121 odpowiedzi w tym temacie

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Is it just me or is Mage Hawke's story arc in Dragon Age 2 not very believable ?

Honestly, think about it. We have an unaffiliated apostate mage living in Kirkwall for 10 years or so and they spent most of that 10 years living openly among the Kirkwall society. Worse still, this mage could be a blood mage.

On the other hand, Anders has to hide underground for most of the time he is there and be on the run (even though he is a Grey Warden). We also have Merrill who has to stay in the squalor of the Kirkwall Alienage where most Templars don't come and look for people. The only exceptions to this is if Hawke decides to romance them.

I just find it very hard to believe that a city filled with zealous Templars and an even more zealous Knight Commander would allow an apostate mage (who is not a Grey Warden or a Dalish Elf) to run free for that long without capturing them.

Hawke could run around Hightown, casting spells everywhere and almost nothing would happen to them. Hawke could kill Templars and nothing would happen to them. Hawke could be talking to Knight Captain Cullen and would not get dragged to the Circle. Conversely, Bethany, the other mage Hawke, either does not escape Templar scrutiny for long and is sent to the Gallows or becomes a Grey Warden or dies.

I highly doubt Varric's bribes are that effective and that the Templars would not take his bribe and hunt down mage Hawke anyway. So how does one justify mage Hawke running around scot-free in a city that have harsh Templars and a harsher Knight Commander for more than 10 years without being dragged to the Gallows ?

[sniper_arrow]

Is it just me or is Mage Hawke's story arc in Dragon Age 2 not very believable ?

Honestly, think about it. We have an unaffiliated apostate mage living in Kirkwall for 10 years or so and they spent most of that 10 years living openly among the Kirkwall society. Worse still, this mage could be a blood mage.

On the other hand, Anders has to hide underground for most of the time he is there and be on the run (even though he is a Grey Warden). We also have Merrill who has to stay in the squalor of the Kirkwall Alienage where most Templars don't come and look for people. The only exceptions to this is if Hawke decides to romance them.

I just find it very hard to believe that a city filled with zealous Templars and an even more zealous Knight Commander would allow an apostate mage (who is not a Grey Warden or a Dalish Elf) to run free for that long without capturing them.

Hawke could run around Hightown, casting spells everywhere and almost nothing would happen to them. Hawke could kill Templars and nothing would happen to them. Hawke could be talking to Knight Captain Cullen and would not get dragged to the Circle. Conversely, Bethany, the other mage Hawke, either does not escape Templar scrutiny for long and is sent to the Gallows or becomes a Grey Warden or dies.

I highly doubt Varric's bribes are that effective and that the Templars would not take his bribe and hunt down mage Hawke anyway. So how does one justify mage Hawke running around scot-free in a city that have harsh Templars and a harsher Knight Commander for more than 10 years without being dragged to the Gallows ?

 

Hawke did learn some martial arts from his/her father in order to hide their identity as a mage. In Kirkwall where everyone's trying to hide their apostate status, Hawke may have found a way to blend in. Also, Aveline may have tried to hide evidence of Hawke as a mage.

 

Another explanation is that this is Varric's story to Cassandra about Hawke. He may have left out a few details such as the ones you've mentioned. 

[vertigomez]

Part of it's gameplay and story segregation. Nobody notices Hawke throwing fireballs in the Gallows just like nobody notices when a fight breaks out in the streets and people's limbs are getting hacked off. Logically, NPCs should run screaming for their lives when Isabela stabs someone in the face in front of them, or Aveline lops off their head... but they don't.

I just assume Hawke is using a combination of relatively low-key magic and martial arts/murder knife/polearm fu.

And at a certain point in the story, those in power know Hawke's a mage, but they're too popular and well-liked for Meredith to throw them in the Gallows.

Even Anders isn't really hiding. "You think they don't know I'm here? They just haven't caught me yet."

[Catilina]

Is it just me or is Mage Hawke's story arc in Dragon Age 2 not very believable ?

Hawke could run around Hightown, casting spells everywhere and almost nothing would happen to them. Hawke could kill Templars and nothing would happen to them. Hawke could be talking to Knight Captain Cullen and would not get dragged to the Circle. Conversely, Bethany, the other mage Hawke, either does not escape Templar scrutiny for long and is sent to the Gallows or becomes a Grey Warden or dies.

I highly doubt Varric's bribes are that effective and that the Templars would not take his bribe and hunt down mage Hawke anyway. So how does one justify mage Hawke running around scot-free in a city that have harsh Templars and a harsher Knight Commander for more than 10 years without being dragged to the Gallows ?

Not again and again, pls!

 

http://forum.bioware...es-story/page-6

Spoiler

 

 

But I admit it: there are some stupid solutions in the game.

[RoseLawliet]

 

Another explanation is that this is Varric's story to Cassandra about Hawke. He may have left out a few details such as the ones you've mentioned. 

 

So... he just added in every obvious display of magic? That would only give Cassandra the impression that the templars of Kirkwall really were incompetent, perhaps adding to her initial idea that Hawke was the bad guy all along. (Cassandra voice) Obviously, Varric, Hawke must have been a blood mage! To be able to throw magic around like that and the templars do nothing... That is mind control! Now tell me where Hawke is before I stab your book again!

 

It would also mean Varric is lying. Again. Cassandra doesn't like it when she finds out Varric's been lying about some things. Not to mention, she and the Divine thought that the templars had everything under control. That's why they didn't show up in DA2 to stop things before they got too far. So for him to give her that impression AND lie about everything else... That one horribly aimed punch she throws in Inquisition would not have been all she did.

[Sah291]

It's not hard for me to imagine mage Hawke, in the later half of the game, was not being openly targeted for political reasons.

Early on, Hawke is likely not running around using magic openly. It's not that much harder to accept than Merrill and Anders running around town with Hawke and not getting caught either. I would imagine someone like Hawke would be even better skilled at hiding it than either of those two.

And as others have said, there's a lot of game play/story segregation in this game... Random street gangs flying out of the sky isn't realistic either.

Meredith apparently turned a blind eye to that other blood mage noble running around town, Gascard. Probably because she found him useful.

[Jedi Comedian]

I headcanon my mage Hawke has been disguising as a TH warrior, using a bladed staff as a spear/halbeard/long hilted sword and not wearing conventional mage outfits. I think all mage robes in this game should be similar to the starting robe and all the staves bladed so this was more believable, though.
I would have kinda liked if there was a notoriety system like the one in Assassins Creed, in which you can only cast a limited number of spells before guards notice it and attack you, or something like that.
However mages would have to be more skillful in melee combat in order to be a viable system, of course.

[Illyria]

Is it just me or is Mage Hawke's story arc in Dragon Age 2 not very believable ?

Honestly, think about it. We have an unaffiliated apostate mage living in Kirkwall for 10 years or so and they spent most of that 10 years living openly among the Kirkwall society. Worse still, this mage could be a blood mage.

On the other hand, Anders has to hide underground for most of the time he is there and be on the run (even though he is a Grey Warden). We also have Merrill who has to stay in the squalor of the Kirkwall Alienage where most Templars don't come and look for people. The only exceptions to this is if Hawke decides to romance them.

I just find it very hard to believe that a city filled with zealous Templars and an even more zealous Knight Commander would allow an apostate mage (who is not a Grey Warden or a Dalish Elf) to run free for that long without capturing them.

Hawke could run around Hightown, casting spells everywhere and almost nothing would happen to them. Hawke could kill Templars and nothing would happen to them. Hawke could be talking to Knight Captain Cullen and would not get dragged to the Circle. Conversely, Bethany, the other mage Hawke, either does not escape Templar scrutiny for long and is sent to the Gallows or becomes a Grey Warden or dies.

I highly doubt Varric's bribes are that effective and that the Templars would not take his bribe and hunt down mage Hawke anyway. So how does one justify mage Hawke running around scot-free in a city that have harsh Templars and a harsher Knight Commander for more than 10 years without being dragged to the Gallows ?

 

I'm far more concerned by the fact that another settlement needs your help.

 

Here, I'll mark it on your map.

 

...

 

Like Vertigomez said - gameplay and story segregation.  Plus, Varric is telling the story to Cassandra.  He's likely eggerating the fights.  I've always assumed that Hawke fights mostly with her staff when in the city.

[Mlady]

Maybe Meredith knew and let it slide because of the things Hawke was doing for Kirkwall if they helped the Templars as a Mage, and if you helped the Mages as a Mage, Orsino was keeping Hawke from being captured? That's what I assumed at least.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

I'm far more concerned by the fact that another settlement needs your help.

 

Here, I'll mark it on your map.

 

...

 

Like Vertigomez said - gameplay and story segregation.  Plus, Varric is telling the story to Cassandra.  He's likely eggerating the fights.  I've always assumed that Hawke fights mostly with her staff when in the city.

 

Preston ftw !

 

Still don't buy it.

 

I think I will stick with Rogue Hawke and Warrior Hawke.
 

[Lazarillo]

Like Vertigomez said - gameplay and story segregation.  Plus, Varric is telling the story to Cassandra.  He's likely eggerating the fights.  I've always assumed that Hawke fights mostly with her staff when in the city.

I like this idea.  I've long enjoyed the headcanon that the reason areas are so repetitive is because Cassandra has limited imagination for different layouts for caves and such when Varric tells her were they were.  Perhaps I can give a Mage a try again with the idea that since she also tends to romanticize Hawke, a little bit, she gets caught up in the moment when Varric starts talking pyrotechnics!  I've not been able to suspend disbelief in the past, but maybe this will be the key...

[Ghost Gal]

I completely agree. This is part of what kills me about not only the game, but the ridiculous claims that DA2's writing is superior to DAO and DAI. Do people not see the MASSIVE plot holes and inconsistencies? The whole premise is some nobody from bum-f*ck nowhere who climbs the social ladder in Kirwwall despite  being apostate or having an apostate sibling living in, essentially, the Templar Capital of the World. Yet there are no repercussions for Hawke being a mage the way there are for said sibling, or literally every other character.

 

At least DAO and DAI gave logical reasons for why a mage protagonist could run around casting spells in broad daylight and never get arrested. DAO takes place during the Blight, and the Grey Wardens need powerful people to stop the Blight, so they have legal immunity to recruit whoever they need to save the world from the Blight. DAI: The sky is torn and you have literally the only tool to repair it. Plus you have a huge religious political organization touting you as their mascot. Plus, the Circles have dissolved.

 

Hawke's Templar immunity is poorly explained in DA2 because s/he has no such legal immunity or organizations to back hims/her up, yet also doesn't even bother trying to hide. The most common excuses I see are...

 

1) "Hawke needs to go to Hightown / spends most of the game living in Hightown, so their status protects them." a) Hawke doesn't get to Hightown till Act 2, so complete immunity for the Prologue and Act 1 (when s/he is a nobody refugee and then criminal) is inexcusable. b ) Bethany is discovered and taken to the Circle before Hawke manages to get to Hightown if Hawke isn't a mage, so it makes Mage Hawke's complete gold-plated plot-armor that much more noticeable. c) We see and hear of nobles losing their mage children to the Circle all the time. In fact, nobles lose their status (and thus social protection) when they have mage children. Leandra mentions how the Amell family lost face when her cousin Revka had several mage children, who all got taken to the Circle, and "me running off with an apostate didn't help matters," which contributed to their decline. Emile de Launcet is also a nobleman's son (around Hawke's age, and the son of Leandra's former fiance) whose noble status doesn't protect him from the Circle. Why is it that literally every other noble family loses status and children when there's a mage in the family, but magically (ha) that same status is strong enough to protect the Hawke family from the fallout of having a mage in the family?

 

2) "Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall! They're not gonna arrest their Champion." Again, Hawke doesn't become Champion till the end of Act 2, so literally four years (one year from the prologue, three years from the time skip from Act 1) of running around shooting spells in broad daylight and never once getting caught, questioned, harassed, or arrested (until Meredith threatens Hawke in Act 3, too little and far too late) is ridiculous.

 

3) "It doesn't work for the story they're trying to tell!" Then it's a poorly constructed and poor quality story.

 

4) "Gameplay and Story Segregation." Counter-argument: Immersion-breaking. Willing suspension of disbelief strained and broken.

[Sah291]

It's not just Hawke's status, although he wasn't really ever just a nobody, but was still a member of a fomerly important noble family in Kirwall...and an estate/property owner with independent wealth (post deep roads).

It seems like a lot of the nobility give their children up voluntarily due to shame/fear and threats over the loss of social status... But it doesn't seem like there is really much the Templars can do if a family instead actively choses to resist for some reason and hides someone. Hence Meredith needing help with Emile de Launcet. No one knew about Connor in DAO for a long time.

But anyway, besides status, there was Hawke's value as a negotiater with the Qunari, and then his/her relation to the mage underground (pro or anti), which were both problems. Meredith did not actually have complete political control over Kirkwall. Her gambit was to deal with the Qunari threat, and justify military rule of the city.... But Hawke beats her to it, in front of the entire nobility, who prefer one of their own to control Kirkwall. She then turns around and starts cracking down on the mages in relatitation.

The Templars were losing control in Kirkwall. Public opinion was changing. There were a lot of escaped mages running around, you encounter many of them. It's a story set during the lead up to a war.

[Illyria]

I like this idea.  I've long enjoyed the headcanon that the reason areas are so repetitive is because Cassandra has limited imagination for different layouts for caves and such when Varric tells her were they were.  Perhaps I can give a Mage a try again with the idea that since she also tends to romanticize Hawke, a little bit, she gets caught up in the moment when Varric starts talking pyrotechnics!  I've not been able to suspend disbelief in the past, but maybe this will be the key...

 

It's canon that Varric hates being underground and caves so he probably gives minimal description of the caves, and Cassandra knows Hawke is a mage so when Varric says 'and then Hawke took another Kirkwall lowlife' Cass probably pictures her using magic.  Varric likely throws in some completely innacurate and impossible magic stuff when describing the fights because it sounds better than 'and she hit the guy with her staff and he fell down.'

[RoseLawliet]

All right, but is what we see Cassandra's interpretation of Varric's story or what Varric himself imagining/saying? I ask mainly because of Hawke's default appearance and Bathany's... erm "exaggeration" during the prologue.

 

We go through the prologue with these details, then Cassandra tells him to tell the truth. We replay the prologue with more detail, "normal" Bethany, our post-CC Hawke, and possibly an entirely different looking Hawke family. Varric makes a comment like "Yeah, I liked my version better, too." It seems to me that Varric's version of Hawke is default Hawke unless someone is threatening to stab him. This is important, because it means we're seeing the story Varric is telling, not a listener's interpretation of his story.

 

And this would mean either A. Varric is relating the truth whenever he talks about a mage Hawke using magic/doing battle or B. Varric is exaggerating or outright lying about mage Hawke using magic/doing battle. Now, I'm willing to say that Varric tells the truth about some of the major events, but we know he has a penchant for taking artistic license with the story.

 

However, even if we see DA2 through Cassandra's imagination, that leaves the question of "By Andraste's holy rainbow granny panties, WHAT were the templars doing?"

[RoseLawliet]

Varric likely throws in some completely innacurate and impossible magic stuff when describing the fights because it sounds better than 'and she hit the guy with her staff and he fell down.'

 

Why would he do that when Cassandra is already suspicious of Hawke?

[Illyria]

Why would he do that when Cassandra is already suspicious of Hawke?

 

Because he's a storyteller.

[GoldenGail3]

I don't care, Mage Hawke is awesome.

[vertigomez]

If all else fails, OP, rely on the MST3K mantra:

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts
Then repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show,
I should really just relax.'

[Mlady]

I don't care, Mage Hawke is awesome.

 

My fav part is watching Cullen and the other Templars kneel before her if you side with them.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

If all else fails, OP, rely on the MST3K mantra:

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts
Then repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show,
I should really just relax.'

 

I don't care, Mage Hawke is awesome.

 

Just a few problems with that. I tend to value things like immersion and believability highly. 

 

Sure its just a show but if the show is so outlandish, then it makes you tune out.

 

Mage Hawke is awesome but given what happens to Bethany Hawke if you do not take her to the expedition, the fact that Mage Hawke is never taken in by Templars is an indication of plot-armor.

[vertigomez]

I don't know, if they're really looking that closely you'd think the Templars would be all over Fenris. He glows lyrium-blue and phases through people.

Methinks all of Hawke's party is wearing plot armor, and Bethany only got captured because it was more dramatic that way. Like how your sibling is conveniently the only person in the expedition to contract the Blight.

[Treacherous J Slither]

My canon Hawke is a mundane for this very reason.

It's impossible to immerse myself in the story as a mage. It's still fun though.

[GoldenGail3]

Just a few problems with that. I tend to value things like immersion and believability highly. 
 
Sure its just a show but if the show is so outlandish, then it makes you tune out.
 
Mage Hawke is awesome but given what happens to Bethany Hawke if you do not take her to the expedition, the fact that Mage Hawke is never taken in by Templars is an indication of plot-armor.

Everyone has some plot armor in game though.

[Lazarillo]

Mage Hawke is awesome but given what happens to Bethany Hawke if you do not take her to the expedition, the fact that Mage Hawke is never taken in by Templars is an indication of plot-armor.

To be fair, Bethany never gets taken by the Templars if PC-Hawke is a Mage (since Bethany is dead, granted).  There are plenty of possible "parallel universe" explanations that would compensate for that sort of difference.  Perhaps Mage PC-Hawke was a more careful Apostate, having traveled outside of Lothering a bit.  Perhaps it's the opposite, and non-Mage PC-Hawke accidentally let a few too many clues about his/her sister slip, not really fully comprehending the Templars' investigative skills.  Maybe Carver was bribing someone.  And so on.