247 réponses à ce sujet

[R2s Muse]

Reznore57 wrote...

He's hot , shy , his voice is like honey , he has emotional scars ( most woman like that kind of things , it's a bit of a challenge ) but he seems to be calm and in control ( not a psycho , always a good thing too.)

Besides he was once in love with a mage , but didn't let it happen because he knew it was doomed.

Which is always nice because we had before :

Alistair : I know i've slept with you but now i'm king i have to dump you , it's my duty.
Zevran :I know i've slept with you but now i have feeling , I'm scared.I need some space.
Anders :I know i've slept with you but now I need to bomb the chantry.Justice is more important.
Fenris : I know i've slept with you , but now I 'm even more traumatized .Leave me alone I need to brood.

Bwahahahah, Reznore57, this is brilliant!! Indeed, our LIs have had some... issues. LOL

[Reaverwind]

You could make him run in terror by batting your eyelashes at him. What's not to like?

[The Elder King]

Vandicus wrote...


Anders chooses to fuse with a spirit(become an abomination) in order to help "save" the mages. Seems sort've inevitable that he would've made a deal with a desire demon or some other form of demon for the power to "save" the mages. Anders' repeated escape attempts(rather than trying to earn more priviliges like the mages who are allowed to travel around) from the already much nicer Fereldan Circle demonstrates high risk behavior. Anders is pretty much the poster boy for why mages shouldn't be free from supervision. He's part of the group that demonstrates what the templars believe to be dangerous behavior, and Anders follows through by committing a heinous act.

Everyone would be better off if he'd been Tranquil'd by Cullen earlier.

That's the key word. With a spirit. He wouldn't have accepted the help of a demon. Have you forgotten how badly he treats Merrill for her alliance with a demon?
And he decided to merge with a spirti to help mages, yes, because Justice convinced him that he should help mages. He didn't want to face the Chantry and the Templars. Even after Awakening and his talks with Justice, if he wouldn't have merged with Justice, he wouldn't have left the Wardens (there's a banter in DA2 about it).
And anyway, I don't want to discuss about Anders. My point was only that Gregoir was more moderate than Cullen.

[NRieh]

But not as a companion. Not in a way to see their "side of the story." We've seen a few moderate ones, yes, Greagoir from a certain perspective, that templar in Lothering, Thrask, Keran. But all as NPCs.

I did not see more of "side story" for Cullen than for, let's say, Thrask. Or Keran. Cullen is same NPC, which has something like 2-3 minutes total screen time (including optional talks).

Once again - some love him. Have no idea why. Great. But I'm afraid because some already love him we'll all be..."forced" into loving him as well (and by "we" I mean all the straight female gamers who did not initially belong to fangroup). If Cullen is not LI - BW will be torn into pieces. If he IS Li - it leaves one more (?) male character romance "slot". They'd better have someone to outbalance this... knightfull tankiness.

ps: If I were BW I'd sell him in DLC. Same as Sebastian. BW, you hear me? Use an Idea while you still can!

[Reznore57]

Honestly , Cullen has tons of potential in front of him.
I'm not talking as a LI.

He's templar , high ranked , he believes deeply in the order , and has been throught two breaking point.
Once when he was tortured by mages , and a second time when he has to deal with Meredith going crazy.
He saw the worst of templars and mages.

And now the templars order is breaking away from the chantry because the Divine has been a little too friendly with mages.

He can still be supportive of the chantry , he can follow the rest of the templar , or he can go renegade at this point.

[R2s Muse]

Nrieh wrote...

But not as a companion. Not in a way to see their "side of the story." We've seen a few moderate ones, yes, Greagoir from a certain perspective, that templar in Lothering, Thrask, Keran. But all as NPCs.

I did not see more of "side story" for Cullen than for, let's say, Thrask. Or Keran. Cullen is same NPC, which has something like 2-3 minutes total screen time (including optional talks).

Once again - some love him. Have no idea why. Great. But I'm afraid because some already love him we'll all be..."forced" into loving him as well (and by "we" I mean all the straight female gamers who did not initially belong to fangroup). If Cullen is not LI - BW will be torn into pieces. If he IS Li - it leaves one more (?) male character romance "slot". They'd better have someone to outbalance this... knightfull tankiness.

ps: If I were BW I'd sell him in DLC. Same as Sebastian. BW, you hear me? Use an Idea while you still can!

This is my new favorite way to describe him!! Outstanding!

And, I don't think the argument to include him as a companion is dependent upon his total screentime, as Keran would certainly miss out there. Also, Isabela would have as well. I think the reason we want to see more, is because it was short. And yet remarkably eventful. Thrask would also have been interesting, given his tragedy with his daughter and how he must feel about his failed rebellion and being betrayed by the mages he sought to help, but unfortunately, he dead.

Anyway, indeed, not everyone has to like every companion, so I think it's great that there will hopefully be a bit of balance among them. Nor do we have to romance every LI. Sweet Maker, if I had to romance Merrill... :shudder:

[Danny Boy 7]

It's not necessarily just fangirls who find Cullen interesting, me being of the male gender. I can't speak for all Cullen lovers but a lot of it really has to do with the potential he has as a character. He's seen both extremes of corruption both in the ranks of the templars as well as in his charges that he had once felt deserved leniency.

Unlike a lot of other characters, especially Templars Cullen has developed throughout the series, not only with the help of the protagonist but through his own sense of right and wrong as well (biased as it might be). In the Magi-Origin Cullen was a shy inexperienced templar who possibly had a thing for one of the mages and yet unlike some of his more corruptible brothers in arms he does his duty and resists temptation.

Later during the Broken Circle quest he has his innocence/naivete ripped from him when the mages he had wanted leniency for turned on him and psychologically as well as physically tortured him for who knows how long and suddenly we see a much more anti-mage Cullen (understandably) as I doubt the medieval themed Thedas has psychologists to help him through his problems.

So at this point Cullen seems like every other templar we've seen anti-mage kill kill with only a grimmer future presented...and then Dragon Age 2 happened.

The Cullen we know doesn't change that much in the first two acts of Dragon Age 2, he's decided that mages can't be treated like people mostly due to his experiences in the tower, however he hasn't quite let himself become Meredith and slaughter all mages at the smallest sign of possession. However throughout these Acts he also shows signs that he disagrees with his boss as well as his personal views on what the Order truly stood for.

By the final quest of Dragon Age 2 we see that Cullen disagrees with the Right of Annulment even up until Anders blows up the Chantry. Regardless of Hawke's choice Cullen seems regretful that he has to face the man/woman who has potentially helped the Templar several different times over the years. He may be going along with the annulment but more so out of sense of following orders and duty than anything else. Finally Cullen makes his final change when Meredith attempts to execute Hawke regardless of the latter's allegiance. Cullen unlike many of his peers who would have simply went along with Meredith decides that enough is enough and it's gotten way out of hand (better late than never) and despite threats from the Knight-Commander Cullen helps Hawke to defeat Meredith once and for all.

What does this all mean? Well as I said before Cullen has seen the width and breath of corruption in both the templar and mage societies and has started to develop his own beliefs that seem to favor leniency towards mages, but an understanding that no matter what they are still dangerous but should be handled with a strict but compassionate hand.

With this attitude and the current war raging across Thedas Cullen has a vast spectrum of possible outcomes in the future and this appeals to a lot of his fans.

...

As for his appearance, it really has a minuscule amount of importance to a large group of his fans, I'm not saying it has absolutely no importance to them, but compared to everything else I've heard while documenting the herd it's sort of icing on the cake. What a lot of them find appealing about his personality is the fact that he has an introverted, thoughtful almost philosophical way of going about things as well as being angsty enough that he seems sexy, but not so much that it dominates his character which in turn is appealing.

All in all there are a lot of reasons people will find him appealing and the above may be a big reason as to why a lot of Cullen "fangirls" like him, but I'm sure I missed quite a bit as well. He is a rich character who will undoubtedly turn just as many people off, but different strokes and all that.

Anyway /end rant

[Wynne]

bob_20000 wrote...

FIRST, he tries to kill a bunch of mages in DA:O.
THEN, he does absolutely nothing in DA2 (basically just there as a fan service)
So what did he do? Why is he so sexy? What's the big deal? To me, he's a very blank, emotionless, zero-dimensional character. HOW IS HE SO CHARMING?

Because he's like this tortured, young, hot, Catholic priest/paladin/templar type who's all like, "I want you... but my duty demands that I not bone you! But I want you... But I'm too shy to bone you anyway because the very thought makes me turn red as a beet and run away!" He's like an Alistair, except one that you can't have even once despite his presence in both games. Angsty and conflicted instead of comically adorable.

Mage vs. Templar. It's all the forbidden lust/love of Brokeback Mountain without the actual man-on-man sex. (Which is totally cool with me, but I couldn't participate in it, so I prefer to have the option for woman-on-man stuff.)

Plus, his name is Cullen, which is hysterically funny as a reference. It's like a bonus hint of parody.

Cullen is not as much fun in DA2, but he's higher-res, and still as un-bangable as ever, eliciting even more thwarted desires from his fangirls. (One of which is me. I love redheads. They DO have souls.)  

Overall, Cullen was brainwashed by the church, but defied it a little bit through his sympathy for and kindness to mages. Then as thanks, he was tortured by the demons inside of people he was once kind to, seeming to confirm that the fanatics were right. Driven to the brink of violating his vows by his forbidden lusts for the female mage PC (which is even stronger if she's also an elf), he is then given a brutal slap in the face, seemingly from the Maker himself. He is shown the ugly side of mages, and the guilt he once felt over his lust is driven to a fever pitch. Perhaps he looked around at all his fallen comrades, friends murdered by mages, and with every moment of pain and grief which drove him half-mad, he told himself "this is my fault. Because I let my dong convince me that mages deserve lenience. The only thing that can begin to make up for it is if I ensure they all die for what they've done so that no one else can be butchered by demons!" 

All of which makes him sympathetic, though his, "I'm totally fine with mages, brah" attitude in DA2 is puzzling as a matter of Fridge Logic. How did he get to be so okay? I'd sure be interested to know. But that only makes Cullen an enigma as well as a formerly-conflicted templar. I'd like to see if there's any of that DAO Cullen left, hiding inside that well-adjusted shell. The echoes would be interesting. I just get this feeling like he's gone through an entire set of miniature personal journeys which we never got to see. 

I want to see them. For numerous reasons. And I think it's awesome that there seem to be a number of straight guys who think he's a fascinating, sympathetic badass, too. Regardless, if he is a polarizing character, he has a pretty strong chance of being included in DA3--the only characters who tend to fall by the wayside are the ones about whom people are inclined to say nothing at all. 

In DAO, Cullen saw the ugly side of mages. In DA2, he saw the ugly side of the templars. His experience with both sides would make him the perfect voice of reason to stand at the Inquisitor's side. 

Modifié par Wynne, 24 septembre 2012 - 02:49 .

[LolaLei]

This thread again? That's the 3rd of 4th this week. I'm just gonna copy and paste what I said in the last one to save time:

The interesting thing about Cullen, is that he's had a lot of character growth and development over the course of two games, which we've actually witnessed with our own eyes rather than just being told about it. In DA:O in the mage origin (particularly if you play as a female) he is incredibly naive, innocent and a mage sympathiser, but after his torture later in the game he becomes a very scared, bitter and tormented young man.

By DA2 he's leveled out a bit, but when we first meet him again he's still suffering from PTSD and has become a bit of a zealot due to circumstance. However, over the course of 10 years in Kirkwall you'll notice that he begins to realise that his outlook is wrong and extreme, to the extent where he even begins to question Meredith. Finally, at the end of Act 3 he directly ignores orders from his superior to protect Hawke (and protect a group of mages to, if you run a pro-Templar play through) and aids him/her in killing the Knight-Commander.

From a personality stand point, we know little about him, but that's what makes him so intriguing because his personality is a blank enough slate to go in any direction, yet interesting enough to have captured fans attention. Hell, the poor boy has gone from one bad experience after another, got promoted through the ranks of the Kirkwall Templar Order too fast, to the extent that he had to take on ridiculous amounts of responsibility that he was unfamiliar with - not to mention he's Ferelden, so likely got a lot of flack from the native Templars of Kirkwall who weren't keen on taking orders from a dog lord.

Finally, there's the small matter of his PTSD that has likely increased since the events of DA2. Adding to his head mess is the whole Mage/Templar war, with the bulk of the Templars rebelling from the Chantry. Does he stay loyal to the Divine? Or join the rebels in Mage hunting?

Basically, he's a very interesting character.

[Palipride47]

I can see why and agree that he is minor enough to add some developments to a new game, and to have an expanded personality as sanest Templar in Thedas, since he was "there" but it might mitigate a feeling of "small world syndrome" where the same 10 people contirbute to every problem in Thedas.

But I could write a thread like this (why do "fangirls" love x?) about ANYONE. Personal taste. 

BTW: It is kind of cool that Bioware still makes games, however flawed they are, with characters that people can personally connect to and empathize with. Even if they are still strings of code.

Rugged, tortured, handsome strings of code. 

Modifié par Palipride47, 24 septembre 2012 - 04:03 .

[Beerfish]

Meredith: Off with their heads! Hawke and companions must be eradicated!
Cullen: We can't do that, have you gone insane! Look at all the things he/she has done for us!
Player: Ah, thanks Cullen. Always knew you were a good egg.
Cullen: No, Knight Commander, we will not kill them, we agreed to only arrest them and toss them in the dungeon!
Player: Wait....what?

[Zack_Nero]

Sylvanpyxie wrote...

He has potential.

While I personally don't like his current character development and personality - He has the ability to grow and that isn't something that should be denied.

(Same reason I love/hate Sebastian Vael)

Yea, Cullen does have some potential (keyword some), but I don't see him doing that much grow to be honest.

[Palipride47]

Beerfish wrote...

Meredith: Off with their heads! Hawke and companions must be eradicated!
Cullen: We can't do that, have you gone insane! Look at all the things he/she has done for us!
Player: Ah, thanks Cullen. Always knew you were a good egg.
Cullen: No, Knight Commander, we will not kill them, we agreed to only arrest them and toss them in the dungeon!
Player: Wait....what?

Yeah, I always wonered why they were planning to arrest you when you helped annull the Circle. Not so much why Meredith would want to becuase she is insane, but moreso why Cullen would AGREE (?). Couldn't his line just be "Wait, why?"

[kellyofthemagi]

MinttyMint wrote...

Nrieh wrote...

Some fans just liked Cullen. It's ok - some people just...like some other people. It does not mean they are special in any way. Some love Merrill, some love Anders, some love Cullen..

Exactly, everyone has fans so why do you keep going on about Cullens fans like its worse somehow, like hes not just as good as the other characters you mentioned? Omg like hes an NPC he cant have fans!! ...  Isabela was just an NPC, Merril was just an NPC and yet they turned out to be pretty good companions, no? They now have an intresting background that no-one really thought about before cause they were just NPCs. Cullen has been in two games now, only a selected few NPCs have done that also without becoming companions and most of those NPCs were linked to the story somehow. Weve seen him be sweet, stern, kind, aggresive.. Always doing what he thinks is right and we have seen him change, evolve into a better person than he was when we last saw him. Hes been a victim and the offender. Hes helped the mages and the templars. He has a better personality and background than almost all other NPCs.  If he doesnt deserve to be a companion, that god damnit neither did Merrill or Izzy who were practically nobodys compared to him.

I totally agree with this! I think also he has been groomed for DAIII. What NPC would be more perfectly suited to be a companion/LI other than Cass. These two characters are a must for DAIII !!!! And hell they made Cullen resemble Paul Walker in DA2 what fangirl could resisit, not this fangirl!! 

[Battlebloodmage]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

bob_20000 wrote...

FIRST, he tries to kill a bunch of mages in DA:O.
THEN, he does absolutely nothing in DA2 (basically just there as a fan service)
So what did he do? Why is he so sexy? What's the big deal? To me, he's a very blank, emotionless, zero-dimensional character. HOW IS HE SO CHARMING?

Seriously though, BioWare fans are so accustomed to mediocre characters that it no longer makes a difference to them. They'll take anything at this point, including Cullen.

Kaidan is not at all mediocre, not everyone needs to be raging, whining, or sleeping around to be interesting.

Modifié par Battlebloodmage, 24 septembre 2012 - 04:08 .

[Todd23]

Because they want to romance Alistair without their female wardens having to brake-up with him.easy solution, get another Alistair.

[MrCousland99]

I don't know, I've always hated him.

[EpicBoot2daFace]

Battlebloodmage wrote...
Kaidan is not at all mediocre, not everyone needs to be raging, whining, or sleeping around to be interesting.

Kaidan talked about biotic corporations the entire game. He was not interesting at all.

[kellyofthemagi]

Todd23 wrote...

Because they want to romance Alistair without their female wardens having to brake-up with him.easy solution, get another Alistair.

Huh this makes no sense! My Female Pro didn't have to break up with Alister as a human Noble hell you can become his queen if played right. Only way you can't is if you play as a mage.elf or Dwarf.  So thats not the reason we want Cullen. Hes a mysterious and handsome NPC. With just enough back ground for the Devs to build upon.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Read through the dialogue he's involved in OP. There are a lot of coded references to his huge penis.

[kellyofthemagi]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Read through the dialogue he's involved in OP. There are a lot of coded references to his huge penis.

OMG:O

[LolaLei]

RinpocheSchnozberry wrote...

Read through the dialogue he's involved in OP. There are a lot of coded references to his huge penis.

Absolutely!

[LolaLei]

But seriously now, what's the problem? People like, what they like. At the end of the day all the characters/companions are just a bunch of pixels, coding and good voice acting. There's really no need to insult or bash people over their preferences.

[Welsh Inferno]

The fangirlism is a little over the top for him. BUT, he does actually have the potential to be a great character.

@Danny Boy 7 Pretty much that.

Modifié par Welsh Inferno, 24 septembre 2012 - 05:23 .