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[GranfalloonMembr]

Between this and her disapproving of me whenever I support mage freedom, I have a hard time liking her. It'd be one thing if she was just a prankster, but this particular quest makes it clear that she isn't.

 

I'll elaborate and recap. Sera, shortly after we set up in Skyhold, tells me she wants a favour. She wants to march Inqusition troops through Verchiel because "something something little people being pushed around something". One of the things that annoys me is that when I ask her for details she gets all snarky, like "Yeah, Maker forbid you do anything without knowing every single little thing that's going on, right?"

 

Anyway, what I can piece together from what she says AND what it says at the war table AND what it says on the wiki, a couple of nobles are squabbling over land, and refugees who were hoping to live on that land are being displaced.

 

I have a lot of questions at this point. Is anybody being killed? Exactly how severe is this "bullying" that Sera says is going on? How bad is the situation, exactly? This is important for me know.

 

Well, we don't find out. But I do what she asks, and then we go and find out that one of the nobles who she wanted me to intimidate with that show of force (because that's basically what it was) wanted to find out who was responsible and strike back.

 

This is what gets me. Before the Inquisition got involved, as far as I know nobody was dying or being tortured or anything. After we got involved, yeah, people got killed and the noble had a point when he says that our soldiers showing up in his area was a provocation. I'm not comfortable killing noble in cold blood even if he is kind of an *******, and for letting him go I get into an argument with Sera, where she tells me I'm stupid because "Let the bad man do what he wants because otherwise he might get worse?"

 

Actually, yeah Sera, that's exactly my thinking. The poor guy who got shot full of arrows said that all he did was complain about fighting in his area and suddenly there was this Inquisition presence and he was being accused of causing it. If we'd just left well enough alone, that guy would still be alive. And why the hell was a show of force the only option there, anyway? I'd much rather have gotten Josephine to handle it, to peacefully convince the two parties to stop fighting or posturing or whatever it was they were doing.

[The Baconer]

Said noble had started a squabble for land, which means displacing or killing the people who were previously inhabiting it, then striking back when his opposition does the same.

 

I think his new existence as a pile of salsa is well-deserved. Or you could just take his land and titles for yourself.

[GranfalloonMembr]

Except when I tell her that things escalating was her fault back at Skyhold, my Inquisitor specifically says that if we didn't get involved, things might have remained peaceful. That implies that things prior to that hadn't escalated to all-out war just yet, and there is a difference between evicting refugees and killing them. Neither is a nice thing to do, but one is clearly worse.

 

Also, taking his land and titles for myself...how is that better than what he was doing? The whole idea of "We don't like the way you're running your country, so we're going to strong arm you into doing things our way, or maybe we'll conquer you," isn't one I'm fond of in real life, and I don't want to do it here if I can help it.

[Lazarillo]

The "correct" answer, IMO, is to leash the guy to the Inquisition, though that requires having the right perk ahead of doing the mission.

 

That said, yeah, Sera's superficially pretty fun and friendly, but she's kind of a horrible person, maybe just flat-out a sociopath, when you actually look beneath the surface.

[The Baconer]

Except when I tell her that things escalating was her fault back at Skyhold, my Inquisitor specifically says that if we didn't get involved, things might have remained peaceful. That implies that things prior to that hadn't escalated to all-out war just yet, and there is a difference between evicting refugees and killing them. Neither is a nice thing to do, but one is clearly worse.

 
It wasn't peaceful; both Harmond and the description on the war table tell you that.
 
 

Also, taking his land and titles for myself...how is that better than what he was doing? The whole idea of "We don't like the way you're running your country, so we're going to strong arm you into doing things our way, or maybe we'll conquer you," isn't one I'm fond of in real life, and I don't want to do it here if I can help it.

 
Specifically? If you take everything he owns, that will settle the dispute with the other party, meaning no more senseless killing and displacement during a time of crisis. He did bad, so he needs to get slapped, one way or another.

[Sunnie]

It was heavily implied that the little people were being harmed. It's also somewhat commonly known that these lesser nobles have no problem harming or killing peasants (killing the informant when he rats out Sera and the Inq as Red Jenny, perfect example).

And when you ask Harmond what he was up to, he says;

 

Pell Harmond: You mean bettering my wealth and position, I'm always seeking that.

Sera: By getting people hurt!

Pell Harmond: (grunt)Lady Chelle Morveau and I were jockying for the land south of Verchiel. To claim land you must populate it.

Pell Harmond: My people "encouraged" hers to leave. Her people answered in kind, et cetera.

Pell Harmond: Really, it was all just standard displacement until your troops "seemed" to change the balance. Well played.

 

This guy doesn't give two squirts about any of the little people and I believe Sera was right. If you aren't going to support Sera's feelings on how the lesser people are treated, expect to not have Sera cooperate and eventually leave. She does have some extreme views on some things, but they are based on her experiences. And in  the case of Pell Harmond, just let him live and sieze his holdings, then everyone is happy afterwards, including Sera.

 

Also, IMO, blaming the whole thing on Sera after the fact is about as douche-bag as the Inquisitor can get. It wasn't her fault, she got a report from a RJ that people were being hurt, what else could she do?

[GranfalloonMembr]

The "correct" answer, IMO, is to leash the guy to the Inquisition, though that requires having the right perk ahead of doing the mission.

 

That said, yeah, Sera's superficially pretty fun and friendly, but she's kind of a horrible person, maybe just flat-out a sociopath, when you actually look beneath the surface.

 

 

I guess, but I didn't want to do that because it makes her happy, and since she put me in such an awkward position I don't want her to be happy.

 

I'll have to see what else she gets up to, I guess. Sometimes you don't want to poke a hornet's nest, and I think this was one of those times. Abuse of power is bad, I get that, but playing pranks on nobles isn't gonna make them be nicer. It's just going to make them mad. Killing nobles, if it comes to that (early in the game, Sera says it does come to that if the person is bad enough), probably doesn't change things either, because I imagine a similar person would just fill the power vacuum and do the same kinds of things. An heir, or somebody else.

[Sunnie]

I guess, but I didn't want to do that because it makes her happy, and since she put me in such an awkward position I don't want her to be happy.

 

but playing pranks on nobles isn't gonna make them be nicer. It's just going to make them mad.

There was nothing "prank" about this. She asked for a non-violent solution to stop the people from being hurt, the noble was the idiot who started the conflict.

 

And if you don't want Sera to be happy, why did you even make this thread? You are already not making her happy, which seems to be your goal, so I don't get it.

[GranfalloonMembr]

There was nothing "prank" about this. She asked for a non-violent solution to stop the people from being hurt, the noble was the idiot who started the conflict.

 

What?

 

She asked me to send troops in. How is that non-violent? It is an implied threat that the Inquisition would start hacking people to bits if they didn't fall in line.

 

EDIT TO ADD: And when I mentioned pranks I was talking about other stuff, less military stuff, that you do for FoRJ at the war table.

[Sunnie]

It was a "march" through Verchiel, not an attack. The Inquisition forces never attacked anyone, just walked through.

[GranfalloonMembr]

It was a "march" through Verciel, not an attack. The Inquisition forces never attacked anyone, just walked through.

 

Look, Sera's intent was obviously not to have troops there telling everybody "Hey guys, we're just passing through for no reason, you just keep on doing whatever you were doing, don't mind us, we'll stay out of it!"

 

Sera's intent was for a big Inquisition force to show up and scare the crap out of the nobles, make them worried that they might end up in a fight with this big army that just showed up if they did the wrong thing. It was intimidation, and the result was that things escalated because after the Inquisition forces left, the nobles were trying to figure out who had tricked them into intervening (with them assuming, for some reason, that it had been trickery) and making those people pay. If we had done nothing, there would have been no escalation, and they wouldn't have tried to make anybody pay.

 

EDIT TO ADD: Or better yet, we could have tried to make the two parties stop fighting through diplomacy, rather than fear.

[Lazarillo]

It was a "march" through Verciel, not an attack. The Inquisition forces never attacked anyone, just walked through.

 

To be fair, the purpose of the march was to imply the threat that the next time, they might not get off so lucky.  On the other hand, from Sera's perspective, Harmond would be the kind of guy who would both (a)back down the moment he was threatened and (b)not do his homework about Red Jenny being tied to the Inquisition.  The fact that it went badly once Harmond then called the Inquisition's bluff is probably due to Sera underestimating him, but that doesn't mean all the fault lies just at her door, especially since the Inquisition wasn't actually bluffing.

 

And honestly, foregoing the right choice just because Sera isn't sufficiently "punished" seems like it's teaching the wrong lesson anyway.

[Master Warder Z_]

It's impossible to punish any companion really; Save perhaps Blackwall and possibly Solas in the future.

You sort of just supposed to get over the mage politicking, Demoning and etc

[Sunnie]

Look, Sera's intent was obviously not to have troops there telling everybody "Hey guys, we're just passing through for no reason, you just keep on doing whatever you were doing, don't mind us, we'll stay out of it!"

 

Sera's intent was for a big Inquisition force to show up and scare the crap out of the nobles, make them worried that they might end up in a fight with this big army that just showed up if they did the wrong thing. It was intimidation, and the result was that things escalated because after the Inquisition forces left, the nobles were trying to figure out who had tricked them into intervening (with them assuming, for some reason, that it had been trickery) and making those people pay. If we had done nothing, there would have been no escalation, and they wouldn't have tried to make anybody pay.

 

 

And there would have been more and more little people being stuck between a pair of land grabbing nobles who would do increasingly more harm trying to get an edge over the other. Harmond was the idiot that escalated the whole thing because of his greed, Morveau didn't, she backed off.

[GranfalloonMembr]

 

To be fair, the purpose of the march was to imply the threat that the next time, they might not get off so lucky.  On the other hand, from Sera's perspective, Harmond would be the kind of guy who would both (a)back down the moment he was threatened and (b)not do his homework about Red Jenny being tied to the Inquisition.  The fact that it went badly once Harmond then called the Inquisition's bluff is probably due to Sera underestimating him, but that doesn't mean all the fault lies just at her door, especially since the Inquisition wasn't actually bluffing.

 

And honestly, foregoing the right choice just because Sera isn't sufficiently "punished" seems like it's teaching the wrong lesson anyway.

 

Maybe.

 

You know what, though? If Sera really wanted to get things settled down in that region and she would accept no other solution than a show of military force, I don't get why we didn't just keep the troops there to act as peacekeepers indefinitely. Maybe it was a question of resources, but if we weren't able to do that then I don't see how "marching through" would've helped. Because the instant we leave, absolutely nothing is stopping them from starting up their conflict again. So what does it accomplish long-term?

[Lazarillo]

You know what, though? If Sera really wanted to get things settled down in that region and she would accept no other solution than a show of military force, I don't get why we didn't just keep the troops there to act as peacekeepers indefinitely. Maybe it was a question of resources, but if we weren't able to do that then I don't see how "marching through" would've helped. Because the instant we leave, absolutely nothing is stopping them from starting up their conflict again. So what does it accomplish long-term?

 

Oh, I mostly agree with that.  It actually goes back to "punishing" vs. "teaching a lesson", really.  Sera doesn't understand that.  Thus it falls on you to show her a better way.

[Sunnie]

Oh, I mostly agree with that.  It actually goes back to "punishing" vs. "teaching a lesson", really.  Sera doesn't understand that.  Thus it falls on you to show her a better way.

Which is why you can agree with Sera and help her, or not agree and not do the march.

 

It's not as if the player has no choice in the matter, they certainly do. Choose one way or the other and then either live with the outcome or reload and go the other way. Since it's in the players control, it's really silly to complain about, really.

[Master Warder Z_]

Oh, I mostly agree with that.  It actually goes back to "punishing" vs. "teaching a lesson", really.  Sera doesn't understand that.  Thus it falls on you to show her a better way.

 

Except her plot isn't resolved unless if you complete it one way or another and therefore Sera learns literally nothing.

[stop_him]

The "correct" answer, IMO, is to leash the guy to the Inquisition, though that requires having the right perk ahead of doing the mission.

 

That said, yeah, Sera's superficially pretty fun and friendly, but she's kind of a horrible person, maybe just flat-out a sociopath, when you actually look beneath the surface.

This. A million times over. I want a "punch Sera" option so badly.  Seriously, why is there a "punch Dorian" option, but no "punch out the obnoxious twit" option?!

[GranfalloonMembr]

Except her plot isn't resolved unless if you complete it one way or another and therefore Sera learns literally nothing.

 

While I wouldn't know about that at the present time, it has seemed to me so far like Sera's mind cannot be changed, about anything.

 

There are characters in this game and in other games by BioWare who you can say things to which make them go "Huh, I actually hadn't thought of it that way before." Like people you can actually be an influence on, for better or worse.

 

There are also characters who end up changing their minds by themselves. For example, they find out something they didn't know before, and they say "Damn, now that I know this, it changes everything. This proves that what I believed before was wrong."

 

And then there are people like Sera: people who pretty much ignore everything you say to them and tell you you're wrong if you disagree with them (with varying degrees of obnoxiousness). I can't stand characters like that, yet for some completely illogical reason I recruit them anyway on subsequent playthroughs even though I know how annoying they are to me. I guess it's a compulsive need to have a full party or something.

 

I've been thinking about why she irritated me so much here. I went over what I did the first time I did the mission before I went back and did it over.

 

As you know if you've played DA:I, there are a lot of situations which are not black and white. It's important to get all the details and consider all the relevant information before figuring out how you want to proceed.

 

So in this particular mission, Sera's telling me that some people have it rough, without telling me more than that, and says "Hey, send some troops there, that'll make everything better."

 

Now, if I'd known more, I would have realized why it would NOT make everything better, but at that point I only knew what Sera and Cullen told me. So I was like "All right, why not?"

 

If it had ended there, with me getting the Influence reward and being told the situation had calmed down at the war table, I wouldn't be complaining today.

 

BUT. It doesn't end there. We go to meet Sera's contact. If you respond to his being panicked by picking the "Calm down, I can help" option he says, and I quote:

 

"Help? Had enough help! I complain about a fight and suddenly I'm an agent or something!"

 

Now, I took this to mean "Damn it, whatever you did, you just made things worse for me! All I did was talk about how much it sucked that we were caught in the middle of this fight, and then suddenly all this stuff happens that winds up getting me arrested, interrogated, and coerced into luring you into a trap here! Thanks for NOTHING!"

 

At that point I'm like "Well, damn. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten involved..."

 

So the scene progresses and he gets shot full of arrows (which I fully acknowledge was a "kick the dog" moment for Harmond) and I'm expecting at that point that I just need to kill a bunch of mooks and call it a day.

 

But after the fight's over, I hear a guy asking to talk things over. Now, I am in the habit of talking things over with people before deciding on a course of action. I don't do things impulsively with incomplete information. For example, back in DA:O, it would have been a huge mistake for me to think "Well, werewolves are killing and infecting elves, and werewolves are monsters, so I'm just gonna kill all the werewolves without even bothering to listen to their side of the story or bothering to talk to them."

 

Right, so I begin conversing with Harmond, and he starts saying things which make the situation morally murkier than it previously seemed. I say to him "You killed people," and he comes back with "Yeah, I did, but I only started doing that after a HUGE INQUISITION ARMY showed up on my doorstep, which I took as a threat. And then after that problem went away, I was trying to find out who was responsible."

 

I had to concede that I would feel threatened and provoked too if a huge army marched over what I considered to be my land.

 

And I'm asking him what exactly was going on in Verchiel. So he's telling me "We were fighting over this land, that's what nobles do, and yeah, some people got moved, but that's just how it's done..."

 

So I'm trying to get a complete picture, but before I can do that, Sera flips out and beats him to death.

 

After which, she has some choice words for me because I wasted time talking to the guy instead of killing him right away.

 

And I'm thinking "All right, what the hell?! This whole bloody series has been conditioning me to not take things at face value, to learn all I can before acting, and now you're telling me that I should just blindly take everything you tell me at face value? That if you point at a guy and say 'kill', I'm supposed to do your goddamn bidding like I'm your attack dog? Kiss my ass, lady."

 

I think that's what got to me, and that contributed to my desire to see Sera unhappy. Which is not to say that I don't care at all about NPCs--on the contrary, in my Renegade playthroughs of the Mass Effect games there were some actions I was just unable to bring myself to perform because I felt too sorry for the NPCs who would suffer as a result. In this case, however, what's the worst that happens? Status quo resumes? We aren't talking about a massacre going on here. We are talking about people being downtrodden, and another thing that the DA franchise has conditioned me to accept is that I cannot save everybody, which reflects real life. I've had to accept in the past that I couldn't help all the casteless dwarves, that I couldn't help all the oppressed city elves, that I had to choose between Amaranthine and Vigil's Keep because I couldn't defend both, that no matter what my Hawke did in the second game a whole lot of innocent blood would be spilled and I'd be unable to prevent it, etc.

 

I'm sorry if I'm desensitized to the point where a vague statement that "little people are being hurt somewhere" doesn't outrage me to the point that I feel really motivated to do something about it. Here's the kind of thing that outrages me and motivates me to do something: the stories about the Qunari re-educators and their methods. That is nightmare fuel. That makes me hate the Qun and makes me wish I could save people from being "re-educated". Or the stories Fenris told in DA2 about what it was like for slaves in Tevinter. That made me wish I could help. But if I just hear the word "displaced", then it doesn't make my list of top ten or even top one hundred problems that need solving in Thedas.

 

 

This. A million times over. I want a "punch Sera" option so badly.  Seriously, why is there a "punch Dorian" option, but no "punch out the obnoxious twit" option?!

 

If I had to pick just one I would want an option to punch Vivienne, actually. But that's another thread in itself....

[phyreblade74]

*Snip*

But if I just hear the word "displaced", then it doesn't make my list of top ten or even top one hundred problems that need solving in Thedas.

 

 

My considerations of what it means and takes to "displace" people in this sort of context are far darker than your own, then.  We're talking forcible displacing of entire communities, anyway.  People being pulled from their homes by armed and thuggish, brutish figures.  Violence would not only be implied, it would definitely occur.  Because in a world where survival depends on the harvest, where deprivation and starvation are cruel and hard and slow treks towards dying, where parents have to suffer watching their children die because it's always the oldest and the youngest who die first -- your fight to stay on your land rather than be displaced is a very real fight to survive.  Displacing people is killing them, just slower than a sword in the gut, is all.

 

Hey, I don't even LIKE Sera.  But my Inquisitor never has issues with sending a troop through the area as an implied threat.  And he typically gives Sera the go-ahead to beat the schmuck to pieces, too.  Some guys are bad enough they will cheat and steal and lie to fatten their bottom line.  But this guy shrugs off the violence and slow, starving death he forced onto people, too.  Because he was more important than them, because he was a nobleman and they were just ordinary nobodies.  Oh, yea, Sera.  Go ahead.

[AlexiaRevan]

I let her kill the Noble...I hate Snob......

[Master Warder Z_]

My considerations of what it means and takes to "displace" people in this sort of context are far darker than your own, then. We're talking forcible displacing of entire communities, anyway.

And? That's Feudalism; and more often not their going to be relocated to wherever the Lordling wants them to, usually for serfdom related menial labor.

[phyreblade74]

And? That's Feudalism; and more often not their going to be relocated to wherever the Lordling wants them to, usually for serfdom related menial labor.

 

LOL, I know what and why.  Only makes for the reasoning behind stepping back when Sera goes off on the guy, mind you.

[GranfalloonMembr]

My considerations of what it means and takes to "displace" people in this sort of context are far darker than your own, then.  We're talking forcible displacing of entire communities, anyway.  People being pulled from their homes by armed and thuggish, brutish figures.  Violence would not only be implied, it would definitely occur.  Because in a world where survival depends on the harvest, where deprivation and starvation are cruel and hard and slow treks towards dying, where parents have to suffer watching their children die because it's always the oldest and the youngest who die first -- your fight to stay on your land rather than be displaced is a very real fight to survive.  Displacing people is killing them, just slower than a sword in the gut, is all.

 

Hey, I don't even LIKE Sera.  But my Inquisitor never has issues with sending a troop through the area as an implied threat.  And he typically gives Sera the go-ahead to beat the schmuck to pieces, too.  Some guys are bad enough they will cheat and steal and lie to fatten their bottom line.  But this guy shrugs off the violence and slow, starving death he forced onto people, too.  Because he was more important than them, because he was a nobleman and they were just ordinary nobodies.  Oh, yea, Sera.  Go ahead.

 

Okay. I didn't know this.

 

If they wanted me to be completely on board with killing the guy, they should've shown me a cutscene or something of exactly this kind of thing happening to people. Or have Sera say even part of what you just said instead of "people getting hurt", in those words.

 

In previous games I've seen or heard about atrocities in detail. This includes torture, beheadings, ritual sacrifice, cutting out tongues, and plenty more.

 

Here, the way it was described, it just sounded like people being forced to temporarily move. And the dude never said anything like "Yeah, so they're gonna starve to death, so what?" And it sounded like the only people who died were Red Jennies, real or suspected. (I get that from the dialogue option "You killed innocent contacts." If it had been more than that, I think the line would've been "You killed innocent people." And mentioning they were contacts allows him to counter with the fact that the FoRJ had made an enemy of him.) I realize that maybe I'm not filling in blanks here and other people might be able to easily fill them in, but I've kind of gotten used to be shown or told explicitly what's happening. Not all of us have studied medieval history, and none of us have actually lived it, so a good chunk of players might not be able to figure out exactly what it means to displace refugees either.

 

I just got another idea: these are refugees we're talking about, right? Isn't the Inquisition taking people in? Could that have perhaps been done?

 

I'm out to save the world here, not conquer it.

 

Earlier in the game I told Leliana that a confirmed traitor to the Inquisition was not to be killed, not even painlessly as she was ordering.

 

Yeah, eventually I'm gonna play this game over again and make my character a real bastard to see how it affects the world around me and the ending and such. But every time I do that, I end up needing to force myself to do certain stuff and end up feeling crappy about it afterwards. It's not my natural inclination to be merciless to people, even if a case can be made that they deserve it.