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[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I hope the Inquisitor isn't the chosen one.  I hate being the chosen one.

We're always designed to play a chosen one. It just depends how chosen. Even in a game like DA:O where you're ostensibly not "chosen" by an interventionist god, you're still "chosen:" in the sense that you have special abilities that are rare (if not impossible) to replicate.

That said, you have been very good at fighting this design with you how expereicne the game so you do not see it. 

Sometimes I see it.  It was plainly obvious in BG, and it was also true in KotOR (though possibly less relevant in KotOR, depending on one's concept of identity).

The chosen one to which I object, though, is a character who is unique or even distinct and highly atypical within the world when I get him.  If he succeeds based on what he is designed to be, rather than what I make him, then he is the chosen one.

So I'm willing to have him be the sole survivor of some event as long as I get to design him before that event.  I like to take ordinary people and have them do extraordinary things, and the chosen one I dislike is the one that isn't an ordinary person.

You know, the more I look back at BioWare's games, the more I realise how great NWN was.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

So I'm willing to have him be the sole survivor of some event as long as I get to design him before that event.  I like to take ordinary people and have them do extraordinary things, and the chosen one I dislike is the one that isn't an ordinary person.

My position is always that the idea that "ordinary people do extraordinary things" is just a broken idea. When you unpack what it means to "do extraordinary things", you generally see the qualities that are necessary to achieve that end are anything but ordinary. The trope is really "person of ordinary means and circumstance, but extraordinary capabilities" ends up doing "extraordinary things". 

I appreciate that you take your playthroughs - through use of head cannon, etc. - to unforeseen ends by the designers (e.g. the character Sten killed). Taking the extraordinary achievement path - those characters that must live to the end to defeat the archdemon - the series of qualities necessary for that become extraordinary, or otherwise require such a carefully crafted series of events that the "doing" no longer belongs to the person who is the POV character. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

My position is always that the idea that "ordinary people do extraordinary things" is just a broken idea. When you unpack what it means to "do extraordinary things", you generally see the qualities that are necessary to achieve that end are anything but ordinary. The trope is really "person of ordinary means and circumstance, but extraordinary capabilities" ends up doing "extraordinary things".

Granted, there's often an extraordinary amount of ambition or drive.  And while those aren't things that every person has, they are things that any person could have.

That's the important difference.  Not any person could be a Bhaalspawn - only these twenty specific people are.  Not any person could be a Spirit Monk.  But any person could find himself in a situation where circumstance makes him look like the most attractive Warden candidate for Duncan.  Any person could find his family fleeing Darkspawn.  Any person could be a soldier in the Alliance Navy.  Any person could be a student at the Neverwinter Academy.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Granted, there's often an extraordinary amount of ambition or drive.  And while those aren't things that every person has, they are things that any person could have.

I understand the distiction that you're drawing, though I would phrase it differently (in that it is a quality that could be ascribed to a person, but not that every possible person we might imagine could have these qualities, in the sense that certain kinds of people necessarily exclude certain kinds of qualities).

That's the important difference.  Not any person could be a Bhaalspawn - only these twenty specific people are.  Not any person could be a Spirit Monk.  But any person could find himself in a situation where circumstance makes him look like the most attractive Warden candidate for Duncan.  Any person could find his family fleeing Darkspawn.  Any person could be a soldier in the Alliance Navy.  Any person could be a student at the Neverwinter Academy. 

I object to your use of the bolded examples if you consider the Spirt Monk an example of a chosen one. The child is only chosen by circumstance - there is nothing special about you, other than you are the sole survivor and the water dragon therefore bets the farm on you. There's an important distinction between divine intervention, IMO, and divine interference. 

Any person could flee from the darskpawn, but Hawke's story only works because of the confluence of capability and factors connecting Hawke to Kirkwall. For Shepard, being a Spectre is tied to three achievements. Same with the Warden - there are limited places where Duncan does go, and so limited people within that set he recruits. 

While it does not have to be this person, I contest that the difference is significant in these cases. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

I may be misremembering Jade Empire. I haven't played it for some time.

As for Hawke, is Hawke particularly capable? I don't remember anything special about Hawke. He's just a guy.

It's all about the character's choices, I think. If the character's story moves forward because of the things he chooses, rather than the things he is, then he's not the chosen one.

As Schopenauer said, "A man can do as he wills, but he cannot will as he wills." Since I create the character, he actually wills as I will, and then he does as he wills. It's the skills and capabilities and successes that arise from his choices that make him a quality character.

I want him to succeed (or fail) because of who he is, not what he is.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
As for Hawke, is Hawke particularly capable? I don't remember anything special about Hawke. He's just a guy.

Hawke is supposed to be incredible, at least according to Varric (and, grudgingly, Carver). That's why Varric wanted to get Hawke. 

It's all about the character's choices, I think. If the character's story moves forward because of the things he chooses, rather than the things he is, then he's not the chosen one.

I agree with that defintion. I think it captures it well, and I now understand why it is that you pick the Spirit Monk as someone who is a "chosen one".

As Schopenauer said, "A man can do as he wills, but he cannot will as he wills." Since I create the character, he actually wills as I will, and then he does as he wills. It's the skills and capabilities and successes that arise from his choices that make him a quality character.

I want him to succeed (or fail) because of who he is, not what he is.

Again, agreed. 

[Spectre slayer]

 

So I'm willing to have him be the sole survivor of some event as long as I get to design him before that event.  I like to take ordinary people and have them do extraordinary things, and the chosen one I dislike is the one that isn't an ordinary person.

 

We'll get to design our characters, get a background which changes our reason for being at wherever the veil tear opening sequence happens and set our world history with the keep, then the game starts off. 

Instead of playing it will be like so that's where I come from type thing that we'll get to explore fully some time later if you choose to, anyway we don't immediately become the inquisitor and as for why we survive and why we get made the inquisitor is unknown besides us being the sole witness and survivor.

[Zarathiel]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Dagr88 wrote...

What will make MC so special that s/he'll become the leader of Inquisition?

He's a hunter for hire with no plans to retire, and all the sucka MC's can call him "Sire."

He's friends with a dwarf, he's the Inquisitor, of course, and he's choosing heirs and closing tears to finance his horse.