328 réponses à ce sujet

[Taleroth]

ReubenLiew wrote...

That's not even reasonable, he put them in camps because of emotional issues, not rationality. There wasn't any real reasonable reason he does the things he did, most of it stem from emotional breakdown of an entire people, where they hate simply because they do and not because there was a reason to do it.

We can find lots of reasons behind it, actually.  Germany was experiencing a severe depression that we can trace back at least as far as the resolution of WWI.  People wanted someone to blame for their state of affairs.  They felt a lack of control over their own situation.

Now, what happened was unconscionable and illogical.  But "reason" is flexible so long as you have a vague train of thought.

[Roxlimn]

EmperorSahlertz:



Don't be so quick to judge what you don't know. As I mentioned, these Asian ****houses featuring white slavery cater to American bases and servicemen. Is it the fault of the locals that they don't stand up to powerful warlords who WILL kill them if they speak up, or those who patronize these establishments, knowing what they are?



It's not an easy question with an easy answer. And yes, for the record, people have already been killed over this thing.



Dark Fantasy has been defined by others as having horror elements. That's not me. That's other people. I don't find DAO to be particularly dark, if it's not darker than normal fantasy material, or what I can see on a day to day basis.



Is rape ever okay? No, it's not, but when standing up against it means you WILL die and your wife and kids get raped, too, then it's not quite such an easy DAO decision, is it? Tell you what. If you're ever in a position where you can and have opposed real assassins hunting you down because you opposed child prostitution, let me know. I'll give you a shout-out.

[KalosCast]

Roxlimn wrote...
Is rape ever okay? No, it's not, but when standing up against it means you WILL die and your wife and kids get raped, too, then it's not quite such an easy DAO decision, is it? Tell you what. If you're ever in a position where you can and have opposed real assassins hunting you down because you opposed child prostitution, let me know. I'll give you a shout-out.

Internet tough guyyyyyyyyyyyy yeah! *rocks out a sweet guitar solo*

[ReubenLiew]

Taleroth wrote...

ReubenLiew wrote...

That's not even reasonable, he put them in camps because of emotional issues, not rationality. There wasn't any real reasonable reason he does the things he did, most of it stem from emotional breakdown of an entire people, where they hate simply because they do and not because there was a reason to do it.

We can find lots of reasons behind it, actually.  Germany was experiencing a severe depression that we can trace back at least as far as the resolution of WWI.  People wanted someone to blame for their state of affairs.  They felt a lack of control over their own situation.

Now, what happened was unconscionable and illogical.  But "reason" is flexible so long as you have a vague train of thought.

But reasonable and having a reason are two entirely different loafs of bread! Reasonable means having a rational, logical reason to pursue a course of events. Having a reason is simply just having a reason, having a reason doesn't need to be reasonable, it's just having a reason.

Which is why I argue it's not about being reasonable, it's about being emotional. They felt the need to hate on something after all that, which is being very emotional, and not about having a detached logical survey of the faults and mistakes of their situation. They blamed the Jews because of emotional attachment to the notion. There wasn't a logical reason to do what they did, but there was certainly an emotional reason why they did.

[Roxlimn]

Must be nice to live in place where you don't have to put your life on the line every time you stand up for common decency. It'd be nice if you didn't mock those of us who have to.

[Feond]

Do an annulment on the circle of magi. Then go to redcliff and try to get a happy ending.

[Taleroth]

ReubenLiew wrote...

But reasonable and having a reason are two entirely different loafs of bread! Reasonable means having a rational, logical reason to pursue a course of events. Having a reason is simply just having a reason, having a reason doesn't need to be reasonable, it's just having a reason.

I'm going to have to disagree on the semantics and we'll call it a day.  I don't consider the words reasonable and logical to be interchangeable.  Reasonable is capable of following a reasoned train of thought.  Logical is capable of withstanding inquiry by a school of logic.

Obviously, if you mean reasonable to be logical, I can't disagree with your point.  I wouldn't call it logical.

Modifié par Taleroth, 01 décembre 2009 - 08:11 .

[Cpl_Facehugger]

I find myself disagreeing with pretty much everything in the OP. The existence of "darker" fantasy settings in of itself doesn't somehow make DAO "undark" or "light." Now granted I wouldn't say DA is dark compared to something like Lovecraft, but that's more a matter of Lovecraft being excessively dark rather than DAO not being dark.

Similarly, the existence of the potential for good doesn't somehow erase the very dark themes present throughout the game. Just about every major quest involves something that's traditionally very "dark." Whether it's the whole Orzammar questline with its backbiting politics, sacrificing your entire clan out of an obsession, or man's (dwarf's) political structure succumbing to corruption and sacrificing its morality in the name of greater power, or the whole Dalish questline, with the elves and werewolves at eachother's throats because of a heinous crime committed centuries ago, the mages quest where even if you spare the mages, there's still the lurking doubt that maybe Cullen was right, and maybe some of those mages are "sleeper agents" with demons inside, just waiting to awaken and cause havoc, or the Redcliffe quest where you're basically given three very questionable options.

Now, I'm sure you'll say the Redcliffe quest was undermined by the third option, and to an extent, you're right. However, it's still portrayed as a risk. The whole "who knows what Connor will get up to while you're gone?" thing. Granted this threat doesn't materialize, but he is being watched carefully by Jowan and Teagan during that time, so it is explained. More importantly, however, a first time player (or any character in the game) has no way of knowing that they won't come back to find Redcliffe purged. I would argue that the presence of a good "option" which really doesn't sound like a good option unless you've played before anyway, and which is also dependent upon other choices elsewhere (for instance, someone who's purged the circle obviously can't take the third option) doesn't make the game much less dark.

References to LOTR as dark strike me as rather odd, too. Nearly all the darkness in LOTR happens offscreen/offpage, and the consequences of that darkness are never addressed. We never see the women who were undoubtedly raped repeatedly to produce the Uruk-Hai, few of the named characters people get to empathize with actually do die (Boromir and, what, Theoden?), and even when people die, there's little consequence to it. The Fellowship lost a skilled warrior, but it's not like Boromir was actually important in the scheme of things. Theoden was a good king and his death was unfortunate, but he was old and he died in glorious battle rather than in his bed; and there was Eomer (sic) ready to take up the mantle of kingship for the Rohirrim.

Besides, in LOTR, the tone of the piece is very undark. There's a very clear sense of hope and an equally clear sense that in the end, the good guys are going to win, even if you don't know the cost. And the end is... Pretty hopeful as well. Almost all the characters are alive and happy, and even Frodo got off lightly. He just lost a ring finger and his ability to fit in with other hobbits due to his lifechanging experiences. And then, he gets to go with the elves to the undying lands, which are supposed to be incredibly peaceful and beautiful, along with at least some of his friends. Granted Arwen gives up immortality to be with Aragorn, but it's her choice to do so, and she does it out of love. The she has several children and is happy for many years. Her husband dying peacefully after living a long and bountiful life does not sound particularly dark to me. In fact, the whole ending of LOTR was pretty darned bright, now that I think about it. Sauron is dead or totally impotent, Gondor rebuilds itself for the first time in centuries, all the good races of Middle Earth start to get along, nearly all the characters we care about in the story are alive and unmaimed... I'm struggling to see the darkness here.

For the references to Arthurian legend as dark... I'd argue that they aren't particularly dark, even though sometimes they portray rape and other crimes as nothing special. For starters, the culture back then was quite different; they didn't really consider such things crimes. Thus, they don't potray it was dark, or, indeed, focus much on it at all. To my mind, to qualify as "dark", a piece of fiction has to portray something as, well, dark. It has to devote at least a little time to exploring the "dark" aspect and not shrug it off in a line or two. The tone of most Arthurian stories I've read is actually pretty upbeat and focused on good traits like honor, standing up for your king, upholding one's obligations, not taking undue advantage of a host's generosity, etc. All the negatives are swept under the rug and get a few lines of mention, if you're lucky. The story doesn't focus on them enough to make the story dark, IMO. It's hard to recognize something as "dark" when all the things that make it dark are two lines in a work that may have thousands of lines. With DAO, meanwhile, the dark themes are woven throughout just about every major questline.

For an example of how portrayal matters in "darkness", I think of another story I've seen quoted elsewhere, it features the protagonist being a horrible jerk and siding with baby eating rape demons over oppressed slaves, yet the story itself isn't "dark" so much as "stupid", because it doesn't portray the protagonist's actions in a negative light and doesn't give the protagonist any reason behind simple dickery to do so. It isn't dark, it's just dumb. To be dark, something has to be self-consistent and plausible, else it just turns into "Regretting about Tommorow", the story I mentioned above.

Darkness can also be the atmosphere and tone just as much as what actually happens in the story itself. Even Warhammer 40k, a setting so infamously dark that it warps around into "so dark it's hilarious" territory, is defined as dark by the tone as much as everything else. If you look at it, there's lots of hope and other good qualities in 40k. Hope that the Emperor will rise again, hope that the AdMech will discover a complete STC and buy mankind breathing room, hope that the Primarchs will return to lead the Imperium to salvation. Hope that mankind will live another day because good men and women fought and died to stop an implacable horror from hell. And yet, 40k is considered indisuptably dark at least in part because of its tone. The tagline is, after all, "In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only war."

Similarly, the tone of DAO is very dark. You start out with a character who is getting conscripted into a secret order because something bad happened to them. Then you get to Ostragar where there's this huge evil horde of monsters who's very blood is a poison and who are known for taking people underground and enslaving them... And you lose the battle conclusively because the top general is making a power play. After that, you face the task of using ancient and almost forgotten treaties to gather up a new army, traveling all over the nation even while the darkspawn horde is raping and pillaging its way across the countryside. Along the way, you have to make several very difficult moral decisions before finally coming to the climax, the landsmeet. There you have to decide whether the love and fealty of one of your friends is worth losing in exchange for giving a man a second chance, before finally being told "yeah, either you or another warden has to die to stop the blight. And not just die, their soul has to be obliterated to do it too." Even the "third" option, sleeping with Morrigan, is very murky, since you're bringing a being with the soul of an old god - one of the old gods of Tevinter, an Imperium of dicks - into existence just to save your life. Admittedly it might work out happily, but it's not something to bet on; The Old Gods were worshipped in Tevinter, and Tevinter consisted of evil slavemongering jerks, so it stands to reason that the Old Gods weren't necessarily nice beings.

In all honesty, DAO is plenty dark. Darkness is more than just characters dying left and right. It's tone and atmosphere, it's giving the reader/player a sense that the world isn't a nice place without going too far into self-parody land. And really, DAO does so. I think it's dark.

Modifié par Cpl_Facehugger, 01 décembre 2009 - 08:34 .

[ReubenLiew]

I don't know. A reasoned train of thought would normally include the ability to apply a logical thought process on the desired course of action. While Logic most definitely stands on it's own, reasonable tends to share several factors of thought processes.



But yeah, we're just derailing and I don't think I even understand what I'm saying anymore.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Yeah, well... It happens all the time, so its not that bad, right?

[Dark83]

OP needs to turn down the Gamma.

(Why no, I didn't read any posts in this thread. :innocent:)

[Taleroth]

ReubenLiew wrote...

I don't know. A reasoned train of thought would normally include the ability to apply a logical thought process on the desired course of action. While Logic most definitely stands on it's own, reasonable tends to share several factors of thought processes.

But yeah, we're just derailing and I don't think I even understand what I'm saying anymore.

*shrug*  I don't study language.  Even after 10 years, I still have the mind of a programmer.
If I have two functions, they'd damn well better do different things, even if similar.

[ReubenLiew]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Yeah, well... It happens all the time, so its not that bad, right?

Does that mean that derailing happens all the time, or that I stop understanding myself all the time?

[EmperorSahlertz]

ReubenLiew wrote...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Yeah, well... It happens all the time, so its not that bad, right?

Does that mean that derailing happens all the time, or that I stop understanding myself all the time?

That post was meant to have been right after Roxlimn's post, I just hadn't updated the webpage to realize others had posted in the mean time

[ReubenLiew]

Ah. My bad then



Taleroth - Ah well then. I migth be wrong too, but in any case I think this thread's been argued past the point of usability.

[Roxlimn]

 Cpl_Facehugger:

Similarly, the existence of the potential for good doesn't somehow erase the very dark themes present throughout the game. Just about every major quest involves something that's traditionally very "dark." Whether it's the whole Orzammar questline with its backbiting politics, sacrificing your entire clan out of an obsession, or man's (dwarf's) political structure succumbing to corruption and sacrificing its morality in the name of greater power, or the whole Dalish questline, with the elves and werewolves at eachother's throats because of a heinous crime committed centuries ago, the mages quest where even if you spare the mages, there's still the lurking doubt that maybe Cullen was right, and maybe some of those mages are "sleeper agents" with demons inside, just waiting to awaken and cause havoc, or the Redcliffe quest where you're basically given three very questionable options. 

Orzammar politics is more or less normal clan politics - I don't see how it's any darker than Elven feuds in more traditional settings.  Themes of obsession are present onscreen in LOTR.  Denethor basically sacrifices not only his clan but his entire city by giving up.  Gondorian politics has long been corrupted and its morality questionable.  Dalish?  More clan warfare.  Typical stuff.  Possession crap?  Also typical.  We're dealing with mages and the First Enchanter.  He'd know if there were sleeper agents.

Now, I'm sure you'll say the Redcliffe quest was undermined by the third option, and to an extent, you're right. However, it's still portrayed as a risk. The whole "who knows what Connor will get up to while you're gone?" thing. Granted this threat doesn't materialize, but he is being watched carefully by Jowan and Teagan during that time, so it is explained. More importantly, however, a first time player (or any character in the game) has no way of knowing that they won't come back to find Redcliffe purged. I would argue that the presence of a good "option" which really doesn't sound like a good option unless you've played before anyway, and which is also dependent upon other choices elsewhere (for instance, someone who's purged the circle obviously can't take the third option) doesn't make the game much less dark. 

No choices in Redcliffe are bad.  In all cases, you save the town from utter destruction with a minimum loss of life, in every case, acting with honor and decisiveness.  In one case, you happen to kill a child-shaped abomination.  Apart from the shock value it offers to people who haven't actually watched children die, I don't see how it's all that dark.  In the other choice, a woman dies to save her child - a noble intent and a just return for her foolishness.  Don't see what's bad or dark about it other than it's not Care Bears.

References to LOTR as dark strike me as rather odd, too. Nearly all the darkness in LOTR happens offscreen/offpage, and the consequences of that darkness are never addressed. We never see the women who were undoubtedly raped repeatedly to produce the Uruk-Hai, few of the named characters people get to empathize with actually do die (Boromir and, what, Theoden?), and even when people die, there's little consequence to it. The Fellowship lost a skilled warrior, but it's not like Boromir was actually important in the scheme of things. Theoden was a good king and his death was unfortunate, but he was old and he died in glorious battle rather than in his bed; and there was Eomer (sic) ready to take up the mantle of kingship for the Rohirrim.

Lord of the Rings deals with issues of addiction and temptation.  Also, hunger, starvation, deprivation, and murder.  All of this happens onscreen.  At one point, Sam offers that murdering Gollum in cold blood would be a marvelous thing.  This is a hero, mind you.

When Theoden dies, Eowyn and Eomer lose a king and uncle.  That is tragic, but not all that dark.  That said, it does have far-reaching consequences, not the least of which is that the royal line died with him.

Besides, in LOTR, the tone of the piece is very undark. There's a very clear sense of hope and an equally clear sense that in the end, the good guys are going to win, even if you don't know the cost.

WTF?  Gandalf dies in the middle of the journey to wherever they're going, Frodo's mission is practically hopeless, and they're outnumbered in the field by more than a factor of ten, without a quality advantage, nor a terrain advantage.  Aragorn himself says that their final stand on the Black Gate is nothing more than a diversion and that even they all died, it would have been successful if Frodo gets to where he's going.

For large segments of the book, all we get is depictions of black slag, hunger, and Frodo's growing paranoia and symptoms of addiction.  I do not see where you are getting this "clear sense of hope."  Even Gandalf, the most optimistic of them, predicted that Frodo would not survive the trip - indeed that none of them would.  By his own expectations, they were unbelievably fortunate in the outcome they got.

And the end is... Pretty hopeful as well. Almost all the characters are alive and happy, and even Frodo got off lightly. He just lost a ring finger and his ability to fit in with other hobbits due to his lifechanging experiences. And then, he gets to go with the elves to the undying lands, which are supposed to be incredibly peaceful and beautiful, along with at least some of his friends.

The Undying Lands are essentially Heaven.  The book ends with most of the characters essentially and functionally dead.

Granted Arwen gives up immortality to be with Aragorn, but it's her choice to do so, and she does it out of love. The she has several children and is happy for many years. Her husband dying peacefully after living a long and bountiful life does not sound particularly dark to me. In fact, the whole ending of LOTR was pretty darned bright, now that I think about it. Sauron is dead or totally impotent, Gondor rebuilds itself for the first time in centuries, all the good races of Middle Earth start to get along, nearly all the characters we care about in the story are alive and unmaimed... I'm struggling to see the darkness here.

Arwen gives up more than that.  In Death, people in LOTR are rejoined in the Undying Lands - that is where Elves go when they die.  Men don't.  They go beyond the world - Arwen is essentially lost to Elrond and his entire family for all Eternity until the world is unmade - even beyond Death.

This doesn't come lightly either.  She is destined to die of life-sucking sorrow - not an easy death.  Aragorn gets to live his entire life knowing that he's the reason Arwen has to die such a miserable torturous death.  Gondor regains its glory after centuries - and then the entire world is dimmed and is lessened and fades.

It's not bad, but it's not totally happy all around, either.

For the references to Arthurian legend as dark... I'd argue that they aren't particularly dark, even though sometimes they portray rape and other crimes as nothing special. For starters, the culture back then was quite different; they didn't really consider such things crimes. Thus, they don't potray it was dark, or, indeed, focus much on it at all. To my mind, to qualify as "dark", a piece of fiction has to portray something as, well, dark. It has to hive at least a little time to exploring the "dark" aspect and not shrug it off in a line or two. The tone of most Arthurian stories I've read is actually pretty upbeat and focused on good traits like honor, standing up for your king, upholding one's obligations, not taking undue advantage of a host's generosity, etc. All the negatives are swept under the rug and get a few lines of mention, if you're lucky. The story doesn't focus on them enough to make it dark, IMO. It's hard to recognize something as "dark" when all the things that make it dark are two lines in a work that may have thousands of lines. With DAO, meanwhile, the dark themes are woven throughout just about every major questline.

So Rainbow Brite could be dark if it portrayed the loss of color as an ineffable evil and delved some time into it?  It's the dwelling of and the portrayal of bad stuff that's dark?  Like Twilight?

Similarly, the tone of DAO is very dark. You start out with a character who is getting conscripted into a secret order because something bad happened to them. Then you get to Ostragar where there's this huge evil horde of monsters who's very blood is a poison and who are known for taking people underground and enslaving them... And you lose the battle conclusively because the top general is making a power play. After that, you face the task of using ancient and almost forgotten treaties to gather up a new army, traveling all over the nation even while the darkspawn horde is raping and pillaging its way across the countryside. Along the way, you have to make several very difficult moral decisions before finally coming to the climax, the landsmeet. There you have to decide whether the love and fealty of one of your friends is worth losing in exchange for giving a man a second chance, before finally being told "yeah, either you or another warden has to die to stop the blight. And not just die, their soul has to be obliterated to do it too." Even the "third" option, sleeping with Morrigan, is very murky, since you're bringing a being with the soul of an old god - one of the old gods of Tevinter, an Imperium of dicks - into existence just to save your life. Admittedly it might work out happily, but it's not something to bet on; The Old Gods were worshipped in Tevinter, and Tevinter consisted of evil slavemongering jerks, so it stands to reason that the Old Gods weren't necessarily nice beings.

Getting conscripted in a secret powerful quasi-military order is NOT a bad thing.  In fact, the Human Noble origin paints it as something of an honor - just not an honor a high-ranking noble might condescend to.  So, not everyone survives the initiation.  So what?  Not everyone survives military boot camp, either.

So you get to Ostragar and find that it's full of monsters who have no redeeming traits whatsoever.  Dark?
You lose a battle and people die.  Dark?  Losing battles is dark now?

Forging disparate races and peoples into a multifaceted allied army to save the world is dark?
Armies raping a pillaging across the countryside offscreen is dark?
Difficult moral decisions?  Where?
Being informed that you and only two others have a chance to destroy an Archdemon is dark?  Yeah, you die.  There was supposedly a good chance of that happening anyway.

And having sex to purge an Old God of corruption.  Bad? Dark?

I mean, seriously, you laying it all out like that like it's self-explanatory and then just calling it "dark," but I'm not seeing it, unless you mean losing is "dark," now, or something.

DAO certainly tries hard to give you that "gritty" feeling with the brown and black color palettes and all the emo dialogue.  I guess if you're a sheltered 20-something in a suburb, it's a lot easier to buy.

[Roxlimn]

EmperorSahlertz:



I don't go all emo about it and call my life a waking darkness, if that's what you mean.

[EmperorSahlertz]

All I'm trying to say is: Just because you experience that kind of **** apparently every day, does not make it any less dark. Just because YOU live with that kind of stuff on a daily basis, does not mean that Dark is a standard defined by you. Lets face it, us westerners rarely experience that kind of stuff, of course some do... But this is a western game, defined by western culture.



You lving with the terrible **** happening in your country and the apathy of its people, is a different matter...

[Roxlimn]

Apathy? Whoever said anything about apathy? We REALLY hate it when Western and Japanese and whoever other tourists go around shopping for children to molest. We just can't do anything about it other than pointlessly die at the end of a knife in a back alley. Americans can do something about their tourists, but they don't really care, even if they know.



Dark isn't a standard defined by me. I compared the work with inspiration from literary sources. It's not particularly dark. Even going by other supplied definitions, it's not all that focused on horror, or grim reality. Most of the choices aren't even all that grim.

[gotthammer]

Roxlimn wrote...

Apathy? Whoever said anything about apathy? We REALLY hate it when Western and Japanese and whoever other tourists go around shopping for children to molest. We just can't do anything about it other than pointlessly die at the end of a knife in a back alley. Americans can do something about their tourists, but they don't really care, even if they know.

OT: If we're talking about the same country here, then, to some extent, yes, you can almost not blame people for being apathetic. Of course, it could also be argued that there isn't enough being done by those in the country... *shrugs*
Oh well, I'm kinda jaded. I've even said on more than one occasion: NA Int'l. Airport should have the following text on the Arrivals gates: "Abandon All Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here."
And it's election time again next year...things can only get "better". <_<

Cthulhu for President! The Saner Choice!

[Cpl_Facehugger]

[quote]Roxlimn wrote...

Orzammar politics is more or less normal clan politics - I don't see how it's any darker than Elven feuds in more traditional settings.  Themes of obsession are present onscreen in LOTR.  Denethor basically sacrifices not only his clan but his entire city by giving up.  Gondorian politics has long been corrupted and its morality questionable.  Dalish?  More clan warfare.  Typical stuff.  Possession crap?  Also typical.  We're dealing with mages and the First Enchanter.  He'd know if there were sleeper agents.[/quote]

Orzammar's politics are dark for the fact that chosing the seemingly "good" option ends up with an ending that is either "bad" or "holy Hannah, that's bad!" depending on your choice at the anvil. It takes what you'd think is a safe choice and twists it into bitterness. Well, that and the whole greasy "truth and honor don't matter, bribery and lies are how the game is played" theme that's running through the whole political structure of Orzammar.

While yes, themes of obsession are present in LOTR, they are also considerably less demanding as those of DAO. What Frodo's obsession for the ring drives him to do pales in comparison to what Branka did (and ends up doing if you side with her). Seriously, sacrificing your entire clan, people who rely upon you and look to you for leadership just for a limitless supply of meat to trip traps is a lot more amoral than anything Frodo did. Frodo didn't kill anyone over the ring. He would have, especially towards the end, but he never did.

The political corruption is balanced the same way between the two stories. In DAO, saving the anvil eventually causes many people to be enslaved and turned into golems against their will - not a particularly pleasant process. In fact, this happens twice in the anvil's lifespan. Once with Caridin and once with Branka. There's no Faramir here to say "I know I'm not strong enough to wield this power without it corrupting me, so I'm not going to take it," unless you the player says that.  
 
Denethor's sacrifice was clearly portrayed as an unnecessary mistake, and hence isn't particularly dark except in the "pointless sacrifice is dark" sense. And even then, there were little consequences to this action because Gandalf was there to pick up the slack. It's not a real sacrifice if things of value don't actually end up being sacrificed, right? It's not like the city of Minas Tirith fell because of Denethor's lunacy or anything. 

Gondorian politics being corrupt is something I'm not at all sure about either. Admittedly I haven't read the Silmarillion, but I got the impression that Gondor wasn't particularly corrupt or malicious in its politics. Denethor didn't want to give up power to Aragorn, but that doesn't say the whole of Gondorian politics is corrupt. I certainly never got the impression that Gondor was as ill-ruled as Orzammar.

The Dalish stuff is dark not just because it was a cruel punishment, but because its punishment was continuing on past the lives of those responsible for it. Is it not dark for innocent people to suffer punishment for something they had no hand in doing? For something done centuries before the fact? Perhaps that's normal clan feuding, but very rarely do stories actually get into detail about what caused the feud, and whether the continuing feud is justified or not. I'd say that's an indicator for darkness, since the story actually explores these questions and studies them in relative detail, rather than just shrugging and accepting this as the way things are, as a mere background detail.

The possession of the mages circle isn't exactly typical either. For one thing, there's an awful lot of powerful mages getting possessed at once. For another, there are very few settings I'm aware of where mages are at risk of being possessed by horrible demons simply by existing. Certainly not any D&D derived setting I'm familiar with, certainly not LoTR... In fact, the only ones that comes to mind are Warhammer and its cousin Warhammer 40k. 
 
[quote]No choices in Redcliffe are bad.  In all cases, you save the town from utter destruction with a minimum loss of life, in every case, acting with honor and decisiveness.  In one case, you happen to kill a child-shaped abomination.  Apart from the shock value it offers to people who haven't actually watched children die, I don't see how it's all that dark.  In the other choice, a woman dies to save her child - a noble intent and a just return for her foolishness.  Don't see what's bad or dark about it other than it's not Care Bears.[/quote]

All the choices in Redcliffe are most certainly bad. EIther you're forced to kill a woman who's only crimes stem from loving her child too much, you're forced to kill a child who's been possessed, or you're forced to put the whole town at risk until you can get the mages in for a proper exorcism/fade stroll. Any of those options is bad. Granted the town is saved at the end of all of them... But we're still talking something that required high risks or the sacrifice of someone who didn't strictly need to die. 

Connor being an abomination is only true after a fashion. While yes, there's a demon in there, there is also a little boy who just wanted to save his father. He hasn't fully turned yet, and he can be saved. Given that his abominationhood is not a permanent state of affairs, I find it hard to say that you're not killing a child in the "slit his throat" option. You're killing a demon, but you're killing Connor as well. It's like justifying killing Wynne because she is, technically, an abomination. Yeah, you destroy the demon/spirit, but you're still killing an innocent person. 

You could argue that killing the kid is a necessary sacrifice, but the very fact that such a situation came up at all is an indication that this story is considerably darker than a lot of stories. Including - especially Lord of the Rings. I certainly didn't see Aragorn slit a child's throat out of necessity. I didn't see Gandalf light Pippin on fire after he looked at the Palantir. In Arthurian stories, I didn't see Gawain or Lancealot slit a child's throat out of necessity either.

[quote]Lord of the Rings deals with issues of addiction and temptation.  Also, hunger, starvation, deprivation, and murder.  All of this happens onscreen.  At one point, Sam offers that murdering Gollum in cold blood would be a marvelous thing.  This is a hero, mind you.[/quote]

LoTR deals with these issues in a relatively sanitary way. It's not as hugely amoral and dark as the way these issues are examined in DAO. To put things into perspective, to equal what Branka did for the Anvil, Frodo would have had to sacrifice much of Hobbiton to Sauron to help him claim the ring. And it's gotta be Hobbiton, to truly capture the evil of sacrificing those close to you out of obsession.

Sam considering murdering Gollum is fairly dark, yet he never actually does it. Not like Mr. "I am sorry" Duncan. It's darker, I think, to actually have someone murdered, than to merely contemplate murder and then to be overcome with compassion.   

[quote]When Theoden dies, Eowyn and Eomer lose a king and uncle.  That is tragic, but not all that dark.  That said, it does have far-reaching consequences, not the least of which is that the royal line died with him.[/quote]

While this is true, the circumstances of Theoden's death (glorious and exactly how he'd want to go out) and the fact that there's a leader to pick up the slack (albiet one not related by blood), ensures that the consequences are not particularly severe compared to, say, Cailan's death. 

[quote]WTF?  Gandalf dies in the middle of the journey to wherever they're going, Frodo's mission is practically hopeless, and they're outnumbered in the field by more than a factor of ten, without a quality advantage, nor a terrain advantage.  Aragorn himself says that their final stand on the Black Gate is nothing more than a diversion and that even they all died, it would have been successful if Frodo gets to where he's going.[/quote]

Gandalf sacrifices himself to help the fellowship get where they're going. His sacrifice is also very heavily undermined by the fact that he comes back even more powerful and wise than when he left. Don't you think it rather cheapens his sacrifice and makes things brighter if the only thing it resulted in was him becoming even more awesome? 

As for the rest... The whole point of the journey was that it was born of hope. A fool's hope, perhaps, but still a hope. If it were utterly pointless (dark in the Lovecraftian sense), they wouldn't have gone to begin with. Perhaps I was simply corrupted by my culture, thinking "nah, there's no way the bad guys will win" when I was reading LOTR, and yet I never once was left with the impression that Frodo would fail. I figured he might die at the end, but I never expected him to fail. The narrative doesn't lend itself to the idea that he will, at least in my readings. Possibly because so few named characters actually die or are even permanently injured.  

[quote]For large segments of the book, all we get is depictions of black slag, hunger, and Frodo's growing paranoia and symptoms of addiction.  I do not see where you are getting this "clear sense of hope."[/quote]

Easily. No author is going to have the hero go on a three book journey only to screw up. Admittedly that's a bit of meta knowledge that the characters wouldn't have had, but at no time is fighting sauron ever pointless. It might seem so to some of the characters, like Denethor, but they're repeatedly proven to be wrong. Everything Aragorn and Gandalf and co do is because they have the hope that what they're doing will allow Frodo to complete his task. 

The hunger and the symptoms of the ring are all well and good, yet they never seem to impact anything. There's always that lembas bread that fills your stomach with a bite until the ending half of the third book, there's always supplies that the Orcs left on the side of the road for resupply during a forced march after that, there's always a convenient hope spot somewhere that reminds you the journey isn't pointless or impossible.

Hence, clear sense of hope. 
 
[quote]Even Gandalf, the most optimistic of them, predicted that Frodo would not survive the trip - indeed that none of them would.  By his own expectations, they were unbelievably fortunate in the outcome they got.[/quote]

As long as the ring got destroyed, it would be worth the sacrifice, no? Really, any outcome with "ring ends up tossed into the volcano" is one to hope for. And yeah, they were very fortunate with the end. Which is part of the reason that LOTR isn't all that dark. It's hard to call a story dark if the ending is 95% puppies and sunshine, with the other 5% being "oh, woe is me, I lost a finger and I've got to live with these immortal elves in a land of unending summer beauty!"

[quote]The Undying Lands are essentially Heaven.  The book ends with most of the characters essentially and functionally dead.[/quote]

Perhaps that's true, yet by making the undying lands a real place, a lot of the trepidation of "death" is removed as well. A lot of the fear and tragedy of death comes from not knowing what to expect. By showing it as a rather nice place of flowers and summer and sunshine, it's hard to argue that "dying" once the evil was defeated is a bad thing. It's not like they all got sucked up into nothingness or eternal torment or something.

[quote]Arwen gives up more than that.  In Death, people in LOTR are rejoined in the Undying Lands - that is where Elves go when they die.  Men don't.  They go beyond the world - Arwen is essentially lost to Elrond and his entire family for all Eternity until the world is unmade - even beyond Death.[/quote]

She chose to do so out of love, and had more years of happiness than most moral people. Not particularly bad all told.

[quote]This doesn't come lightly either.  She is destined to die of life-sucking sorrow - not an easy death.  Aragorn gets to live his entire life knowing that he's the reason Arwen has to die such a miserable torturous death.[/quote]

It's not like she had to die of life sucking sorrow. I see no reason she couldn't have moved on in life, had she chosen to do so.  She can't get to the undying lands any more, but there's still beauty  and things worth living for in the mortal realms as well. Human women survive the deaths of their loves all the time. It kind of cheapens the impact of Arwen's death if it's not necessary, you know? 

And if she was really too weak to live in a world without her beloved, there was always the suicide option. Presumably her soul would go to Eru or whoever the overdeity of Tolkeinland is, and she'd get to plead her case to be with her beloved for all time. Eru wasn't a jerk god, I bet he could've been moved to allow it. 

[quote]Gondor regains its glory after centuries - and then the entire world is dimmed and is lessened and fades.[/quote]

Better a temporary rennissance than total collapse with no rennissance. 

[quote]It's not bad, but it's not totally happy all around, either.[/quote]

It's almost totally happy.

[quote]So Rainbow Brite could be dark if it portrayed the loss of color as an ineffable evil and delved some time into it?  It's the dwelling of and the portrayal of bad stuff that's dark?  Like Twilight?[/quote]

Not soley. But for something to be dark in my opinion, it does have to give more than a token mention to dark themes. It's like My Little Pony saying that war is bad in a token line, and then going on with the happy pony puff themes for the rest of the episode.

Another example would be Pokemon, the TV series. Most people would consider that towards the brighter end of the spectrum, no? Yet when you look more deeply at it, you realize that these children are taking intelligent beings, enslaving them, and forcing them to fight until fainting/exhaustion for their amusement. The reason most people don't think of Pokemon as dark is because the show does not dwell on the morality of what's actually going on. Its morality is swept under the rug and forgotten.

Similarly, most Arthurian legend gives you a  very small reference to "dark" themes such as rape before focusing on the lighter and more "virtuous" themes in the story. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but it's disingenious to claim the story is "dark" when dark themes take up a very, very small percentage of the text, and when these themes are never actually explored. 

[quote]Getting conscripted in a secret powerful quasi-military order is NOT a bad thing.[/quote]

Ser Jory and Daveth disagree.
 
[quote]In fact, the Human Noble origin paints it as something of an honor - just not an honor a high-ranking noble might condescend to.  So, not everyone survives the initiation.  So what? [/quote] 

All the other origins have an option of painting it to be an honor as well. And yet... There's still that pesky right of conscription that allows a warden to take anyone they want, from a templar, to a city elf  who's just murdered at least one member of the nobility. The very fact that such a thing exists and is necessary is dark in of itself. It should be setting off warning bells that either things are desperate, or that the wardens can't get recruits any other way. 

Being forced to drink a poison that is either an immediate or delayed death sentence simply to stop an even greater threat to everyone sounds rather dark, no? It's a necessary sacrifice, certainly, but it's definitely dark. 

[quote]Not everyone survives military boot camp, either.[/quote]
It's a bit different here. In most boot camps, deaths during training are an accident - and one that happens very rarely. You're not garenteed to die in the military. The joining is a death sentence. Whether you die from the taint now, or die in thirty years time, you're going to end up dying much earlier than you could have otherwise. 

[quote]So you get to Ostragar and find that it's full of monsters who have no redeeming traits whatsoever.  Dark?[/quote]

It's dark when those critters are winning because your own side screwed you over in a shortsighted grab for power, yeah.

[quote]You lose a battle and people die.  Dark?  Losing battles is dark now?[/quote]

Losing a battle because a formerly trusted ally decides to pull out, leaving you, the rest of the army, and his son in law to die against a force notorious for, at least, taking people underground as slaves is rather dark, yes.
[quote]Forging disparate races and peoples into a multifaceted allied army to save the world is dark?[/quote]

No. It's dark that you had to do that because the army was lost earlier because a trusted general pulled out. The circumstances are dark.  

[quote]Armies raping a pillaging across the countryside offscreen is dark?[/quote]

Armies raping and pillaging across the countryside with nobody doing anything to stop them because they're all too busy with petty succession issues is. 

[quote]Difficult moral decisions?  Where?[/quote]

The Anvil? Siding with Harrowmont or Behlen? Deciding whether to spare Loghain or lose Alistair? All three of the Redcliffe/Connor decisions? Whether to purge or save the circle?  Erm... Are you seriously saying that none of those are difficult decisions?  Oh, to have such a sure moral compass. [quote]Being informed that you and only two others have a chance to destroy an Archdemon is dark?  Yeah, you die.  There was supposedly a good chance of that happening anyway.[/quote]

Yes, being told one of you must sacrifice themselves to destroy the archdemon is dark. It's different than "oh, you might die in battle", it's the certainty that makes it dark. The idea that you must sacrifice yourself and destroy your soul to end the blight is very dark. I don't understand, how could you say otherwise?  

[quote]And having sex to purge an Old God of corruption.  Bad? Dark?[/quote]
The jury is still out on this one.  We'll have to wait and see if the old god ends up evil or not. There's evidence for both sides. I laid out some of the evidence for it being a bad and dark thing earlier. 

[quote]I mean, seriously, you laying it all out like that like it's self-explanatory and then just calling it "dark," but I'm not seeing it, unless you mean losing is "dark," now, or something.[/quote]

I guess it's because I'm assuming that when I put it a particular way, you'll see how it's dark. I mean, how exactly am I to prove that slitting a child's throat to kill a demon who's possessed him is dark? That sacrificing people who depend upon you for nothing more than trap springers is dark? Shouldn't these be some of those self-evident things like "the sky is blue" or "lighting hobos on fire for laughs is bad"? 

[quote]DAO certainly tries hard to give you that "gritty" feeling with the brown and black color palettes and all the emo dialogue.  I guess if you're a sheltered 20-something in a suburb, it's a lot easier to buy.
[/quote]

Your credibility just took a hit with this line.

Facehugger disapproves -10. 

Modifié par Cpl_Facehugger, 01 décembre 2009 - 11:21 .

[Sidney]

My back story starts with my fiance kidnapped to be tortured and raped on my wedding day. That gets followed up with my killing her tormentor after he begs for mercy and then I toss my cousin under the bus to skip town with a secretive supra-legal military order who kills half or more of their new initiates just joining the bunch. If you need more dark than that you might need help.



In Redcliffe, I killed a possessed child for no other reason than expediency. I could have killed his mom instead. I killed the mercs in town for no more reason than not helping defend the village and pissing me off by not helping - my actions there did nothing to help further the defense of the village. I talked that fat barkeep into going into battle for no good reason other than hoping he'd get killed because he was a creep.



At the Warden's Keep I turned a demon loose on the world or my other option was to help an insane man who ran crazed experiments on humans. Turns out killing both of them was an option but one I didn't take.



In the Brecillian Forest I helped an eleven mage kill a group of cursed humans that the mage had actually cursed in a fit of vengeance. Lovely but I'm here to help out an Elf.



I exterminated the mages in the Circle Tower knowing some innocents might still live but the "take off and nuke them from orbit" option was the "only way to be sure" plus I agree with my sociopath girlfriend that the circle is just a fancy prison and they got what they deserved.



The end game was me and that same sociopath lover creating a child for the express purpose of having the child possessed to save my hide with the knowledge that the child would be raised, alone, by said sociopath for what end I really didn't care.



...and the hit parade goes on. I'm not sure what "dark" means to you people but I happen to find many of the choices my little character made pretty appalling - but that is why I played that way. You can play a shining paragon of virtue but there are a lot of choices are are of the bad or worse variety and plenty of options to take a very unpleasant path. I wasn't just a gibbering slobbering idiot killing anything that moved but played a role that was quick to anger, prone to violence and threats, extremely aggressive when it came to defending elves against real or perceived injustices and valued expediency over virtue.



I had no issues playing as sort of an eleven version of Bud White from LA Confidential and that is a dark character and if you need somehow darker than that I'm not sure what more you want out of a game.

[SithLordExarKun]

I think the game is "dark" or "light" based on your decision(killing the dalish elves, helping branka etc etc...)

[Acemath]

You know what?I don't give a **** about Dark fantasy...Or whatever it's called.For what it's worth/Even if Bioware announced the game as FPS in a Dark Sci-fi settings with Orcs and elves i would still buy the friggin game.Why?It's BIOWARE...Some people have to many time on their hands...

[Ninjaphrog]

AND BIOWARE SUCKS DONKEY BALLZ MAHN!!!!!



Trolls ftw



dont like it? go f urself.