368 réponses à ce sujet

[Wulfram]

The DR should have positive consequences if you follow Morrigan's philosophy of life.
But not so much if you care much about ordinary "weak" people living civilised lives in safety and comfort.

[Jaulen]

My first warden that did the US was a Dalish.
She lost her best friend/lover.....was ripped unwillingly away from her clan....the only family she had since he parents were killed. Never got along with the shems.....and couldn't trust the witch offering a seemingly 'no consequences' way out of certain death.
With how sad and depressing she was.....it was a relief for her to go to the long goodnight with the attitude that her death would have some meaning.
(I mean maaaan, so frustrated that she couldn't find Tamlin, that she was forced to go with Duncan over all her protests (what? the threat of being trussed up and drug to Ostagar?) .....I cried when she walked up the hill with Duncan looking over her shoulder at the clan.....and again when she saw Tamlin at camp and at the Ashes....*sniff*)
(So...wow....one of my favorite playthroughs is the default? Niiiiiicccceeeeee)


My city elf hated Morrigan, didn't trust her in the least, and being an Andrastian, didn't trust that sort of magic, so he didn't do the DR or even bring it up to Alistair and when the time came and Alistair wanted to do the US, he wouldn't let Alistair, after all.....wasn't the second point of the whole fight to defeat loghain and put alistair on the throne?


My mage didn't trust Morrigan's explanation....after all, such magic has a price. So at the end, when Loghain was going to sacrifice himself, she said no.....no way was she going to let Loghain have the glory and be redeemed.....plus maybe her sacrifice would make Fereldans view mages in a better light. After all....one sacrificed herself to kill the Archdemon and end the blight.



So many reasons why a character might deny Morrigan the DR and decide to do the US themselves.
But, most of my characters do the DR.

Modifié par Jaulen, 15 octobre 2013 - 07:09 .

[Silfren]

ScarMK wrote...

Silfren wrote...

I see your point, and it does smack of a cop-out, but we are talking about magic, here.  Somehow the ritual "tricks" the soul into going where Morrigan wants it to.  A detailed explanation of how the ritual works precisely, and what the mechanics are of needing a newly tainted Warden, and how this taint is somehow erased, would be nice, but I find the use of magic sufficient to suspend my disbelief over.

Of course, there's also the possibility that Morrigan wasn't being fully honest, and the Warden didn't ask enough questions.  =)

I always assumed the mother's womb prevented the child from contracting the taint and that Morrigan's ritual was a combo of a pregnancy spell and some spell that make the child contract the taint.  After all, she says it could be considered blood magic and the taint does usually involve blood.

 But the baby would definitely NOT be contracting the taint.  That's the entire point, she claims, anyway.  That the baby would have the untainted soul of an Old God.

[Jaulen]

It was confirmed somewhere in the DAO threads, by DG I believe, that you can't contract the taint by being being the product of a GW parent.

[Reznore57]

Wulfram wrote...

The DR should have positive consequences if you follow Morrigan's philosophy of life.
But not so much if you care much about ordinary "weak" people living civilised lives in safety and comfort.

Yeah , she might pull an "Anders" .
The DR is a bit like picking up poo in Kirkwall dirty sewers , It's for some greater thing that obviously you shouldn't know anything about or dare ask questions .
It would be nice to have a companion who would trust you with his/her crazy plan , at least just to be able to make a proper choice .

Besides Morrigan character is quite complicated , she sure is a B**** but she isn't evil .
She value magic for example and power but she still have some common sense , like frowning upon abominations running everywhere in the Circle.

And there's the whole Flemeth business , cause the OGB used to be Flemeth idea ...Morrigan just decided along the way that she didn't want to listen anymore , but everything she knows comes from Flemeth.

And in DA2 Flemeth says the amulet was to saved her "should the inevitable occur.And if I know my Morrigan , it already has."
It's after the Blight , and it doesn't seem she's talking about Morrigan asking the Warden to kill her ...what Morrigan is doing after the Blight is looking for the Eluvian.

[Medhia Nox]

It's interesting that a large group of women(though maybe just female avatars and not actual women?) are so comfortable using a child as part of a magical plot.

What if the Old God consumed the original soul of the baby instead of the tainted Archdaemon consuming the Grey Warden?  There's no point arguing it... it's just conjecture, but if the Old God can inhabit such an early stage of pregnancy - there's no reason to believe mortal souls "don't" inhabit their new "bodies" at the same stage on Thedas.

I'm just mildly disturbed that people seem so casual about using childbirth to serve their own plans. Not outraged, or appalled or even surprised - just... weirded out a bit.

And worse - the wardens who commit to this are all dead beat dads.

===

BTW - isn't the "default" warden a female elf? SO... the "OGB" can't also be "default" yeah? (For those that claimed that the OGB was somehow "canon")

Modifié par Medhia Nox, 15 octobre 2013 - 07:16 .

[Silfren]

Medhia Nox wrote...

It's interesting that a large group of women(though maybe just female avatars and not actual women?) are so comfortable using a child as part of a magical plot.

Um.  Why?  It isn't as though women aren't capable of setting aside their actual morals in order to roleplay a fictional story.  But if this is stemming from some idea of maternal instinct and gender essentialism...I have to object to the idea that it would be interesting coming from women but somehow not from men.  Parental instinct, if this is why you find it interesting, is not at all limited to women, and there's nothing inherently mystical or special about maternal instinct.

I'm just mildly disturbed that people seem so casual about using childbirth to serve their own plans. Not outraged, or appalled or even surprised - just... weirded out a bit.

What I find interesting is that you first specifically noted that you find it odd that women felt that way, not people.

Modifié par Silfren, 15 octobre 2013 - 07:36 .

[ScarMK]

Silfren wrote...

 But the baby would definitely NOT be contracting the taint.  That's the entire point, she claims, anyway.  That the baby would have the untainted soul of an Old God.

I must be not be remembering the scenario correctly.  I thought that the child WAS tainted, but when it absorbs the archdemons soul, the taint in both the soul and child is destroyed.

Modifié par ScarMK, 15 octobre 2013 - 07:45 .

[Volus Warlord]

ScarMK wrote...

Silfren wrote...

 But the baby would definitely NOT be contracting the taint.  That's the entire point, she claims, anyway.  That the baby would have the untainted soul of an Old God.

I must be not be remembering the scenario correctly.  I thought that the child WAS tainted, but when it absorbs the archdemons soul, the taint in both the soul and child is destroyed.  Like two negatives making a positive.

That only works for multiplication and division.

[ScarMK]

Volus Warlord wrote...

That only works for multiplication and division.

Yea.. not sure why I added that.

[Gwydden]

Silfren wrote...

Which is funny, because it always seemed clear to me that Loghain WANTED to go to his death.  It's almost a mercy to send him to the archdemon, and it's plain that this is something he wants, rather than just something the Warden pushes on him.

People don't always want what is best for them. And it still seems a bit cowardly to me. The Warden took it upon him to lead the fight against the Blight, he's been doing all the GW job since the beginning. If anyone should die killing the Archdemon, after he decided not to took the DR, it should be him. Of course, Loghain does want to die, and when he insists and pleas right in front of the dragon, not relenting is something I found cruel, even if in my Warden's place I wouldn't have been able to help feeling like a coward.

Modifié par Gwydden, 15 octobre 2013 - 08:17 .

[Twilight_Princess]

TurretSyndrome wrote...

 Why would anyone kill him/herself simply out of suspicion of some sorceress.? The implications of what castastrophe we might bring onto the world of Thedas always remained vague, atleast to me, as I played the game. Whatever they were, I was never able to feel that they justify a self sacrifice.

So, I'm really curious. What was going on in Bioware's canon Warden's head, when he/she decided they take such a drastic choice? What was going on through your(Bioware) heads when you opted for this ending, especially since you were the ones that introduced the Dark Ritual backdoor in the first place? 

Oh and I would welcome the community's own point of view on this as well, especially from those who chose the ending and still abide by it even after all these years, like me. 

Can't speak for bioware but for me it just came down to what sort of warden I was playing. 

My Ultimate Sacrifice warden was your typical idealist and passionately belived in always doing “the right thing”.  Something like the dark ritual (and what it involved) had no appeal  to her because she is aware at this point she had another 10 years at the most before the taint slowly destroyed her anyway. Her life wasn’t important enough to her that she would want to give Morrigan a potentially dangerous old god especially if she wasn’t willing to say what she planned to do with it.

Although she did have a moment of weakness when Morrigan pulled the Alistair card in an attempt to emotionally coerce her . At first she hesitated but ultimately realized what Morrigan was trying to do. She didn’t care about Alistair’s well-being at all. She had lied, kept things from the warden and waited till the very last minute to present this choice . Just so the warden would feel desperate enough to agree to the offer when the truth was finally revealed (that slaying the archdemon meant one warden had to die).  



Upon this realization she no longer saw a friend in front of her but someone who could not be trusted.




She wanted to end the chaos once and for all, not bring more of it into world and Morrigan's deception and manipulation was just the nail in the coffin. Her sense of what was right (in this case) was worth dying for . After making this choice she also refused to let Alistair die because of it . She loved him and wanted him to live . I don't know if there are any other huge buffy fans around here but I couldn't help but compare this choice to "The Gift". I just think it made for a noble heroic ending without my warden compromising her beliefs. 

Modifié par Hyrule_Gal, 15 octobre 2013 - 08:31 .

[Gwydden]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Gwydden wrote...

Learning the consequences of a choice doesn't invalidate it. Otherwise, you'll be metagaming.

That isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying that the Dark Ritual has terrible foreshadowing; you're presented with the choice and the writers basically say to fill in the blanks, it isn't like the Harrowmont / Bhelen choice where all information is presented to the player and they come up with their own conclusion. We need more information to make a sound choice but we're provided with "hey, do you want to live?"

Everyone who picked the Dark Ritual because they wanted to live / love Morrigan will complain if something bad happens because they didn't see it coming.
Everyone who picked the Ultimate Sacrifice will complain if something good happens because they didn't see it coming.

Both sides should have consequences introduced to the player and allow us to deal with them (rather than dishing them out and we're forced to accept them) because without foreshadowing, we've done the decision blind.

I'd argue that Dark Ritual should have negative consequences (as you trade off your Warden's death for something worse down the line) but that's an entirely different matter.

But that's the point. You don't know what it will do, and you have to make your choice based on the little information you have. Maybe I'm biased here, since I always roleplay, and therefore go for choices my characters would make instead of those I'd like most.

[Dave of Canada]

hhh89 wrote...

@Dave of Canada: I wouldn't actually have problems with the DR having negative consequences, and I did it in the majority of playthroughs (including my canon where my Warden romances Morrigan). I'm more interested in having real consequences based on my choices that to care if those consequences are positive or negative (not to mention that I thought since Morrigan explained the DR that it might have negative consequences on Thedas).

If it's large-scale consequences, I feel it should play a helpful part but not be mandatory.

Let's say the Old God Baby makes the fade tears irreparable or creates more of them, you shouldn't be forced to accept that as a consequence and live with it. You should be able to hunt down the Old God Baby and kill it to prevent the worst case scenario but it comes with it's own price, say... Morrigan greatly hinders the Inquisition or what say you.

Meanwhile, Ultimate-Sacrifice players who'd want the Old God Baby consequences would have an alternative to bring them out but they're going to be costly due to how unprepared everything is. 

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 15 octobre 2013 - 08:26 .

[RazorrX]

My main warden was a Male City Elf who did the US.

My reasons?

Well I did romance Morrigan, and really liked her (she is a cool character) but when she told me that it was a good deal to have the Tevinter mage sacrifice my entire family, friends, etc. so that I could be more powerful, I came to the conclusion that it was a toxic relationship. She had very few moral boundaries when it came to power.

When she offered the DR I took it that it had been the plan all along,and Morrigan wanted to do it for the same reasons Flemeth did. IF Flemeth could be so powerful by possessing her children, Morrigan had shown that she would do almost anything to gain power herself, and she had the instruction manual on how to do it. So would I be okay with her 'possessing' a child with the soul of an old god? Not really.

Also the explanation for how an archdemon survives by jumping hosts and being reborn - who is to say that at some time that child would not 'awaken' and become an Old God? How could you make sure no darkspawn came close as the child has a touch of the taint, would the old god automatically become an archdemon? Would an Old God be better or worse than an Archdemon? Legends tell that they were responsible for many atrocities, to the point they were entombed beneath the earth for all time.

So since I could not trust Morrigan, I could not ensure that the offspring did not actually end up something way worse than an archdemon, etc. I did my duty and ended the blight via the US.

[Gwydden]

Medhia Nox wrote...

It's interesting that a large group of women(though maybe just female avatars and not actual women?) are so comfortable using a child as part of a magical plot.

What if the Old God consumed the original soul of the baby instead of the tainted Archdaemon consuming the Grey Warden?  There's no point arguing it... it's just conjecture, but if the Old God can inhabit such an early stage of pregnancy - there's no reason to believe mortal souls "don't" inhabit their new "bodies" at the same stage on Thedas.

I'm just mildly disturbed that people seem so casual about using childbirth to serve their own plans. Not outraged, or appalled or even surprised - just... weirded out a bit.

And worse - the wardens who commit to this are all dead beat dads.

===

BTW - isn't the "default" warden a female elf? SO... the "OGB" can't also be "default" yeah? (For those that claimed that the OGB was somehow "canon")

I have no problem admitting it doesn't bother me in the slightest (though I'm male). Maybe it's because I've always assume that, for one reason or the other, Urthemiel is occupying a soulles body, instead of supplanting the child. I also believe the OGB will be no different in behaviour than any other, though I admit this is all speculation. And not all Wardens who go through with the DR have to be terrible dads. In fact, if perfectly possible to chase Morrigan down of fatherly concern (my Amell did this).

On your question, the default Warden for DAI is a dalish who performed the US, so no OGB there.

Modifié par Gwydden, 15 octobre 2013 - 08:35 .

[RazorrX]

ScarMK wrote...

Silfren wrote...

 But the baby would definitely NOT be contracting the taint.  That's the entire point, she claims, anyway.  That the baby would have the untainted soul of an Old God.

I must be not be remembering the scenario correctly.  I thought that the child WAS tainted, but when it absorbs the archdemons soul, the taint in both the soul and child is destroyed.

The secret is the blood magic ritual that Morrigan performs.  If the baby had the taint and no soul yet (as she claimed) then the archdemon should have torn out of her stomach reborn and continued the blight as it would by jumping into any other darkspawn.

But the ritual was some form of blood magic that pulled the archdemon's soul and cleansed the child somehow at the same time.  Perhaps it even fed off of the taint in the child - consuming it as it was used to pull the archdemon to it.

[Silfren]

ScarMK wrote...

Silfren wrote...

 But the baby would definitely NOT be contracting the taint.  That's the entire point, she claims, anyway.  That the baby would have the untainted soul of an Old God.

I must be not be remembering the scenario correctly.  I thought that the child WAS tainted, but when it absorbs the archdemons soul, the taint in both the soul and child is destroyed.

How it's supposed to work in the scenario of a Warden killing the archdemon:  The archdemon's soul travels through the taint into the Warden, but because the Warden's body already has a soul inside it, both souls are destroyed.  Kind of like anti-matter coming in contact with matter, I guess.  Anyway, we don't actually know how the DR works, so there's no way of knowing yet.

[Xilizhra]

Medhia Nox wrote...

It's interesting that a large group of women(though maybe just female avatars and not actual women?) are so comfortable using a child as part of a magical plot.

What if the Old God consumed the original soul of the baby instead of the tainted Archdaemon consuming the Grey Warden?  There's no point arguing it... it's just conjecture, but if the Old God can inhabit such an early stage of pregnancy - there's no reason to believe mortal souls "don't" inhabit their new "bodies" at the same stage on Thedas.

I'm just mildly disturbed that people seem so casual about using childbirth to serve their own plans. Not outraged, or appalled or even surprised - just... weirded out a bit.

And worse - the wardens who commit to this are all dead beat dads.

===

BTW - isn't the "default" warden a female elf? SO... the "OGB" can't also be "default" yeah? (For those that claimed that the OGB was somehow "canon")

Why is being female relevant?

Anyway, it's impossible to tell either way, but I'm no more inclined to believe that embryos get fully developed souls at conception in DA than I am IRL, at least in a way that the Old God's soul would destroy it. And even if it did, that's still only one soul destroyed vs. the two that would be in the alternative, so I still come out ahead.

[TurretSyndrome]

Gwydden wrote...

TurretSyndrome wrote...

The Freeholders indeed elect their ruler but that depends on how much support the person gathers from them. If it's not enough or at half way, it will almost always come to a civil war. You can check out Fereldan history and law and you'll understand it's all about the size of your army and the support you have. Even if you become king, your rule is not absolute, that is how Ferelden is, and is also why it makes it the most interesting place to me, compared to others in Thedas.

Alistair is the bastard son of Maric, who barely ever knew any nobles apart from his two uncles, yet his blood allowed him to challenge both Anora and Loghain. The unlikely heir to the throne was then made the King of Ferelden overnight. My point is, anything could happen. My Warden now brought in a new card to the table, that is all I'm saying. I'm not denying he's making a significant gamble with a lot of variables, but there you go.

It is stated that after Maric's dissapearence a lot of people considered Bryce Cousland a better option for king than Cailan. For all we know, the only reason he wasn't elected was that he was too much of a royalist to partake in it, not to mention that Anora, though almost a commoner, proved a capable enough ruler to balance out Cailan's incompetence. Alistair was a reasonable candidate not only for his blood, but also because he had Eamon's and the Grey Warden's support, while Anora was the daugther of the man who started the civil war in the middle of an invasion. The proof is that Alistair cannot succeed without the Warden's support. So I don't think blood has as much weight in Ferelden as you might believe.

You sure about that? Go check out some youtube videos where Eamon talks to the Warden and Alistair about whose got a bigger claim to the throne. Anora isn't "almost a commoner". She's born nobility(since Loghain was made a noble after the war with Orlais and Maric's coronation).

Not to mention she was the queen at the time of the Landsmeet. Eamon also clearly states that the reason Alistair is the right contender against Anora or Loghain as he has a better claim than Eamon, who is equivalent to Loghain. Not anyone can become king. This is proven especially when you try to be king, and only end up being prince or princess-consort.

Modifié par TurretSyndrome, 15 octobre 2013 - 09:47 .

[Estelindis]

I still don't know what the right thing to do with the Dark Ritual was. In spite of all the times Morrigan had the party's back in combat, I have an extremely hard time trusting her. I try to tell myself that she could have stabbed the Wardens in the back any time she wanted and didn't, in fact she helped us... But then I can't help but note that she couldn't have used us to further her purpose if she'd betrayed us at an earlier point, so that may be irrelevant.

My main reasons for not trusting Morrigan stem from the way she disapproves of good moral choices and recommends poor ones. From all those situations, what stands out is how she seemed to approve of using the captured city elves, including my Warden's own father, in a blood magic ritual. How can I trust someone who thinks that's a good idea?

Maybe Morrigan thinks that the ends justify the means, but my character has been on the other side of that rhetoric all her life. Ends justifying the means leads to situations like where Duncan doesn't speak out during the wedding abduction, because intervening would be a violation of Warden neutrality (or something) and he needs the cooperation of Ferelden nobility; he has his eyes on the big picture of the Blight. Little people like city elves just get ground up when big pictures come into play.

When I try to see this from Morrigan's point of view, playing the devil's advocate, I note that she makes recommendations but doesn't ever try to force the Warden to follow them. She gives the Warden information, noting that the blood magic ritual would be effective and useful. Maybe a non-mage Warden wouldn't realise this - such a Warden might have no way of knowing if Caladrius is bluffing or not. So the best I can do here is say that Morrigan respects the Warden enough to give her advice and let her form her own judgement.

Another problem is that Morrigan won't discuss much in the way of details when it comes to the child. If her intentions regarding the OGB are good, why not explain them? If what she knows of what should happen seems positive on the whole, then why not tell the Warden? The fact that she won't talk about it much makes it seem like she has something to hide. The best defence that I can come up with here is that Morrigan knows that she could pretty much make up anything and the Warden would have pretty much no way of knowing if it was the truth or not, because the Warden doesn't really understand the type of magic that she and Flemeth have. Even a mage Warden is Circle-trained. So maybe, in my best interpretation, not telling the Warden much of anything is a mark of respect, showing a lack of willingness to manipulate even though she clearly could lay out a story adapted to suit what she judges the Warden will be most likely to find persuasive. Perhaps I can overlook this.

But I find it very hard to overlook Alistair's part in all this. Ignoring, for now, the repulsive element of dubious consent, the fact remains that Morrigan wants to take the OGB away and raise it herself, with Alistair having no role. This is the guy with a massive inferiority complex from being rejected by two father figures (Maric and Eamon) and losing a third (Duncan). I really feel that if he had a child then he'd want to be part of his or her life, not to repeat the absenteeism that characterised his own father. It just seems so cruel that Morrigan refuses to allow him to ever see his child with her. At the end of Witch Hunt, the female Warden can't even go through the portal to see how the child is doing; it's as if the writers never considered that more people than just the Morrigan-romancing male Warden might have an interest in the fate of this child.

Anyway, all these objections may fall flat in the face of a soul's annihilation. But how do we actually know that killing an archdemon destroys a Warden's soul? I mean, how can you check up on something like that? As far as I'm aware (stop me if I'm wrong), we don't encounter the spirits of the dead in the Fade. We can't go there to check if someone's still around. If the spirits of the dead do pass to the Fade, then it seems to be an area of the Fade that we can't visit in this life. (Plus I seem to recall getting mixed messages about this, even within the game. Some parts of it seemed to indicate that a Warden just died, with other parts preferring to say "destroyed," which I interpret to refer to the soul annihilation.)

Ultimately, it's a question of whether we trust Morrigan enough to believe that whatever she wants to happen with the OGB is better than the annihilation of a Warden's soul. My first and primary Warden did not. Subsequently, some others have. If there is a better criterion for judging the Dark Ritual than whether one trusts Morrigan, I can't think of it. All suggestions welcome.

EDIT (adding comments on others' posts as I catch up with the thread): 

Medhia Nox wrote...

What if the Old God consumed the original soul of the baby instead of the tainted Archdaemon consuming the Grey Warden?  There's no point arguing it... it's just conjecture, but if the Old God can inhabit such an early stage of pregnancy - there's no reason to believe mortal souls "don't" inhabit their new "bodies" at the same stage on Thedas.

I'm just mildly disturbed that people seem so casual about using childbirth to serve their own plans. Not outraged, or appalled or even surprised - just... weirded out a bit. 

This bothered me somewhat at the time.  I seem to recall Morrigan commenting that the soul of the Old God would take the body of the baby during the first few days of gestation and that, at this point, the baby wouldn't have a soul anyway.  (I remember thinking to myself :"Real world political/religious issue alert!")  Anyway, I'd be very surprised if there was definitive knowledge of when souls enter the unborn in Thedas, as the Dragon Age writers generally seem to retain a level of mysticism rather than taking a D&D approach to these issues (e.g. no one can be completely sure that the Maker exists, vs. the certain existence of gods and an overdeity in Forgotten Realms - gods even have statblocks).  It seemed to me that Morrigan was just putting forward her own view on this subject as if it was fact (which, let's face it, most people do on many subjects).  It would seem like the Warden could just as well believe the opposite, in which case this would be a huge ethical obstacle for the Dark Ritual.

Gallimatia wrote...

We know the embryo can hold a soul as it can hold Urhemiel's soul. Why does it have a soul holder if it doesn't have a soul? Nature is seldom impratical like that.  

Touché.  This is a far sounder and pithier statement of the argument than I could have come up with.  Well done.

Sasie wrote...

Even if Morrigan could be trusted she is not as clever as she believes herself to be and the original plan wasn't even hers. What to say Flemeth didn't plan it all? Even in Origins it's easy to see that there are far too many unanswered questions for the Warden to believe that it's safe or even wise to do a ritual made by Flemeth.

On top of that I personally dislike how Morrigan try to emotionally blackmail the Warden if they are not interested in her plan and all out leave if you refuse to give in to her very unfair tactics.

These are all excellent points, but I particularly commend your comment on Flemeth.  Yes: it's actually not just whether we trust Morrigan as a person but whether we trust her competence compared to that of Flemeth.  Does she really understand what Flemeth was trying to achieve?  And can Flemeth be trusted?  That's even more ambiguous than asking about Morrigan.

But yes: it doesn't reflect well on Morrigan that she abandons you if you refuse the Ritual.  One might ask what she owes a Warden who won't do what she wants, but we've seen that there are plenty of good reasons for being dubious, and regardless of whether she gets her way with the Ritual or not her help would still be useful against the Archdemon.  But before the final battle, that does not seem to be her main concern.  She has a bigger agenda than stopping the Blight.  You might say that she trusts you to be able to defeat the Archdemon without her help, but I'd prefer a lack of trust in this respect if it went along with a willingness to help in the battle!

Modifié par Estelindis, 15 octobre 2013 - 10:18 .

[Gwydden]

TurretSyndrome wrote...

You sure about that? Go check out some youtube videos where Eamon talks to the Warden and Alistair about whose got a bigger claim to the throne. Anora isn't "almost a commoner". She's born nobility(since Loghain was made a noble after the war with Orlais and Maric's coronation).

Not to mention she was the queen at the time of the Landsmeet. Eamon also clearly states that the reason Alistair is the right contender against Anora or Loghain as he has a better claim than Eamon, who is equivalent to Loghain. Not anyone can become king. This is proven especially when you try to be king, and only end up being prince or princess-consort.

Blood is very important, that can't be argued. However, in Alistair's case, it wasn't the only factor. If he didn't have the Warden's (by his own admission leader of the order in Ferelden) support, he would fail. The same was true for Anora, since her possition was weak after her father being brought fort and challenged for his crimes.

The Warden can't become king, but that is just, I believe, because he only becomes ruler by extension. He is a stranger to most in the Landsmeet, and therefore wouldn't have a good claim as a candidate. Alistair, however, has Theirin blood, which automatically enables him to be a candidate in the eyes of the Bannorn, but doesn't necessarily means he'll be chosen. Anora was Cailan's wife and is a capable ruler, so for that along she was quite popular, despite her image being tarnished a bit in the Landsmeet and therefore giving Alastair and edge.

The decission falls on the PC, who by all effects is the Warden Commander. He's proven the Blight is a top priority and that the GW are indispensable to fight it, and everyone thinks he/she is the best one to decide which ruler will do better against it, since the playing ground has been evened between Alastair (with no references but good forebearers) and Anora (with excellent references but her father having falled in disgrace). That is if you win the Landsmeet to your side of course. If you don't, the Warden just takes over and technically becomes and usurper, chosing the next ruler by virtue of strength.

That's why Alistair can get chosen, not just by his blood. And the Warden is not a candidate by him/herself because he/she doesn't have the benefit of neither popularity or blood, and the people of Ferelden wouldn't stand an usurper for long. Just look at what happened to Meghren.

[dragonflight288]

Gwydden wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Gwydden wrote...

Learning the consequences of a choice doesn't invalidate it. Otherwise, you'll be metagaming.

That isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying that the Dark Ritual has terrible foreshadowing; you're presented with the choice and the writers basically say to fill in the blanks, it isn't like the Harrowmont / Bhelen choice where all information is presented to the player and they come up with their own conclusion. We need more information to make a sound choice but we're provided with "hey, do you want to live?"

Everyone who picked the Dark Ritual because they wanted to live / love Morrigan will complain if something bad happens because they didn't see it coming.
Everyone who picked the Ultimate Sacrifice will complain if something good happens because they didn't see it coming.

Both sides should have consequences introduced to the player and allow us to deal with them (rather than dishing them out and we're forced to accept them) because without foreshadowing, we've done the decision blind.

I'd argue that Dark Ritual should have negative consequences (as you trade off your Warden's death for something worse down the line) but that's an entirely different matter.

But that's the point. You don't know what it will do, and you have to make your choice based on the little information you have. Maybe I'm biased here, since I always roleplay, and therefore go for choices my characters would make instead of those I'd like most.

I'm at least, hopeful, that the choice's consequences will be a huge grey area, and some morrigan lovers will complain while other morrigan lovers would love the consquences. I'm hoping the consequences can be seen as both good and bad based on one's perspective. '

Say...the Old God Baby will destroy the Chantry, the templars, and what have you, to gather enough Lyrium from the surface to launch a vicious assault into the Fade itself and destroyed the demons/spirits that dwell there.

Those who chose the Dark Ritual would have to live with a near destruction of many humans in the Andrastian nations, but they would also completely remove the threat of abominations for future generations.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

I was a bit surprised when Morrigan turned back up at the end.

I had given her the boot at the earliest opportunity.