49 réponses à ce sujet

[Killdren88]

Every new game, people some people tend to be upset over the fact that their previous PC is doing something that betrays what they laid on in their head canon. So I must wonder.

 

Would you prefer ambiguity and allow your own canon to take flight? Or would you prefer Bioware leave no untied strings untied and give a clear and concise outcome to a story? Do you want them to leave your characters alone after a story is over with so you can imagine on your own or allow Bioware to weave a outcome based on the choices made that leaves no doubts in your mind?

 

Personally for me I find it lazy that we have to use Head Canon at the end of the story. When I finish a game I want see the ultimate outcome. I don't want to have to imagine. I like clear answers at the end, and being made to think of your own ending is just lazy writing in my opinion.

[dsl08002]

I prefer absolute fact because I hate loose ends.

[Exaltation]

The objective reality of our protagonist exists whether we know it or not.

[wright1978]

I'd prefer at some point for them to free them for headcanoning.

I didn't mind the notion of fleshing out the HOF arc with the calling quest or even pulling Hawke back in the inquisition story.

I'm slightly miffed at them pulling Hawke back into the story again via the epilogue. As long as that thread is properly dealt with in the next game and Hawke is released to my headcanon control that'll be fine.

[esper]

I want them to leave the PC alone because their story is done. Their live might continue, but their story is done once the control is yanked away. The Hero of Fereldan's story ended with the fall of the arch demon.

 

Witch hunt was a nice epilog for Morrigan-mancers, but awakening should have had an option to be played with an orlesian warden no matter what. (Still thinking about zombie pc here, brr).

 

But once their story is done, I want  bioware to leave them alone. They have been through enough. I don't need to add more misery on top of it.

 

 

Also the Hawke that turned up in da:I. Was not Hawke, I played with in da2. My Hawke was a blood mage, best friend/adopted sister was bloodmage and in her head nothing was ever her fault.

 

Instead I got some one who had a weird grudge against corypheus (My Hawke would have blamed that on the wardens, and it was not like Corypheus was hunting her), didn't like blood magic and still saw Aveline as a friend despite the fact that this actually had a tile on the Keep. I don't know who it was, but it was not the champion of Kirkwall and it has directly destroyed a good part of my enjoyment of da2 (which was still my favorite part of the series).

 

And I knew this would happened. I never wanted Hawke or any former PC back.

[LightningPoodle]

Screw head canon.

[I SOLD MY SOUL TO BIOWARE]

A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

 

I always like some room being left for headcanon, but I don't like everything being left ridiculously open-ended, because I'm always hesitant to even do the headcanon thing in that case, because there's a 50/50 chance the next games will just prove me wrong anyway. I'm kind of feeling that way with the Warden right now. I would like to think she succeeded, returned to Thedas, reunited with Leliana and both of them continued their adventures like the good old days and all, but I can't shake the feeling that the Warden is just going to be tossed into something else, or that Leliana is just going to show up in a major role again in the next games while my Warden herself is shoved to the sidelines again for one reason or another, rendering that whole line of thought moot. 

[Madmoe77]

For direct sequels, ambiguity is fine. The occasional cliffhanger is good for some story-lines but when literature or games skip time; significant time and settings having anything but an absolute ending is a hard sell for me.

 

As I have learned on the forums from my own misuse use of the 'head canon' term, it can be very personal for some. Almost like a slight or attack to suggest something exists as such or is of that interpretation. I think this is hurting the series as it goes along. It is only my opinion though as I am certain there is opposition to that idea. Bioware is suffering with Dragon Age what has effected Comics for the last forty years. Too many story lines lead to too many pathways. It is hard for new readership to keep track and join in on the age and worse for serial readers who have seen the evolution of their choice characters and setting evole leaving the nostalgia behind.

 

With all of their other genre's within the Dragon Age now books, encyclopedia style volumes, comics and even anime competing with the games for lore, tone and their own identities you run into a very real saturation problem.  

 

EDIT FOR DOHT!

[Dieb]

Actually, headcanon for the ending and the beginning, too. Simply because it takes things that are out of my control and returns them to.

 

I completely forgot about what Trevelyan is supposed to have done before the conclave; as far as I'm concerned, he's a Rivaini treasure hunter with a cool last name. It explains why he's knowledgeable and open to history & magic even as non magic user, plus it yields a different approach to the question whether to shun or preserve these things. I furthermore assume he stays with the Inquisition as long as bearable and returns to a low profile after it inevitably becomes too much of a political constant.

 

Accordingly, I prefer my character being in the air whenever I don't have a say in it.

[esper]

They should not have all those books, comics and animes anyway.

 

Quest like Wicked Hearts and Wicked eyes suffered greatly for it, because I had no idea who the three major players was and only a superficial idea of what they stood for, yet I was expected to be able to judge between them.

 

And then we had characters like Michel and Ismhael and somehow should properly have felt something there too, but didn't...

 

 

At least in da:o, I knew Anora and Alistiar and had a somewhat good idea at what they stood for.

[BraveVesperia]

My post-headcanon is usually pretty vague, so it isn't destroyed if devs decide to pick up the loose ends of a story. Like Hawke, my headcanon was that she was travelling with Isabela on a ship after DA2. What happens in DAI doesn't change that. And I can usually adapt my headcanon to fit whatever new story thing has come up (like the Warden's Calling quest).

[Toasted Llama]

Since my game's universe and my own headcanon affects me and only myself, I have a habit of saying:
Screw you game, that didn't happen because I don't like it!
And lo and behold, it didn't happen. In my headcanon/my game's universe. It might still happen in yours, but not in mine.


I also like more "absolute facts"  because they usually inspire me for completely different routes for my characters that I otherwise wouldn've have thought of.
Having multiple playthroughs/universes/timelines/whatever also allows me to have some that follow the absolute facts more than others.

[esper]

I might not sound like it, but my head canon is actually pretty loose too..

 

My head canon for the warden was... travelling the World. (That was what she said she would at the end of da:O). So the whole calling plotline doesn't really chang ethat, but that because we only hear about it.

 

My head canon for Hawke was hiding with Anders and properly doing something for mage freedom, which was also pretty adaptable.

 

The problem is not what they make the PC do. I can adapt my head canons to changing circumstances. It is with their personsality or the motives they ascribe to the PC.

 

Had Hawke said nothing about blood maigc or simply said "Varric told me you had questions about Corypheus" then I could have adapted my head canon easily.

I would have just gone, so:

 

All right Hawke is very pro-mage and Quizzy helped the mages with an alliance, she doesn't trust the chantry, but Varric properly wrote only good thing about the Inqusitor and Corypheus mind controlled Anders once and her brother is a warden too, so she would be worried. Thus Hawke turned up at the Inqusition.

 

But I can't adapt the head canon, because bioware suddenly decide personality, morality and motives that Hawke just never had. In the Keep there is one, one, opinion tile and that is 'What did Hawke think about Anders' action'.

 

If they want to bring PC back as NPC they need a lot more morality, personality and opinion tiles, to just have a chance of getting the Pc's personality right. And while it could be awesome, realistically I think it is too much work and so I think that it would be better to just keep the former PC to their own devices.

 

Also I would like to repeat. The Pc's have been through a lot by the time their game is over. They deserve a break.

[Jaison1986]

I don't mind headcanon for events that the games don't show. But I absolutely hate when people start acting like their headcanons should be treat as facts and throw a fit when that doesn't happen. Yeah, yeah, Hawke showed up in the game and they don't act in the very intricate way you thought they would. Life goes one.

[AshenSugar]

I'd be perfectly fine with them tying up all the loose ends, and resolving most (not necessarily all, some mystery is good) ambiguities,

 

I'd also be perfectly fine with them taking my Warden, giving him a voice, fleshing out his personality and plonking him right back into the game as an NPC, companion, or PC.

 

Headcanons, in my opinion, are just that. They are not sacrosanct bastions of impregnable granite that can never be questioned, revised, or re-envisioned. I'd be quite happy to modify mine if Bioware wanted to carry on the story, after all they created the original characters, not I.

 

I'm also aware that this is probably not a very popular viewpoint within the community.

[l7986]

Personally for me I find it lazy that we have to use Head Canon at the end of the story. When I finish a game I want see the ultimate outcome. I don't want to have to imagine. I like clear answers at the end, and being made to think of your own ending is just lazy writing in my opinion.

Pretty much what killed ME3 for me.

[esper]

Personality and morality is not head canon. They are an interegral part of roleplaying.

 

Both the warden and Hawke can be canonically stupid evil, if the player wants them to. They can also be the ultimate shining paragon. And they can have different complex morality in between, since dragon age tries to be grey.

 

The da:o warden can be pretty anti-warden for example. Hawke can have a lover who is a blood mage and blame every problem in the city on somebody else.

 

And we have seen the ultimate outcome. Da.O warden killed the archdemon and the Mother if they survived the archdemon. The end. Da2, Hawke killed Meridith and later left Kirkwall. The end.

 

The only ultimate outcome of their story is death. And that is not the story I wish for my Pc's. They deserve to have a retirement.

[Heimdall]

The problem isn't violation of headcanon, the problem is when character traits that can be established in the games themselves are violated. Case in point: Hawke in DAI. As has already been noted, it doesn't make any sense at all for a blood Mage Hawke or one that generally didn't take responsibilities for things. If they're going to bring back a PC as an NPC, they should reflect the character I made, or at least not violate it, otherwise I don't see the appeal.

[mjb203]

I'd be perfectly fine with them tying up all the loose ends, and resolving most (not necessarily all, some mystery is good) ambiguities,

I'd also be perfectly fine with them taking my Warden, giving him a voice, fleshing out his personality and plonking him right back into the game as an NPC, companion, or PC.

Headcanons, in my opinion, are just that. They are not sacrosanct bastions of impregnable granite that can never be questioned, revised, or re-envisioned. I'd be quite happy to modify mine if Bioware wanted to carry on the story, after all they created the original characters, not I.

I'm also aware that this is probably not a very popular viewpoint within the community.

I'm with you on this one. As far as I'm concerned, my PCs stop being "mine" when the game/expansion/dlcs are over. If Bioware wants to leave them alone, fine (although if they go this route, leave out the companions in any sequels. Too much Leliana). If they want to bring them back in a small manner, fine. Personally, I'm not liking all of the loose ends Bioware is leaving with storylines though. As others have said, a few are fine, and it seems they tried to remedy that in DAI, but DA:O and DA2 went overboard with them.

[Dabrikishaw]

I don't headcanon, so it's not a real problem for me.

[Big I]

I don't headcanon. I accept that no PC is ever entirely under my control, just mostly.

 

You can't play a Warden that, after Ostagar, decides to say "screw this" and heads to Rivain. During the mage origin, you can't play a mage that decides not to get involved in Jowan's escape; you either help him or sabotage him.  You can't play an Inquisitor that decides to head back to the Carta, or their clan, or the Valo-Kas mercenary company. Some things about PCs are out of our control.

 

The Warden, if alive, always goes questing to cure the Calling. Hawke always works with their warden ally to investigate corruption in their ranks. Sten always becomes the Arishok. Wynne is always dead by the beginning of the mage rebellion. That's just the way it is.

[Sigma Tauri]

Head-canon meaning personalized series of fake events. Absolute fact in a made-up world. Huh...there's some cognitive dissonance here.

[Ophir147]

My personal rules for Headcanon: Their thoughts are sacred. Bioware can't take that from me, and Bioware has shown that they are not really interested in what my character is thinking enough for them to take control away from me in that respect. I am the one who decides how my character's mind works and evolves throughout the series. But in terms of actions, when the game is over (and even when I am still playing the game itself) I like to assume that I have no control at all and work my way backwards from that.

 

That makes it hurt less.

[phaonica]

Since my game's universe and my own headcanon affects me and only myself, I have a habit of saying:
Screw you game, that didn't happen because I don't like it!
And lo and behold, it didn't happen. In my headcanon/my game's universe. It might still happen in yours, but not in mine.

 

I do this, too.

 

For the most part, I stick to the game, but sometimes if I don't like what happens, I just pretend it didn't.

 

As for whether I prefer absolutes to headcanon: I like a mix of both. I like using the game as a guideline and filling in the spaces with stories in my head. I like not being utterly confined to the game narrative.

 

I don't have a single headcanon for any of my characters. I have multiple, so if something happens to my characters that I didn't expect then I might alter one of my headcanons or create a new one.

 

That being said, though, I will headcanon what I want, regardless of the absolutes in the game, so if the game begins to lean towards more absolutes, it wouldn't affect how I play, I don't think.

 

I don't mind when there are certain things in the narrative that we simply will never know. I think that uncertainty and mystery can create some interesting conflicts. I may be in the minority on this, though

Every time a new game comes out, the devs probably have to deal with the question "Why wasn't my Warden/Hawke/etc helping deal with this?". If they don't provide a reason, people get pissed that their character has disappeared, and if they do provide a reason people think that story MUST be more important if their character couldn't help with THIS story. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[AWTEW]

Every new game, people some people tend to be upset over the fact that their previous PC is doing something that betrays what they laid on in their head canon. So I must wonder.

 

Would you prefer ambiguity and allow your own canon to take flight? Or would you prefer Bioware leave no untied strings untied and give a clear and concise outcome to a story? Do you want them to leave your characters alone after a story is over with so you can imagine on your own or allow Bioware to weave a outcome based on the choices made that leaves no doubts in your mind?

 

Personally for me I find it lazy that we have to use Head Canon at the end of the story. When I finish a game I want see the ultimate outcome. I don't want to have to imagine. I like clear answers at the end, and being made to think of your own ending is just lazy writing in my opinion.

 

I want  an off-screen forced conclusion to the warden. Only then will the zombie horse rest in peace.

 

Screw head canon.