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[ShadowLordXII]

I was reading an article explaining why the writer thought that Corypheus wasn't an effective or even well-realized villain despite the potential. An interesting read for anyone who wants to see his views for themselves: http://johnswritersb...sition-ending1/

 

But while critiquing Corypheus, he asks why the Fear Demon can't be the main villain and then...the points that he makes are actually pretty remarkable in the context of Inquisition's story.

 

To quote:

 

"Had I been writing the story I would have kept Corypheus, but in the end revealed him to be a mere pawn of the Fear Demon. In fact the title “Elder One” is a far more appropriate title for the Fear Demon than it is Corypheus. Corypheus is what, a thousand years old or so?

 

Fear is timeless. 

 

Fear is the most basic and primal emotions, present in every single animal on the planet. For complex animals like humans, we can experience so many different types of fear, ranging far beyond the basic fear of death. Fear of crowds; arachnophobes; children afraid of the dark; people with anxiety disorders.

 

The Fear Demon would feed on them all, and this demon is probably as old as time itself. It has gorged itself on fear for countless millennia. Then Corypheus rips open the fade and the Fear Demon can begin manifesting itself in the mortal world, taunting the world with nightmares and twisted creatures, bending people to its will by exploiting their deepest fears. Fighting Fear itself would have been a battle worthy of the Inquisition. You see, while no one’s motivation for Corypheus was really believable (I mean did they really think he’d be a good god?), people siding with fear would be totally believable. People surrender to fear all the time, and to be spared living your worst nightmares every night, I could easily see people doing anything Fear wanted.

 

...Of course the most interesting aspect of having the Fear Demon as the villain would have been that we were no longer just fighting armies and demons…we’d be fighting an idea, and ideas never truly die. Even if we drove fear back into the fade, it would still be there waiting and feeding. Growing strong until the day it could emerge back into Thedas once again…"

 

Yeah...as much as I like Corypheus, I can't help, but to agree. With proper build-up, foreshadowing and etc., a variant of this idea would be a great twist worthy of the "You are Revan" moment and would serve to give Inquisition a stronger antagonist. If done badly...it would just as bad as the Star-Child. Plus, you'd be facing an opponent who can't really be beaten because the Fear Demon embodies something that is present in everyone and can never truly be destroyed. Plus, it's constantly feeding from people's fears and even the bravest heroes are afraid of something as having courage doesn't mean the absence of fear.

 

So I like the idea. Anyone else?

[AlleluiaElizabeth]

This is a great idea, on paper, and I'd have loved to see if they could execute it. Of course, it would kinda negate the whole "It was ultimately Fen'Harel's fault." approach we ended up with, which is also an idea I like, so... Conflicted. lol

[ShadowLordXII]

This is a great idea, on paper, and I'd have loved to see if they could execute it. Of course, it would kinda negate the whole "It was ultimately Fen'Harel's fault." approach we ended up with, which is also an idea I like, so... Conflicted. lol

 

Actually...

 

"Puts on tinfoil hat"

 

I think that it could play out well if the "Fear Demon" was actually a Forgotten One, one of the "evil" gods of the elven pantheon.

 

Huzzah! Another twist! What starts out as the "Herald of Andraste" vs the "Elder One" now becomes a battle of divinely ordained/guided champions. The Inquisitor being Andraste's champion on the surface when he's actually Solas' champion while Corypheus is the self-proclaimed champion of the old gods while actually being the Fear Forgotten One's secret champion.

 

This could give even more motivation for Solas' aid to the Inquisition if we go with the idea that Solas sealed the Fear god in the Fade before or during the Veil's creation and that the Fear god's manipulation of Corypheus via feeding on Cory's fear (transformation by the Taint; his experience in the Black City; the decline of Tevinter; and being abandoned by the old gods that he was so faithful to (he is Leliana's dark mirror after all)) was meant to free himself and possess Corypheus to reenter the mortal world. 

 

When Solas realizes exactly whose behind Cory, this would make him feel all the more responsible for stopping Cory and the Fear god as he enabled their plans via allowing Cory to take his orb.

[Ieldra]

@OP:
This is an interesting idea, but it wouldn't have worked. A primal force like that as the Big Bad, that can't work because we can't defeat it. We can't make it powerless. As long as we are human, it will exist and it will have power.

As a Big Bad, I'd rather have someone who uses Fear to increase their own power, for instance by opening gateways in people's minds, perhaps by using a Dreamer, or by having Dreamer powers themselves. Not in the next game, though - for that we already have the defining plot element and the conflict resulting from it.

[vbibbi]

@OP:
This is an interesting idea, but it wouldn't have worked. A primal force like that as the Big Bad, that can't work because we can't defeat it. We can't make it powerless. As long as we are human, it will exist and it will have power.

As a Big Bad, I'd rather have someone who uses Fear to increase their own power, for instance by opening gateways in people's minds, perhaps by using a Dreamer, or by having Dreamer powers themselves.

 

You sound like you're referencing season 7 of Buffy haha

[Iakus]

I'm assuming by "fear demon" the author was referring to the Nightmare Demon from Here Lies the Abyss? 

 

That would be an interesting idea.  Especially given that this demon specifically feeds on fears caused by the Blights, which have terrorized all of Thedas for over a thousand years.  And Corypheus is a face that can finally be put to those nightmares, being one of the magisters who stormed the Golden City.

 

Actually one of the things that disappointed me about the game were the lack of intelligent demons in a game about rifts in the Veil that allow demons to invade the waking world.  Even pride demons, the elites of the demon hierarchy, were essentially rift-guarding mooks.  Having more clever demons running about could have been a fine opportunity to confront some of the more unpleasant aspects of human nature.

[Cute Nug]

I think Cory was like Bioware in DAI, amazing potential somewhat successful but didn't fully succeed in reaching their potential because they tried to do more than they could.

 

Cory could have been the great antagonist they skipped the mage-templar war and Orlesian civil war to bring us to. An adequately realized Fear demon would have made Cory and DAI even better.

 

Also part of the fail of Cory goes to the failure of the Inquisitor in limited dialogue to be more than a one-dimensional hero. The Quizzy in the crucial final battle seemed silent like it was just another bear fight or pointless shard collection. 

 

The Cory villain we aren't that impressed with at least tried with decent lines in game. The Quizzy seem to wait until DLC before they deliver any decent dialogue. 

 

"Words mortals often hurl at the darkness. Once they were mine. They are always lies."

"Know me, know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One! The will that is Corypheus!"

"I do not know how you survived, but what marks you as "touched." What you flail at rifts. I crafted to assault the very Heavens."

"Beg that I succeed. For I have seen the Throne of the Gods, and it was empty!"

"Tell me, where is your Maker now? Call upon Him. Call down His wrath upon me! You cannot? For He does not exist! I am Corypheus and I shall deliver from this lie in which you linger. Bow before your new God and be spared!"

"You will fall as a warning to those who oppose my divine will."

To elf Quizzy he mocks your slave tat and says:

"You are nothing. A race of sniveling cowards that shrank before Tevinter power!"

"Let it end here. Let the skies boil. Let the world be rent asunder.

"Not like this! I have walked the halls of The Golden City, crossed the ages ..."

 

Quizzy has one line meh dailogue with Cory at the beginning of the final anti-climatic battle and then is mostly silent except for boring game mechanics lines:

"The Archdemon's coming! We must fight!"

"The breach is getting bigger!"

 

Cory wasn't a great villain but in a contest of who played the better role between the Quizzy and Cory in DAI the Quizzy might be number 2.

 

Was time spent on DAI story diluting open zones worth the effort Bioware lost in making Cory and the Fear demon what they had envisioned for us to experience? Still a good enough game for most but the better they reached for would have been fun too.

[NoForgiveness]

In theory, it's an awesome idea. 

 

In practice.... I don't think it would work. A set character(like a companion) can have specific fears the demon could use, but a character like the inquisitor doesn't. I mean, in the fade section the inquisitor is defaulted to giant spiders. A spider the size of a dog would freak anyone out, but if i'm using my fears for my character(I assume I would), the demon would be able to dig into my character probably in a much worse way then some of the companions...

[Nixou]

Plus, you'd be facing an opponent who can't really be beaten because the Fear Demon embodies something that is present in everyone and can never truly be destroyed

 

 

That's why I'm pretty certain that the Nightmare will come back and act more as a recurring villain, not the franchise's final Big Bad, but more as a secondary villain assisting the main antagonist du jour: given that it takes the form of a spider, it's rather clear that the character was inspired by Ungoliant & Shelob: neither served Morgoth nor Sauron, but since they benefited from them, they played along with the Dark Lords.

[nightscrawl]

While it IS interesting -- and in fact my Inquisitor RP is that he was quite affected by the whole Fade experience -- I think it would be difficult to pull off in a game where combat and "boss fights" are a thing. Sure, you could have a boss fight at the end where we battle Nightmare, but that takes away from the concept, as stated, that fear never truly dies.

 

One of the things that the Fade sequence tried to show with our followers -- sadly unable to do so with our PC -- is that Nightmare is able to tailor fears to an individual, hitting them where they will be most vulnerable. This was sadly downplayed during the actual Fade sequence**, and made practically a non-issue on returning to Skyhold and talking to your various followers. The ambiance is presented as such that it should be terrifying, and we can see from some follower reactions, particularly Dorian's, that he was quite affected as well (romance AND friend version). If fact, when he asks how you are and you respond with, "I'm fine," he is displeased and responds incredulously, "I was there. You're just 'fine'?"

 

Now, from a development perspective in this type of game I can see why they can't do too much with the Inquisitor's reaction, the same reason that Cole doesn't probe deeply into the Inquisitor's feelings; namely the role play aspect of these game. The writers will NEVER be able to get such personal issues really right, so the solution is to either be so generic that it's almost meaningless, or to hardly touch on it at all, which is what they ended up doing.

 

 

 

** I'm not necessarily referring to their reaction to Nightmare's taunts. It goaded them and they responded as battle-hardened people should be expected to respond. But overall there seemed to be a lack of true terror.

[Mlady]

Actually...

 

"Puts on tinfoil hat"

 

I think that it could play out well if the "Fear Demon" was actually a Forgotten One, one of the "evil" gods of the elven pantheon.

 

Huzzah! Another twist! What starts out as the "Herald of Andraste" vs the "Elder One" now becomes a battle of divinely ordained/guided champions. The Inquisitor being Andraste's champion on the surface when he's actually Solas' champion while Corypheus is the self-proclaimed champion of the old gods while actually being the Fear Forgotten One's secret champion.

 

This could give even more motivation for Solas' aid to the Inquisition if we go with the idea that Solas sealed the Fear god in the Fade before or during the Veil's creation and that the Fear god's manipulation of Corypheus via feeding on Cory's fear (transformation by the Taint; his experience in the Black City; the decline of Tevinter; and being abandoned by the old gods that he was so faithful to (he is Leliana's dark mirror after all)) was meant to free himself and possess Corypheus to reenter the mortal world. 

 

When Solas realizes exactly whose behind Cory, this would make him feel all the more responsible for stopping Cory and the Fear god as he enabled their plans via allowing Cory to take his orb.

 

I honestly think we are all being played by the Forgotten Ones. Solas too. Mythal too. They want to be released and keep altering things to make it happen (like luring the Magisters to the City). That's my mini theory.

[actionhero112]

Writers of DA like keeping corruption as the main antagonist of the series. Organizations are corrupt, the blight corrupts, red lyrium corrupts, blood magic corrupts. 

 

I would not be surprised to learn that Solas has been corrupted in some way. 

 

Also the big fear demon thing wasn't really dealt with. We just kind of forgot about it. I think it's likely that it'll return in some way and we'll face a corrupted version of the individual we left behind when we confront it. 

 

EDIT: Writers also really like blood. Dragon age is a story of corruption and blood.

[Iakus]

 

EDIT: Writers also really like blood. Dragon age is a story of corruption and blood.

And in the case of Grey Wardens, corrupted blood 

[Dabrikishaw]

This would really work for me.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

The Nightmare is not the only fear demon or the ultimate source of fear in all the world. In Dragon Age, spirits of primal emotions are generally not powerful because they are simple. The only difference is that for some reason, fear demons don't have the same kind of upper limit of strength as other weaker demons. 

 

The Nightmare is specifically the embodiment of fear of the Blights, that's why it worked for Corypheus and why it is so powerful.

[Daerog]

This is not how spirits work.

 

If Nightmare dies... it dies. It doesn't return. Its spirit material may form again into a single spirit/demon, or multiple spirits/demons, and it may be a fear demon again, or it may end up being something else, but it is no longer as it once was. Solas' friend, Wisdom, did "die" in the sense that spirits die.

 

Hakkon died in JoH. A new spirit will take on the role of Hakkon later, but it isn't the same spirit as before.

 

Nightmare is a great villain, I agree, and it is certainly going to be mentioned again since Nightmare wasn't destroyed... or at least I hope so.

 

Ancient spirits/demons are great and Nightmare was able to develop a greater complexity (like Cole) due to its "age" and interactions with countless minds.

 

However, lets not forget that fear demons are not fear incarnate. They are not fear itself. They are not like the Endless in comic books, they are not even like the emotional entities in Green Lantern. They are not born from emotion or concepts. They are spirit that take on and are influenced by these things.

 

A destroyed spirit will disperse, and its spirit material will be in the Fade, then it will slowly form into a wisp(s) (or wraith), then grow  into more power and eventually take on an aspect, and then possibly continue to grow into power and become something like Nightmare or something.

[Daerog]

 

 

Actually one of the things that disappointed me about the game were the lack of intelligent demons in a game about rifts in the Veil that allow demons to invade the waking world.  Even pride demons, the elites of the demon hierarchy, were essentially rift-guarding mooks.  Having more clever demons running about could have been a fine opportunity to confront some of the more unpleasant aspects of human nature.

 

Well... there was Envy and Nightmare. Two good demon villains, at least. I'm not sure anymore if Imshael can be called a proper demon or not.

[Iakus]

Well... there was Envy and Nightmare. Two good demon villains, at least. I'm not sure anymore if Imshael can be called a proper demon or not.

Yeah, but Envy is only encountered if you do Champions of the Just.  Imshael, is, as you've noted, not really a "proper demon" and is only encountered in a side quest which frankly didn't have  a lot of content outside of combat anyway.

 

Nightmare was a good demon villain. Wish there were more, or the Nighmare had a bigger role.

[thats1evildude]

I don't see how the story would be significantly improved. In fact, I think it would be like removing Loghain from DA: Origins because he takes the spotlight away from the Archdemon.

 

The Inquisition battles Corypheus on several fronts: through straight-up combat with his troops, through espionage and through politics. Corypheus has successfully manipulated all the institutions that are meant to protect southern Thedas: the templars, the Wardens and the government of Orlais. He has schemes running over the entire continent to catapult himself to absolute power, and he has a wide array of followers.

 

Nightmare can bring a lot demons to bear, but that's about it. And while demons are definitely threatening, we have to consider that it gets pretty boring just fighting the same enemy over and over again. That's why DAO did have a number of subplots in addition to fighting the darkspawn, who themselves brought a lot of variety to bear.

 

Nightmare lacks subtlety. Even Nightmare's big part in Corypheus' evil plan — the false Calling and leading Corypheus' army of demons—  is useless by itself without a partner (Erimond) to con the Wardens into using a blood ritual that will put them under Corypheus' control.

 

To sum up, I look at anyone saying Nightmare should have been the villain as basically saying this:

 

"We don't like this over-the-top hammy villain who has no complex motivations. We would prefer it if this other over-the-top hammy villain with even SIMPLER motivations who poses a much more limited threat were the Big Bad instead."

 

Jesus, they even have THE SAME VOICE ACTOR.