This thread is like a trip down memory lane right now. Been slacking off on my Morri musings, got sucked into Witcher 3 (so good) then went on a massive Starcraft 2 binge. Then I remembered Morrigan exists. Will hopefully catch up on the previous pages soon but this'll do for now.
Ah yeah, you're right I just went back and looked. I think maybe I was misremembering that since the bits about Avernus and Fiona are mentioned by both Leliana and Morrigan. And how only Leliana mentions that the lands West where the Warden went are "unaffected" by the Blight, which is maybe interesting.
Of course, post Inquisition, Morrigan's "leads" and understanding of things were constantly being overturned. So I'm of the mind that if Morrigan thought she had some hot tip on how to cure the Calling, in fitting with how she was incessantly proven wrong in Inquisition, her great lead will probably just hasten the Calling and kill off the Warden. Well, I don't hope that, but eh, it's BioWare and they'd probably think that awfully clever.
Haha, I can just picture that, HoF being sent on a 3-4 year wild goose chase, comes back:
"You return, my love. Were you successful?"
"No, there was nothing there."
"Oh well, I did find another lead while you were gone."
"I'll depart immediately!"
Tears welling up in Kieran's eyes at the prospect of his father going on another endless quest.
David Gaider recently said in an interview that, at one point, there would have been different scenes for the Dark Ritual depending on your relationship with Morrigan and that DAO was going to be narrated by an old woman the player would assume to be Flemeth until it was revealed she was Morrigan.
The interview in question for anyone that hasn't seen it. Listened to it recently myself, most of it I've heard before in one permutation or another. Obviously the Morrigan as narrator thing is new. I think we knew that there were going to be differences in the DR scene, don't think we had confirmation till now the conversation would have been entirely different (as well it should have been). That combined with the pre-DR scene cuts as well, Morri faced a hell of a lot of cuts. My only disappointment is I'd kind of like to know the specifics of what would have been in this alternate romanced DR conversation. Was she more specific on the DR details and outcome, was the possibility for HoF to accompany Morrigan post-Origins still off the table nonsensically in that scenario?
I also wonder if it's possible Morri's romance specific stuff faced cuts back in Origins was because they thought that not many people would like her, but then she turned out to be one of the most popular characters, they're like "well, ****."
As an aside, I recall Gaider mentioning many years ago that if the budget had accommodated it, he would have liked to have all the LIs back for the Awakening expansion. This was only answering a question from someone at PAX iirc so don't read more into it than that. Now aside from how great that potentially could have been, I'd have been interested to see (or hear anyone else's thoughts) how they'd have tackled the Morrigan/OGB + romance issue in the context of a larger expansion with the correct PC, particularly if it had presumably allowed them to travel around together again. That initial meeting and how that would be reconciled to complete whatever goal was placed before you, you'd probably have a slightly different ending than we got in WH as well. Would have been really intriguing if they'd broached her regret on how things ended in Origins in a meatier expansion, playing off some of the lines we see in DAI. Not gonna happen now, but interesting to think on what could have been.
Yeah, I recall hearing something like that. I think they decided not to have Old Morrigan be the narrator after making her an LI and wanting to have her fate be a bit more mysterious? Though I would have laughed my ass off if Origins was narrated by Old Woman Morrigan, and then we cut to a scene of her telling the story to a bunch of children, and then the children say something along the lines of, "But what happened next grandmother?" Because that would have been both the greatest thing, for Morrigan shippers, and completely terrible and ruined the mood forever. XD
I really wish they had of given us different DR scenes. It's emotionally confusing to see the scene play out with your romanced warden, and then have the exact same scene play out with one of the other two. The current scene we have right now works for a Morrigan that wasn't romanced in my opinion. She's very confident, almost swaggering as she approaches the bed. In my mind a romanced Morrigan wouldn't be nearly as confident, she'd pretend to be, try to act aloof. But there would be hints that she is at least somewhat conflicted. Sure she knows that she's saving her lover's life, and that's a good thing, but given how he reacts she would at least feel guilt for having deceived him for so long, and be as conflicted about leaving as she shows herself to be when you talk to her during the battle of Denerim.
And in the case of one of the...other two...performing the DR the scene should have played to this. Agree to the ritual, screen cuts to black, we don't see any of it because we don't want to see it.
With regards to Old Morrigan, depending on what they'd have done there, I suppose they could have validated the Morri/Warden romance through that to some extent, which would have semi-allayed some criticisms. I would have also been a great chance to have old HoF and Morri together on screen but they'd need all kinds of omniscience to effectively pull that off I guess.
The second bit regarding the DR, I think this is one of the main things this thread ranted about extensively in the old days of the Morri thread, things are far more upbeat now actually, which is nice. There was more stuff pertaining to Morrigan that was cut, there were the scenes (of which there were to be multiple variants) depicted in Aimo's comic that were supposed to showcase Morri's inner conflict pre-DR, the version produced by Aimo was Alistair-centric though iirc. Then as I recall the DR was supposed to be offered in the player's tent so there would at least have been some more build up to it had that come to pass.
Now, all that being said, what if we'd got that theoretical nice romance-reactive DR scene *but* Morrigan still disappeared and there was never a chance to remedy that (because in that scenario we didn't get short shrifted in the eleventh hour). All the interviews with Gaider center on him wanting Morrigan to leave because reasons, so maybe we'd have got a "better" explanation, I dunno. I always found the inability to ask Morrigan why she had to go it alone to be the key flaw in the whole thing.
While I enjoyed the interview and despite many impassioned posts on the topic, I get why things sometimes turn out how they do. However, I can't help but feel a little disappointed that they made the same mistake with Morrigan in the WoS as they did with the DR, that to me was a little galling considering the outcry the last time it happened, to pull another major plot moment with minimal reactivity. After a point it's really just harming the perception of the character and that's a problem if Morrigan is supposed to be a fundamental face of the franchise, having HoF and Kieran who are both pivotal in changing her character discounted in the big plot moments doesn't exactly complement her development in my eyes.
Lastly, given that Origins might have been a once and done game, I'm not sure what the thinking was with the whole post-DR disappearing act, it seems a bit mean-spirited. Now, it lends more credence to criticisms of the time that Gaider had a tendency to "pull a Viconia" right at the end. Interestingly it also plays into some points I made in a previous post regards there being no actual plan for Morrigan and that Morrigan/Flemeth's plan in game terms was a shroud to use a plot device.
Yep. It should have been done much better. I've heard they were rushed at the end, and perhaps last minute story changes caused it to be changed and rushed, seems odd for a game that had a 5+ year development cycle.
The DR was totally dissatisfying. I recall on my very 1st DAO playthrough, I romanced Morrigan, and yet so detested her attitude in proposing the DR I choose to do the US. Further to that point, it would have been a satisfying option if you A.) refused the DR and B.) Let Flemeth go, if you could have told her Flemeth wasn't dead... and seemed a little PO'ed.
I think it's also worth noting that animosity towards how the DR was handled was somewhat exacerbated if, like we did, you participated on BSN at the time. The whole warden's story is over, Morrigan's isn't business being pushed, with the devs well aware of just how many cuts Morrigan had late-game made the DR an even more bitter pill to swallow. Cuts happen, fair enough, but to end a 70+hr game like that, yeah, I recall not being too happy as the situation unfolded. I think it was easy enough to buy into that spiel if you were a player that got a satisfying ending with closure, but Morrigan fans, initially at least, got screwed over no matter what actions you took in-game.
The DR itself- the idea was good, execution was not as good as it could be. There's issues with it especially with romanced Morrigan. I did the US first just to get it out of the way, only time I ever did it, Morri stormed off as expected. Then I did the DR and I wasn't expecting Morri to stay behind but I was expecting some type of option to accompany her, since the game starts throwing all kinds of choices at you at that point, all of which I turned down. Then of course, it transpires there was no option to go with her, so you just ended up with a feeling of incompleteness in the end. And had Origins been a one-off game, yeah, that'd definitely suck for Morrigan fans, seeing as how there wasn't really any rationale presented for explaining why the warden couldn't go with her. I think it's like you've said before, that they just wanted to have her leave just because, but in combination with the cuts it really harmed the endgame for romancers.
The more I think about Morrigan, the more I fall in love with her. It's been some months since I last played any Dragon Age game, the last one being Inquisition. It's crazy how I am still attached with this woman, the same could be said about Miranda from Mass Effect, my favorite characters from each franchise.
With Morrigan, I just want to play as The Warden and interact with her and Kieran again, but Bioware pretty much said it won't ever happen, which is kinda sad, but I wouldn't complain about her returning in the fourth game, or a mention that she's happy and is now living with The Warden and her son, that'd be enough.
Gotta stick with some beautifully written fanfictions out there! Nice to see the thread is still alive :3
See, I'd love to think this way, but with two games where Morri is, for whatever reason, largely unreactive to the aspects that lend the most depth and development to her character when it actually matters, I can't say I have confidence in how potential future appearances might be handled. That they don't seem particularly receptive to even a brief/unvoiced npc cameo by HoF, of which several suitable ideas would have slotted nicely in DAI, boxes him off into this unique double-standard untouchable status in the world, which definitely hurts Morrigan's story in my eyes. If they'd landed the DR and not bumbled the WoS, maybe, but as it stands, BioWare have maneuvered me into the camp where I'm not really sure I want to see one of my favourite characters again, which is quite an achievement and one entirely unique to their games.
And BurningLizard needs to slow down with his writing so I have some time to catch up, I'm like 8 chapters behind now. 
In happier news though, CDPR did a great job closing off Geralt's story in Witcher 3 and Yen's alt costume is kinda Morrigan-esque with the feathers and such so you can kind of play that and pretend Yen is some long lost grumpy sister of Morrigan or something.
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