I'm really curious about it since it always bothered me. Making the player (Hawke) go through so much ****, and even get his mother killed (which I must say in the most gruesome way possible) with no option to save her at all. I thought I played a game which gave me choices not choices that were forced upon me. I tried to locate a mod everywhere that prevents this quest but no mod exists.
Please explain this farce to me.
Thanks.
There was a dev post about this back in the days of yore. There was originally an option to save Leandra, but it was removed as it was obvious everyone would always do just that - far less dramatic.
Leandra was scripted to die. It was to build in emotions into the game and to make it more life like.
I still think it would have been nice if you could have saved her (perhaps through dialogue with Leandra, telling her to take care and always tell you where to go, and perhaps through choices in other missions).
I still think it would have been nice if you could have saved her (perhaps through dialogue with Leandra, telling her to take care and always tell you where to go, and perhaps through choices in other missions).
I suppose if you're a blood mage you could keep Leandra very much alive... in a corpse like.
I like that so much bad crap can happen to Hawke. It makes them more relatable tbh.
I wish there was an option to save her, because i really liked Leandra. She was well fleshed out and more likeable than alot of characters one encountered in DA2. But for Hawke to become who she/he was, it sort of had to happen. To bad it never had a lasting effect on Hawke, it kinda dissipated even before act 2 was over. I love the conversation with Aveline on the subject though, probably the best written one in the game.
Heroes can't be everywhere, every time, to do ever thing.
It also made the mage-templar conflict so much more personal. One thing when they do bad **** to people you're not that emotionally invested into and another when a blood mage uses your mother to recreate the likeness of his dead wife.
Because the devs can limit your choices. God bless tabletop games.
I like that so much bad crap can happen to Hawke. It makes them more relatable tbh.
Eh, I think it kinda feels like it does the opposite at times. One of the things that does really bug me about this franchise is how high it tries to pile the "tragedy". It's not always a good thing...when you take that approach, it ends up making every down moment looking like it was only included to add to the pile. It's a desensitizing effect, essentially.
Sounds like the developers were lazy.
No, they wanted it to be tragic and psychopathic. So, that is why you cannot save her. I have never seen a game where you meet such tragedy. It was original to make a desperate run for it and then- no result. Dead. GG, bioware!
Alternatively, any protagonist that's worth anything can't have their parents alive and kicking 
Yup. Dragon Age 2 was intended to be a tragedy.
I mean, the loss of a sibling could be tragic but - first time around especially - you don't actually really know them. Leandra, on the other hand, is one of the few genuinely likeable and sympathetic characters in the game. So of course she had to die.
It's also interesting that she dies in Act 2 in particular. Was it Joseph Campbell who went on about how the hero generally comes into their power due to the death of a parental figure? Not sure. But it's a trope with a lot of history to it, especially with Bioware.
Forced drama.
because nothing good could even be allowed to happen to Hawke, People wonder why Hawke is so angry in inquisition, it makes me think they forgot how miserable 2 was in terms of bad things happening for 10 straight years.
The same reason we cant save both Carver and Bethany? Or Wesley? Or Duncan? Or Cailan? Or Meredith?
Personally, I think it its the writers giving us a big FU to remind us that we don't own or control "their" characters.
It was super lame and lazy IMO.
It was a story telling decision. Looking at it by itself, I'm fine with it and thought it was done well. Unfortunately, it comes after the loss of one and possibly two of Hawke's siblings, so it seemed like overkill. Losing Bethany in the Deep Roads bothered me more because I made the decision to bring her along when there was no indication of a problem, other than perhaps being genre savvy. There was no big tell like the conversation in Mass Effect where the person going with the Salarians almost tells you they are going to die... and then you actually have to choose later, making the first choice pointless.
This all ties into what many people had a problem with, even if they didn't realize it or think to put it this way; Hawke is not an active Protagonist. He doesn't affect the things going on around him. He is a reactive character. Things happen TO Hawke. This can be a fine way to do a story, but doesn't work as well in a game where the point is to play and be in control.
It was a story telling decision. Looking at it by itself, I'm fine with it and thought it was done well. Unfortunately, it comes after the loss of one and possibly two of Hawke's siblings, so it seemed like overkill. Losing Bethany in the Deep Roads bothered me more because I made the decision to bring her along when there was no indication of a problem, other than perhaps being genre savvy. There was no big tell like the conversation in Mass Effect where the person going with the Salarians almost tells you they are going to die... and then you actually have to choose later, making the first choice pointless.
This all ties into what many people had a problem with, even if they didn't realize it or think to put it this way; Hawke is not an active Protagonist. He doesn't affect the things going on around him. He is a reactive character. Things happen TO Hawke. This can be a fine way to do a story, but doesn't work as well in a game where the point is to play and be in control.
I agree with everything here, but the "warning" moment cam when your Mom begged you not to bring them into the deep rads road before the expedition. It was a very ambiguous way to do it though.
From a story perspective it was a forced and clunky way to make Hawke consider the Templar position, otherwise he would have had no good reason to join up with them. I am not saying that this episode justifies that line of reasoning in anyway, but that is what the developers intended. More importantly, it removed one more character from the story that the team would have had to work with when they were barely able to maintain the bare necessities of the game itself.
Leandra's death was stupid and artless with no good resolution. If I had been Hawke I would have been butchering Quintus' corpse with my weapon before the end of the fight and not somehow instant-killing a skeleton with a thrown knife.
Guest_ShadowHawk28_*
From a story perspective it was a forced and clunky way to make Hawke consider the Templar position, otherwise he would have had no good reason to join up with them. I am not saying that this episode justifies that line of reasoning in anyway, but that is what the developers intended. More importantly, it removed one more character from the story that the team would have had to work with when they were barely able to maintain the bare necessities of the game itself.
Leandra's death was stupid and artless with no good resolution. If I had been Hawke I would have been butchering Quintus' corpse with my weapon before the end of the fight and not somehow instant-killing a skeleton with a thrown knife.
I agree, I had to watch Hawke's mother die in 3 varieties that all led to the same outcome. The game just felt like I'm watching a movie instead of having the choice to change the outcome. The fact remains Dragon Age 2 is still an incomplete game to this day. DLCs like Legacy showed Bioware could do it given the time. What was, what could have been, and what wasn't.
I take DA2 as a linear story. In hindsight it paints a tragic story of Hawke which I appreciate. I have more misgivings about the boring environments in DA2.
P.S. I take issue with the developers are lazy comments. I am pretty sure they were working 50+ hours a week like any other AAA developer.
P.S. I take issue with the developers are lazy comments. I am pretty sure they were working 50+ hours a week like any other AAA developer.
If hard work does not equate into a quality product I see no reason to praise it.
Nach oben