I've heard that is true. Never agreed to solely take just the key so I don't know what happens exactly. What's the demon's reason for attacking over the key?
The lore is contradicting then when you have examples like the desire demon who possessed Connor that honors its deal.
Hawke: "No need for a fight. We only want to get out of here, nothing more." (Unconvincing hand gesture)
Profane "You lie! I sense your desires! You cannot take what is mine!" (Attacks)
I was going to smack him with Cassandras bullsh line, but then I realized that you need the treasure to buy the estate in Kirkwall and without it you can't progress the story. So for gameplay reasons he is correct. Curse him.
(And on topic, I love Vivienne. But I have a thing for smug, elitist and fabulously dressed people. I'm sorry that you didn't like her. )
I've heard that is true. Never agreed to solely take just the key so I don't know what happens exactly. What's the demon's reason for attacking over the key?
The lore is contradicting then when you have examples like the desire demon who possessed Connor that honors its deal.
They can keep deals if they feel like it, but nothing forces them to.
With the exception she wasnt, every pleace you will read how she changed it from court jester to political power, Vivienne herself never say this.
She become a candidate because of her influence, just hear Josephine after speaking with Bastien son, some people dont even know she was a candidate until she became Divine in their game.
She - again - shows absolutely no influence or standing at any point in the game. She has a somewhat mocking title among the Orlesian nobility. She brings absolutely no mages to the Inquisition. In Redcliffe, no mage even knows her little Circle in exile exists. She's unceremoniously pushed out for Morrigan (an open apostate blood mage whose idea of manners is telling people she thinks theyre idiots!!) by Celene with nary a thought. We don't see her use her position in the Orlesian court to mean anything.
She networked with the nobility quite well and wasn't as much of a joke as her predecessors because she actually tried to use her position to mean something but that's a far cry from not being a different sort of punchline.
She only becomes Divine if the Inquisitor is radically anti-reform and politically conservative.
Barquiel, dragonflight288, thetinyevil et 1 autre aiment ceci
Ofc she needs e Inquisiton's power and influence, but if she didnt had her own she would never be considered. She is a proeminent member of the orlesian court, have the ears of the Empress and the Gislhain family, she has connections and fame across the Empire, without her influence she would never reach the Sunburst Throne, even if she was a member of the Inquisition.
You're parsing it wrong. She spent her entire life being an in inoffensive toady telling people in power that the power structure they're part of is the greatest thing ever. She's entirely their creature. She's not powerful, she's effectively a lackey.
She wins when the establishment is so powerful Justinia's reform oriented policies are rejected entirely and her two reform oriented deciples fall out of political favour.
Once she's in power Vivienne proceeds to monopolise it. She's very clever in that regard.
She - again - shows absolutely no influence or standing at any point in the game. She has a somewhat mocking title among the Orlesian nobility. She brings absolutely no mages to the Inquisition. In Redcliffe, no mage even knows her little Circle in exile exists. She's unceremoniously pushed out for Morrigan (an open apostate blood mage whose idea of manners is telling people she thinks theyre idiots!!) by Celene with nary a thought. We don't see her use her position in the Orlesian court to mean anything.
She networked with the nobility quite well and wasn't as much of a joke as her predecessors because she actually tried to use her position to mean something but that's a far cry from not being a different sort of punchline.
She only becomes Divine if the Inquisitor is radically anti-reform and politically conservative.
Mocking title? please show where its stated its a mocking title, lets see what her writer aid to us:
Spoiler
[MK]: Vivienne took the job and turned it into an advisory position for the Empress. She claimed her place as a respected, and sometimes feared, member of the court instead of as an oddity, and she got used to telling the most powerful nobles in the world what to think about magic and mages.
Do you know that before being elected Vivienne nedded to become first a candidate? It doesnt matter if the Inquisitions is pro reform or not, she became a candidate because of her influence and power (ofc she used the influence of the Inquisition too).
She has her own network, you can see it in her Truth or Dare, you can see it when she uses Sera to took care of a political rival (https://youtu.be/b0zNyv_WdH0?t=5h9m47s). Yet you still claim she never use it, you base your assumptions on nothing.
Mocking title? please show where its stated its a mocking title, lets see what her writer aid to us:
Spoiler
[MK]: Vivienne took the job and turned it into an advisory position for the Empress. She claimed her place as a respected, and sometimes feared, member of the court instead of as an oddity, and she got used to telling the most powerful nobles in the world what to think about magic and mages.
Do you know that before being elected Vivienne nedded to become first a candidate? It doesnt matter if the Inquisitions is pro reform or not, she became a candidate because of her influence and power (ofc she used the influence of the Inquisition too).
She has her own network, you can see it in her Truth or Dare, you can see it when she uses Sera to took care of a political rival (https://youtu.be/b0zNyv_WdH0?t=5h9m47s). Yet you still claim she never use it, you base your assumptions on nothing.
You're wrong. If the writers intended for her to actually have political standing, they wholly failed to show it in-game. It was very much a tell, not a show. Not to mention that now we need to invoke Death of the Author. Regardless of how Viviene was intended to be portrayed, we only have to go on her actual potrayal.
Now, let's address your response in order, which are the product of either not reading what I've said or failing to interpret your own evidence properly.
1. I'm surprised I have to point this out, but Ellandra is not a mage in Redcliffe. More importantly, that's not what I said. What I said was, and I quote, "no mage even knows her little Circle in exile exists." I didn't say that no one knew her identity or her political position. In Redcliffe, we meet a mage who did not want to join the rebellion. When asked why he went with the rebellion anyway, he says that there was no choice or alternative. At that point Viviene chimes in about her Circle in exile, to which he just grunts. This is what I mean about her Circle not existing. And, again, there was nothing she brought to the Inquisiton. We never met them. We need to go out to recruit the mage rebellion because we don't have enough mages.
2. This is something Viviene tells you. That's not proof of Celene getting on her knees and praying for her to stay. Viviene is very much about the perception of power. Your balcony conversation - about not dressing shabby - is all about how important it is to project power regardless of whether you have it. That's her character in a nutshell, and it shows her cunning. But Viviene having a low kind of political cunning is not the same as influence. All you have is Cole reading her thoughts.
3. We are never told Viviene is a candidate. No one mentions her. She can only become Divine if you make every anti-reform choice. She obviously has a public profile. To say that she somehow ran a shadow campaign is ridiculous, because there's exactly 0 evidence of it. This isn't fan-fiction.
4. I cannot even begin to understand how you think that this is a conversation about Vivene having a network. She gives Sera a tip about a noble who's her political enemy, and asks Sera to use some compromising information. How you get from that to Viviene having some widespread political network is beyond my comprehension, because there's absolutely nothing in there. She says "those in her employ" but that's not proof of a political network. It's proof that she's a rich noblewoman who hires people.
Barquiel, Exile Isan, TEWR et 4 autres aiment ceci
You're wrong. If the writers intended for her to actually have political standing, they wholly failed to show it in-game. It was very much a tell, not a show. Not to mention that now we need to invoke Death of the Author. Regardless of how Viviene was intended to be portrayed, we only have to go on her actual potrayal.
Now, let's address your response in order, which are the product of either not reading what I've said or failing to interpret your own evidence properly.
1. I'm surprised I have to point this out, but Ellandra is not a mage in Redcliffe. More importantly, that's not what I said. What I said was, and I quote, "no mage even knows her little Circle in exile exists." I didn't say that no one knew her identity or her political position. In Redcliffe, we meet a mage who did not want to join the rebellion. When asked why he went with the rebellion anyway, he says that there was no choice or alternative. At that point Viviene chimes in about her Circle in exile, to which he just grunts. This is what I mean about her Circle not existing. And, again, there was nothing she brought to the Inquisiton. We never met them. We need to go out to recruit the mage rebellion because we don't have enough mages.
2. This is something Viviene tells you. That's not proof of Celene getting on her knees and praying for her to stay. Viviene is very much about the perception of power. Your balcony conversation - about not dressing shabby - is all about how important it is to project power regardless of whether you have it. That's her character in a nutshell, and it shows her cunning. But Viviene having a low kind of political cunning is not the same as influence. All you have is Cole reading her thoughts.
3. We are never told Viviene is a candidate. No one mentions her. She can only become Divine if you make every anti-reform choice. She obviously has a public profile. To say that she somehow ran a shadow campaign is ridiculous, because there's exactly 0 evidence of it. This isn't fan-fiction.
4. I cannot even begin to understand how you think that this is a conversation about Vivene having a network. She gives Sera a tip about a noble who's her political enemy, and asks Sera to use some compromising information. How you get from that to Viviene having some widespread political network is beyond my comprehension, because there's absolutely nothing in there. She says "those in her employ" but that's not proof of a political network. It's proof that she's a rich noblewoman who hires people.
Its stated in game, look at her ball, her war table missions, her codex, you dont want to see it.
1- Yes they dont show them, in this Bioware dropped the ball. still the mage didnt say she was lying.
2- No its not Vivienne, its Cole who tell it, he would not lie about it, he state Celene didnt want her to go away and respect her. please tell me how he is wrong, he can see people feelings, you have only your headcanon,
3- Do her personal quest and ask Jospehine about the guest, she will say about Marceline is rumored to be pivotal in the election of the next Divine and is curious of the timing of Vivienne's invitation.
4- So she having informations and contacts is not a networking?
She - again - shows absolutely no influence or standing at any point in the game. She has a somewhat mocking title among the Orlesian nobility. She brings absolutely no mages to the Inquisition. In Redcliffe, no mage even knows her little Circle in exile exists. She's unceremoniously pushed out for Morrigan (an open apostate blood mage whose idea of manners is telling people she thinks theyre idiots!!) by Celene with nary a thought. We don't see her use her position in the Orlesian court to mean anything.
She networked with the nobility quite well and wasn't as much of a joke as her predecessors because she actually tried to use her position to mean something but that's a far cry from not being a different sort of punchline.
She only becomes Divine if the Inquisitor is radically anti-reform and politically conservative.
I wouldn't say her influence is entirely useless.
But it is limited to the Wartable and the noble contacts that write letters to her and changing their perceptions of the Inquisition.
Its stated in game, look at her ball, her war table missions, her codex, you dont want to see it.
1- Yes they dont show them, in this Bioware dropped the ball. still the mage didnt say she was lying.
2- No its not Vivienne, its Cole who tell it, he would not lie about it.
3- Do her personal quest and ask Jospehine about the guest, she will say about Marceline is rumored to be pivotal in the election of the next Divine and is curious of the timing of Vivienne's invitation.
4- So she having informations and contacts is not a networking?
1. As I said: there's absolutely no proof that this Circle in exile exists beyond Viviene saying that it does, and her entire political masquerade is about pretending she has more power and influence that she has, which she then parlays into actual power and influence. She pretends to be more than just the off-brand Mistress of a dying noble, removed from her political offices and exiled to a country estate. No, she throws a Grand Ball, arranges to have a disgraced noble assault you to show her power and magnanimity, and then throws her lot in with a heretic organization without power and influence in the hopes of betting on the right horse. Don't confuse her political cunning with power.
2. Cole reads minds. He's not reading Celene. He's reading Vivene. All he knows is her internal narration. Viviene thinks Celene deep down wanted to keep her. That's her internal conflict. Viviene is telling you these things.
3. I don't know how you could possible interpret this meeting as meaning that somehow Vivene has influence. The meeting only happens because the actually important person died, and she could score a meeting out of that. Again, this isn't how power and politics works. It's another instance of Viviene begging for scraps at the feet of her betters without actually looking like she's begging.
4. Again, I don't think you understand how these words are used. A "network" in the political sense isn't a reference to some kind of spying ring, it's a reference to having political connections with powerful people (often at or above your station, and generally at the highest echelon of whatever we're talking about) that you can leverage. Edit: Let me give an example. Let's say I'm unemployed but my uncle is former US President Bill Clinton. Him picking up the phone and telling someone to give me a job is an example of having a network (and, in this hypothetical, nepotism).
All that Viviene has is her appearance (which, quite literally, is likely fake given her implied youth treatments). Whether Bioware intended it or not the game portrays Viviene as someone who knows how you can appear to have power without having any to constantly advance yourself.
Barquiel, dragonflight288, thetinyevil et 1 autre aiment ceci
I think the biggest tell about Vivienne's lack of real influence is that she's not mentioned at all in connection with the two major events of her day- the civil war and the Conclave. There's a reason she worries about irrelevance.
1. As I said: there's absolutely no proof that this Circle in exile exists beyond Viviene saying that it does, and her entire political masquerade is about pretending she has more power and influence that she has, which she then parlays into actual power and influence. She pretends to be more than just the off-brand Mistress of a dying noble, removed from her political offices and exiled to a country estate. No, she throws a Grand Ball, arranges to have a disgraced noble assault you to show her power and magnanimity, and then throws her lot in with a heretic organization without power and influence in the hopes of betting on the right horse. Don't confuse her political cunning with power.
2. Cole reads minds. He's not reading Celene. He's reading Vivene. All he knows is her internal narration. Viviene thinks Celene deep down wanted to keep her. That's her internal conflict. Viviene is telling you these things.
3. I don't know how you could possible interpret this meeting as meaning that somehow Vivene has influence. The meeting only happens because the actually important person died, and she could score a meeting out of that. Again, this isn't how power and politics works. It's another instance of Viviene begging for scraps at the feet of her betters without actually looking like she's begging.
4. Again, I don't think you understand how these words are used. A "network" in the political sense isn't a reference to some kind of spying ring, it's a reference to having political connections with powerful people (often at or above your station, and generally at the highest echelon of whatever we're talking about) that you can leverage. Edit: Let me give an example. Let's say I'm unemployed but my uncle is former US President Bill Clinton. Him picking up the phone and telling someone to give me a job is an example of having a network (and, in this hypothetical, nepotism).
All that Viviene has is her appearance (which, quite literally, is likely fake given her implied youth treatments). Whether Bioware intended it or not the game portrays Viviene as someone who knows how you can appear to have power without having any to constantly advance yourself.
1- I showed you she has influence in the court, even her writer said she has, you just dont want to see it, and yes unfortunately Bioware didnt show us the Loyalist, still its never stated she was lying, you dont have any proof of it.
2- Cole can read other people who arent present, he does it to Tamassaran who raised Bull and with Cassandra's uncle, how do you know this is Vivienne thoughts and not Celene's feeling?
3- You said she wanst doing a campaing, I showed how she was using Marceline to do her campaing.
4- She has Celene, Ghislain family, the noble in the War table, but again you ignore all of those. Look at her page at in the new world of Thedas:
You show nothing to back up yours claims, now I ask you to show a codex, a dialogue or anything that show she has no influence ort power, that her title is just a joke, you just spill things and never show a proof of it.
You show nothing to back up yours claims, now I ask you to show a codex, a dialogue or anything that show she has no influence ort power, that her title is just a joke, you just spill things and never show a proof of it.
Mind you dear, that pr-ick is going to search wikia/youtube and bring contents from Cole's banter, Solas's banter, the bog Avvar and who else owned Vivienne?..... hmmm...
I don't think it is appropriate to invoke "Death of the Author" in this context.
There is a difference between using it to examine various themes and messages that the author didn't intend to portray but on further examination are actually present, and using it to dismiss the author's claims about the background of certain characters.
1- I showed you she has influence in the court, even her writer said she has, you just dont want to see it, and yes unfortunately Bioware didnt show us the Loyalist, still its never stated she was lying, you dont have any proof of it.
2- Cole can read other people who arent present, he does it to Tamassaran who raised Bull and with Cassandra's uncle, how do you know this is Vivienne thoughts and not Celene's feeling?
3- You said she wanst doing a campaing, I showed how she was using Marceline to do her campaing.
4- She has Celene, Ghislain family, the noble in the War table, but again you ignore all of those. Look at her page at in the new world of Thedas:
You show nothing to back up yours claims, now I ask you to show a codex, a dialogue or anything that show she has no influence ort power, that her title is just a joke, you just spill things and never show a proof of it.
I do think she has power. But it is telling the about half of her entry in the new World of Thedas actually concerns Bastien and not her. That said she did manage to acquire the court enchanter seat and change it into a position of some actual power.
They can keep deals if they feel like it, but nothing forces them to.
Why would a demon, kind of the pinnacle of evil, honor a deal when it doesn't need to? Ex: Why wouldn't the demon just re-possess Connor once the warden was gone? I think it's poor/lazy lore-keeping on Bioware's part.
I do think she has power. But it is telling the about half of her entry in the new World of Thedas actually concerns Bastien and not her. That said she did manage to acquire the court enchanter seat and change it into a position of some actual power.
Which, I think, had a lot to do with Bastien and her ability to project power she does not actually have, and then convince others that she does, in fact, have power.
Their perception of her power in turn gives her power.
Which, I think, had a lot to do with Bastien and her ability to project power she does not actually have, and then convince others that she does, in fact, have power.
Their perception of her power in turn gives her power.
I honestly blame bad writing for the fact that Vivienne is essentially useless, and I think treating her as if she actually is pretty much ruins the character. It's a common problem for characters and story arcs in these games to essentially exist in a vacuum. Hasn't everyone had various moments in which they thought "Why doesn't character X step in here?", or "Why doesn't past action Y affect this current issue Z?", or some other form of bemoaning a sense of disconnection of things and people that logically should be connected? A character like Vivienne is going to suffer disproportionally from this issue, especially since the circles she moves in play no role in the game -- despite the fact that the Inquisition is a rising world power, the focus of the gameplay and story is very much on the typical small scale adventuring party stuff, not on high-stakes global politics.
I don't like Vivienne as a person, but I do think it's a shame that her potential -- which she does have -- is utterly unused and wasted in the game, and looking at bad writing as an excuse to declare her irrelevant strikes me as kind of unfair, especially if it's the sort of bad writing that's a recurring issue instead of something new and unique to this one character. We could just as easily use the same bad writing to "prove" how stupid and useless pretty much every other character is, including our vaunted protagonist.
I honestly blame bad writing for the fact that Vivienne is essentially useless, and I think treating her as if she actually is pretty much ruins the character. It's a common problem for characters and story arcs in these games to essentially exist in a vacuum. Hasn't everyone had various moments in which they thought "Why doesn't character X step in here?", or "Why doesn't past action Y affect this current issue Z?", or some other form of bemoaning a sense of disconnection of things and people that logically should be connected? A character like Vivienne is going to suffer disproportionally from this issue, especially since the circles she moves in play no role in the game -- despite the fact that the Inquisition is a rising world power, the focus of the gameplay and story is very much on the typical small scale adventuring party stuff, not on high-stakes global politics.
I don't like Vivienne as a person, but I do think it's a shame that her potential -- which she does have -- is utterly unused and wasted in the game, and looking at bad writing as an excuse to declare her irrelevant strikes me as kind of unfair, especially if it's the sort of bad writing that's a recurring issue instead of something new and unique to this one character. We could just as easily use the same bad writing to "prove" how stupid and useless pretty much every other character is, including our vaunted protagonist.
I think a huge part of lies in a line Leliana says about Orlais and the game to the Warden in origns.
"It's a game that is completely meaningless to everyone but its players."
Well, I would amend that statement to "It's a game completely meaningless to everyone except its players and the people that get killed in the crossfire."
I think a huge part of lies in a line Leliana says about Orlais and the game to the Warden in origns.
"It's a game that is completely meaningless to everyone but its players."
Well, I would amend that statement to "It's a game completely meaningless to everyone except its players and the people that get killed in the crossfire."
that line she had with Cullen "We play for the highest stakes, and to the death!" had me giggling
IDK about that. People wanted to romance her before they realized she had an nasty personality. But once the game actually came out, a lot of people went back in that statement.
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