Meredith never seemed the most relatable character and her justification for the Right of Annulment was weak. It's no surprise that more players sided with the mages. They should have made her more sympathetic if they wanted a truly to make a very difficult decision at the end. What do you guys think?
While I agree with you that it is no surprise so many people ended up siding with the mages, I actually disagree with you about why. My very first playthrough, I was a Rogue femHawke. I didn't take Bethany into the Deep Roads with me, and so she ended up at the Circle. In the climax, I sided with Orsino SOLELY because of the fact that Bethany was in the Circle, and after losing the rest of my family, my Hawke wasn't going to lose her too.
On almost all subsequent playthroughs, if I'm a non-mage Hawke, I take Bethany into the Deep Roads without taking Anders and allow her to die. Why? Because this allows me to side with the Templars without feeling like I'm betraying my sister who is a mage. Except for the fact that my mage sister is a good person, most of the events of DA2 make me feel like the Templars are right -- not Meredith, but the Templars in general. Why? Because almost every encounter we have with a mage involves blood magic and mages willing to kill innocent people or make deals with demons to get out of their oppression. If Meredith was more likeable, I think the decision to side with the Templars would be
too easy for me.
Except for my sister, both of my mage companions in DA2 are totally wonked out. In Origins, I agreed with a lot of what Morrigan had to say about mage-rights, and she made me believe that using blood magic -- for the right reasons and in the right way -- wasn't always "evil". Wynne wasn't being controlled by the Spirit of Protection inside of her -- if anything it was more like a bandaid than a sentient being regarding how it affected her character. But in DA2: Merrill openly admits to not only using blood magic, but consorting with a friggin' DEMON -- I almost always rival her through the game, if only to knock some sense into her. Anders's judgement is compromised by how his and Justice's personality have merged. In Act I, he's the one that initiates the fight with the Templars when we go try to save Karl. In Act II, he's the one who is ready to kill an innocent apostate girl unless I interfere. And By the end of Act III, regardless of my relationship with him or what impact I try to have on his character, he BLOWS UP THE FRIGGIN' CHANTRY, killing many innocent lives in the process for the sole purpose of starting a war with the Templars/Chantry.
I don't think Meredith's justification for the Right of Annulment was weak; however, I would agree that her argument is really only politically justified, not ethically justified. The Chantry was blown up by a mage; I know as well as any other that Anders wasn't in the Circle, but Meredith has a point when she explains that the people will expect and demand action. Meredith, like any other zealot, isn't discriminating over which mages must pay, thus the obvious place for her to start would be to take action against the mages in the Circle. She believes that Kirkwall must be purged because the people will demand it. And considering that in almost every Mage vs. Templar scenario that we come across, blood magic (or some other dangerous form of magic) is involved... I'm usually inclined to agree with her logic in the end. While I would generally say that everyone deserves their freedom, and that locking them up just because of who they are is wrong... I also believe that within the lore of the Dragon Age universe, I would nine-times-out-of-ten-absolutely side with the Templars over the mages, because most of the mages I come across are using blood magic. You know, like the psycho blood mage who kidnapped Templars to turn them into abominations, or the psycho blood mage that killed my mother, or hey -- the two out of three suspected blood mages that turn out to be pyschotic abominations in Act II.
Personally, I think that one of the easiest ways to remedy that solution would have been to allow us to make a choice which determines which of our siblings dies in the escape from Lothering during the prologue, and/or allow both siblings to survive the prologue. I fully understand why BioWare structured the game so that you have no control (other than choosing which class you are) over which of your siblings dies in the prologue. And I also understand why they structured it so that the decision to take or leave your surviving sibling (and/or Anders) is significant when leaving for the Deep Roads expidition. However, if you could have a hand in which of your siblings is the survior, it would significantly alter the perspective, in my opinion, of the PC Hawke.
Say I'm a Rogue or a Warrior, and Carver was my surviving sibling -- his influence would likely further sway me to side with the Templars in the endgame decision. As a mage, you're almost forced into a rivalrous relationship with Carver because of the fact that you're a mage; despite having an older sibling (and father) that are (were) mage(s), being in Kirkwall exposes him to the evils and dangers of magic and turn him against mages in general. But AS a mage, PC Hawke is likely to rebut this opinion with something to the effect of "I'm a mage -- do you think I should be imprisioned just because of what I am?". A non-mage PC Hawke could still side with the mages despite Carver's personality, yet having him around might be an influence into the anti-mage choice in the endgame.
The only other way I could imagine possibly changing the game to better compensate for the choice is to allow a "I won't choose sides" or "I'm going to stop you two before you start a war" option (which would be tricky but not impossible to accomplish). Or, perhaps more simply, I do think that discovering the fatal flaws of Meredith and
Orsino before choosing a side would possibly make the decision more even-handed. If Orsino is ousted as someone willing to use blood magic to opose Meredith before you make the choice, then her Right of Annulment call seems far more justified, doesn't it? Conversely, if you had iron-clad proof that Meredith was bonkers thanks to the sword, you'd feel more inclined to protect the mages, would you? If you knew what you were up against going into making the decision, it would a) feel like a more difficult decision, and
it wouldn't feel like the game is betraying your decision-making process by making your choice seem insignificant when you end up having to kill them both.
Honestly, I would prefer the first option (where I'm not forced to pick sides). If that option was available, I would love to have chosen it. Considering that (as the game is) I have to kill both Meredith and Orsino anyways... well, it stands to reason, in my opinion, that the option
should be abvailable. In that regard, the scenario in the final battle could potentially include some of your companions leaving you to side with whoever they personally support (in which case, I would later be forced to confront them). Maybe I go to a spot where I prepare and I talk to my remaining companions -- (similarly to the way that I would after siding with one or the other but before I launch into action) -- only this time, my motivation is to STOP the conflict rather than picking a side on which to fight. Then, after I've prepared and talked to my companions, I have to decide which side I'm going to try and persuade first.
So, say I try to go persuade Meredith to lay down her lyrium sword. Maybe she confronts me initially, but I ultimately manage to convince her that her sword is affecting the way she's thinking. If I can't convince her, I have to kill her. If I can convince her, she and I will buddy up to go and tell Orsino that the Right of Annulment is called off. HOWEVER, (because the whole point of the game is that the war was started because of this conflict) Orsino has already decided to turn to blood magic, so we have to kill him. (And if it is imperitive that Meredith dies, then Orsino could theoretically cutscene kill her at some point during the conflict.) Conversely, if I tried to sway Orsino first, maybe he's already ready to resort to blood magic, and I have to convince him not to. If I can't convince him, then I have to kill him. If I can, then he joins me to go fight Meredith, who is beyond pursuasion when I show up with Orsino. Again, if they both have to die for the sake of the future story, Meredith could cutscene kill Orsino at some point. If I wasn't able to sway the person I initially went to, and was forced to kill them, it stands to reason that I would probably be forced to kill the other one -- who, after waiting for a period before I come to them, is already beyond persuasion because they interpretted my actions as that of someone who is against them.
TL;DR -- or, to sum it all up:
I think the problem is less about Meredith and Orsino, and more about PC Hawke's class and suriving sibling. A mage Hawke is more likely to side with the mages, because they are a mage; regardless of Carver's influence who antagonizes you despite being family. And on the other side of the coin, a non-mage Hawke is still more likely to side with the mages, because their sweet and innocent little sister is a mage, not to mention that their father was a mage. So, short of giving you the option of keeping both of them, or allowing a decision in game to dictate which sibling survives in the prolouge, I think the only way to make the endgame decision more "grey" is to allow the option to not pick sides before facing the final boss fights.
Modifié par Auridesion, 13 octobre 2011 - 02:26 .
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