65 réponses à ce sujet

[LobselVith8]

Vhalkyrie wrote...

I find this particular argument from Merrill supporters to be very ironic. Basically, Merrill is asking Hawke to fill a Templar role. As in, kill a weak willed possessed mage if a harrowing goes wrong.

It's not a templar role, it's a role other Dalish perform when the Keeper becomes an abomination, one that likely predates the Order of Templars and the Chantry of Andraste.

Sarah1281 wrote...

Why is it odd to say that Merrill blames things on the Keeper a lot? She does. It doesn't matter if it's deserved, she still does. And what I was talking about was when Hawke accuses of Marethari of sending the hunters to their death, Merrill defends her saying it was usually safe.

They get into disputes over the Eluvian and the tool, but I don't think Merrill blames Marethari a lot because the dialogue with Hawke and the companions focuses more on other issues than the Keeper.

Sarah1281 wrote...

Uh, no. The worst-case scenario is the abomination killing Hawke & co. and then going after the Dalish and then maybe the people in Kirkwall. Not everyone is aware that Hawke is the protagonist and thus has plot armor.

Merrill is aware that Hawke has killed abominations before, and even defeated a Pride Demon. Why would he fall now? He's proven how capable he is over the years, so I don't see why Merrill would or should have doubted his ability. It's not like an abomination has never been defeated before, and Hawke is right there to kill her if it went too far.

[LobselVith8]

tmp7704 wrote...

Dan-mac RI wrote...

Merrill seems fairly successful in getting the demon to help without really giving anything in return which would make me think that she's not the target, merely a tool to get to Marethari.

We don't exactly know that. For example, the demon makes Merrill perform blood magic ritual on the mirror claiming it is to remove the taint from it. While that could just as well be part of what the demon wanted.

Since the taint was removed (since Merrill is not a ghoul), why do you doubt whether the taint is gone or not?

[Emperor Iaius I]

Basically, it's ok for Hawke to ask Merrill to risk her life helping him fight High Dragons, Pride Demons, Fade Creatures, Templars, Mages, whatever but asking Hawke to stand by just in case something goes wrong in the mirror is just beyond the pale.

[Meyne]

I didn't read every answer fully, but the issue of Pol:

Remember guys, Pol was raised a City Elf, an Andrastian. He even nearly thanks Andraste when you first arrive before correcting himself. He was raised in a world where mages go to the Tower, apostates are dangerous people and blood mages the biggest boogeymen ever. He can set aside some of that with thinking differently about a Keeper and a First than he would about "traditional" mages in his life, but blood magic negates all that.

The Keeper may have told the people about the chance of the tainted Eluvian spreading the Taint through Merrill and of the whole blood magic deal and Merrill running a risk of possession. And while it made the clan angry at Merrill, I think if she renounced all that they would have taken her back eventually - she'd have a lot to prove but I think Merethari would have aided her in that. HOWEVER, Pol again had heard all his life about maleficar - his reaction would be horror and fear of what Merrill is, especially while she's still an outsider to the clan. Pol grew up with too much fear over the possibility of demons and blood magic control, the sort of fear that drives most people, City Elves and Humans alike, to turn over mages in their families.

Merethari did not spark fear in the clan, they just had a more focused worry and distrust involving Merrill instead of a general version of all that if they hadn't known why she and Merethari had a disagreement. Pol was susceptible to those fears though, so that was just all him sadly. I think Merethari wouldn't hide much from the clan about another member, so his reaction was all his own, note no one else does more than be a little hostile or, early on, wish to talk Merrill out of her actions.

[Blacklash93]

Why Marethari didn't just tell Merrill of the demon's plan is a mystery to me.

She could have just unbound it and have had Hawke kill it.

[LadyBri]

If Marethari made any mistake it was loving Merrill too much. I always got the impression that the Varterral turning on the Dalish was because Merrill unleashed something evil through her association with the demon and her work with the mirror which caused the Varterral to attack instead of protect.

I also never got the impression that Marethari was operating under the demon's influence until she actually beat Hawke & Co. up the top of the mountain to sacrifice herself so Merrill would not be in danger of possession.

As far as Feynriel, I'm a huge mage supporter, but I think it's fair to say that Marethari's warning that he might have to be made tranquil was important to keep in mind. If he became an abomination with such unique powers then it would be disastrous, so Hawke should have heard the warning while also knowing that there might be a chance to save Feynriel.

Marethari should have accepted sooner that Merrill was determined to go down this path and left for the sake of the clan, or even joined with the clan to force a confrontation with Merrill for the safety of everyone. I can understand she loved Merrill like a daughter, but she didn't put the entire clan's needs first. But, I do feel sympathy for her because her flaw is easy to relate to.

[Emperor Iaius I]

Blacklash93 wrote...

Why Marethari didn't just tell Merrill of the demon's plan is a mystery to me.

She could have just unbound it and have had Hawke kill it.

PRIDE.

*ominous music*

[tmp7704]

LobselVith8 wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

Dan-mac RI wrote...

Merrill seems fairly successful in getting the demon to help without really giving anything in return which would make me think that she's not the target, merely a tool to get to Marethari.

We don't exactly know that. For example, the demon makes Merrill perform blood magic ritual on the mirror claiming it is to remove the taint from it. While that could just as well be part of what the demon wanted.

Since the taint was removed (since Merrill is not a ghoul), why do you doubt whether the taint is gone or not?

I'm not doubting the taint is gone. I'm just pointing out we don't know if that's all the ritual did.

[tmp7704]

Emperor Iaius I wrote...

Blacklash93 wrote...

Why Marethari didn't just tell Merrill of the demon's plan is a mystery to me.

She could have just unbound it and have had Hawke kill it.

PRIDE.

*ominous music*

Marethari did unbound the demon and let Hawke kill it.

She simply didn't want that to happen at the expense of Merrill's life, and chose to give her own instead.

Not seeing pride in it. Love would be more like it. And if there's any PRIDE it's in the "just let Hawke kill it" mindset since that involves unshaken belief  Hawke can kill anything the game can throw at him/her. (which is generally true but that's the OOC knowledge based on the "plot armour" aspect)

[Torax]

Blacklash93 wrote...

Why Marethari didn't just tell Merrill of the demon's plan is a mystery to me.

She could have just unbound it and have had Hawke kill it.

Pride on Merrill's part wouldn't let her listen to anyone who opposed her. Including the Keeper, Hawke and so on. She was so sure of herself, whether or not she truly was powerful enough to fend off the Pride Demon? That is the debate mostly in regards to say the Friendly or Rival romance arguments in this thread. But the writers probably were just going with the basic story of an extremely powerful pride demon that was so strong it was trapped there instead of letting go into the fade or let loose in the past.

Merrill's pride doesn't let her listen to anyone around her. Not her entire tribe, all your companions and basically every person she's come across. I'd give her points for confidence but it's a fine line if you are willing to sacrifice everything you have and sacrifice destroying the lives of those around you. Blindly watching as everything falls apart by keeping your eyes shut to the problems around you. Keep your eyes shut while you fixate on a broken object that when you first knew of it actually doomed the lives of two of the very clan you claim to love.

It makes her lovable character have more depth and a kind of dark side. Merrill is a kind hearted character but she has a blind pride in two key parts of her life. The first is that she knows more than anyone without truly listening or trusting those around her. Lastly the pride that the Dalish are better than all other Elves. Maybe that is even more part of it. She'd be known as the one who fixed an Eluvian? Merrill the saviour of her Clan and of all Elves on Thedas? At least she is quick to admitt she doesn't understand outside cultures, even if she rarely considers them as they apply to her.

[dantares83]

To OP

although u made a few fair points but I still led to believe that she did all those things because she loved Merrill too much. It was one of the saddest scenes in the game.

[Vhalkyrie]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Vhalkyrie wrote...

I find this particular argument from Merrill supporters to be very ironic. Basically, Merrill is asking Hawke to fill a Templar role. As in, kill a weak willed possessed mage if a harrowing goes wrong.

It's not a templar role, it's a role other Dalish perform when the Keeper becomes an abomination, one that likely predates the Order of Templars and the Chantry of Andraste.

Blood magic forbidden among the Dalish predates the Chantry.  The minute Merrill turned to blood magic, she turned her back on the clan and traditions.  She cared more about the eluvian than her people.  Merethari loved Merrill more than anyone else in the clan.  Both are to blame for the outcome.  Either the Dalish are slaughterd by Hawke, or the Dalish have no Keeper.  It was one of the most tragic moments in the game.

Modifié par Vhalkyrie, 29 mars 2011 - 11:12 .

[LobselVith8]

Torax wrote...

Pride on Merrill's part wouldn't let her listen to anyone who opposed her. Including the Keeper, Hawke and so on. She was so sure of herself, whether or not she truly was powerful enough to fend off the Pride Demon? That is the debate mostly in regards to say the Friendly or Rival romance arguments in this thread. But the writers probably were just going with the basic story of an extremely powerful pride demon that was so strong it was trapped there instead of letting go into the fade or let loose in the past.

Is it pride? Merrill wanted the restoration of a two thousand year old piece of technology she felt could help her people, since their goal is the restoration of their fallen civilization. I don't see any "pride" in her willingness to sacrifice her life for her people. Considering multiple characters follow what they believe is right, including the protagonist Hawke, I don't see how that's pride, but rather following what they think is the correct course of action.

Torax wrote...

Merrill's pride doesn't let her listen to anyone around her.

She does listen, even on rivalry if you have no faith in Merrill and refuse to support her goals, but she's following a path she believes will help save her people.

Torax wrote...

Not her entire tribe, all your companions and basically every person she's come across. I'd give her points for confidence but it's a fine line if you are willing to sacrifice everything you have and sacrifice destroying the lives of those around you.

 
She's not willing to destroy everyone and everything around her, because she's only risking her life when she deals with Audacity.

Torax wrote...

Blindly watching as everything falls apart by keeping your eyes shut to the problems around you. Keep your eyes shut while you fixate on a broken object that when you first knew of it actually doomed the lives of two of the very clan you claim to love.

An object that she thinks can help her people restore their lost civilization. It's no different than the Warden making the trek into the Frostback Mountains for the Urn of Sacred Ashes when there's the threat of a Blight looming over the nation of Ferelden.

Torax wrote...

It makes her lovable character have more depth and a kind of dark side. Merrill is a kind hearted character but she has a blind pride in two key parts of her life. The first is that she knows more than anyone without truly listening or trusting those around her.

Merrill never says she knows more than anyone else. She's following the path she believes to be right - which is something all the characters are guilty of. The Keeper Marethari does the same thing when she becomes an abomination and puts the entire clan at risk when there was no one close by to kill her the moment she become something other than a Dalish elf.

Torax wrote...

Lastly the pride that the Dalish are better than all other Elves.

Are we taking Fenris' accusation as fact now?

Torax wrote...

Maybe that is even more part of it. She'd be known as the one who fixed an Eluvian? Merrill the saviour of her Clan and of all Elves on Thedas? At least she is quick to admitt she doesn't understand outside cultures, even if she rarely considers them as they apply to her.

Merrill never says she'll be a savior to her people, but her focus is that she wants to save them, to help them, to restore the forgotten secrets of Arlathan. She's willing to use blood magic and lose everything and everyone she ever cared about in order to achieve this goal.

[tmp7704]

LobselVith8 wrote...

She's not willing to destroy everyone and everything around her, because she's only risking her life when she deals with Audacity.

If the deal with demon goes wrong then she is only the first victim, with demon having free reign to murder many more people. (and before the obligatory "Hawke would save the day" counter happens, her contact and deals with the demon started long before Hawke even appeared in the picture)

[LobselVith8]

tmp7704 wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

She's not willing to destroy everyone and everything around her, because she's only risking her life when she deals with Audacity.

If the deal with demon goes wrong then she is only the first victim, with demon having free reign to murder many more people. (and before the obligatory "Hawke would save the day" counter happens, her contact and deals with the demon started long before Hawke even appeared in the picture)

If Hawke is right there to kill her the moment she becomes an abomination, I disagree. Considering Marethari accepted a demon into her with no one around to kill her until long after the fact, I see the two scenerios being entirely different.

[tmp7704]

LobselVith8 wrote...

If Hawke is right there to kill her the moment she becomes an abomination, I disagree.

Hawke wasn't there when Merrill was dealing with the demon for the first time, it was long before Hawke even met Merrill's clan. She has already risked life of her own and many others, with nothing but faith in her own ability to rely on.

It didn't end in disaster, but it doesn't mean she didn't put many more people than just herself at risk.

[Torax]

Point being Merrill stopped caring about her tribe strictly because they wouldn't support her in wanting to restore something that cost the lives of 2 of their clan already. She was doing exactly what Flemeth warned her not to. Had her eyes shut to everything about her tribe except her goals. The only focal point she even really has after that is the Mirror and following Hawke. She believes she is helping her people without really knowing for sure. She isn't even as concerned about things like losing the Halla compared to her more pressing matter, a broken mirror that only brought trouble to her and her tribe. I don't even want to know how she carried all of that from Fereldon to Kirkwall.

Modifié par Torax, 29 mars 2011 - 02:10 .

[LobselVith8]

tmp7704 wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

If Hawke is right there to kill her the moment she becomes an abomination, I disagree.

Hawke wasn't there when Merrill was dealing with the demon for the first time, it was long before Hawke even met Merrill's clan. She has already risked life of her own and many others, with nothing but faith in her own ability to rely on.

It didn't end in disaster, but it doesn't mean she didn't put many more people than just herself at risk.

Since we have no information about what happened the first time, it's impossible to know if there was any risk involved.

Torax wrote...

Point being Merrill stopped caring about her tribe strictly because they wouldn't support her in wanting to restore something that cost the lives of 2 of their clan already.

If she was doing it for her people, then it's inaccurate to say she didn't care about them.

Torax wrote...

She was doing exactly what Flemeth warned her not to. Had her eyes shut to everything about her tribe except her goals.

According to your speculation on what Flemeth meant.

Torax wrote...

The only focal point she even really has after that is the Mirror and following Hawke. She believes she is helping her people without really knowing for sure.

Like the Warden did when he went after the Urn of Sacred Ashes, or Hawke when he went into the Deep Roads for his family.

Torax wrote...

She isn't even as concerned about things like losing the Halla compared to her more pressing matter, a broken mirror that only brought trouble to her and her tribe. I don't even want to know how she carried all of that from Fereldon to Kirkwall.

She thinks the Eluvian will save her people - she's looking at the bigger picture. And she only carried a piece of the broken Eluvian, and extrapolated the information from the piece and all the lore she gathered after she cleansed it.

[Torax]

Btw, I really wouldn't compare things like a 7 year hope that a Mirror will magically fix all the problems she's provoked over the years to the Hero of Fereldon's maybe 2 week hunt for an Urn. The Urn that was demanded by the Arlessa and was verified by a Scholar. One took a short bit of time. The other is a many years of guess work and dealings with demons. Is it a point when an argument is going no where if we're degrading to trying to point out PC Plot Armor versus figurative thought.

Both the Keeper and Merrill are at fault. They're trying to help each other without listening. It was both of them. I doubt the Keeper would have ever let them move once she found out Merrill made a deal with said demon.

Btw I'm still not sure from their whole story wise. Isn't it a strange coincidence that Flemeth needed her amulet in the same spot as where the demon was stored? Or did Merrill keep the tainted bits with her uncleansed for over a year? Lazy from story plot to give the final mission local reference? Meh.

Modifié par Torax, 29 mars 2011 - 03:19 .

[LobselVith8]

The Warden should have been able to tell Bann Tegan and Arlessa Isolde how foolish it is to put the entire nation at risk for a venture into the Feostback Mountains for a mythical and mystical artifact when the entire nation is at risk from darkspawn and the Archdemon. Since canon forces the Warden to head to Haven, I don't see why we can't compare Merrill researching the Eluvian with the Warden putting all of Ferelden at risk on the hunt for a magical Urn. Plot armor or not, the story decision forced the Warden to endanger the entire nation for this quest, and in comparison Merrill isn't endangering anyone but herself when she goes to deal with Audacity.

Again, Torax, I don't see why Merrill should be blamed for the actions for an adult who had a responsibility to her clan and her people.

Regarding the shard, Gaider said she extrapolated information from the cleansed shard and lore she had gathered in order to create a new Eluvian. As for Flemeth, I don't think its a coincidence. The Dalish likely went to Sundermount at her behest, since Marethari admits they were waiting for Hawke.

[Torax]

I wasn't saying that part. I'm saying how did she contact said demon who happened to be trapped there in Kirkwall to cleanse it via Fereldon. or did she carry a tainted shard that I didn't see pick up for more than a year?

[LobselVith8]

Based in what Gaider said, it seems that she grabbed it initially when she went to the tainted Eluvian, and cleansed it later. I guess she didn't physically make contact with it, which is how she avoided getting corrupted by the taint.

[Torax]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Based in what Gaider said, it seems that she grabbed it initially when she went to the tainted Eluvian, and cleansed it later. I guess she didn't physically make contact with it, which is how she avoided getting corrupted by the taint.

I just tend to take the story as the following.

Merrill: But if He wanted her to spread her faith, couldn't she do that better alive?

Sebastian: The Maker gave us free will. By his betrayal, Maferath showed us that men were not yet worth saving.

Merrill: I don't know. It's a nice story, but I think it's got some holes.

These plot debates work in the same fashion. You have the story presented to you and the holes people could debate for days.

[Vhalkyrie]

Torax wrote...

Btw I'm still not sure from their whole story wise. Isn't it a strange coincidence that Flemeth needed her amulet in the same spot as where the demon was stored? Or did Merrill keep the tainted bits with her uncleansed for over a year? Lazy from story plot to give the final mission local reference? Meh.

Did you get the chance to play the Dalish Origin story?  The soon-to-be Warden and Tamlen find a strange ruin while the camp was in Fereldan.  Inside they find the Eluvian, which eminates pure evil.  It mesmerizes Tamlen, he touches it and disappears.  The not-yet-Warden returns to the mirror with Merill and Fenarel to try and find Tamlen.  They find Duncan.  He explains that the mirror is Tevinter in origin used for communication.  Over time, they break, and become filled with the same taint as the darkspawn.  Duncan destroys it.  Even then Merrill was obsessed with it.  She wanted to go back and learn more about it.  Duncan tells her to leave it alone.  Merrill most likely comes back at a later point to retrieve it.  I'm not sure if it was a plot hole or not, but originally the Keeper did want Merrill to retrieve a piece of the eluvian because the Keeper wanted to study it.  Duncan told Merethari that was unwise.

After your character leaves with Duncan, the clan disappears to escape the blight.  According to the early stages of DA2, the clan has only recently settled on Sundermount, presumably told by Flemeth to go there.  Merethari tells Hawke she had a debt to repay to Flemeth, so it is likely Flemeth saved the clan just as she saved Hawke, and setup the meeting on Sundermount.

Modifié par Vhalkyrie, 29 mars 2011 - 04:35 .

[Torax]

I played Origins. Should also point out that if said Warden commits the Ultimate Sacrifice, Merathari shows up at the Funeral. What then for time for line. Just saying, plot and holes.