The Wardens arc was a wonderful story: pulled from the life you knew to fight an ancient, unholy enemy. Unite various cultures and factions in the land, struggle with politics and intrigue, build an army, become Kingmaker, all to push your efforts towards defeating the Blight and saving an entire nation.
Hawkes story had none of that ambitious drive, really.
The Wardens arc was a wonderful story: pulled from the life you knew to fight an ancient, unholy enemy. Unite various cultures and factions in the land, struggle with politics and intrigue, build an army, become Kingmaker, all to push your efforts towards defeating the Blight and saving an entire nation.
Hawkes story had none of that ambitious drive, really.
The Wardens arc was a wonderful story: pulled from the life you knew to fight an ancient, unholy enemy. Unite various cultures and factions in the land, struggle with politics and intrigue, build an army, become Kingmaker, all to push your efforts towards defeating the Blight and saving an entire nation.
Hawkes story had none of that ambitious drive, really.
The Wardens arc was a generic high fantasy story about a young hero/ine whose normal live gets interrupted by tragedy and then is pulled into a battle against generic evil hordes of more or less mindless monsters that are lead by a generic evil overlord that wants to destroy the world because....he is evil I guess.
Along her/his way s/he unites various cultures, solves problems, everyone else failed to solve, with ease, struggles sucessfully with politics even though (most) of her/his origins never had to deal with politics before and becomes Kingmaker even though it completlely defies logic (A random elf from the surface and the local drunken clown tell us some crackpot story about a long dead smithing-paragon wanting them to elect our king? We better accept their flimsy evidence that is basically just a fancy hat. Well at least Behlen is smart enough to call you out on your nonsense.)
But the whole thing was executed in a perfect way, which is why it was such a great game.
Hawkes story on the other hand has no ultimate evil to defeat. It is a story about a gal/guy who tries to buil up a new live and gets sucked into conflicts that s/he has no chance to solve on her/his own. Conflicts that arise because of mutual hatred on both sides for the last decades. And unlike the Warden Hawke can't just handwave these conflicts away because Darkspawn is going to eat everyone if they don't work togehter right now. Sometimes bad things happen no matter what you do. DA2 actually showed that sometimes a single person can't make a difference no matter how badass they are.
It was a pleasant deviation from the typical Bioware power-fantasy where everyone grovels in the dirt at your feet and whorships you as the wisest person of the world after you either pass a persuasion check or kill something. I personally liked it and think that it had the better story of the two DA games, even though I still think DAO was more enjoyable overall.
The Wardens arc was a wonderful story: pulled from the life you knew to fight an ancient, unholy enemy. Unite various cultures and factions in the land, struggle with politics and intrigue, build an army, become Kingmaker, all to push your efforts towards defeating the Blight and saving an entire nation.
Hawkes story had none of that ambitious drive, really.
I wouldn't say that ambitious drive is the distinguishing factor between the two characters' stories. The scale perhaps, but certainly not ambition. In the end, what really sets the Warden's story apart from Hawke's is the fact that most characters in the former's can simply be swayed to do what the Warden wants, and everyone is ready to just accept anything the Warden presents to them.
I always thought it was amusing that the Templar running the ferry to the Circle at Lake Callenhad will question the validity of the Warden treaties, which are documents that have not been seen by anyone in ages, whereas the dwarves at the gate of Orzammar don't even question it, despite the fact that there's still the issue of letting an outsider in during a time of political unrest due to them not having a king. I mean, what would anyone expect a human or elf Warden (or even a dwarf commoner!) to do about this?
Now, I enjoyed the hell out of DA:O, but the Warden didn't actually have to struggle with anything involving politics. The entirety of the Orzammar plot line was running errands for other people. You were running errands for Bhelen, passing along forged documents, or you were fighting in the provings for either Bhelen or Harrowmont, then doing their dirty work in hunting down and killing Jarvia, and ultimately leading up to you having to take the ultimate errand and find Branka in the Deep Roads.
I wouldn't say that ambitious drive is the distinguishing factor between the two characters' stories. The scale perhaps, but certainly not ambition. In the end, what really sets the Warden's story apart from Hawke's is the fact that most characters in the former's can simply be swayed to do what the Warden wants, and everyone is ready to just accept anything the Warden presents to them.
I always thought it was amusing that the Templar running the ferry to the Circle at Lake Callenhad will question the validity of the Warden treaties, which are documents that have not been seen by anyone in ages, whereas the dwarves at the gate of Orzammar don't even question it, despite the fact that there's still the issue of letting an outsider in during a time of political unrest due to them not having a king. I mean, what would anyone expect a human or elf Warden (or even a dwarf commoner!) to do about this?
Now, I enjoyed the hell out of DA:O, but the Warden didn't actually have to struggle with anything involving politics. The entirety of the Orzammar plot line was running errands for other people. You were running errands for Bhelen, passing along forged documents, or you were fighting in the provings for either Bhelen or Harrowmont, then doing their dirty work in hunting down and killing Jarvia, and ultimately leading up to you having to take the ultimate errand and find Branka in the Deep Roads.
I can definitely agree there were quite a few plotholes in the Origin storyline, the whole Kingmaker business being part of it. After all, why should the human lords of Ferelden defer to an elvish mage on who should be King/Queen?
And yeah, the main plot was based on a standard hero journey, but all things considered, they did it unique enough that it stands out on its own.
When I finished DA2 though, the first time anyway, it felt pretty anticlimactic, and rushed tbh. I played at a slower pace, and did things differently, and the ending came at the right time.
I tend to overlook its shortcomings, because I love Legacy.
I tend to overlook its shortcomings, because I love Legacy.
Legacy is actually really good. Unlike main game, both DLCs actually have an intriguing, focused and coherent story - with twists, an antagonist and an objective for your character to achieve.
Story and writing is good enough, for me to be able to forgive Hawke not really being able to affect the outcome (especially painful with having to give Tallis the list of names).
Legacy is actually a reason, why I'm going to buy DA:I at launch.
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