paragons-luster

[paragons-luster]

Copypasta from Bluesky about some game mechanics stuff.

I keep thinking about the "hardening" (heh heh) mechanic from Origins, how goofy it was, and ultimately how it didn't really make a difference. I just got Lucanis back from Treviso and the timing and implementation of this iteration feels much better, more natural.

Alistair and Leliana are both fairly young and impressionable, and it makes sense that the Warden can have a bigger impact in a shorter amount of time. But Lucanis has seen some shit, and he and Rook are basically (odd, weirdly intense) coworkers at this point.

Having to confront so much in a short period of time, from getting out of prison, losing his grandmother, and then having to go back to Treviso knowing it wasn't prioritized? Even if you understand why it doesn't make it hurt any fucking less. And THEN you have to go back to work.

I honestly don't know if this was something the team thought about when revamping the mechanic, but this makes it feel much more organic and logical. I just thought that was cool.

[paragons-luster]

The thing I have always vibed with more re: Dragon Age vs Mass Effect is that it is a story about diaspora, migration, and trauma, and the ways people deal with that.

From the beginning, Dragon Age has been about displacement and exile and the loss that comes with that, personal and cultural: every Warden origin but especially Tabris and Mahariel, the Blight in Ferelden, Lothering. It is a story that starts with loss and then just ramps up from there: Cailan, Duncan, Loghain.

One of the things Dragon Age 2 got right is the grief of diaspora and cultural loss. I'm still so mad we didn't see Merrill in Inquisition (and are probably not going to see her in Veilguard), because she really was a compelling character. Certainly other Dalish are also working to rediscover some lost knowledge, but it feels extremely silly to have a character who knows so much about eluvians and has a vested interest in reclaiming cultural knowledge for their people to, uh, not be there at all.

(I have no beef with Morrigan, and I honestly don't know if the Veil Jumpers are aware of her connection to Mythal/Flemeth, but it still feels weird to have the daughter of a literal elven god be human. I've always suspected Morrigan is a foundling and not Flemeth's biological daughter, but I have no evidence, just Vibes.)

I'm also not far enough into Veilguard to know whether we have any city elf perspectives in the story, but I think it's an incomplete narrative if we don't. (See also my rant from Inquisition having just Sera's perspective among the companions.)

Harding is an interesting person to give the Stone Sense on steroids to. As a surface dwarf, I don't really know what her relationship to underground dwarven culture is, or if she even has one. It's not something she talks about in Inquisition.

Obviously a lot can change in a decade! She appears to have learned enough Dwarven to understand not just the linguistic but also cultural nuances of what she was saying when she grabbed the lyrium dagger. And the way she keeps talking about feeling "whole" or "complete" makes me think she's the perfect person to have this particular power, and I hope they explore that more.

[paragons-luster]

*blows off thick layer of dust*

'SUP NERDS?? GUESS IT'S TIME TO START UP THE DRAGON AGE SIDEBLOG AGAIN!

For now, all I have is this kinda potato pic of my Rook because I haven't figured out photo mode yet.

[paragons-luster]

Meet Raina Trevelyan everybody! She is a mage in a darkest timeline world state, so it's going to be interesting seeing how this turns out. (Especially considering the Warden agreed to Cullen's request to kill all the mages. Did I mention she's going to romance Cullen?) She doesn't look anywhere near like I thought she would in my head, but it keeps things interesting. 

[paragons-luster]

[paragons-luster]

[paragons-luster]

"for all your wisdom, you just don’t see. how can you, when my life is but a second compared to yours? a drop in an endless ocean. how could something so insignificant matter to you? how could any of us matter to you?”

"vhenan-"

"no. you search and you search but you don’t see what is in front of you. arlathan is gone. halamshiral is gone. you cannot bring them back, no matter how long you wander.”

"but our people!"

“fuck our people! our people are all around us! my people, your people. all of them. we all live in this world together, and every one of them is worth saving. they have rallied to me and my cause. they fight for their existence. they might not be what you hoped, and i am sorry for your loss, and for all the years you have mourned, truly i am, but you cannot bring them back. and you cannot hope to heal what has been hurt if you insist on looking backward.

the future is here and now. these people, this world… it’s not what you remember, perhaps it is less pretty, more crude, but it is something. it is here and it is alive and it is worth saving. worth living.

there is a life here for you. if you would just open your eyes.”

[paragons-luster]

[paragons-luster]

He just really likes walking through fire dramatically OK? 

[paragons-luster]

OK apparently I have more to say about the Solas thing. Hella spoilers through end game and the post credits scene.

Solas is so focused on the past that he can't accept that things change and hold different meanings, and I found that incredibly problematic. We carry our personal burdens and the marks of the oppressions that have shaped us and our people, and there is no shame in that. None. The elves of Arlathan are not the elves of today, as he is so very fond of pointing out. So why should they be judged the same way? To disregard the struggles of the elves of the here and now, and what the vallaslin mean for them, I find deeply fucking offensive.

As somebody who is still working through her own issues surrounding de/colonialization and reclaimation of culture, I find it upsetting. How dare he hold himself above other elves, who are trying to scrape by in a world that hates them and maintain some dignity meanwhile. He wasn't there to see the alienages form, or the Dalish try and maintain some semblance of what they understood as the "old ways". Culture, semiotics, the way we interpret the past? All of that changes in decades, and would be expected to evolve in the centuries he wasn't around. I don't suppose he figured out any way to preserve and transmit knowledge from thousands of years ago to make the elves "more true" or "better" than they are OH WAIT DREAD WOLFIE WAS ASLEEP. 

At some point I hope somebody writes a paper about power, structural racism, and the plunder of elven infrastructure and technology fueling the rise of Tevinter through a critical theory lens. The real-world analogues are not perfect, of course, and nor should they be, but I think there's a lot to say about colonialization and oppression, as well as this image of ancient elves as noble savages who have now faded from this world, with only the dirty remnants of their descendants in the alienages and the funny pretenders in the woods to contend with. 

I'm not angry at Bioware for constructing this sort of narrative (and I think it's good to have to contend with these sorts of issues in a space that is less fraught than real life), I just wish they'd done a better job of balancing out the weird amounts of internalized racism and snobby imperialist disregard for the grubby natives of the here and now with some more positive depictions of people working to make things better. There's Briala, I guess, but she's so tied up with Celene that I'm not sure how exactly that would work out. I would have liked to have seen something from, idk, Merrill or Shianni or one of the other Dalish clans appealing to the Inquisition for help. It was an oddly unbalanced game in regards to elven representation, and I wish they'd thought that through.

[paragons-luster]

Ethir Lavellan, archer rogue! I think I made his eyes too big because he looks like he's about 19 or something, mid 20s at most. I did not intend for Cassandra to be cradle robbing, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[paragons-luster]

Out of curiosity, I watched a playthrough of the Solas romance. I am really glad I had no interest in romancing Solas. So very very much.

[paragons-luster]

I am done with Dragon Age: Inquisition. This was a relatively short playthrough at sixty hours (lololol). I fucked up the timing of Josephine's personal quest and did not trigger the romance commitment, which I am sad about. Spoilery thoughts below. You have been warned.

Maybe it was the sheer volume of side stuff, but the plot felt very slight to me compared to Origins or DA2? I liked how you had to use the story quests to get further into areas, but it still felt like there wasn't enough meat to it. 

OK because I was curious here's how it shakes out story quest-wise:

Origins: 10 

DA2: 25 shorter quests, maybe count as 12.5?

Inquisition: 9

So I guess it's about even despite how it feels? idk. In my head I remember Origins being way way involved, DA2 not quite so much. Maybe it felt that way because the main story in Inquisition feels more separate? All the side stuff is great, and I love the feeling of putting together a movement with your bare hands (watching my forces march on the Arbor Wilds felt so fucking satisfying), but I wish that disconnect was bridged a little bit. 

I was also disappointed with how many of the characters I didn't connect with and really hoped to. Nine companions and three advisors is a lot of dialogue and characterization, and I wonder if they spread it a bit thin in the writers pen. I was fully ready to love Sera and Vivienne especially, but things just did not work out that way.

Vivienne is very establishment, and so much of her characterization stems from that. It doesn't feel like the events of the game make her question what she believes very much, and that feels like a lost opportunity for character growth. Like, I don't even want her to change her mind, I just want her to think about how the things that happen make her cling to her beliefs even more strongly, and I didn't see any of that. 

Sera, in many ways, I think is the biggest disappointment for me. It feels like her writer was given beats to hit, but without any backstory on why she's a quirky elf with a shitload of internalized racism who fiercely looks out for the little people. There's just a bunch of bullet points with no backstory, and that does not feel satisfactory at all. 

I loved Cassandra every bit as much as I expected, probably more. I think I'll be rolling a male Lavellan rogue to romance her the next playthrough. Still gonna hold an eternal grudge that you can't romance her as a woman though. 

KREM. KREMMMMMM. I expect to be notified the moment somebody puts up a "Make out with Krem" mod. I love him so much and I love how the Chargers accept him as one of their own. I like that the game gives the player the option to ask asshole or ignorant things and then get corrected so people hopefully don't do that to flesh and blood trans people. (I can dream, just a little bit.)

People I expected to like but not love: Dorian and Cole. But oh god, Cole. I had to walk away after finishing his personal quest because, just. And Varric! I was talking to Cassandra right before this quest, where she mentions that Varric is Andrastian, all appearances to the contrary, and talks about how he has "a virtuous heart", (I was very surprised, considering the row they had after Hawke shows up) and it was this weird possibly intentional line from A to B for me and right in the feels oh my god. And all that stuff about the other Cole was horribly poignant especially in this all mages all the time playthrough. 

Every time Dorian addresses my Inquisitor as his only friend my heart breaks a little bit. I was not expecting the end of his personal quest with Mother Giselle to play out as it did, and it just made me ache. Obviously he holds this perception of himself as a pariah very strongly, but it seems founded enough, even so far away from Tevinter. 

Still not over the Cullen thing. Is it sad how much goodwill the writers earned me with the line about him regretting his behavior towards the Hero of Ferelden? Kicking and screaming the entire way. If you need me I'll be in the dumpster. (I feel like I need to clarify I don't think a Cullen/Inquisitor romance is objectively trashy, it's all my own bullshit which is proportionate to how much I disliked him in the first two games. I don't know what to do with these feelings and they are awkward because I rarely see repentance narratives that address most of my previous objections like this.) 

[paragons-luster]

I’m sorry, but my Inquisitor is still the prettiest and the most badass.

[paragons-luster]

Spoilers through moving to Skyhold (I'm sure there are proper quest names but they're not on the wiki yet)

If you'd told me that Chancellor Roderick was the person in this game I'd cry about first? I would be surprised but also not. This company hits me in my ordinary people rising to the occasion when needed buttons so fucking hard. The Cousland parents, Emily Wong, Kal'Reegar? Ugh. Ughhhhh.

I know half the time you're not expected to save all the NPCs, but it still sucks when you can't. I regret not being able to get to Minaeve specifically, and I wonder who's going to help watch over the Tranquil from her Circle now that she's gone. 

HAVEN OH MY GOD. My husband tells me I was making little noises of distress while doing all the combat in this part. I did not notice.

I know the singing was totally emotionally manipulative but I cried anyways because it was beautiful. I think at that moment Sayet wanted to believe she really was sent by Andraste and the Maker, so very very much. 

(Incidentally, I like that the game makes clear that your Inquisitor's beliefs/feelings/opinions on theological matters are not necessarily taken into consideration when official Inquisition missives go out.)

As I mentioned on Twitter, one of the things I really love about Bioware games is that you get that sense of NPCs living lives outside of the times your character interacts with them, as well as the ways their experiences muddy already complicated ethical issues. Minaeve is a really good example of that. (For those who never talked to her, she is Dalish by origin, but was cast out from her clan when she was seven after her magic started manifesting. [What's supposed to happen is the clan arranges for her to be fostered with another clan, possibly to train as a new Keeper.] The templars rescued her and sent her to a Circle, where she thrived and specialized in creature research. The mage-templar conflict was not kind to her.)

What's really interesting about the characters in the game is that for the most part, you don't really have anybody you interact with who is adamantly pro-mage independence (that I've met yet) except for Dorian? And I'm not sure he counts, since he's Tevinter (Tevene?). I mean, there's Grand Enchanter Fiona, but I'm not sure even she ever had a solid plan in place to safeguard the general populace or even the mages themselves for when some idiot or malicious asshole inevitably gets possessed/turned into an abomination. There are reasons Circles exist and why institutions evolved the way they did, and without any sort of threat management plan, it's difficult to be convinced the mages can police themselves. (Sayet's run is part 3 of the all mages all the time playthrough, so lol and yolo etc etc, but personally, I am not convinced the Circles won't come back in one form or another.)

Fiona asking about Alistair just killed me. I wish there was a way the Inquisitor could introduce them. 

Also in other heart-rending references to previous events, Connor. D: 

Vivienne is super great, as expected, but oh my god she comes along with so much classism and establishment privilege. Everything she says regarding mages and Circles is correct, but with a certainty of opinion that comes from living a life of extreme privilege in one of the best regulated Circles in Thedas. She acknowledges that life in the Kirkwall Circle was terrible, because she isn't stupid or uncompassionate, but I have a feeling her opinions on the matter would not be anywhere near as solid if she had lived elsewhere.

I don't know what they're trying to do with Sera. She's not Dalish obviously, and she mentioned being from Denerim, among other places. I wonder if she was there for what happened to the alienage in Origins, and how that's affected her outlook. (It's my understanding that whatever background you take for your Warden, it's assumed the events of other ones still happen, except for the bit where Duncan recruits you.) 

Solas is boring. I'm sorry. The work he does is absolutely fascinating, but personally? He's not very interesting to me. 

I am still deeply confused by this not hating Cullen thing. He was a total creeper to my Warden in the Circle (although I do not remember this amaze adorably awkward post-Harrowing scene, probably because I never spoke to him) and I did not like him in Dragon Age 2 because he was a giant ass, even if he did end up helping Hawke in the giant end battle. But this Cullen? Who's had a chance to reflect on the things he's done in Fereldan and Kirkwall and conclude he might have been wrong about a lot of things? This one I respect, and find interesting. (Considering a warrior Trevelyan romance in the darkest timeline playthrough, even if V will probably no longer speak to me for this. :P)

Cassandraaaaaaaa. I adore Cassandra Pentaghast enough that I'm going to roll a dudequisitor to romance her. I couldn't figure out why I love her so much (I mean, besides the obvious), but then I realized she reminds me of Emilio Sandoz from The Sparrow. They both have this beautiful purity of devotion and rock-solid faith that anchors them, but they do not live apart from the world. That faith inspires them to do great and beautiful things, and it is rare that you see that sort of character at all. I see Cassandra and Leliana as a pair, the way they both struggle with their faith and what happens at the Conclave and come out on different sides. (And oh Leliana. How much you've changed from Origins.)

[paragons-luster]

In conclusion: take it away Cassandra.

[paragons-luster]

Guess who found out twelve hours in that the custom world state didn't import properly? THIS LADY. Meet Sayet Adaar, mark two. She's not quite as lugubrious as mark one, but still shows the appropriate amount of concern, I think. And her cheekbones are way more fabulous.

(As soon as you get into Haven and can more around on your own, ask Varric about characters from Tales of the Champion. The option did not appear in my default world state playthrough. Would have been super cool to have confirmation of this in the beginning, Bioware! /o\)