Nonvita wrote...
Lotion Soronnar wrote...
THIS.
There's nothing OBVIOUS there. Never was. There are spoken lines, and a whole bunch of subtext you insert there.
In other words - people reading too much into things and seeing what they want to see. Or what they think tehy should see.
For example? The "I had help" line in the circle? Are you so irritated by that line because she's a glory hog? Or because she's stealing your thunder and you got to have the biggest stick to wave around? Or some other reason?
Thing is - and we see this confirmed a thousand times - people interpret the same lines differently. Even such short ones
Yes. That one line. Just that.
Or the fact that she treats other mages like crap simply for being free of the circle, regardless of their own happiness and accomplishments. Or that she will turn on you for destroying the urn, regardless of her disposition toward you, despite the fact she is far from holy devout (Leliana has a better case for turning on you, but even she can be diswayed when hardened). Or the fact she will tell you, in all seriousness, that she hopes the darkspawn will take you. Or the fact she will give plenty of condescending advice alongside her 'helpful' advice.
Hmmmm.
1) The "I had help" line: I really don't think they intended that to be glory hogging. If she was being a glory hog, it's because Irving strapped the pig-nose on her face by giving her the credit (for saving the Circle) in the first place. "I had help" was supposed to be a way to humbly deflect the credit toward the Warden.
2) Treating apostate mages like crap: yes, she is a product of her Chantry upbringing. Can't really say I blame her in general for her support the Chantry, considering her background (being treated like a freak and having stones hurled at her until she was taken to the Tower). That may be part of why she disapproves in general of apostates-- a latent inferiority complex-- that is, "If I couldn't handle the severity of the world's intolerance without the Circle, why should s/he be able to? What makes him/her so special?" Or perhaps, "If the world was too harsh to accept me as a mage without forcing me into the Circle, why should s/he get a free pass?" Something along those lines.
That's not to say that those are necessarily justified viewpoints, but they are perhaps understandable nonetheless. To bring up a somewhat related anecdote, I've heard it said that the people who tend to be the most critical of the overweight are the people who were once overweight themselves (or who perceived themselves to be, anyway). Such people may feel that the world had been casting stones at them constantly while they were overweight, and thus, why should this other overweight person receive any better treatment? Of course, in truth, it may be that many of those stones were imaginary-- perhaps this person judges himself too harshly due to his own lack of self esteem, and projects said judgments onto others when creating his expectations of how they will judge him. Or perhaps the stones were quite real, and people actually did belittle him about his weight constantly. Either way, it's not really a justification to perpetuate said belittling onto others. But if it's the latter case, as I believe, analogously, Wynne's situation should fall into, then it's at least understandable. To an extent.
As for her specifically disliking apostates for doing various.. apostatey things, I would need more specific examples to judge properly, I think.
3) O_O the Ashes!: This seems pretty understandable to me... the urn is a sacred relic. She may not be the most devout person ever, but she is firm in her beliefs (or, you could say, stubborn), whereas Leliana is rather malliable and weak. Were I a Christian, and were I to discover that my good buddy had not only found the genuine Holy Grail of legend, but had then promptly tossed it into a volcano, I would be pretty steamed too. So I'd say her initial reaction is totally reasonable.
In that conversation in particular, I think the problem is solely with the player not having enough dialog options, which tends to be common with Wynne. Her argument is that "you've destroyed the one thing that gives people hope, therefore I'm leaving, kthxbye." In this dialog, as with many others, it would help if you were allowed to dispute what she had to say in a more.. convincing, neutral way. For example, "I needed access to the ashes to cure Arl Eamon so he could support me against Loghain, thus quelling the civil war and uniting Ferelden against the Blight-- and unless you want to come kill this humongous dragon guarding the ashes yourself, how about I get you a ladder so you can get off my back?" But alas, when dealing with Wynne, it's usually just "Yes ma'am" or "No ma'am", basically. That's probably part of why she seems so stubborn-- we're never really allowed to TRY to change her opinions on anything.
So to go back to my holy-grail-volcano example, if my friend had explained to me that he needed something from the Grail to prevent WW3, and the only way to get it was by placating a big angry gorilla guarding it, and the only way to placate the big angry gorilla was to throw the Grail into a volcano, and if we lived in a world of fantasy where I'd be open to believing such a nonsensical story, then maybe I would be more understanding of the situation as well. But the thing is, Wynne is never given that chance to be shown reason. So her action seems unreasonable on the whole. Which is unfortunate, really.
As for her then wishing you to be eaten by the darkspawn, well, that's just a byproduct of the aforementioned. Perhaps unreasonable and short-sighted given that the Blight still needs to be dealt with, true. Of course, she
doesn't know how absolutely necessary the Wardens are in defeating the Blight, so maybe she reasons that no Wardens are better than this Warden, and she'll just fight the Blight on her own terms. Of course, that doesn't address why she'd abandon Alistair too, considering that hetravels with you, and he is also a Warden.
4) Condescending advice: well, yes, she does give some advice which you might consider condescending or hypocritical at times, depending on how you see things. Although I wouldn't consider her "cougar on the prowl" dialog in RtO as much of an example of hypocrisy with regards to her relationship advice, because she seems pretty clearly to be saying it in jest. A poorly timed jest, maybe, but a jest, nonetheless.
But I do not deny that other things she might say might or might not be hypocritical and condescending. But then, that comes with the territory. She's old. :innocent: I jest, of course, but it is true that old people do tend to feel entitled to a certain measure of condescension (perhaps rightfully so), and only a select few are so saintly as to be free of all hypocrisy.
edit: I understand that you are not necessarily taking the side of these arguments, but I figured, since you have presented them, I may as well jump in with my thoughts on them. I apologize if all of these points have already been hashed out on, say, page 19.
Modifié par filaminstrel, 02 mars 2010 - 01:42 .
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