Dragon Age II/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** There's at least two sidequests involving lyrium smuggling in DA:O - one from the Mages' Collective and one in Orzammar from the Dust Town dealer. The issue of a loss of Chantry control of lyrium (and thus their stranglehold on the Templars) also pops up if you let Dagna help set up a Circle of Magi in Orzammar. You can also get Ser Conrad accused of lyrium smuggling in Act 2 of DAII.

** Despite its addictive qualities and mana-boosting abilities, lyrium doesn't seem to have any real narcotic or stimulating effect one a person. Sure, you go into withdraw after you ''stop'' taking it, but it doesn't really appear to have any qualities that would make it attractive enough for your random civilian to start chugging the stuff long enough for the addiction to kick in. Even if it did, the stuff is so screamingly toxic that any unskilled dealer would kill off all their customers too soon to make a profit or themselves. Disregarding all of that, there are so many extremely profitable uses for the rock. If you're going to all the risk to smuggle an extremely dangerous substance under the nose of a government, you're not going to waste it by going for risky and non-profitable options when you can get big money doing something safer and more reliable with it.

 

 

== Anders Rivalry ending ==

* This is a pretty minor gripe but the possibility of having Anders turn against the mages in the end bugs me. He is probably the most extreme pro-mage character in the entire series and him just turning against them for any reason seems entirely out of character for someone of his disposition, to me it feels a bit like convincing Lennon to kill all poor people or something along those lines.

** Think you mean Lenin. Lennon probably wouldn't kill all poor people either, but Lenin was the communist.

*** Lennon probably wouldn't kill all of the poor people, that's why he used it in his analogy...

** I'm still not clear how Anders is redeeming himself for his crime by killing all the mages who had nothing to do with it. I mean, ''he's'' the one that actually caused all of this, he didn't contact anybody in the Circle about it. Sure he did it in their name, but Orsino made it clear that the Circle most certainly did ''not'' approve of this act. I understand that that it would be a gut-wrenching experience for Anders, but it still seems irrational to punish the actual criminal by making him kill people you ''know'' are innocent.

*** By this point, open warfare is raging on the streets of Kirkwall. Mages and Templars are killing each other, and mages are throwing around blood magic. At this point, one side or the other ''has'' to be destroyed to end the conflict. Either the mages or the Templars are going to be routed. Convincing Anders to side against the mages is convincing him to put down the very uprising he forced to happen - effectively forcing him to clean up the very mess he started.

**** It depends on which gender your Hawke was i've noticed that the female voice does have a bit of an accent.

***** To my ears, both male and female Hawke have the ultra Received Standard thing going on. Since Hawke supposedly grew up as a farm boy/girl in the sticks, this has never made sense to me. It's like a couple of kids from Yorkshire suddenly sounding like BBC announcers.

**** It's not just his/her voice that identifies Hawke as a Fereldan. Many Kirkwallers know Hawke is Fereldan at a glance and Isabela is able to spot it right away based on his appearance. On the other hand, some Fereldan refugees mistake Hawke for a Kirkwaller based on the way he's dressed.

**** Somebody with some knowledge of linguistics will have to give me an example of how Fereldans talk differently than native Kirkwallers because I just can't hear the difference.

** Or because Hawke ''has'' a mabari. Accents and stylistic choices aside, the gigantic dog is a pretty clear giveaway.

** Fereldans are regarded as stubborn and determined by Free-Marchers, something which Hawke is in abundance, as well as having the look of someone unafraid to knuckle down and get their hands dirty when dealing with a challenge. There is a reason why Ferelden managed to defeat a Blight in less than a year, not to mention why Hawke never ran for the hills when the Qunari invaded or when Meredith went completely insane.

 

== Where does Rock Armor come from? ==

** It's also worth considering that it might not be Anders that recognizes it, but Vengeance, who may well be old enough to recognize the amulet from the last time he saw one.

*** Thats even more impossible, Justice clearly had almost no contact with human culture in general when he first ended up possessing a corpse.

 

== Bodhan's accent ==

Why is Bodhan's accent so different from every other dwarf in Thedas? Whether they were born and raised on the surface or in Orzammar all dwarves seem to speak with a distinctly North American accent...except for Bodhan (and Sandal of course, but he's "special" so I don't think it counts). Where did Bodhan get that accent from and why don't any other dwarves talk like him?

 

== Sebastian's Loyalty ==

*** It's pretty clear that he wants to turn in Merrill and Anders but he doesn't think it's worth aggravating Hawke.

** By the time Sebastian joins the party permanently, he's likely heard of all the good work Hawke has done and Hawke did help him with his own personal quest regarding his family. In addition, Hawke is a respected noble and a friend to Sebastian. And at the end of the day, Sebastian's a good guy who doesn't mind helping his friends. I'm reminded of an optional bit of banter in the third act if Merrill is romanced, where Aveline asks her why she's sticking around when all these issues don't concern her, and her reply is that she loves Hawke, which is all she needs. It's kind of the same way with Sebastian - he is Hawke's friend. That is ''all'' the reason Sebastian needs.

** There's also the thing where hardly anyone in Kirkwall ever seems to notice that mage Hawke is an apostate, starting with them casting spells in the middle of the freaking Gallows.

 

** Maybe Varric has to say, "And then we got into a fight with x" so many times, he just doesn't bother talking about the panicking citizens?

** The NPCs are, for the most part, completely part of the scenery. You can't interact with them in any way and they never register that you're there. They just go about the same motions. Now, not being a game developer I can't say how hard it would or wouldn't be to program NPCs who get freaked out and run away/cheer you on every time you put your sword to use in front of them, as that kind of thing is more the forte of sandbox games like gta or elder scrolls. Still, rushed as this game is(they didn't have time to give darktown a night model), it's not particularly surprising.

 

 

Am I the only one who's a little unclear as to Corypheus' implied [[Grand Theft Me]] trick? The point of the wardens is that that trick, when used by archdemons, doesn't work on them. An archdemon soul transferred to a warden body kills them both; how's Cory able to walk around wearing a warden meat-suit?

* Because he's not an Archdemon.

* My personal theory is that he performed a soul swap and put Janeka/Larius's soul in his body at the same time that he put his own soul in their body. This prevents two souls from inhabiting a single body at the same time and destroying each other like when a Grey Warden slays the Archdemon.

 

== Qunari mages in Mark of the assassin ==

 

== Anders' Lack of Planning Skills ==

** While this is not that smart it is pretty true to life with radicals who want to bomb things, ever read up on the real bomb throwing anarchists of the 1870s through the 1930s.

** Actually, he does try some of those things--he ''was'' a part of an underground mage rebellion, and he ''was'' gathering allies. The public did start favoring the mages--remember the beginning of Act III? But Hawke never really gets involved because Anders deliberately won't involve him/her in the actual rebellion. But Meredith gets worse and the rebellion is all but destroyed over the course of the game. Blowing up the Chantry was his final, desperate act for action. In his mind, mages were going to stay oppressed unless something *big* happened. So he forced everyone's hand. Anders did not expect to live through bombing the Chantry. He never called himself the leader of the rebellion. He *wanted* to live, to a degree, but he also knew he wouldn't deserve it if he did. His plan hung on the crux of Meredith flipping shit and doing exactly what she had wanted to do--an Annulment. Because of that, rebellion was incited.

** ''established escape routes or anything else that would give the other mages something remotely close to an advantage.'' - Again, see the ''entire underground mage-support organization'' he was part of.

** ''He didn't bother to even define what the end goal was beyond [[Concepts Are Cheap|"freedom"]], as if screaming that word often enough would suddenly make everything better.'' Yes, he did. The end goal was to eliminate Chantry control over mages. A lofty, open-ended goal, but he had a defined goal.

** ''Regardless of how you feel about bombing the Chantry in and of itself, it can't be denied that it was probably the worst tactical decision possible for the well-being of the mages.'' Tactically? Maybe. The local Kirkwall Circle would be slaughtered. But strategically? No, that was brilliant. The objective was to start a war, and the destruction of the Chantry and the Templar slaughter of the Kirkwall Circle would do exactly that. It was exactly what he wanted.

** '' Why didn't anybody call Anders out on how idiotic his decision to declare himself "leader of the mage rebellion" was when he didn't think for one second about how to actually behave like a leader.'' - This would matter if at any point Anders ever actually declared himself a leader. An instigator? Yes. A part of the underground? Yes. A martyr? Absolutely. but never once did he consider himself a ''leader''.

****** The problem here is that you are basing your argument on those apostates encountered in-game by Hawke and the Warden. Of course most of them are going to be a threat: we're playing a game. We need things to fight. Most of the travellers we meet on the road are bandits, most Antivans are Crows, most Dwarves in 2 are Carta etc. It's not a fair sampling. As to Blood Magic you do not need to make a deal with a demon, that's just the only way to unlock the class in Origins. Hawke can become a Blood Mage without meeting a single demon, Malcom Hawke did in Legacy, Grace learned from Decimus and so forth. Anders even asks Merrill if she just cut herself and realized the power. He wouldn't ask that if it wasn't possible, even likely. You condemn the Mages Collective without proof. The mission you refer to is warning off the ''relatives'' of an ''accused'' Blood Mage, not warning off an actual Blood Mage. Now they might be lying but there is no evidence of that and given that another Collective mission is hunting down and killing Blood Mages I'm inclined to believe them. Most Collective missions come down to "get people to leave us alone non-violently." If that's not responsible what is? Then, as I keep saying, there's the Dalish. And yes, Zathrian, but if one insane Templar chapter does not comdemn the Circle than certainly one single mad Keeper does not condem the Dalish. Given the reactions to Merrill Blood Magic and demon summoning are extremely rare amoung them. And Velanna was thrown out for wanting to use perfectly normal magic in a violent fashion. Then there is Ella, Alain, Terrie, Lanaya, likely Mage Warden or Mage Hawke, most Warden mages and even Morrigan most of the time. I mean she's brutal but she's not going around killing people at random or getting possessed. Even with the "it's a game so we need enemies" thing we still get many such examples. As for Tevinter, yes, it sucks, but as I already said it sucks because it's a slave owning, imperialistic dictatorship not because mages are free. Even Fenris admits most mages there are little better than slaves, only the chosen few Magisters have power. Take magic away from Tevinter and it would still be terrible. Also as I've said before my posistion is not "mages should be completely left alone," it's "mages should be trained and policed, not treated worse than criminals because of what they ''might'' do." And as I've also pointed out the Circle simply doesn't work, as has been proven time and time again. When something causes a World War it might just be time to try something else.

*** Really, the largest logically fallacy espoused by the Templars is that the mages will go bad if backed into a corner. Now, this may be true at least sometimes, but the people spouting it are usually the same guys who backed them into a corner in the first place. An apostate who meets with a templar is faced with, at best, lifetime imprisonment and, at worst, immediate execution. There's no such thing as due process for a mage: either you're serving the Chantry's whims or your a target. When you're facing an enemy that cannot be reasoned with, you can't really blame someone for defending themselves. The templars are basically running up to a wild animal, screaming and waving sticks, then get upset when they get bit. Any templar who thinks that maybe reasoning with an apostate might be a good idea is called an idealistic fool and essentially told to stand in the corner by their superiors who swear by the method that's barely functioned for over a thousand years. I'm not saying that an apostate ''isn't'' a potential danger or that there aren't numerous mages guilty of actual crimes beyond "being a mage", but the Templars really do bring a lot of this on themselves by treating ''every'' mage as if they're seconds away from tearing the blood out of an entire crowd and ripping the Veil out of spite. If they were really interested in reducing magic-related incidents, they'd learn to vary their tactics based on the mage's psychology. Maybe even bring Circle mages with them when they go after more impressionable apostates to take them without a fight or undue stress that could lead to possession. Sadly, their too attached to outdated religious doctrine to think of anything ''that'' logically. A peace keeping force should at least ''try'' not to be seen as the enemy of those they're supposed to deal with.

 

== Tallis' choice in allies ==

** Its not clear what is actually something told by Varric and what is just part of the actual flashback narrative. We can safely assume that most of the inane stuff Varric either skipped, or is stuff that Varric glossed over. "During this time, Hawke spent a lot of time delivering stuff to people despite being Champion. I guess it was a habit he picked up. More importantly, we learned that...." Then again, Cassandra might have been demanding details like that; interrogators - despite what Hollywood would have you believe - tend to spend long periods of time talking with their interviewees, putting together details and asking a lot of questions, sometimes about seemingly inane things. You never know when a detail rattling around in someone's head could be vital.

*** As to spending time in caves killing spiders, Varric probably has a lot of practice with those parts, and wouldn't miss the opportunity to tell fish stories about "And then Hawke slew twenty--no, no, wait, THIRTY GIANT POISONOUS SPIDERS!!! Man, they were coming out of the walls, I swear! And just when we thought that was over, BOOM, A DOZEN MORE GIANT SPIDERS!!!"

 

== How did Fenris know Danarius was in the city? ==

** For the dozens per week, I am probably wrong about it. I think I remember conversations with Anders on the subjects, but he may not be the most reliable or unbiased source. Regardless the Kirkwall templars are violating Chantry law by doing it. For the record, they did have proof. Neither Alrick nor Meredith near the end were really keeping it a secret. Anders claims that he keeps seeing more Tranquil appear in the Gallows, running shops no less, and that many of them had already passed their Harrowing. Whoever was behind the Tranquilizations was flaunting it. I can understand Kirkwall turning a blind eye on it. It just bugs me that Ser Alrick brought this to the Divine and the Chantry as a whole did not investigate this. One would think that, regardless of their opinions on mages, the Chantry would enforce its own laws.

** They break their own laws because [[Might Makes Right]] and there's no one around to actually prevent them from doing so. The Kirkwall chantry basically works on the honor system with Templars, trusting them to behave responsibly.

 

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[[Category:Dragon Age II]]

[[Category:Headscratchers]]