Addai67 wrote...
How is he a classist by taking his duty seriously and facing the reality of the political situation?? If you want him to throw away the kingship for some romantic fancy, why make him king at all??? I am confuse.
All right, let's see if I have this clear enough in my head to be intelligible.
Alistair tells the non-HNF that he must end things because his duty to secure the succession supercedes his own desires. Warden and player are cool with that.
Player then finds out that Alistair will still marry a HNF who also cannot give him an heir.
Player now thinks either:
1) Alistair's priorities are: stay with HNF> secure succession> stay with non-HNF, in which case he comes off as being prejudiced, OR:
2) Alistair's priorities are: stay with HNF=stay with non-HNF>securing succession, but because of political reality he cannot marry non-HNF and so dumps her. If this is the case then only mentioning the fertility issue is a lie of omission, because the REAL reason the Warden is dumped is that she is a non-HNF.
In both scenarios, Alistair is not taking his duty seriously because he will put marrying the HNF above securing the succession. He should dump the Warden regardless of background if fertility is the issue. (However, we have other evidence of Alistair putting his feelings above his duty, most notably leaving the Wardens if Loghain is spared and killing himself -- despite being king -- at the top of Fort Drakon because he loves the Warden.That is his own personality flaw and not an issue here, except that "overwhelming love of duty" cannot be used as a defense of his actions.)
In either case, the player has a less rosy picture of Alistair than before. (The Warden is still blissfully ignorant.) The best Alistair can come out of this in the player's mind is as someone who will tell a "white lie" to the woman he loves to avoid bringing up societal prejudice. At worst, he is (subconsciously, at least) a classist bigot.
I believe that it was not intentional on the part of the writers to put Alistair in this light. (Why would they predict or even care that non-HNF players finding out about Alistair marrying the HNF would be offended?) But it can sour a player on Alistair, especially if the player's canon/first playthrough is a non-HNF who romances Alistair and makes him king. I think this is very unfortunate and could have been avoided with a simple tweak:
1) If Alistair just told the Non-HNF straight up: "Oh, who am I kidding? Fertility isn't the only issue. I would have married you anyway, but you know that the Landsmeet would never accept you as Queen." OR
2) If Alistair gave the non-HNF any inkling that he hoped or planned to stay with her following being made king either through speaking up at the Landsmeet or discussing it with Eamon prior to the Landsmeet. Then after getting shot down he could say: "I'm sorry, my dear, I tried."
In both cases the outcome is the same, but Alistair's original intention of remaining with the Warden is explicitly stated. I accept that RL budget reasons precluded this. But I can only judge the character by what he does, and that again leaves Alistair in a bad light. (I don't accept that Alistair "could not have tried," because if you can nominate the DOG to decide the fate of the realm, anything is fair game.)
Some of the rebuttals here have consisted of "if you're unhappy, don't choose that ending." It is not the bad outcome (being dumped) that I object to. I chose badly on purpose that playthough to experience the breakup, just as I chose to experience all of the Alistair paths (including executing him, becoming his mistress, etc). I liked his character/VA so much that I wanted to hear all of his dialogue play out. It is just that the non-HNF breakup is harder to swallow once you know the stated reasons for it are not the actual reasons. I agree that ignorance is bliss, but once you realize that Alistair reacts differently in the two situations, how can that be explained in a way that makes him look good?
Related to this are the "you/your Warden should have known better" posts. Maybe so. But if the player/Warden are idiots, does that excuse Alistair for not saying something if he realizes the Warden is in La-La land? Again, I don't think so. I understand that having everything discussed ahead of time doesn't work in game terms, but again, I am judging the Alistair character based on what
he does in game, which can be to let the woman he loves live in complete denial. "I can handle that -- I hope" is not the same as "Uhh. I'm, pretty sure this will end badly if I'm king." It's the writers' "fault" in this case as they are constrained to doing what works for the game, but it still means that the character lies by omission.
I think the best way for PLSD sufferers to reconcile themselves to the situation it is to separate each path into its own Alistair personality. It is better to believe that the Alistair (call him Alistair-D) who dumped the non-HNF over fertility would have done the same to the HNF, and the one who married the HNF (Alistair-M) would have tried to marry the non-HNF, than to think of them all as the same character (Alistair-P) who acts differently in the two situations. Of course, this is difficult and something I struggle with (hence my "do you hold the things NPCs do in other playthroughs against them" thread).
I still love him. Just with reservations.
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Damn him for saying what my PC wants to hear! 
I'm not argiung the non-HNF should be able to be queen -- that stretches the limits too far. But having Alistair make an attempt (however doomed) to keep the Warden or at least acknowledge the real reason he can't be with the Warden would go a long way toward making players of non-HNFs have less PLSD (Post Landsmeet Stress Disorder), I think.
