660 réponses à ce sujet

[Killdren88]

We can't rely on game mechanics to make things canon. Decapitating animations are just as random as the other finishing moves. We can bring all sorts of facts and tidbits of information to the table. But the fact is that either Leliana was left for dead and she recovered or some other method was used to save her.

[nightscrawl]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

Does raise the question of why the Ashes would heal her at all if they are defiled assuming that is in fact why she's not dead.

Andraste > your petty attempts at defilement, obviously.

Killdren88 wrote...

We can't rely on game mechanics to make things canon. Decapitating animations are just as random as the other finishing moves. We can bring all sorts of facts and tidbits of information to the table. But the fact is that either Leliana was left for dead and she recovered or some other method was used to save her.

I've always thought the decapitation argument was silly anyway. Not everyone who killed Leliana decapitated her with a killing blow, and as others have mentioned, a decapitated Zevran or Arl Howe still talk to you after the event. So meh...

Modifié par nightscrawl, 05 juillet 2013 - 06:21 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

Does raise the question of why the Ashes would heal her at all if they are defiled assuming that is in fact why she's not dead.

Why do we think defilement does anything?  Just because the Reavers said so?

[nightscrawl]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

Does raise the question of why the Ashes would heal her at all if they are defiled assuming that is in fact why she's not dead.

Why do we think defilement does anything?  Just because the Reavers said so?

Well technically just spitting in the urn would defile the ashes. The cult giving you the blood is significant for them because of their beliefs. As for whether defiling them takes away their "powers," who knows really. Some question whether they have powers in the first place -- this isn't my issue, not going to argue for or against this, I've just seen it mentioned.

[Boycott Bioware]

Defiling the Urn give effect to the Guardian and the Ash Wraith, their health reduced to half, meaning they are somehow related/connected to whatever magic the ash have. The warden took a pinch of the ash for Arl Eamon before defiling it, so that pinch is still pure

So chopping Leliana head will not make her alive again no matter what, "...there is no Maker, there are demons yeeeessssss" like the Rage Demon say in Alieneage orphanage

Edit : Leliana is demon in disguise in DA2

Modifié par Qistina, 05 juillet 2013 - 06:46 .

[Wozearly]

David Gaider wrote...

iakus wrote...
Personally, I'd remind them that the choice they were presented with was not to kill Leliana, but whether or not to defile the Ashes.  The fight with Leliana was a consequence of that.  So her survival isn't an invalidation of a choice, it's altering its repercussions.  As the Ashes (so far as I know) remain defiled by the dragon blood 

Oh, that's true! I will have to remember that.

Careful what you wish for...we might start seeing players griping about invalidation of consequences if that road is taken, and that way madness lies.

In all seriousness to the OP, my objection to the return of Leliana was primarily that her death appeared pretty unambiguous and there was no hint of explanation as to why she was alive in DA2. Similarly for Anders. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily *happy* about the return of characters like Oghren, where an explanation was given, but it is handled with a clearer nod to people who could reasonably expect them to be dead.

I'm also much more relaxed about the return of Anders, but it was clear that this was done as he was a critical character to the DA2 plot and therefore a bout of retconning was more justifiable. Doesn't make a blind bit of difference to the lore/choice aspect, but it does have the benefit of saying "Look, we feel uncomfortable about bringing characters back from the dead...so we're only going to do it when there's a really good reason to, like Anders."

Or, at least, it would if we didn't have Leliana as (to date) a very distinct opposite, having been resurrected purely for a cameo.

I'd echo previous comments that too many characters have been allowed to come back from the brink of death in this way, although I sympathise with the writers that the freedom DA:O gave us to eliminate companions has caused them grief when wanting to bring characters back for one reason or another.

[nightscrawl]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

I had no particular reason to doubt pouring dragon's blood into the Ashes would do *something.*

The quote I was referencing basically said that the *real* choice the player had was whether or not to defile the ashes and not whether or not to kill Leliana.  If defilement in fact did nothing to the ashes then it was a pretty pointless choice except insofar as it let the player feel happy about being sacrilegious.  This is all well and good if your chief source of enjoyment in an RPG is playing characters who *think* certain things.  If your enjoyment is equally bound up in how the world reacts to your decisions and the consequences those decisions have than having two choices end up with the same result is pretty disappointing, especially a choice that seems like it should have pretty heavy implications.

I might agree, except that the entirety of that quest chain is based on the concept of faith. Even Brother Genitivi suggests that their healing powers might be a placebo effect of faith. You are sent to find the ashes because Isolde is a woman of great faith and believes they will cure her husband. The members of the cult have faith in their "risen Andraste." It is Leliana's faith that leads her to protect the ashes from defilement. There is no concrete evidence that the ashes themselves are what cure Arl Eamon, and that it wasn't a result of the lyrium in the surrounding mountain (as Oghren suggests), or the mage that is continuing to heal him by his bedside.

So, defiling the ashes was not pointless. Since Arl Eamon is cured either way, it provides a role-play development path for your character. Do you do the good thing, or the bad thing? If you choose the bad thing, you have an immediate consequence in that Leliana attacks you.

[Rawgrim]

Ziggeh wrote...

Rawgrim wrote...
Dead or alive are polar opposites. If you make a choice about life or death, and the game just changes your choice to the opposite of the one you made, your choice gets invalidated.

The choice isn't life or death. That is the outcome. The choice is to fight her or not.

And if you fight her its to the death. All fights in the game are like that.

[nightscrawl]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

How can Isolde's belief in the Ashes cause a placebo healing effect in Eamon who is unconscious? I think the Ashes having actual magical properties isn't really up for debate.

I did think of that, yes. My statement about Isolde was not meant to be connected to the placebo effect of the ashes, merely how her faith is what initiates the entire quest in the first place. Whether that faith is unfounded or misplaced doesn't matter; it exists, that is the point of having faith. As far as their healing properties go, I referenced that at the end of the paragraph. I'm not going to argue about whether they do or not, it's not really an issue I'm concerned with. I only mentioned it because I've seen several instances of it on the forums, so it apparently is an issue for some people.

[Rawgrim]

I dunno. Either they do imports properly, since they are hailing the import feature anyway, or they get rid of it. Seems to me that right now its just a 50-50 thing. What choices matters or not is at the whim of the writers. In my first DA2 playthrough I ran into Zevran, Anders and Leliana. Pretty much the only 3 companions that had died on me in the first game. So 3 out of 3 who should be dead, were present. Anders shouldn`t even have been in AC1 since he was busy croaking in Amaranthine at the time Hawke met him. Leliana and the others are alive in 90 percent of my playthroughs though, so its not that big of a deal for me. They just happened to be toast in the first import I used.

When you write a story and things like this happen in it, you can`t just place the blame on the reader for noticing it. Their "preacious choices", as Gaider puts it, is what makes people re-play the games in the first place - and import their saves.


I am sure we will get a very good explanation to why Leliana is alive, though. My bet is on some Andrastian spirit keeping her alive. Somewhat like the one Wynne has.

[Maria Caliban]

Senior Cinco wrote...

I think it's a little more than that. You can try to spin it all you want and throw around phrases like "I don't like it". Of course we don't like it. That's the point of being disgruntled to start with. But there's no reason to get defensive and start insulting people's intelligence.

David is a writer. If he didn't care about the misuse of words, especially literary terms, he'd be a poor one.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 05 juillet 2013 - 08:00 .

[LobselVith8]

crimzontearz wrote...

wait is someone really arguing that "the author did not retcon/handwave a character's death because we see her alive and thus she was never dead to begin with in spite of what we were previously told"?


REALLY???

That seems to be the case. Leliana's ressurection from the dead is an example of retroactive continuity, whether it's given an explanation or not. I also think it's an issue of some people bring misinformed about rectons, or thinking that rectons are automatically bad.

[Gotholhorakh]

I think mistakes are probably better fixed/explained, loose ends are probably better either tied up or framed as ongoing mystery - and that neither benefits from floundering rationalizations.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 05 juillet 2013 - 08:21 .

[Wulfram]

Maria Caliban wrote...

David is a writer. If he didn't care about the misuse of words, especially literary terms, he'd be a poor one.

Then maybe he should stop trying to twist "retcon" into knots.

And maybe he should get his colleagues to stop humpty dumptying terms like "Action RPG" and "Open World" too

[HiroVoid]

LobselVith8 wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

wait is someone really arguing that "the author did not retcon/handwave a character's death because we see her alive and thus she was never dead to begin with in spite of what we were previously told"?


REALLY???

That seems to be the case. Leliana's ressurection from the dead is an example of retroactive continuity, whether it's given an explanation or not. I also think it's an issue of some people bring misinformed about rectons, or thinking that rectons are automatically bad.

I suppose that depends on how dead the person in question wanted Leliana though I agree it's probably more of a case where people would just like a playthrough to be reflected.  I don't mind it much myself since I'm not big on imports.  I also prefer the term 'handwave' myself.  It reflects more on how something was obviously changed whether it was retconned or simply given a reason after something else was obviously meant to happen.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

I had no particular reason to doubt pouring dragon's blood into the Ashes would do *something.*

In the absence of conclusive evidence, you have reason to doubt literally everything.

[Wulfram]

It seems to have a real enough effect that Shouty Guy knows if you haven't done it.

Though I suppose he could just be sensing the death of the Guardian or something.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I never understood how he instantly knew whether you had or hadn't done it. It bothered me that he seemed to be able to read my mind.

[AstraDrakkar]

I really don't have a problem with Bioware altering and NPC's status from game to game unless their explantion is way to far out to be believable. I never really liked Leliana and found her boring though.

[HiroVoid]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I never understood how he instantly knew whether you had or hadn't done it. It bothered me that he seemed to be able to read my mind.

I suppose you can always take that as the semi-confirmed explanation if there's no alternative.

[Iakus]

crimzontearz wrote...

funny....my rogue's dex was way higher than Leliana's, he would have noticed, also she died from a single critical hit....just saying, this kind of explanation is kinda ridiculous, can we not resort to that?

I just say we wait until the explanation is given, then complain if it's a lame one.