Fair point, but how can one not appreciate a moral code that puts the needs of many/more over those of the few/fewer, while at the same time trying to find a balance which benefits everyone, except for extreme situations of course, in which the few needs sacrificing if that means saving the many contrary to losing all anyways.
That's why I said, disagreeing with such moral code, is just ****ing dumb.
It's also ****** dumb that the mayor didn't order the villagers to pack their **** and get out of there before the refugees even started arriving, just as it was ****** dumb not to refuse refugees if you didn't have adequate resources to safely handle those sickened by the Blight.. So for some people, the fact that the mayor had opportunities to avoid the situation entirely and chose not to muddies things considerably.
Would have let him walk free if he owned up to it instead of trying to bolt when discovered. Chose jail for better relations with Ferelden. His plea to just die prompted a reload and an execution to give him peace. I didn't find out about the warden option until later, would have done that and will next time.
It's also ****** dumb that the mayor didn't order the villagers to pack their **** and get out of there before the refugees even started arriving, just as it was ****** dumb not to refuse refugees if you didn't have adequate resources to safely handle those sickened by the Blight.. So for some people, the fact that the mayor had opportunities to avoid the situation entirely and chose not to muddies things considerably.
Wouldn't that have still left the Blight itself as a danger to the many? I thought one of his main motivations was to keep the Blight from spreading.
Wouldn't that have still left the Blight itself as a danger to the many? I thought one of his main motivations was to keep the Blight from spreading.
Nope. Had the villagers left, like some of the Lothering villagers did, before the Blight got there then the village would have been empty by the time the refugees got there. If he'd refused the refugees, they would have gone somewhere else. As for stopping the Blight from spreading, nothing he did or could have done would have stopped that. Let's remember that the Blight in Origins is represented by the black splotch on the map, and by the end of the game it covered practically the whole thing. As for his motivations, if I recall he was trying to keep it from spreading to the town and never said anything about trying to keep it from spreading to the rest of the country.
Count me among those who sent him back to Denerim. As others have said, the Inquisition might have 'discovered' his crime, but it happened in a Ferelden village prior to the forming of the Inquisition, was not related to the Breach (my immediate concern), and affected Ferelden citizens, not Inquisition agents. It's a no brainer to me: Send him to King Alistair and Queen Anora to decide what to do with him. No reason for me to play "Judge Judy and executioner" on this one.....
I understood what he did and -- though I did not like it -- I did not blame him. So I ignored it. At that point, all judgment was going to do was lead to approval losses.
On my first playthrough I sent him to the Grey Wardens, but in my second playthrough I suppose I proceeded far enough into the main quest line with Hawke (wherein the corruption of the GWs was revealed) that it was no longer an option...so I sent him to Ferelden for sentencing.
When can you actually do this? I finished Crestwood's main quest line and had Cullen track him down. I still haven't been given the opportunity to judge him. I have done the warden quest line, but not Celene's assassination yet.
Decisions like that make me glad I am just a follower and not a leader. I understand why he did it but don't agree with how. I couldn't just let him go and killing him seemed wrong to me as well so I sent him to the wardens.
He made a tough decision in a very tough time. A Blight is no joke. Ultimately I felt it wasn't my PC's call, so I sent him to Denerim. I wasn't going to execute someone for trying to save their village, even if the means were horrible.
I wish we had more grey judgements like that. While the comic relief ones are funny (that box ) and everyone likes lopping the heads of cartoonish villains once in a while, morally ambiguous situations are always more interesting.
It is that this is the consequence for his action.
He is not a hero because he drowned people - what he did "might" have needed to be done, but it was grim and he is responsible. He is the leader. He did not consult others on his actions. He also did not admit his guilt - but fled when he knew he would be discovered. He did not have the strength of character to die with the people he was willing to condemn.
I didn't like what he did at all, but the truth of the matter is that they were infected, they were going to die, and the infected could have taken more people down with them. I think the mayor should have been honest and let the cards fall where they may, but he made a hard decision, and I think he's been living with guilt over it. I settled for sending him to the Wardens to atone for his actions. It seemed appropriate. Besides, I seem to be all about second chances with almost everyone in the game anyway, heh.
Sent him to Denerim. My Inquisitor might not have done the same, but he understood how difficult the choice was. Besides, he was in Ferelden and the this took place before the Inquisition was formed.
First time I played, I forgave him in the name of Andraste. After reading the journal entries, I exiled him every-time except on my Elf Warrior, whom I had execute everyone who came to be judged.
As someone who has nearly drowned due to a fun game that quickly went out of control, it does hurt. Your lungs scream and burn for oxygen. There is no other way to describe it. And when your lungs start screaming, you start panicking. You madly thrash trying to break free which frequently just makes the situation worse.
Seconding this.
As someone who has nearly drowned before, getting all the way to the falling in and out of consciousness before apparently losing total consciousness, stopped breathing and everything, I can say it is not a peaceful death. I mean, at first it kind of isn't too bad? It hurt a bit and I was afraid, getting worse the longer it went, on, but I tend to get calm in dangerous situations. Chaotic emotions get shut out. So I can say I went to a serene state early on, which might be what people remember?
Under spoilers for people who don't want to read a detailed account of someone else's near-death experience.
Spoiler
But once you get to the point where your body realizes you are actually dying? Like, you are on your last legs?
I don't even know how to explain. It's not fear, and it's not anger, but those are pretty much the only words I have to describe it. It's more like this complete animal drive, not something we have words for, and it's awful. I broke two fingers trying to force my way through solid rock. It's that thrashing, completely incoherent stage where you barely feel like a person anymore, where any and all ability to think goes right out the window. And it hurts. Your entire respiratory system feels like it's on fire. Your muscles hurt. Your head hurts. When I was too weak to keep fighting it wasn't because I didn't hurt anymore or I wasn't afraid, it was because I was completely incapable of moving my body anymore. I guess that would seem like a peaceful end to someone who wasn't privy to my head. I remember going in and out of consciousness, that renewed surge of panic every time I came back to realize I was still trapped, and it wasn't good. I think I only calmed down right before I...stopped, is the best way I can put it. I didn't die, but I wasn't very far from it, and after that point I might as well have been. It was weird. It's worse when you're trapped, I think.
So, yeah, I'm not letting him off for herding people into caves and then flooding them under the assumption he gave them a quick, relatively painless death. I'm sure more than a few of those people suffered quite a bit in the dark and the cold, and that alone is an awful way to die.
Still, I jailed him in Ferelden. He was a small-town mayor in a tiny backwoods farming/fishing village. The worst thing he probably handled in his life was a bad crop year. Dealing with a pandemic is something we have actual protocol and training in place for our leaders today and people still mess it up. I think he handled it badly, I think he used the trust his people placed in him as leader poorly, I definitely am not impressed with his not owning up to it and keeping on with his position as mayor afterward, but I also think he genuinely did the best he could to protect as many of his people as possible with the knowledge and experience he had at hand and didn't really know what to do in the aftermath except try to keep on. That doesn't excuse him, but it does explain him. Not everyone can be the be the hero in a video game, always acting as the ultimate leader in any situation.
In the future, I don't think I'm even going to bother hunting him down unless I have a character it's really IC to do. It's obvious the guilt is eating at him. He can deal with that for the rest of his life. I don't like the judgements I had available (but if I'd had the option to Grey Warden him up I might have done that. He's already got the mindset and everything, it would give him the chance to balance the scales a bit, and eventually the blight would kill him if a darkspawn didn't get there first. Perfect.)
llandwynwyn, teh DRUMPf!!, Nimlowyn et 1 autre aiment ceci
Is that what it is tied to? I figured it was one of the bonus conversation options the perks unlock.
In the one play through I made it there, I made him a warden. It would either have been that or exile.
There is no cure for blight sickness, and it starts to infect the ground just from the people being there. In the Last Flight, the Grey Wardens say that one of the tactics of the horde is to have ogres fling infected people or other darkspawn(doesn't matter if the survive the trip or not) over the walls to spread the sickness to others inside the castle. Once the sickness gets started it can't be stopped. DAO did a really poor job of portraying blight sickness.
He made the right call. Those people were dead already, he did what had to be done to save those who were still going to live. As for quarunteening them, bad idea, in addition to the drain on supplies and morale, the risk of the disease spreading is very high and then once they start dying and becoming ghouls, you have a whole other threat on your hands.
zeypher, rak72, chrstnmonks et 2 autres aiment ceci
The guy made a call to save his town and not an easy call to be sure. I'm not gonna execute him but I can't just let him free either. It's the closest to a win/win option available.
Actually drowning isn't all that bad of a death. Mainly because you fall unconscious before dying. So you kind of just "fall asleep". The thing that actually kills you when you drown is not being able to remove CO2 from your blood. Pressure too if you are too fall below sea level you have to be quite far down. The scary thing is knowing you are going to die. Fire now that I wouldn't want to die from...dang.
Panic and impending death aside... Nope, still bad.
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) and everyone likes lopping the heads of cartoonish villains once in a while, morally ambiguous situations are always more interesting.
