28 réponses à ce sujet

[Fiacre]

Faerunner wrote...

It's said that he usually isn't blatant enough to kidnap a large group of women in broad daylight; however, he still brutalizes, kidnaps, rapes, and murders (elven) women on an almost regular basis. They even comment on the women found in the river thanks to Vaughan's handy work.

It's also not just Vaughan, as his buddies Lord Braden and Lord Jonaley seem to enjoy getting in on the action, and like to throw out racial slurs like everyday language. Not to mention the Arl of Denerim's estate cook, who doesn't seem to be much better than Nan in his treatment of his elven assitant or the PC and Soris. And the off-duty guards, who bark orders and dish out threats habitually. ("Go get us those drinks. I'll blacken your eye if you don't move your ass!") Need I bring up the elven family who lose their home and livelihood when their human renter decides on a whim to use their shack as storage space and doesn't provide them an alternate place to live? Or the crippled beggar by the gate who was unceremoniously dumped in an alley after being maimed on the job, instead of being given medical treatment (which he comments humans almost never "waste" on elves) or left in a place where his sons could find him?

Even if we don't count Vaughan, we both see and hear many instances of humans habitually threatening, beating, and dumping elves without any regard for how their words or actions affect them. If the humans in Highever are worse than those in Denerim (not the living conditions, but the humans themselves), which I suspect to be the case as Denerim and Highever elves often inter-marry between alienages (and thus these are first-hand accounts from elves who live in Denerim after growing up in Highever and not hearsay from some distant rumour told ten-times over) ... then their lives suck. Not that the HN will ever see or hear of this, as he or she never sees or talks to elves except to walk by them while they're doing work around the castle.

I see. Like I said, I haven't played the origin yet, so I didn't know the details, just the general story and some conversations I've read about. In any case, that does sound pretty damn horrible :/ How do you even make that worse.

On another note, I remember the Nan's assistants talking back at her /whispering loudly enough to be clearly heard, right in front of the Hn, so I have a feeling that beating the servants or similar isn't common place. But if they rally managed to have their alienage be worse than the Denerim one after what you said... How, seriously.

Edit: If that really was there intention with Nan, they kind of failed :| At least for me, maybe it worked for others, I don't know. The first time I played I didn't even bother to talk with her again, because ugh, she's worse than my own grandmother, and I've actually developed a habit of avoiding her because of her nonsense.

Modifié par Fiacre, 03 septembre 2012 - 11:17 .

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

Faerunner wrote...

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...

Okay, I didn't put that perfectly. But since most of Thedas is human, the dwarves do the same damn thing to what I think is probably a minority of their population, and magi seem to be pretty rare, most people don't see what they're doing as wrong.

So the views of the majority automatically cancels out the views of the minority?

The majority of Thedasian citizens believe that mages should be locked up and either don't know or don't care about the abuses in the Circles. Does that mean that any Templar that practices mage abuse might as well not be doing it at all as most Thedasian citizens agree with their methods or believe such methods are preferable to mages going free, and thus any instance of any protagonists or mage companions or NPC's in either games expressing moral outrage might as well never be?

Most Thedasians think this way, therefore Thedas as a whole thinks this way, therefore opposing views might as well not exist?

I personally do not feel that way. The majority of Thedasians, however, do. That's what I'm saying. Even as Bioware paints the Couslands as justice incarnate, they can't resist pointing out some of mainstream Thedas's innate hypocrisy.

I don't play the City Elf Origin very often, how strongly is it suggested Highever is worse than Denerim? For that matter, how is that even possible? The reason I only played that Origin once is that Vaughn is creepier than the Darkspawn.

It's not suggested strongly, I'll admit. A family of elves have to move because the human who owns their house sells it for storage space, so they have to leave Denerim because they can't afford to rent another home in the alienage. They talk about wanting to look for work in Highever, but decide against it as a) it would cost too much to travel there, they hear the humans in Highever are even worse than the ones in Denerim.

It's an off-hand comment, but I think it's very suspect. The opening narration for the Human Noble Origin bascally paints the Couslands as justice and fairness incarnate, and yet the elves under their rule are apparently treated even worse than those in Denerim; and we see how bad Denerim is! If the Couslands really are renouned for treating their subjects with justice and fairness, the same should apply to the elves under their juristiction, right? Apparently not.

Add this to the fact that we see Nan abuse the elven castle staff right in front of "Pup" without comment, but neither the character nor apparently the audience is supposed to think it's a big deal (it's even played as being charming), and I have a feeling there's a lot of stuff going behind the scenes. We're never shown the Highever Alienage, we never get to talk to any of the elven staff before or after Howe, we never overhear conversations they have with each other. Just a bunch of humans patting each other on the back and stroking the PC's ego for being so swell, which the elves are conspicuously absent from. This makes me think a lot goes on under the surface, even if it isn't shown or addressed to the main character during gameplay.

Okay, if it's truly that bad (and I suppose you're right that we have reason to suspect so) then that's a serious black mark on the Couslands' record. As for the abuse from Nan? I don't think it's meant to be charming. I think it's meant to be Nan ordering a number of non-human servants with no other employment options to attempt to dislodge a dangerous animal she knows they have no means of controlling, and then hypocritically telling the PC not to abuse his power as a noble. I think we're meant to notice all this.

[Fiacre]

Faerunner wrote...

And the human noble origin really showered the praise on the Cousland family really thick while any criticism either glided under the radar or not at all. I don't even think you can learn how bad it is in Highever unless you are an elf. As a human, you see your Nan scolding and threatening elves, but nothing so bad as to raise alarm. (As Fiacre said, one of them passive-aggressively whispers an insult about her in earshot. It can't be THAT bad if they're willing to insult her, right?) I don't think we're meant to notice unless we play the city elf origin to compare the two, and I find it a little annoying.


EDIT: Also, I get the feeling we're supposed to notice Nan's hypocrisy regarding her attitude toward the Mabari, not the elven staff. If we do notice the treatment of the staff, I feel like it shouldn't be seen as that big a deal. Not too promising..

I didn't mean that Highever isn't that bad, I simply think it points to outright physical abuse instead of verbal abuse (which is bad enough, anyway), not being usual, at least not from Nan or the Pup.

Doesn't mean that the alienage in Highever isn't crappy -- which it is according to the elves themselves, can't argue with that.

Incidentally, Eleanor shows some racism on screen as well. She's pretty patronizing towards Iona in the small bit of interaction we have between them.