14909 réponses à ce sujet

[Miss Greyjoy]

Oh no I love Velanna so much. *Runs and hides*

 

Oh wow, you DO love everyone! LOL! 

[veeia]

Basically, lmao. I also love Fiona, Adrian, the Architect, Loghain and hrm...who else is despised around these parts. Well, them too, I'm sure.

[Rinji the Bearded]

I don't really hate Velanna.  I could admire her spitefulness if she felt... more fleshed out?  Awakening was kind of a mess and she felt unfinished to me.

[Sabreenei]

@veeia: I'm totally there with you. There's very few I actively dislike. The one that comes to mind are Howe, and the noble's son that my city elf kills. (Kills! Kills! Every time! mwah-hahahahhaha)

 

Even by the end of Awakenings, I was friends with Velanna and understood her. I also modded her, so in creating my own "velanna" to insert into the game, I probably came to like her more.

 

(Funny note: I modded my own Leliana in DAO, that was the first mod I did, because I went in and was like, nooo her face is wrong for the character they describe!! And now, the DAI Leliana looks so much like an older version of my mod, I forget she ever had a different face originally)

[veeia]

Howe actually is slightly interesting to me, because he seems to express some discomfort if you're nice to him as a Cousland, plus Nate!

But Vaughn can suck it. Nothing interesting about him except the VA.

[Bugsie]

Lots of my friends love Fenris and Sebastion, and I could never understand the Fenris swoons aside from Gideon Emery's voice, I certainly don't hate him I just think I haven't gotten around to creating a PC who was quite right for him. I only recently created a PC who romanced Zev, another character who I was rather meh on. Well, done a complete 180 on that, just needed the right PC to 'fit', Merril was the same. And Velanna, her Dalish elfishness sort of put me off, but really, a single DLC really didn't flesh it out for me enough to think one way or another.

And Sebastion, well I never nothered with the DLC because a few people told me its, well, boring. And a single character probably isn't going to sell it for me.

@Veeia Ohgren too? My dislike for him isn't so much his grotesque dwarf act, more his total inconsistency in writing, i think from memory he was passed around to so many writers, it shows.

Blackwell, well let's say he's morally challenging for many. People can dissociate themselves from the sheer amount of killing in the game, cos you know, they're the bad guys and deserve to die, but when one of the supposed bad guys is trying to help out, trying to leave behind a life that he's a ashamed of yet his crime was pretty morally repugnant, yeah people don't like it and I find it at odds with 'take my story telling seriously' I hear from some gaming corners, yet they aren't willing to embrace more complex characters and want their characters to be either Jesus like superheroes or moustache twirling villains.

I think I used to be like that, but my tastes have evolved and I don't want that as much anymore. Blackwalls no Thomas Covenant, but it seems the feeling of revulsion is similar, and I just find that bizarre. I'm just wondering if the writing is a bit of nod to that character?

[berelinde]

It's very rare that I will say a character has no redeeming qualities. Thomas Covenant is the only one. I am not crazy about the comparison. Blackwall became a better man.

 

There's a parable in folklore about a man, a terrible sinner, who dons a mask shaped like the face of an angel to escape punishment for a crime. He wears the mask every day and lets no action or word betray who he really is. One day, someone spots the wires that hold the mask in place, and the mask is torn off. The man screams in fear, because he is certain that everyone will know who he is and what he has done, but when his accusers look at him, his face is the same as the mask. I forget the ethnicity of the parable. Russian, maybe? Persian? I don't remember. I heard it from a Sunday School teacher, so that must have been a good 40 years ago, at least. I find that more plausible (and more palatable) inspiration.

[veeia]

I think Oghren is very consistent in writing. The affable alcoholic lecher thing hits a bit too close to home for me so I won't call him a favorite, but I don't think he's poorly drawn. (ironically, I love Dorian but there's differences of course) What about him pings you that way?

Re: Thomas Covenant. Never finished those books, but he is a pretty big dirtbag, haha. Does he ever atone or show desire to? My impression of those books (and again, didn't even make it through the first one) was that their point was The Hero Is Here, And He's The Worst.

[Jaulen]

+1 for a Thomas Covenant reference!

 Man, I read those books back in 5th-6th grade.

 

 

Plus I could forgive Blackwall.

I questioned but didn't hold Zev being an assassin against him. Same with Thane (assassin) or Wrex (mercenary).

I questioned and didn't understand what Sten did, but kept him around, and by the end my Warden and Sten were like BFF.

I questioned Fenris about his killing on orders, but didn't hold it against him.

 

Bioware almost always has one of those "I'm a killer" characters

[Sabreenei]

After getting all the way through to the top of Oghren's friendship in Origins, I feel like we really got to know each other and my Warden loved him for just being Oghren. There was a sweet (to me) confab between the two of them, when they reach the 100 friendship state. So even with any inconsistencies (i didn't notice), my Wardens were happy to see him in Awakenings.

 

Sebastian I'm a little more middle ground on. I never kill Anders, and Sebastian is always like, "it's him or me! I'm leaving!" I wasn't surprised at all to get him taking over Kirkland my last game, because my Hawke was basically like, sorry your fav is dead, Sebastian, and I know you thought we were great friends and all, but Anders is my love so don't let the door hit you on the way out. To which Sebastian basically went home, gathered an army and came back, lol. I can't hate him for it though, totally within his character. And he really did mean well. I can understand. I'll be interested if it changes at all in a different game state. Like an Anders dead gamestate, or something.

 

Fenris... it's hard for me to deny Anders, but the playthrough I did, wow. Some of those Fenris kisses are just... *fans self*. When I did his whole storyline, I can completely see the appeal.

 

With Zevran, it didn't help that some of his romance was bugged. If you're on PC, and you download the ZDF (Zevran dialog fixes -- it might have a different name now), then it really helps out. It was borked at the beginning, so if you didn't take the earring, well, that was it. But once they fixed it, then when you didn't take it the first time, he gives it back later, in a totally swoon-worthy scene, basically in not so many words, committing to you. I have a little video of it. https://www.youtube....h?v=Q5n3z7TLoX8

 

In my later games I totally used the mod so I could romance both Zev & Alistair at the same time. But I played that game a million times, now I so many mods it's scary, lol.

 

@veeia: I don't know that I ever was nice to Howe, to see what he said. Now I'm curious! Probably didn't help that the first time I played the game, I played a Cousland. I had no idea what to expect, except I didn't trust him when I met him. Then to wake up in the middle of the night, and find my family slain, including that horrific bit of finding your nephew dead on the ground -- every game I'm like, you killed my father, prepare to die! (edit: And while I should also blame the men that did the act, I blame Howe the most for giving the order. So in terms of Blackwall... I would blame the one who hired him the most.)

 

@Bugsie: exactly! It's much easier to gloss over large amounts of killing or when you order troops in to go do something and don't actually see it happen. With Blackwall, you see the consequences of those actions. For example, if we'd had a war table mission to help either Gaspard or Celene by having one of their large supporters "meet with an accident" (probably avoidable if you used Josie for the mission), I'm sure a lot of people would choose the "accident". Suppose we found out later that the noble had been traveling with his children. Who would be to blame there? Us, for agreeing to the mission? The leader of the team, who would have had to make a fast decision (against Leliana's orders) in the field? Or the actual men who did the act?

 

For me, it gets into very morally grey ground. It was a horrific accident, because there is no way Blackwall, even when he was Rainer, would've purposely take a job that included children. Even at his most arrogant, prickest self, he still had lines he didn't cross. It was the crossing of this line that pushed him into facing hard truths about the man he'd let himself become. I think after he ran, he wallowed in that self-pity and self-disgust, until he met Blackwall.

 

When Rainer was young he met the Chevalier at the tourney. This was a crossroads in his life, though he didn't know it then. The Chevalier believed in him and offered him a chance to learn, to perhaps lead a better life.   At the time he was too young and full of himself to take it. This set him on a bad path that eventually brought him down. Then at another crux in his life, he met Blackwall. Blackwall also believed in him, and opened a new path, if he chose to take it. This time, being older and wiser, he understood the important of second chances, and took it with both hands. To have Blackwall die before that path could be completed -- I could see how it might've sent him back into a tailspin. There would be no third chances for Rainer, at least he so believed (whether or not the Wardens would've taken him doesn't really matter, since Rainer believed they would not). Yet, he couldn't go back to the life he was living, not after meeting Blackwall. So I can understand the choice he made there. To let Rainer die, and Blackwall live on. It was the best he could do at that point.

 

After meeting the inquisitor, Blackwall comes to realize he no longer is pretending to be a good man. In pretending, he has become a good man. And a good man couldn't let an innocent hang for their crime. I love that with his story, we see a complete character arc. It's that depth that makes me love him every time.

[veeia]

I think someone noted this earlier, but what sets Blackwall apart from the other "Killers" is that he's 100% not okay with it. He has not made peace with what he's done, he wallows in that guilt, and tries to lie and pretend like it didn't happen and that he can still be a self-righteous hero. It's ironic, because if he was straight up with it, people wouldn't care. It's the lie that gets them, and the pretense, and while both of those things ARE hard to deal with, they come from him having a moral core that doesn't allow for the hurting of innocents, unlike the others who have if not fully accepted it, have made an uneasy peace with it. 

[Jaulen]

I think someone noted this earlier, but what sets Blackwall apart from the other "Killers" is that he's 100% not okay with it. He has not made peace with what he's done, he wallows in that guilt, and tries to lie and pretend like it didn't happen and that he can still be a self-righteous hero. It's ironic, because if he was straight up with it, people wouldn't care. It's the lie that gets them, and the pretense, and while both of those things ARE hard to deal with, they come from him having a moral core that doesn't allow for the hurting of innocents, unlike the others who have if not fully accepted it, have made an uneasy peace with it. 

 

Totally agree 100%

 

Zevran, totally okay with being an assassin, in fact when you ask him if he'd want to do anything else his reply is Nope! I'm good at it and I enjoy it, why would I?

Thane? He's doing some sort of atonement, which I never understood since he didn't have a problem with his killing since hejust saw himself as a tool.

Wrex, "well heck, I'm a merc and I get paid to do what they tell me to do, although i iwsh us krogans could grow past that".

Fenris, some remorse for the killing, but more of a fatalistic 'I was a slave, I do what I'm told" although here, he had run away and had freedom....usually call him out on it "Once a slave always a slave huh?"

[veeia]

It's been awhile, but if you're pleasant to Howe in the Origin, he's taken aback and is like "...thanks" (can't remember the exact line), and I really felt like the line was delivered in such a way that made him sound conflicted/guilty/uneasy....not that it makes him a tragic hero or anything, but Curry gave him a lot of depth in that reading when I think others wouldn't. I also think Howe gets made into a huge villain in order to prop Loghain up, and while Howe is a jerk and I do love Loghain....let's not turn him into the Root of All Bad in Thedas. He's just a sad little man consumed by jealousy and short-shortsightedness, who is only really given any depth beyond that convo by his conflicted relationship with his kids. 

 

Sebastian I adore. He's so affable, and kind to Merrill, which is huge, because my god, Fenris and Anders COULD YOU LEAVE HER ALONE ALREADY. He knows what he's about, and he can be preachy, but he's not pushy. He genuinely helps Fenris, and his conflict of "where does my loyalty lie" I thought was very compelling. Also Varric doesn't like him, and thank god, because I love seeing Varric's bitterbutt side....he can be a little too unbelievable at times, especially in DA2 (which one can argue is due to the frame narrative). Also, idk, he's just a cutie. And then his rage at the end, fascinating, because seeing Seb's selfish side is so important, it makes him even more human. He's just a dude struggling to be a good person while every meaningful relationship and place of safety is being torn away from him. Seb.  

 

Fenris is my little rage baby, but the thing I love about Fenris is that he's actually pretty funny. He's got this dry sense of humor, and when you can see those moments of normalcy with him, you realize how much he's lost. He's a cool dude, he's just been through so much, that his emotions are out of control and he doesn't know how to control himself. 

 

Zevran, adore him so much. Insecurity covered up by false confidence and humor is my kyptonite, which is why I love him and Alistair and Dorian so much.  

[veeia]

Velanna ...idk, angry women are really important to me.  

 

 She's short sighted and reactive and doesn't trust people, but she has good reasons for all those things and more importantly, they're really relatable. When she cares about someone, she really cares, and her heart is in the right place, she's just always tripping over her limitations.  I love her banters with Nathaniel, they're so cute together. 

 

I wish she and Sigrun would come back, they're my favorites. Awakenings had such good companions and the best villain (uh, Arky, not the Mother), pity it was just an expansion. 

[Sabreenei]

I loved Awakenings. It was my favorite to write fanfiction from. They gave you these wonderful characters, but since they didn't get enough time, the whole thing just screamed out to be written about.

 

@ veeia: Yes. Just yes. To everything you said. That is all.

[Bugsie]

@ Veeia,  mainly with Ohgren was the change from DA:O to Awakenings, he was tolerable and vaguely sympathetic in Origins - then in Awakenings he was just obnoxious and his banter became really vile, I couldn't even garner any sympathy for him when Felsi showed up and I thought that really showed the sweeter part of his character in Origins.  In particular, his banter with Awakenings Anders is just pure and simple nastiness, it was unpleasant to have them in the in the party at the same time and was really the only thing in Awakenings I can fault at that level.  The only saving grace was Sigrun, she knew how to put him in his place.

 

I don't know, maybe that's not inconsisitency, maybe it was just revulsion about what his character became in Awakenings. 

 

@berelinde, my comparison with Covenant is more about peoples reaction to him rather than the actual character.  They're different beasts, one of the them a sexy man beast with a beard of awesomenessness.

 

@sabreeni - fantastic point about the war table operation - I must bring that one out for arguments when Rainiers crimes are mentioned.

[veeia]

Ahh, I see what you mean! See, that rang really true to me. At the end of Origins, he was all charged up in the moment and ready to become a better, changed man!!! But then the post- final battle reality hit, and he couldn't sustain that high. He's very sad to me, and like I said, 2 real, having grown up with an alcoholic father, so I don't use him much. But I really appreciate all they did with his character. He was the stereotypical dwarf who didn't fit in with the dwarves because of that, as well as a character that at first glance, looks like a joke, but then when you look deeper, is actually very tragic. 

 

Also, I love pairing him with Wynne + Zevran, because they both hit on her endlessly much to her exasperation, or as I call it, "Team: Maker, Brosca, I'm Too Old for This Sh*t". 

[AtreiyaN7]

Actually read the Covenant books a long, long time ago - found them interesting specifically because the protagonist was, well, an antihero. Probably the first thing I'd ever read with someone who was kind of a slimeball but who was also a savior figure. Also, the question of whether or not the Land was all in his head intrigued me, I suppose.

 

At any rate, I would also like to see Sigrun again one day if possible, though I have no idea how they'd manage that. Always thought she was adorable. We could hang out, chat about how awesome it would be to punch Lord Lucius in the face, etc. Speaking of Lucius, for the sake of seeing if Blackwall had anything interesting to say, I actually ran through Champions of the Just earlier to see how the templar mission would go.

 

But now it's back to my previous save and allying with the mages as per usual!

[KealaFerret]

What is it about you guys that makes me want to wall of text? I am going to set up a beanbag chair in this thread and start ordering pizza.
 
Anyone who really doesn't like Blackwall maybe hasn't taken him and Sera out together and listened to the banter, heh. I've had a rough time lately (recently in a very bad car accident), and when I am hurting like crazy, a good giggle is great for the soul.

berelinde - thank you for sharing that. A few pages back, I told a story about what happened to me in my life (where I spent so much time hiding behind a careful facade to hide something, got called out on it, and realized that not only was the mask really hard to pull off in the end... but also that I spent so much time hiding that I hadn't realized that I had, in fact, overcome the weaknesses I was hiding all along).

Sometimes you do become the very thing that you need/want to be. This is a very human thing. And I guess since it feels true to life for me, it goes a long ways towards immersion and just enjoyment of the whole game in my case.

I also think that Blackwall is an interesting enigma through the game; there's a lot of clues, hints, things that get a person thinking if they're paying attention or have a curious/creative streak. I could see, though, how someone not looking at the clues (rushing through things for instance) would feel TOO blindsided, or that someone that already had found things out before playing through the game may have formed an opinion before actually experiencing the story.

I also feel that "redemption" is a hard thing for some people to understand. I myself can't say I've ever done anything that I felt like I had to truly atone for, but I have known plenty of people that have. I know people that have done things that were not okay to do; I've seen the ones that said "never again" and change their lives, and I've seen the ones in denial that don't understand what they've done wrong. I've ended friendships because of the latter (one specific case under spoiler tag, since it's potentially triggering).

Spoiler

Found out a friend of ours raped his little brother when they were younger. It messed up his little brother pretty bad. Rather than say, "I'm sorry," his tactic even 20 years later was, "let's just forget about it." No apology, not even when their mother was dying did he express any regret over it. He was in fact pretty crazy in regards to the whole thing. When we found out, and realized he was not going to apologize or take responsibility for his actions, we broke off all contact and walked away.

That is where someone like me draws a line. That's the kind of person you get out of your life.

Although the false pretense of being a Grey Warden did potentially put people at risk, I understand the "why"; it's not much different than people who find religion after a hard time in their life. Something to lift them up, to give them hope, to aspire to. Something to reach out their hands, help you climb out of that gutter. It can be a pretty powerful thing - anyone who has ever had someone believe in them enough to take a chance on them, to help them out of a bad situation, ect, will understand the amount of impact that has on someone. It's also a template for change so to speak; when you're lost and adrift and hate yourself, it's hard to build up a life again. Having some kind of structure, a starting point, goes a long way towards starting down the road.

[veeia]

Blackwall inspires good conversations, and there are a bunch of smart cookies here, so walls of text are to be expected.  

 

Love all that you wrote. I definitely understand ending the friendship in that spoiler tagged case, yikes. How horrible. 

 

My relationship with understanding Blackwall comes a lot from rl experiences as well. Very different ones, because I wore a mask and it was only destructive, which is perhaps why I favor not sending him to the Wardens so much and don't take his attempts to redeem himself before he's exposed as meaningfully as others do.  Interesting to contrast and think about. 

[Sabreenei]

When taking Blackwall's name, he tries to live as he believes Blackwall would. Yet, as he's still afraid of discovery, that life is also a life of seclusion.  In a sense, his persona of "Blackwall" is the good man, but secretly he views himself as "Rainer" the coward and murder. As long as he's living that duplicity, he can never truly redeem himself -- because he's not himself. Once he comes clean, then I feel like he can start on a path of redemption in truth for the man he is, not just the man he wishes he was.

[veeia]

When taking Blackwall's name, he tries to live as he believes Blackwall would. Yet, as he's still afraid of discovery, that life is also a life of seclusion.  In a sense, his persona of "Blackwall" is the good man, but secretly he views himself as "Rainer" the coward and murder. As long as he's living that duplicity, he can never truly redeem himself -- because he's not himself. Once he comes clean, then I feel like he can start on a path of redemption in truth for the man he is, not just the man he wishes he was.

 

Yes, I think this too. All of his good actions are about him, and the war inside him. He's doing good things, but it's inherently selfish and self-destructive, because he's always collapsing inwards.  

 

I think when you start, his "Resolve" is to be a good man, and when you end, it's to act as a good man. 

[Bugsie]

I just need a giant tick to begin all my posts here to convey how I feel about you guyz and this thread!!

 

A friend of mine wrote this about Blackwall (he's romancing him with a Cadash) and it was in relation to him leaving for Val Royeux to confess and in relation to another friend being kinda not happy with all of that (leaving after sex and not telling you in the romance - they thought it meant that he wasn't serious about the relationship ), but I thought it pretty much summed up how I felt about that scene and how worried I was initially when I heard it happened, a worry that never really eventuated when I understood the context of which it plays out.  I think people are worried he's going to be a liar in the romance, that he might lie about being in love with you, and whilst I can understand some may think that it's not how it plays out at all for me.  I trust him enough not to lie to me about his love. And nothing in his behaviour or his actions says he'd lie about that part of himself. If anything, that's the rawest part of him, the most exposed, the most honest in its presentation to me as PC and the one that makes him the most tortured about his past.

For a romance, that's all I need.

 

Blackwall despises himself and has for years. Somehow, without him intending it to happen, he and an amazing woman fall in love. He tells her he isn't worthy and that she should break it off, but she persists. After years of self loathing, someone offers love. So, when he rides out to confess and accept his death does he tell her? Does he destroy the one good thing in his life or die with one person thinking well of part of him, at least. Does he want his last memory of the woman he loves to be hurt on her face and betrayal in her eyes, or the sight of her curled up after they slept together?

[veeia]

Oh, gosh, now I feel all ~emotional~

 

I do think that what he did was selfish, and I liked that Hella got to call him out on that "and that was better, me thinking you were dead or worse?", but I get why he did it, and why he did really love her even though their relationship was definitely not as honest or functional pre-reveal. 

 

There are so many interesting dimensions to the Blackwall relationship. Like, he idealizes Quizzie, but I also think that to a certain extent, she's just the first woman he's really seen. Not like, he's inexperienced, but that pre-Blackwall, he was arrogant and single minded, and he didn't take the time to try and get to know women (or maybe even men, who knows).  Now, he's humbled, and when he says "I've never met a woman like you before", it's not just because Quizzie is such a special snowflake, it's also because Blackwall has to learn how to...what is it that someone said before? Not be bad at people?  He's mature enough now to see a brave, clever, funny woman and see that about her, and realize how valuable and special it is. 

[Marlena_8]

Hello everyone!  I've been waiting to play through my PC's romance with Blackwall before coming on here to share my thoughts and it's been killing me.  I finally completed the romance, getting the lovely romance tarot card so I can finally talk about all of this!  By the way, the romance tarot made want to dub him, "He, of the chest."

 

My initial thought - I want to play through all the romances but it's going to be seriously difficult not to want to romance Blackwall again, right away.

 

He's the full package - a man with a past, a secret that torments him.  He is a good man or became one out of guilt.  He's noble in his own way but still a simple man at heart.  Gah.  He's killing me!

 

My favorite moments of the romance: 

 

Spoiler

• when my PC said he was being all broody and she liked broody.  The cute look that comes over his face at that moment was so precious.
• when at the Orlesian ball, my character questions him, and he's kind of surly, saying basically they should just concentrate on the fact that an assassin is loose, but when my character asks if he will save her a dance, without hesitation he gruffly replies, "All of them."  Matter of fact.  Done.  LOL  Love it!
• how he cracks up at one point over something Sera says.  Doesn't even comment.  Just laughs.
• And like others have said about him checking on the PC when she gets hurt in battle - "You all right, Love?"  *melts*
• And when he's upset with my Quizzy for using Josie's influence to break him out because of what it will cost the Inquisition to lose that kind of influence - the look of pain on his face over this, it's just too much for me.

Gosh I feel so much better for getting some of this out lol.