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[Dave of Canada]

As the spoiler forum generally discusses more on the topic of story and less about the entire setting and the games, I feel it's better to post this here. Maybe it's better there, I do not know.

The Dragon Age series has always tip toed around fantasy and humanity, trying to integrate both into one story. One doesn't have to look far to see the success of the Landsmeet and the Archdemon plots in Origins, two fantastic plots integrated into one which created a plot where fantasy and humanity met head on.

The Archdemon was this unquestionable big bad, something which needed to be stopped without reservation. Nobody sat down and thought to themselves that the Archdemon was this being of righteousness or that it's perspective was morally gray, we needed to destroy it.

Yet the Loghain plot introduced complexity with this, the Blight was his advantage to put his plans into motion. Nobility waged war as the Blight ravaged Ferelden, people could view and possibly hate or respect Loghain. This was a source of much debate, something which people could argue about. Did Loghain really intend this? Was he right or wrong? Does he deserve death?

Personally, I felt Origins was a well executed generic fantasy plot with human elements. Many of the elements introduced into it are great and have been expanded upon, the Architect added some more complexity to the Darkspawn (rather than them being generic mooks) and the Mage/Templar, in addition to the Qunari were expanded upon in Dragon Age 2.

However, we've also got problems with this. We've got the elements of fantasy which challenge the entire humanity of the Dragon Age plot, things like the blasted deep roads idol or demon possession. Things which took the human story of Dragon Age 2 and threw it under the light of fantasy, ruining it's humanity.

Meredith was a victim of fantasy triumphing over humanity, her character being thrown from sympathetic to insane because of "magic". It might've fed upon character traits that already existed, we don't meet Meredith enough to judge how much it impacted her.

People who found her sympathetic couldn't really stand on her side as it's revealed she's under the influence of magic. Same thing with demonic possession, Dragon Age's version of indoctrination, capable of making anybody into a villain.

By no means, this doesn't mean to neglect demonic possession or magical influences. They simply need to be part of the plot, not the crucial point of it.

Connor was a fantastic example of it being done right, Isolde wanted to protect her son despite how dangerous he was and as a result he was manipulated by a demon to protect his father. Had Connor simply been possessed and wiped out Redcliffe, the scenario isn't really feeding off the character and the fantasy takes the forefront.

As we approach the Mage and Templar war and the continuation of the Morrigan / Flemeth (with possibly including the God Baby), I fear fantasy may step further into the domain until Dragon Age loses the darker sides of humanity, characters like Loghain and Arl Howe disappearing for things like Harvester Orsino or Idolized Meredith.

Is this fear justified? What are your thoughts on the matter?

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 06 décembre 2011 - 07:11 .

[CrimsonZephyr]

I think your fears are justified, and I very much agree that the injection of more cartoonish fantasy into storylines formerly infused with humanity cheapens them immensely.

[Esbatty]

Orsino turned to Blood Magic out of desperation and a perceived threat to himself and those under his tutelage. He was playing the long game by reaching out to sources outside of the Circle like Quentin, in a sort of Cold War with Meredith and her Chantry Armed Forces. Meredith, known to be an efficient and loyal, Chantry Soldier held steadfast to her duties and later on armed herself accordingly.

The Corrupt Lyrium Idol, Corphyeus' influence over the land, and the threadbare Veil separating the Free Marches from the Fade due to hunderds of year of Tevinter atrocities were all environmental factors that influenced not just the Mages and Templars but the whole area. Just as the Blight was the tipping point for Fereldans to go "bandit" and prey on the fleeing masses, and for Loghain to suspect that it was simply an anomalous Darkspawn surface excursion that the Orlesians were going to use an excuse to march back into Ferelden. I don't see a vast difference between the coming Blight that was destroying Ferelden and the existing corruptive forces that was destroying Kirkwall.

Its all Fantasy stuff.

Loghain's paranoia about the Orlesians was tainted by his run in with Flemeth in his youth. He knew about that prediction of the betrayal and it haunted his future decisions.

[Xewaka]

The problem is: How do you make Meredith a satisfying end game boss is she's just a regular human? Not that I disagree with you, as the problem of fantasy trumping humanity is very real. However, they decided that gameplay was more important than history and thus sacrificed the character of Meredith to get an end boss.

[CrimsonZephyr]

Xewaka wrote...

The problem is: How do you make Meredith a satisfying end game boss is she's just a regular human? Not that I disagree with you, as the problem of fantasy trumping humanity is very real. However, they decided that gameplay was more important than history and thus sacrificed the character of Meredith to get an end boss.

Two words: Badass Normal.

[Chewin]

Well said and I agree with what you wrote.

But for me, when it comes down to the humanity and the lack of it in DA2, was the lack of character development. Especially when it came down to Meredith and Orsino. Both could have been interesting characters, but we do not see them progress and evolve as characters. This really disappointed me, even more that BW managed to pull Loghain character development perfectly IMO. He was easy to hate, but if you actually stopped and started thinking and listening to his motives, he isn't the original "moustache villain" of the story that you would assume. But this is clearly not the case in DA2. I mean, what do we learn exactly from Meredith and Orsino? At best, we learn about Meredeth's policies, but we do not know who she is as a person and how she is changing, and she only appears in Act 3, which is a very lousy move. Doing her quest we can learn why she behaves the way she does, but that is done in a dew minute display at the very end and that does not constitute development and progression. Orsino almost gets nothing and his face shows up when we start the game. And not to mention the lousy reason to have as a last minute boss fight.

But let's compare the two of them witht he Arishok. We make conversations with him several times, bith in Act 1 and 2. And we see his attitude change, from patient and stoic, to irritated, to losing his patience, and from gaining his respect (if you manage to achive it). And at the same time, we can see throughout the game how he reacts to them. We see that he is a real person with human (Qunari?) motivations. When I fought with him I was not fighting a meaningless boss, I was fighting a worhty opponent.

But when fighting Meredith and Orsino, I felt nothing except killing two maniacs, who had almost no character progression. It felt like a waste of potential.

And b/c of this exaclt reason is why, in my opinion, the idol should have been scrapped, especially since we know nothing of it (and is almost never explained), and focus on Meredith as a human instead and how and why she becomes more and more paranoid. But no, we get that she goes crazy b/c of the idol, and starts betraying everybodu for no particular reason (saying the idol is "evil" is hardly a good explanation).

I wouldn't have had that big of a problem with DA2 if the idol would have been properly explained. B/c the nothing we got through the idol does not substitute for the virtual absence of the character development of Meredith.

[Ponendus]

Nicely put Dave. You make some excellent points.

I do agree that inserting fantasy elements can remove, or 'mask', the humanity from the game. There is an argument that that's alright because this is after all a fantasy game; but I am with you in saying that I find it a much more rich and rewarding experience when the human element is present.

Thanks for opening my eyes to that and for an interesting topic. Here's to more humanity in Dragon Age!

[Dave of Canada]

Esbatty wrote...

Orsino turned to Blood Magic out of desperation and a perceived threat to himself and those under his tutelage.

Which I could respect, were he not shown as insane briefly before. Had Orsino gone on to transform into the Harvester as it was the only way to defend himself against the Templar and he mentions it's risky, it would've been fine.

The dialogue however simply goes to say "Oh no, we're going to die! Meredith wants blood magic, here it is! Btw, I helped kill your mother!" if you sided with the mages, he does make more sense if you've sided with the Templar though.

The Corrupt Lyrium Idol, Corphyeus' influence over the land, and the threadbare Veil separating the Free Marches from the Fade due to hunderds of year of Tevinter atrocities were all environmental factors that influenced not just the Mages and Templars but the whole area.

It did more than influence, though. The actions of the characters weren't due to their own decisions because of the idol, Corypheus or the Veil's weakness pretty much making them tread that path.

They've mentioned how Kirkwall is highly violent and there's a lot of people killing each other due to the effects of these objects (except for the idol which only impacted the ending), how does this necessairly compare to Loghain's power play after he noticed the Blight was a nice opportunity? There's a difference between fantasy being crucial and fantasy playing part of.

Loghain's paranoia about the Orlesians was tainted by his run in with Flemeth in his youth. He knew about that prediction of the betrayal and it haunted his future decisions.

But his decisions were still his own, his motivations were still his own and everything he did was influenced only his own life experience and decisions. The Blight only allowed him the opportunity, it set up the circumstances of his decisions.

The Blight didn't make him abandon Cailan, nor did the prophecy. He did it of his own due to his motivation of protecting Ferelden, his beliefs twisted by his hatred of Orlais. Unlike say... Meredith, who we can't say what really was "her" and everything she was doing was twisted by the idol.

[Dave of Canada]

Xewaka wrote...

The problem is: How do you make Meredith a satisfying end game boss is she's just a regular human? Not that I disagree with you, as the problem of fantasy trumping humanity is very real. However, they decided that gameplay was more important than history and thus sacrificed the character of Meredith to get an end boss.

Just like the Arishok was (kind of) a satisfying encounter, throw waves of Templar at you (possibly with others helping you to represent the schism developing in the Order) with Meredith attacking you with special Templar abilities. The golems possibly still animating as a defense mechanism for the Gallows courtyard if mages rebelled.

[Dave of Canada]

Chewin3 wrote...

Well said and I agree with what you wrote.

But for me, when it comes down to the humanity and the lack of it in DA2, was the lack of character development. Especially when it came down to Meredith and Orsino. Both could have been interesting characters, but we do not see them progress and evolve as characters. This really disappointed me, even more that BW managed to pull Loghain character development perfectly IMO. He was easy to hate, but if you actually stopped and started thinking and listening to his motives, he isn't the original "moustache villain" of the story that you would assume. But this is clearly not the case in DA2. I mean, what do we learn exactly from Meredith and Orsino? At best, we learn about Meredeth's policies, but we do not know who she is as a person and how she is changing, and she only appears in Act 3, which is a very lousy move. Doing her quest we can learn why she behaves the way she does, but that is done in a dew minute display at the very end and that does not constitute development and progression. Orsino almost gets nothing and his face shows up when we start the game. And not to mention the lousy reason to have as a last minute boss fight.

But let's compare the two of them witht he Arishok. We make conversations with him several times, bith in Act 1 and 2. And we see his attitude change, from patient and stoic, to irritated, to losing his patience, and from gaining his respect (if you manage to achive it). And at the same time, we can see throughout the game how he reacts to them. We see that he is a real person with human (Qunari?) motivations. When I fought with him I was not fighting a meaningless boss, I was fighting a worhty opponent.

But when fighting Meredith and Orsino, I felt nothing except killing two maniacs, who had almost no character progression. It felt like a waste of potential.

Essentially, yeah. The real problem I have behind these two is that I see the potential, they probably had it all written down on the writer's side and it was probably removed as the game was nearing it's release date, it's just a damn shame the entire game's finale had the suffer for it.

[Dave of Canada]

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

...it looks like you're calling Arl Howe a "grey" character and that confuses me, but I digress.

Meant more like he's human, somebody who has his own motivations and goals. He's helping Loghain out of his own selfish ambition, he wiped out the Couslands and tortured many nobles because of it.

[Chewin]

Dave of Canada wrote...
Essentially, yeah. The real problem I have behind these two is that I see the potential, they probably had it all written down on the writer's side and it was probably removed as the game was nearing it's release date, it's just a damn shame the entire game's finale had the suffer for it.

I think this is the case as well.

EternalAmbiguity wrote...
I think the plot in Act 2 was fairlyhuman: the reason for the Qunari being there, and the culminating conflict until the climax was all pretty singularly non-magical.

In my personal opinion, there was nothing wrong with Act 2, it was actually quite good. It's the next act where it starts to go down hill. It feels a little rushed.

Modifié par Chewin3, 06 décembre 2011 - 09:42 .

[esper]

I don't mind the idol idea. In fact I think it is necessary to bind act1 and act 3 together and make the Deep Roads important. I do, however, think it could be executed better. What we needed was.
- We needed to see Meridith in act 1 or the prologe. To her her speaking, interacting with her templars and also to get a clearer idea of how she was like.
- We needed to know exactly what the idol does. Drives people crazy in not precise enough.
- On the mage side we needed to be overopowered by the templars. Why they didn't just make a cutscene with about fifty templars (or another number that seems overwhelming) entered the room, so Orsino's freak out makes sense I will never know. If the player felt overpowered as well Orsino's character would have made much more sense.

[SgtElias]

Dave of Canada wrote...

As we approach the Mage and Templar war and the continuation of the Morrigan / Flemeth (with possibly including the God Baby), I fear fantasy may step further into the domain until Dragon Age loses the darker sides of humanity, characters like Loghain and Arl Howe disappearing for things like Harvester Orsino or Idolized Meredith.

Is this fear justified? What are your thoughts on the matter?

I'd never thought about it in quite that manner before, but I see your point. One of the things that made Dragon Age: Origins so alluring was its ability to meld fantasy with the human condition, and I agree that, for the most part, Dragon Age 2 doesn't achieve this as capably.

I especially agree with the futility of a plot twist like Harvester Orsino. I wish he'd been given more screen time, and more character development; I'd, personally, come to like him, but I attribute this to playing a radically pro-mage character. For others, I'm sure they felt like they knew next to nothing about him at all. The internet does not contain an emote quite on par with the "what the hell?" face I'm sure I displayed during that sequence in the game.

I think your concern is very valid: with a mage revolution (is that what it's called on the BSN? That's what it's called in my house, anyway), a (possible) Old God baby, a lyrium idol with an attitude, and Flemeth, Morrigan, and even Sandal all wandering around doing . . . magic-y . . . things, I think it's not necessarilly an alarmist perspective to ask if the humanity is slowly receeding to make way for fantasy.

I will say, however (as I think someone else mentioned before me), that I thought the Arishok was one instance of something that Dragon Age 2 did well; I thought his character progression was very good, and I genuinely felt guilty that I hadn't been smart enough and quick enough to solve matters peacefully, even after learning that the game did not have that option.

I would love for the mage-templar war to be handled like the Arishok plotline, or, even better, like the Landsmeet plotline. I'm personally hoping for a lot of complexity, a lot of choice (if it can be resolved at all!), and no clear-cut answers. And, of course, I hope that my companions, the secondary characters, and my PC all have reasons why we care, real, understandable human reasons, be they altruistic or self-seeking.

[whykikyouwhy]

I think that the "evil" elements within DA2 still had their core of blame resting with humanity - the human misuse/abuse of power, the human drive for more, etc. While these may not have been explored fully or sufficiently, and while some nuances may have been glazed over (or the opportunity for such were missed completely), the fantasy elements did not trump that core message in any way (imo, of course).

I understand the concern, but I think that with only 2 major games in, it may be too early to think the story will go in one direction over the other. So too, DA2 was a very Hawke-centric story - it's a smaller pocket of the overall DA-verse, and thus some broader themes may have been scaled down.

As the overall narrative grows, those very human themes will shine through, I think.

[Gibb_Shepard]

Completely agree. I do believe that DA will most likely have more of a fantastical magic influence in the future though, as the core concept will most liekly be the Mage Templar war. When mages are involved, you can bet there is going to be ****loads of mind control and demon summoning.

[abnocte]

I totally agree with the OP.

I loved the fact that Loghain did what he did out of conviction it was the best for Ferelden. Though I admit it would have been interesting if he got more character development, or at least Return to Ostagar had been part of the original campaing ( those letters are quite telling ).

So the whole "Meredith is possesed by the symbol" was a total letdown. She appears late in the game, so character development or any kind of insight on her wasn't an option, but I would have preferred if her hate came from an awful experience with apostates, I don't know, may be her whole family was murdered by a blood mage/abomination and then she decided to join the templars and reach the highest rank so she could keep such tragedies from happening again... or something


I remember that a dev commented that they didn't introduced Meredith and Orsino earlier so the final plot isn't that apparent or something like that... and the first thing that crossed my mind was Jade Empire and the fact that you know the final boss from the very beginning, you just don't know....

We can just hope that next time they will go back to a more human approach.

[Dave of Canada]

abnocte wrote...

I don't know, may be her whole family was murdered by a blood mage/abomination and then she decided to join the templars and reach the highest rank so she could keep such tragedies from happening again... or something

That did occur, her sister was an apostate who wiped out her entire family. However, said dialogue only occurs if you side with her at the start of Act 3 and you question her about it later. It's very hidden, though and only goes to show the potential that was ruined with late-game appearence and the idol.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 06 décembre 2011 - 12:23 .

[SgtElias]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Completely agree. I do believe that DA will most likely have more of a fantastical magic influence in the future though, as the core concept will most liekly be the Mage Templar war. When mages are involved, you can bet there is going to be ****loads of mind control and demon summoning.

Should I counter that with the templars present, you can bet there'll be an overabundance of drug addicts and a general air of oppression?

I kid, I kid. Mostly.

Edit: Derailment apology.

Modifié par SgtElias, 06 décembre 2011 - 12:33 .

[abnocte]

Dave of Canada wrote...

abnocte wrote...

I don't know, may be her whole family was murdered by a blood mage/abomination and then she decided to join the templars and reach the highest rank so she could keep such tragedies from happening again... or something

That did occur, her sister was an apostate who wiped out her entire family. However, said dialogue only occurs if you side with her at the start of Act 3 and you question her about it later. It's very hidden, though and only goes to show the potential that was ruined with late-game appearence and the idol.

I already thought that DA2 wasted two very interesting plotlines with lots of potiential, learning about this just adds salt to my wounds... ( though I regained some of my faith in Bioware's writer team )

[esper]

Dave of Canada wrote...

abnocte wrote...

I don't know, may be her whole family was murdered by a blood mage/abomination and then she decided to join the templars and reach the highest rank so she could keep such tragedies from happening again... or something

That did occur, her sister was an apostate who wiped out her entire family. However, said dialogue only occurs if you side with her at the start of Act 3 and you question her about it later. It's very hidden, though and only goes to show the potential that was ruined with late-game appearence and the idol.

To be fair, I appreciate Meridith not telling my Hawke this, because honestely if you are pro-mage, why would she?
We just needed more Meridith in act 1 so we got a sense of her idol-free.

[abnocte]

SgtElias wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Completely agree. I do believe that DA will most likely have more of a fantastical magic influence in the future though, as the core concept will most liekly be the Mage Templar war. When mages are involved, you can bet there is going to be ****loads of mind control and demon summoning.

Should I counter that with the templars present, you can bet there'll be an overabundance of drug addicts and a general air of oppression?

I kid, I kid. Mostly.

I would really like to see this. An open war with mages has to have its costs on both sides, and this could add another dimension to the whole conflict. 

I can see Orzammar getting very rich by trading lyrium with both sides of the war, all the while risking their people to extract even more lyrium from the infested Deep Roads....

Templar loosing their already not so great numbers not only to the war but to the lyrium.
And mages becoming a danger to their own side because of blood magic, abominations and lurium addiction...

Hohoho, I soooooooo want to see this!!