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[TEWR]

Matt2222 wrote...

friendship romance is the way to go for merrill

This

[dragonflight288]

On the friendship path, Merrill will see beyond the Eluvian and too her friends without any help from Hawke. She does not obsess over it. It becomes more like a long-term goal that she intends to finish but it's no longer her top priority.

I've never had the heart to rival her so I can't speak on that.

[Gespenst]

Rival Merrill?

You see a puppy on the ground do you

>Kick it
>Not

A difficult choice I'm sure.

[Matt2222]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

EDIT: I find it incredibly painful to romance anyone else other than Merrill.

! 

Romance...someone else?  The horror!

 I just love Merrill that much. She's the best romance in the game for me.

I also wouldn't be able to do a Male Hawke - Anders romance or Fenris Romance with Male Hawke. I'd find it too funny. And sadly I can't do many FemHawke runs because I dislike her voice acting.

I do have a Rivalmance Anders run with my FemHawke run to finish up though.

Xilizhra wrote...
I haven't managed it yet. Well, my theoretical male playthrough got a decent way in while flirting with Anders, but nothing other than that

I enjoyed it greatly. Romancing her on the friendship path makes her realize that the mirror isn't as important to her as Hawke is. She just makes it a project she's devoted too, not an obsession. Rivalmance actually makes her more obsessed with it.

And there's so much from the series that's known that points to her being right.

yea i cant romance anyone else but merrill either 

[Matt2222]

the rival path is not really hawke being mean its just trying to protect her from the danger of the mirror

[dragonflight288]

the rival path is not really hawke being mean its just trying to protect her from the danger of the mirror

Which is....what exactly? How exactly is the mirror dangerous? What made it dangerous in Origins was the darkspawn taint. Merrill cleansed it with blood magic. And because neither she or anyone else in the alienage becomes tainted over a decade, we know she succeeded, whereas the elves in Witch Hunt are infected.

As for Audacity? He/she's trapped in some statue that Merethari herself said he couldn't escape from. Merrill also took precautions to prevent audacity getting out in any case. She brought Hawke along to kill her should things go amiss.

Merrill already was taking all the precautions needed. Hawke, who has done no research into eluvians, knows nothing about Tamlen and potential Grey Warden beyond they got tainted, is not in a position to tell Merrill what is safe about it and what isn't.

Neither is Merethari because she absolutely refuses to acknowledge the danger has passed, and will not even touch the lore of eluvians because she's scared of the elven heritage regarding it.

[TheJediSaint]

dragonflight288 wrote...

the rival path is not really hawke being mean its just trying to protect her from the danger of the mirror

Which is....what exactly? How exactly is the mirror dangerous? What made it dangerous in Origins was the darkspawn taint. Merrill cleansed it with blood magic. And because neither she or anyone else in the alienage becomes tainted over a decade, we know she succeeded, whereas the elves in Witch Hunt are infected.

As for Audacity? He/she's trapped in some statue that Merethari herself said he couldn't escape from. Merrill also took precautions to prevent audacity getting out in any case. She brought Hawke along to kill her should things go amiss.

Merrill already was taking all the precautions needed. Hawke, who has done no research into eluvians, knows nothing about Tamlen and potential Grey Warden beyond they got tainted, is not in a position to tell Merrill what is safe about it and what isn't.

Neither is Merethari because she absolutely refuses to acknowledge the danger has passed, and will not even touch the lore of eluvians because she's scared of the elven heritage regarding it.

If you listened to what Marthari said after she allowed the Pride demon to possess her, the demon planned on using the mirror as an escape hatch into our world.  As she said, Merril would have likly been the demons first victim had it been able to enter the material world.

Edit: Pesky Grammar.

Modifié par TheJediSaint, 30 août 2011 - 11:18 .

[esper]

TheJediSaint wrote...

dragonflight288 wrote...

the rival path is not really hawke being mean its just trying to protect her from the danger of the mirror

Which is....what exactly? How exactly is the mirror dangerous? What made it dangerous in Origins was the darkspawn taint. Merrill cleansed it with blood magic. And because neither she or anyone else in the alienage becomes tainted over a decade, we know she succeeded, whereas the elves in Witch Hunt are infected.

As for Audacity? He/she's trapped in some statue that Merethari herself said he couldn't escape from. Merrill also took precautions to prevent audacity getting out in any case. She brought Hawke along to kill her should things go amiss.

Merrill already was taking all the precautions needed. Hawke, who has done no research into eluvians, knows nothing about Tamlen and potential Grey Warden beyond they got tainted, is not in a position to tell Merrill what is safe about it and what isn't.

Neither is Merethari because she absolutely refuses to acknowledge the danger has passed, and will not even touch the lore of eluvians because she's scared of the elven heritage regarding it.

If you listened to what Marthari said after she allowed the Pride demon to possessed her, the demon planned on using the mirror as an escape hatch into our world.  As she said, Merril would have likly been the demons first victim had it been able to enter the material world.

Because we all know that demons are paragons of truth and would never lie to say possess someone.

[TheJediSaint]

esper wrote...


Because we all know that demons are paragons of truth and would never lie to say possess someone.

I actually was not trying to debate the truthiness of the statment, but to point out that there were valid reason for people who cared about Merril to believe that she was endagering herself.

[esper]

TheJediSaint wrote...

esper wrote...


Because we all know that demons are paragons of truth and would never lie to say possess someone.

I actually was not trying to debate the truthiness of the statment, but to point out that there were valid reason for people who cared about Merril to believe that she was endagering herself.

All right, Merrill is endangering herself. I just personally don't think that anyone has a right to tell someone that what they do is stupid and evil when they are just risking their own life - it is hard to rival Merrill without saying that.

[Wulfram]

TheJediSaint wrote...

If you listened to what Marthari said after she allowed the Pride demon to possess her, the demon planned on using the mirror as an escape hatch into our world.  As she said, Merril would have likly been the demons first victim had it been able to enter the material world.

Aside from the question of whether Marethari is right in what she says, the problem is that she doesn't say anything about this when Hawke's making the choice which will set him on the Friendship/Rivalry path.

[TheJediSaint]

I think Hawke (the players), is given more than enough information about the risks to make up their own minds on whether or not Merril is right in her choice to rebuild the Eluvian. As to why Marithari does not say more about the Eluvian sooner? My guess is because she was reluctant to share elven secrets with a shemlen, especially secrets that she does not share with her own clan.

[TheJediSaint]

esper wrote...

All right, Merrill is endangering herself. I just personally don't think that anyone has a right to tell someone that what they do is stupid and evil when they are just risking their own life - it is hard to rival Merrill without saying that.

Fair enought, but let's think of this in regard to the rivalry romance.  If Hawke has feelings for Merril, and believe's that Merril is endangering herself, then he/she would have a pretty good motivation to interfere with Merrill's quest.  I dont think it's a matter of thinking Merrill is being evil or stupid, but as a matter of Hawke(depending on player choices) not wanting to lose Merrill.  Love is selfish after all.

Modifié par TheJediSaint, 01 septembre 2011 - 01:02 .

[esper]

TheJediSaint wrote...

esper wrote...

All right, Merrill is endangering herself. I just personally don't think that anyone has a right to tell someone that what they do is stupid and evil when they are just risking their own life - it is hard to rival Merrill without saying that.

Fair enought, but let's think of this in regard to the rivalry romance.  If Hawke has feeling for Merril, and belive's that Merril is endangering herself, then he/she would have a pretty good motivation to interfere with Merrill's quest.  I dont think it's a matter of thinking Merrill is being evil or stupid, but as a matter of Hawke(depending on player choices) not wanting to lose Merrill.  Love is selfish after all.

I agree, but the one time I did Merrill rival (it wasn't a romance) all my Hawke was saying to her was: What you do are stupid, what you do are stupid and you are dangerous, and it is evil incarnate (all right Hawke didn't say that. but Merrill acted like Hawke had said that). I don't know if the romance is better, but I would feel it like I was constantly belittling Merrill and not trusting her to make her own decession. 
It would be all right if the romance is: I love and I don't want to lose you so please, please don't do this. 

[Wulfram]

TheJediSaint wrote...

I think Hawke (the players), is given more than enough information about the risks to make up their own minds on whether or not Merril is right in her choice to rebuild the Eluvian.

Not really.  All you've got is Marethari's generic claims of its evil - with no real basis given apart from the taint which has obviously been fixed.  Merrill's pro-mirror case is a bit nebulous too, to be honest.

As to why Marithari does not say more about the Eluvian sooner? My guess is because she was reluctant to share elven secrets with a shemlen, especially secrets that she does not share with her own clan.

She's prepared to hand a "priceless heirloom" of the clan over to a shemlen in order to stop Merrill, but not to say "Fixing the mirror will let out a demon"?

edit: I like the rivalry romance generally.  I just don't like that the Arulin Holm is the big crisis point, because I have difficulty connecting it to the blood magic and obsession which I see as the real problems for Merrill

Modifié par Wulfram, 30 août 2011 - 11:49 .

[TheJediSaint]

esper wrote...

I agree, but the one time I did Merrill rival (it wasn't a romance) all my Hawke was saying to her was: What you do are stupid, what you do are stupid and you are dangerous, and it is evil incarnate (all right Hawke didn't say that. but Merrill acted like Hawke had said that). I don't know if the romance is better, but I would feel it like I was constantly belittling Merrill and not trusting her to make her own decession. 
It would be all right if the romance is: I love and I don't want to lose you so please, please don't do this. 

Well, this is part of the player agency that Bioware built into the game.  Outside of the romance, the player could have any number of reasons for going down the rivalry path.  One is similar to the romance, but instead of a lover, you're a friend trying to stop her from hurting herself.  "Friends dont let friends use blood magic" sort of thing.  Another angle is Hawke being repulsed by her use of blood magic becuase he/she believes that it's evil, no matter what.  Still another  angle is that Hawke believes, despite Merril's assurances, that what she is doing is a danger to innocents.  The mirror is in the middle of the alienage after all.  Or to put it simply, DA2 is a roleplaying game, it's mostly up to the player to decide Hawke's reasons for doing things.

[Wulfram]

If your motivation is stopping Merrill using blood magic, why are you withholding a carpentry tool?

[TheJediSaint]

Wulfram wrote...

If your motivation is stopping Merrill using blood magic, why are you withholding a carpentry tool?

Did I say MY motivation was stopping Merrill from using blood magic?  I'm pretty sure all that I've done is listed potential reasons that other players could have for either assisting or tharting Merrill's effort to repair the mirror. 

If we do want to talk about my (Hawke's) motivation in regards to the aforementioned carpentry tool, I would say that my Hawke's motivation for keeping it from her was pretty simple.  He was developing feelings for Merrill and thought what she was doing was dangerous.  My Hawke believed blood magic was dangerous, Merrill turned to blood magic to fix mirror; my Hawke also believed that the Mirror was dangerous as well.  Therefore when he got the chance to sabotage Merrill's effort to fix the mirror, thus weakening her reason to use blood magic, he took it.  Now that may not seem like the best reason to you, but as I said in my ealier post, love is selfish.

Modifié par TheJediSaint, 30 août 2011 - 12:21 .

[Valdrane78]

I can never make myself try to romance Merrill, she comes off as more of a rebellious teenager to me than a serious love interest and I always treat her like a younger more niave and rambuncious sister. I do like her character though she is vibrant and likeable, but not so as a romantic interest.

[Xilizhra]

I agree, but the one time I did Merrill rival (it wasn't a romance) all my Hawke was saying to her was: What you do are stupid, what you do are stupid and you are dangerous, and it is evil incarnate (all right Hawke didn't say that. but Merrill acted like Hawke had said that). I don't know if the romance is better, but I would feel it like I was constantly belittling Merrill and not trusting her to make her own decession.
It would be all right if the romance is: I love and I don't want to lose you so please, please don't do this.

The romance is ten times worse. It doesn't change much, so Hawke comes off as, to my mind, rather emotionally abusive. Which Merrill ultimately falls for. Gah.

[TEWR]

TheJediSaint wrote...

dragonflight288 wrote...

the rival path is not really hawke being mean its just trying to protect her from the danger of the mirror

Which is....what exactly? How exactly is the mirror dangerous? What made it dangerous in Origins was the darkspawn taint. Merrill cleansed it with blood magic. And because neither she or anyone else in the alienage becomes tainted over a decade, we know she succeeded, whereas the elves in Witch Hunt are infected.

As for Audacity? He/she's trapped in some statue that Merethari herself said he couldn't escape from. Merrill also took precautions to prevent audacity getting out in any case. She brought Hawke along to kill her should things go amiss.

Merrill already was taking all the precautions needed. Hawke, who has done no research into eluvians, knows nothing about Tamlen and potential Grey Warden beyond they got tainted, is not in a position to tell Merrill what is safe about it and what isn't.

Neither is Merethari because she absolutely refuses to acknowledge the danger has passed, and will not even touch the lore of eluvians because she's scared of the elven heritage regarding it.

If you listened to what Marthari said after she allowed the Pride demon to possess her, the demon planned on using the mirror as an escape hatch into our world.  As she said, Merril would have likly been the demons first victim had it been able to enter the material world.

Edit: Pesky Grammar.

Jesus Christ I had a perfect response to your post and then as soon as I hit submit for some reason I got "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage!", and when I hit back it deleted the whole entire thing I wrote. *Sigh*.... anyway, I'll try and remember what it was but from now on I'm copying everything because I can't trust Internet Explorer to function properly....

[TheJediSaint]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


Jesus Christ I had a perfect response to your post and then as soon as I hit submit for some reason I got "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage!", and when I hit back it deleted the whole entire thing I wrote. *Sigh*.... anyway, I'll try and remember what it was but from now on I'm copying everything because I can't trust Internet Explorer to function properly....

Well, I guess I'll wait with baited breath for my mind to be blown.

[TEWR]

Not really. The demon was sundered from the Veil and Fade much like Justice was, and trapped in a statue for centuries and would continue to be trapped.

We know that the Eluvians lead beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade, and that Audacity was disconnected from the Fade entirely. He couldn’t have used the Eluvian a gateway to escape.

Some people speculate that the Eluvians lead to the Black City, but I highly doubt that’s the case. It just wouldn’t add up to Morrigan’s goals, especially given the facts that we know the Black City twisted Corypheus into one of the first Awakened Darkspawn and that the Black City is connected to the taint. Why would Morrigan pointlessly endanger herself? We know that the Tevinter Imperium used blood magic on the Eluvians and got fancy telephones.

Now, they could’ve used an ancient arcane spell that has long since been forgotten to make the Eluvians go there, but I doubt that as well.

It’s my belief that Audacity was earnestly helping Merrill but had the ulterior motive of playing on Marethari’s pride to get her to release him. Judging by Merrill’s replies and reactions, it seems that only certain spells could actually free him and that she had no intention of doing so. She asked Hawke to accompany her incase something unexpected happened when she went to talk to the demon, but that doesn’t mean she said “Hey Hawke! I’m gonna go free a demon! Come watch okay?” in a Vanille voice. Rather, it doesn’t imply anything of the sort.



That's all I could remember.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 30 août 2011 - 01:41 .

[TheJediSaint]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Not really. The demon was sundered from the Veil and Fade much like Justice was, and trapped in a statue for centuries and would continue to be trapped.

We know that the Eluvians lead beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade, and that Audacity was disconnected from the Fade entirely. He couldn’t have used the Eluvian a gateway to escape.

Some people speculate that the Eluvians lead to the Black City, but I highly doubt that’s the case. It just wouldn’t add up to Morrigan’s goals, especially given the facts that we know the Black City twisted Corypheus into one of the first Awakened Darkspawn and that the Black City is connected to the taint. Why would Morrigan pointlessly endanger herself? We know that the Tevinter Imperium used blood magic on the Eluvians and got fancy telephones.

Now, they could’ve used an ancient arcane spell that has long since been forgotten to make the Eluvians go there, but I doubt that as well.

It’s my belief that Audacity was earnestly helping Merrill but had the ulterior motive of playing on Marethari’s pride to get her to release him. Judging by Merrill’s replies and reactions, it seems that only certain spells could actually free him and that she had no intention of doing so. She asked Hawke to accompany her incase something unexpected happened when she went to talk to the demon, but that doesn’t mean she said “Hey Hawke! I’m gonna go free a demon! Come watch okay?” in a Vanille voice. Rather, it doesn’t imply anything of the sort.



That's all I could remember.

I don't know anything about the whole "cut off from the fade" thing in regards to Audancity.  From what I understood, Audacity,was basically sealed within a box and the Eluvian presented a backdoor out of it's prison.  Being a demon of pride, it was easy for it to manipulate Merrill into doing what it wanted her to do since she's rather arrogant.  Now that said, I never got the impression that she was going off to free the demon on sundermount during her Act 3 quest, I just figure that there's always a risk of possession invovlved when you're communicating with a powerful demon.  Hence why she was so keen about having her friends with her should the worst happen.

[esper]

TheJediSaint wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Not really. The demon was sundered from the Veil and Fade much like Justice was, and trapped in a statue for centuries and would continue to be trapped.

We know that the Eluvians lead beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade, and that Audacity was disconnected from the Fade entirely. He couldn’t have used the Eluvian a gateway to escape.

Some people speculate that the Eluvians lead to the Black City, but I highly doubt that’s the case. It just wouldn’t add up to Morrigan’s goals, especially given the facts that we know the Black City twisted Corypheus into one of the first Awakened Darkspawn and that the Black City is connected to the taint. Why would Morrigan pointlessly endanger herself? We know that the Tevinter Imperium used blood magic on the Eluvians and got fancy telephones.

Now, they could’ve used an ancient arcane spell that has long since been forgotten to make the Eluvians go there, but I doubt that as well.

It’s my belief that Audacity was earnestly helping Merrill but had the ulterior motive of playing on Marethari’s pride to get her to release him. Judging by Merrill’s replies and reactions, it seems that only certain spells could actually free him and that she had no intention of doing so. She asked Hawke to accompany her incase something unexpected happened when she went to talk to the demon, but that doesn’t mean she said “Hey Hawke! I’m gonna go free a demon! Come watch okay?” in a Vanille voice. Rather, it doesn’t imply anything of the sort.



That's all I could remember.

I don't know anything about the whole "cut off from the fade" thing in regards to Audancity.  From what I understood, Audacity,was basically sealed within a box and the Eluvian presented a backdoor out of it's prison.  Being a demon of pride, it was easy for it to manipulate Merrill into doing what it wanted her to do since she's rather arrogant.  Now that said, I never got the impression that she was going off to free the demon on sundermount during her Act 3 quest, I just figure that there's always a risk of possession invovlved when you're communicating with a powerful demon.  Hence why she was so keen about having her friends with her should the worst happen.

I actually think it was manipulating Mathari and Merril pushing at their pride until one of them would go so far in proving the other wrong that they would take Auducity in.