katiebour wrote...
Templars vs. mages barely touched upon? Maybe you missed the part where Karl Thekla, a Harrowed mage, was made Tranquil in direct contravention of established Chantry law. Maybe you missed the part where Keran and Wilmod were kidnapped by blood mages attempting to lead an underground revolution. Maybe you missed Grace and the other Starkhaven mages being relentlessly pursued by Templars, or where Ser Karras threatens to kill all of them (Alain included) because Decimus was a blood mage. The acquisition of the idol in the Deep Roads is what eventually leads to Meredith's insanity and extreme crackdown on mages, which is what eventually feeds into the explosion of the Chantry.
The Qunari presence isn't elaborated on because at this point Hawke isn't a confidante of the Viscount. It's simply setting the scene for Act II. But the Arishok asks for Hawke in Act II because of the events in Act I, and the Viscount becomes acquainted with Hawke not only because of his/her power and wealth from the expedition, but also from the rescue of Saemus Dumar. Act I is the setup that leads into Act II regarding the Qunari. They are absolutely related.
There's a difference between "setup" and "build-up". In act 1, you have no idea what the significance of the idol is. You have no idea how Meredeth is affected by the mages' actions. There's
no indication that there will be an attack by the Qunari. There's
no indication there will be a war between the mages and templars. Yeah, there's a lot of "setup" in act 1, it's just a shame that it's completely bereft of drama because there's no indication there will be anything to come of any of it. since we only learn of the events' significance in hindsight. Act 1 is like the Hobbit in which the significance of Bilbo finding the ring of power isn't revealed until the Lord of the Rings, only unlike the Hobbit, act 1 of DA2 has no epic plot in of itself to speak of.
Ah, but would the Arishok have agreed to duel Hawke and co if he had not previously admitted that Hawke was basalit-an and thus worthy (a direct result of the Blackpowder quests)? Would Orsino and Meredith have brought Hawke to the Keep to take part in or lead the rescue of the nobility if he was simply a penniless, powerless nobody? Meredith as much says in her "rescue" that Hawke has turned up in her reports far too many times. Again, Hawke was the person in the right place at the right time with all of the right associates. That foundation was laid in Act I.
Again, setup is not build-up. But ok, let's say the Arishok didn't challenge Hawke to a 1-on-1 duel. So what? Killing him and his grand total of 6 guards with your group would have been way easier than killing the Arishok by yourself. I'm not saying Hawke gaining the Arishok's respect was
entirely irrelevant, but it's weak because really it's unecessary to reach the
same exact conclusion. The Arishok dies and you send the book back with the rest of the Qunari.
As for Mages v. Templars, we have the recruitment of Sebastian, the meeting with Sister Nightingale which implies that the Divine is getting ready to declare an Exalted March on Kirkwall because of the Mage/Templar problem. We have a number of smaller mage-related quests and Anders' sidequest, the importance of which cannot be overstated because we see with our own eyes Alrik's abuse of power. He as much implies that he'll make Ella Tranquil, then do whatever he wants to her. We know that he's done it to others and that he's simply one of many Templars across Thedas who practice similar abuses. We have All That Remains, a quest which might act as a powerful incentive to side with the Templars against dangerous blood mages (as Meredith references in Act III.) The end of Act II not only results in the defeat of the Arishok, but in a power vacuum due to the Viscount's death that Meredith fills in Act III. It results in her consolidation of power which leads directly to the events of Act III.
Unfortunately since Sebastan was stripped from the original game, his story doesn't factor into this. The vanilla game has to stand on its own.
And of course, you still bring up that there's tension between the mages and templars as proof there's buildup to act 3. There was also tension between mages and templars in Origins, but that didn't result in a war now, did it? There's horrific acts committed by mages in Origins, but that didn't mean you may have to choose between the mages and templars in that war, did it?
I absolutely agree that Hawke's support of one faction or the other have absolutely no bearing on the DAII endgame, and I absolutely agree that it was Anders who changed Thedas. I reiterate my guess that DAII is setting up for a post-game DLC or DA3 where Hawke's affiliation with either the Templars or the Mages and whether or not they spare Anders will have some bearing on the course of the war. We just haven't seen the result yet- it's a cliffhanger!
Nope, in the epilogue it's revealed
exactly what happens. The Circles turn on the chantry. The only difference given between choices is that either Hawke leaves, or rules Kirkwall for awhile and leaves.
But my point is that it doesn't matter which side you choose. Side with the elves and kill the werewolves- save the werewolves and kill Zathrian. Save Connor or don't. Destroy the Anvil of the Void, or don't. Side with Harrowmont or Bhelen, wipe the remaining mages from the Tower or save them. Either way the result is the same- the Warden builds an army and kills the Archdemon. It's exactly the same as siding with either the Mages or Templars in DAII- it doesn't matter which side you choose because the end result is the same.
Aside from what your army is at the end of the game while fighting the Archdemon? I guess so, but keep in mind that your choice is incidental. Your
goal is to build an army, and what this game does better than DA2 is that you
know the significance behind that goal and you
know what it's all building up to. Compare to DA2: does it really matter if you choose to save your sibling at the end of the deep roads? No. Does it really matter if you choose to turn Isabela in o the Qunari? No. Does it really matter if you side witht he mages or templars? No. Certainly no more than whether you choose to side with the elves or werewolves, the templars or the circle tower, Bhelen or Harrowmont, etc etc etc. What I'm getting at here is that all these quests in DA:O are inherently building up to a battle with the Archdemon, and your motivation to solve each of these issues at each of these places is to do battle with a cataclysmic force. That's what lends scale and epicness to the story in DA:O, and why DA2 by comparison seems disjointed and small in scale and accomplishment.
I agree that the Warden starts out as an Everyman. But they quickly become a Warden, the stuff of legends, a member of an ancient order sworn to defeat endless evil in an epic struggle to the death. The fact that everyone refers to the Warden by their title instead of their name or race clearly demonstrates the rank they pull.
Or it shows that the title of "Warden" was the only similarity between all the race options you had for the PC and therefore the only thing people can call the player aside from "you".
The difference is not in the person, intrinsically, but rather in how they are treated by everyone else. Despite Loghain's outlawing of the Wardens in DA:O, the treaties and past histories that each faction have with the Warden earn a certain amount of respect and deference. Even the quartermaster at Ostagar demonstrates this- my elf!PC got a "hey, you elf, why are you dressed up like that, go fetch me a coffee, slave" comment until they said "I'm a Grey Warden, b**ch," at which point the Quartermaster falls all over himself to apologize.
Well yeah, Grey Wardens are a prestigious order and the superior ranks in the battle at Ostagar. It baffles me that you consider how people treat your elf as a con, one of the biggest things I missed about DA:O while playing DA2 was the different race options and how NPCs will treat you differently depending on your race. DA2 made everyone human and completely homogenized
the experience.
But back to the issue at hand, how is becoming a Warden any different than Hawke becoming a noble right after the deep roads? There's a three-year jump afterward and suddenly you're everyone's friend, you're rich, you have political ties, you're famous....really you have everything that the Warden would WISH he/she had after becoming a fugitive in Ferelden. It's not until the Landsmeet late in the game when that starts changing.
Anyway, my main point about the two PCs being differentiated by Awsum!God powers is that the Warden doesn't have any difficult choices. If you save the werewolves, the only person who dies is Zathrian, and he goes to it with grace. The only difference between siding with werewolves vs. siding with elves is that you save more people. Save Connor, or don't- the only difference is that you SAVE MORE PEOPLE. Save the mages, or don't- the only result is that you SAVE MORE PEOPLE. There's no sacrifice. Even with the Archdemon, you have the Dark Ritual to make everything turn out fine and dandy.
In DAII, the choices you make almost always involve sacrifice. Take your sib into the Deep Roads? Better take Anders too. Don't take your sib? Too bad. Any way you choose, you lose- it's simply a matter of which choice is the lesser of three evils. And sometimes there is no resolution, as in All That Remains. There is no good choice, there is no way to save more people. You try, you fail, you experience loss and grief. Bioware didn't pull any punches in DAII, and I loved that.
That "you can never win" mentality in a game is frustrating when they give you really obvious foreshadowing and doesn't allow you to take
really obvious steps to prevent it. For example, Anders is clearly losing his battle with the spirit of vengeance and has violent outbursts when he sees a mage suffering. He also says a lot of worrying things about how to deal with the templars and refers to violence as the only way to solve the problem. He then asks you to go into the Chantry with him for a secret mission. Unless you're brain-dead (or hate the chantry) the obvious option is to force Anders to tell you what his plan is or do whatever you can to stop Anders from accomplishing whatever he wants to do. But no, those options aren't available because the plot says so. Unavoidable problems aren't a big deal, WHEN there's no reasonable way for you to prevent it, such as Loghain turning on Calian. There was no sign that he would do that, and you are way up in a tower swarmed by darkspawn when he turns and leaves. It's not a frustrating tragedy because there's really nothing you could have done about it. Do you see the issue here?
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