Satyricon331 wrote...
I think it's not that the tragedy's existence is unpredictable (which depends at least partly on how often the "peer" media uses tragedy, imo), but that things can go wrong in so many more ways than they can go right that how it plays out is less predictable.
Yes, that's true. The unpredictability is actually in the outcomes, which could be either good or bad. Not sure how relevant the number of times things going bad is, since we're not talking about ordinary stories or individuals.
There are limits of course. The main protagonist, for example, cannot die (or otherwise "disappear"), at least till the end, otherwise there won't be a story to tell. So whatever it is that has to be done has to be done with the side-events. I'm sure the situation could be handled in not having a main protagonist for the overall story, as is the case going from DA:O to DA2, so one could kill of the Warden or Hawke. Anyway, this is not totally relevant to what we're discussing.
Also, looking over Jennifer's post again, she's right that tragedy can help to create a sense in which the protagonist has earned whatever happiness s/he has by the conclusion.
there was never a sense of suspense since the good guys always won.
You're right again, of course. The question I suppose is, overall, should tragic events overshadow happy ones, which is what I think her whole reply was about, that they prefer tragic ones to happy ones. Looking at the themes of DA:O vs. DA2, this is especially apparent: DA:O was about stopping a blight, having the potential to resolve, many of the things that lead up to the final conflict, to one's content; and DA2 was about not beling able to stop the mage-templar conflict, not being able to amicably resolve the many events that lead up to it, no matter what one did.
Even then there is the aspect of a threshold, a "tragedy-fatigue" that she introduced, which perhaps isn't the same for everyone. It isn't a definite number. This is especially true since there seem to have been many gamers who thought this threshold was crossed with DA2. So I'd say it isn't all that clear what it is exactly that holds an audience, whether the mean is really at the center, or whether it's got something to do with particular events, and so on. And it could also be that by having many tragic events we cherish the somewhat little ones (for example, losing the whole of Hawke's family, but discovering Charade). These are all relative things.
Overall, though, I think all of these happy endings vs. tragic ones is coming at the cost of losing branching story lines, like the one I brought up with Loghain. I'd have preferred a more dynamic story line, rather than a static one. With Leandra, for instance, I'd have preferred it to have been different, even though the end result was always predetermined to be something - for instance I save her, only to lose her later, say during the Qunari conflict, or even during the mage - templar war.
I'll give you two examples: In LOTR, there were so, so many times when mere random chance saved Frodo that I think it's fair to say his idea of not bringing Aragorn with him all the way to Mordor was probably a bad one (and perhaps Tolkein was making an implicit point about Providence). Frodo's luck even starts in the Shire, when those elves just happened to be passing by as that one Black Rider was about to find him with the ring (and regarding predictablity, btw, you just knew that e.g. something like Tom Bombadil was going to rescue them from that evil tree). The other is the Belgariad - there was never a sense of suspense since the good guys always won.
Yes, I understand. But the thing is I suppose such uncertaintly ought to be built into the story line. In LOTR, for example, the theme was always that Frodo would destroy the ring, so losing him along the way wasn't an option. We did lose Boromir, though. And we did lose Gandalf for some section of the story. And humans did lose the Battle of Osgiliath, and the ones that survived were forced back to Osgiliath by the mad Denethor. And the few hundreds or so defending Helm's Deep did all die - including the company of elves lead by Haldir. These are all elements that did drive the audience to dispair. But the overarching plot was that Middle Earth would be saved.
But, if a story, such as DA, is really about "human tragedy" or about "dark fantasy," I suppose it's best that they changed course in DA2. It's about what the authors prefer in their work of fiction - whether it's tragedy to the extent of how GRRM carries it, whether for novelty's sake or something else.
I apologize if I went off in tangents.
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