Dragon Age: Origins/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

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<small>'''UPDATE''':</small> ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'' Headscratchers grew too massive for one page. The second half was removed and placed in a [[Dragon Age: Origins/Headscratchers/Part II|Part II]]. The second page is free to edit the folders ''already'' within. '''New edits should be added to THIS PAGE for coherence's sake.''' Repeat topics will be moved or removed.

 

** Your projecting your own beliefs about what my--or someone else's--character may be feeling about this situation. If the PC is protesting vehemently about the love of her life, future king of Ferelden, dying, a mage need only cast Force Field--which takes an instant--and charge on ahead. Alistair doesn't give you a choice, why should you give one to him? Why can't you save him? You didn't refute any of my points. The '''game just refuses to let you'''. There is neither rhyme nor reason to it, other than to force a [[Tear Jerker]]. This is through-and-through [[Fridge Logic]]. Think: a real person, instead of shoving her tongue down Alistair's throat, would take this valuable time to cast a paralyzing spell if she wanted to. You ''can'' protest, you just can't act upon it.

** Feelings or no, this is a WARZONE!!! The Archdemon is about to die on its own (and re-incarnate), the darkspawn are coming, neither you nor your companions are in any shape for round two. A Grey Warden ''must'' take the final blow ''now'' or this all starts again. You appear to be ignoring all of this by claiming that "a real person would do X with ability Y" rather than accept a part of the story when it actually makes sense. By your logic, any number of story events could be avoided by some specific action just because you are capable of doing so in-game. Should the writers bend over backwards to ensure that your character can specifically use Petrification to keep Duncan from killing Ser Jory because you personally got that skill early and wanted to? Besides that, exactly what would you accomplish by freezing Alistar? All you'd do is "force a [[Tear Jerker]]" yourself by making your character do it. The game already gave you a way to save Alistar and yourself, but you insisted on this and the story reflected that. I don't get why people are so insistent on a game giving them choices, but start moaning when those choices have consequences.

** The developers probably thought that if you were so desperate to keep Alistair alive that you would be willing to jeopardize the battle against the Archdemon by trying to immobilize Alistair just before he strikes the killing blow, then you probably would have taken Morrigan up on her offer.

** I think the point here was to highlight one of the difficulties about being on the hero's team; the hard part isn't sacrificing yourself to save the world, it's watching one of your friends do it instead. Your character either has the choice of respecting the decision of the man you love, or fighting him in the middle of a chaotic battle over the right to commit suicide and force him to watch the woman he loves die. I suppose the developers decided your character wasn't going to be that annoying.

* {{spoiler|If crowned, Alistair breaks it off with the female PC if she isn't a Human Noble. But, being king, he's perfectly capable of handing out titles himself and can make the PC his chancellor and the Arl of Denerim. If the nobility doesn't object to that, why couldn't he just give the PC the title and ''then'' think about whether it's impossible for them to be together?}}

** {{spoiler|1=The Landsmeet would almost certainly never accept an elf as queen of Fereldan, so it's somewhat understandable. And mages can't hold any title of nobility under Fereldan and Chantry law, so female mage PCs are just shit out of luck.}}

* {{spoiler|In Alistair's break-up speech to the elven female PC, he says two Grey Wardens can't have a child together--but that doesn't seem to be a problem for him if you're a human noble. Now you're just making excuses, Alistair.}}

** Refer to just above.

** No, I still don't grasp it. The point I was trying to make was, why does he HAVE to dump her jusy because ''marrying'' her isn't really a good idea at this point? Why can't he just keep her as a ''girlfriend'' like he has throughout the whole adventure? I'm saying, he doesn't have to ''marry'' her just to stay with her. Plenty of kings have offhand mistresses. Why does anything need to change in the relationship? And you bring up the point about not being able to produce an heir... well a human noblewoman is just as infertile because she has the taint too, and yet this isn't an issue for ''her''?

*** He doesn't HAVE to. It has already been mentioned that he can be convinced to keep the Warden as his lover.

*** Whatever. Still, I'm pissed that his immediate decision is to dump my poor mage/elf/dwarf like a sack of potatoes. If he loves me that should not have been his first choice, I shouldn't have to persuade him to keep me since he's the oh-so-mighty and all powerful king now. And the Couslands are not royalty, they are ''nobility'', which isn't quite the same thing. The Teyrn's family isn't ''that'' far up the lineup for the throne. And besides, a human noblewoman is just as infertile from the taint as everyone else. And again the point I'm trying to make is that it's the heartbreaking coldness of the break-up speech itself that really bothers me. Seriously, [[What the Hell, Hero?]]?

*** Did you not even read what I wrote? It has ''nothing to do with love''. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. No-thing. It is a sound political move that you are making and that Eamon and Alistair advocate. He will marry you if he hates you freaking guts, thinks you're pretty much just as evil as the darkspawn or whathaveyou. And, yes, I misused "royal", but the essence remains: Alistair is a bastard, Anora is the child of two commoners. The Cousland line stretches back beyond the Theirin line, and they were the most powerful noble family after the Theirins. Some people would have rather had Bryce as king over Maric. Marrying you tells the Bannorn that someone with noble blood who has been raised to rule is going to ascend the throne ''with'' the child of Maric. Essentially: Anora, but with less commoner and without Loghain. It's not like the Human Noble is allowed to marry Alistair after the fact. She gets dumped too. The infertility thing is important, but not more important than failing to get the crown in the first place. As for the "coldness"? I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing a man who knows he has to marry someone else and produce heirs for the good of his kingdom not wanting to make things more painful by being unclear and wavering. He says just about everything you can say in a I-Don't-Want-To-Break-Up speech: "I'll love you forever", "this isn't what I want", "I wish it was different", "I'm sorry", "I love you"; take your pick. If you bring it up later Alistair will essentially say, "Please, I'm begging you, stop talking about it, this is really, very difficult as it is, I'm sorry." In fact, I think one of the most redeeming qualities of all of this is, despite not wanting to lead you on and cause unnecessary anguish, he still obviously wants you to love him forever the way he'll love you.

* Did anyone else think that the {{spoiler|templar}} in Anders' personal quest is really zealous/stupid. I know they respresent the {{spoiler|Chantry}} and all that, but the way she ignored the the authority of the monarch AND the grey warden is really a break from what was established from the first game. {{spoiler|Duncan had conscripted Alistair over the Chantry objection but we don't see the revered mother secrectly planning to kidnap Alistair, not to mention that Duncan also conscripted mage PC over the objection of Gregoir, and there weren't any templar attempts to recapture the mage PC}}. It seems to me the her action would have provoked the monarchy and the Wardens for nothing. That aside, did she really expect to defeat the hero that slayed the archdemon AND cleared the mage tower full of demons, abomination, blood mages {{spoiler|AND charmed TEMPLARS}}?!

** She thinks Anders killed the Templars that were escorting him back to the tower. That's why she is so intent on making him pay. But yeah, she was being rather irrational about the whole thing. I get the feeling that years of intense religous training plus using a mind altering substance regularly leaves most templars with a poor grasp of reality outside of the Chantry and its rules.

*** It was his seventh.

** Technically, the Chantry is its own entity that has its own laws and follows its own rules. In a way, they are exactly like the Grey Wardens - a force that operates on their own without the oversight of any ruler beyond the Divine. As Alistair notes when you speak to him abotu his recruitment, there was a danger that when Duncan recruited Alistair, that the Revered Mother would have them arrested. In Gregoir's case, the mage PC's recruitment was A) being endorsed by Irving and B) during a time of Blight, when Grey Warden authority is much stronger. Those two elements, put together with the authority of the Wardens - who, it should be noted, have the right to conscript ''anyone'' - was enough to convince Gregoir to relent. Int he Templar's case with Anders, it was quite clear that the Templar in question was either deluded into thinking Chantry authority superceded Warden authority, or was simply trying to make an end-run around the law once she got Anders out of sight of the ruler of Ferelden. The fact that the entire sequence pretty much broke down into an exchange of "Warden authority overrides yours." "No, Chantry authority overrides Wardens! Attack!" its pretty clear that she was either deluded or simply [[Cowboy Cop|evading the law in pursuit of a fugitive.]]