Questa discussione ha avuto 1253 risposte

[LobselVith8]

Throughout Dragon Age 2, mage antagonists were depicted as insane and stupid. Decimus is one of the first examples, as he can't tell Hawke and his companions aren't templars, even if Hawke is accompanied by a dwarf and two elves. We see Tarohne (with the purple lips) is insane. Quentin is clearly mad (and Gascard's note infers that he may be from Starkhaven's Circle). We have Grace becoming insane, even if Hawke helped her escape from the templars. Huon is insane. Orsino loses his mind because Hawke is winning against the templars. A story that was supposed to be about the dichotomy between mages and templars has instead become about Hawke being pitted against insane mage antagonists. Even a pro-mage Hawke has to fight a blood mage at the docks - I suppose this blood mage antagonist was pro-templar?

Throughout Dragon Age 2, I noticed an abundant of mage antagonists who are insane for the sake of being insane. There's no complexity to them, no ambiguity to their personality, there are no mage Loghains or Eamons who can be interpreted as having more layers than we see at the surface. Instead of interesting, exciting, and engaging characters, we're provided with simple mad men and women. Is this going to be the future of Dragon Age 2, with DLC providing us with more insane mage antagonists?

Even Fallout: New Vegas had Cesar (the leader of Caesar's Legion, which is viewed by many as the "evil" faction of the game) argue that he was trying to save civilization and that he followed Hegelian dialectics. I don't get the impression that this is going to change. Is the emancipation of the Circles of Magi going to mean more insane mage antagonists in DLC and Dragon Age 3? Will Hawke be denied meaningful choice in the narrative of the DLCs and forced down a linear progression to deal with insane and stupid mage antagonists? Will the mage antagonists continue to be depicted as insane and stupid characters?

[whykikyouwhy]

I thought DA2 had a fair amount of templars who were depicted as evil/insane/all around bad/misguided/prey to possession - Ser Alrik, Knight-Commander Meredith, Ser Karras, Wilmod.

I think some of the spotlight may have been on mages because Kirkwall is a city living in perpetual fear of mages and what they could do - that's wherein the balance has shifted, and the Circle isn't what it is in other realms within Thedas. Maybe the "insane" ones weren't padded out enough story or background-wise, but I think overall, we get to see "good" and "bad" characters on both sides of the mage/templar schism.

[Nerdage]

Legacy spoiler. Sort of.. not really.

I'm guessing not, pretty sure it done on purpose in DA2. Unless we're still in Kirkwall of course, in which case, maybe so.

Modificata da nerdage, 29 agosto 2011 - 03:55 .

[Xilizhra]

We have Grace becoming insane, even if Hawke helped her escape from the templars.

Not quite true, she was possessed. When you kill her the first time, she turns into a pride abomination.

Huon is insane.

True, but he was fine before he went to the Circle. I think it says more about the Circle than Huon.

Orsino loses his mind because Hawke is winning against the templars.

I think Bioware learned its lesson there.

Throughout Dragon Age 2, I noticed an abundant of mage antagonists who are insane for the sake of being insane. There's no complexity to them, no ambiguity to their personality, there are no mage Loghains or Eamons who can be interpreted as having more layers than we see at the surface. Instead of interesting, exciting, and engaging characters, we're provided with simple mad men and women. Is this going to be the future of Dragon Age 2, with DLC providing us with more insane mage antagonists?

Probably because the only morally ambiguous mage goal was Anders', and they didn't want to repeat it. When all your side really wants is to not be treated as abusable subhumans, there's only so much you can do to make it morally equivalent to the abusers, so they kinda cheated. Irritating but understandable.

I'll also say that there were mage antagonists who weren't insane: Hadriana and Danarius. Not really enough, but they exist.

[Harid]

Generally speaking in Bioware games, everyone is incompetent and stupid besides your main character.

This was the first time we've had a main character as incompetent and stupid as those that surrounded them, though.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Will they stop making insane incompetent shallow idiots in lieu of reasonable intelligent polarizing deep characters, is the question I would ask.

Modificata da KnightofPhoenix, 29 agosto 2011 - 03:59 .

[Rifneno]

nerdage wrote...

Legacy spoiler. Sort of.. not really.

I'm guessing not, pretty sure it done on purpose in DA2. Unless we're still in Kirkwall of course, in which case, maybe so.

Sort of a plot hole itself.  The difference between the rate of insane mages in Kirkwall vs...  I donno, everywhere else is so radical that it's simply not believable it wasn't common knowledge in Kirkwall.  And it clearly wasn't, since there's never any mages saying "this is the Chantry's fault for locking us in the house from Poltergeist."

[Wulfram]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Orsino loses his mind because Hawke is winning against the templars

Storywise, Hawke isn't winning.  There are dead mages lying around no matter how well you fight the battle, and Meredith has a lot of Templars when you meet her in the courtyard.  It's just the game failed badly at conveying this.

[jamesp81]

LobselVith8 wrote...
Orsino loses his mind because Hawke is winning against the templars.

To be fair, this happened after the first engagement and the mages took a lot of casualties.  I read that as a reaction of rage and hatred at the loss of his people, many of whom were probably his apprentices from a young age that he may well have thought of as his children.  Once he transformed into the abomination (I assume it was an abomination) he lost control of his own free will and went on an indiscriminate rampage.

[Nerdage]

Rifneno wrote...

nerdage wrote...

Legacy spoiler. Sort of.. not really.

I'm guessing not, pretty sure it done on purpose in DA2. Unless we're still in Kirkwall of course, in which case, maybe so.

Sort of a plot hole itself.  The difference between the rate of insane mages in Kirkwall vs...  I donno, everywhere else is so radical that it's simply not believable it wasn't common knowledge in Kirkwall.  And it clearly wasn't, since there's never any mages saying "this is the Chantry's fault for locking us in the house from Poltergeist."

As I understood it Kirkwall, or at least its circle of magi, did already have a bad reputation, I can believe most people would see that as both the cause and the result in itself. And the city itself's history is pretty violent, which is common knowledge; world hub of slave trading; twice occupied by Qunari (sort of); conflicts with templars, twice; slave/poor revolt, also twice.

How much crazy we see (as Hawke) is probably skewed by our proximity to the heart of events though, the average person can probably go longer than a day without being jumped by blood mages.

[GavrielKay]

I'm sure the idea behind all the antagonist mages was to show Hawke that mages are dangerous. The weird part is that for a number of players this actually worked. But in terms of morality, it's just silly.

BioWare succeeded in making me believe all mages need to be locked up to the same extent that Carta dwarves convinced me that every dwarf needed to be locked up. And to the same extent that Marethari's clan attacking me showed that all the Dalish need to be locked up.

They apparently want Hawke to buy that these individuals represent the whole and that you are morally Ok in making a decision based on those few. I guess individual guilt and innocence are irrelevant if you're an exploding kitten for some reason.

[whykikyouwhy]

GavrielKay wrote...

I'm sure the idea behind all the antagonist mages was to show Hawke that mages are dangerous. The weird part is that for a number of players this actually worked. But in terms of morality, it's just silly.

BioWare succeeded in making me believe all mages need to be locked up to the same extent that Carta dwarves convinced me that every dwarf needed to be locked up. And to the same extent that Marethari's clan attacking me showed that all the Dalish need to be locked up.

They apparently want Hawke to buy that these individuals represent the whole and that you are morally Ok in making a decision based on those few. I guess individual guilt and innocence are irrelevant if you're an exploding kitten for some reason.

I'm not so sure that Bioware was trying to sway anyone one way or the other, or merely displaying common human behavior and perception. People generalize, particularly with something negative. They categorize things that they don't understand. It's a knee-jerk reaction. A lot of it stems from fear, ignorance, previous experiences, etc. I just got the impression that the mage-hate and template-hate in Kirkwall was just a reflection of something IRL, which is why Hawke can either plea for the mages' case, support the templars, or just shrug and try to avoid taking sides (until forced to).

Though I would have liked to have seen an exploding kitten.

[LobselVith8]

whykikyouwhy wrote...

I'm not so sure that Bioware was trying to sway anyone one way or the other, or merely displaying common human behavior and perception.

Bioware's developers admitted to trying to sway people, which was given as the reason why Orsino was dealing with Quentin. David Gaider has also said that he felt that people sided with mages "almost by default."

[TEWR]

I don't mind some mages being insane, so long as Bioware does insanity justice. But I don't want to see a bunch of insane mages.

There's no excuse for Decimus, Grace, and Orsino to be insane. Quentin and Tarohne were insane for good reasons.

There's only one game that I've played that did insanity justice, because it was a main theme of that game. Alice: Madness Returns.

[KnightofPhoenix]

I found Connor in Redcliff much more dangerous than the insane lunatics of DA2.

[TEWR]

LobselVith8 wrote...

whykikyouwhy wrote...

I'm not so sure that Bioware was trying to sway anyone one way or the other, or merely displaying common human behavior and perception.

Bioware's developers admitted to trying to sway people, which was given as the reason why Orsino was dealing with Quentin. David Gaider has also said that he felt that people sided with mages "almost by default."

Don't forget that the developers made Orsino turn on Hawke "because they wanted another boss battle".

I mean really, if they wanted the Harvester boss battle they just needed to have a Pride demon tear apart the thin Veil (literally tear it apart. And say "Heres.... Johnny!") and possess a mage corpse. Then he does the ritual and becomes a Harvester.

The ritual itself was blood magic, so a demon would know about it since they know about blood magic.

[TEWR]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

I found Connor in Redcliff much more dangerous than the insane lunatics of DA2.

Indeed. He was at least portrayed as a human being, and not just some Derp character.

[whykikyouwhy]

LobselVith8 wrote...

whykikyouwhy wrote...

I'm not so sure that Bioware was trying to sway anyone one way or the other, or merely displaying common human behavior and perception.

Bioware's developers admitted to trying to sway people, which was given as the reason why Orsino was dealing with Quentin. David Gaider has also said that he felt that people sided with mages "almost by default."

Did they? Interesting. That's not how I interpreted it at all. I felt that there were adequate pros and cons for both sides. C'est la vie. *shrug*

[TEWR]

Rifneno wrote...

nerdage wrote...

Legacy spoiler. Sort of.. not really.

I'm guessing not, pretty sure it done on purpose in DA2. Unless we're still in Kirkwall of course, in which case, maybe so.

Sort of a plot hole itself.  The difference between the rate of insane mages in Kirkwall vs...  I donno, everywhere else is so radical that it's simply not believable it wasn't common knowledge in Kirkwall.  And it clearly wasn't, since there's never any mages saying "this is the Chantry's fault for locking us in the house from Poltergeist."

I'm sorry but that codex pissed me off when I found it. They tried to not only explain the thin Veil (something you only find in a codex) with another codex but they also broke the own lore they established in that DLC.

Corypheus can only affect people with the taint and now they're saying that Corypheus affects regular people as well. Then what the hell was the point of Malcolm and the mages before him being brought in if they could be affected by Corypheus too?

Modificata da The Ethereal Writer Redux, 29 agosto 2011 - 05:12 .

[jlb524]

I still don't think of Orsino as insane but simply desperate.  They didn't do a good job of showing that and I still think he shouldn't have turned in the mage ending.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I mean really, if they wanted the Harvester boss battle they just needed to have a Pride demon tear apart the thin Veil (literally tear it apart. And say "Heres.... Johnny!") and possess a mage corpse. Then he does the ritual and becomes a Harvester.

This...especially the bolded part.

[thats1evildude]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Will the mage antagonists continue to be depicted as insane and stupid characters?

With the exception of Orsino and Quentin, the majority of examples you used are minor antagonists. They don't get any characterization beyond "insane and evil" because they don't need it. Most of the time, these characters only serve to introduce Hawke to more plot-relevant NPCs; for example, Tarohne's plot brings Hawke into contact with Knight-Commander Cullen.

From a design perspective, mages, particularly blood mages, are often used as minor villains because they function well as enemies. Their abilities are well-suited to taking on PC parties. For instance, you might question how a templar or a rogue could raise the dead to fight with him, but when Decimus does it, you don't bat an eye. There's a reason why Evil Sorceror is such a prevalent trope in fiction.

And in terms of the whole templar vs. mage dichotomy, every major conflict throughout history has always attracted its fair share of extremists. You can complain that some of the mages in DA2 are "insane and evil," but really, it would be more unrealistic if there weren't some of those people on the "pro mage" side.

The Loghains and Eamons are in this game, but you're not paying attention to them . They've been replaced by multi-layered characters like Ser Thrask, Feynriel, the Arishok and Viscount Dumar. (And yes, Orsino, though I'm hesitant to mention him as I don't want to get into a debate over his characterization.)

Finally, there were plenty of insane and evil warriors and rogues in this game. I don't hear you arguing about how Ginnis of the Winters or Ser Karras could be summed up as "big jerks," but that's about as much characterization as they got. And that's as much as they needed. Flat characters are not inherently bad.

Modificata da thats1evildude, 29 agosto 2011 - 05:32 .

[EmperorSahlertz]

Corypheus could affect normal people? Then why did the Carta corrupt themselves with the taint to listen to him?

[alex90c]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

whykikyouwhy wrote...

I'm not so sure that Bioware was trying to sway anyone one way or the other, or merely displaying common human behavior and perception.

Bioware's developers admitted to trying to sway people, which was given as the reason why Orsino was dealing with Quentin. David Gaider has also said that he felt that people sided with mages "almost by default."

Don't forget that the developers made Orsino turn on Hawke "because they wanted another boss battle".

I mean really, if they wanted the Harvester boss battle they just needed to have a Pride demon tear apart the thin Veil (literally tear it apart. And say "Heres.... Johnny!") and possess a mage corpse. Then he does the ritual and becomes a Harvester.

The ritual itself was blood magic, so a demon would know about it since they know about blood magic.

I can't really say I'd be a fan of even more demons, plus the complete trivialising of desire and pride demons in DA2 since Hawke just kills truckloads of them. The whole "thin veil" crap is getting old too. They could have, I dunno ... just not made Orsino a boss battle.

[GavrielKay]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

I found Connor in Redcliff much more dangerous than the insane lunatics of DA2.

Exactly.  They could have accomplished far more to justify kidnapping child mages and forcing them into circles by having Hawke play out another scenario like that.  Connor felt "real" in that it isn't hard to believe that an untrained mage would screw up while trying to protect his father.  Decimus attacking mage Hawke with mage companions just felt stupid.

And Orsino dealing with Quentin felt even more stupid.

I am somewhat baffled at why the Devs tried to convince the players that a lifetime of confinement under the control of religious zealots was at all a good thing.  As a side story in DAO it had some interest and I liked the side quests where you could either support or betray the mage collective.  But to base an entire end game around making players sympathetic to an oppressive militant religion so that it would be some kind of "gray" choice whether to support them or the mages was an odd call.

Of course most players "defaulted" to avoiding the RoA in DAO.  Most people SHOULD avoid mass slaughter where a surgical strike against only the dangerous people is presented as an option.  Trying to make a gray area out of the subjugation of an entire class of people based on how they are born was going to be a tough story to write, and I don't think they succeeded.

I don't mind at all that they set up the DA world to be unique.  I like that the elves have isolationist attitudes and the dwarves have this nasty caste driven society.  It adds quite a lot of flavor. 

The Chantry and Templars are very interesting parts of the DA world, but I felt like they warped the story too obviously around trying to make me sympathize with them.

[thats1evildude]

GavrielKay wrote...

[Decimus attacking mage Hawke with mage companions just felt stupid.

I did a run-through of that quest last night, albeit with a Warrior Hawke (with Anders in tow). It struck me that Decimus doesn't really care who you are, as he's only a step away from slaughtering everyone in the cave.

GavrielKay wrote...

And Orsino dealing with Quentin felt even more stupid.

I don't really see why people have such a problem with this. Quentin's research yielded some potentially powerful weapons in the battle against the templars. Orsino was readying for an eventual confrontation with Meredith. Therefore, Orsino kept Quentin's activities a secret.

Modificata da thats1evildude, 29 agosto 2011 - 05:50 .