57020 réponses à ce sujet

[DreamerM]

ademska wrote...
lmao no i'm just remembering from a while ago the picture you had in your head that involved liquefaction, that's why i'm stuck on the gore.

Perhaps I just liked the word "liquification." Lexiophilia is a weakness of mine. I thought it fit the situation but it was, by no means, a core element of it. The actual destruction was much more important.

ademska wrote...
but really all of this goes back to the heart of the matter, which is that you think the loss of life should have been more touched-upon, but really that wasn't the point of the scene.

It should have been. The Chantry itself may be an important symbol to the characters in the world that it takes place in, but us, the players, can more easily connect to the human element. Either way, I think they should have actually conveyed some pathos, some sense of the gravity of the event, rather then just "ooh here's some bright pink lights, imagine the rest for yourselves now while we go do something else." They had a scene were you got to see the reaction INSIDE the Chantry, so they knew we would have to see the faces involved, that doing the whole thing from outside wasn't going to work to yay for that much. But we didn't just need to see it we needed to feel it. And not neccessarily with Gore. But with something. Give us something to work with.

ademska wrote...
now this is most certainly up for debate, but the point is that anders killing people isn't the most important aspect of that scene at all.

Just like Anders being possessed wasn't the most important aspect of his character at all. I can't help but think Justice ended up just a McGuffen used so that his later actions wouldn't have to be explained in messy, pedestrian, human terms. He's possessed by his cause, literally. So his actions don't really have to make logical or emotional sense.

ademska wrote...
aw, i like these discussions! i find myself very amenable to incorporating good points people from other perspectives make into my own interpretation of the game, so only bow out if you feel tired or too frustrated to go on - because i'm deffo not getting mad at you or anything!

I do need to sleep for now. I keep missing the keys involved in replying coherently. I may pick this up when consciousness returns.

EDIT: Crap, top of the page? Well here's my favorite bit of fannart that I've come accross so far.

Modifié par DreamerM, 04 juillet 2011 - 07:47 .

[AndreaDraco]

A really good rendition of Anders for you, fellow forumites!


By Sweetfoxy7 (I couldn't find the right author link so I settled for this)

Modifié par AndreaDraco, 04 juillet 2011 - 11:07 .

[legbamel]

ademska wrote...
to be honest, it's my opinion that the death toll isn't particularly high. the chantry is closed at night to the public, and it was night when the explosion happened. we see like three people in the main hall, and given that within the chantry itself we see four walls of windows, there probably aren't a lot of areas that are inaccessible to the player and thus full of people. now this is most certainly up for debate, but the point is that anders killing people isn't the most important aspect of that scene at all.

I disagree that the death toll wasn't high.  From where is Elthina coming when she wanders down those stairs to watch Petrice get the arrow?  Where do you think all of the brothers and sisters that serve a Chantry that size live?  What was up the ladders in those storage rooms and behind those roped-off black doorways?  What's in those wings that come around at the top of the stairs when you enter the building?

It's enormous and it's built on top of a mountain (meaning the possibility of caves or other underground chambers/rooms).  There are likely dozens of people in that building.  I don't recall a lot of windows anyway, but even if all we saw was the "cathedral" part of the Chantry where Elthina went boom you can't discount the idea that the people you saw there over time have to live somewhere.  They certainly didn't have swanky Hightown apartments to which they retires.

And of course there's the toll of the flaming debris raining down over Kirkwall and any subsequent fires.  That's all down to JAnders.

[Arquen]

Someone said something to me today that made me laugh a bit, and think about DA2. We were having a conversation about serial killers and well.. killers and psychopaths in general.

He said "People always get tangled up in trying to find the reasons why people do the things they do. As if the reasoning behind the act will make the act itself more forgiving. As if knowing the reason why the way they are and why they do the things they do somehow makes what they do forgivable or deserving of less punishment. Really, the act itself should be what people are punished for, and not the reasons they commit them. Reasons don't make it better."

I don't think I agree with this, but it was an interesting thought none the less. Made me think of Anders. He commits this act of murder and mass destruction, and people seem to push it aside as forgivable, or less harmful than it actually is because of the reasons behind why he does it. It does not make the act any less deplorable, even to Anders himself, but somehow we forgive him because we connect and understand why he does it.

Food for thought...

[beckaliz]

 So it's not a matter of gore anymore, which is my impression of how the discussion started. It's a matter of emotional impact. Now, with my copy of the xbox version, I got Sebastian for free, so I tend to forget that people don't want to pay for him and don't have him around. TBH when I first saw Chantry-go-boom, I was, as I said, in shock, but I suppose it would have been more emotional if, for example, we had seen a city street nearby with people staring in horror for a moment. Not that I'd had this idea before this debate, mind you.

On the other side of that, it had enough of an impact that I definitely felt betrayed, and it was enough for me to execute him on a friendmance where I adored him and thought him sweet, and run crying to Fenris on my next PT. (Not sure though if it's what made me side with the Templars or if it was just what happened to Mother and the kidnapping of Bethany and just Correm having had it to HERE with all the blood mages in Kirkwall.)

At the end of the day, as much as I absolutely adore pathos, I honestly can't think of a good way they could have shown more of it, so I'd rather leave well enough alone.

Better to underdo it than overdo it and let the player fill in the gaps. Because they do seem to have done their best to make both sides, Mage and Templar, look equally bad throughout the whole game. I'm sure that they didn't want to force a particular emotional response from the player. They just presented it for what it was: boom. If they showed people in the city going "AAHHH OH NOOOO!" that would be like saying, "Yeah this is how Hawke should feel."

If this game does anything, it's let you draw your own conclusions from the events therein. (For example: Mother's death = that man was crazy. Or Mother's death = these Kirkwall mages are psychotic. Or Mother's death = all mages are dangerous and deserve to be locked up.) They want you to fill in your own gaps with pathos or vindication, or whatever your flavor of Hawke would get out of the event.

Modifié par beckaliz, 04 juillet 2011 - 01:40 .

[YamiSnuffles]

From what I've gathered both inside this thread and out, a lot of people were hugely emotionally impacted by what happened just as it was presented to them. I've heard plenty of who had to leave the game for a while just so that they would be in the right state of mind to continue. In general, at least for people who didn't know it was coming, there seems to have been some sort of shock. It was enough to make people who loved Anders, kill him or at least very seriously think about killing him. It was enough that some people refuse to ever romance him again, ever like him again, or even give his character serious thought ever again.

So while not every single player was affected by the scene as it was presented I'd say most people were. Having it be sort of mundane (a bomb instead of some over the top display of abomination powers that Anders might not even have) makes more people connect to it. People can understand a building being bombed. Everyone has some sort of real life connection to that. They can feel all sorts of things because of the fact that, hey, people bomb buildings in real life.

Honestly, saying we didn't get to see more details sort of reminds me of the people who wanted more graphic romance scenes. Ignoring the people who wanted because of ooh pixel pr0n, there are people who have argued that the romance scenes are ineffectual because we don't get to literally see Hawke physically close to his/her lover. Without that physical connection, they claim they don't feel the emotional connection. I think the romance scenes establish what they need to just fine without getting into more detail. Just like I think the Chantry Jenga does what it needs to just fine. We see people inside the Chantry. We see the actual building get ripped apart. We see fire and debris. We see bodies in the streets. We hear about looting. I could go on. My point is, we get what we need. It might not be enough for some people, but, honestly, it will probably never be enough.

I apologize for the mini wall-o-text.

EDIT: @ Arquen- We have to look at why someone did something, at least to some extent, to make a fair judgment. Let's say the action is someone killed someone else. Normally people would say that was inexcusable. But if you find out they killed someone because that person was threatening their child? It becomes more acceptable. Or if they killed someone in self defense, it suddenly becomes almost entirely acceptable. Killing another person could still be wrong- even in self defense- but it's acceptable. What I'm saying is, someone might feel terrible about the fact that they ended another life even if their own life had been threatened.

Or, to give another example, a lot of people think it is fine that soldiers kill other soldiers. It is viewed as acceptable killing. A soldier could very well kill other people because he thinks it needs to be done but still feel guilty about it. War is sometimes viewed as a necessary evil.

So, in the case of Anders, yes he did a despicable thing. Some people excuse him because of his mental state (or condemn him further). I do not. I am willing, in some small way, to accept it as a necessary catalyst to start a revolution. It was a horrible thing, but it might eventually lead to something good (better lives for mages, etc.).

I don't know if any of that made sense or even related to what you were saying. I just wanted to say I do think there is a point in looking beyond terrible actions to the people behind them. There is nuance to the world and shades of grey.

Modifié par YamiSnuffles, 04 juillet 2011 - 01:50 .

[beckaliz]

AndreaDraco wrote...

A really good rendition of Anders for you, fellow forumites!


By Sweetfoxy7 (I couldn't find the right author link so I settled for this)

I love Ser Pounce-a-lot in his belt pouch. 

[kromify]

Arquen wrote...

Someone said something to me today that made me laugh a bit, and think about DA2. We were having a conversation about serial killers and well.. killers and psychopaths in general.

He said "People always get tangled up in trying to find the reasons why people do the things they do. As if the reasoning behind the act will make the act itself more forgiving. As if knowing the reason why the way they are and why they do the things they do somehow makes what they do forgivable or deserving of less punishment. Really, the act itself should be what people are punished for, and not the reasons they commit them. Reasons don't make it better."

I don't think I agree with this, but it was an interesting thought none the less. Made me think of Anders. He commits this act of murder and mass destruction, and people seem to push it aside as forgivable, or less harmful than it actually is because of the reasons behind why he does it. It does not make the act any less deplorable, even to Anders himself, but somehow we forgive him because we connect and understand why he does it.

Food for thought...

*nom nom* 

his blowing up the chantry actually made me want to understand anders better, i suppose he suddenly became far more intruguing. 

understanding people makes it easier to distance yourself from their wrongdoing. it leads to compassion and forgiveness if you let it which some folk are simply not prepared to do, because it's a lot easier to hate than forgive.

which brings me to the differences between the penal systems of britain and america, although i am no expert on the subject. in britain we are all about the rehabilitaion of prisoners, which obviously cannot be done without understanding how they got there in the first place. that is the first step of a long and varying road to preventing repeat crimes.
in america (even less of an expert) the system seems to me to be very much about punishment. i suppose if you want examples i can call on solitary confinement, which we talked about probably 500 pages back! also the death penalty, and the sheer number of american prisoners in proportion to other countries.

anyway, i cannot imagine anyone being able to understand JAnders. 2 distict and very real personalities that's not multiple-personality disorder must be very confusing to a shrink!!!  


that was some food Arquen!  

[YamiSnuffles]

kromify wrote...


his blowing up the chantry actually made me want to understand anders better, i suppose he suddenly became far more intruguing.

Haha, yes, there's this too. The Chantry Jenga is probably the only reason I ended up in this thread, so long ago. I came here because I wanted to vent all the crazy feelings Anders ended up eliciting from me through his downward spiral and big end-game bang. I wanted to know how other people felt about this and how they explained it.

Him doing something horrible made me want to understand him better. Had he not done that at the end, I probably would never have gone to the extent I have in analysing his character. I'm sure I still would have wanted to talk about him, I just wouldn't have read/contributed to almost 1900 pages of a thread.

Oh, and this isn't necessarily targetted at you kromify. You just made me think of something I hadn't much before. So you became food for thought and I'll nom you.

[DreamerM]

beckaliz wrote...
At the end of the day, as much as I absolutely adore pathos, I honestly can't think of a good way they could have shown more of it, so I'd rather leave well enough alone.

Bioware clearly agreed with you. Get in, make the point, get out and make it the gamer's problem to worry about the emotional and psychological fallout, or lack theroff.

Like the way they handled Sibling's death. You don't even see the knife, or the funeral. It's all off-camera, and it should have been heartbreaking. Like with the climax, we get the idea of what happened, but the nasty parts aren't ever shown, so we just continue with our game.

beckaliz wrote...
Better to underdo it than overdo it and let the player fill in the gaps. Because they do seem to have done their best to make both sides, Mage and Templar, look equally bad throughout the whole game.

They didn't do even close to "their best" to make both sides look bad. They would have us Annul the Circle to solve their crazy-blood-mage Apostate problem, which makes as much sense as dealing with a back of stay dogs by obliterating the pound/aspca. But that's not a conversation for the Anders thread. 

beckaliz wrote...
They want you to fill in your own gaps with pathos or vindication, or whatever your flavor of Hawke would get out of the event.

Which is where the accusation that "all the best stuff happens offscreen in DA2" comes from. Because you have to "fill in your own gaps" so often that eventually you need to stop and notice that if "your own gaps" are more interesting then what was onscreen...then maybe you're working harder then they did.

[kromify]

YamiSnuffles wrote...

Oh, and this isn't necessarily targetted at you kromify. You just made me think of something I hadn't much before. So you became food for thought and I'll nom you.

OW! gerroff me you crazy loon. i do NOT make good sandwiches *nurses bite mark*  <_<

[ipgd]

DreamerM wrote...

So his actions don't really have to make logical or emotional sense.

But they... do. Even if you have some compulsion to view Justice as some outside malignant force puppeteering Anders, which he isn't, Justice is still depicted as a character with humanity and clearly defined and explained emotional motivations. He's not the Idol.

Modifié par ipgd, 04 juillet 2011 - 02:45 .

[YamiSnuffles]

kromify wrote...

YamiSnuffles wrote...

Oh, and this isn't necessarily targetted at you kromify. You just made me think of something I hadn't much before. So you became food for thought and I'll nom you.

OW! gerroff me you crazy loon. i do NOT make good sandwiches *nurses bite mark*  <_<

*sulks... goes to join Anders in nomming some Templars*

[DreamerM]

ipgd wrote...
But they... do. Even if you have some compulsion to view Justice as some outside malignant force puppeteering Anders, which he isn't, Justice is still depicted as a character with humanity and clearly defined and explained emotional motivations.

This reminds me of the arguement that Sabastian's reaction is supposed to emphasize the tragedy of what happened, even though Sabastian himself is a highly optional character.

You need to play Awakening for "Justice" to be a character. The Justice we meet in DA2 is just Anders when he gets angry. If he has any other characteristics at all, then he displayed them offscreen. And for every gamer who sits down to analyze "oh but if you look at it THIS way and consider THIS and remember THIS bit of Codex and THIS scene that I just made up then it MAKES SENSE" there will be ten more who just say "....what a jerk" and get on with their days.

ipgd wrote...
He's not the Idol.

I think Meredith was, in the end, given more humanity then Anders was, simply because of that. Her failings were phychological, moral, empathic and unforgivable, but they were not political.

Plus when in doubt, you can always say "The Crazystick made her do it!" Nobody's willing to use Anders's equivalent of that.

Modifié par DreamerM, 04 juillet 2011 - 03:21 .

[kromify]

YamiSnuffles wrote...

kromify wrote...

YamiSnuffles wrote...

Oh, and this isn't necessarily targetted at you kromify. You just made me think of something I hadn't much before. So you became food for thought and I'll nom you.

OW! gerroff me you crazy loon. i do NOT make good sandwiches *nurses bite mark*  <_<

*sulks... goes to join Anders in nomming some Templars*

that's better  

[ipgd]

DreamerM wrote...

This reminds me of the arguement that Sabastian's reaction is supposed to emphasize the tragedy of what happened, even though Sabastian himself is a highly optional character.

You need to play Awakening for "Justice" to be a character. The Justice we meet in DA2 is just Anders when he gets angry. If he has any other characteristics at all, then he displayed them offscreen. And for every gamer who sits down to analyze "oh but if you look at it THIS way and consider THIS and remember THIS bit of Codex and THIS scene that I just made up then it MAKES SENSE" there will be ten more who just say "....what a jerk" and get on with their days.

You tend to not get the full experience when you skip installments in a series.

Just because you didn't see it or want to wish it never happened doesn't mean it didn't happen. Obviously, if you ignore entire sectors of a series, your perspective of it will be lacking.

Plus when in doubt, you can always say "The Crazystick made her do it!" Nobody's willing to use Anders's equivalent of that.

Because Justice is not an equivalent to the Idol. He is a person. He has his own personal and emotional motivations for doing what he does. He is not a singular, mindless force acting upon Anders's mind to warp him into insanity and unaccountability. If you took Justice entirely out of Anders, either of them would still have reasons to blow up the Chantry. His nature as an abomination is entirely incidental to that one act; it wouldn't necessarily have made much more of a difference if they were separate and merely working together. He didn't have to be an abomination to do what he did, and he didn't do what he did because he was an abomination. His nature as an abomination is a characterization issue.

[FieryDove]

AndreaDraco wrote...

A really good rendition of Anders for you, fellow forumites!


By Sweetfoxy7 (I couldn't find the right author link so I settled for this)

So talented, just awesome. +kitta is a huge ++++

[YamiSnuffles]

You can blame the Anders prompt group for this one:


You gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night, like the 4th of July

[beckaliz]

DreamerM wrote...

beckaliz wrote...
At the end of the day, as much as I absolutely adore pathos, I honestly can't think of a good way they could have shown more of it, so I'd rather leave well enough alone.

Bioware clearly agreed with you. Get in, make the point, get out and make it the gamer's problem to worry about the emotional and psychological fallout, or lack theroff.

Like the way they handled Sibling's death. You don't even see the knife, or the funeral. It's all off-camera, and it should have been heartbreaking. Like with the climax, we get the idea of what happened, but the nasty parts aren't ever shown, so we just continue with our game.

beckaliz wrote...
Better to underdo it than overdo it and let the player fill in the gaps. Because they do seem to have done their best to make both sides, Mage and Templar, look equally bad throughout the whole game.

They didn't do even close to "their best" to make both sides look bad. They would have us Annul the Circle to solve their crazy-blood-mage Apostate problem, which makes as much sense as dealing with a back of stay dogs by obliterating the pound/aspca. But that's not a conversation for the Anders thread. 

beckaliz wrote...
They want you to fill in your own gaps with pathos or vindication, or whatever your flavor of Hawke would get out of the event.

Which is where the accusation that "all the best stuff happens offscreen in DA2" comes from. Because you have to "fill in your own gaps" so often that eventually you need to stop and notice that if "your own gaps" are more interesting then what was onscreen...then maybe you're working harder then they did.

I agree with you about the sibling death. There are 3 options for sibling's fate: templar/Circle, warden, and death. Mother's death is certain, sibling's is not, so that could be why they didn't put more time into it. (Might be part of their rush-job with the game as a whole.) But they should have had something more than Varric's comment when you get back to the city and the out-and-about comments that your companions have. They did such a good job with Leandra's death, and that poignant moment with Hawke sitting on the edge of the bed... I actually think I cried.

To clarify what I meant by making both sides look equally bad, it wasn't the "bad" part that was important, it was the "equally" that I wanted to get across. But whatever they are equal in, I don't know that showing both sides worse than how they're already presented would have a better impact. Both sides have reasonable individuals who have done nothing wrong, so making the two groups as a whole look worse wouldn't be "fair" to them. They want you to be able to agree with at least one side over the other.

I'm halfway in agreement with you, though. Showing more of the average citizen's reaction to the bombing would have been nice. But I think that, for the player to make their final decision in the game, they were right to let us have our own reaction to the bombing without forcing us to see it as heartbreaking for Hawke.

[beckaliz]

ipgd wrote...

Because Justice is not an equivalent to the Idol. He is a person. He has his own personal and emotional motivations for doing what he does. He is not a singular, mindless force acting upon Anders's mind to warp him into insanity and unaccountability. If you took Justice entirely out of Anders, either of them would still have reasons to blow up the Chantry. His nature as an abomination is entirely incidental to that one act; it wouldn't necessarily have made much more of a difference if they were separate and merely working together. He didn't have to be an abomination to do what he did, and he didn't do what he did because he was an abomination. His nature as an abomination is a characterization issue.

I disagree that Anders would have done it on his own. It's less likely that he would have, anyway. He would have been able to stay more emotionally stable and come up with more strategically sound measures. It's an act of desperation as he feels Justice's pressure inside his head urging him to get something done FASTER MORE NOW.

Not to say he wouldn't have done anything at all, though having Justice in his head drove his whole change of demeanor that led him to fight so hard in the first place.

[DreamerM]

ipgd wrote...
You tend to not get the full experience when you skip installments in a series.

But Downloadable Content is not an "installment in a series." It is bonus material, something you pay for when you want a little extra.

I think if it is essential, it should be included when you buy the game. The simple fact that it is not means the people who's vision crafted this story viewed it as optional and felt that you should be able to have a fullfilling experience without it.

ipgd wrote...
Because Justice is not an equivalent to the Idol. He is a person. He has his own personal and emotional motivations for doing what he does. He is not a singular, mindless force acting upon Anders's mind to warp him into insanity and unaccountability.

You could have fooled me. Whatever Justice is in DA2, he's definitely not a character. He seems more like a personification of the political obsession that drives Chilean gurrellas, the Tamil Tigers and the IRA to slaughter in the name of freedom.

ipgd wrote...
If you took Justice entirely out of Anders, either of them would still have reasons to blow up the Chantry.

Then why combine them at all? We got hit with the POLITICS hammer many many times during Anders's story so if that's the POINT of his whole plotline, then why muddle that by also making him a supernatural monster... and then doing absolutely nothing with it?

[kromify]

i don't know if they did show them both equally. i would be interested to see the numbers for how many people sided with mages or templars and whether this changed throughout playthroughs. from what i gather from the forums most players chose templars most of the time, but a fair few sided with mages in the first PT then templars in the other. how accurate that is i don't know!!!
compassion is easy until you can imagine crap affecting you!

[ipgd]

beckaliz wrote...

I disagree that Anders would have done it on his own. It's less likely that he would have, anyway. He would have been able to stay more emotionally stable and come up with more strategically sound measures. It's an act of desperation as he feels Justice's pressure inside his head urging him to get something done FASTER MORE NOW.

Not to say he wouldn't have done anything at all, though having Justice in his head drove his whole change of demeanor that led him to fight so hard in the first place.

I'm not saying Anders would have done it on his own. I am saying that his nature as an abomination specifically is not responsible for that one action. It is a catalyst for the characterization and emotional state that made the choice possible for him, but that he is specifically an abomination is incidental by that point.

[kromify]

DreamerM wrote...

ipgd wrote...
You tend to not get the full experience when you skip installments in a series.

But Downloadable Content is not an "installment in a series." It is bonus material, something you pay for when you want a little extra.

I think if it is essential, it should be included when you buy the game. The simple fact that it is not means the people who's vision crafted this story viewed it as optional and felt that you should be able to have a fullfilling experience without it.

just because it isn't essential doesn't mean it doesn't informative and valuble to the experience. a dlc that had nothing to do with anything wouldn't be very popular...

[beckaliz]

@ipgd

Ah, gotcha. I agree with that.