112 Antworten in diesem Thema

[CoM Solaufein]

He wants Inky alive so he can be beaten. Deep down Solas knows he is wrong.

[DreamerM]

 With this, he comes across as just another Corypheus type.

 

Solas could kill a whole orphenge of children and still not be a "Corytheus type." He only does evil things when he believes he has to. In the case of the Inquisitor, he could, maybe, kill them as a way to spare them from dying slowly of the Mark. Maybe he could use his Dreamer powers to send their dying mind through the Fade to say goodbye to their loved ones. There's lots of ways to handle it that would make it clear how much he regrets what he feels he must do. It would make the moment when he actually does it that much sadder.

And it would make him that much more dangerous when the next protagonist comes along. If this is his idea of helping his friend, then how is he going to be when he's up against someone he hates as an enemy? Yikes. We haven't really seen his ugly side yet.

The thing about evil is it can't look at itself. Corytheus didn't know he was evil and didn't care. Solas knows he is, and yet feels this is what he must do. In a way, I think the second thing is worse. Someone who doesn't know they are evil can possibly be convinced with the right evidence. Someone who knows it and feels compelled to act anyway... that's someone who is really not going to show any mercy.
 

 

But I think a lot of people would hate it because it totally undermines their character's agency.

Yes, but at the same time, it's a chance to confront a player with an experience that videos in general rarely offer.

We all know video games are wish fullfilment. When I play a video game I'm powerful, I'm dangerous, and I'm friends with all the coolest people around. Since I'm the player, I just take for granted that I am Important.

But even important people can be random casualties of war. Even Important people can have their lives cut short before their time. Even Important people can leave with important things still undone. Even important people can be discarded when they are no longer needed. Even important people can be sacrificed in order to protect a larger plan. 

There's an episode of Supernatural where a Reaper tells a hero, "you're not the first soldier I've plucked from the battlefield. They always say the same things; 'I can't go yet,' 'it's not finished,' 'victory hangs in the balance.' But they're wrong. The war goes on without them."

In this case, the Inquistor actually IS mostly done. All major plot threads have been wrapped up, all major conflicts resolved. And the Inquisition is on it's way out even before the Qunari make a mess of everything. Basically all that's really left is the happily-ever-after with the love interest, which is what would make an Inquisitor's unavoidable death that much sadder... and why some way to say goodbye (and warn them of the danger) would be necessary in this theoretical scenario of mine.

Games don't usually force confront you with the idea that maybe the world will go on without you. You shut down your computer, and everything waits for you to pick it up again. Characters wait for their coded triggers. YOU can't be plucked from the thick of things. Not YOU. YOU are important!
 

[Giantdeathrobot]

His conscience stops him, I suspect. He says their death would cause undue chaos, and he deludes himself into thinking letting people live for a few years makes it more OK to kill the lot of them further down the road.

 

No other explanation makes sense. Even as prideful and powerful as he is, surely Solas can recognize the Inquisitor can be a potential threat to him, he saw them go from prisoner to Corypheus slayer. I surely wouldn't underestimate such a person.

[Nocturnalchemy]

Almost everything in Thedas that angers Solas can be mapped to something that angers him about himself. He scorns the Dalish for living in a state of ignorance that he, himself, inadvertently imposed upon the elvhen. He hates that nobody treats spirits like people, when he's the one who cut both kinds off from one another with the Veil. He disapproves if you Tranquil your enemies, despite the fact that he effectively Tranquiled the world.

 

I think Solas is largely motivated by self-doubt and no small amount of self-loathing. What if he's wrong about this grand crusade of his? What if he needs to be stopped, because he's actually wrong about everything, again? He's currently zero for two with world-changing decisions that he made for everyone else, after all. And he's smart enough that he can't have missed that point.

[Gervaise]

Solas does not believe himself good or evil because he doesn't believe in the concept of right and wrong, just cause and effect.   It is what he criticises about the process of making the Evanuris into gods.   People wanted chains of command, someone to tell them who the bad guys are and then they justify controlling the masses for the greater good.   It is why he hates the Qun above all things because on the face of it they have created a fairer and more equal society for all but in fact they have totally denied individual freedom up to the point that they actually manipulate the way you think.  

 

He doesn't want to be seen as a monster by a friendly Inquisitor because he respected them and he knows they respected him.   He wants them to understand that this is simply something that he must do.    The world is not as it should be; he made it that way or now he wants to change it back.   He doesn't really see the present world as real.  Like the tranquil he compares its inhabitants to, he is walking around in a sort of waking dream/nightmare that he knows isn't really what it should be.  His People are not what they should be and the ancient ones at least are slowly dying, as are the remnants of his old world.    A mage Inquisitor, given the right circumstances, can actually say they can sense the Crossroads are slowly decaying.    So he needs to save his People and restore their world.   It is purely a matter of survival.   He probably feels it is like a wolf protecting its cubs.   It may kill someone because they threaten their survival.    The wolf has not passed a moral judgement on the person.   It is not evil.    It is simply saving its own.   That is his mind set.  

 

Any action he has taken was with a view to achieving his aim of restoring the world to what it should be.   He misjudged what the orb would do to Corypheus.   He found the Inquisitor with the anchor.   He wanted to recover his orb and stop Corypheus doing something that would ruin his plan.   So he helped the Inquisition.   He would have stopped the Qun anyway from doing anything that would have affected the Veil, but he could have let them go through with their plan to overrun southern Thedas.    That did not affect him personally.   However, the Qun offend him.   He is not going to let them have these people.  So he involved the Inquisitor, so they could stop the Qun's plans.    Note he could have simply turned all the Qunari to stone and no one would have been any the wiser.    He involved the Inquisition so the leaders of the nations would be aware of the Qunari threat.

 

That said, having had contact with the people he intends to kill, he started to reappraise them.    May be he misjudged them.   May be there is something of value in the current world.    However, when weighing that value against his own People's survival, he feels he must proceed with his plan.    If a friend can come up with a better alternative, he would be willing to listen.    If they can show that his plan will not result in his intended outcome, he may listen.      It is not about proving to him that he is evil or his actions are evil because he doesn't recognise the concept.

 

He saves the Inquisitor because killing them will not advance his plan and saving them may have a future benefit to him, plus he wants to prevent chaos in the south.  Likely chaos will impact on his plans and he is able to feel compassion for those innocents who would get caught up in it.    It is all about cause and effect.

[nightscrawl]

.... kill the Inquisitor at the end of Trespasser?

Quizzy is alone, hurting, and has his or her defenses down. It would have been easy. And he's just confirmed both his plan for world apocalypse and his true identity, which even the Qunari apparently didn't know. He has to know, one armed or no, Inquisition intact or not, Quizzy alive is going to try and work against his plan somehow.

But he always leaves Quizzy alive. Even if you have low approval, even if you attack him, he still takes away the Fade Mark that was killing you and leaves.

Why? Sentiment? For old times? It's not like Quizzy NEEDS to come back for DA4, and it would sure have been a first for Dragon Age for the main character to die and there basically be no way to save them.

What do you think?

 

He says why in the scene. The Inquisitor's death would bring chaos to the South and he wants the world to be in (relative) peace before he brings the roof down on their heads.

 

Aside from that, I highly doubt the devs would have done something like that to the player. In that scene, as you say, the Inquisitor is utterly helpless and at Solas's mercy. It would have been a forced cutscene death, with no way around it. I guarantee* that most players would have been pissed, even the ones who don't like their Inquisitor all that much. Being rendered utterly helpless and then being murdered is not a good thing to do to a player.

 

Also, we have two examples of character death so far in the series with both the Warden and Hawke, and both of those are by player choice.

 

 

 

* Yes, I'm sure there are people on these forums that wouldn't mind it, and they will be happy to say so, but I did say "most," not "all" or "everyone."

[Inkvisiittori]

You can't kill Hawke. Even leaving them in the fade doesn't get you a death scene. Alive until proven dead.

 

You can see them fall to the ground dead when the Inquisitor looks back before going through the Rift. 

[Bayonet Hipshot]

If he kills the Inquisitor it may lead to unnecessary chaos.   He says he stopped the Qunari because they offended him but also because there was no benefit to him in letting them succeed and allowing innocents to suffer before they needed to.    He is arrogant enough that he feels that the Inquisitor poses no threat to him or his plans.   It is of no actual benefit to him to kill them or let the anchor kill them.   So he saves them and leaves.

 

It is clear that very few people actually seem to take the threat of Solas seriously or they would never have wanted to disband the Inquisition.  All the Exalted Council seemed to be focussed on was the Qunari threat that they felt Solas had provoked.    Only the Inquisitor met Fen'Harel and nobody else witnessed the conversation.    Are they really going to believe them when they say that Solas is an old elven god?     The Maker is meant to have imprisoned ALL false gods.    So the majority of people are just going to assume that the Inquisitor is in urgent need of retirement if they go on about it.    The epilogue actually says "those who believe the Inquisitor's story" and I suspect that most people would prefer to deny the truth than admit to it because the implications are just too awful to contemplate.    The Chantry have proved themselves able to do convoluted mind games with the truth.    

 

So in spite of the Herald's insistence otherwise, they will say the truth was that the bald elf is mad, the orb was never his, it belonged to the Ancient Darkspawn Magister and the Maker bestowed the anchor on the Herald in order to combat him.    When the Herald seemed reluctant to admit their task was done, the Maker took back his gift in order to make a point.    Solas knows the sort of thing they would do with the story so he had nothing to fear in letting them go. 

 

Orlesian noble:- "Ah, yes. 'Evanuris'. The immortal false ancient Elven gods allegedly imprisoned in the Fade with one called Dread Wolf running around. We have dismissed that claim."

 

Just imagine those words in a comical Orlesian accent. 

 

A mage Inquisitor, given the right circumstances, can actually say they can sense the Crossroads are slowly decaying.    

 

How does one achieve this ? Rift Mage specialization ?

[Qis]

The Inquisitor is a part of his plan...

[abnocte]

His conscience stops him, I suspect. He says their death would cause undue chaos, and he deludes himself into thinking letting people live for a few years makes it more OK to kill the lot of them further down the road.

 

No other explanation makes sense. Even as prideful and powerful as he is, surely Solas can recognize the Inquisitor can be a potential threat to him, he saw them go from prisoner to Corypheus slayer. I surely wouldn't underestimate such a person.

 

In the final battle you see the Inquisitor using the anchor to kill Corypheus, well more like sending him to the Fade... after all Cory can jump into the nearest tainted body making him effectively immortal.

 

The Evanuris are immortal, or as Solas says "not easily killed" so he created the Veil to imprison them. And even though Mythal was murdered, she still roams the world ( we have yet to see if Solas effectively killed her... )

 

So I dare to say that an Inquisitor without the anchor is in no way a thread to Solas. Actually, at the moment with our current knowledge of the world, I dare to say that there is absolutely nothing that can effectively kill him.

 

This is speculation on my part, but if we can't kill him the only way to stop him is to convince him that there is no need to tear the Veil, but if the time he spend in the Inquisition ( specially if romanced ) didn't change his mind, what could possible do a new protagonist do to convince him?

I'm starting to think that the Veil is going down no matter what, it doesn't make sense that something that would change Thedas so drastically is going to be an option in the keep...

 

Can wait to see what happens next  

[Medhia_Nox]

.... kill the Inquisitor at the end of Trespasser?

Quizzy is alone, hurting, and has his or her defenses down. It would have been easy. And he's just confirmed both his plan for world apocalypse and his true identity, which even the Qunari apparently didn't know. He has to know, one armed or no, Inquisition intact or not, Quizzy alive is going to try and work against his plan somehow.

But he always leaves Quizzy alive. Even if you have low approval, even if you attack him, he still takes away the Fade Mark that was killing you and leaves.

Why? Sentiment? For old times? It's not like Quizzy NEEDS to come back for DA4, and it would sure have been a first for Dragon Age for the main character to die and there basically be no way to save them.

What do you think?

 

I believe it's because you paid for he game and/or your survival is part of DA:4.

 

Fans will likely say it's because he's "nuanced".

[Fredward]

Probably he either doesn't consider you all that much of a threat/relevant, he's feeling sentimental, he want(s/ed) to bone you or he sees some kind of benefit in leaving you alive for future plans.

 

I am going to need  to outmaneuver Solas in some capacity in DA4. Feel free to bury it in Codex entries or obscure missions but I am going to need to catch that mofo flat footed at least once before he dies.

[Gervaise]

There has been some debate over on another thread about what you need to get the dialogue about the Crossroads decaying.   It would seem you need to be either a rift mage (any race) or possibly just an elf mage.   I'm not sure myself because I play elves and I got this with an elf rift mage.   I seem to recall I also got it with my elf Knight Enchanter but I haven't got a suitable save to check.    However, someone else got it with a human rift mage.

[DreamerM]

Aside from that, I highly doubt the devs would have done something like that to the player. In that scene, as you say, the Inquisitor is utterly helpless and at Solas's mercy. It would have been a forced cutscene death, with no way around it. I guarantee* that most players would have been pissed, even the ones who don't like their Inquisitor all that much. Being rendered utterly helpless and then being murdered is not a good thing to do to a player.

Of course it's not "a good thing." That would be the point. As I've said, in video games we take for granted that we are the Most Important Person in the World. We get our egos stroked a lot. Even our deaths are glorious: the Warden can sacrifice themselves in a grand gesture to save the world, and Hawke can single-handedly charge down a literal nightmare to save you.

But a death that's inglorious? A death where you're literally on your knees, powerless and alone? A death where there's a chance no one will know what really happened to you? A death where all you can do is decide what to say before the end? A death that isn't important, it's just part of the plan?

That's new. That's different. We haven't seen something like that in any Dragon Age game. Fans would have been apoplectic, no doubt, but they'd have rushed out to buy DA4.  Hashtag unfinishedbusiness. Hashtag justiceforquizzy. And there would be none of that rediculous "dual protagonist" talk that I keep hearing.

[Sah291]

Of course it's not "a good thing." That would be the point. As I've said, in video games we take for granted that we are the Most Important Person in the World. We get our egos stroked a lot. Even our deaths are glorious: the Warden can sacrifice themselves in a grand gesture to save the world, and Hawke can single-handedly charge down a literal nightmare to save you.
But a death that's inglorious? A death where you're literally on your knees, powerless and alone? A death where there's a chance no one will know what really happened to you? A death where all you can do is decide what to say before the end? A death that isn't important, it's just part of the plan?
That's new. That's different. We haven't seen something like that in any Dragon Age game. Fans would have been apoplectic, no doubt, but they'd have rushed out to buy DA4.  Hashtag unfinishedbusiness. Hashtag justiceforquizzy. And there would be none of that rediculous "dual protagonist" talk that I keep hearing.

I don't know, I think there's a reason that kind of thing isn't popular in an RPG. It ruins the illusion that the character is in part the player's own creation. It's one thing in a film or novel, but in a video game, there is still the expectation of being able to win or accomplish something, and people feel let down if the only option is to fail. So a glorious death where you sacrifice your character to win, is more accepted, but where you just outright lose, winning nothing, and game over? That's fine in a novel...but takes away the stakes in a game.

I don't mind a protagonist death in theory, if it makes sense in the story. But if they are doing it just to make a point to the player, that would kind of rub me the wrong way too.

[DreamerM]

 So a glorious death where you sacrifice your character to win, is more accepted, but where you just outright lose, winning nothing, and game over?

 

It's not really "losing" or "winning nothing," in this case. Quizzy has already won. The Rift is closed, Corytheus is dead, the mages/templar thing is stable, and all that remains to be done is to decide what to do with a bloated Inquisition that has outlived it's main purpose for existing. Their story is pretty much over.

They say the secret to a happy ending is knowing when to roll the credits. The hero of one story can be the random casualty of another. And it's not "game over" either, since this would give everyone, from the characters to the player themselves, a huge stake in the next protagonist as a chance to avenge the PC who was taken from them.

[Inkvisiittori]

I would be fine with the Inquisitor dying - but only if the death is meaningful. For some other character a 'death by accidentally falling of a cliff' would be fine, but not for the Inquisitor who has already escaped death miraculously so many times. Epic death scene that involves massive betrayal and epic consequences would be just fine by me. 

 

I loved ME3's ending and how Shepard had to die to stop the Reapers. I'm not against Bioware killing of player characters so long as it is well done and meaningful. 

 

But I wouldn't say that Inquisitor has "won", not yet. Solas plans to destroy the world and Inquisitor herself swore to stop him. They are still needed.

[Sah291]

It's not really "losing" or "winning nothing," in this case. Quizzy has already won. The Rift is closed, Corytheus is dead, the mages/templar thing is stable, and all that remains to be done is to decide what to do with a bloated Inquisition that has outlived it's main purpose for existing. Their story is pretty much over.
They say the secret to a happy ending is knowing when to roll the credits. The hero of one story can be the random casualty of another. And it's not "game over" either, since this would give everyone, from the characters to the player themselves, a huge stake in the next protagonist as a chance to avenge the PC who was taken from them.

Perhaps, but it's a long wait inbetween games, and I just don't think many players would have a found such an ending very satisfying.

If they just want to write a story around the fact that the protagonist isn't the end all be all of everything, then I would just prefer they write a story where the world revolves around them less to start with. Something more like DA2, where the fact Hawke couldn't save everyone was realistic, and the small more personal victories mattered more. It was a smaller scale story. But even that concept itself wasn't well liked.

To take the Inquisitor, a character based on a classic chosen one narrative, and compared to Andraste? That character deserves a more meaningful death to match, if they are to be killed off. The character being inconsequential invalidates the rest the of the story that they were ever important to begin with.

[9TailsFox]

Because Solas is not evil. He just to stupid to let go past.

[Gervaise]

I must admit that when we got that conversation with your companions on leaving the Winter Palace for the last time, I really did wonder if that was going to be it for my lovely Inquisitor.   When he said to Dorian that he had no regrets and he loved him and Dorian replied, you're breaking my heart, I was thinking "and mine!".    However, if they had been going to let it be the end, I'd rather it had been a case of you letting off the anchor in one final explosion, in the hope of killing Solas and then him just walking out of the debris.   That would have sort of been acceptable but not simply him killing you while you are on your knees.   

 

Now we have survived the encounter I don't want my Inquisitor killed off at the beginning of the next game or off screen.    I'd rather they not have any involvement at all than that.    Having them in the background as an advisor/mentor would be preferable so far as I am concerned.

 

The general reaction of other people I know socially who played the game at the end of Trespasser was "so we're playing the Inquisitor again in the next game."    It just seems logical the way it ended, apart from the bit about using new people that Solas doesn't know.   Which is why I think that the Inquisitor will fill an advisory role to the new PC.

[DreamerM]

To take the Inquisitor, a character based on a classic chosen one narrative, and compared to Andraste? That character deserves a more meaningful death to match, if they are to be killed off. The character being inconsequential invalidates the rest the of the story that they were ever important to begin with.

 

Well, yeah, which is what would make it so daring. Inky has been The Most Important Person In the World basically from the moment they stepped out of that rift. That character dying an ignominious death just because he or she had outlived her usefulness to the bigger plan... It wouldn't negate the importance of that character, or undo the things that character did. What it does is prove no one is untouchable, not even "Chosen Ones." The stakes are suddenly higher.

[Reznore57]

Well, yeah, which is what would make it so daring. Inky has been The Most Important Person In the World basically from the moment they stepped out of that rift. That character dying an ignominious death just because he or she had outlived her usefulness to the bigger plan... It wouldn't negate the importance of that character, or undo the things that character did. What it does is prove no one is untouchable, not even "Chosen Ones." The stakes are suddenly higher.

 

Putting aside killing the pc drama , there's a problem to that...the devs have been trying hard to make Solas look somewhat sympathetic.They aren't going to blow that by having him kill the PC.

[Ghost Gal]

I think it's because, on some level, he wants you to stop him.

[Sah291]

Well, yeah, which is what would make it so daring. Inky has been The Most Important Person In the World basically from the moment they stepped out of that rift. That character dying an ignominious death just because he or she had outlived her usefulness to the bigger plan... It wouldn't negate the importance of that character, or undo the things that character did. What it does is prove no one is untouchable, not even "Chosen Ones." The stakes are suddenly higher.

I get what you're saying, I just don't think it would go over well with players, that's all.

In a film or novel, you are not asking the audience to insert themselves into the protagonist, and something like this can work well. In a game, the player might very well just feel played with.

They already sort of lampshaded this with Hawke, with how the Nightmare demon taunts Hawke in Here Lies the Abyss, telling him/her things like "did you think anything you did mattered..."

But in an RPG like the kind Bioware makes, people like to feel they can influence the outcome a bit. If you are going to breach player agency to that degree with a forced death, the death should at least be meaningful and have some emotional payoff to the player. Whether it's a dramatic goodbye scene with a companion, an epic death scene slaying the dragon, or whathaveyou.

[dawnstone]

Does Bioware have a habit of killing off people's OCs in DLC? There's a good chunk of the playerbase who even if they wanted to pay for it, can't get Trespasser, because they have older consoles. Doing something like that to your customers would be super shitty on multiple levels.