3 réponses à ce sujet

[Captain Hammer]

I've been thinking about this over the past couple of days, and I'm not really sure. I think there's evidence for both sides of the argument. I should point out, first, that "late" doesn't mean "in the last month or so." Of course, we saw her in the promos, but I'm talking about late in the writing of the game, which happened (at least for the most part) earlier than the development and advertising.

Was Isabella ever supposed to be part of the story to begin with? Let's look at the evidence for and against (please feel free to add your additions to the list, and no flaming please).

For:
1. Extremely Sexualized
       This one needs little explaining.

2. Character much more two-dimensional and unpredictable (in a bad way) than other companions
        We meet Isabella in the hanged man fighting some chumps in a bar. She kicks tail, looks and acts sexy and ****ty, and apparently, as we find out in the next mission, doesn't like slavers. The hatred of slavery is the only thing that binds every one of your companions, and its the most basic and easy value that one could put on a character to make her seem noble. Could it be that there wasn't enough time to write a more sophisticated set of values?

3. Things that give friendship/rivalry are incredibly erratic
        This could be rolled into the above item, but I think it distinguishes itself enough to deserve a list item of its own. Getting Isabella to like you through normal questing is really difficult. As she doesn't have a realistic set of values, the things you do seem to randomly add or remove friendliness.

4. Need some...company tonight?
      Remember this line at the end of the demo? If you go to visit Isabella in the hanged man after this in the full game, however, all you get is a quest. This line was obviously shoehorned into the game to be the last line in the demo (which I think is really dishonest and tacky, but that's only my opinion). Of coruse, she wasn't written FOR the demo, but it lends credit to the idea that she was a marketing ploy from the beginning.

5. She's the only character you have to stumble on; she isn't written into the main story.
      A lot of people, if you take a look at the forums, missed Isabella altogether. You have to happen to walk into the hanged man after Tranquility but before the deep roads, and, if you knocked all your business with Varric out of the way already, you have no reason to do this. All of the other characters run into you whether you like it or not.

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Against:
1. She's the only dual-weapon rogue
     This one's really tough to get around. I can't imagine that the original plan was to have Varric as the only rogue unless Hawke was a rogue him/herself. Either Isabella was planned all along, or she somehow replaced another rogue character before the late stages of development.

I need some more people to add arguments against. I had them, but they totally fell out of my mind while I was writing this. Halp!

[LeaveMeAlone9009]

In her defense, she's always been sexualized, ever since DAO. One sentence, and youre doin her. Getting her pirate herps.

[Stalky24]

...she was fine. Sure, she was pure stereotype, but I had fun with her. Especially her discussions with Varric.

[bookwurmneo]

I kind of felt that they had planned for sexualized dual wielding rogue and then decided to use Isabella as a link to Origins. My main problem was that Isabella has some important links to the second act story line but as the OP said was completely missable.