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[dannythefool]

Akka le Vil wrote...
I'd be very disappointed if they end up being the next "misunderstood beast". It's become a subversion so common that the subversion now is actually to KEEP them as murdering monsters.

From what you learn about them in the books, they may be misunderstood but their intentions are still incompatible with everybody else's... but come to think of it, they're sort of like grey wardens. Do what you must to find the old gods, and all that.

[Original182]

marshalleck wrote...

Original182 wrote...

Darkspawn is simply evil because there is no other reason to explain them in any other way.

Well that's surely iron-clad reasoning.

Well personally I find it pointless. Why bother trying to explain something like the Blight?
It's almost like people are trying to sympathize with the Blight, like the numerous demon sympathizers I find in other threads. Maybe the Blight is misunderstood, oh I don't know about the Blight enough to know it's evil, maybe the Blight is a victim, just because a lot of darkspawn are evil doesn't mean all of them are, Codex is flawed, etc.

In the end you have to destroy the Blight or be destroyed, no other way around it. So trying to have a philosophical discussion on it doesn't serve any purpose.

Edit: Re-reading the original poster showed that the OP wasn't trying to sympathize with the Blight, but just that there wasn't any meaningful story for the main "villain", I guess much like Sarevok from Baldur's Gate I. In that sense I agree somewhat.

Modifié par Original182, 27 novembre 2009 - 09:15 .

[slackbheep]

The darkspawn with their implied hive mind remind me alternately of bacteria/virii and of the alien races referenced in the Enders Game series of novels. Specificly the Heirarchy of Exclusion(a system used to classify "strangers" based on your ability to understand one another, amongst other things), Darkspawn seem to straddle a point between Varelse: those true aliens with whom we can have no meaningful communication yet still possess their own intelligence, and Djur: Mindless monsters.



Personally, I felt that the Darkspawn fit well with the setting. It seems realistic that in a world so twisted it would take an almost incomprehensible threat to unify the people.

[Ellzedd]

Somethings are just bad. Does there really have to be a reason?

[AgnosticTheocrat]

dannythefool wrote...

AgnosticTheocrat wrote...
This is based entirely on the assumption that the Chantry is correct in their explanations. Why can't the Darkspawn simply be a force of nature, as an earlier poster said, similar to a virus or parasite?

Or it might be based on the books. In The Calling, one of the darkspawn explains a bit of what they do and why. Also what Morrigan says about the old gods and why it might make sense to preserve them fits in with this story.

I'll admit that I haven't read the books, but I'm unaware of any specific proof of the Maker condemning the Old Gods at any point within them. That the Darkspawn seek out and revive the Archdemons seems rather self-evident, but that wasn't the claim I was referring to. Could you tell me which specific claims the books confirm, and how they do so?

[Grey Lord]

Original182 wrote...

Edit: Re-reading the original poster showed that the OP wasn't trying to sympathize with the Blight, but just that there wasn't any meaningful story for the main "villain", I guess much like Sarevok from Baldur's Gate I. In that sense I agree somewhat.

That's my point.

The idea that the Darkspawn is just a force of nature simply doesn't make much sense; nobody knows whether the Chantry version of the story is true, but the Darkpawn seems linked to the Tevinter Imperium (the Old Gods, etc.) so maybe the lesser Darkspawns are just beast, but the higher ones have an intelligent objective, at the very least something as simple as that of the King of Shadows in NWN2.
An important part of the experience of the game is that nobody is just good or evil, Loghain and Duncan are perfect example of that; only the Darkspawn is simply evil, this make the game less consistent.

[Lianaar]

What I wouldn't give to learn of that motivation you know. I am really curious what drives them, what makes the intelligent ones different or even why some are more or less intelligent. How they lead the others and why they follow. How far they are able to make plots on their own and how much they can hide their thoughts. If at all. And what goals they aim at and what happens if they reach the goal.

I am very intrigued to learn this lore somewhere along the game or the books.

[Akka le Vil]

dannythefool wrote...

Or it might be based on the books. In The Calling, one of the darkspawn explains a bit of what they do and why. Also what Morrigan says about the old gods and why it might make sense to preserve them fits in with this story.

Bleh, making a Darkspawn communicate with humans and explaining anything is a very bad move.
Lose lots of the mystique and "fear" factor.

[Laurelinde]

I suppose part of it is that an enemy that really is just pure bad, basically, with no redeeming qualities or shades of grey, makes it easier to feel heroic by fighting them. In real life, there isn't really an enemy like this (with the possible exception of disease, but diseases aren't sentient so they're not really evil per se.) Part of the appeal of fantasy, I think, is that things are far more black and white than they are in the real world. There's no 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' kind of ambiguity. You get to be the hero who saves the world from something that is unarguably, inescapably bad from anyone's perspective, and you get to be sure - or more sure, at least - that you're doing the right thing. Even if you're playing an evil character, the game guides you into stopping the blight, rather than just saying, seeya suckers and leaving everyone to be mercilessly slaughtered. You don't get that kind of clarity in our world, so I guess it makes a nice change.

[Rhys Cordelle]

I think the mindless aggression of the darkspawn is a nice counterpoint to the intellectual dishonesty and conflicts of the humans, elves and dwarves. The darkspawn don't have to be consistent with the "shades of grey" behavior of the characters because they're not human/elven/dwarven (at least not anymore).



One point I would raise is this: If the Chantry is right and the Maker turned the magisters into the first darkspawn, then it is the Maker who imbued them with the instinct to seek out the "old gods" and corrupt them. Perhaps the "Maker" is in fact the true evil, and he created the darkspawn to wipe out not only the old gods, but mankind as well.

[supakillaii]

Daedalus1773 wrote...

Yes. I was somewhat disappointed there was never any interaction with the archdemon or any other Darkspawn-controlling or intelligent entity other than those dream flashes. I would have thought an Old God archdemon would be capable of more than just combat.

This, I was hoping the Archdemon to be more like the Vanguard of Our Destruction from Mass Effect. Forgot his name...

[tigrina]

Rhys Cordelle wrote...
One point I would raise is this: If the Chantry is right and the Maker turned the magisters into the first darkspawn, then it is the Maker who imbued them with the instinct to seek out the "old gods" and corrupt them. Perhaps the "Maker" is in fact the true evil, and he created the darkspawn to wipe out not only the old gods, but mankind as well.

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if the Blight is actually a curse from a very powerful mage, maybe even Andraste (there is a hint to her being a mage in the codex somewhere). She would have had good reason to hate the Tevinter Empire. But like with the werewolves, such a curse doesn't stick to only your enemy.

On another note, the darkspawn don't have a choice in seeking out Old Gods. It is the Old Gods who call to them and they can not deny that call. The side effect is that if the Old God is actually found, it also gets tainted.

Ah yes, speculation is fun, isn't it.

[The Angry One]

Boeresmurf wrote...

this world was created by the maker.
old gods were slammed in the ground by the maker.
mages on influences of old god.. passed the fade world to reach the forbidden city of the maker.
the maker punishes the mages for disobediance , turning them into pain inflicted cursed people and smacking them back to reality.
cursed mages become a blight to the land.. filled with terror and hate agianst the world of the maker.

1 goal: find old god.. free/corrupt him and destroy the land of the maker.

enough reason for being evil, there cursed and this is there retribution on the world for it.

That's the Chantry version, which sounds about as true and honest an account as Arl Howe's loyalty to a certain Teryn.