12 réponses à ce sujet

[Ieldra]

There's one thing about Bioware's game I have come to resent greatly: the way the biggest evil is inevitably paired with ugliness. What makes it worse is that the term "corruption" is used around things like that, and interchangeably applied to both the ugliness and the evil.

 

This sends four thematic messages (I'll get to those shortly) which are indeed possible ideological positions you can take and positions which are similarly either taken or expressed by action by people in the real world. Apart from having a passionate dislike of those positions personally, my problem is that I think the story of a game where we can create our characters and define their motivations and personality traits should not take a position of its own in these things, but leave them to the player to decide.

 

Note that the messages below are tied to common human intuitions and brought across by the stories on an emotional level, not an intellectual one. Asked about it in a debate, while emotionally detached from the content of the story, most people would recognize them as questionable at least, but they'd still make the same associations while experiencing the story. Since Bioware's stories have most often been much stronger on the emotional level than the intellectual one, the former dominates the experience, and so do the questionable intuitions. That is what I would like to see changed.

 

The messages in question are these:

 

(1) Evil is (eventually) inevitably tied to ugliness and sickness.

People actually have this intuition, that's why it exists in stories. There is an evolutionary rationale for this which I won't go into here unless asked, but it should be immediately obvious to anyone that it's nonetheless completely false.

 

(2) There is a physical state of grace from which to deviate is evil.

The term "corruption" used to describe (usually undesirable) physical changes sends this message. Example in question: the Taint. That this is highly controversial should be immediately apparent. DA:Awakening makes an attempt to subvert this message along with that in (1), but the effect of this attempt is completely nullified once you've read "The Calling".

 

(3) Evil is contagious

If a disease like the Taint is associated with evil, then evil is contagious. This is also an intuition many people have, and cling to even if they intellectually know that it's at least highly controversial, if not complete nonsense. As with (1), there is an evolutionary rationale for it, but it is anything between highly controversial and complete nonsense, depending on the depth of thought you put into it. 

 

(4) Evil is unnatural

The term "corruption" used for something like "becoming evil over time" sends this message. It implies there is a natural state of grace from which you deviate if you do evil. People like to believe this because it allows them to externalize evil, taking it as a "corrupting" influence from without instead of accepting it as a integral part of human nature.

 

I would like DAI to have a story where these intuitions are subverted, or where it is possible that I kick them in the face and leave them behind with my character, figuratively spoken of course. I don't mind that they're occasionally true for some character or the other, if they're as blatantly false with another so that there is no thematic message sent by the story itself any more. Oh, and I would like a subversion, not an inversion - the latter (the ugly good one vs. the beautiful evil one, usually applied to women) is just as problematic. Aesthetics and morality are unrelated, however much our stone age heritage wants to make us believe they are related.

[Petr0nella]

Can I assume that you are specifically referring to Darkspawn, and mages who become abominations? Because there are a large number of characters who perform arguably evil acts without becoming aesthetically ugly (Zathrian, Quentin, Howe, for instance).

In the case of mages becoming abominations I always took the change as a signal that the mage had totally lost control and the demon was trying to come through, as opposed to mages like Wynne or Anders who had a measure of control over the spirit within. Of course the logic of that also depends on whether there is actually a difference between demons and spirits.

I don't think it's unreasonable for characters in-game to use the term corruption when the central myth of the major religion in the locations we're in is a fall from grace. I've always taken it as being my choice as to how far my PC agrees with that.

I am curious as to how you would see a subversion of ugly=evil working out, as in how it would be different to past games. Do you mean that mages should never visibly turn into abominations, or perhaps that the dialogue options should be less rigid (rather than a ''you're evil but I'm going to let you do this evil thing anyway" an option that was neutral about their possible intentions)?

[Ieldra]

Yes, with regard to the ugliness I am referring mainly to the darkspawn and the Taint, and to abominations. It's not so much that all evil is done by ugly characters, but rather than that a certain kind of visual presentation always implies evil by default, as if there was such a thing as "evil by nature" which is always ugly. I think that there should be no visual aspect which is an "evil marker".

Regarding the use of "corruption": that in-world characters with a fitting ideology use the term is not at all problematic. If the story itself, rather than characters, appears to support the associations invoked by its use, then it becomes a matter of the story sending a message. In order to change that, it is necessary that there are non-evil characters who explicitly oppose such associations, in order to avoid a systematic association between such opposition and antagonists. if you think that this is not important, consider how a systematic association between antagonists and certain kinds of technology has adversely affected ME3's ending.

 

Here's an example: my main Inquisitor will probably be a reasonably good-willed person. He'll do his best for those he has responsibility for and avoid unnecessary harm coming to anyone. At the same time, he will not at all believe in the Chantry's teachings, passionately reject any idea that magic (he will be a mage) is a "corrupting" influence and generally oppose the idea of a natural state of grace we've fallen from or could fall from, either ethically or physically. I would not wish for this character to be associated with evil by the story itself on the grounds of all NPCs with an explicitly similar opinion of "corruption" and the nonexistence of a natural state of grace being antagonists. 

 

(If a templar or priest comes and says that this is evil, I can reply through my character in an appropriate manner. If it appears that a Bioware writer says it, I have no recourse).
 

[Petr0nella]

Ok I see. And actually after I posted it occurred to me that there is no real reason for dwarves or the Dalish to use the term corrupt when referring to the effects of Darkspawn blood. "Corrupt" and "corruption" are archaic uses for the effects of disease but it's hard to disassociate the words from a worldview in which corruption=evil.

I think the homogeneity of the human perspective does fit the medieval setting - a lot of people will hold to the prevailing worldview without necessarily having any strong belief in it, but a different perspective from non-Andrastians would have been a nice move.

In terms of the visual signposting I don't really have a problem with the Darkspawn as fantasy monsters. I do find the 'mages randomly turning into abominations' thing quite tiresome though, especially in DA2.

And going forward there doesn't as yet seem to be a reason why red lyrium causes physical changes as opposed to being crazy-making other than 'it helps the player identify the evil templars'. A subtler approach, given we will also have demons pouring out of the fade tears, would have been interesting.

[Xilizhra]

Here's an example: my main Inquisitor will probably be a reasonably good-willed person. He'll do his best for those he has responsibility for and avoid unnecessary harm coming to anyone. At the same time, he will not at all believe in the Chantry's teachings, passionately reject any idea that magic (he will be a mage) is a "corrupting" influence and generally oppose the idea of a natural state of grace we've fallen from or could fall from, either ethically or physically. I would not wish for this character to be associated with evil by the story itself on the grounds of all NPCs with an explicitly similar opinion of "corruption" and the nonexistence of a natural state of grace being antagonists.

I'm going to guess that, since this didn't happen with this type of character in either of the previous games, it'll continue to not happen in this one.

[Ieldra]

Not explicitly, no, but the prevalence of the "corruption" theme in the story is problematic in this regard. At times, it's almost as if we're supposed to believe the Chantry's ideology.

[Xilizhra]

Not explicitly, no, but the prevalence of the "corruption" theme in the story is problematic in this regard. At times, it's almost as if we're supposed to believe the Chantry's ideology.

I would find that a more disturbing trend of that nature would be the Chantry being presented as some kind of neutral party between the mages and templars.

 

Out of curiosity, what did you think of Merrill's personal quests?

[Ieldra]

Out of curiosity, what did you think of Merrill's personal quests?

These were written rather well. You could make up your mind about whether Merrill was at fault and guide her quests accordingly. Still, nobody but Hawke ever acknowledges that she wasn't if you believe so, so I still think too much emphasis was put on the variant that sees her as at fault. For instance, Fenris never shuts up about it, but we have no one defending her. That's actually a nice example of the story sending a subtle message just by failing to represent one side with a non-involved NPC but always the other.

 

Note that this is problem strictly on the meta-level, where it's about my awareness of the story and its themes as a player. On a roleplaying level, my characters usually have no problem whatsoever being alone in their assessment of things.

[Xilizhra]

These were written rather well. You could make up your mind about whether Merrill was at fault and guide her quests accordingly. Still, nobody but Hawke ever acknowledges that she wasn't if you believe so, so I still think too much emphasis was put on the variant that sees her as at fault. For instance, Fenris never shuts up about it, but we have no one defending her. That's actually a nice example of the story sending a subtle message just by failing to represent one side with a non-involved NPC but always the other.

 

Note that this is problem strictly on the meta-level, where it's about my awareness of the story and its themes as a player. On a roleplaying level, my characters usually have no problem whatsoever being alone in their assessment of things.

I think that Isabela defends her at one point, but yes, more evenness would be best.

[Ieldra]

About Merrill: What I find most damaging in her story regarding the topic of this thread is that she's portrayed as naive. This suggests she doesn't know what she's dealing with when she contacted that demon. In fact, she isn't naive at all when she asks Hawke for help in Act 3, saying that Hawke must kill her if she gets possessed, but at that point the damage is already done and the message "only the naive deal with demons and expect to get something out of it" is sent. DA2 is rather more heavy-handed about this - as about everything - than DAO. I blame the screenwriter's approach to storytelling which has become dominant with the voiced protagonist. It tends to deprive any story of subtlely. 

[Xilizhra]

About Merrill: What I find most damaging in her story regarding the topic of this thread is that she's portrayed as naive. This suggests she doesn't know what she's dealing with when she contacted that demon. In fact, she isn't naive at all when she asks Hawke for help in Act 3, saying that Hawke must kill her if she gets possessed, but at that point the damage is already done and the message "only the naive deal with demons and expect to get something out of it" is sent. DA2 is rather more heavy-handed about this - as about everything - than DAO. I blame the screenwriter's approach to storytelling which has become dominant with the voiced protagonist. It tends to deprive any story of subtlely. 

I thought much of the naivete ended after Act 1, but I could be alone in that. I do wish the plot had focused a bit more on whatever Marethari's machinations were.

[Petr0nella]

I actually never saw her as naive but as over-confident in her abilities. Flemeth says something to her about being likely to stumble because her eyes are shut (I forget the exact wording), which I always took to mean that Merrill was choosing to ignore the danger.

I agree that it would have been nice to get a better idea of Marethari's part in all this.

[Klystron]

I've always had trouble with evil (of the demonic sort) begetting giant blobs of red slime. 

Really?  Where is this stuff supposed to have come from?  Please please please tell me it's not demon-poop!

 

I know it's supposed to convey a creepy, Stygian atmosphere... but it's 'way over-used.  Yuck.