250 réponses à ce sujet

[draxynnus]

Especially given Morrigan's doubts that Flemeth was actually killed permanently.



They've actually set it up nicely so that in most playthroughs Morrigan can be possessed later and, if released, can comment either way that Flemeth had been slain and still came back to possess her - either because Flemeth's corporeal form was slain, or because the Warden told Morrigan that she was.

[errant_knight]

Archereon wrote...

Has nobody considered that Morrigans baby could potentially be the PC (human, half elf, or half dwarf) in DA2 (the possibility of the ritual not happening can be allevated by the fact it won't have an import feature (too much work) and will have a cannon ending like Baulder's gate.)

I'm hoping that isn't the case as I'll be very disappointed if DA2 jumps forward in time that far. A few years, sure, but not a couple of decades. I want to follow these characters, not delve into the next generation.

[kombra]

TheLion36 wrote...

errant_knight wrote...
Well, she says she doesn't know why Flemeth sent her, then later says that the dark ritual is the reason Flemeth saved them and sent her along. She lied about that one with total sincerity, which really puts a crimp in believing her about other things....

I still believe Flemeth taught her the ritual, possibly even a long time ago. However I don't think Morrigan knew why she was sent with you, but I think somewhere along the road Morrigan remembered the ritual and put two-and-two together and knew this is why she was sent.

I'm not convinced Flemeth told her about the ritual. I think she learned that from the grimoire. One indication for that is also that Morrigan not sleeping with you anymore isn't triggered by the approval rating (you can have 100% and she still sleeps with you), but rather giving her the grimoire. I think she makes the plan for the ritual after getting the grimoire.

[Maria Caliban]

errant_knight wrote...

I'm hoping that isn't the case as I'll be very disappointed if DA2 jumps forward in time that far. A few years, sure, but not a couple of decades. I want to follow these characters, not delve into the next generation.

Whether DA2 is set in the past, near future, or far future, I doubt we'll be following the same characters.

kombra wrote...
I'm not convinced Flemeth told her about the ritual. I think she learned that from the grimoire. One indication for that is also that Morrigan not sleeping with you anymore isn't triggered by the approval rating (you can have 100% and she still sleeps with you), but rather giving her the grimoire. I think she makes the plan for the ritual after getting the grimoire.

She offers you the ritual even if you don't give her the grimoire.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 17 février 2010 - 08:45 .

[TheLion36]

kombra wrote...
I'm not convinced Flemeth told her about the ritual. I think she learned that from the grimoire. One indication for that is also that Morrigan not sleeping with you anymore isn't triggered by the approval rating (you can have 100% and she still sleeps with you), but rather giving her the grimoire. I think she makes the plan for the ritual after getting the grimoire.

I think handing her the Grimoire makes her think about her love for you and it scares her, you did just do something really huge for her without wanting anything in return after all!  I still think her not sleeping with you anymore is a good thing, it shows she really cares. 
I'm also not sure what happens if you do kill Flemeth and not give her the grimoire, I remember there being a dialog about her having to figure out a way to protect herself from Flemeth on her own but I never tested this during a romance, I'm guessing she also won't sleep with you after that either.

And Maria is right she also offers you the ritual if you don't hand her the grimoire, so unless the game always just assumes that you did, however thats not really how DAO seems to be put together.

Modifié par TheLion36, 17 février 2010 - 09:44 .

[maxernst]

krylo wrote...

As I said, if you're going to let Flemeth live, this will not end well.

Flemeth is an ancient abomination that has been killing her daughters for what?  Three centuries?  Yeah.  Letting her have an old god will not end well, we can all agree.

However, if you kill Flemeth you have put CONSIDERABLY more risk into it than just stopping one nameless fade spirit.  You've challenged a legend to mortal combat.

One can hardly say the 'dark ritual' was handed to you in such a case, and whether Flemeth still lives should definitely be a large consideration in how this plays out in the end.

Well, if that's the case, then the Dark Ritual isn't necessarily a good thing--which is my point, after all.  But Morrigan doesn't expect Flemeth to stay dead, in any case, if you really kill her at all. (Keep in mind that we've seen a number of battles where an enemy seems to be "killed" several times), so at best Flemeth is only temporarily out of the picture.  And whether that matters or not depends greatly on what you think of Morrigan and Flemeth--opinions vary considerably on Morrigan's character.

Maybe not sleeping with you is part of the necessary preparation for the Dark Ritual?  She wouldn't want to conceive at the wrong time.

Modifié par maxernst, 17 février 2010 - 02:12 .

[errant_knight]

Maria Caliban wrote...

errant_knight wrote...

I'm hoping that isn't the case as I'll be very disappointed if DA2 jumps forward in time that far. A few years, sure, but not a couple of decades. I want to follow these characters, not delve into the next generation.

Whether DA2 is set in the past, near future, or far future, I doubt we'll be following the same characters.

Go ahead. Rain on my parade.

[blademaster7]

maxernst wrote...
Maybe not sleeping with you is part of the necessary preparation for the Dark Ritual?  She wouldn't want to conceive at the wrong time.

It's quite the opposite actually. She's already knocked up at that point and she probably doesn't even know it.

If you refuse the dark ritual, the epilogue will state that she's expecting the child of the Warden. In this case the child does not have the sould of an Old God, since the Warden(or Loghain/Alistair) got killed.

So basically if you sleep with her at camp she'll end up pregnant, ritual or no.

Modifié par blademaster7, 17 février 2010 - 02:44 .

[TheLion36]

blademaster7 wrote...
It's quite the opposite actually. She's already knocked up at that point and she probably doesn't even know it.

Wouldn't that make the ritual fail? I mean from a logical and realistic perspective you're right of course, if you don't do the ritual she is also pregnant so she must have been pregnant when you did the ritual, but I wonder if from a story perspective it isn't more like parallel universes, where in one story she got pregnant at camp and in one she never conceived until sleeping with you at the dark ritual.

Modifié par TheLion36, 17 février 2010 - 03:09 .

[TheLion36]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Whether DA2 is set in the past, near future, or far future, I doubt we'll be following the same characters.

Considering the feedback in the forums and the attachment certain players have to the characters, I'm not sure it would be a good idea for Bioware not making the same characters return, especially the romancing ones. 

I remember reading on the forums somewhere that the plan was to make the romances a long-term involvement in the series, but I'm not sure that was confirmed or just a rumor.

EDIT: Apologies for using 2 posts.

Modifié par TheLion36, 17 février 2010 - 03:14 .

[blademaster7]

TheLion36 wrote...

blademaster7 wrote...
It's quite the opposite actually. She's already knocked up at that point and she probably doesn't even know it.

Wouldn't that make the ritual fail? I mean from a logical and realistic perspective you're right of course, if you don't do the ritual she is also pregnant so she must have been pregnant when you did the ritual, but I wonder if from a story perspective it isn't more like parallel universes, where in one story she got pregnant at camp and in one she never conceived until sleeping with you at the dark ritual.

Hmm...  to be honest I thought about this before and you are probably right. You can only discover this if you reload the save(or play 2 different games) so the "parallel universe" theory may not be false. There is certainly some sort of "if" command involved.

But no one plays this game only once... riighht?

I would be surprised if they actually implement this ending in the future with a non-god child and all. But still,  the concept of Morrigan getting pregnant with your non-ritual-old-god-child is rather intriguing. Especially if you died lol.

[Masticetobbacco]

I didn't trust morrigan so I left flemeth alive



maybe she'll take care of morrigan and the demon baby for me?

[TheLion36]

Masticetobbacco wrote...
maybe she'll take care of morrigan and the demon baby for me?

Perhaps she will, but whether that is a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen... I personally have a lot more faith in Morrigan than in Flemeth. Flemeth appeared cold and distant wheras Morrigan seems to be discovering herself and her emotions and appears to finally have started creating her own opinions and not just following Flemeths...
This however depends entirely on your perception of them.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Let me give oyu a hypothetical scenario.

You have a friend of questioanble morals, who specialized in bipology/genetics.
You're gonna die from a rare desease, there is no cure.
That firend of yours offers to save your life, but he will have to experiment with your child first to do it. He assures you the child will not be harmed, even tough he will be tampering with it's DNA directly. If asked, he will tell you he never did this procedure before, but it should work.
You ask other biologists and doctors, but they never heard of such a procedure, and consider it dangerous and unethical.

Do you allow your child to be tampered with to save yourself?

This is basicly the issue with the Dark Ritual.
It's an evil thing by default, as far as I'm concerned, since it involves exposing a baby to unknown danger.

[TheLion36]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
This is basicly the issue with the Dark Ritual.
It's an evil thing by default, as far as I'm concerned, since it involves exposing a baby to unknown danger.

hmmm difficult... considering that there's also another benefit to the ritual besides it saving your life... If we assume the worst and Riordan, you and all the other grey wardens in Ferelden died during the fight with the archdemon and some low life soldier manages to get off a lucky shot and kills the archdemon... Without the ritual this would be useless, the archdemon would fall over and respawn immediately, the war is lost and thousands of Ferelden people die before aid arrives from the Grey Wardens of Orlais...
Now with the ritual that soldier gets off a lucky shot, kills the Archdemon and now the Archdemon doesn't rise again, those thousands of Fereldens live and the blight is "ended".

It remains the same ethical question, but now its not just 1 life that is saved by 1 baby, its thousands... which makes it way more complex.

I respect your opinion/view btw! 

Modifié par TheLion36, 18 février 2010 - 10:01 .

[Maria Caliban]

TheLion36 wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...
Whether DA2 is set in the past, near future, or far future, I doubt we'll be following the same characters.

Considering the feedback in the forums and the attachment certain players have to the characters, I'm not sure it would be a good idea for Bioware not making the same characters return, especially the romancing ones. 

Yes, some people think Dragon Age is Mass Effect, but it's not. Of course people want the same as before, they always do. When Dragon Age was in development, people wanted divine magic, with clerics and paladins. They wanted to play hobbits and gnomes.

What they *didn't* want were the Origins, because that was something they hadn't experience before, and if there were origins then they wanted a 'mysterious stranger' origins where no one knew who you are.

Would Dragon Age be a better game without Origins, with a god that granted divine spells to its followers, and with halflings and gnomes?

TheLion36 wrote...
I remember reading on the forums somewhere that the plan was to make the romances a long-term involvement in the series, but I'm not sure that was confirmed or just a rumor.

Given what we know of romances in Awakening, that doesn't appear to be the case.

[TheLion36]

Maria Caliban wrote...
Yes, some people think Dragon Age is Mass Effect, but it's not. Of course people want the same as before

I think Bioware also created this expectation in people by stating that your decisions would have impact on the game world and in Origins this seems to be only minor. Then in an expansion they mentioned that you could import your save game (just like with ME2) and therefor people just assumed their story would continue.

I think if Bioware wants to keep Dragon Age epic they might have no choice but to continue the story forward.

Maria Caliban wrote...
Given what we know of romances in Awakening, that doesn't appear to be the case.

For me this feels like the opposite, not offering new romances in this expansion prevents people from demanding their new romance to return in a sequel. Not making old romances appear also sounds logical if you're planning on continuing with them in a sequel, because people might skip the expansions and therefore miss the development of the romancing character and the romance.
They explicitly stated that the romances are still there, which gives me hope as well!  Althought this could also just have been a bone thrown to us to keep us silent for a while.

This is however only based on my own feelings and logic regarding what we know about Awakening, so I could be wrong of course.

Modifié par TheLion36, 18 février 2010 - 10:31 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

TheLion36 wrote...
hmmm difficult... considering that there's also another benefit to the ritual besides it saving your life... If we assume the worst and Riordan, you and all the other grey wardens in Ferelden died during the fight with the archdemon and some low life soldier manages to get off a lucky shot and kills the archdemon... Without the ritual this would be useless, the archdemon would fall over and respawn immediately, the war is lost and thousands of Ferelden people die before aid arrives from the Grey Wardens of Orlais...
Now with the ritual that soldier gets off a lucky shot, kills the Archdemon and now the Archdemon doesn't rise again, those thousands of Fereldens live and the blight is "ended".

It remains the same ethical question, but now its not just 1 life that is saved by 1 baby, its thousands... which makes it way more complex.

You're starting from an assumption that the rituals end the threat of the archdemon AND that when a archdemons soul jumps, it's an instant thing.

For all we know, the demon baby can be a greater danger to TheDas than the Archdemon ever was, and it might take years for the archdemon to get accustomed to his new body( meaning the BLight disperses after the archdemon is lsain, only to retuirn in a few years once the archdemon is back on his feet, so to speak.)

[TheLion36]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
You're starting from an assumption that the rituals end the threat of the archdemon AND that when a archdemons soul jumps, it's an instant thing.

True we don't know this, however considering the amount of pressure is put on the need to have Gray Wardens present almost makes it sound like its instant, otherwise the blights could be ended for a few years without Gray Wardens present to prepare. Even if the archdemon isn't in his full power he might still be able to command the darkspawn... We do however have no evidence of how this works exactly.

All we have however are assumptions, and the question then becomes: If there's only the smallest chance that the assumptions are correct, wouldn't that make it worth it?
Isn't the Grey Warden motto: Whatever it takes?

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
For all we know, the demon baby can be a greater danger to TheDas than the Archdemon ever was, and it might take years for the archdemon to get accustomed to his new body( meaning the BLight disperses after the archdemon is lsain, only to retuirn in a few years once the archdemon is back on his feet, so to speak.)

True we don't know whether the child is going to be a greater danger, however considering the nature of the child it could also be a possible solution for the taint in the future...

In the end I think based on the information we have now, we are both correct and incorrect at the same time... There probably is no right / wrong answer because we just don't have any information... Its like being on an intersection and having to decide to go left or right without even knowing where we are and where we are going...

Modifié par TheLion36, 18 février 2010 - 11:52 .

[krylo]

maxernst wrote...

Well, if that's the case, then the Dark Ritual isn't necessarily a good thing--which is my point, after all.  But Morrigan doesn't expect Flemeth to stay dead, in any case, if you really kill her at all. (Keep in mind that we've seen a number of battles where an enemy seems to be "killed" several times), so at best Flemeth is only temporarily out of the picture.  And whether that matters or not depends greatly on what you think of Morrigan and Flemeth--opinions vary considerably on Morrigan's character.

I don't think Bioware is going to, assuming they don't just go with a set canon ala KotoR, have things play out exactly the same way whether Flemeth is alive or not.  If you kill her you've also, probably, given Morrigan her true grimoire so that Morrigan can prepare for her attacks/defend herself, after all.

It'd make fighting Flemeth seem completely useless and pointless if things played out the same way regardless of what you did.

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Let me give oyu a hypothetical scenario.

You have a friend of questioanble morals, who specialized in bipology/genetics.
You're gonna die from a rare desease, there is no cure.
That
firend of yours offers to save your life, but he will have to
experiment with your child first to do it. He assures you the child
will not be harmed, even tough he will be tampering with it's DNA
directly. If asked, he will tell you he never did this procedure
before, but it should work.
You ask other biologists and doctors, but they never heard of such a procedure, and consider it dangerous and unethical.

Do you allow your child to be tampered with to save yourself?

This is basicly the issue with the Dark Ritual.
It's an evil thing by default, as far as I'm concerned, since it involves exposing a baby to unknown danger.

Your hypothetical is flawed.

It's more along the lines of this friend of yours offers to save your life, but she's going to need to use an egg sample from herself and a sperm sample from you to synthesize a tank bred fetus--that would not have existed otherwise--in order to perform the proper tests. 

And even that's not a fully correct allegory.

Remember, the ritual must be performed on a newly created child, which is why she needs to sleep with you the eve before.  When she performs the ritual and the old god is summoned to her the fertilized gamete would not have even had time to find a place on her inner uteral walls to find purchase.

Really I can't go any further with this line of thinking without turning this discussion into an abortion thread, which would be both silly and pointless.

But, suffice to say that I find your hypothetical jumps the gun a few times in your comparison to the dark ritual.

Modifié par krylo, 18 février 2010 - 05:39 .

[errant_knight]

There's a reason that we've all ignored this aspect of the ritual, except to reference it in passing. No one wants to see the forum devolve into a debate about when life begins, but that's where the ethics of the situation lie when it's considered outside the question of whether the child itself turns out to be evil. I think it's best if we don't go down that road.

[AlanC9]

TheLion36 wrote...

Wouldn't that make the ritual fail? I mean from a logical and realistic perspective you're right of course, if you don't do the ritual she is also pregnant so she must have been pregnant when you did the ritual, but I wonder if from a story perspective it isn't more like parallel universes, where in one story she got pregnant at camp and in one she never conceived until sleeping with you at the dark ritual.

It wouldn't necessarily make the ritual fail. Obviously the soul enters after conception anyway, or the ritual couldn't work in the first place. If Morrigan knew she was pregnant, maybe she wouldn't need the Warden for the ritual at all. Maybe she would. Who knows?

As for whether the ritual is evil or not, it kind of depends on what you think of Flemeth's motives, doesn't it?

Edit'; and from what we know of her -- not too much, really -- she's pretty bad.

Modifié par AlanC9, 18 février 2010 - 08:12 .

[AlanC9]

krylo wrote...

Remember, the ritual must be performed on a newly created child, which is why she needs to sleep with you the eve before.  When she performs the ritual and the old god is summoned to her the fertilized gamete would not have even had time to find a place on her inner uteral walls to find purchase.

Again, we don't know how new the child has to be. 

[krylo]

AlanC9 wrote...

As for whether the ritual is evil or not, it kind of depends on what you think of Flemeth's motives, doesn't it?

Not if you murdered Flemeth.

Then it depends on Morrigan's motives and whether Morrigan is even capable of doing the same thing that Flemeth had wanted to do with the child (assuming that our assumptions on what Flemeth wanted to do are even correct.)

Here's a fun theory that's been bouncing about in my head that pertains to this:

When an archdemon is slain by a Warden it doesn't actually kill the old god.  This makes sense in that an old god should be far more powerful than a fade spirit, and when fade spirits hop into a body containing a soul it doesn't murder everyone involved--quite the opposite, actually.  Plus, an old god's soul should, ostensibly, be more powerful than any mortal soul.  Instead the immediate conflict between souls destroys the body, and the taint with it (which can only exist as a physical thing, as that darkspawn have no souls).  The old god is then thrown into the fade in a much diminished form.

Now here's where the theory connects--the abomination that is Flemeth is actually one of the old gods that was defeated in a former blight.  This is also why Morrigan is so certain that killing Flemeth won't actually kill her after finding her black grimiore (even though all evidence says that murdering an abomination at the very least casts the fade spirit into the fade if not outright destroying it, where it is no longer a true issue).

Flemeth knows the ritual (and taught it to Morrigan) because she knows how old gods work, and the reason she wants this old god alive is because she wants to return the old gods to power and this would be far easier if urethewhatever doesn't spend a few centuries in the fade trying to find a way back to the physical plain.

That's a lot of conjecture, though, and pretty silly.  So feel free to shoot it down.

errant_knight wrote...

There's a reason that we've all
ignored this aspect of the ritual, except to reference it in passing.
No one wants to see the forum devolve into a debate about when life
begins, but that's where the ethics of the situation lie when it's
considered outside the question of whether the child itself turns out
to be evil. I think it's best if we don't go down that road.

I agree implicitly and will refrain from answering further issues down that road.

Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a thousand needles in my eye.

Modifié par krylo, 18 février 2010 - 09:02 .

[Solica]

Well, the only thoughts I intend to have about it are these:
We don't know and can't know, until we move to the future where the child is born and we find out.
I take the ritual, despite my misgivings about Morrigan not knowing what she tinkers with, because I refuse to have my char sacrifice herself as some kind of melodramatic suicide after Alistair has dumped her. She's a survivor, and I owe her and her friends to let her stay alive.
But it isn't exactly my choice for roleplay, no. She'd not risk letting something possibly very bad run loose in the world.
Still, even if it rings false, there was also always the thought that it would be a cool game to play. Maybe we even get to play the child as PC? (personally, I hope and thinks that Bioware, with DA, have moved beyond the old "good/evil" alignments, but maybe 'Good' or bad thing is up to us?) Who knows. So for that reason too, I went with the ritual.