The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
While I'm busy getting the next entry ready, check out my lengthy analysis of Dragon Age II:
View: https://youtu.be/neY-7sc6PvA
View: https://youtu.be/neY-7sc6PvA
No One Expected It: Let's Play Dragon Age: Inquisition
- Thread starter The Victorian
- Start date
- Let's Play
-
- Tags
- dragon age let's play
Part 10: Belle of the Ball
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As we deftly nagivate the decadent court of Orlais, we sneak into the Grand Apartments, where we come across an elven locket in Celene's private vault, proof that she and Briala were more than just friends. Getting this trinket is vital to getting a better ending in this quest, but if you've mismanaged your Halla statue collecting you might find yourself unable to obtain it.
After murderating a bunch of Venatori assassins, we have a conversation with Briala, and the drama of the scene is undercut by the very obvious clipping of her ears through her headgear:
"Smuggling in chevaliers" leaves me with the mental image of Gaspard stuffing them inside crates or something.
We tell her that we think Gaspard is behind the assassination plot, working in concert with the Venatori, and she tries to entice us into helping her with her own agenda. Cassandra complains about all this politicking and double-dealing, and I have to say that I agree with her on this point. A lot of modern fantasy writers have this strange obsession with court intrigue, and go out of their way to glamorise it, but here's the thing: there is a word for using one's position and the apparatus of the state to advance your own interests instead of the people's, and that word is "corruption."
And suddenly I feel the need to start erecting guillotines.
We return to the ballroom, we meet with Grand Duchess Florianne:
Setting aside the obvious mismatch between her head and body texture, she has a very...interesting...haircut, with her head being shaved everywhere except the top. (In German this would be called an Inselhaarschnitt, or "island haircut."). I seem to recall that, for a few years at least, this style was called the "fashy cut" owing to its popularity among the alt-right.
Florianne wants us to dance with her, and during the proceedings you must pick your dialogue options carefully, as they can result in large changes to your court approval. I say "carefully," but the vagueness of the paraphrases on the dialogue wheel makes it a crapshoot as to whether or not you'll pick the right one.
It's difficult to convey in screenshots, but the animation during the segment is just atrocious. Aside from the fact that the Inquisitor's legs keep clipping into Florianne's dress, it looks less like ballroom dance and more like a slow-motion wrestling match:
Florianne tells us to search the garden in the Royal Wing, where we can find the captain of her brother's mercenaries, who apparently knows all of Gaspard's secrets.
We have a chat with Leliana, Cullen, and Jospehine, and Leliana says that perhaps we should just let Celene die. Her reasoning is that Corypheus wants chaos, and that his plans will be foiled so long as someone emerges victorious from this little power struggle. This is basically your hint that this quest can have multiple outcomes, though it does sort of undercut any kind of tension or emotional stake the player might have in this quest: "Eh, it doesn't matter who lives or dies, so long as SOMEONE winds up in charge!" isn't really something that's going to motivate a lot of players.
We tell Briala about the elven locket, as well as the empress's handmaidens. This brings us to a conversation with Empress Celene, but she doesn't have much to say aside from the fact that Briala "wanted change" and thought she could deliver it.
Once all that's done, we head into the Royal Wing. In one of the rooms, we can find an elven servant being menaced by a harlequin assassin, at which point the player character, completely unprompted, simply boots him out of the window:
I'd make a reference to 300, but that movie sucked, and the Persians were the good guys.
The servent provides us with blackmail material on Briala, specifically that she was sleeping with the empress who "purged the alienage." Throughout this quest, I kept getting the feeling that there was a significant amount of backstory I wasn't aware of, and it turns out I was right, because much of the events regarding the Orlesian civil war are described in the tie novel The Masked Empire, which I haven't read, and have no intention to, because Orlesian court politics are insufferable enough in this game as they are, so why I would read a whole novel on the subject?
This is a very bad idea, putting so much backstory into a tie-in novel, because it assumes that the player is sufficiently devoted to the lore to actually read those novels. And if you haven't, then there's a distinct lack of context to events taking place. So far, the Orlesian civil war hasn't played any part in the story. We've never met any of the major players up to this point, and I'll wager that we'll never see them again after this quest is done. To make matters worse, all the players in this little drama are power-hungry, backstabbing jerks who elicit little sympathy, which means the player has little reason to care about the outcome.
Getting back to the story, we head to the empress's private quarters, and find a naked man tied to the bed. Does this mean that Celene is secretly into BDSM? No, he's just some poor schmuck who thought she would reward him for betraying Gaspard and giving her information about the troop movements in the palace.
When we head into the next section, our party is ambushed, and Florianne shows up to reveal that she is, in fact, the assassin:
Never trust someone with an undercut.
Gee, BioWare, it sure was kind of you to have the assassin just reveal herself instead of, you know, letting me figure it out myself.
She leaves us to do battle with her Venatori goons, as well as a Fade rift, and once the battle is over with we have a conversation with the mercenary captain, whom we can persuade to join the Inquisition if we have the Underworld Knowledge perk.
I really have to point out how astoundingly bad some of the armour is in this game. Cassandra is wearing the Revered Defender outfit, which looks like something more akin to industrial machinery than armour, and Varric's armour is just...ugh. And WHY IS EVERYTHING SO EDGY???
We head back to the ballroom, and publicly denounce Florianne as the assassin (alternatively, you can try to detain her, which leads to a boss fight). What happens next depends on your actions through the entire quest. It's possible for Celene to rule alone, for Celene and Briala to reconcile and rule together, and for all three parties to have a public truce. (The last option requires you to have blackmail material on Celene, Briala, and Gaspard). Alternatively, you can allow Celene to be assassinated, allowing Gaspard to either rule alone or with Briala.
For this play-through, Gaspard winds up being executed for treason, and Celene and Briala reconcile with one another. Celene then declares Briala to be the Marquise of the Dales.
"No one gets beheaded like Gaspard..."
(Fun fact: "Marquise" is the feminine form of "marquis," a noble title derived from the French word marche, meaning "frontier" or "border," and which ultimately comes from the Proto-Indo-European word for "edge." Thus, a marquis is quite literally an "edge lord.")
Morrigan is assigned as the official liason to Inquisition, because BioWare is absolutely in love with this character. I've played quite a bit ahead since writing this entry, and I have to say that, if you're playing as an elven Inquisitor, then a lot of Morrigan's dialogue later on becomes a bit...problematic, shall we say.
So here's why Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts fails as a quest:
- It involves a conflict that hasn't been properly built up or established
- The principal actors are unsympathetic and unlikable, and thus we don't care about the outcome
- It's filled with fantasy politics that are extremely uninteresting
- The game mechanics are obtuse and unintuitive
- The outcome is decided by factors that you cannot know about unless you save scum or use a guide
- The sidequests are just boring scavenger hunts
- The act of discovering the assassin is extremely unsatisfying, because the player does nothing to earn it except it following the path laid out for them
Well, if we kill every single member of the Chantry, then whoever is left must become the Divine by default, right? That's how this works, isn't it?
Upon returning to Skyhold, we're approached by a member of the Chantry, who informs us that, with the death of Divine Justinia, we'll have to start figuring out who's going to succeed her, and the two potential candidates just so happen to be Leliana and Cassandra. This is no doubt a not-so-subtle hint about a potential end-game decision, much like deciding who will rule Ferelden in Origins.
We talk to Cassandra about this, and she says that the Chantry has gone astray and needs reform. She says that Varric is, despite appearances to the contrary, an Andrastian whose heart is virtuous, but that he wouldn't be caught dead going to Sunday service. In her mind, an ideal Chantry should be the first place to which the virtuous turn.
"I don't know, Cassandra, I'm just saying that sclerotic social institutions must give way to more vibrant and distinctively elven ones."
Silevil, of course, loses some approval points for suggesting that the ChantrySHOULD BE BURNED TO THE GROUND needs "more than just change."
Talking with Leliana, she doesn't have as much to say on the matter, but at least she's somewhat understanding when Silevil expresses her desire to see the Chantry go away. She retorts that centuries of hatred against elves won't end with the Chantry (she's probably right on that one), and that without the Chantry that hatred will spiral out of control.
So obviously, the ideal solution would be to politically neuter the Chantry to the point where its authority is in spiritual matters only, much like the modern Catholic church. Somehow I doubt the game will give us that option, however.
As usual, we have a talk with some of our other companions. When go and chat up Iron Bull, he winds up being the victim of assassination attempt. He defeats his assailants handily, however, and he's not even bothered by the fact that they used daggers poisoned with Saar-qamek (you might remember this as the stuff that got unleashed in a Kirkwall alleway in Dragon Age 2). Iron Bull's been dosing himself with the antidote, you see, so it has no effect on him, and he suspects the attempt on his life "wasn't a hit" but a "formality."
Calling an assassination a "hit" sounds a bit too modern for a fantasy world. In fact, nearly ALL of Iron Bull's dialogue sounds far too modern for the setting. Honestly, he sometimes feels like a fan fiction original character written by someone who hasn't quite learned how to write dialogue appropriate for the setting.
We can talk with Morrigan, who's gone back to wearing her ridiculous, low-rent Lulu-from-Final-Fantasy-10 cosplay outfit from Dragon Age: Origins. She's also accompanied by her son, Kieran (who's actually voiced by Claudia Black's son, Odin Black). He appears mostly normal, if a bit odd, and certainly not the abomination some fans speculated he would be.
Keep in mind that this game takes place more than ten years since Dragon Age: Origins, so why is she STILL wearing the same outfit after all this time?
Morrigan says that Skyhold was built upon a site sacred to the ancient elves, and let's just say that this isn't the first time she'll be lecturing an elven Inquisitor about her own culture. But we'll deal with that in time.
After murderating a bunch of Venatori assassins, we have a conversation with Briala, and the drama of the scene is undercut by the very obvious clipping of her ears through her headgear:
"Smuggling in chevaliers" leaves me with the mental image of Gaspard stuffing them inside crates or something.
We tell her that we think Gaspard is behind the assassination plot, working in concert with the Venatori, and she tries to entice us into helping her with her own agenda. Cassandra complains about all this politicking and double-dealing, and I have to say that I agree with her on this point. A lot of modern fantasy writers have this strange obsession with court intrigue, and go out of their way to glamorise it, but here's the thing: there is a word for using one's position and the apparatus of the state to advance your own interests instead of the people's, and that word is "corruption."
And suddenly I feel the need to start erecting guillotines.
We return to the ballroom, we meet with Grand Duchess Florianne:
Setting aside the obvious mismatch between her head and body texture, she has a very...interesting...haircut, with her head being shaved everywhere except the top. (In German this would be called an Inselhaarschnitt, or "island haircut."). I seem to recall that, for a few years at least, this style was called the "fashy cut" owing to its popularity among the alt-right.
Florianne wants us to dance with her, and during the proceedings you must pick your dialogue options carefully, as they can result in large changes to your court approval. I say "carefully," but the vagueness of the paraphrases on the dialogue wheel makes it a crapshoot as to whether or not you'll pick the right one.
It's difficult to convey in screenshots, but the animation during the segment is just atrocious. Aside from the fact that the Inquisitor's legs keep clipping into Florianne's dress, it looks less like ballroom dance and more like a slow-motion wrestling match:
Florianne tells us to search the garden in the Royal Wing, where we can find the captain of her brother's mercenaries, who apparently knows all of Gaspard's secrets.
We have a chat with Leliana, Cullen, and Jospehine, and Leliana says that perhaps we should just let Celene die. Her reasoning is that Corypheus wants chaos, and that his plans will be foiled so long as someone emerges victorious from this little power struggle. This is basically your hint that this quest can have multiple outcomes, though it does sort of undercut any kind of tension or emotional stake the player might have in this quest: "Eh, it doesn't matter who lives or dies, so long as SOMEONE winds up in charge!" isn't really something that's going to motivate a lot of players.
We tell Briala about the elven locket, as well as the empress's handmaidens. This brings us to a conversation with Empress Celene, but she doesn't have much to say aside from the fact that Briala "wanted change" and thought she could deliver it.
Once all that's done, we head into the Royal Wing. In one of the rooms, we can find an elven servant being menaced by a harlequin assassin, at which point the player character, completely unprompted, simply boots him out of the window:
I'd make a reference to 300, but that movie sucked, and the Persians were the good guys.
The servent provides us with blackmail material on Briala, specifically that she was sleeping with the empress who "purged the alienage." Throughout this quest, I kept getting the feeling that there was a significant amount of backstory I wasn't aware of, and it turns out I was right, because much of the events regarding the Orlesian civil war are described in the tie novel The Masked Empire, which I haven't read, and have no intention to, because Orlesian court politics are insufferable enough in this game as they are, so why I would read a whole novel on the subject?
This is a very bad idea, putting so much backstory into a tie-in novel, because it assumes that the player is sufficiently devoted to the lore to actually read those novels. And if you haven't, then there's a distinct lack of context to events taking place. So far, the Orlesian civil war hasn't played any part in the story. We've never met any of the major players up to this point, and I'll wager that we'll never see them again after this quest is done. To make matters worse, all the players in this little drama are power-hungry, backstabbing jerks who elicit little sympathy, which means the player has little reason to care about the outcome.
Getting back to the story, we head to the empress's private quarters, and find a naked man tied to the bed. Does this mean that Celene is secretly into BDSM? No, he's just some poor schmuck who thought she would reward him for betraying Gaspard and giving her information about the troop movements in the palace.
When we head into the next section, our party is ambushed, and Florianne shows up to reveal that she is, in fact, the assassin:
Never trust someone with an undercut.
Gee, BioWare, it sure was kind of you to have the assassin just reveal herself instead of, you know, letting me figure it out myself.
She leaves us to do battle with her Venatori goons, as well as a Fade rift, and once the battle is over with we have a conversation with the mercenary captain, whom we can persuade to join the Inquisition if we have the Underworld Knowledge perk.
I really have to point out how astoundingly bad some of the armour is in this game. Cassandra is wearing the Revered Defender outfit, which looks like something more akin to industrial machinery than armour, and Varric's armour is just...ugh. And WHY IS EVERYTHING SO EDGY???
We head back to the ballroom, and publicly denounce Florianne as the assassin (alternatively, you can try to detain her, which leads to a boss fight). What happens next depends on your actions through the entire quest. It's possible for Celene to rule alone, for Celene and Briala to reconcile and rule together, and for all three parties to have a public truce. (The last option requires you to have blackmail material on Celene, Briala, and Gaspard). Alternatively, you can allow Celene to be assassinated, allowing Gaspard to either rule alone or with Briala.
For this play-through, Gaspard winds up being executed for treason, and Celene and Briala reconcile with one another. Celene then declares Briala to be the Marquise of the Dales.
"No one gets beheaded like Gaspard..."
(Fun fact: "Marquise" is the feminine form of "marquis," a noble title derived from the French word marche, meaning "frontier" or "border," and which ultimately comes from the Proto-Indo-European word for "edge." Thus, a marquis is quite literally an "edge lord.")
Morrigan is assigned as the official liason to Inquisition, because BioWare is absolutely in love with this character. I've played quite a bit ahead since writing this entry, and I have to say that, if you're playing as an elven Inquisitor, then a lot of Morrigan's dialogue later on becomes a bit...problematic, shall we say.
So here's why Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts fails as a quest:
- It involves a conflict that hasn't been properly built up or established
- The principal actors are unsympathetic and unlikable, and thus we don't care about the outcome
- It's filled with fantasy politics that are extremely uninteresting
- The game mechanics are obtuse and unintuitive
- The outcome is decided by factors that you cannot know about unless you save scum or use a guide
- The sidequests are just boring scavenger hunts
- The act of discovering the assassin is extremely unsatisfying, because the player does nothing to earn it except it following the path laid out for them
Well, if we kill every single member of the Chantry, then whoever is left must become the Divine by default, right? That's how this works, isn't it?
Upon returning to Skyhold, we're approached by a member of the Chantry, who informs us that, with the death of Divine Justinia, we'll have to start figuring out who's going to succeed her, and the two potential candidates just so happen to be Leliana and Cassandra. This is no doubt a not-so-subtle hint about a potential end-game decision, much like deciding who will rule Ferelden in Origins.
We talk to Cassandra about this, and she says that the Chantry has gone astray and needs reform. She says that Varric is, despite appearances to the contrary, an Andrastian whose heart is virtuous, but that he wouldn't be caught dead going to Sunday service. In her mind, an ideal Chantry should be the first place to which the virtuous turn.
"I don't know, Cassandra, I'm just saying that sclerotic social institutions must give way to more vibrant and distinctively elven ones."
Silevil, of course, loses some approval points for suggesting that the Chantry
Talking with Leliana, she doesn't have as much to say on the matter, but at least she's somewhat understanding when Silevil expresses her desire to see the Chantry go away. She retorts that centuries of hatred against elves won't end with the Chantry (she's probably right on that one), and that without the Chantry that hatred will spiral out of control.
So obviously, the ideal solution would be to politically neuter the Chantry to the point where its authority is in spiritual matters only, much like the modern Catholic church. Somehow I doubt the game will give us that option, however.
As usual, we have a talk with some of our other companions. When go and chat up Iron Bull, he winds up being the victim of assassination attempt. He defeats his assailants handily, however, and he's not even bothered by the fact that they used daggers poisoned with Saar-qamek (you might remember this as the stuff that got unleashed in a Kirkwall alleway in Dragon Age 2). Iron Bull's been dosing himself with the antidote, you see, so it has no effect on him, and he suspects the attempt on his life "wasn't a hit" but a "formality."
Calling an assassination a "hit" sounds a bit too modern for a fantasy world. In fact, nearly ALL of Iron Bull's dialogue sounds far too modern for the setting. Honestly, he sometimes feels like a fan fiction original character written by someone who hasn't quite learned how to write dialogue appropriate for the setting.
We can talk with Morrigan, who's gone back to wearing her ridiculous, low-rent Lulu-from-Final-Fantasy-10 cosplay outfit from Dragon Age: Origins. She's also accompanied by her son, Kieran (who's actually voiced by Claudia Black's son, Odin Black). He appears mostly normal, if a bit odd, and certainly not the abomination some fans speculated he would be.
Keep in mind that this game takes place more than ten years since Dragon Age: Origins, so why is she STILL wearing the same outfit after all this time?
Morrigan says that Skyhold was built upon a site sacred to the ancient elves, and let's just say that this isn't the first time she'll be lecturing an elven Inquisitor about her own culture. But we'll deal with that in time.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Setting aside the obvious mismatch between her head and body texture, she has a very...
No, no, let's not set that aside, because JESUS CHRIST THAT NECK SEAM. I understand if your team doesn't have the time to custom-make all the skins your game wants but ffs put the character in a dress with a reasonable neck to cover it up, because that looks so fuckin awful. Maybe if this npc were literally some rando off to the side I could still cut it some slack but ffs she's the centerpiece of the story. Fuck's sake, that screenshot of her reveal is even worse; it looks like she carved off someone else's face and is wearing it as a backup mask.
This game is ugly as hell but mostly that's been down to people wearing costumes rejected from the SyFy Dune miniseries while the game is being shot on location in the Everglades; but this is the kind of thing that really makes the creators look incompetent.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Look, you can't expect the modelers to make more than one female body for each species. They're busy randomly gluing shit together and pretending it's armour. You'll have the unnaturally smooth 40-something and like it!
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The thing is, Celene and Morrigan both wear necklaces that I suspect were clearly designed to conceal their neckseams, but I guess they forgot to add one to Florianne.
Though I have to wonder why the seam exists in the first place. Skyrim had a very simple solution: nearly every NPC has the same face and body texture, and the visual differences for each race are created simply by changing the skin tint and the normal maps for the face texture (which allows for things like the brow ridges on Dunmer).
And again, it's hard to show in screenshots, but the animations in Inquisition are just...really bad. They're extremely jerky, which gives the impression that your PC is too slow to run the game properly. But I can't be too hard on BioWare - the Frostbite engine was extremely hard to work with (which is likely the same reason that Mass Effect: Andromeda also had such terrible animations).
Though I have to wonder why the seam exists in the first place. Skyrim had a very simple solution: nearly every NPC has the same face and body texture, and the visual differences for each race are created simply by changing the skin tint and the normal maps for the face texture (which allows for things like the brow ridges on Dunmer).
And again, it's hard to show in screenshots, but the animations in Inquisition are just...really bad. They're extremely jerky, which gives the impression that your PC is too slow to run the game properly. But I can't be too hard on BioWare - the Frostbite engine was extremely hard to work with (which is likely the same reason that Mass Effect: Andromeda also had such terrible animations).
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah this is probably a combo of Bioware Crunch and Bioware forced to deal with an engine that flat out is not built for what they want.
- Location
- California
Ah yes, the World of Warcraft school of writing. Well, "writing".
It's called having a brand, gosh.
Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
"No one's... a pest like Gaspard,
Badly dressed like Gaspard,
No one dies at the end of his quest like Gaspard.
His cremation we soon will be celebrating!
My, what a guy! GAAA-SPAARD!"
It's a proud Dragon Age tradition. I remember when I played Dragon Age: Origins, I hated how much of the female characters' chests, necks and shoulders were left exposed by their 'armour'. The elven armour with its bare midriff was even worse. And the plate armour was so ridiculously oversized it made anyone who wore it look like a miniature golem.
Ehh... verisimilitude is an odd thing. Basically, no one in any fantasy novel ever talks like people actually did back in the Medieval period. For one thing, many words they used back then have fallen out of use, to the extent that their everyday speech would be more-or-less indecipherable to a modern audience.
In general, I think criticisms of fantasy works using 'modern' dialogue and vocabulary are kind of unfair. Like, a few months ago, one of my readers criticized me for using the word "corporation" in my fantasy quest. Never mind that the world of Chosen by the Dragon God definitely isn't set in an alternative medieval period (it has guns, indoor plumbing, ships that can travel all around the world, and so on), the fact is that the word 'corporation' has been in use since at least the 15th century and I've seen the phrase 'corporation' used to describe the local government of the city of Coventry during the medieval period. There are a lot of words and phrases that are much older than most people realise.
On the other hand, fooling the readers into thinking that the dialogue is appropriate to the setting is something a good writer should be doing. It's all smoke and mirrors, really. Still, I guess the writers of Dragon Age 3 failed at that.
Urghhh.
Anyway, I've really enjoyed reading this Let's Play so far. Keep it up!
Last edited:
Part 11: Sun's Going Down, Better Resort to Blood Magic
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So now it's once again time to get into our judging seat and do some judgin'.
First up is Grand Duchess Florianne, who stands accused of the heinous crime of having a terrible haircuit (which I presume is punishable by death in Orlais). Oh, and something about an assassination attempt. We decide to keep her around so that we "use her wiles to profit the Inquisition," which I'm sure won't come back to bite us in the ass later, no sir!
Everyone in the room groans when they realise that, once again, they have lost The Game.
Meanwhile, Vivienne has a quest for us. She's trying to brew a potion (for reasons she will not elaborate on), but she's lacking one crucial ingredient: the heart of a snowy wyvern.
(What's interesting is that characters in this game pronounce "wyvern" as "WIV-urn" while I've always pronounced it as "WAI-vern.")
There are some notes on a table nearby that indicate that one of this potion's effects is "age regression." At first glance, I suspect that Vivienne was just being extremely vain and trying to rejuvenate herself. But the truth is quite different.
The game builds up the snowy wyvern as being this terrifying creature, but at this point our character is so good and killy that there's nothing that can really threaten us. So we slay the wyvern and bring the heart back to Vivienne, and suddenly the sudden cuts to Orlais, where a man is on his deathbed:
She gives him the potion, which causes him to briefly regain consciousness, but then he dies shortly afterwards. It turns out that the man, who's name is Bastien, was Vivienne's lover, and that's he been terminally ill for some time.
I have to admit, I'm not really sure what BioWare was going for with this quest. I assume they wanted to show that Vivienne is still a human beneath her poised, icy exterior, but the whole thing plays out too quickly. You can't just introduce a character in one scene and then have him die moments later and expect the whole thing to resonate with the audience emotionally.
Now, remember how, in the Emerald Graves, there were those Dalish elves trying to get inside a tomb in order to recover some of their history? Remember how I said they'd all get killed? Well...
I knew it! I fucking KNEW it!
Like I said in my video on Dragon Age 2, these games keep treating the Dalish elves' attempts at recovering their heritage like a child trying to stick his finger into an electrical outlet.
(Though to be fair, in this case they were killed by the Venatori, but when you have a group of people who are the victim of massive cultural erasure, and whose attempts to regain that culture inevitably end in disaster, well, let's just say that your writing starts to have a bit of a smell to it).
This area, Din'an Hanin, is a fairly substantial dungeon, and at the end you can find an elven account of the incident at Red Crossing that led to the Exalted March on the Dales.
Now on to the main quest. Hawke's "Warden friend" is located in Crestwood, but there's a problem. A Fade rift is churning and bubbling beneath the surface of the lake (which is actually a dam reservoir). According to mayor of Crestwood, the darkspawn came up through a sinkhole and then opened the dam's floodgates, flooding the village of Old Crestwood. Now undead are coming out of the lake, presumably the result of demons possessing the drowned dead.
To stop them, we'll have to drain the lake, which involves capturing a nearby fort in order to access the dam controls. Once that's done, we can explore Old Crestwood, where we come across a Spirit of Command:
The spirit is frustrated that things in the mortal world won't obey her, and she won't leave until she gets someone to obey her. The spirit wants us to slay a rage demon prowling around, which is simple enough.
We seal the Fade rift inside the caves (which actually connect to the Deep Roads), but when we return to the mayor's house we find him gone, and a written confession:
It turns out that the Darkspawn didn't flood the village, he did. They took in refugees from the Blight, many of whom were sick with the Darkspawn taint. He tried to stop the spread of the disease by quarantining the infected the lower village and the refugees in the caves, but this didn't work. When the Darkspawn attacked, the mayor decided that the only way to save the village was to flood Old Crestwood, drowning the Blight-sick along with the Darkspawn.
Now that that's out of the way, we can go meet Hawke's Warden friend, who's being hunted by the Grey Wardens for some reason. Hawke leads us into the cave, where we meet our old friend, Loghain:
What is going on with that sword? With the thickness of that blade, it would likely be too heavy to wield properly. And the crossguard is so small as to be practically useless.
(Of course, depending on your choices in Origins, you might be dealing with Alistair instead, or some bloke named Stroud who was introduced in Dragon Age 2).
Loghain explains that the every Grey Warden in Orlais sudden began experiencing The Calling - the time when the Darkspawn taint starts overcoming them. When this happens, a Warden will typically head off to the Deep Roads to kill as many Darkspawn as they can before perishing, but Hawke believes that Corypheus is somehow creating a fake Calling that the Grey Wardens are falling for. In their desperation, a commander of the Wardens named Clarel has proposed a ritual involving blood magic to prevent further Blights. Loghain protested the plan, hence why the Wardens are hunting him. He says that Wardens are gathering in the Western Approach at an ancient Tevinter ritual tower, and he says to meet him there.
So off we go to the Western Approach, where we find a Venatori magister named Livius performing a ritual in which the Grey Wardens are bound to demons:
Clarel's plan is to have the Wardens march into the Deep Roads and, with an army demons at their command, destroy the rest of the Old Gods before they awoke. Unfortunately, Livius is a servant of Corypheus, and Clarel's little binding ritual had the unintended side-effect of turning the Wardens into Corypheus' slaves. Hence the false Calling: it terrified the Wardens into undergoing a ritual that would put them under Corypheus' control.
Um, I'm pretty sure the red glow was supposed to go OVER their eyes, not underneath them.
Livius tries to control us through the Anchor, like Corypheus did, but Silevil merely shrugs it off:
"I am so done with you humans and your bullshit."
During the battle, Livius flees to Adamant Fortress, an abandoned Grey Warden stronghold, so that's our next destination. This involves a War Table mission, and we get a big, dramatic cutscene as the Inquisition forces lay siege to the fortress:
I don't know whether the fact that the battering ram is a GIANT ARMOURED FIST is something that's incredibly silly or incredibly awesome.
Suddenly I am reminded of playing Medieval 2: Total War, where the enemy wouldn't defend their siege engines, so I'd have my cavalry rush out the gates, slaughter everyone manning the siege engines, and then retreat behind the walls, leaving the enemy army unable to do anything.
We fight our way through the fortress, and eventually come across Livius and Warden-Commander Clarel. We can try to convince her to abandon her plan, but she insist on going through with the summoning ritual, even if she obviously has her doubts. At this point, we can convince her using the History Knowledge Inquisition perk:
Sensing Clarel's hesitation, Livius decides to summon Corypheus' pet Archdemon:
Falkor the Luck Dragon during his darker, edgier phase.
Of course, during the subsequent pursuit of Clarel, you can hover your mouse cursor over the Archdemon, which reveals that it's called "Red Lyrium Dragon," thus spoiling the fact that it isn't REALLY an Archdemon.
We pursue Clarel and Livius to the top of the fortress. She nearly succeeds in killing Livius before the Red Lyrium Dragon chews her up and spits her out. With her dying breath she uses a spell to collapse the walkway, and while it's impossible to convey in screenshots the animation in this segment is just appalling. There's a bit where the dragon hits the walkways and skids along it, and if you step through it frame-by-frame you can see that, while the game is running at 60 FPS, each frame of the dragon's animation lasts three or four frames of video, so the animation winds up being incredibly jerky.
It looks like Silevil and Co. are about to plummet to their doom, but then she suddenly opens up a Fade rift, pulling herself and her party through:
Well, shit.
First up is Grand Duchess Florianne, who stands accused of the heinous crime of having a terrible haircuit (which I presume is punishable by death in Orlais). Oh, and something about an assassination attempt. We decide to keep her around so that we "use her wiles to profit the Inquisition," which I'm sure won't come back to bite us in the ass later, no sir!
Everyone in the room groans when they realise that, once again, they have lost The Game.
Meanwhile, Vivienne has a quest for us. She's trying to brew a potion (for reasons she will not elaborate on), but she's lacking one crucial ingredient: the heart of a snowy wyvern.
(What's interesting is that characters in this game pronounce "wyvern" as "WIV-urn" while I've always pronounced it as "WAI-vern.")
There are some notes on a table nearby that indicate that one of this potion's effects is "age regression." At first glance, I suspect that Vivienne was just being extremely vain and trying to rejuvenate herself. But the truth is quite different.
The game builds up the snowy wyvern as being this terrifying creature, but at this point our character is so good and killy that there's nothing that can really threaten us. So we slay the wyvern and bring the heart back to Vivienne, and suddenly the sudden cuts to Orlais, where a man is on his deathbed:
She gives him the potion, which causes him to briefly regain consciousness, but then he dies shortly afterwards. It turns out that the man, who's name is Bastien, was Vivienne's lover, and that's he been terminally ill for some time.
I have to admit, I'm not really sure what BioWare was going for with this quest. I assume they wanted to show that Vivienne is still a human beneath her poised, icy exterior, but the whole thing plays out too quickly. You can't just introduce a character in one scene and then have him die moments later and expect the whole thing to resonate with the audience emotionally.
Now, remember how, in the Emerald Graves, there were those Dalish elves trying to get inside a tomb in order to recover some of their history? Remember how I said they'd all get killed? Well...
I knew it! I fucking KNEW it!
Like I said in my video on Dragon Age 2, these games keep treating the Dalish elves' attempts at recovering their heritage like a child trying to stick his finger into an electrical outlet.
(Though to be fair, in this case they were killed by the Venatori, but when you have a group of people who are the victim of massive cultural erasure, and whose attempts to regain that culture inevitably end in disaster, well, let's just say that your writing starts to have a bit of a smell to it).
This area, Din'an Hanin, is a fairly substantial dungeon, and at the end you can find an elven account of the incident at Red Crossing that led to the Exalted March on the Dales.
Now on to the main quest. Hawke's "Warden friend" is located in Crestwood, but there's a problem. A Fade rift is churning and bubbling beneath the surface of the lake (which is actually a dam reservoir). According to mayor of Crestwood, the darkspawn came up through a sinkhole and then opened the dam's floodgates, flooding the village of Old Crestwood. Now undead are coming out of the lake, presumably the result of demons possessing the drowned dead.
To stop them, we'll have to drain the lake, which involves capturing a nearby fort in order to access the dam controls. Once that's done, we can explore Old Crestwood, where we come across a Spirit of Command:
The spirit is frustrated that things in the mortal world won't obey her, and she won't leave until she gets someone to obey her. The spirit wants us to slay a rage demon prowling around, which is simple enough.
We seal the Fade rift inside the caves (which actually connect to the Deep Roads), but when we return to the mayor's house we find him gone, and a written confession:
It turns out that the Darkspawn didn't flood the village, he did. They took in refugees from the Blight, many of whom were sick with the Darkspawn taint. He tried to stop the spread of the disease by quarantining the infected the lower village and the refugees in the caves, but this didn't work. When the Darkspawn attacked, the mayor decided that the only way to save the village was to flood Old Crestwood, drowning the Blight-sick along with the Darkspawn.
Now that that's out of the way, we can go meet Hawke's Warden friend, who's being hunted by the Grey Wardens for some reason. Hawke leads us into the cave, where we meet our old friend, Loghain:
What is going on with that sword? With the thickness of that blade, it would likely be too heavy to wield properly. And the crossguard is so small as to be practically useless.
(Of course, depending on your choices in Origins, you might be dealing with Alistair instead, or some bloke named Stroud who was introduced in Dragon Age 2).
Loghain explains that the every Grey Warden in Orlais sudden began experiencing The Calling - the time when the Darkspawn taint starts overcoming them. When this happens, a Warden will typically head off to the Deep Roads to kill as many Darkspawn as they can before perishing, but Hawke believes that Corypheus is somehow creating a fake Calling that the Grey Wardens are falling for. In their desperation, a commander of the Wardens named Clarel has proposed a ritual involving blood magic to prevent further Blights. Loghain protested the plan, hence why the Wardens are hunting him. He says that Wardens are gathering in the Western Approach at an ancient Tevinter ritual tower, and he says to meet him there.
So off we go to the Western Approach, where we find a Venatori magister named Livius performing a ritual in which the Grey Wardens are bound to demons:
Clarel's plan is to have the Wardens march into the Deep Roads and, with an army demons at their command, destroy the rest of the Old Gods before they awoke. Unfortunately, Livius is a servant of Corypheus, and Clarel's little binding ritual had the unintended side-effect of turning the Wardens into Corypheus' slaves. Hence the false Calling: it terrified the Wardens into undergoing a ritual that would put them under Corypheus' control.
Um, I'm pretty sure the red glow was supposed to go OVER their eyes, not underneath them.
Livius tries to control us through the Anchor, like Corypheus did, but Silevil merely shrugs it off:
"I am so done with you humans and your bullshit."
During the battle, Livius flees to Adamant Fortress, an abandoned Grey Warden stronghold, so that's our next destination. This involves a War Table mission, and we get a big, dramatic cutscene as the Inquisition forces lay siege to the fortress:
I don't know whether the fact that the battering ram is a GIANT ARMOURED FIST is something that's incredibly silly or incredibly awesome.
Suddenly I am reminded of playing Medieval 2: Total War, where the enemy wouldn't defend their siege engines, so I'd have my cavalry rush out the gates, slaughter everyone manning the siege engines, and then retreat behind the walls, leaving the enemy army unable to do anything.
We fight our way through the fortress, and eventually come across Livius and Warden-Commander Clarel. We can try to convince her to abandon her plan, but she insist on going through with the summoning ritual, even if she obviously has her doubts. At this point, we can convince her using the History Knowledge Inquisition perk:
Sensing Clarel's hesitation, Livius decides to summon Corypheus' pet Archdemon:
Falkor the Luck Dragon during his darker, edgier phase.
Of course, during the subsequent pursuit of Clarel, you can hover your mouse cursor over the Archdemon, which reveals that it's called "Red Lyrium Dragon," thus spoiling the fact that it isn't REALLY an Archdemon.
We pursue Clarel and Livius to the top of the fortress. She nearly succeeds in killing Livius before the Red Lyrium Dragon chews her up and spits her out. With her dying breath she uses a spell to collapse the walkway, and while it's impossible to convey in screenshots the animation in this segment is just appalling. There's a bit where the dragon hits the walkways and skids along it, and if you step through it frame-by-frame you can see that, while the game is running at 60 FPS, each frame of the dragon's animation lasts three or four frames of video, so the animation winds up being incredibly jerky.
It looks like Silevil and Co. are about to plummet to their doom, but then she suddenly opens up a Fade rift, pulling herself and her party through:
Well, shit.
- Location
- California
Ah, you're finally at the part of the game I never reached. The Hinterlands were such a slog to me, so huge and so slow to traverse with so little to do, that by the time I was done with it I was basically burnt out on the game. I tried to push through the rest of the game, but while it was better it was never enough to actually make me interested in playing the game. So after pronouncing judgement at the ball I just turned the game off and never looked back.
It'll be interesting to see what I missed, and if I made the right choice.
It'll be interesting to see what I missed, and if I made the right choice.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
From what I remember, Varric is one of the companions that particularly freaks out if he's with you. Dwarves consider the fade ESPECIALLY no bueno because they don't even interact with it in their dreams.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Oh yeah, Bull does not like it at all either. Though you'd be forgiven for not knowing about Sera because well . . . who picks Sera?
Part 12: YOU FAIL IT!
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, it looks as though our party has gone and gotten themselves stuck in the Fade. And not just through someone's dream...we've somehow physically transported ourselves there, a feat not heard of since the Tevinter magisters attempted to enter the Golden City.
The scene opens with your party members all standing on floating rocks at different angles from one another. Obviously this is meant to show that the laws of physics no longer apply here, but I like to imagine that Hawke is somehow responsible. He failed so spectacularly that he somehow broke gravity.
I have to admit this whole area looks rather spectacular visually, and it reminds me of the hell segments in Doom (2016). If you suddenly hear heavy metal playing in the distance, you KNOW some demons are going to get ripped and/or torn (yes, my personal headcanon is that the soundtrack is generated by Doomguy himself).
Eventually, we stumble across Divine Justinia...or at least something that appears to be her. Cassandra warns us to be careful, as spirits and demons are more than capable of deceiving people.
I really think "Champion" should be in quotes here.
At any rate, Justinia says that we don't remember what happened at the Temple of Sacred ashes, and considering that was what kicked off the whole story we really need to figure out just what went down on that fateful day. She calls us "Inquisitor" and we can point out that the real Divine wouldn't know this (being dead and all), and she says that she has examined the memories that have been stolen "by the demon that serves Corypheus." This particular demon is called Nightmare, and like Freddy Krueger it feasts on peoples' fears. It's also the one responsible for the false Calling that led the Wardens astray.
So then we have a segment where we have to run around and collect our character's memories. Once we accomplish that, we have a flashback to the events just before the game started:
This character will never not look ridiculous to me.
Corypheus, aided by several Grey Wardens, is using the Divine as a sacrifice in order to gain sufficient arcane power to give himself the Anchor and allow him to enter the Fade.
But then, in what I can only describe as a bit of unintentional hilarity, our character suddenly bursts into the room and screams "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?":
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!"
Corypheus is momentarily distracted, which allows Justinia to knock the orb out of his hands. Silevil picks it up, which causes her to obtain the Anchor instead:
"Must...not...fap!"
Strangely enough, she's wearing the equipment we have now, as opposed the equipment we had at the start of the game.
This all seems to contradict the idea that the Anchor was bestowed upon us by Andraste herself, and our party members argue amongst themselves about whether the person we're talking to is really the Divine or just some spirit/demon.
Since the demon that rules this section of the Fade is based on peoples' nightmares, the enemies all have the names of various fears: war, death, sickness, mages, templars, etc. These enemies take the form of spiders, but our party members see different things depending on what they're afraid of (Cassandra sees maggots, for example). This means that Silevil fears spiders, and one of them is actually named "Ironically, Spiders."
Along the way, Nightmare taunts our party members, saying that Dorian is like his father, that Varric has once again led Hawke into trouble, that Loghain destroyed everything he touched, and so on. Of course, he saves the worst for Hawke, pointing out that nothing he did mattered, he couldn't even save his city, and that he's a failure and his family died knowing it.
I mean, sure, he's a demon, but he's not exactly wrong.
We have another talk with Justinia, where we can pry her for information on the Anchor, Nightmare, and other topics. She says that Nightmare once helped people forget their fears, which sounds like a GOOD thing, except that the demon is now more interested in creating fear then destroying it.
We ask her again if she's really the Divine or just some spirit, and initially she's evasive. She says that no one can be certain if the Maker really exists, and that without doubt, faith has no value.
It should be obvious that faith is a major theme of this game, and as someone without a shred of religious belief I find this to be a rather difficult concept to wrap my head around. The way I see it, faith is distinct from belief, in that belief is something that you generally consider true without any uncertainty. This includes things like the existence of things like the sun, the moon, gravity, etcetera. Faith, on the other hand, is the willingness to believe in something for which some degree of doubt or uncertainty exists. I don't have "faith" in gravity, for example, because there is no question as to its existence (people, as a rule, don't suddenly start floating in the air, after all).
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis describes faith as follows:
Justinia's words also remind me of a quote from Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose:
Whenever I go to my local Tim Horton's, I'll often see a group of Christians seated a table discussing some matter of their religion over coffee. And quite often they'll say things like, "Jesus would want you to..." or "Jesus thinks that we should..." And here I am, the non-believer, thinking "How do you know this?" They talk about Jesus like he's just some bloke that they know; some kind of supernatural life coach that helps individuals through their problems. And yet the Abrahamic faiths always speak of their deity as someone who's will is incomprehensible to mere mortals, so how can you suddenly turn around and say exactly what that deity would want?
Of course, Silevil is a Dalish elf, and doesn't believe in all this "Maker" nonsense. The Dalish have their own pantheon, which is much more similar to the pre-Christian religions of Europe, where the gods are less ineffable, transcendent beings and more representations of natural phenomenon and abstract concepts. And I'm sure that BioWare, being an enlightened, tolerant developer will treat this differing form of belief with respect and AH HA HA HA HA NO.
Anyway, it's revealed that Justinia was the glowing figure we saw in the opening scene, and that she died after saving us. From this, our party members conclude that we've been following a demon all this time, although I wouldn't say it's been acting particularly demonic.
Hawke bitches about how the Wardens started summoning demons, and Loghain retorts that they had been deceived by Corypheus, and that Hawke isn't one to talk, since he started the whole mage rebellion (which isn't really true, as that was Anders' doing). Hawke says that even without Corypheus the Wardens have gone too far and need to be reined in, and our party members debate about what to do with the remaining Wardens once we get back to Adamant Fortress.
"Hawke, for the last time, would you WIPE THAT FUCKING SMEAR OFF YOUR FACE!"
Personally, I think Hawke's just jealous. The Hero of Ferelden was a Grey Warden who stopped the Blight, and if there's one thing Hawke can't stand it's people who actually succeed at their goals.
Ahead, we find a graveyard where the headstones describe our companions' worst fears:
They are the following:
Blackwall: Himself
Cole: Despair
Dorian: Temptation
Sera: The Nothing
Cassandra: Helplessness
Varric: Became His Parents
Vivienne: Irrelevance
Iron Bull: Madness
Solas: Dying Alone
Well, let's have a look at these, shall we?
Blackwall's make sense if you've played ahead and know the big reveal about his origins. Cole is a Spirit of Compassion, so it makes sense that he'd fear giving into despair. Dorian comes across a bit of a hedonist, so naturally he'd tempted to live a life of idle pleasures.
Sera...well...I haven't talked to her enough to understand her fears, but I imagine she's terrified of "The Nothing" because that's what's inside her head.
Cassandra was helpless to prevent the death of Justinia, and couldn't do anything to stop the Mage/Templar war.
Vivienne is a social climber, so becoming a nobody is obviously something she fears.
Iron Bull became Tal-Vashoth, and fears that without the strictures of the Qun he'll become little more than a wild animal.
Varric's parents were exiled to the surface after his father was caught fixing Proving matches, and Varric's own actions led to the discovery of the Lyrium Idol and the subsequent chaos in Kirkwall, so naturally he fears inadvertently causing pain to those around him.
Solas is like Blackwall...his fear will make sense later.
Silevil isn't on the list, because SHE FEARS NOTHING!
Eventually we confront Nightmare himself, who appears as a big ol' spider. Since I'm not personally afraid of spiders, this isn't exactly terrifying. (Wasps, on the other hand...)
The spirit of Justinia sacrifices herself to subdue the demon, and we face off against the Aspect of the Nightmare, but before she does she asks to tell Leliana that "she failed her, too."
Owing to the power of ambient occlusion, we can see that Spirit!Justinia has a really nice ass.
Thanks to the sheer brokenness of the Knight Enchanter class, this boss fight is childishly easy. But then Nightmare reappears, blocking our path forward, and then we have to make a major decision: Either Hawke or Loghain will stay behind to buy us time to escape, and whomever we choose will perish.
Silevil's expression is all like, "Really, BioWare? THIS is what you consider a hard choice?"
Man, do I even HAVE to think about this?
Do you know what this means, folks? It means...after more than ten years since the release of Dragon Age 2...HAWKE IS DEAD!
Of course the game is cowardly and says that the chosen party member will "likely" die. I suspect this was meant to mollify Dragon Age 2 fans by leaving the door open for Hawke to survive. And really, trying to sacrifice yourself and failing would be perfectly in-character for him.
(Poor Loghain...the man keeps trying to atone for his crimes by dying, and we just won't let him. This man is going to live forever).
Back in the real world, we learn that Livius is alive but unconscious, and is now our prisoner. Then Varric runs up to us and asks, "Where's Hawke?" To which Silevil answers dismissively:
Her dismissive hand wave here really sells this scene. She says that he "didn't make it", but her body language is saying, "He fucking died, dude. Get over it."
And if he ever comes backs, she's going to hunt him down and kill him herself!
(This scene doesn't really make sense, since Varric was with us in the Fade and presumably saw everything that happened).
Now we have to make another major decision: what to do with the surviving Wardens. They're susceptible to Corypheus' influence, but they might be valuable allies. I decide to take them with us, which I'm sure won't bite us in the ass later, no sir! Naturally, this results in some pretty big approval shifts among our party members:
Blackwall: Greatly approves.
Cassandra: Disapproves.
Cole: Greatly disapproves.
Dorian: Approves.
Iron Bull: Greatly approves.
Sera: Greatly approves.
Solas: Greatly disapproves.
Varric: Greatly disapproves.
Vivienne: Slightly disapproves.
Wait, did I do something Sera approved of? NOOOOOOO!!!
The scene opens with your party members all standing on floating rocks at different angles from one another. Obviously this is meant to show that the laws of physics no longer apply here, but I like to imagine that Hawke is somehow responsible. He failed so spectacularly that he somehow broke gravity.
I have to admit this whole area looks rather spectacular visually, and it reminds me of the hell segments in Doom (2016). If you suddenly hear heavy metal playing in the distance, you KNOW some demons are going to get ripped and/or torn (yes, my personal headcanon is that the soundtrack is generated by Doomguy himself).
Eventually, we stumble across Divine Justinia...or at least something that appears to be her. Cassandra warns us to be careful, as spirits and demons are more than capable of deceiving people.
I really think "Champion" should be in quotes here.
At any rate, Justinia says that we don't remember what happened at the Temple of Sacred ashes, and considering that was what kicked off the whole story we really need to figure out just what went down on that fateful day. She calls us "Inquisitor" and we can point out that the real Divine wouldn't know this (being dead and all), and she says that she has examined the memories that have been stolen "by the demon that serves Corypheus." This particular demon is called Nightmare, and like Freddy Krueger it feasts on peoples' fears. It's also the one responsible for the false Calling that led the Wardens astray.
So then we have a segment where we have to run around and collect our character's memories. Once we accomplish that, we have a flashback to the events just before the game started:
This character will never not look ridiculous to me.
Corypheus, aided by several Grey Wardens, is using the Divine as a sacrifice in order to gain sufficient arcane power to give himself the Anchor and allow him to enter the Fade.
But then, in what I can only describe as a bit of unintentional hilarity, our character suddenly bursts into the room and screams "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?":
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!"
Corypheus is momentarily distracted, which allows Justinia to knock the orb out of his hands. Silevil picks it up, which causes her to obtain the Anchor instead:
"Must...not...fap!"
Strangely enough, she's wearing the equipment we have now, as opposed the equipment we had at the start of the game.
This all seems to contradict the idea that the Anchor was bestowed upon us by Andraste herself, and our party members argue amongst themselves about whether the person we're talking to is really the Divine or just some spirit/demon.
Since the demon that rules this section of the Fade is based on peoples' nightmares, the enemies all have the names of various fears: war, death, sickness, mages, templars, etc. These enemies take the form of spiders, but our party members see different things depending on what they're afraid of (Cassandra sees maggots, for example). This means that Silevil fears spiders, and one of them is actually named "Ironically, Spiders."
Along the way, Nightmare taunts our party members, saying that Dorian is like his father, that Varric has once again led Hawke into trouble, that Loghain destroyed everything he touched, and so on. Of course, he saves the worst for Hawke, pointing out that nothing he did mattered, he couldn't even save his city, and that he's a failure and his family died knowing it.
I mean, sure, he's a demon, but he's not exactly wrong.
We have another talk with Justinia, where we can pry her for information on the Anchor, Nightmare, and other topics. She says that Nightmare once helped people forget their fears, which sounds like a GOOD thing, except that the demon is now more interested in creating fear then destroying it.
We ask her again if she's really the Divine or just some spirit, and initially she's evasive. She says that no one can be certain if the Maker really exists, and that without doubt, faith has no value.
It should be obvious that faith is a major theme of this game, and as someone without a shred of religious belief I find this to be a rather difficult concept to wrap my head around. The way I see it, faith is distinct from belief, in that belief is something that you generally consider true without any uncertainty. This includes things like the existence of things like the sun, the moon, gravity, etcetera. Faith, on the other hand, is the willingness to believe in something for which some degree of doubt or uncertainty exists. I don't have "faith" in gravity, for example, because there is no question as to its existence (people, as a rule, don't suddenly start floating in the air, after all).
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis describes faith as follows:
Justinia's words also remind me of a quote from Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose:
Whenever I go to my local Tim Horton's, I'll often see a group of Christians seated a table discussing some matter of their religion over coffee. And quite often they'll say things like, "Jesus would want you to..." or "Jesus thinks that we should..." And here I am, the non-believer, thinking "How do you know this?" They talk about Jesus like he's just some bloke that they know; some kind of supernatural life coach that helps individuals through their problems. And yet the Abrahamic faiths always speak of their deity as someone who's will is incomprehensible to mere mortals, so how can you suddenly turn around and say exactly what that deity would want?
Of course, Silevil is a Dalish elf, and doesn't believe in all this "Maker" nonsense. The Dalish have their own pantheon, which is much more similar to the pre-Christian religions of Europe, where the gods are less ineffable, transcendent beings and more representations of natural phenomenon and abstract concepts. And I'm sure that BioWare, being an enlightened, tolerant developer will treat this differing form of belief with respect and AH HA HA HA HA NO.
Anyway, it's revealed that Justinia was the glowing figure we saw in the opening scene, and that she died after saving us. From this, our party members conclude that we've been following a demon all this time, although I wouldn't say it's been acting particularly demonic.
Hawke bitches about how the Wardens started summoning demons, and Loghain retorts that they had been deceived by Corypheus, and that Hawke isn't one to talk, since he started the whole mage rebellion (which isn't really true, as that was Anders' doing). Hawke says that even without Corypheus the Wardens have gone too far and need to be reined in, and our party members debate about what to do with the remaining Wardens once we get back to Adamant Fortress.
"Hawke, for the last time, would you WIPE THAT FUCKING SMEAR OFF YOUR FACE!"
Personally, I think Hawke's just jealous. The Hero of Ferelden was a Grey Warden who stopped the Blight, and if there's one thing Hawke can't stand it's people who actually succeed at their goals.
Ahead, we find a graveyard where the headstones describe our companions' worst fears:
They are the following:
Blackwall: Himself
Cole: Despair
Dorian: Temptation
Sera: The Nothing
Cassandra: Helplessness
Varric: Became His Parents
Vivienne: Irrelevance
Iron Bull: Madness
Solas: Dying Alone
Well, let's have a look at these, shall we?
Blackwall's make sense if you've played ahead and know the big reveal about his origins. Cole is a Spirit of Compassion, so it makes sense that he'd fear giving into despair. Dorian comes across a bit of a hedonist, so naturally he'd tempted to live a life of idle pleasures.
Sera...well...I haven't talked to her enough to understand her fears, but I imagine she's terrified of "The Nothing" because that's what's inside her head.
Cassandra was helpless to prevent the death of Justinia, and couldn't do anything to stop the Mage/Templar war.
Vivienne is a social climber, so becoming a nobody is obviously something she fears.
Iron Bull became Tal-Vashoth, and fears that without the strictures of the Qun he'll become little more than a wild animal.
Varric's parents were exiled to the surface after his father was caught fixing Proving matches, and Varric's own actions led to the discovery of the Lyrium Idol and the subsequent chaos in Kirkwall, so naturally he fears inadvertently causing pain to those around him.
Solas is like Blackwall...his fear will make sense later.
Silevil isn't on the list, because SHE FEARS NOTHING!
Eventually we confront Nightmare himself, who appears as a big ol' spider. Since I'm not personally afraid of spiders, this isn't exactly terrifying. (Wasps, on the other hand...)
The spirit of Justinia sacrifices herself to subdue the demon, and we face off against the Aspect of the Nightmare, but before she does she asks to tell Leliana that "she failed her, too."
Owing to the power of ambient occlusion, we can see that Spirit!Justinia has a really nice ass.
Thanks to the sheer brokenness of the Knight Enchanter class, this boss fight is childishly easy. But then Nightmare reappears, blocking our path forward, and then we have to make a major decision: Either Hawke or Loghain will stay behind to buy us time to escape, and whomever we choose will perish.
Silevil's expression is all like, "Really, BioWare? THIS is what you consider a hard choice?"
Man, do I even HAVE to think about this?
Do you know what this means, folks? It means...after more than ten years since the release of Dragon Age 2...HAWKE IS DEAD!
Of course the game is cowardly and says that the chosen party member will "likely" die. I suspect this was meant to mollify Dragon Age 2 fans by leaving the door open for Hawke to survive. And really, trying to sacrifice yourself and failing would be perfectly in-character for him.
(Poor Loghain...the man keeps trying to atone for his crimes by dying, and we just won't let him. This man is going to live forever).
Back in the real world, we learn that Livius is alive but unconscious, and is now our prisoner. Then Varric runs up to us and asks, "Where's Hawke?" To which Silevil answers dismissively:
Her dismissive hand wave here really sells this scene. She says that he "didn't make it", but her body language is saying, "He fucking died, dude. Get over it."
And if he ever comes backs, she's going to hunt him down and kill him herself!
(This scene doesn't really make sense, since Varric was with us in the Fade and presumably saw everything that happened).
Now we have to make another major decision: what to do with the surviving Wardens. They're susceptible to Corypheus' influence, but they might be valuable allies. I decide to take them with us, which I'm sure won't bite us in the ass later, no sir! Naturally, this results in some pretty big approval shifts among our party members:
Blackwall: Greatly approves.
Cassandra: Disapproves.
Cole: Greatly disapproves.
Dorian: Approves.
Iron Bull: Greatly approves.
Sera: Greatly approves.
Solas: Greatly disapproves.
Varric: Greatly disapproves.
Vivienne: Slightly disapproves.
Wait, did I do something Sera approved of? NOOOOOOO!!!
Last edited:
No, it's Sera who is afraid of Nothing. Silevil is afraid of spiders.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well the Nightmare and all it's tiny little bits are canonically supposed to look like whatever the person is most afraid of, which is why Sera has a hard time describing them since her fear of there being nothing after death means she's seeing basically living voids.
Does that mean Blackwall is seeing a giant version of himself when the nightmare demon appears?
Does that mean Blackwall is seeing a giant version of himself when the nightmare demon appears?
Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
I always thought that bloody smear was a nasty scar, but it seems clear from the above image that it's warpaint of some kind.
You made me curious enough to Google why Hawke would wear warpaint like that, since no one else in the Dragon Age universe seems to. But apparently there isn't a reason, not really. It's just that the game's developers thought it looked cool. They were wrong.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
I came to DA II playing it on an old ps3 without ever having so much as seen another DA game and . . . I didn't hate it.
TBF I also didn't finish it so it clearly wasn't compelling either.
But then my ass will enjoy almost anything as long as its not actively being awful.
Part 13: Shemsplaining
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
After the celebrations over Hawke's death are done with, it's time to get down to business. We thwarted Corypheus at Haven, at the Winter Palace, and now we've thwarted his attempt to gain control of the Grey Wardens.
And here I am screaming at the writers, "No, no...build UP the threat!"
We talk to Varric, and he relates a story about how some assassins came after Hawke in his home in Lowtown, and then his mum decided to make them tea and engage in small talk, which left them so confused that they just walked out the door.
"I'd give you a hug, Varric, but I'm afraid your spine would be crushed beneath the weight of my enormous rack."
Damn it, game! You almost made me feel sad about Hawke dying!
Morrigan asks us about the Hero of Ferelden (AKA Silevil's cousin), and we get a war table mission to locate them. Also, since I used the Dalish mage mod for Origins, the loading screen information is a tad...confused:
How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
Cassandra is trying to write down her thoughts about what happened...and she's not having much success:
"Well, Cassandra, writing is generally a lot easier if you stop stabbing the pages all the time."
Now for our favourite activity...judging people! First on the block is Livius Erimond, who does not regard these proceedings as legitimate. Great, he's one of those sovereign citizen types.
That huge propped collar alone is enough to warrant the death penalty.
We decide to send him to the Wardens to do with as they see fit, since they are the wounded party here.
With all this business with the Grey Wardens done with, it will be interesting to see what Blackwall has to say on the matter. He asks us to have a drink with him, and we agree. He recounts a story from his childhood, where he discovers some boys torturing a stray dog, and to this day he regrets that he did nothing to stop it.
Hmm, I suspect there may be something more to this...
On the ground floor of the tavern, the bard is singing a song in praise of...ugh...Sera. The entire lyrics to the song are:
"Tempt your fate"? What does that even mean?
You know, if there's one issue I have with newer BioWare games, it's that the writers have an annoying tendency to oversell (and dare I say it, shill) their characters. Quite simply, they're a bit too much in love with their creations. No, Sera was never the gentlest girl...she's a complete twat and I HATE HER STUPID FACE, DAMN IT!
Leliana investigates Blackwall's quarters, and comes across a note about someone named Cyril Mornay, who is in Val Royeaux, awaiting execution for his involvement in the "Callier Massacre." He claims that he was just following orders (the ol' Nuremberg defence), but the man who gave those orders, Thom Rainier, is still at large.
Now it's time to get back to business of defeating Corypheus. Our intelligence indicates that he's uprooted his major strongholds and is marching south to the Arbor Wilds. He's looking for something, but what? He's been ransacking elven ruins, but we have no idea what he's specifically after. Fortunately, ourwriters' pet arcane advisor Morrigan has an idea.
And hooooo boy, this is where things get...dubious.
Morrigan takes the Inquistor to a huge Eluvian that she somehow smuggled into Skyhold without anyone noticing. She explains that she managed to restore one "at great cost" (and somehow managed to avoid fucking up like Merrill did), and that there is another within the Arbor Wilds, and that is what Corypheus seeks.
The Inquisitor then asks, "What does it do?"
Goddamn it, BioWare. SHE'S A DALISH ELF, STANDING IN FRONT OF A PRICELESS RELIC OF HER PEOPLE! SHE SHOULD DAMN WELL KNOW WHAT IT DOES!!!
Of course, the Eluvian is actually a portal that leads to...a whole lot of other Eluvians:
Morrigan calls it the "Crossroads," and says that it's basically a portal hub where all the Eluvians join, allowing the ancient elves to travel across the world instantly. Corypheus wants to reach this place, as the barriers between it and the Fade are thin here, and that someone with enough power could "tear down the ancient barriers."
Man, where to begin? First of all, why the hell is Morrigan, a human, explaining elven culture to an elven Inquisitor? And not only that, she evidently knows MORE about elven lore than the elves themselves! It's funny how, in Dragon Age 2, the story kept treating Merrill's attempt at restoring the Eluvian like a child trying to stick her finger into an electrical socket. Everything went terribly wrong, her Keeper got possessed by a demon and she was forced to kill her, and you could easily wind up getting her entire clan killed if you chose the wrong dialogue option. But apparently Morrigan can restore an Eluvian with comparitively little trouble!
Simply put, Morrigan has no reason to be in this scene. One of my problems with modern BioWare is that they have a tendency to create writers' darlings: characters who serve no real purpose plot-wise, but exist solely for the writers' gratification. If you look at their other games, you can see similar examples: Kai Leng, Aria T'Loak, The Illusive Man, Tallis...all these characters are just shallow cliches, but for every moment they're on screen the game treats them as if they are the most important people in the universe.
Here's an idea...why not have the big reveal about the Eluvian handled by a Dalish elf? Maybe they could even bring back Merrill, if she were still alive.
In the main hall, we find Varric talking to a woman named Bianca...presumably the same woman for whom his crossbow is named.
She sounds an awful lot like a certain sexy vampire in Skyrim that inspired mountains of thirst amongst fans (they're both voiced by Laura Bailey). At any rate, she found an entrance to the Deep Roads where humans were hauling out Red Lyrium from a dwarven Thaig. Someone leaked the location to Corypheus' forces, but Bianca says that the question of who's responsible isn't important.
Naturally, we need to put a stop to this. Before we do that, however, we need to sort out the Blackwall problem. We head to Val Royeaux, where Cyril Mornay is about to be executed "for the murders of General Vincent Callier, Lady Lorette Callier, their four children, and their retainers." But then Blackwall steps onto the platform and says the man about to be hanged is innocent of his crimes, and was merely following orders. The executioner then demands to know who gave the order, and then Blackwall confesses that it was he.
Except he's not really Blackwall. He's actually Thom Rainer, a former captain in the Orlesian army. An ally of Grand Duke Gaspard, hired him and his men to attack one of Celene's allies, Lord Vincent Callier. Thom didn't tell his men that they were attacking innocent civilians as part of some aristocrat's petty ambition, only that they were eliminating a dangerous enemy.
During the attack, Thom's men killed not only Callier, but his wife and children. He knew they were present, but refused to call off the attack for fear of losing face in front of his troops. When news of the massacre got out, Thom fled, while most his men were eventually apprehended and sentenced to death.
Eventually Thom came to the attention of the real Blackwall, a Grey Warden. Blackwall recruited Thom into the order, but he was killed when they went to retrieve Darkspawn blood. Thom feared that the Wardens would blame him for Blackwall's death, as he had no proof that he had been recruited, so he decided to assume Blackwall's identity. This explains his strange behaviour with the "conscripts" he was teaching when we first met him: he wasn't a real Grey Warden, and therefore he didn't know how Grey Wardens really operate. It also explains why he didn't hear Corypheus' fake calling.
Of course, now we have to decide what to do with him...
And here I am screaming at the writers, "No, no...build UP the threat!"
We talk to Varric, and he relates a story about how some assassins came after Hawke in his home in Lowtown, and then his mum decided to make them tea and engage in small talk, which left them so confused that they just walked out the door.
"I'd give you a hug, Varric, but I'm afraid your spine would be crushed beneath the weight of my enormous rack."
Damn it, game! You almost made me feel sad about Hawke dying!
Morrigan asks us about the Hero of Ferelden (AKA Silevil's cousin), and we get a war table mission to locate them. Also, since I used the Dalish mage mod for Origins, the loading screen information is a tad...confused:
How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
Cassandra is trying to write down her thoughts about what happened...and she's not having much success:
"Well, Cassandra, writing is generally a lot easier if you stop stabbing the pages all the time."
Now for our favourite activity...judging people! First on the block is Livius Erimond, who does not regard these proceedings as legitimate. Great, he's one of those sovereign citizen types.
That huge propped collar alone is enough to warrant the death penalty.
We decide to send him to the Wardens to do with as they see fit, since they are the wounded party here.
With all this business with the Grey Wardens done with, it will be interesting to see what Blackwall has to say on the matter. He asks us to have a drink with him, and we agree. He recounts a story from his childhood, where he discovers some boys torturing a stray dog, and to this day he regrets that he did nothing to stop it.
Hmm, I suspect there may be something more to this...
On the ground floor of the tavern, the bard is singing a song in praise of...ugh...Sera. The entire lyrics to the song are:
"Tempt your fate"? What does that even mean?
You know, if there's one issue I have with newer BioWare games, it's that the writers have an annoying tendency to oversell (and dare I say it, shill) their characters. Quite simply, they're a bit too much in love with their creations. No, Sera was never the gentlest girl...she's a complete twat and I HATE HER STUPID FACE, DAMN IT!
Leliana investigates Blackwall's quarters, and comes across a note about someone named Cyril Mornay, who is in Val Royeaux, awaiting execution for his involvement in the "Callier Massacre." He claims that he was just following orders (the ol' Nuremberg defence), but the man who gave those orders, Thom Rainier, is still at large.
Now it's time to get back to business of defeating Corypheus. Our intelligence indicates that he's uprooted his major strongholds and is marching south to the Arbor Wilds. He's looking for something, but what? He's been ransacking elven ruins, but we have no idea what he's specifically after. Fortunately, our
And hooooo boy, this is where things get...dubious.
Morrigan takes the Inquistor to a huge Eluvian that she somehow smuggled into Skyhold without anyone noticing. She explains that she managed to restore one "at great cost" (and somehow managed to avoid fucking up like Merrill did), and that there is another within the Arbor Wilds, and that is what Corypheus seeks.
The Inquisitor then asks, "What does it do?"
Goddamn it, BioWare. SHE'S A DALISH ELF, STANDING IN FRONT OF A PRICELESS RELIC OF HER PEOPLE! SHE SHOULD DAMN WELL KNOW WHAT IT DOES!!!
Of course, the Eluvian is actually a portal that leads to...a whole lot of other Eluvians:
Morrigan calls it the "Crossroads," and says that it's basically a portal hub where all the Eluvians join, allowing the ancient elves to travel across the world instantly. Corypheus wants to reach this place, as the barriers between it and the Fade are thin here, and that someone with enough power could "tear down the ancient barriers."
Man, where to begin? First of all, why the hell is Morrigan, a human, explaining elven culture to an elven Inquisitor? And not only that, she evidently knows MORE about elven lore than the elves themselves! It's funny how, in Dragon Age 2, the story kept treating Merrill's attempt at restoring the Eluvian like a child trying to stick her finger into an electrical socket. Everything went terribly wrong, her Keeper got possessed by a demon and she was forced to kill her, and you could easily wind up getting her entire clan killed if you chose the wrong dialogue option. But apparently Morrigan can restore an Eluvian with comparitively little trouble!
Simply put, Morrigan has no reason to be in this scene. One of my problems with modern BioWare is that they have a tendency to create writers' darlings: characters who serve no real purpose plot-wise, but exist solely for the writers' gratification. If you look at their other games, you can see similar examples: Kai Leng, Aria T'Loak, The Illusive Man, Tallis...all these characters are just shallow cliches, but for every moment they're on screen the game treats them as if they are the most important people in the universe.
Here's an idea...why not have the big reveal about the Eluvian handled by a Dalish elf? Maybe they could even bring back Merrill, if she were still alive.
In the main hall, we find Varric talking to a woman named Bianca...presumably the same woman for whom his crossbow is named.
She sounds an awful lot like a certain sexy vampire in Skyrim that inspired mountains of thirst amongst fans (they're both voiced by Laura Bailey). At any rate, she found an entrance to the Deep Roads where humans were hauling out Red Lyrium from a dwarven Thaig. Someone leaked the location to Corypheus' forces, but Bianca says that the question of who's responsible isn't important.
Naturally, we need to put a stop to this. Before we do that, however, we need to sort out the Blackwall problem. We head to Val Royeaux, where Cyril Mornay is about to be executed "for the murders of General Vincent Callier, Lady Lorette Callier, their four children, and their retainers." But then Blackwall steps onto the platform and says the man about to be hanged is innocent of his crimes, and was merely following orders. The executioner then demands to know who gave the order, and then Blackwall confesses that it was he.
Except he's not really Blackwall. He's actually Thom Rainer, a former captain in the Orlesian army. An ally of Grand Duke Gaspard, hired him and his men to attack one of Celene's allies, Lord Vincent Callier. Thom didn't tell his men that they were attacking innocent civilians as part of some aristocrat's petty ambition, only that they were eliminating a dangerous enemy.
During the attack, Thom's men killed not only Callier, but his wife and children. He knew they were present, but refused to call off the attack for fear of losing face in front of his troops. When news of the massacre got out, Thom fled, while most his men were eventually apprehended and sentenced to death.
Eventually Thom came to the attention of the real Blackwall, a Grey Warden. Blackwall recruited Thom into the order, but he was killed when they went to retrieve Darkspawn blood. Thom feared that the Wardens would blame him for Blackwall's death, as he had no proof that he had been recruited, so he decided to assume Blackwall's identity. This explains his strange behaviour with the "conscripts" he was teaching when we first met him: he wasn't a real Grey Warden, and therefore he didn't know how Grey Wardens really operate. It also explains why he didn't hear Corypheus' fake calling.
Of course, now we have to decide what to do with him...
Part 14: No Lollygaggin'
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, about Blackwall Thom Rainier...
We eventually haul him back to Skyhold via a War Table mission, and then we must decide his fate:
I figure that, since he wants to join the Grey Wardens so badly, why not give him over to them and have him undergo the Joining? Well, we can't do that specifically, but we can give him over to the Wardens so that they can decide his punishment. Before that happens, however, he'll serve us until Corypheus has been defeated.
Blackwall greatly approves of this decision, and we also gain approval from Sera (and no one else) for some reason. I'm guessing it's because she was in Denerim during the Blight and thus regards the Wardens as heroes and also THE HERO OF FERELDEN WAS A GODDAMN DALISH ELF SO YOU OUGHT TO SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SHIT.
*ahem* Sorry about that.
Meanwhile, Cassandra is wondering what happened to the rest of the Seekers. She hasn't seen any sign of them, either among the Red Templars or elsewhere. Naturally, she wants to find them, specifically Lord Seeker Lucius, whom we met in Val Royeaux (and, if you'll remember, was a bit of a jerk). To track them down, we'll have to do yet another War Table mission.
"Also, this map is hard to read on account of all the knife holes I punched into it."
One thing I'd like to point out is that, while the Dragon Age series has never really had a distinctive artistic direction (unless you count "overwhelming brownness" as a "style"), I really like the tarot cards the game uses for your party members. They also change depending on their personal quests...with Hawke dead, Varric's card shows him tormented by all the people who have died around him (deaths he blames himself for).
Well, maybe we can do something about that.
We need to find the Dwarven settlement named Valammar, which is located in the Hinterlands. There we meet up with Bianca, who tells us that some people are digging up Lyrium without any kind of personal protective equipment. This flagrant violation of workplace safety regulations cannot be tolerated, so we set about slaughtering them in the name of OHSA.
The ruins are filled with Carta thugs, most of whom are at level 11, and since we're far above that they all die incredibly quickly. I'm starting to forget the last time this game gave me an enemy that was an actual threat.
Whoever designed the outfits in this game has some weird fixation on giving characters way too many belts and having heavy armour feature a large amount of spikes, protrusions, and creases.
Varric and Bianca share some "witty" banter, and eventually Varric susses out that Bianca was the one who leaked the location of the Red Lyrium deposit. It turns out she discovered the Red Lyrium and decided to study it, and she justifies it by saying she was doing Varric a favour, since he wants to help his brother Bartrand (back in Dragon Age 2, I chose to spare him).
Of course, this doesn't explain why she gave the location to Corypheus. Bianca says that Red Lyrium is basically just regular Lyrium that's been tainted by the Blight, which means that Lyrium is actually alive, since the Blight can't infect non-living things. She found a Grey Warden mage named Larius who was interested in helping with her research, so she gave him the key to the Thaig.
Varric informs the party that Larius was the Grey Warden they met during the events of the Legacy DLC for Dragon Age 2, which I haven't played so I had to look up who this guy was. It turns out that he was the guy that Corypheus possessed after Hawke apparently "killed" him, so Bianca inadvertently gave Corypheus the key to a huge source of Red Lyrium. WHOOPSIE DAISY!
This whole quest was Bianca trying to make things right...which didn't really get off to a good start by not coming clean about her involvement when she first brought up the matter. She also delivers a rather low blow to Varric when she insinuates that all he's been doing lately is wallowing in self-pity:
And just to make this character even more unlikable, she threatens to kill the Inquisitor if anything happens to Varric, and she says this after manipulating her old flame into helping her fix her own mistakes.
Back in Skyhold, Varric is doing the whole Rick Blaine "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine" routine. It's funny because, as I mentioned earlier, Bianca is voiced by Laura Bailey, who also voiced Serana in Skyrim, an NPC who inspired truly breathtaking levels of thirst among players.
Anyway, Varric is lamenting that the fact that he doesn't deal with problems, and instead ignores them until they become catastrophes. Excuse me, Varric, but that was Hawke, not you!
Speaking of Hawke, one of our War Table missions is called "Annexing Kirkwall":
I like how Leliana's suggestion boils down to giving Sebastian bad advice so his campaign fails. This sounds far more intersesting than what we've been doing in this game.
Yeah, Sebastian...remember him? I won't blame anyone if they don't, because was easily the most forgettable party member in Dragon Age 2 (on top of being an optional DLC character). I think the best description I ever heard of Sebastian was that he was the sort of person who applauds when his plane lands.
Anyway, Sebastian hasn't forgotten his promise to raze Kirkwall after Hawke spared Anders, and Inquisition assumes that we care enough about to Kirkwall to want to stop him. Personally, I would suggest burning the city to the ground and burying the ruins beneath a thick layer of concrete.
Next up is Cassandra's personal quest. We track the missing Seekers down to a fortress called Caer Oswin, and the lands around it certainly look pretty:
"Caer" means "stronghold" or "fortress" in Welsh, which is why you'll often see it used in other fantasy universes (like Kaer Morhen in The Witcher).
Once inside, however, we find the place overrun with cultists (because it's ALWAYS cultists) called the Promisers, or more specifically the Order of the Fiery Promise. They believe they are the only true Seekers, and their goal is to destroy the world. Yes, really...they believe that by doing so the world will be "reborn a paradise."
Eventually we come across Daniel, one of the Seekers who has been forced to consume Red Lyrium. He says that Lord Seeker Lucius is the one responsible, and that the "Lucius" we met in Val Royeaux was just a demon masquerading as him. Cassandra is forced to mercy kill Daniel, but not before he delivers this ridiculous line:
SPOILER ALERT: He was also just two days away from retirement!
Way to suck all the pathos out of the situation, BioWare!
Predictably, when we confront the Lord Seeker, he immediately goes on a monologue wherein he says that the Seekers of Truth were the OG Inquisition, but wound up creating the Chantry and the Circles of Magi, which resulted in no end in conflict. He then presents a book supposedly detailing the secrets of the order, which passed to him after the death of the previous Lord Seeker:
I like how this book is bound in metal, as if Seekers are in the habit of stabbing books and thus they need to be covered in armour.
Following this, he attempts to persuade Cassandra to join him, which naturally results in violence.
What followed was one of the most lopsided battles in the entire game. Lucius is a measly level 7, while Silevil is level 24, and he dies in three swings of her Spirit Blade.
Back in Skyhold, Cassandra has been reading The Seeker's Big Book O' Secrets, and we learn just how people become Seekers: they first spend a year engaging in what is basically the Dragon Age version of the Vulcan ritual of Kolinahr. They empty themselves of all emotion, which eventually renders them Tranquil, and then a Spirit of Faith is summoned to touch the initiate's mind, thus breaking the tranquility. The major bombshell here is that the Rite of Tranquility can be reversed:
Strange, I thought Anders blowing up the Chantry was what kicked off the rebellion...
Next, I'm going to start the Jaws of Hakkon DLC. It begins with a War Table mission titled "Investigate the Frostback Mountains," given by a scholar named Bram Kenric, who says that he's stumbled across some discoveries that might be of interest. So, off we go to the Frostback Mountains to meet Bram, who turns out NOT to be a massive jerk (this being Dragon Age, I'm generally tempted to assume that NPCs are jerks unless proven otherwise).
Bram is looking for the resting place of the last Inquisitor, a man named Ameridan who died about 800 years ago. The problem is that there are hostile Avvar in the area calling themselves the "Jaws of Hakkon," although there is another Avvar hold to the east that is decidedly friendlier to the Inquisition. He also says that a mysterious island might have some clues to the region's history.
(Also, is it just me or does the word "Frostback" sound like a racial slur for somebody?)
Today it's "Your Worship," tomorrow it's "God Empress of Thedas."
This area is much like other areas in the game, in that there are Fade Rifts to close, camps to set up, Ocularum shards to obtain, Astrariums to use, etc. The enemies in this DLC all scale to your level, so they actually provide something of a challenge (well, not really, but fighting them isn't completely mindless this time around).
At least the landscape is pretty:
(Also, one thing I recently learned about the game is that the sprint button doesn't actually make your mount go faster, because the Frostbite engine couldn't stream in graphical assets fast enough to keep up with player's movement. So BioWare simply drew some speed lines onscreen and changed the camera angle to create the impression of going faster):
We speak to an Avvar fishermen and ask permission to use his boat to reach the island Bram mentioned, but he says that the island belongs to the Lady of Skies, and that he won't let us use the boat until we receive permission from Svarah Sun-Hair, the thane of the local Avvar hold.
The Avvar are basically Vikings (or some other Germanic people), with Norse-sounding names and titles. It's odd that the leader of a hold is called a "Thane" since that title traditionally referred to a retainer and not a leader. "Jarl" might be a better fit, but then the similarities to Skyrim might be a bit too obvious (and this is in a game that already borrows heavily from Skyrim).
We manage to find Kenric's research assitant, an elven woman named Colette:
That's a very...interesting...sword she's holding. The blade looks like it's over an inch thick, and the thing must weight a ton.
She points out that the elven students are rare at the University of Orlais, and that their research contributions are generally dismissed as being unworthy of credit. I'm honestly surprised the game didn't try to "BOTH SIDES!!!" this by pointing out something bad about elves that would make them deserve their ill-treatment.
Me, being crippled after having been run over by a drunk driver: "My life is ruined!"
Dragon Age: "Sure, that's bad, but remember the time you got drunk at last year's Christmas party and said something inappropriate? This isn't a black and white issue!"
We travel to Stone-Bear Hold, home to the friendly Avvar tribe, and the first thing we see upon entering are some people engaged in a climbing contest:
This area is also very...brown.
We talk to Svarah Sun-Hair, who got her name when her hair caught fire during a battle. We ask about the climbing contest, and she explains that it's a traditional method of settling disputes, along with things like like trial by combat. Silevil points out that these contests only prove who is stronger, not who is correct, and rather than answer the question Svarah just responds with some whataboutism about how "lowland" trials can be won by those with wealth or power.
The composition of this shot is ruined by Dorian mugging for the camera and blocking Svarah from view. Which, to be fair, is entirely in-character for him.
Well, the problem is we've never really explored how the justice system works in Thedas. Also, our character is Dalish...so just how *do* the Dalish resolve disputes amongst themselves? Unfortunately, Inquisition isn't really interested in Dalish culture beyond shitting all over it, so we don't get an answer.
We ask about the "Jawks of Hakkon," she Svarah explains that they're followers of Hakkon Wintersbreath, the Avvar god of war and winter. Hakkon himself isn't evil, but the Jaws of Hakkon believe in nothing except warfare, and every so often they reappear to cause trouble.
Well, that about wraps it up for this episode. In the next instalment, we'll sort out of theseStormcloaks Jawks of Hakkon, and potentially move on to the end game.
We eventually haul him back to Skyhold via a War Table mission, and then we must decide his fate:
I figure that, since he wants to join the Grey Wardens so badly, why not give him over to them and have him undergo the Joining? Well, we can't do that specifically, but we can give him over to the Wardens so that they can decide his punishment. Before that happens, however, he'll serve us until Corypheus has been defeated.
Blackwall greatly approves of this decision, and we also gain approval from Sera (and no one else) for some reason. I'm guessing it's because she was in Denerim during the Blight and thus regards the Wardens as heroes and also THE HERO OF FERELDEN WAS A GODDAMN DALISH ELF SO YOU OUGHT TO SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SHIT.
*ahem* Sorry about that.
Meanwhile, Cassandra is wondering what happened to the rest of the Seekers. She hasn't seen any sign of them, either among the Red Templars or elsewhere. Naturally, she wants to find them, specifically Lord Seeker Lucius, whom we met in Val Royeaux (and, if you'll remember, was a bit of a jerk). To track them down, we'll have to do yet another War Table mission.
"Also, this map is hard to read on account of all the knife holes I punched into it."
One thing I'd like to point out is that, while the Dragon Age series has never really had a distinctive artistic direction (unless you count "overwhelming brownness" as a "style"), I really like the tarot cards the game uses for your party members. They also change depending on their personal quests...with Hawke dead, Varric's card shows him tormented by all the people who have died around him (deaths he blames himself for).
Well, maybe we can do something about that.
We need to find the Dwarven settlement named Valammar, which is located in the Hinterlands. There we meet up with Bianca, who tells us that some people are digging up Lyrium without any kind of personal protective equipment. This flagrant violation of workplace safety regulations cannot be tolerated, so we set about slaughtering them in the name of OHSA.
The ruins are filled with Carta thugs, most of whom are at level 11, and since we're far above that they all die incredibly quickly. I'm starting to forget the last time this game gave me an enemy that was an actual threat.
Whoever designed the outfits in this game has some weird fixation on giving characters way too many belts and having heavy armour feature a large amount of spikes, protrusions, and creases.
Varric and Bianca share some "witty" banter, and eventually Varric susses out that Bianca was the one who leaked the location of the Red Lyrium deposit. It turns out she discovered the Red Lyrium and decided to study it, and she justifies it by saying she was doing Varric a favour, since he wants to help his brother Bartrand (back in Dragon Age 2, I chose to spare him).
Of course, this doesn't explain why she gave the location to Corypheus. Bianca says that Red Lyrium is basically just regular Lyrium that's been tainted by the Blight, which means that Lyrium is actually alive, since the Blight can't infect non-living things. She found a Grey Warden mage named Larius who was interested in helping with her research, so she gave him the key to the Thaig.
Varric informs the party that Larius was the Grey Warden they met during the events of the Legacy DLC for Dragon Age 2, which I haven't played so I had to look up who this guy was. It turns out that he was the guy that Corypheus possessed after Hawke apparently "killed" him, so Bianca inadvertently gave Corypheus the key to a huge source of Red Lyrium. WHOOPSIE DAISY!
This whole quest was Bianca trying to make things right...which didn't really get off to a good start by not coming clean about her involvement when she first brought up the matter. She also delivers a rather low blow to Varric when she insinuates that all he's been doing lately is wallowing in self-pity:
And just to make this character even more unlikable, she threatens to kill the Inquisitor if anything happens to Varric, and she says this after manipulating her old flame into helping her fix her own mistakes.
Back in Skyhold, Varric is doing the whole Rick Blaine "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine" routine. It's funny because, as I mentioned earlier, Bianca is voiced by Laura Bailey, who also voiced Serana in Skyrim, an NPC who inspired truly breathtaking levels of thirst among players.
Anyway, Varric is lamenting that the fact that he doesn't deal with problems, and instead ignores them until they become catastrophes. Excuse me, Varric, but that was Hawke, not you!
Speaking of Hawke, one of our War Table missions is called "Annexing Kirkwall":
I like how Leliana's suggestion boils down to giving Sebastian bad advice so his campaign fails. This sounds far more intersesting than what we've been doing in this game.
Yeah, Sebastian...remember him? I won't blame anyone if they don't, because was easily the most forgettable party member in Dragon Age 2 (on top of being an optional DLC character). I think the best description I ever heard of Sebastian was that he was the sort of person who applauds when his plane lands.
Anyway, Sebastian hasn't forgotten his promise to raze Kirkwall after Hawke spared Anders, and Inquisition assumes that we care enough about to Kirkwall to want to stop him. Personally, I would suggest burning the city to the ground and burying the ruins beneath a thick layer of concrete.
Next up is Cassandra's personal quest. We track the missing Seekers down to a fortress called Caer Oswin, and the lands around it certainly look pretty:
"Caer" means "stronghold" or "fortress" in Welsh, which is why you'll often see it used in other fantasy universes (like Kaer Morhen in The Witcher).
Once inside, however, we find the place overrun with cultists (because it's ALWAYS cultists) called the Promisers, or more specifically the Order of the Fiery Promise. They believe they are the only true Seekers, and their goal is to destroy the world. Yes, really...they believe that by doing so the world will be "reborn a paradise."
Eventually we come across Daniel, one of the Seekers who has been forced to consume Red Lyrium. He says that Lord Seeker Lucius is the one responsible, and that the "Lucius" we met in Val Royeaux was just a demon masquerading as him. Cassandra is forced to mercy kill Daniel, but not before he delivers this ridiculous line:
SPOILER ALERT: He was also just two days away from retirement!
Way to suck all the pathos out of the situation, BioWare!
Predictably, when we confront the Lord Seeker, he immediately goes on a monologue wherein he says that the Seekers of Truth were the OG Inquisition, but wound up creating the Chantry and the Circles of Magi, which resulted in no end in conflict. He then presents a book supposedly detailing the secrets of the order, which passed to him after the death of the previous Lord Seeker:
I like how this book is bound in metal, as if Seekers are in the habit of stabbing books and thus they need to be covered in armour.
Following this, he attempts to persuade Cassandra to join him, which naturally results in violence.
What followed was one of the most lopsided battles in the entire game. Lucius is a measly level 7, while Silevil is level 24, and he dies in three swings of her Spirit Blade.
Back in Skyhold, Cassandra has been reading The Seeker's Big Book O' Secrets, and we learn just how people become Seekers: they first spend a year engaging in what is basically the Dragon Age version of the Vulcan ritual of Kolinahr. They empty themselves of all emotion, which eventually renders them Tranquil, and then a Spirit of Faith is summoned to touch the initiate's mind, thus breaking the tranquility. The major bombshell here is that the Rite of Tranquility can be reversed:
Strange, I thought Anders blowing up the Chantry was what kicked off the rebellion...
Next, I'm going to start the Jaws of Hakkon DLC. It begins with a War Table mission titled "Investigate the Frostback Mountains," given by a scholar named Bram Kenric, who says that he's stumbled across some discoveries that might be of interest. So, off we go to the Frostback Mountains to meet Bram, who turns out NOT to be a massive jerk (this being Dragon Age, I'm generally tempted to assume that NPCs are jerks unless proven otherwise).
Bram is looking for the resting place of the last Inquisitor, a man named Ameridan who died about 800 years ago. The problem is that there are hostile Avvar in the area calling themselves the "Jaws of Hakkon," although there is another Avvar hold to the east that is decidedly friendlier to the Inquisition. He also says that a mysterious island might have some clues to the region's history.
(Also, is it just me or does the word "Frostback" sound like a racial slur for somebody?)
Today it's "Your Worship," tomorrow it's "God Empress of Thedas."
This area is much like other areas in the game, in that there are Fade Rifts to close, camps to set up, Ocularum shards to obtain, Astrariums to use, etc. The enemies in this DLC all scale to your level, so they actually provide something of a challenge (well, not really, but fighting them isn't completely mindless this time around).
At least the landscape is pretty:
(Also, one thing I recently learned about the game is that the sprint button doesn't actually make your mount go faster, because the Frostbite engine couldn't stream in graphical assets fast enough to keep up with player's movement. So BioWare simply drew some speed lines onscreen and changed the camera angle to create the impression of going faster):
We speak to an Avvar fishermen and ask permission to use his boat to reach the island Bram mentioned, but he says that the island belongs to the Lady of Skies, and that he won't let us use the boat until we receive permission from Svarah Sun-Hair, the thane of the local Avvar hold.
The Avvar are basically Vikings (or some other Germanic people), with Norse-sounding names and titles. It's odd that the leader of a hold is called a "Thane" since that title traditionally referred to a retainer and not a leader. "Jarl" might be a better fit, but then the similarities to Skyrim might be a bit too obvious (and this is in a game that already borrows heavily from Skyrim).
We manage to find Kenric's research assitant, an elven woman named Colette:
That's a very...interesting...sword she's holding. The blade looks like it's over an inch thick, and the thing must weight a ton.
She points out that the elven students are rare at the University of Orlais, and that their research contributions are generally dismissed as being unworthy of credit. I'm honestly surprised the game didn't try to "BOTH SIDES!!!" this by pointing out something bad about elves that would make them deserve their ill-treatment.
Me, being crippled after having been run over by a drunk driver: "My life is ruined!"
Dragon Age: "Sure, that's bad, but remember the time you got drunk at last year's Christmas party and said something inappropriate? This isn't a black and white issue!"
We travel to Stone-Bear Hold, home to the friendly Avvar tribe, and the first thing we see upon entering are some people engaged in a climbing contest:
This area is also very...brown.
We talk to Svarah Sun-Hair, who got her name when her hair caught fire during a battle. We ask about the climbing contest, and she explains that it's a traditional method of settling disputes, along with things like like trial by combat. Silevil points out that these contests only prove who is stronger, not who is correct, and rather than answer the question Svarah just responds with some whataboutism about how "lowland" trials can be won by those with wealth or power.
The composition of this shot is ruined by Dorian mugging for the camera and blocking Svarah from view. Which, to be fair, is entirely in-character for him.
Well, the problem is we've never really explored how the justice system works in Thedas. Also, our character is Dalish...so just how *do* the Dalish resolve disputes amongst themselves? Unfortunately, Inquisition isn't really interested in Dalish culture beyond shitting all over it, so we don't get an answer.
We ask about the "Jawks of Hakkon," she Svarah explains that they're followers of Hakkon Wintersbreath, the Avvar god of war and winter. Hakkon himself isn't evil, but the Jaws of Hakkon believe in nothing except warfare, and every so often they reappear to cause trouble.
Well, that about wraps it up for this episode. In the next instalment, we'll sort out of these
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So I spent most of today (it's a stat holiday) basically trying to finish as much of the game as I could, as I'm a bit worn out on it at this point. So far, I've record almost one terabyte of 1440p HEVC video for a future YouTube video.
I'm not quite at the end, but this game definitely...um...goes places with the Dalish elves. Not good places, mind you.
You know, I'm amazed at how cack-handed this series of games is when it comes to their oppression allegories. Dragon Age keeps inadvertently raising thought experiments like, "What if this oppressed minority really SHOULD be oppressed?" or "What if there's something to the demented ravings of genocide deniers?" And maybe it's just me, but I don't think those thought experiments are worth having.
I'm not quite at the end, but this game definitely...um...goes places with the Dalish elves. Not good places, mind you.
You know, I'm amazed at how cack-handed this series of games is when it comes to their oppression allegories. Dragon Age keeps inadvertently raising thought experiments like, "What if this oppressed minority really SHOULD be oppressed?" or "What if there's something to the demented ravings of genocide deniers?" And maybe it's just me, but I don't think those thought experiments are worth having.
Last edited: