I really do understand the need to railroad us into those actions, and how Kirkwall was really fucked worse than anywhere else due to the nature of the place and what had happened there.
However, from Hawke’s POV, it seems like you can’t do any good, at all, at any time. I think the only bit of difference you can make is with the Qunari, and that won’t prevent war or anything.
Everyone - especially your remaining sibling - talks about what a big deal you are, but you really aren’t. You’re interrupted in your bid to lead Kirkwall - maybe you could have actually made some changes with the Captain of the Guard as your friend and you becoming the Viscount. Anders blows up the fucking Chantry to start a war. (I understand his plight, but he’s still a terrorist even if he was right, not to mention the next best thing to an abomination.) Isabela creates a semi-occupation of Kirkwall by the Qunari. Varric’s plan brings Meredith’s evil sword to town. You can’t even keep a killer, whose trail you’ve been on, from killing your mom. And no matter what side you pick, your allies are psycho and turn on you, yet you’re still blamed/credited for the result.
I don’t sympathize with Orsino. He’s got a capable team on his side, including a highly influential noble. They’ve just fought off a big force of Templars, and he picks that moment to hit the “hey, I’m gonna go with the demons on this one instead, ok?” button? Christ, wait until things actually look bad or you see Meredith or something.
Who knows, maybe with some more power you’d be able to show that something was rotten in Kirkwall. (I still say no Circle of any kind in Kirkwall, ever again. That place is magically fucked up.) Of course, we know that couldn’t happen because this is a “bridge” game and certain stuff needs to happen. But the world is going to burn with this Mage/Templar War, the Qunari are totally going to take advantage of it, and one of your boon companions decided to use you as a patsy so he could kill innocent bystanders and start his Holy War. I doubt even my apostate mage Hawke could think too kindly of that action.
The thing is, this is not out of character for the Dragon Age creators. I think they wanted to show that sometimes, you are just fucked. As I said, they did it ham-fistedly, but they are all about real life results to your actions…
I used to be mad at their choice of how to end DA:O because as a female player, especially on your first playthrough, it was hard to get a happy ending. Most women I suspect would default to falling for Alistair. So he sacrifices himself and you lose your love, you sacrifice yourself and break his heart, you agree with Morrigan’s plan and bring god-knows-what into the world, or you really break his heart by “redeeming” Loghain and he’s pissed at you afterwards and in DAO:Awakening.
I was wrong, though. I liked that ending better. Here you’re just screwed.
DAO makes you take responsibility for your actions. DA2 makes you take responsibility for other people’s actions, when you can’t do a damned thing about them that matters.
Another thought: Now Free Marchers are really going to hate Fereldans.
Oh, you’re right on every count, definitely. Like I said, there were a number of different directions they could have gone - this is what they chose. I just hope they are going somewhere good with 3, since they did railroad us into this!
Agreed. But then, I became firmly Anti-Chantry my first DA:O play through.
They destroyed the Dalish homeland (given to the elves BY the Chantry’s precious Andraste - who we learned was, in fact, a mage) and then they enslaved the elves. In one of the DA:O epilogues, the Divine is considering another Exalted March on Orzammar.
Granted, I did not agree with Anders actions.
But then that is not Anders fault. The Anders of Awakening would never have merged with Justice in the first place or left Ser Pounce-A-Lot behind. His character was taken over by a different writer. This is why so much of the fan fiction is ‘No!Justice Anders’.
My frustration with the game mainly lies with their handling of Anders, the many reused layouts and the railroaded ending. I’ve not given up on the series, but I’m not happy with these issues.
The thing is, I am extremely pro-mage, and this game pissed me off as much as anyone - I ended it wishing I had sided with the Templars, for goodness sakes! At least I could have ruled then.
Yeah, my pet theory is that they were under pressure from EA to find out how little game BioWare fans would actually pay for. It was about the time that BioWare was apologizing for the cut-and-paste levels that they also announced that Mass Effect 3 was being pushed back a few months. That’s a good sign. Another title like Dragon Age 2 and I’ll have to rethink my policy of pre-ordering their games.
