We still haven't received an explanation for Leliana's appearance in DAII when she was killed, aside from her belief that the Maker intervened. And given Gaider's testimony that no one in Thedas can be an atheist -- which seems pretty absurd to me -- and I think it's apparent that... well... the Maker is real. .
Which I've always thought outside of the game, as I've also done for the beliefs other cultures held. They're all true for Thedas.
But then there's the nature of the Gauntlet, where Wynne will state that the entire area is infused with the Fade and that the spirits of long dead people are still alive -- and more then likely, their bodies no longer existed due to being offered to the flames.
So given how Leliana's body was in a place where the Fade is practically infused with the mortal realm and how spirits can be summoned back to the mortal realm -- as Yavana demonstrates -- I'd say that the Gauntlet played a
huge part in Leliana being alive no matter what.
David Gaider wrote...
c) Having the option to kill a character doesn't mean we ever intended to have them remain dead. Usually that's the case, yes, but not always. That the player's expectation doesn't match our intention is sometimes inevitable... at least until we explain ourselves full (such as with Leliana), but I imagine in some cases the explanation will still not be satisfactory if the result isn't what the player expected. Whether their expectations were reasonable or not is really beside the point.
Anyway, I've chimed in on this conversation as much as I dare. Thanks for the reasonable tone of the discussion.
I think it's pretty self-evident that the companions of each PC will have a profound impact on the series, so killing them off just for the sake of having that option is probably not the best course of action.
Let's recap, shall we?
1) Alistair: Has a major impact on DAO alone, as does he with The Silent Grove and Those Who Speak.
2) Sten: Becomes the Arishok. Thankfully, he couldn't be killed in-game ever -- side note: Not only did I call that promotion long ago, I also called his getting a badass goatee. Thanks for making Sten the Arishok, though obviously not to make me right.
3) Leliana: The Divine's Left Hand.
4) Morrigan: Crucial to the series, obviously. She couldn't be killed, but the player could attempt to do so -- which was actually how I liked it. Leaving it ambiguous where you don't know if the companion is dead or will live is the best way to go IMO, because if you think you don't need them, you can say "Yes, they did die". You guys did this with Sten as well if the PC left him in his cage. His fate was never
known, but it could be assumed that leaving him there meant he would die.
5) Zevran: Brings down the Antivan Crows on his own, or is working towards it. You find this out in imports where he wasn't killed.
6) Wynne and Shale: Are involved in the onset of the Mage-Templar War.
7) Oh and Oghren. I can't believe I forgot him. You're not really given an indication in DAO that you simply knocked him unconscious as opposed to having killed him, but really as far as I know he's always a Warden. So he's important to Amaranthine's story.
So... let's see. Out of all of the companions in DAO, the ones that don't have any major significance as of yet going
forward are Dog and Loghain.
And yet... out of all the companions in DAO, the ones that do and could be killed were Wynne, Shale, Leliana, Alistair, and Zevran.
Then we have DAII where you can kill off Anders, Merrill, Fenris, and the siblings. Given the sheer scale of the events they witnessed -- and their own personal stories -- I find it hard to believe that the former three at least
won't be important beyond the events they were a part of. So killing them off and saying "Well, we didn't
intend to use them going forward" seems like being... willfully ignorant IMO. I don't mean that as an insult -- though it's kinda hard to make it not sound as such -- but that's what it strikes me as.
So having the option for the PC to kill off the PC's companions, having them die,
and then bringing them back seems to be a bad move. Because eventually, the originality of the resurrection aspect will lose its luster. For Leliana, it has/had potential.
For Wynne, she has a built-in failsafe for why she might still appear in Asunder if she was killed. Yes I realize Asunder was written with a state-of-world where she traveled with the Warden, which by extension means the Warden sided with the Mages in Broken Circle. But I fail to really see how you can tell the events of Asunder
without Wynne. So it seems like her being in that timeframe is a guaranteed thing, aside from a few possible dialogue tweaks to reflect that she was "killed".
My point in all this being, keep this idea up for the sake of providing an option to kill a companion and you will no doubt run the risk of trying to create too many worlds to accomodate the Dead or Alive factor with the companions. Or you'll just magic them alive and say "Yup.", where the resurrection idea eventually becomes a cheap and hamfisted attempt at writing as opposed to something that's interesting.
The companions, by virtue of traveling with the PC, are destined for importance in Thedas. They are not "my buddies Steve and Earl". They're simply put, "the badasses with a mission".
The Chuck Norrises of Thedas, if you will.
But of course, I'm just arguing the wind now seeing as Messere Gaider left the thread. Still, maybe other posters would like to chime in.
Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 29 août 2012 - 06:21 .
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