Aluvious wrote...
Fair enough, but I don't think we needed a red eyed mad woman jumping 50 feet in the air while turning statues into impossibly flexible and complex machinery.
Yup. As I said, the jump is something I detest myself. I can justify it based on what we're presented with -- red lyrium and Varric -- but I don't have to like it.
A lot of what I don't like about DAII I just chalk up to Varric, seeing as he is the "unreliable narrator". So I'd expect things like "Meredith lept high into the air, her crimson blade cutting the blood-filled sky where she then landed with nary a wound on the platform of the Gallows..."
The statues on the other hand are golems. The DAII Collector's Edition guide labels them as such and they more or less fit the criteria that is required to make a Golem: Body of steel (sometimes stone for the Dwarves) and lyrium being what composes the Golems we face.
Normally, a Golem requires the armored body, blue lyrium, and the soul of a living person. But since this is red lyrium -- an entirely different type of lyrium -- it seems to bypass the need for a soul to create a Golem. Perhaps because whatever is inside of it is a soul of some sort and is thus more powerful then any normal Thedosian's soul.
I understand that they were trying to create a flashy climactic final battle, but she was a complete joke to fight even on Nightmare difficulty. She attacks only seldom often and spends half of the fight taking a sword to the face. Whereas Ser Cauthrien, another greatsword wielding elite boss, could take away half your health in a single hit.
That's more of an issue between the disparity in the combat system rather then based around the idea of Meredith and the idol.
sjpelkessjpeler wrote...
And TEWR; would like to know how you came to your conclusion in your second paragraph.
You mean how we can trace the idol back to Act II? Simple. Bartrand says he sold it to a woman in Act II and we know that Meredith was that woman. We find out that Bartrand broke the idol prior to selling it, however.
We know through Act III's quest Haunted that the idol is even more dangerous when broken, as Anders tells us. In the Deep Roads, it glowed immediately when Bartrand picked it up and seems to have affected him. When Varric picks up the shard in Haunted, he becomes overcome by the idol's influence immediately.
Actually, not even when he picked it up. It started affecting him when he entered the place. Not to the point where he was overcome, but it was influencing his mind subtly. When he picked it up, that's when he was overcome.
So I can assert that it must've affected her immediately when she came into contact with it. I'd also state that the only reason Hawke isn't affected is because he/she is the PC.
Filament wrote...
Still though, one could speculate that a large part of that comes from her own proclivities. The idol may have pushed her and 'amplified' her paranoia about mages, but it was there already, beneath the surface, seen in how strict and ruthless she was from the beginning.
Oh no doubt about that. It was there and you hear about it time and time again. It was certainly amplified.
And it's not really clear that the idol pushed her in that direction as early as Act II, instead of her just naturally progressing. It seems likely, but it's still speculation. She certainly is still in control of her faculties and doesn't show signs of being "disturbed" until the end. (and at the end of Act II she's still wielding a regular old sword, so she doesn't appear to carry the precious around like Gollum at least)
I think it's clear. Was for me anyway, once I saw the sword on her back in Act III's opening. I knew that it was red lyrium, even without it glowing. Haunted just cemented it.
As for the lack of the sword in Act II, that doesn't mean much really. Remember that she took the idol from Bartrand. It was still in its idol form and she had it made into a sword.
Doesn't have to be the Glowy Sword of Doom to affect her, especially when it was broken before being sold to her and was more dangerous.
Filament wrote...
Either way, my point is that when I hear "drove insane" a lot of times the association is like it literally possessed her and we weren't fighting a "Meredith" at all, just the idol. When it seems more like it simply amplified her hateful feelings. Which, I suppose, also counts as "driving insane." But not to the same degree, I think. Not in a way that doesn't still involve a fair amount of characterization to show the corruption process, which can be done fine, like with Saren in ME1 IMO.
I think that when people remark upon her insanity it's due to the fact that it just sort of invalidates any of her claims about why the Circle needs to be Annulled more then was already done, whilst validating the Mages' and certain Templars' assertions about her state of mind.
The mages were innocent of Anders' act and thus had no reason to be killed. Meredith's reasoning is flimsy at best considering that the bomb blew up around midnight -- said by Anders on the Rivalry path, so it's when people are asleep and won't know what's going on -- but even moreso when anyone who's competent in the political spectrum knows that you don't appease a mob. That makes them bolder. You have to deal with it without coddling them.
It's harsh, but it's true. Plus, part of her duty is to protect the Mages from the populus. In a case like this, that's exactly what she should've done.
The Mages and Templars claimed that Meredith had lost her marbles. When all of Meredith's actions in Act II and Act III can be laid at the feet of the idol's amplification of any and all problems she's had, then it means that she wasn't acting or thinking rationally. The idol's amplification of her hatred, fear, and paranoia of mages ultimately consumed her to the point that it does in fact feel like we're fighting a husk (IMO).
That's not to say we're not fighting Meredith or we're just fighting the idol in human form though.
What I would've done is made it so that the idol creates an air of doubt on just how much of her actions can be rightfully said to have been caused by the idol.
At any rate, that's my two cents on the issue. Was she characterized? I dunno that I'd call what scant mentions we hear of her and the stuff she tells us so near the end of the game "characterization" myself , but more attention was given to her then to Orsino.
There's no questioning that. And her actions in the end is in line with her character, even if it was poorly implemented (IMO). Same can't really be said of Orsino for pro-mage people.
Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 19 mai 2012 - 03:39 .
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