291 réponses à ce sujet

[SomberXIII]

I would not throw valuable assets away when I could save them. 

[KotorEffect3]

In my current playthrough I will give him to the warden when the time comes,  figure he can redeem himself by stop playing pretend and help rebuild the wardens in the south.  Either way I always have him back in my party, just a good tank.

[Steppenwolf]

Because the Inquisition had use of him.

[Korva]

I have several reasons, which have been touched on before:
 

First, I too loathe the death penalty -- especially in such in horrible, drawn-out fashion and for the sick amusement of a sadistically cheering crowd. It's just vile beyond words.

 

Second, Orlais is corrupt to the core and its notion of justice is a joke. The only reason why Rainer's actions are even considered a crime is that the victims were human nobility ... and even so, it's still business as usual in the "Great Game". If they had been peasants or goodness forbid elves, nobody would have cared in the first place. All of the Orlesian bigwigs uphold the system because their power is based on it, so they don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to raising a stink about seeing justice done.

 

Third, Rainier became Blackwall and spent years trying to atone by helping where it is needed the most. Then he joined Cassandra and my own sword & board Inquisitor in being the literal first line of defense against evil, the vanguard that shields the whole damn world. He's willing to sacrifice for others, and that's worth quite a bit in my book even though he'll never be my best buddy.

 

Fourth, like PsychoBlonde I see the Inquisition as a kind of second chance for a lot of people. "Whatever we were before, we are now the Inquisition". That doesn't mean past crimes don't matter, but anyone who truly regrets what they have done and want to change for the better and make a difference in a chaotic and violent world gets their chance with us. It won't be easy, you might die, but you can try your damndest to turn your life around ... and help save the world in the process.

 

There can be absolutely no excuse for what Rainier did, but I do believe he is a changed man, and Cole confirms it too. On the spirit path, Cole's kindness for Blackwall and his flat-out refusal to condemn him as Blackwall seems to want him to do, make for some of the most touching banters in the game.

 

Blackwall is an interesting character, very "human" if you will. He's no chosen one, no superhero, nothing special at all, and even in his search for atonement he is very, very flawed and continues to make mistakes. While he is far from my favourite, I think the big reveal gives him some welcome depth, and the only sour note in it is the fact that (like all NPC story arcs) it has next to no impact on anything. There's no slow rebuilding of trust, no debating his fate with the other companions, nothing. It goes from him being a prisoner insulting you in front of everyone else to almost being buddies again without so much as a breath in between. Eh. Lots of wasted potential there.

 

Also, compared to what many other very popular companions have done or advocated for us to do, compared to what our own characters can do in some situations, Rainer's crimes aren't even that shocking, so I find the degree of vitriol he sometimes gets odd. I despise evil characters, but Blackwall isn't one of them (anymore) because he is genuinely remorseful and wants to become a better person. And that is probably exactly what draws the vitriol. Unrepentant evil and gleeful egotism are "k3wlolol", after all. Remorse and guilt on the other hand are "weakness".

[Get Magna Carter]

1) I dislike the death penalty and only use it in exceptional circumstances

 

2) Rainer was a small fish - a lackey for the REAL killers - the nobles who play games and call for the deaths of innocents for their entertainment (hence the only person I did call to be killed in DAI when he tried to bribe the inquisitor)

 

3) Rainer felt genuine remorse for his actions and had, of his own initiative, been trying to redeem himself by risking his life to protect others.  My inquisitor wished him to be allowed to continue to do so 

[PsychoBlonde]

And pointing out that Orlais justice system is flawed won't change the fact that Blackwall murdered someone. A Chevalier can take advantage of someone and get a way with it. Should that have consequences? Of course? But "oh they didn't punish this criminal so they shouldn't punish any criminals" isn't cutting it for me.

 

This is incredibly unsubtle and lacking in nuance.  The Orlesian justice system isn't "flawed".  It is actively devoted to the warping and destruction of justice.  Nor does every culture execute murderers.  Execution isn't a "punishment", it is simply a method of ridding the world of the hopelessly corrupt so they can't go on to repeat their crimes on anyone else.

 

I think it is a legitimate choice to leave him to be executed . . . but not because of any lame cop-out along the lines of "that's the justice system" or "he's a murderer".  These are the empty platitudes of someone who doesn't want to have to THINK about anything.

[Teddie Sage]

The fact he knew the kids were in the carriage before the carriage was attacked makes this not a mistake. 

Yes it was. He was following an order without thinking of the consequences and that was the mistake. 

[Miss Golightly]

On my first playthrough I was in a romance with him, and I more-so wanted closure. My Inquisitor didn't want to be lied to, but she needed to face him again without the steel bars separating them. I broke it off with him and went with Cullen.

 

Second playthrough, I brought him back and chose to let the Wardens have him after we finished our job.

[Big I]

The thing that stung with Blackwall was not what he did, horrific as it is. Sten did essentially the same thing, and Zevran killed the woman he loved to prove his loyalty to the Crows. Velanna, Oghren, Shale, Leliana, they're all murderers too. What makes Blackwall different is that he lied about it.

 

I gave him his freedom as Thom Rainier, primarily so that I could continue to enjoy his services in the Inquisition. Since my Inquisitor had already recruited Alexius, Florianne, and Servius, it seemed like the logical thing to do.

[Big I]

Yes it was. He was following an order without thinking of the consequences and that was the mistake. 

 

There's banter between Blackwall and Cole where Cole recounts some of Blackwall's thoughts during the attack. It's made clear that Blackwall ordered the children killed so his men wouldn't turn on him; if he had called off the attack they would have become suspicious.

[Teddie Sage]

There's banter between Blackwall and Cole where Cole recounts some of Blackwall's thoughts during the attack. It's made clear that Blackwall ordered the children killed so his men wouldn't turn on him; if he had called off the attack they would have become suspicious.

He regretted his action though, that doesn't make him a bad man. He redeemed himself. He "was" a bad man, he changed.

[In Exile]

At least Sten didnt hide what he had done. Given the darkspawn were ready to swarm down on Lothering, leaving him in a cage to be murdered by the horde isnt comparable IMO, to leaving a man in prison to tried and judged.

I plan to leave Blackwell to rot this time. Its not just about him murdering children, and its not just about him leaving one of his men to rot in prison in his stead. Those two things alone are awful. It is also the fact that he lied to the Inquisition and the information he provided could have caused significant damage. I really dislike his charactor big time!

I think people miss the point a bit with Sten. He's not lamenting he killed all those people. He's lamenting the loss of control. Their lives aren't the point. If he slaughtered their livestock he'd be as desolated. Alistair - shockingly - makes this point in-game.

Not saying Blackwall is better. Just saying the parallel doesn't work.

[duckley]

For me - atoning for your crimes includes actually paying the price for your crimes.

 

Pretending to be a Grey Warden - living free while you have murdered children and left someone else to rot in prison - doesn't qualify for me, as atonement. I am not sure what good deeds he did while pretending to be a Grey Warden, and I have no doubt he has changed.  But changing and wanting to help, for me, is no excuse for not accepting the consequences for your crime IMO.  He was a coward and once he finally owned up, he should have to pay the price,

 

Pretending to be a Grey Warden, was actually risky. We know for example, that  he conscripted villagers in the name of the Grey Wardens  to fight bandits - if any of those men/women died based on thinking they were trained by a Grey Warden therefore more capable then they actually were -  fighting with a false sense of  bravado  - that too is on him. Not being able to give the Inquisition needed insight about the calling and Cory cause he was pretending to be a Grey Warden could have cost them as well. He didn't know what he didn't know, because he was living a lie. Then he has the nerve to be critical and condescending, to the Quizzy and some of her colleagues... yeesh!

 

Had he actually been conscripted into the Grey wardens - then I would have felt he was paying for his crimes - joining the Warden is akin to a prison and ultimately a  death sentence. To honor the real Blackwall - he should have turned himself in, or made his way to other Grey Wardens to join.

 

 

.

[PapaCharlie9]

Am I the only one that banished Blackwall along with all the other Grey Wardens during Here Lies The Abyss? How was I supposed to know he wasn't actually a Grey Warden? He sure looked bummed when I cast his arse out with the rest of those idiots.

[c0bra951]

Or rather "save" him.

 

Why did you do it? I don't see why anyone would. For one thing, it's the justice system and that's how it works. Not to mention that he willingly decided to do it and I figured I'd respect his wishes.

 

So for anyone who brought Blackwall back to Skyhold, what was your reasoning? I feel like even if you romanced him you wouldn't do that, but that's just my thought.

 

My reasoning is simple: he is an indestructible tank when fully developed.  To me, games are games first, and stories second.  I'll find some rationalization to give him another chance.  But really, even in story terms, is it such a stretch that the Inquisitor would opt to keep such an outstanding military asset somehow, in such difficult times?  Our justice system lets criminals walk all the time, if they rat on even bigger criminals.  The greatest good, and all that.

 

In my current (3rd) PT, I'm a warrior dwarf, and I intend to go the Champion route.  So maybe I will hang Blackwall this time around, just to see what it's like.

[Steppenwolf]

He regretted his action though, that doesn't make him a bad man. He redeemed himself. He "was" a bad man, he changed.

There are tons of murderers who regret their actions. Should we let them all out of prison? Even those that murdered children?

[Sifr]

Oh, thought he was there since the blight. muh bad.

But yeah, Blackwall has consistently remained on his path of redemption, where as Leliana sorta did a face heel turn back to old tricks. . .that's the term, no? Face heel turn? I don't know.  . .But I do know I hate how she says 'no'. . .*flails randomly*

 

Nah, Rainier dropped the ball when he claimed that he was in Ferelden during the Blight and trying to help out, because in reality, the real Blackwall was actually in Val Chevin at the time, giving a speech about washing their hands of Ferelden altogether because of Loghain's stupidity?

 

Exactly, Blackwall is haunted by what he does and he desperately wants to atone, but to his credit, never believes that anything he can do will make up for what he did? While Leliana sometimes feels bad about the things she's had to do, we often see her attempt to rationalise them away?

[duckley]

And I have to say - following an order to kill children does not make it right. We need to stand up against what is wrong.

 

Sorry to take this too much to heart, but if more people stopped following orders to kill innocents,  we might  all live in a better place. Just ask Anne Frank or another similar victim of someone following orders. 

Ok I will get off my high horse now.....

[zambingo]

I think good leaders want followers that know when to follow and when to lead (question), good leaders are themselves that too. Rainer's actions (and those of the men under his command who many illogically apply innocence to) are all destestable, in the world of Thedas his crimes can be atoned via the Joining or they can be punished via death. Both actions are morally valid and within the laws of the shop.

I believe the only wrong decision here is choosing a cover up and letting someone else die in Rainer's name. This is both immoral, plus action outside of the laws of the shop and clearly is compounding the problem for all parties.

I think debates about the death penalty are inconsequential to this situation. I think personal motivations for keeping Rainer or not are inconsequential to the situation. I think Rainer's actions as Blackwall are only applicable to forethought about whether he will fulfill the punishment of a Warden or if he will commit crimes again, your own conclusion should lead you to your judgment on him.

[beccatoria]

I brought him back because I was absolutely livid with him, like completely furious, to the point I didn't think he deserved to get what he wanted in that situation and make amends in a way that let him feel he'd done something honourable.  If execution at the hands of the Inquisition had been an option once he returned to Skyhold, I honestly think I might have chosen it and personally lopped off his head.  In real life, I'm most definitely not in support of the death penalty, and in games, I am usually the type of player that tries to be kind and get along with all the characters, but...in the context of this fictional universe?  Yeah, no, Blackwall made me so mad.  

So uh, that's why I took him back from prison.  Probably not really the reasons most people did.  

 

I do find the parallel with Sten - broad though it is - quite interesting, though.  Because I only ever freed Sten the first time I played.  I assumed - based on what I'd learned so far about the setting, and somewhat based on my expectations of an RPG narrative - that there was more to Sten's story.  Mitigating circumstances and such.  He'd been the victim of a racist belief by the Chantry that all Qunari were savages.  

 

Then, nope, it pretty much just was that he'd gone into such a rage when he lost his sword he massacred a family trying to help him.  But I couldn't get rid of him, because then I was basically freeing him.  So I kept him around because...well, the only other thing the game would let me do was set him free and at least this way he was helping.  I was kind of horrified at the end when he just informed me he'd be leaving to go home again with no option to say, "Uh, dude, no, remember all the murders?  And how you were only freed to the Grey Wardens to help with an emergency?"  

 

(Also why would you ever give him his sword back?  What if he loses it again?  Seriously.)  

 

So in a lot of ways when this happened with Blackwall I felt like it was kind of making up for the fact we never got to have that confrontation with Sten.  

 

I'm also not buying the rationalisation that what he did was acceptable by Orlesian standards, or that the inadequacies of the Orlesian judicial system mean that he should not face trial.  

 

The Inquisitor is not the Orlesian judicial system or its representative.  Additionally, the fact that a judicial system is flawed, while not irrelevant when considering context, should not be used to excuse terrible behaviour.  The fact that social rank provides protection against punishment for certain crimes is absolutely terrible and something which pretty much every society struggles with but let's be real about Blackwall's situation.  We're not talking about a starving worker getting punished for stealing a loaf of bread, we're talking about a fairly influential man making a conscious choice to take money in exchange for murders he knew were not legally sanctioned by the state, and who - given Cole's words - very likely saw there were children present, and made a choice to take their lives rather than risk being found out by his own men.  Men whom - after he tricked into committing treason, and pressured into killing children - he allowed to be executed while he went into hiding.  

 

Let's not sugarcoat what he did.  "Rich people get away with it too!" only holds a certain amount of weight here.  

 

Likewise I'm not sure the comparisons to Leliana hold water.  Yes, Leliana has undoubtedly done awful things and the question of how state-sanctioned espionage interacts with law and governance and accountability is a hugely complex area.  I am definitely not here to start telling people where on that spectrum they should fall in terms of what they find acceptable.  For many, Leliana's actions may be wholly unacceptable.  

 

But she was also acting under the direct authority of the Divine and for - what she at least believed to be - a greater good.  She has a sanctioned, legitimate position as the Left Hand.  

 

Whether we agree with it ethically or not, there is precedent for her position and work within a legal and moral framework (even if not the one we subscribe to).  

 

Ranier, on the other hand, accepted money in exchange for acts he knew were outside the scope of his legal authority.  

 

 

So while I respect anyone who still comes to the personal conclusion that Ranier's atonement was genuine while Leliana's actions are unpardonable, I do think there's at least a broad argument that there's a legal distinction.  There's certainly a distinction in motivation.  

 

The last point I have is about Rainier's irresponsible behaviour while with the Inquisition.  

 

He potentially endangered well...the world, to be honest.  

 

We thought he was a Grey Warden.  We went looking for him trying to find out what had happened to the Grey Wardens.  If we hadn't found him, we might have kept looking and gotten to Adamant sooner.  If he'd confessed he didn't know what was up, we might have kept looking.  Instead he says, "Take me with you so no one will think the Grey Wardens were involved in this!" when...actually, the Grey Wardens were involved in this.  

 

Similarly, if Corypheus's dragon had turned out to be an archdemon, as we initially suspected, and we sent Blackwall merrily on his way to kill it, what then?  We'd've been screwed is what then.  

 

Not to mention that atoning by joining the Wardens is something that involves an early and gruesome guarantee of death - something Blackwall's conveniently avoided.  

 

Either he has no idea about the joining, in which case he's conscripting people with no idea what he's asking of them (the conscripts themselves might not know but the recruiter would consider the gravity of the risk they're asking), or he has figured it out by now and he knows exactly how inauthentic his atonement is.  

 

Even if the guy does mean well by this point, he's a hot mess.  

 

Plus, you know, I guess I don't feel people should be allowed to sentence themselves to community service, in secret, for murder.

[Aren]

      He has no personal agenda, other than doing good until he croaks -

 Good to hear this, something really difficult to see in the DA setting where there is often someone who become an ******* right in the end for some reason , Blackwall will be always offered 1000 chances by my Inquisitor, always, because he deserve that.

[CathyMe]

My 2 "objective" reasons:

1. We are talking about a "justice" system that think is right for elves(or anyone who isn't a noble) to be killed en-mass because they committed the heinous crime of wanting to be treated less like sh**. But if a noble is harmed you get the death penalty.

2. He is not the first to commit crimes, but unlike others he seems to genuinely feel sorry about it. (The only thing that I would complain regarding his regret is that it seems, uh..misdirected, given how he seems to be a big Orlais fan-boy, and mostly because of guilt)

 

My "petty"( as in why I personally am pretty "meh" about the crime itself) resons

1. I hate orlesian nobles.

2. I hate kids.

3. If he would've stopped when he realized there are kids, the noble would have definitely killed him (being a ruthless self-entitled jerk is a requirement for being an orlesian noble)

4. He is a nearly unkillable tank.

[Aren]

Am I the only one that banished Blackwall along with all the other Grey Wardens during Here Lies The Abyss? How was I supposed to know he wasn't actually a Grey Warden? He sure looked bummed when I cast his arse out with the rest of those idiots.

Good luck with Lusacan dragon of night in the western approach,i'm sure that he will be happy to wipe out Orlais with 0 resistance,and considering the appeal of the name I'm sure that he will be more intelligent than that  moron of his brother lord of the beauty shoes the  worst archdemon that Thedas has ever seen.

[katerinafm]

I was romancing him so I felt like I 'had' to. Leaving him appears to be the 'evil' choice even though him sulking the rest of his life away doesn't really excuse his past actions. But that's just me being a bit sour after romancing him and being extremely disappointed by the experience. Giving him to the Wardens is a good middle ground in my opinion. It's what he had been pretending to be, and he'll have no choice but to follow the Grey Warden path and eventually his Calling if he goes through the joining.