Goldens wrote...
[snip]
Um, okay. So is the designers' desire here to trick people in their presentation of the story, and then blame those poor dupes for trusting that the story was true as presented?
It's just ridiculous, and not really more or less than that.
If a writer succesfully "tricks" his audience he has done a good job. The technique is known by various terms but people most often refer to that broad body of "writing tricks" as a "twist".
It's reasonable to say, "Hey! I thought she was dead! WTF is going on!" and to want some kind of explanation - though there is no guarantee you'll get one; another type of "writing trick" involves leaving as much as possible to the reader's imagination. That said, in this specific situation, you know it's (at least) a trilogy, there's more than a slim chance that some sort of explanation will be forthcoming.
Just because you haven't had the explanation yet doesn't mean there isn't going to be one, and demanding one NOW and getting annoyed because you haven't had one yet is... absurd, to be polite about it. Have you never read a lengthy multi-book serial and been left waiting for the next book in the series, or been watching a TV show that came with some kind of season-end cliffhanger? This is
exactly the same as getting peeved at those writers for not giving you the whole story right there and then. You just need to have a bit of patience.
Finally, that "it's gonna turn out how
we want it" thing. It's the author's universe. They can do whatever the hell they like with it - and
they are the only one that can. For all that this is an "interactive storytelling" medium, and sure, one of the hallmarks of quality in the medium is how thoroughly the illusion of choice can be created for the player, ultimately it is the writer and the writer alone* who decides how the story will go, not the player. Bioware is remarkable for generally doing an impressively good job in their games of hiding that illusion of choice and making the player feel like they really have an impact, however superficial that impact might actually turn out later to be. However good the illusion, though, it is still the author's universe, not the players.
And yes, that means the writer can bring back a character from the dead, if they want to,
and they don't even have to tell you why. Fans who
don't have an entitlement complex might be inspired to things like discussion of the possibile explanations, trying to figure out what's going on. Fans
with an entitlement complex, of course, **** out the author for not writing the way they wanted. Or they write terrible fanfiction (see
FanWank at TVTropes.)
*I say writer alone, but I would imagine in this scenario it's a team of writers, and there are other elements of the game design team who necessarily have significant input into the writing process. Writing for a game is not the same as writing a book. The principal remains, though.
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