108 réponses à ce sujet

[DreGregoire]

This topic was about if Anders/Justice's character developed throughout DA2.

Now it's not, it's about the dog. How cool is it that he goes with us everywhere no matter what and we just have to summon him. That was a step in a direction that I can agree with. The dog helped me tons against the Arishok. Of course the first time I had to resummon him a few times.

Modifié par DreGregoire, 05 juillet 2011 - 12:30 .

[ipgd]

Now Anders tells you he came to Kirkwall to rescue Karl. Seems pretty straight forward right? That's the reason he came, but remember he said, "And some reasons of my own." Meaning he has more than one reason. 

What evidence is there that blowing up the Chantry specifically is one of those reasons? Having more than one reason for coming to Kirkwall means nothing. He could be planning to set up a cat farm.

The first indication of his plan to specifically blow up the Chantry comes in Act III, either on his own personal quest or on Sebastian's where he lobbies a thinly veiled threat at Leliana.

He still feels the same way at the end that he does in the beginning.

No, he doesn't. Time to compare Anders friendship and rival again!

Friendship:


Rival:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wszMoVBk96U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sOaJ0sXtGc

This is just the same character completely unchanged from the beginning "reacting to stimulus". Really.

Anders thoughts and feelings about the mage plight remain consistent throughout the whole of the game and if he percieves you as not seeing his side he persistently tries to convince you of his view. Because he believes you (Hawke) are an essential person in helping him to accomplish his goal of striking a blow against the chantry and the circle system.

You convince him he was wrong on the rivalry path. He changes significantly. He becomes highly mentally unstable, and willing to throw away everything he's worked for. Friendship Anders, in reaction to that same exact "stimulus" (i.e. being asked to side with the templars by Hawke), emphatically states he would rather die.

[upsettingshorts]

@DreGregoire: I said it in the previous thread: Your standard for determining what constitutes "change" is nonsensical and based on a completely arbitrary concept of self-awareness and/or demonstrative threshold.

[ademska]

i followed the old thread, and, in case you missed ipgd's final point, i'm going to make it crystal clear:

on the rivalry path, if asked to join hawke in siding against mages, anders acquiesces.
on the friendship path, if asked to join hawke in siding against mages, anders fights hawke to the death.

the character is fundamentally different - changed, if you will - according to how hawke treated him over six years.

how is this difficult to grasp?

[Xalen]

Again I disagreed because to me these behavoirs are reactions to the pc's attitude and a result of what is going on around him

Yeah, that’s how people change usually.

It's very possible; however, him reacting differently to lack of support vs. having the support of a friend doesn't change him. It simply changes how he responds.

But…how else would you show a development of a character in a game? If you say – by his actions – I’m going to link you to my own post in that no-spoiler thread. Showing the development exclusively through actions can actually lead to more unrealistic character execution than showing it exclusively through dialogue and banter.

I already asked you to provide an example of something that you view as a “change”, and you gave me Alistair. Now I can’t help but ask: what hypothetically should the game show you that you could say “Ah, now I see, Anders has change”.
Maybe that’ll give me an argument I can actually work with.

Now to “He planned it all along”

Some pretty weak reasons against it first, why not:

1) Arguments like “reason” vs. “reasons” don’t usually help you case and just look like nitpicking . Maybe that’s just the way he talks. Maybe indeed a cat farm (lol, I like this idea). It could indicate that he has some other intent (possibly about the Chantry), if there were other strong arguments to support that. Which there aren’t.

2) Since we've already established that "Anders does not change", you probably won't accept the argument that Act 1 Anders wouldn't have done that?

3) He has never been to Kirkwall, he has no firsthand knowledge of the mage/templar situation there aside from what he gathered from Karl's letters about situation in the Circle. Which would be not even nearly  enough information to somehow come to the decision to blow up a church

That's ignoring, you know, the large elephant in the room that is the actual reasons why he did what he did, but they are so wildly misunderstood usually, that I won’t even try. Other people here could probably address those better then I will ever be able to.
In short: blowing up the Chantry prior to Act 3 woudn't have served the goal of mage freedom and wouldn't have the mage/templar war as a result. At all

Modifié par Xalen, 04 juillet 2011 - 06:23 .

[DreGregoire]

deleted

Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 08:46 .

[ipgd]

DreGregoire wrote...

What evidence do you have that he didn't come to Kirkwall with that plan in mind? I've already told you what I based my thoughts on. You don't have to agree, but it doesn't make me wrong or you wrong about that specifically.

You are the one making the positive statement, here. The burden of proof is on you. Saying something is true does not make it true; for an argument to be persuasive it requires evidence. Your hypothesis is not convincing because there is no proof behind it.

I have said previously that I do not believe Anders is lying to or misleading Hawke in the beginning of the game, because when he does so later he is incredibly obvious and downright awful at it. The man could not lie to save his life. It would be inconsistent with his established character to have silently masterminded a plan for six straight years, setting off no warnings of it.

I find it very telling though that Anders said he would change but then didn't change the plan like he said he would.

What?

Modifié par ipgd, 04 juillet 2011 - 06:29 .

[DreGregoire]

deleted

Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 08:47 .

[sleepyowlet]

I happen to think that the character wasn't handled all that well in DA2. The rift between Awakening!Anders and DA2!Anders is huge. The character lost all credibility for me when he whined about the Wardens having forced him to get rid of his cat. Uh... what? I'm quite sure none of my Wardens would have done that. Ever.

As for him having character growth or not - my issue with DA2 (well, one of them) is that we don't get shown enough of *any* character to get to know them well enough to judge that! Hawke doesn't get to interact enough with them, doesn't get to ask them the stuff I'd like to know about them (I would have liked to get the full story about Karl, for example - why was he so important to him? How did they meet/fall in love? What was the guy like? It would have made me care more). The only way to connect to a character on a personal level is the romance (even with Aveline, even though the romance isn't with Hawke). If I want to know what makes Anders tick on a personal level, I have to romance him. That is just stupid.

The only things I got to know about him in my playthrough are that he's a spirit-abomination bordering on batdroppings crazy (er, how do you measure the core-being-change of a person who is clearly insane? He's two  people, does he even have such a thing?), who misses his cat, and who hates all templars and the Chantry because they mistreat mages and kick puppies. I have no clue (and by the end of the game I simply didn't care anymore) if he evolves as a person or not. If he indubitably did, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[bleetman]

DreGregoire wrote...

What evidence do you have that he didn't come to Kirkwall with that plan in mind? I've already told you what I based my thoughts on. You don't have to agree, but it doesn't make me wrong or you wrong about that specifically.

Well, you'd think he wouldn't sit around for seven years - during which time the mage underground is all but snuffed out - before putting his plan into action. It struck me as more of a last ditch effort than anything more long term.

DreGregoire wrote...

Also Anders admits to lying to Hawke, you are essentially saying that a man who hardly knew Hawke choose to be straight forward from the start even though later he admits to lying. But this is your perception of Anders not mine. To me that doesn't make sense.

I think the point is that whilst he does lie to Hawke about the whole 'I'm making a potion' thing, he's utterly, incredibly transparent about it. It's a little strange that someone who had completely concealed his intentions from his companions for several years would suddenly be incapable of maintaining even the most basic ruse when it came to gathering the materials.

Modifié par bleetman, 04 juillet 2011 - 06:48 .

[DreGregoire]

deleted

Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 08:46 .

[ipgd]

DreGregoire wrote...

First off I didn't say anything I wrote is a fact. I said that's what I thought. I have consistently told you it was my opinion. All you seem to want is some acknowledgement that I have no rights to my feelings and beliefs. Essentially instead of trying to understand where I am coming from you are attempting to argue that you perceived things differently and that yours is the correct perception and mine isn't.

This is not a subjective issue. Anders was either planning to blow up the Chantry from the start, or he wasn't. One of those has to be true and one of them has to be false.

Just because you have an opinion does not make it true, right or good. If your opinion is based on erroneous premises, then, yes, your opinion is kind of wrong. And I believe your opinion is wrong because there is no evidence for your interpretations. You have yet to present any argument to the contrary other than "he was planning it all from the start because I believe it" and "you can't prove he wasn't" and in addition to being utterly unconvincing in a debate, makes me feel like I am having some ridiculous religious argument.

Also Anders admits to lying to Hawke, you are essentially saying that a man who hardly knew Hawke choose to be straight forward from the start even though later he admits to lying. But this is your perception of Anders not mine. To me that doesn't make sense.

No. I am saying that if Anders were not being straight forward from the start, it would be patently obvious because when he lies later in the game, an instance that is fully and completely recognized as lying within the face value text of the game, he is awful at it. Anders, early in the game, displays none of the indicators of deceit that become later apparent when he actually lies to Hawke -- unless you are suggesting that Anders's character changed and his ability to lie convincingly inexplicably degenerated?

[DreGregoire]

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Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 10:08 .

[DreGregoire]

d

Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 08:47 .

[ipgd]

DreGregoire wrote...

He is very deceptive in the beginning of the game. He only shares with Hawke what he absolutely has to, even his speech patterns show that he is being very selective in what he chooses to say to Hawke. Through out the the entire game he is working behind the scenes. It was obvious to me from the start as was Isabella's deception.

How he is being deceptive? What does he say that indicates this? What characteristic conversational markers does he demonstrate that are consistent with the only instance we can definitively say was out-and-out deception? If these deceptions are not consistent in their emotional expression, what is the reason for said inconsistency (i.e. why is he able to lie competently at the beginning of the game, and for the six years after that, and why is he utterly transparent regarding the potion?)?

Yet again, simply saying something is true does not make it true and is not a satisfactory or convincing argument in a debate.

[DreGregoire]

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Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 09:40 .

[Xalen]

DreGregoire wrote...

He definitely wasn’t sitting around doing nothing for just shy of six years and you hear about some stuff he is up to. He does wait till after you are in a better position to help you before he chooses to take a chance on asking you for further aid. It’s almost like even though you helped him with Karl, he still isn’t sure if he wants to involve you further. He actually admits to not wanting Hawke to be involved, but he also knew that Hawke was his best bet for obtaining what he needed and the best bet for distracting those in the chantry.

What?

You can decline the Justice quest thus not collecting ingredients with him and/or not distracting the grand cleric. Then he does it himself. During single Act. I'd think that would indicate that while he welcomes Hawke's help, making/planting the bomb isn't such a huge problem for him that he would wait 6 years... But I must've played a different game

[DreGregoire]

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Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 10:09 .

[ipgd]

DreGregoire wrote...

I am aware you can refuse to help him. That wasn't my point, my point was that Hawke was his first choice in aid.

I'm sure he could have done it the first year if he knew the ingrediants he needed at that time and where he should go to get them and had completed the rest of all he set out to accomplish before hand, but why would he? As I stated earlier he says he had hoped to be able to do things diffferently. This shows a reluctance to do the deed not that he didn't have the plan at any given time.

Specifics. What, specifically, does he say to give the impression that he specifically intends to do this as early as Act I.

[DreGregoire]

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Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 10:09 .

[ademska]

instead of replying to anyone in your next post, why don't you take some time to elaborate on EXACTLY WHY you believe anders was planning the chantry bombing from the start? everyone else has either informed you that your argument is worthless without evidence or outright presented evidence against the argument.

i've yet to see you assert a single point with any tangible proof.

edit: for what it's worth, i legitimately want to know. i come to the bsn threads and have these discussions because sometimes they influence and alter my interpretations of characters, actions, plot etc throughout the game.

so, please, inform me.

Modifié par ademska, 04 juillet 2011 - 07:53 .

[upsettingshorts]

DreGregoire wrote...

@ipgd

You are not going to get that from me. 

Then why should anyone take you or your argument seriously? 

You're demanding others accept your premise without giving any evidence as to why they should, and then using it as the basis of your counter-argument.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 04 juillet 2011 - 07:59 .

[mesmerizedish]

I don't have to provide evidence because it's my opinion. In my opinion, 'Shorts and ipgd are planning to kill Chris Priestly and usurp his CM throne.

BUT YOU'LL GET NO EVIDENCE FROM ME. IT'S NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO EDUCATE YOU ON SPEECH AND BODY LANGUAGE.

[DreGregoire]

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Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 10:09 .

[DreGregoire]

d

Modifié par DreGregoire, 04 juillet 2011 - 10:09 .