I finished Dragon Age
May. 5th, 2013 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlofpreySo, after all my whining, I did beat Dragon Age today. Casual mode, but still. I did it.
Self-sacrifice again, huh Bioware? I guess it was a theme of the game, but still. It ended as I feared, but not as I'd hoped. Part of me was hoping Morrigan would fly in with a miraculously still alive Riordan at the last minute, or that - after finding Sandal hanging around with a bunch of Darkspawn corpses in Fort Drakon - it would turn out that Bodhan Feddic was secretly a Grey Warden, and he'd been following us around to make sure we were okay. Without telling us, for some reason. And he would turn up and take the final blow. And everything would be okay for those crazy kids Alistair and PC. Neither of those things happened. It was sweet of Alistair to offer to sacrifice himself, as I suspected he would, and a part of me was tempted given how often he complains about being protected from things and not being allowed to fight. But after following the romance plotline, I couldn't see my character letting it happen. Maybe I couldn't see her doing it anyway. So she died. Sob sob. It's actually mildly less tragic than the futures I dreamed up where she and Alistair were in love but COULDN'T BE TOGETHER BECAUSE HEIRS, though. So fair enough. I'm genuinely intrigued to know if letting Loghain go through the joining means you get an extra option to keep them both alive though. And I guess if you want AUs, there's always the Morrigan's Devilbaby option. BUT THEY STILL COULDN'T BE TOGETHER. MY TEARS, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM.
Even I don't entirely understand my attachment to Alistair. I sort of love him - and assume my character does - in a proper rom-com way, where he irritates the hell out of me most of the time, but I love him anyway. All I know is that a bit ago I saw someone talking about Fallout: New Vegas and how they had real separation anxiety when they weren't travelling with Boone, and they really shipped F!Courier with him, but he sort of irritated me a bit so I was like 'meh'. But now I feel the exact same way about Alistair. Except with slightly more rolling my eyes at myself. Oh well.
As for the ending - like I say, I'm sure there are other options, but given that Loghain's a torturer and slaver and Morrigan's option involves a devilbaby, I'm guessing this is the one you're 'meant' to take. It sort of made sense for my character, I thought, because she'd had to leave her Dalish clan, she couldn't be with Alistair, and all her companions were talking about leaving once the Blight was ended. So it wasn't like she had anything she desperately wanted to stick around for, if a sacrifice needed to be made, you know? But still. I'm torn because I know death ending are always sad, and everyone hates them because they're sad, but they're sometimes the best endings you can have for a story. But I don't know if it always works in role-playing games, where part of the point, and part of the enjoyment, is building up a character and imagining their life, and maybe imagining their future. And yeah, that's probably part of the power of the endings, and it's sad, and it's memorable. But between this and Mass Effect, I'm mostly just sort of reluctant to start another Bioware game again, because it seems like that all I have to look forward to. Creating a character, falling in love with them, and then having them die. Every time. It just seems a little wanky to me, to constantly have a Noble Sacrifice in every game. Just give them a break! Once in a while. Especially when they give their characters such shitty lives. Like Alistair - having been born an unwanted bastard, pushed around between a myriad of people who didn't want him, having every who cared about him and he cared about either ignore him or die, was I supposed to just let him die on a rooftop? Nope. Same goes for Shepard in Mass Effect - I mean you can pick different backgrounds, but my Shepard grew up an orphan in a dangerous slum, joined the Space Navy, immediately saw all his teammates killed on his first mission, then had to deal with the Reapers and no-one believing him for years, then died, came back, and had to keep fighting the Reapers, while a bunch of his friends died. And then at the end he basically had to probably die no matter what he did, making a decision he didn't entirely understand. It's kind of ridiculous.
Like - I thought part of my problem was that again, like I said about Mass Effect, Bioware seemed to be trying to throw too much into it, and it was a little bit of mood whiplash to go from Alistair explaining Darkspawn to you in between bouts of comedy bickering, to suddenly having to sacrifice yourself or him to end the Blight. But I think it's more that they need to just balance out their fun and their drama better. Like the comedy bickering - and I'll admit I probably got more comedy bickering than maybe other people, just because I was always desperate to have Alistair on the team - but the comedy bickering balanced out well with how sad most of the characters' backstories were. So when you go from that, being well-balanced, to having to have a super tragic ending, all the time, it just starts to ring hollow. Like the writers wrote this really lovely fun and sad game, and then got to the ending, and looked in a book for how to make the ending Important. And it was to kill everyone, or at least one person, horribly. And I know you get other options, but it's usually by being a bastard or doing things I don't think my character would ever do, so it's not really that much of an option for the actual character I'm playing. When the writers already appear to have a Self-Sacrifice ending in mind.
This is long, and I'm basically just complaining. I guess my point is that I find the constant Noble Tragedy tiring, and at some point - which is apparently around now - I just find myself less willing to invest in the next game. But I am probably still going to play Dragon Age 2, because I genuinely did love Dragon Age. And I know Noble Tragic endings are better than half-hearted, nothingy endings. So whatever. I still just find it a little wanky, that's all. Though to be honest, the fact there was so much DLC for Dragon Age probably made me think your character would definitely live through the ending and go on to do those missions, so maybe I was just surprised by it. But anyway, now that I do have the DLC - having worked out I need to download them from the disc - I will probably go back and play those with my character, at a point before they died, instead. I don't know. I always find it weird playing extra content when you've finished the story and you know how it ends. But it does mean spending more time with PC and Alistair, so we'll see.
Self-sacrifice again, huh Bioware? I guess it was a theme of the game, but still. It ended as I feared, but not as I'd hoped. Part of me was hoping Morrigan would fly in with a miraculously still alive Riordan at the last minute, or that - after finding Sandal hanging around with a bunch of Darkspawn corpses in Fort Drakon - it would turn out that Bodhan Feddic was secretly a Grey Warden, and he'd been following us around to make sure we were okay. Without telling us, for some reason. And he would turn up and take the final blow. And everything would be okay for those crazy kids Alistair and PC. Neither of those things happened. It was sweet of Alistair to offer to sacrifice himself, as I suspected he would, and a part of me was tempted given how often he complains about being protected from things and not being allowed to fight. But after following the romance plotline, I couldn't see my character letting it happen. Maybe I couldn't see her doing it anyway. So she died. Sob sob. It's actually mildly less tragic than the futures I dreamed up where she and Alistair were in love but COULDN'T BE TOGETHER BECAUSE HEIRS, though. So fair enough. I'm genuinely intrigued to know if letting Loghain go through the joining means you get an extra option to keep them both alive though. And I guess if you want AUs, there's always the Morrigan's Devilbaby option. BUT THEY STILL COULDN'T BE TOGETHER. MY TEARS, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM.
Even I don't entirely understand my attachment to Alistair. I sort of love him - and assume my character does - in a proper rom-com way, where he irritates the hell out of me most of the time, but I love him anyway. All I know is that a bit ago I saw someone talking about Fallout: New Vegas and how they had real separation anxiety when they weren't travelling with Boone, and they really shipped F!Courier with him, but he sort of irritated me a bit so I was like 'meh'. But now I feel the exact same way about Alistair. Except with slightly more rolling my eyes at myself. Oh well.
As for the ending - like I say, I'm sure there are other options, but given that Loghain's a torturer and slaver and Morrigan's option involves a devilbaby, I'm guessing this is the one you're 'meant' to take. It sort of made sense for my character, I thought, because she'd had to leave her Dalish clan, she couldn't be with Alistair, and all her companions were talking about leaving once the Blight was ended. So it wasn't like she had anything she desperately wanted to stick around for, if a sacrifice needed to be made, you know? But still. I'm torn because I know death ending are always sad, and everyone hates them because they're sad, but they're sometimes the best endings you can have for a story. But I don't know if it always works in role-playing games, where part of the point, and part of the enjoyment, is building up a character and imagining their life, and maybe imagining their future. And yeah, that's probably part of the power of the endings, and it's sad, and it's memorable. But between this and Mass Effect, I'm mostly just sort of reluctant to start another Bioware game again, because it seems like that all I have to look forward to. Creating a character, falling in love with them, and then having them die. Every time. It just seems a little wanky to me, to constantly have a Noble Sacrifice in every game. Just give them a break! Once in a while. Especially when they give their characters such shitty lives. Like Alistair - having been born an unwanted bastard, pushed around between a myriad of people who didn't want him, having every who cared about him and he cared about either ignore him or die, was I supposed to just let him die on a rooftop? Nope. Same goes for Shepard in Mass Effect - I mean you can pick different backgrounds, but my Shepard grew up an orphan in a dangerous slum, joined the Space Navy, immediately saw all his teammates killed on his first mission, then had to deal with the Reapers and no-one believing him for years, then died, came back, and had to keep fighting the Reapers, while a bunch of his friends died. And then at the end he basically had to probably die no matter what he did, making a decision he didn't entirely understand. It's kind of ridiculous.
Like - I thought part of my problem was that again, like I said about Mass Effect, Bioware seemed to be trying to throw too much into it, and it was a little bit of mood whiplash to go from Alistair explaining Darkspawn to you in between bouts of comedy bickering, to suddenly having to sacrifice yourself or him to end the Blight. But I think it's more that they need to just balance out their fun and their drama better. Like the comedy bickering - and I'll admit I probably got more comedy bickering than maybe other people, just because I was always desperate to have Alistair on the team - but the comedy bickering balanced out well with how sad most of the characters' backstories were. So when you go from that, being well-balanced, to having to have a super tragic ending, all the time, it just starts to ring hollow. Like the writers wrote this really lovely fun and sad game, and then got to the ending, and looked in a book for how to make the ending Important. And it was to kill everyone, or at least one person, horribly. And I know you get other options, but it's usually by being a bastard or doing things I don't think my character would ever do, so it's not really that much of an option for the actual character I'm playing. When the writers already appear to have a Self-Sacrifice ending in mind.
This is long, and I'm basically just complaining. I guess my point is that I find the constant Noble Tragedy tiring, and at some point - which is apparently around now - I just find myself less willing to invest in the next game. But I am probably still going to play Dragon Age 2, because I genuinely did love Dragon Age. And I know Noble Tragic endings are better than half-hearted, nothingy endings. So whatever. I still just find it a little wanky, that's all. Though to be honest, the fact there was so much DLC for Dragon Age probably made me think your character would definitely live through the ending and go on to do those missions, so maybe I was just surprised by it. But anyway, now that I do have the DLC - having worked out I need to download them from the disc - I will probably go back and play those with my character, at a point before they died, instead. I don't know. I always find it weird playing extra content when you've finished the story and you know how it ends. But it does mean spending more time with PC and Alistair, so we'll see.
