if they wish to remain sane.

It's like a joke by Louis CK. I can't find the riff, so I'll just murder it here. Anyway, he's been living in NYC and his sister comes to visit, and she sees a homeless man on the street. She's shocked. "Oh my god, shouldn't we help that poor man." and Louie is like "No, come on, let's get out of here" "Doesn't he need our help." "Oh yes, desperately, but we don't do that here. Come on, I'll take you to my apartment, away from... this,"

He's a New Yorker, so he has to see dozens of homeless people every day. She lives in a small town, so she's innocent enough to believe that it's possible to help everyone who is in trouble on an individual basis, even though if you're in NYC for a day you'll realize that... you can't. No one person can just decide "i'm going to help every single homeless person in NYC" and then succeed at that. And the fact that such a thing is true... it's horrible. But you know what? Thirty minutes from now when I'm eating lunch, I'll have forgotten about the thousand starving people in NYC who I can't help.

But Anders won't have. He can't. He physically can't ever stop thinking about every mage who he knows is suffering.

Now what he does at the end... yes, desperate and insane and maybe inadvisable. But if I could never physically stop thinking about all the homeless people in the world, and you told me that there was a chance that Chantry Jenga would fix it... I'm just saying.

There are other ways you could have someone go through this... this complete loss of the filters that enable one to ignore pain and poverty and injustice. Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing, or Candide-like devotion to a single unreasonable ideal. But I think that merging with a literal spirit of Justice is one of the better ways of going about it.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 13 juin 2011 - 09:07 .

[Ryzaki]

ademska wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

I think the term you're looking for Addai is plot device. Not that I agree with your assement. 

A DEM is a type of plot device, sooo... that's a bit redundant.

But let's not get hung up on terminology, shall we?  I explained what I meant.

not really. a square is a type of rectangle, not all rectangles are squares. yeah, a deus ex is a type of plot device, and you could argue with some validity that justice in da2 is a plot device (though many including myself would disagree), but you're just outright incorrect to label him a deus ex.  he simply does not fit the definition.

and semantics are 90% of philosophical arguments so

 

This is what I was getting at pretty much. A DEM is a type of plot device. Nothing more nothing less. 

[Addai]

ademska wrote...
not really. a square is a type of rectangle, not all rectangles are squares. yeah, a deus ex is a type of plot device, and you could argue with some validity that justice in da2 is a plot device (though many including myself would disagree), but you're just outright incorrect to label him a deus ex.  he simply does not fit the definition.

and semantics are 90% of philosophical arguments so

He's an external force, and specifically a supernatural force, that allows a massive plot shift to happen that would not otherwise.  To what extent it's a contrived development or one we didn't see coming- on that we can argue.  I see it as contrived.  Hence not particularly interesting.

[leggywillow]

I have answered the question of what Janders does after the Chantry explosion.  He has clearly gone into young girls' fashion!

This store kills me, because I like to imagine Justice helping kids pick out clothing.

Justice: YOU LOOK UGLY IN PINK.
Little Girl: 
Mother: <_<
Justice: WHAT?  SHE IS OBVIOUSLY A "WINTER".

[ademska]

Addai67 wrote...

ademska wrote...
not really. a square is a type of rectangle, not all rectangles are squares. yeah, a deus ex is a type of plot device, and you could argue with some validity that justice in da2 is a plot device (though many including myself would disagree), but you're just outright incorrect to label him a deus ex.  he simply does not fit the definition.

and semantics are 90% of philosophical arguments so

He's an external force, and specifically a supernatural force, that allows a massive plot shift to happen that would not otherwise.  To what extent it's a contrived development or one we didn't see coming- on that we can argue.  I see it as contrived.  Hence not particularly interesting.

but we're in agreement he's not a deus ex machina