145 réponses à ce sujet

[Nykara]

There is one thing you DO need to take in to consideration with Blackwall and that is the fact that he was following orders from higher up. Wrong orders? You bet but orders non the less and he also tried to save at least one of his men from taking the wrap for him. He isn't all bad, just followed bad orders. Then again who in Dragon Age hasn't at some point?

[Saberchic]

There is one thing you DO need to take in to consideration with Blackwall and that is the fact that he was following orders from higher up. Wrong orders? You bet but orders non the less and he also tried to save at least one of his men from taking the wrap for him. He isn't all bad, just followed bad orders. Then again who in Dragon Age hasn't at some point?

Blackwall was paid money. He went against his OWN side. The only orders he was following was his greed for coin.

[Korva]

Realistically, I think comparing multiple homicides to determine which one was most heinous is a waste of time.  The thing that sets them apart for me is how they act after the fact.

 

Agreed. I don't get how some people can try to make excuses for Rainier, he was guilty as hell. The one saving grace is that we meet him at a point where he is trying to atone through helping and protecting others, and has been doing so for some time, to the point where he's not the same man anymore. "You are Blackwall. You killed Rainier."

 

Whether that's enough to spare him is up for individual interpretation. For me, it is. Blackwall is a significantly less questionable companion than many others like Morrigan or Sten. (Not to mention that Orlais is corrupt to the core, so their idea of "justice" is laughable as well as sadistic.)

[Dean_the_Young]

Soldier's Mentality is the idea that someone will do anything, just because a superior tells them to.  You're going to have to defer to psych courses from a couple of decades ago.  It was a psychological theory so yes, I listened and questioned because to me the idea of being a person is the ability to make choices which it was being proposed to us in class, people were not making choices.  Blackwall, and in turn his men, simply did what they were told, regardless of the morality of it.  Here is a Reddit discussion about it.  I'm not just pulling it out of my backside and trying to be offensive to anyone and neither were my psych professors. 

 

The mindset exists in any form of 'policing' though I don't know why it was settled on being called 'soldier's' mentality (although it's likely because they're all soldier's of some kind) but it was used for all individuals in a solcier position, be it military or local law enforcement where taking lives is unfortunately part of the job, but there are some who will not question the orders of their authority figures and will simply do as their told despite the atrocity they're being asked to commit.  I actually have family actively in the military and I know the mentality is not a universal thing.  Most soldiers now question authority and that's a good thing.  This menality is similar to mob menality, just doing what everyone else is doing.

 

http://www.reddit.co...tible_with_the/

 

Also, the term has now been changed, so my apologies.  It is now called 'Deindividualisation'.

 

http://en.wikipedia....Deindividuation

 

Oh, I'm quite familiar with the mentality. I just happen to see it within and without the military, and it doesn't require 'a soldier's position' either (a position so vague and nebulous that it could cover anything from 'in a combat' to 'clerical paperwork' to 'mechanical maintenance.' Countless empowered and powerless positions of various lethality in which guidance can be followed without moral questioning to differing effects on others.

 

So, I'll ask you again: did you question the morality of the name when it was raised? Not the existence of the concept- the appropriateness of the name itself, as a label. Or did you accept it out of deference to a psych professor of few decades ago? That you feel the need to drop a caveat of most soldiers now question authority' doesn't exactly convince you me you were or are too familiar with soldiers then.

[Dieb]

Blackwall is less of a liar than he is a thief.

 

He idolized Warden Commander Blackwall of Val Chevin, because he wanted to be like him. That's what idols are for: "They show you the man you could me. I needed to believe that."

 

Let's try to see this in perspective: He deliberately stays out of sight the best he can, and all his "lies", is generic Warden-related blah blah. Yes, he fooled people - but then again, so freaking what? He used his title to help peasants help themselves defend themselves against bandits, and convinced real Grey Warden veterans on the verge to madness to get their sh*t together, with a speech improvised on the spot.

 

That is a talent for leadership and inspiration that he found in himself. That's not an act, that's an ability. The most important "difference" is that he really succeeded in becoming like him.

 

He only realized that he still owed it to all the people involved to come forward anyways, after having near-perfectly established this persona, and because of having changed into it for real. Personally, I am more repulsed by people like Zevran, Isabella and Leliana, wo are up front about the fact that they regret nothing, and can reason anything away with people being naive and them being professionals.

[Ferretinabun]

I left Blackwall for a simple reason - I didn't see why I had the right to judge him. His crime was not against me nor the Inquisition, and nor was it an Inquisition matter.

 

I didn't hate him, and had I genuinely been his judge, I might well have been lenient. But breaking him out of jail would simply be obstructing justice. Nor did I have any reason to think Val Royeaux would give him anything other than a fair trial (going by their own standards).

 

Sorry, but Blackwall made his own bed.

[Ferretinabun]

Sten's crime is much worse

 

The difference here is that Sten was not going to face a trial. He was just captured and locked in a cage, and then Lothering was abandoned by the law enforcers because of the darkspawn and no-one cared enough about him to do anything other than leave him there. His situation is more analogous to saving a man on a sinking convict ship.

 

This is not the case with Blackwall (sorry, Rainier). Rainier WILL face a court of law. Anything you do to prevent that is just obstructing the official course of justice.

 

Plus, you can convince the Reverend Mother, the nearest thing to an authority figure in Lothering, to legitimately hand Sten over to you. A jailbreak is not necessary. He is under your watch, certainly, and thus any further murders he commits would be your fault. But he doesn't (unless you count all the goons you mow down through the course of the game, but hey I'm sure they're all legit targets...   ).

[The Oracle]

One of the things that really annoys me about the Blackwall reveal was that I used the Right of Conscriptions, thinking I had a true Warden with me, to get things done. He allowed me to make decisions based on his lie. Then everything goes to hell afterwards. Also, he's been in the woods for how long again? 7-8 years or something? You're telling me, in all that time, that he couldn't take a little saunter over to Adamant to get inducted into the Grey Wardens. Didn't he think that they deserved to know of Blackwall's death, if nothing else?

 

I don't know if I would have executed him, but the guy just made one awful decision after the other. I'm tempted to leave him out on my next playthrough.

[MiyuEmi]

@Dean The Young: I'll say again, although theories were questioned, no, the name of it was not questioned.  It was what it was called at the time.  My name does not define me, it's just something to call me for easy reference.  That's what a lot of these terms were.  I was a psychology student, I questioned everything and while I know individuals in the military, I'm not going to say I'm an expert, nor did I infer I was an expert.  It wasn't an added caveat, it was an addition to what I believed was a conversation.

 

I'm not attempting to be offensive but you seem intent on making it appear that I am.  This is just what it was called when I studied psychology. Like Shell Shock, names are changed and this name was clearly changed due to it's prevalence in other areas of society outside of soldiers, peacekeepers, etc.  As you will see in the second link, the name was clearly changed due to the attitude/condition obviously existing outside of the 'soldier' area.  Again, I'm confused as to why you seem intent on personally prodding/attacking me in relation to my reference to Blackwalls actions, which clearly fall under either this category or his simple unwillingness to not get paid for the job.  Either way, I am unable to forgive his actions, just as I am unable to forgive the actions of similarly motivated characters.

 

So I can't decide whether or not you're upset regarding the reference or if you just really like Blackwall as a character and you're attempting to defend his actions.

[Amirit]

Blackwall led the attack on the ground, even passing on a chance to stop the attack when he did know about the children. He was directly involved in the attack, not merely making orders from a distance.

Care to give a link for the dialog about him leading the attack? It's not that I do not believe you but in his confession (here: https://www.youtube....QrWOk6JU#t=2142 he talks about giving order only).
 
 

Putting a tad bit of projection on a foreign culture viewpoint, but whateves.

 
Did you even talk to Sten? Because all HE talks about is weak mind that led to diminishing the Qun (dialogs with you and with The Guardian of the Urn).
 

Not that he really knew about that, considering he was out of it until he woke up and realized he was without his sword. It's not like he ceremonially accepted rites of hospitality or anything.
 
Speaking of which, does Thedas have anything comparable to ye old rights and expectations of hospitality for strangers?

 
1. Thedas indeed has some expectations about hospitality to strangers - talk to revered mother in Lothering, for example.

2. Sten was fully aware about who those farmers are and what did they do for him - he talked to them before he murdered the whole family. Uncontrolled rage came after the peaceful talk.  

 

...uh, children are not Game players. And even if they were, it would be irrelevant because there is no 'completely innocent of all sins' requirement to being an innocent bystander.

 
So, you are saying children of farmers who were supposed to have a peaceful life are less innocent then children of Game players who by very definition of the Game could be murdered at any point for the Game sake?
 

I mean, it's great that you can rationalize not feeling guilt over the murder of innocents because you feel safe assuming that they were assholes somewhere else, but that's not a rationalization of why they were guilty. That's a rationalization for why they deserved. Which is more misanthropy than anything else.

It's great that you are knowing better than me what I am thinking and doing, but what I was TRYING to say is one thing - if crimes against children can be even compared in terms of degree of the murderer's fault,  Sten wins in that competition.

[MiyuEmi]

This thread feels really contentious so hopefully we can all just get along and theorise without feeling the need to attack one another.  In the end, it all comes down to personal preference as to how you feel each DA character who committed morally questionable acts/atrocities, should be dealt with.  In the case of Blackwall, I suppose it was more difficult to discover this about him because he's with your party for quite a while before he makes any kind of confession.  Sten will confess if you exhaust his dialogue before you even release him.  Leliana only confesses she was a spy if you catch her in a lie or make her expose herself.  Zevran doesn't have to confess as he is met after being hired to kill you but is clearly an inept assassin.  Morrigan is questionable from the moment you meet her as is Isabella.  It's all preference as to how you think they should be dealt with, but it's not really a question of them being  morally reprehensible which they all are, just how they would/should be dealt with.

 

@Amirit: In party banter with Cole (which you can find on the wikia pages and on YouTube) Cole begins to speak words of a song called Mockingbird and Cole begins to go through Blackwall's thoughts about the incident, including hearing too many voices in the carriage and pointing out that they sounded awfully young.  Unfortunately I can't link it, but Cole infers that Blackwall did not tell his men to stop because if he did they would know it was a lie.

[Korva]

I'd like to point out that Blackwall's entire character arc would lose all meaning if he was NOT guilty without ifs and buts. The guy isn't just some wangsty-pangsty teeniebopper making a mountain out of a molehill. Rainier was filth, and the fact that he was only a single piece of sh*t among many in the great big cesspit of Orlesian society and politics doesn't change that. If his behavior could be excused in any way, his struggle for redemption would lose its impact. It would be like trying to tell a dramatic story about the first ascent of a mountain peak .... and then air-dropping the climbers halfway up, beyond the hardest bits.

 

So, IMO making excuses for him actually does him a disservice because of how it'd weaken his character and plot. He shouldn't be painted as the devil incarnate, but neither should he be whitewashed. Whatever sympathy and understanding we might feel for him is best saved for Blackwall (i.e. the man he is now) not Rainier (i.e. the man he was).

[Phoe77]

I believe that Rainier mentions that he didn't go to warden central because he didn't have any proof that he didn't kill Blackwall.  The wardens would probably have accepted that Blackwall was killed by darkspawn, but Rainier was probably worried that they would assume, based on his past, that he would be held accountable.  Maybe not the most logical assumption, but not out of the realm of possibility for him to believe I don't think.

[Gilsa]

Agreed. I don't get how some people can try to make excuses for Rainier, he was guilty as hell. The one saving grace is that we meet him at a point where he is trying to atone through helping and protecting others, and has been doing so for some time, to the point where he's not the same man anymore. "You are Blackwall. You killed Rainier."

 

Whether that's enough to spare him is up for individual interpretation. For me, it is. Blackwall is a significantly less questionable companion than many others like Morrigan or Sten. (Not to mention that Orlais is corrupt to the core, so their idea of "justice" is laughable as well as sadistic.)

 

I agree with ya. There are companions throughout the games that will join the party with ulterior motives with varying degrees of keeping cards close to the chest. I never got the sense that the Inquisitor was being played by Blackwall. He never asked for anything. He didn't even ask for mercy. He faced his demons alone and resolved it without the Inquisitor's involvement.

 

The one thing that I'm not clear on is whether he would have reached this conclusion on his own and still turned himself in even if the Inquisitor hadn't recruited him or if the Inquisitor is such a special snowflake that it inspired him to do the right thing.

[MiyuEmi]

@Phoe77: Think he also states that he didn't go to them because he had no proof that he'd gone through the ritual.

[Phoe77]

I agree with ya. There are companions throughout the games that will join the party with ulterior motives with varying degrees of keeping cards close to the chest. I never got the sense that the Inquisitor was being played by Blackwall. He never asked for anything. He didn't even ask for mercy. He faced his demons alone and resolved it without the Inquisitor's involvement.

 

The one thing that I'm not clear on is whether he would have reached this conclusion on his own and still turned himself in even if the Inquisitor hadn't recruited him or if the Inquisitor is such a special snowflake that it inspired him to do the right thing.

 

It is hard to tell.  I personally like to think that he would since his time as Blackwall has given him to truly believe that he can be a better man, but I can't be sure.  

 

I find that I'm not as bothered by his lie as some other people are.  It would be a different story if he were trying to get something by assuming Blackwall's identity, but the only thing he was really using it to achieve was atonement.  He didn't try to dupe the Inquisitor out of anything or pursue any goal aside from doing good for people.  I think that the good that he did as Blackwall does more to redeem him of his past actions than being executed would have.  

 

Assuming you mean the blood-gathering ritual, I imagine the other wardens would have just had him do it again.  Then again, he probably wasn't thinking very clearly at the time.

[AxholeRose]

"What he did is horrendous. I want to chop off his head!"

 

It is rather ironic.

 

 

There is an ucrainian joke along those lines:

 

One time the Good will triumph over the Evil.

It will force the Evil to it´s knees and chop off its head.

 

Is there a Ukrainian word for justice?  Because that's what it is, not just the action of beheading someone.

 

ps - I dont condone killing Blackwall.  But he must either go through the Joining or face justice for what he did..  merely "doing good" isn't good enough

[Vicious]

Sins may be forgiven but crimes require punishment.

 

 

Cole states Blackwall knew damn well there were kids in the carriage. He killed the family for money. He didn't tell his men to stop because they'd have turned against him "they'll know it was all a lie." He wasn't acting under orders, that's what his soldiers thought. he killed for cash.

 

 

Yes, Cole states he wouldn't do the same again, but it doesn't matter. He must be punished, whether by a difficult life as a Warden or death.

 

 

If we had been aware of his crimes and being a fake warden upon immediately meeting him, how many would elect to spare him? 

[Gilsa]

 

ps - I dont condone killing Blackwall.  But he must either go through the Joining or face justice for what he did..  merely "doing good" isn't good enough

 

I've also wondered if the "doing good" version of his story would have him deciding to join the Grey Wardens of his own accord. It's just a theory so they don't have to keep track of multiple versions of Blackwall to reference in the next game when the next protagonist asks about him. Easier to say he joined the Wardens either way.

[Amirit]

@Amirit: In party banter with Cole (which you can find on the wikia pages and on YouTube) Cole begins to speak words of a song called Mockingbird and Cole begins to go through Blackwall's thoughts about the incident, including hearing too many voices in the carriage and pointing out that they sounded awfully young.  Unfortunately I can't link it, but Cole infers that Blackwall did not tell his men to stop because if he did they would know it was a lie.

 

Thank you! Though even as it is - does not sound as he was "leading the attack" and personally murdered several children and a woman. More like observing from a close distance. For me that moment is very crucial - one thing is to kill a child yourself, another - is giving the order without thinking and stopping to analyze new information (probably young voices). Still guilty - no doubt, but so far I blame his people even more (stress on "even") than him. There are orders one should not carry on if he claims to be a human, not a robot.

[Phoe77]

I honestly don't know if he would after what comes to light at Adamant.  It doesn't seem like he's angry with the wardens for what they did, but it did seem to shatter his idealized view of them.  I personally think that he'd feel he'd be better able to do good without being beholden to warden beliefs.  

 

 

Yes, Cole states he wouldn't do the same again, but it doesn't matter. He must be punished, whether by a difficult life as a Warden or death.

 

If we had been aware of his crimes and being a fake warden upon immediately meeting him, how many would elect to spare him? 

 

I don't think it's that cut and dry.  Is justice meant to punish the guilty or prevent recidivism and further crime?  Is it about advocating for the victims or appeasing the outraged?  These aren't meant to be new discussion points because I'm certain that would derail the discussion, but there are different ideologies regarding the purpose of justice.  The one that I buy into means that I would still allow Rainier to join me to see if he's changed his ways.

[Vicious]

Thank you! Though even as it is - does not sound as he was "leading the attack" and personally murdered several children and a woman. More like observing from a close distance. For me that moment is very crucial - one thing is to kill a child yourself, another - is giving the order without thinking and stopping to analyze new information (probably young voices). Still guilty - no doubt, but so far I blame his people even more (stress on "even") than him. There are orders one should not carry on if he claims to be a human, not a robot.

 

Seems to me He was close enough to hear them, could have called out to stop, but didn't because he feared his men would immediately turn against him.

 

So he's a liar AND a coward AND a murderer, and made his men murderers as well by having them act under false pretenses for his own personal gain. 

 

Your post made me realize he was an even bigger scumbag than I thought before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think it's that cut and dry.  Is justice meant to punish the guilty or prevent recidivism and further crime?  Is it about advocating for the victims or appeasing the outraged?  These aren't meant to be new discussion points because I'm certain that would derail the discussion, but there are different ideologies regarding the purpose of justice.  The one that I buy into means that I would still allow Rainier to join me to see if he's changed his ways.

 

 

 

Rehabilitation is there to prevent recidivism, yes, but justice is about punishment, else people will have no faith in 'the system' if a murderer is allowed to walk free and begin taking 'justice' into their own hands. It is absolutely about punishment, and moreover, Rainier's men all faced justice, and they did their actions under false pretenses that he created.

 

He not only has the blood of the people in the carriage on his hands, but of all the men whom he ordered to action and were put to death, again under orders that were not even legitimate and motivated by little more than for him to line his own pockets.

 

it really is a shame. I understand he tried very hard to become a different person, but ultimately he was a coward who hid behind a mask: without the Inquisitor's influence he never returns to face justice.

 

 

One of my favorite Bioware companions. Although I admit next time I hope we get an actual grey warden.

[Nykara]

That's almost like saying someone who hires an assassin isn't guilty. To me, they are just as guilty as the assassin who performs the murder in the first place. Giving an order you know is wrong is just as bad, if not worse then following one.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

To quote Professor X :- "Killing will not bring you peace."

[Korva]

He says the Inquisitor inspired him, and I suppose not being alone anymore but part of a team that is literally working to save the world helps, too. But since I too am not so fond of the "special snowflake" protagonist whose influence is the only thing that can change people for the better, I like to think that he'd have stepped up for Mornay if he'd heard about his capture even if he hadn't joined us.

 

I found his reasons for not continuing to Val Chevin after the real Blackwall's death a bit flimsy, but he probably wasn't thinking straight back then, and I don't mind him remaining flawed even in his search for atonement. It makes the whole thing more "human" i.e. believable.