57020 réponses à ce sujet

[berelinde]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

berelinde wrote...
This is just one of the many places where I wished there were more dialogue options. The most glaring for me, though, isn't the Chantry incident. It's when Anders visits you after you have already been with another lover. I want an option to say "I wouldn't have gone with him/her at all if you had not told me to stay away!" Where is that option, I ask you? So I invariably choose the tacky "You're the one I really care about" and mutter the other at the screen.Every time. My fiance laughs at that.

Haha, adorable.

I do wish I could yell at Anders for insulting Fenris without breaking up with him. Because I'm sorry, that's not the way to handle this situation, and your constant weird-ass slurs toward Fenris are the thing I like LEAST about you, Anders.

To be fair, Fenris gives it right back. Many times, I've wanted to punch the pair of them for bickering. But then, I think "be careful what you ask for." Their rivalry is annoying, but it is amusing, too.

Edit: For ToP. Kind of appropriate. By Gone-Batty

Modifié par berelinde, 20 juin 2011 - 02:01 .

[highcastle]

berelinde wrote...

highcastle wrote...
... He wished Anders would trust him with this, but at the end of the day, he goes along with it because maybe if he trust Anders, Anders will trust them. It doesn't work, but such are the perils of a dysfunctional relationship.

Noah trusts Anders in an attempt to make him more trustworthy? I love that. It also rings a bell, wish I remember where I heard it. This is one of those times where I wish I was better-read. That's a principle of some philosopher or other, but I am unable to remember the connection.

Aha. Found it.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love that quote.

And yes--going off on a personal, fanfic related note here (sorry everyone who doesn't read it; you can skip this)--trust is a big thing with Noah. His dialogue in the final chapters of A Distant Ray of Light even has him point-blank asking Anders why he didn't trust him with this. Now, in my head and in The Whole Sky Shaken, I have Malcolm basically entrusting the family's survival and protection to Noah. Obviously, this doesn't work out so well. So in some sense, he sees Anders not trusting him as an affirmation of his own failures. As in, perhaps Anders doesn't trust him because Noah's not worthy of being trusted. Noah's self-esteem is not really the greatest.

Okay, tangental personal character anecdotes over.

Modifié par highcastle, 20 juin 2011 - 02:19 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

One of the things I like best about the "friendly" threads on the boards (this one, Garrus, and FemShep in particular) is that they are all places where "let me tell you about my character" is both accepted, and also usually fascinating.

[Maaia]

but it is also quite easy to roll a sexy custom

Well, "Gavin" is actually a custom. I was quite pleased with him. Seems like the male Hawkes aren't as customizable as the female Hawkes - at least on PS3.

if you find yourself unable to resist our feathery darling, keep an eye out for the different dialogue as a male hawke! at the very least flirt with him in act 1, he gives a brilliant speech on love and gender and such

I am very familiar with the alternate dialogues - YouTube and all - and reading this thread for so long. Will be interesting to see them in-game though!

hello! do i detect a table-topper? no one else "rolls" characters

Heh...no, guess I'm just old. Former WoW player, too.

Am I a bad person for saying that I was more impressed with the explosion than upset at the loss of the Chantry? The scene was probably the best one in the game, in my opinion, and watching the red beam tear the building apart, suck it up into the air and then scatter the debris out of the city had me in awe. I wanted to turn to Anders and say, "man, how did you manage to make a bomb like that? Let's take the recipe back to Ferelden!"

I thought it was pretty awesome when I first saw it. I got goosebumps and thought it was a great scene. MW2, Grand Theft Auto, etc. strike me as much more violent and morally questionable, but I guess DA2 hit a nerve with people.

[YamiSnuffles]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

One of the things I like best about the "friendly" threads on the boards (this one, Garrus, and FemShep in particular) is that they are all places where "let me tell you about my character" is both accepted, and also usually fascinating.

I know I always enjoy hearing about other people's characters. It has been especially fascinating to see all the different Hawke/Anders dynamics. Obviously there would be a difference in the relationship between a friend or rival Hawke, but there seem to be a lot of big differences between various friend Hawke relationships and rival Hawkes. So, as people posted recently, many friend Hawkes seem to not have questioned Anders at all when it came to the Justice quest. Whereas my friend Hawke questioned him endlessly.

EDIT: Derp. Forgot the whole point I was getting at. Basically, when someone does something completely differently than the way I did it, I always ask, "Why?" Having people explain their Hawkes goes a long way to answer that.

Modifié par YamiSnuffles, 20 juin 2011 - 02:41 .

[highcastle]

Maaia wrote...

I thought it was pretty awesome when I first saw it. I got goosebumps and thought it was a great scene. MW2, Grand Theft Auto, etc. strike me as much more violent and morally questionable, but I guess DA2 hit a nerve with people.

I think the reason DA2 hit a nerve is because of the very real-world connotations that scene carries with regards to recent terrorist acts. I mean, I had family in New York on 9/11. I didn't live very far away at that point. So images like that, while yes impressive in a way, still always drudge up memories like that. Which meant I was one of those people staring at my screen going, Goddammit, Anders! It took me a good ten-fifteen minutes to try to put myself and my own personal emotions aside and just focus on what my character would be thinking and feeling.

[xRiseAboveThis]

GailRana wrote...

So, is almost everyone who loved DA2 Anders also an Alistair fan? If so, that's kind of interesting. I guess they do have the same "deflect with humor" tendency and such.

That's what I would have thought, but looking through DA2 discussions in various places on the internet, it seems to me that many/most Alistair fans prefer Fenris over Anders. Which is confusing, because Alistair and Fenris are different in just about every way possible.

(Omg, I've posted here four times in the past week. I am no longer a lurker! )

[SurelyForth]

I'm an Alistair fangirl, but a weird one who started transitioning to Anders after Awakening came out.

And I know several Alifans went to Sebastian, too, which makes more sense than Fenris to me, if we're going by type.

For me, the Anders relationship has aspects of all of the DAO romances, depending on how you play it. Friendmancing him, especially if you're a Hawke who is very much for mage freedom, is similar to the Alistair/Warden Us v. the World mentality I get. Anders is sweet but creepy, like Leliana (which I dig, although I know many loathe her sweepiness) and there's the whole Event At the End That Can Make You Doubt Everything like the DR is if you're romancing Morrigan.

As for Zevran, the whole broken man angle is very much in play with Anders. Obviously. [/rambling]

[highcastle]

Well, personally I tend to play male characters and slash romances when I have that option. So in Origins I was pretty much restricted to Zevran. And I like him a lot, don't get me wrong, but options would have been nice. I played the Al romance once with a female character, and I also enjoyed it, but I didn't get quite as attached as I did to the Anders arc in DA2. To me, this one's probably the best romance arc in a BioWare game to date (or any game, now that I think on it).

Yes, Alistair had the drama with the Dark Ritual and the throne...but he's fairly upfront about his feelings on both aspects. It's a crap situation, but everyone acknowledges that it's crap. Whereas Anders is secretive and uncommunicative, which adds another layer of depth to the relationship.

As for Zevran, yes he was a bit of a broken bird and I liked that part of the relationship was putting him back together, but I'm far more interested in watching things fall apart before they get reassembled. Anders' arc gives us the whole spectrum of a relationship, instead of just pieces. We get the falling in love, the happiness, the downfall, and even the attempt at reconciliation leaving it wide open for continuing evolution. It felt far more organic to me than anything we've seen before.

I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't label myself a Zevran or Alistair fangirl, but I'd definitely call myself an Anders fangirl.

[Reflection Muse]

xRiseAboveThis wrote...
That's what I would have thought, but looking through DA2 discussions in various places on the internet, it seems to me that many/most Alistair fans prefer Fenris over Anders. Which is confusing, because Alistair and Fenris are different in just about every way possible.

(Omg, I've posted here four times in the past week. I am no longer a lurker! )

I can understand where certain Alistair fans would find themselves connecting with Fenris. He's almost knightly in some of his qualities, once you get past the very raw bitterness and hatred he uses as both a shield and a purpose. He's very noble, loyal, and protective, whereas Anders is more nurturing, sweet, and tender. Both have their own levels of vulnerability, which makes them feel more human to me, though it's harder to get down to the core of Fenris's (I feel the real breaking point with him is the realization that he's faced with if you spare his sister).

Both have personality qualities that people liked in Alistair, so I think it depends on what it was you were/are really drawn to.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Anders' relationship also has what I call "The Batman problem."

Batman is awesome and handsome and great. The problem is that being Batman will always come first, and he can't let himself get close to people because he's afraid he'll hurt them, or that other people will hurt them to get to him, etc etc. Batman is a lot like Anders only with less actual murder and less neediness. I originally thought that the whole "having a cause greater than one's own happiness" thing meant that Batman could only have a stable relationship with another person who also had something else in their life that would always interfere. This is why my first ever "ship" was Batman/Catwoman - because Batman will always have Batmanning, and Catwoman will always have theft/conservation. Since they're both constantly having to leave or betray each other, neither of them ever feel cheated. It is the perfect bargain, and it works.

Later, the DCAU would cause me to stray from the idea that Catwoman was literally the only solution for Batman, by convincing me that Wonder Woman and Batman also worked together, in an entirely different way. Instead of perpetually dancing together and apart and thus never reaching a state where they had to deal with actual issues, Wonder Woman was simply stable and strong enough to handle pretty much any crap that having a relationship with Batman might throw at her. Bruce would say something like "People around me tend to get hurt," and Diana would say "I'm sorry, what was that? I can't hear you over the sound of me deflecting these bullets with my wrists!"

The thing is, a lot of people like Anders (or Batman) because they're tragic. I understand and appreciate tragedy, but I always like to find the hidden way to turn a tragedy around. I don't exactly believe in happy endings, but I also believe that pretty much nothing is impossible. One of the things I like about Anders' romance is that his little train wreck is going to happen with or without you, including the whole "being in love with you" part of that particular disaster. The only thing the romance really influences is whether or not he'll have someone who has a chance to put him back together in the end.

My Hawkes who stay with Anders at the end are more the Wonder Woman solution to the Batman problem: so strong and irrevocably badass that they can deal with the crazy if it's attached to something they want. My Wardens who headcanon romance the versions of Anders who don't get a Hawke are more the Catwoman-style solution... other crazily-obsessed people who understand the idea of sacrificing love for a greater cause.

The one problem I have with the Anders romance is that the conversation options in game don't give Hawke much of a chance to be a Wonder Woman or a Catwoman kind of person. They just have her react like a normal person, someone who expects love to come first and who can't really cope when the bad things happen. And while I understand and appreciate the superior angst of that situation, it's not the one that interests me the most.

Anders is my favorite character, but I almost prefer the parts of his romance that occur off-screen to the limited narrative presented onscreen, if that makes any sense.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 20 juin 2011 - 04:03 .

[SurelyForth]

CulturalGeekGirl said what I was trying to say so much better. *should just delete my post*

Despite him being my favorite character, I think I need to fill in too many blanks in Act 2 for Anders to be my favorite BW romance arc. There needs to be at least one more conversation between sex and the Arishok and perhaps something more at the beginning of Act 3.

And, if I'm being honest, something a little more emotional at the Gallows would be nice. I don't want a kiss, and I love how optimistic he is, but I think the scene is missing something considering what (I think it) is (which is reconciliation and a renewal of commitment and maybe some "Dude, just so you know, I have this" from Hawke, to just get it through his head that s/he has this).

If I had to pick a favorite, I'd go with Garrus. While Anders' is beautifully tragic (and Morrigan broke my damn heart, which I was not expecting) there's something about the dynamic between Shepard and Garrus that I adore. I think it has to do with him not ever being intended as an LI that meant that the foundation for friendship is stronger (whereas in DA2, romancing Anders means you lose interactions that, frankly, I think are very important to his characterization) and that's just as appealling to me as all the romantic tropes that are all over the Andersmance.

Modifié par SurelyForth, 20 juin 2011 - 04:13 .

[BlueMew]

SurelyForth wrote...

I'm an Alistair fangirl, but a weird one who started transitioning to Anders after Awakening came out.

And I know several Alifans went to Sebastian, too, which makes more sense than Fenris to me, if we're going by type.

But... but... Alistair is funny! And sarcastic! And irreverent! And rather sweet... while Sebastian is, well, Sebastian 

Er. Yes. Alistair and Anders all the way. I don't love Fenris as much as either of them, but I can still see the appeal of a protective, loyal warrior while I have trouble wrapping my head around the concept of even liking the lacquered pilot whale... the only characteristics he shares with Alistair is the exiled prince thing and the tantrum when you spare the wrong (or right) life. 

[maxernst]

I'm a huge Alistair fan but I don't care for any of the male companion characters in DA2 except Varric. Of the romanceables, my fave is Isabela whose...umm...not very much like Alistair.

If we're including ME, I'm not into any of the companions that way.  I'd romance Joker or Dr. Chakwas, if I could.

Modifié par maxernst, 20 juin 2011 - 04:27 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

@SurelyForth

Nooo, don't do that! Your post brings up additional relevant points!

I'm torn between Garrus and Kaidan as my favorite Bioware romance, with Garrus probably winning in the long run (ironically because I am still upset by the Kaidan betrayal... because unlike Anders, who doubts you partially because he doesn't want to implicate you in his many crimes, Kaidan just fundamentally doubts you. Which is... different. It's complicated. Shut up!)

It's funny how a person can feel more involved with the Garrus romance, when it's so much more linear and limited in many ways... calibrations and all that. But one of the great things about Shepard is that she can be so many things to so many people. A lot of girls have their Shepards completely fall apart after Horizon, while mine just becomes quietly bitter, and both of those reactions are completely believable based on what we see on screen and hear in Shep's voice.

Both Garrus and Anders are "characters who weren't a LI and then became one by popular demand," but in some ways Anders' conversion doesn't hit the same sweet spot, and I can explain why. With Garrus, our experience with the character and Shepard's experience are the same thing. She gets to meet him as a normal friend first, and then she gets to see his personal growth, including the bits that aren't designed solely to make him attractive.

With Anders, we the players see all of his bits (I wish!) but our Hawkes are ignorant of anything that happened before DA2. This prevents us from getting that same "I knew you when" perspective on Anders that we get with Garrus.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 20 juin 2011 - 04:26 .

[highcastle]

SurelyForth wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl said what I was trying to say so much better. *should just delete my post*

Despite him being my favorite character, I think I need to fill in too many blanks in Act 2 for Anders to be my favorite BW romance arc. There needs to be at least one more conversation between sex and the Arishok and perhaps something more at the beginning of Act 3.

And, if I'm being honest, something a little more emotional at the Gallows would be nice. I don't want a kiss, and I love how optimistic he is, but I think the scene is missing something considering what (I think it) is (which is reconciliation and a renewal of commitment and maybe some "Dude, just so you know, I have this" from Hawke, to just get it through his head that s/he has this).

If I had to pick a favorite, I'd go with Garrus. While Anders' is beautifully tragic (and Morrigan broke my damn heart, which I was not expecting) there's something about the dynamic between Shepard and Garrus that I adore. I think it has to do with him not ever being intended as an LI that meant that the foundation for friendship is stronger (whereas in DA2, romancing Anders means you lose interactions that, frankly, I think are very important to his characterization) and that's just as appealling to me as all the romantic tropes that are all over the Andersmance.

Well I haven't played Garrus' arc (seriously, he'll cross boundaries of species, but gender is out of the question?!), but I've watched clips of it before. While yes, there's depth there...to me ME2 was lacking in character interaction even more than DA2. And I think I'll always want more from companions and LIs, no matter how much BioWare gives us. The companions are just that interesting that I don't see myself being sated by a set quantity of words.

I also think the gaps in DA2's conversations at least are a good thing. There's beauty to be found in negative spaces. In shrouding some of the arc, it encourages the player to fill in those gaps. I think that's precisely what so many of us have been doing in fanfic and headcanon. When any creator in any medium provides a wealth of concrete details, it lessens the margin for personal interpretation. That's why many of the best stories leave you with questions in addition to answers.

And to me, DA2 still seemed to have more LI-specific interaction than DAO. Or at least the LIs reacted to your major life events (*cough*Leandra*cough*) whereas they were glossed over in Origins. Little moments like that, or Varric's talking to or Sebastian's cautioning, they made the relationship that much more real, as much as the actual conversations with Anders himself.

Modifié par highcastle, 20 juin 2011 - 04:32 .

[FieryDove]

berelinde wrote...

My Hawkes, friends or rivals, do it because it is a small thing that Anders needs. Trust is not involved. 

I would agree with you except he throws up trust issues at the end. "And I can't tell you why". That doesn't make you go hmmm at least?

I can see why he is so bad at wicked grace, he has a horrible poker face. I knew he was up to something before anything came out of his mouth for that quest.

[Toastyblue2]

SurelyForth wrote...

Despite him being my favorite character, I think I need to fill in too many blanks in Act 2 for Anders to be my favorite BW romance arc. There needs to be at least one more conversation between sex and the Arishok and perhaps something more at the beginning of Act 3.

I agree 100%.

It's been said a million times before, but this is where DA:O excelled with their romances and DA2 fell short: the chance to chat with your love interest pretty much whenever, and the little extra scenes that popped up in camp. I'd have loved the chance to have my Marian Hawke chat up Anders at home anytime I wanted. Even if it were something completely mundane, I'd have loved it:

Marian: Ah, mail's here.
Anders: Anything for me?
Marian: Letter from Alistair, bill from the Black Emporium, May issue of Thedas News and World Report...
Anders: Nice. By the way, we're out of milk again. *whispers* I think Sandal's been drinking straight from the jug.
Sandal: ENCHANTMENT!

I always wondered why Hawke had a very nice library and there weren't any scenes in it. (Unless I've missed one.) You would think that would be Anders' favorite hang-out spot.

[berelinde]

xRiseAboveThis wrote...

GailRana wrote...

So, is almost everyone who loved DA2 Anders also an Alistair fan? If so, that's kind of interesting. I guess they do have the same "deflect with humor" tendency and such.

That's what I would have thought, but looking through DA2 discussions in various places on the internet, it seems to me that many/most Alistair fans prefer Fenris over Anders. Which is confusing, because Alistair and Fenris are different in just about every way possible.

(Omg, I've posted here four times in the past week. I am no longer a lurker! )

I don't think there is a neat flowchart to transition fans of one DA:O LI to a single DA2 LI. Mostly for the reasons SF gave, but nothing is ever that simple.

I was (and am, I suppose) an enthusiastic Alistair fan, but Fenris does literally nothing for me. As in, I feel absolutely nothing when he speaks. Or at least nothing that can be described as sympathetic. Anders has me squeeing and grumbling by turns, but everything he says elicits some kind of positive emotion, even when he's annoying. Just like it was with Alistair, there is a connection there. Sometimes, I'm annoyed at Anders's newfound pettiness (as I was with Alistair's tendency to whine). Other times, I'm cringing at the sugary things they are saying to each other (Alistair wasn't quite as bad, but it was there, to some degree). Mostly, though, my characters seem to be drawn to Anders's (or Alistair's) idealism. The dragon can be slain. Evil can be defeated. And with both characters, they make the PC a big part of their lives.

So what were the "dealbreakers"?

Fenris: The first time I heard him say "carved into my flesh," it turned me off. Every character in the game has suffered. I cannot help viewing Fenris's present obsession with his past agonies with the distaste I would feel toward someone who would continue to use their handicapped parking tag long after the injuries that caused the tag to be issued had healed. Playing diplo Hawke on a rivalry romance with Fenris was enlightening. The phrase "If you're wondering why you can't move on, this is it" really hit home. It was probably the first truly sensible thing this particular Hawke ever said.

Merrill: I adore Merrill, I really do, but I can't seem to romance her. I often mean to. It's just that I can't help thinking of her as a kind of kid sister. And that's death to romance.

Isabela: This is my second favorite romance in DA2, and third favorite of all time (Anders and Alistair are tied for first). I've got nothing bad to say about it, certainly, and I totally understand why other people like her, it's just that I, as a person, am attracted to men. So yeah, I can role-play a romance with Isabela, but my canon Hawke will always wind up with Anders. (And my canon Hawke seems to be male, which I find a little alarming, given my double-X chromosome. Still, I suppose I should be thankful I'm not cripled by gender identity issues.)

Alistair: no dealbreakers. He's tied with Anders for my favorite romance of all time.

Zevran: No dealbreakers, exactly, and I would have been all over Zev had he not appeared opposite Alistair. (Shakes fist at the powers that be.) He's probably tied with Isabela. When I'm running a male PC In DA:O, I always romance Zevran.

Sebastian: Preachy. End of the line.

Leliana: Visions? Er... no. Also, she exemplifies why I prefer males as lovers. I don't like shoes. I don't like shopping. I just don't do "girlie."

Morrigan: No dealbreakers, exactly, but I'm not really sure I grok her character. She usually winds up as friends with my PC and that's about it.

[maxernst]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

@SurelyForth


With Anders, we the players see all of his bits (I wish!) but our Hawkes are ignorant of anything that happened before DA2. This prevents us from getting that same "I knew you when" perspective on Anders that we get with Garrus.

That's a good point.  If I had been playing my Warden, who knew both Anders and Justice beforehand, my response to Anders would be very different.  But for my Hawke, learning almost immediately that his new acquaintance is joined with a fade spirit he describes as having been corrupted by his emotions...just sounds like a scary person to have around.

[BlueMew]

Hm, I don't know if I'm bothered by the fact that Hawke is ignorant of anything that happened before DA2, or if it makes the romance less special. There's plenty of people who haven't played Awakening, too. I don't own a copy of my own, btw.

You get a good look and feel at how Anders was pre-Justice from some of his remarks and conversations, enough to maybe regret what he has become way before he does anything that makes you say Goddamnit Anders!

I guess it's just personal.

[SurelyForth]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Both Garrus and Anders are "characters who weren't a LI and then became one by popular demand," but in some ways Anders' conversion doesn't hit the same sweet spot, and I can explain why. With Garrus, our experience with the character and Shepard's experience are the same thing. She gets to meet him as a normal friend first, and then she gets to see his personal growth, including the bits that aren't designed solely to make him attractive.

With Anders, we the players see all of his bits (I wish!) but our Hawkes are ignorant of anything that happened before DA2. This prevents us from getting that same "I knew you when" perspective on Anders that we get with Garrus.

Yeah, I think the strength of Shepard/Garrus is because they have a non-romantic history with each other.

Had my Warden been the PC in DA2, Anders would probably win hands down. But oh, the tragedy.
 
@Blue Mew I wonder that, too. While DA2 Anders still has a sense of humor, he's definitely lost much of the spark he had in Awakening. Much of it was deflecting, but he had genuine confidence in himself and his power and he while he was a pain in the ass, he was a delightful pain in the ass. My Hawke is attracted to DA2 Anders' selflessness and would probably like but not love Awkening Anders that much, but I feel like it's strange that she doesn't know that side of him when I do.

Modifié par SurelyForth, 20 juin 2011 - 04:39 .

[tmp7704]

BlueMew wrote...

But... but... Alistair is funny! And sarcastic! And irreverent! And rather sweet... while Sebastian is, well, Sebastian 

Well, Sebastian has potential:

[highcastle]

Toastyblue2 wrote...

SurelyForth wrote...

Despite him being my favorite character, I think I need to fill in too many blanks in Act 2 for Anders to be my favorite BW romance arc. There needs to be at least one more conversation between sex and the Arishok and perhaps something more at the beginning of Act 3.

I agree 100%.

It's been said a million times before, but this is where DA:O excelled with their romances and DA2 fell short: the chance to chat with your love interest pretty much whenever, and the little extra scenes that popped up in camp. I'd have loved the chance to have my Marian Hawke chat up Anders at home anytime I wanted. Even if it were something completely mundane, I'd have loved it:

Marian: Ah, mail's here.
Anders: Anything for me?
Marian: Letter from Alistair, bill from the Black Emporium, May issue of Thedas News and World Report...
Anders: Nice. By the way, we're out of milk again. *whispers* I think Sandal's been drinking straight from the jug.
Sandal: ENCHANTMENT!

I always wondered why Hawke had a very nice library and there weren't any scenes in it. (Unless I've missed one.) You would think that would be Anders' favorite hang-out spot.

Except, if you exhausted all your conversation options early (hello first DAO playthrough), the vast majority of your conversations were no deeper than "Wrex" "Shepherd"-esque patterns. They got a few new things to say with gifts or after certain time periods, but I was still left with a lot of empty dialogues. In DA2, you have at least 2 conversations, plus gifts, plus special reactions (like Leandra's death), plus more dialogue on quests, plus endgame stuff etc. I personally never felt like I was at a loss for things to talk about.

And the library was used in the aftermath of All That Remains. That's where Gamlen talks to you.