42 réponses à ce sujet

[SheffSteel]

As a writer, how do you portray a caged murderer in a sympathetic light, given that they are from a different culture?



Apparently, you don't.

Seeing what people have written on this thread, it seems as if you're expected to work to get him released before you are ever given a justification for his crimes. Maybe my notion of justice (evidence -> verdict) is backwards. Maybe I'm missing something.

[Realmzmaster]

Everyone of the companions have done something shady in their past. Shale killed her master. Zervan is an assassin. Leliana was a rogue (spy?). Oghren killed another dwarf in a dispute which was only to go to first blood. Morrigan has led soldiers to their deaths. Sten killed eight people. Wynne nearly drove an apprentice to his death. Even Fang is breed to be a war dog, whose duty is to kill.

The reason why Sten is so different is because of the philosophy he believes and his outlook on life. Sten challenges most people's belief system. None of your companions will be nominated for the Mister Rogers Achievement award.

[Lotion Soronarr]

At least your companions (most of them) regreat their actions. They regret taking lives.



Sten doesn't regret killing the children - he regreats loosing control. That is a comletely different thing. the lives of those children mean nothing to him. Ergo, his life means nothing to me.

[Maria Caliban]

Aether99 wrote...

Viglin wrote...

Taleroth wrote...

In his defense, he does feel bad about it.

Its one of the weaker points in this otherwise awesome game;

*Johan tries to kill 1 person, but nearly everyone...including Sten "l was in a cage and killed 8 people" disagree with releasing him.
Yet everyone thinks Sten should be set free...WTF?!

actually I think its quite reasonable considering his entire upbringing and his way of life in his homeland.  When duty and honor are paramount over life and death, and you lose your tool that both represents those duties as well as assures your place in the world that you know and love...well...id probably black out and come to with a bunch of dead people around me as well.

Its not like it sounds like they taught him to cope with things well over there...

Literally that sword is more important to him than his life,and by the sound of it more important to his people then his life too

Qunari are like Vulcan; their ordered lifestyle is a deliberate reaction to their violent and irrational natures. They're either in complete control or utterly out of control.

[Maria Caliban]

Realmzmaster wrote...

The reason why Sten is so different is because of the philosophy he believes and his outlook on life. Sten challenges most people's belief system. None of your companions will be nominated for the Mister Rogers Achievement award.

What? You didn't know he was a sniper in Nam with over 25 kills?! You need to learn your urban legends, buddy.

[kevinwastaken]

Sten is a pathetic creature that deserves to be fed to nugs.

[MartinJHolm]

Obviously a lot of people can't grasp roleplaying letting their real life feelings get to them.



I admit to having a hard time not to be "lawful good" myself because that's how we are raised and it comes naturally to us.



Anyway, in the storyline you and your companions chose to take sten along because he seems like he could be useful to the group not because of his personality, if you were to judge them by your initial impression no sane person would take shale or that assassin guy.

[dzillo1]

Not much worse than killing a child. Parents understand that more.

There is no mercy for that in my opinion.

[Damar Stiehl]

thisisme8 wrote...
The brilliance of Sten is that he's written to make you feel uncomfortable.  You said yourself that you believe him to be evil by conventional standards, but that means nothing to him.  His whole culture is alien to us, so we aren't necessarily going to understand him.  But does that make him evil?  I don't know.
Oh, and about the "no concept of life."  That is not unusual for many countries that are riddled with poverty and high death rates.  That by no means makes them all evil.  Desperate, maybe, but not evil.

We should assume that "conventional morality standards" apply to the PC, as he grew up in relatively conventionally structured society. So yes, from the PC's standpoint, Sten is evil and his entire culture has evil tendencies, because quinary principles apparently run contrary to the PC's understanding of "what is good". Whether the PC chooses to embrace evil or reject it is an entirely different matter.

[KalosCast]

Heh, the only character in your entire party who is fully open about their past and their motivations for helping you gets called the evil one.

[SheffSteel]

Should we welcome those who admit to awful crimes, and shun those who seem wholesome and virtuous? Does that make us better roleplayers somehow, or just better meta-gamers?

[Fisal]

Nightfish103 wrote...

Dunno, I like Sten. He doesn't try to make up excuses for what he did. He never denies his failures, and as he's not a human but a Qunari I can see how losing his sword can push him over the edge. It's importance is made clear several times.

(On a sidenote, on my first playthrough I heard some guys in the tavern talk about the "canary in the cage" and I was like... wtf? a canary?)

With canary they probably ment Qunari

[RunCDFirst]

SheffSteel wrote...

As a writer, how do you portray a caged murderer in a sympathetic light, given that they are from a different culture?

Apparently, you don't.
Seeing what people have written on this thread, it seems as if you're expected to work to get him released before you are ever given a justification for his crimes. Maybe my notion of justice (evidence -> verdict) is backwards. Maybe I'm missing something.

Maybe you're just too judgemental?

Methinks condemning Sten is more ethnocentric arrogance than a sense of greater justice. His character is meant to be culturally alien, I think they did a good job of that. As mentioned, he regrets his actions, he's repentent. He also faithfully serves the PC fighting against the Blight for Fereldan. He accepts his actions and the punishment for them.

I don't know how people can see him as evil.

[Foxd1e]

SheffSteel wrote...

As a writer, how do you portray a caged murderer in a sympathetic light, given that they are from a different culture?

Apparently, you don't.
Seeing what people have written on this thread, it seems as if you're expected to work to get him released before you are ever given a justification for his crimes. Maybe my notion of justice (evidence -> verdict) is backwards. Maybe I'm missing something.

It's a videogame, if your getting hostile to other people for liking sten or wanting to justify what he did through their own RP means then you are taking it too seriously

[Taleroth]

SheffSteel wrote...

As a writer, how do you portray a caged murderer in a sympathetic light, given that they are from a different culture?

Apparently, you don't.
Seeing what people have written on this thread, it seems as if you're expected to work to get him released before you are ever given a justification for his crimes. Maybe my notion of justice (evidence -> verdict) is backwards. Maybe I'm missing something.

It is a belief held by a few that leaving someone to the Darkspawn is a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

[nicethugbert]

Sten and Morrigan gave me negativity about helping the Redcliffe villagers survive a common enemy when it's obviously necessary even if you don't care about the villagers. So, I left their dumb butts at camp.

[Aderis]

All I can say is I loved the character Sten for being as he was. His life was about duty and honor and he lives up to what he is set into doing.



Is he evil? Define Evil. If a lion kills a gazelle in order to survive can that Gazelle's family not call it murder and evil? This is purely questionable but it's a simple statement of survival. What YOU and society views as evil may not always be evil. Alistair even states that Sten's sense of regret may not be the same as ours and it's true.



He is grateful for those men because they saved him, but he is regretful because he lost control when he realized that he failed in his duty to lead his men and keep them alive. It was HIS duty to keep his men alive and to get them through whatever challenge came for them and he failed.



We do not hold Duty to such a respect as the Qunari do and thus we cannot possibly understand. Sten has emotion, he just keeps control (as someone else stated like the Vulcans) of said emotion. When comparing 'our' races and how 'we' react If you were a friend to STen and made the sacrifice he evne states that there was only one person in all his travels that was worthy of honor in their ways.



Do not judge what you cannot understand and do not try to understand Good and Evil. Not everyone's opinion 'on' Good and Evil may be the same and not every culture's version of it is the same.



As for the OP's question, leave him in the cage the Blight will kill him otherwise jsut tell him to leave he will be killed on sight due to the fact that he lost his 'soul' or 'purpose' as stated upon the retrieval of his sword. He forgot what it meant to be 'Complete'.

[CJohnJones]

Given the mishmash of good and not-so-good allies who you can amass, I think that running your party like the French Foreign Legion is a sane and useful attitude. Basically, everyone except Alistair and Dog could plausibly be put down for the public good. you need this ragtag bunch of misfits or you won't get anywhere.