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[Heimdall]

It is endorsement, the characters and companions are constantly deprived of a third way in all matters,how hard would it be to find a candidate that's not Alistair or Loghain or Anora that would end the system of Alienages on the spot?

But isn't that what you are saying, there is no attempt to explain it, isn't that even worse?

That you don't get the option to end all social ills on the spot is not endorsement of those ills,

[Seraphim24]

You do know Tevinter had nothing to do with the fall of Arlathan, right? That elves had elven slaves and bled them to death in blood rituals, for instance?

 

And that there are Dalish clans that reguarly loot and kill travelling humans, right? 

 

Also, that the Dales fell because the Dalish abandoned humans, dwarves and other races to their fate during the Second Blight, right?

 

You are going to have to provide citations for your point about Dalish Clans regularly looting and killing, because considering the nature of Human treatment of Elves, they could possibly fall under self-defense, depending on the nature of the "traveling" humans and where they were traveling, and dozens of other considerations.

 

As to the point about the Dales falling, the idea was they were separating in order to re-establish their culture. Neutrality actually has advantages in certain conflicts, depending on the exact situation, it's not always so simple. At worst, you could say it was a strategic mistake, not some kind of abandonment, and considering the treatment of the Orlesians of the Elves during that time it's kind of easy to imagine why they might of been hesitant, why aid those who were just as likely to kill them?

 

The part about blood rituals and stuff technically fall under rumors, derived from human sources no less.

[Seraphim24]

That you don't get the option to end all social ills on the spot is not endorsement of those ills,

 

It actually is, on some level. I was constantly looking for an option to kind of take on the Circle, the Chantry, Fereldan, Loghain, just about everyone at regular intervals throughout my experience in DA. All these organiations and the people involved in them are a part of the same system on some level.

 

That would of made the game better, obviously perhaps a fair bit different, but better, nonetheless.

 

Besides, that wouldn't take excuse or explain the points about the Arl of Redcliffe, Cailan, Anora, and others who you pretty much are forced to support but are equally impossible not to tie to supporting this bad system.

[Seraphim24]

It doesn't matter what you say. Elf-haters will find reasons to hate elves no matter what you say.

 

 

I always love seeing human noble fans say this, since the same players who say this are the ones who played Cousland, Amell, and bought into the Hawke hype.

 

- Cousland is the BIGGEST Mary Sue I've ever seen. The entire Human Noble Origin is just one big hour-long ego stroke, where all the characters and even the opening narrative itself constantly sings the PC's praises for being part of the most super-special-awesome perfect, wonderful, flawless, oldest, richest, most powerful under the royal family, and the most universally beloved noblest family to ever exist, and treats you like you're the Maker's Greatest Gift to Thedas since Andraste just for being part of the illustrious Cousland line. (Then, on top of that, you get the usual praise for just being the Player Character, and then characters who know who you are attribute your awesomeness to being Bryce's son/daughter.)

 

- While no one sings the Amell's praises in DAO, the reveal that Hawke is maternally linked to the Warden Amell has caused many Sue-chasers to retroactively make their Warden Amell because they love the idea of the Amell family being this perfect, special, wonderful, awesome noble family that turns out Thedas' greatest heroes.

 

- Hawke: Need I say more? From Act 1 Hawke is constantly praised and worshiped by everyone s/he meets despite being little more than a glorified errand boy/girl most of the game. Post-game, Hawke is praised and worshiped worldwide as this great hero despite how most of Varric's stories involve Hawke failing miserably at most things s/he tries to do, unintentionally making things worse the few times s/he succeeds. The only things Hawke succeeds at are a) making their fortune in the Deep Roads, which involved losing their last sibling and accidentally finding and causing the red lyrium idol to make it to the surface, defeating the rogue Arishok, which just created a power vacuum for Meredith to fill once Hawke stopped the invasion but then just went home and sat on their ass for the next three years. Both the lyrium idol and the power vacuum contributed to Meredith's increased insanity and power, which increased the tension between mages and Templars in Kirkwall. Then Hawke failed to stop Anders from blowing up the Chantry and failing to stop the Circles from breaking and failing to stop the world from spiraling into open war. (And failed to kill Corypheus. Can't forget that.)

 

Hawke gets all the "greatest hero of the world" treatment without needing any of the accomplishments to warrant the praise. 

 

Players who buy into the Cousland, Amell, and Hawke praise and feel characters should worship their characters more than they already do because they think they're inherently awesome reek of Mary Sue. But sure, yeah, elves (the underdogs who're deemed inherently inferior to humans in every way) are the true Mary Sues. Sure. Yeah.

 

Yeah I can't believe they didn't make a human commoner origin because it was going to be too much of a "hero's journey" and then you get the ultimate in power hero fantasy with the human noble, I was like wha-?

[Heimdall]

It actually is, on some level. -snip-

No, it isn't. In fact the player is generally able to express their discontent with these systems. I would personally find it highly immersion breaking to have the power to overturn a nine century old social system simply because I'm the player character.

[Shechinah]

No, it isn't. In fact the player is generally able to express their discontent with these systems. I would personally find it highly immersion breaking to have the power to overturn a nine century old social system simply because I'm the player character.

 

This is why I am not so terribly fond of Leliana as Divine Victoria and try to avert that outcome even if I strieve for the changes she makes. That and I personally consider lasting changes to be those that are implemented over time to ensure stability rather than forced on society because the latter can sometimes lead to sociologically and economically issues if not properly considered from what I know.  
 

[Heimdall]

Yeah I can't believe they didn't make a human commoner origin because it was going to be too much of a "hero's journey" and then you get the ultimate in power hero fantasy with the human noble, I was like wha-?

A "power fantasy" where your entire family gets slaughtered and you're left to try and pick up the pieces? The only part that could be any more a power fantasy the other origins comes at the very end with the ability to marry the king/queen.

The reason they left out the commoner origin wasn't because it was a power fantasy, it was because the one they had come up with was too much of a "chosen" one scenario that they felt didn't fit.

[Seraphim24]

No, it isn't. In fact the player is generally able to express their discontent with these systems. I would personally find it highly immersion breaking to have the power to overturn a nine century old social system simply because I'm the player character.

 

No they're not, every 25 minutes you might get a dialogue option that doesn't actually do anything.

 

The player is fundamentally coerced into a path of essentially supporting those systems.

 

You are using whimsical and arbitrary game rules, excuses, the fact that "people can express discontent" and allusions to justify it's continued existence.

 

In Dragon Age, you defend, support, make companions, and otherwise to everything within your power to protect Fereldan, a country that for no apparent reason, engages in substantial violence and venom against a group of people out of apparently nothing else than base hatreds.

 

I'm just saying, that's really just like, not good. It would be better if we were defending a better country, that's not really debatable. Even better would be to displace that one with a better one.

[Seraphim24]

A "power fantasy" where your entire family gets slaughtered and you're left to try and pick up the pieces? The only part that could be any more a power fantasy the other origins comes at the very end with the ability to marry the king/queen.

The reason they left out the commoner origin wasn't because it was a power fantasy, it was because the one they had come up with was too much of a "chosen" one scenario that they felt didn't fit.

 

It's not a Superman power fantasy, sure, that's true, I was liking that poster because it's got a lot of true things in it but I'm not saying it's super bland, but it's pretty clearly identifiable as a power fantasy. I mean, even Superman's power fantasy isn't super power fantasy when you consider the relations with his parents and stuff.

 

But yeah the Coulsand arc is considerably more power fantasy than the other Origins (although I did not fully complete the game on the Dwarf ones... I read many things on human noble specific), and quite power fantasy in general. Becoming the like.. Queen of Fereldan? Er. Yeah.

 

Chalk me up as not one to be down on power fantasies in general though, I actually have no idea why people think generically good character arcs are bad, it's like, why is something bad because it's good, that's absurd.

 

However, I understand the concept as generally used to be discussing the notion of a boring stereotypical storyline that's been done, lots of tell, not show, and such, kind of a psuedo-hero arc and that would have to be the Cousland story for the most part.

[Shechinah]

In Dragon Age, you defend, support, make companions, and otherwise to everything within your power to protect Fereldan, a country that for no apparent reason, engages in substantial violence and venom out of apparently nothing else than base hatreds.

 

In Dragon Age: Origins? It is my impression that we are stabilising Fereldan to prevent the Blight from overrunning it and growing stronger. To some, It is less about defending Fereldan for Fereldan's sake and more about defending Fereldan against the Blight. You are recruiting the various elements to better the odds against the Archdemon and its forces to my understanding.

[Seraphim24]

Remember that Elves don't even need to exist in Dragon Age. All the lore regarding ancient civilizations, old gods, fade, magic, whatever, could be re-written to be some consequence of the Tevinter screwing around.

 

Then, you would have a highly contained, regimented society that simply enforces harsh rules against Mages. There doesn't appear to be serious conflict between Dwarves and Humans because they are separated, but the rest of Fereldan is just pretty much homogenous. It could just be a story about humans, Grey Wardens, and the blight. In fact, some of your allies in Origins are just the Sacred Ashes humans,

 

Instead they are there, for no other reason it appears than to be just well, recipients of the aforementioned kind of things.

[Seraphim24]

In Dragon Age: Origins? It is my impression that we are stabilising Fereldan to prevent the Blight from overrunning it and growing stronger. To some, It is less about defending Fereldan for Fereldan's sake and more about defending Fereldan against the Blight. You are recruiting the various elements to better the odds against the Archdemon and its forces to my understanding.

 

Stabilizing, defending, that's pretty much the same thing.

[Heimdall]

No they're not, every 25 minutes you might get a dialogue option that doesn't actually do anything.

The player is fundamentally coerced into a path of essentially supporting those systems.

You are using whimsical and arbitrary game rules, excuses, the fact that "people can express discontent" and allusions to justify it's continued existence,

In Dragon Age, you defend, support, make companions, and otherwise to everything within your power to protect Fereldan, a country that for no apparent reason, engages in substantial violence and venom out of apparently nothing else than base hatreds.

I'm just saying, that's really just like, not good. It would be better if we were defending a better country, that's not really debatable.

We're defending Ferelden because despite its inequities the alternative is simply to let everyone die. And that's worse.

I'm not supporting these systems, I support their eventual end. What I support is an element of realism with these issues rather than the power fantasy of making an entire social order bow to the player's whim as you would have it.

The inability to change a system is not support of that system. The player is only forced to play along with the system if they want to get the support they need to save everyone from something much worse.

[Heimdall]

It's not a Superman power fantasy, sure, that's true, I was liking that poster because it's got a lot of true things in it but I'm not saying it's super bland, but it's pretty clearly identifiable as a power fantasy. I mean, even Superman's power fantasy isn't super power fantasy when you consider the relations with his parents and stuff.

But yeah the Coulsand arc is considerably more power fantasy than the other Origins (although I did not fully complete the game on the Dwarf ones... I read many things on human noble specific), and quite power fantasy in general. Becoming the like.. Queen of Fereldan? Er. Yeah.

The dwarven noble can become a paragon, so I'd say that's probably more of a power fantasy.

[Seraphim24]

The dwarven noble can become a paragon, so I'd say that's probably more of a power fantasy.

 

Well let me rephrase. It's a power fantasy, it's not a power fantasy, call it whatever you want. Fundamentally, DA2 Hawke and Cousland though are somewhat bland fare, whether because they are too edgy and over-violent or generic power fantasies makes no difference to me. As far as media goes, they are vanilla.

 

A human commoner origin likely would have been much less so, if it was a true human commoner origin. Comparing it to Luke Skywalker is weird because Skywalker's dad is SPOILERS the high General of the Galactic Empire so um yeah that's more like a hidden status origin of a kind story.

 

Literally, no connections to higher society on the basis of class, origin, station, family, whatever, ascending, tends to be less vanilla, less bland, more exciting.

 

I'm pretty sure this is enough off topic on that though... that was really intended to just be a generic comment to that other person not to invite continuing discussion on this matter.

[Seraphim24]

We're defending Ferelden because despite its inequities the alternative is simply to let everyone die. And that's worse.

I'm not supporting these systems, I support their eventual end. What I support is an element of realism with these issues rather than the power fantasy of making an entire social order bow to the player's whim as you would have it.

The inability to change a system is not support of that system. The player is only forced to play along with the system if they want to get the support they need to save everyone from something much worse.

 

Well no Heimdall the alternative is to play a different game or engage a different media that doesn't have as bad a society. See what I mean? I'm just saying what I said in the first post, DA can be fun to play and stuff, but while the Circle-Chantry stuff is pretty bad, it feels like they tried to justify and deal with that issue more substantially.

 

The Elvish situation in DA is a toxic combination of no justification and no response to it.

[In Exile]

That wasn't my point at all, my point is that your characters, throughout the course of the DA experience, actively support, promote and otherwise defend the people responsible for this mistreatment.

 

The Arl of Redcliffe's support, it's pretty absurd to think he has literally never had a hand in maintaining the current system of oppression, whether by regular votes or just by association with the Fereldan state. In other words, it's pretty impossible to believe he doesn't on some level A) Know about it and by continuing in his role as Arl, and B ) support it.

 

And yet you can waltz in as a Dalish Elf and it's like he'll treat you ultimately like your his close relative, that makes... no sense.

 

Or take Cailan, Cailan who the character is constantly encourage to support, he's the king of Fereldan, and he never bothered in the middle of all this to end this kind of completely bad thing. Or when Alistair becomes King, he couldn't say, oh and lets end this horrible abomination of mistreatment for no reason.

 

At best, it's extremely inconsistent, at worst... well... it's the worst.

 

It makes no sense because that's the only way race choice works, but that's a separate issue. 

 

Of course, in helping the entrenched powers, you're essentially furthering the abusive power structure that leads to e.g. elves being exploited. I will object to one point, though: Cailan. He's a moron. It's absolutely possible that he has no idea what's going on around him. 

[Dabrikishaw]

Why do Elf fans feel a need to put down Human Noble fans? And I'm not asking this because I like Hawke, I really don't.

[Medhia_Nox]

@Dabrikishaw:  All elves are racist... that's why.

[In Exile]

You are going to have to provide citations for your point about Dalish Clans regularly looting and killing, because considering the nature of Human treatment of Elves, they could possibly fall under self-defense, depending on the nature of the "traveling" humans and where they were traveling, and dozens of other considerations.

 

The Dalish elf codex, if you are not a Dalish elf, has the following account from Brother Genitivi: 

 

"I took the road north from Val Royeaux toward Nevarra with a merchant caravan. A scant two days past the Orlesian border, we were beset by bandits. They struck without warning from the cover of the trees, hammering our wagons with arrows, killing most of the caravan guards instantly. The few who survived the arrow storm drew their blades and charged into the trees after our attackers. We heard screams muffled by the forest, and then nothing more of those men.

 

After a long silence, the bandits appeared. Elves covered in tattoos and dressed in hides, they looted all the supplies and valuables they could carry from the merchants and disappeared back into the trees.

 

These, I was informed later, were the Dalish, the wild elves who lurk in the wilderness on the fringes of settled lands, preying upon travelers and isolated farmers. These wild elves have reverted to the worship of their false gods and are rumored to practice their own form of magic, rejecting all human society. —From In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of A Chantry Scholar, by Brother Genitivi"

 

 

As to the point about the Dales falling, the idea was they were separating in order to re-establish their culture. Neutrality actually has advantages in certain conflicts, depending on the exact situation, it's not always so simple. At worst, you could say it was a strategic mistake, not some kind of abandonment, and considering the treatment of the Orlesians of the Elves during that time it's kind of easy to imagine why they might of been hesitant, why aid those who were just as likely to kill them?

 

The darkspawn are pure evil rape abominations. This isn't really a thing you can be neutral about here. And Ameridan confirms for us that the choice was made out of xenophobia and isolationism, and that's consistent with what we see in other contemporary codixes from the Dales regarding the relation/politics of the Dales re: Orlais. 

 

The Dales allowed the darkspawn to sack cities. Again, these are rape abominations that poison the land, feast on the flesh of the living, and cause untold and immeasurable horror. There'd be bad blood if the Dales stood by and let a regular human army sack an Orlesian city. What they did was just absolutely awful. And we also have the fact that the Dales almost certainly struck first in their war with Orlais. 

 

The descendants of the Dales are victims because of what Orlais did to them after their victory, but they're not victims in how the war came about based on what's been revealed. 

[In Exile]

A "power fantasy" where your entire family gets slaughtered and you're left to try and pick up the pieces? The only part that could be any more a power fantasy the other origins comes at the very end with the ability to marry the king/queen.

The reason they left out the commoner origin wasn't because it was a power fantasy, it was because the one they had come up with was too much of a "chosen" one scenario that they felt didn't fit.

 

Hawke fails at everything. People confuse Hawke being competent - literally being powerful - with what's usually termed a "power fantasy" (the games that do that one are DA:O and DA:I)

[Medhia_Nox]

@In Exile:  Yeah, but humans are offensive to Dalish sensibilities... so it's okay to attack them, drag them into the woods to kill them, loot their caravans and be pricks to anyone you can't kill outright... because, someone... somewhere... is wronging somebody.

 

Things I learned from the Dalish:

- Obsessing over my past will solve everything... except my future.

- I don't know the question, but outrage is the answer.

[AlanC9]

It actually is, on some level. I was constantly looking for an option to kind of take on the Circle, the Chantry, Fereldan, Loghain, just about everyone at regular intervals throughout my experience in DA. All these organiations and the people involved in them are a part of the same system on some level.
 
That would of made the game better, obviously perhaps a fair bit different, but better, nonetheless.
 

Of course, taking on those systems would fail. While I support the player being allowed to fail at stuff, I'm not sure adfing this would pass an ROI test.

[In Exile]

@In Exile:  Yeah, but humans are offensive to Dalish sensibilities... so it's okay to attack them, drag them into the woods to kill them, loot their caravans and be pricks to anyone you can't kill outright... because, someone... somewhere... is wronging somebody.

 

Things I learned from the Dalish:

- Obsessing over my past will solve everything... except my future.

- I don't know the question, but outrage is the answer.

 

That's presumably one clan. And it may not even be a whole clan - Velanna was exiled for being a violent racial supremacist. 

[AlanC9]

Hawke fails at everything. People confuse Hawke being competent - literally being powerful - with what's usually termed a "power fantasy" (the games that do that one are DA:O and DA:I)

Note that from the outside, Hawke's story looks like a power fantasy .... the refugee rusing to become the Champion of Kirkwall, blah blah blah. It's from Hawke's POV that it looks like a failure, except in the sense that survival itself is a success.

Is DA:I a similar subversion, in the end?