#at least give me the lore in the codex

[ffc1cb]

i’ve always found it peculiar how during meeting the chargers cutscene the game just assumes your character automatically understands what krem is talking about when he mentions binding (though, granted, it’s all very unsubtle). like, this is a roleplaying game. what if i want to play a character who just doesn’t get it

[mythalism]

thinking about that new varric voiceover lore video and about the evanuris and their connection to the archdemons… the fact that all of the evanuris other than ghilly and edgar are “gone” supports this i think. we also have since seen that mural in Solas’s minrathous hideout that shows a dragon being bound in chains by elves. then the mention of “ghilan’nain’s archdemon” threw me off a bit when it first came out but i think ive made sense of it.

each evanuris has their own dragon… but can also BE their own dragon. maybe they learn the dragon form by binding a dragon? thetes a codex about it being a “form reserved for the gods”, maybe it involves absorbing a high dragon soul or something? im thinking of Solas’s dread wolf form post-inquisition described as “draconic” and “winged” and “scaled” in tevinter nights, and we can pretty safely assume it became that way after he absorbed mythal’s soul/power. we also know flemythal can BE a dragon but also has a dragon bound to her will, which she gives an inquisitor who drank from the well. if morrigan drinks, she can learn the dragon form as well, but only after defeating that dragon. we don’t know the details of how she learns it, maybe it’s some combination of the well + fighting the dragon + being flemeth blood? if someone remembers that scene better than me, please lmk because i always have my inquisitor drink so i rarely see it. there’s also the line from Mythal “a soul is not forced upon the unwilling” which is maybe relevant here? this is honestly the part we know the least about.

but in terms of the evanuris and the archdemons, we know a bit more. first, we now know only ghilly and Edgar are left. the others are “gone”. gone forever? maybe not. but they’re not in the prison, so we have to assume they got out. we also know that Mythal wanted urthemiel’s soul, and it was the reason she sent Morrigan with the warden and Alistair.

we know that blights happen when the darkspawn find an “Archdemon” underground and infect it with the blight. it then leads the darkspawn to the surface. this suggests that Archdemons are normal dragons sleeping/trapped within the deep roads until they are blighted by darkspawn. we also know that the forgotten ones were trapped in the "void" by fen'harel, and that they represented the "maligned aspect of the elven pantheon", things like "disease, terror, spite and malevolence" (lucanis lovers... this might be relevant). most people have assumed for years that the forgotten ones are the archdemons.

we also know blighted creatures can body-hop into any other blighted creature nearby, making them incredibly difficult to kill. this is why only grey wardens can kill an archdemon, because the “essence is drawn into the sacrificial grey warden, killing both” (per the wiki) but im not sure if there is any elaboration on exactly why/how? maybe origins scholars will know more but the wiki is vague. the dark ritual, however, which uses blood magic somehow cures urthemiel’s soul of the taint and allows kieran to be born untainted but containing two souls. no fucking clue how that works. lmk if anyone has thoughts LMFAO

anyway back to the evanuris. we also know now thanks to veilguard marketing that the evanuris are behind the blights and have been orchestrating the blights in some way. but then the question is how have they been doing that from their prison?

so now what im wondering is if whatever apotheosis godhood process made the evanuris into the evanuris involved binding dragon souls and learning their form in the process. this explains why the evanuris can shapeshift into dragons but also seemingly have control of several dragons (we see ghilly commanding several, only one is referred to as "her archdemon"). considering the evanuris have been clearly separated from the archdemons, and assuming the archdemons are the forgotten ones, perhaps the archdemons that the evanuris bound are the forgotten ones and the evanuris absorbed both their souls and their power? we know they fought a war and than fen'harel ended it by locking them away. but i wonder if absorbing the forgotten ones power was a goal of the evanuris, and that fen'harel stopped them by locking them both away. how the forgotten ones fit in is definitely one part im stumped on.

but im thinking that the evanuris are the old gods, at least mostly, and they spoke to the magisters sidereal and bid them to enter the black city. this then released the blight into thedas, obviously, and commanded the darkspawn (one of the gameplay vids uses this language; that ghilly is "commanding" the darkspawn) to hunt down their dragons/the archdemons/the forgotten ones, whatever the fuck they are, and when the darkspawn give the archdemons the blight, it gives the evanuris the ability to body hop into them via their blight powers. then, they've effectively escaped their prison, even if they had to leave their elven bodies behind. however, clearly some sort of power/sentience gets lost in the process, because the archdemons do not use magic the way the evanuris do. but perhaps its a price they're willing to pay for freedom and revenge?

this explains why the rest of the evanuris are gone when ghilly and edgar break free, as well as why those two still have elven bodies and and an archdemon - because they did not have to shawshank redemption their souls into a blighted void dragon/forgotten one creature in order to escape. it also explains why mythal wanted the old god baby ritual done so badly, as that would be one of her children's souls who was purified within her grandson (not that it'll matter in veilguard lol) and that she was able to get back. it also explains why solas was so upset at the warden's plan in inquisition, a plan which was given to them by corypheus. considering corypheus probably met the evanuris when he breached the black city (whether he knew it or not), and presumably learned blight magic from them (body hopping) and then wanted them to find the other archdemons "in some bizarre attempt to preempt the blight". while the wardens think finding and killing the archdemons will prevent blights, solas clearly knows that it will NOT and actually says finding them "could make everything worse". this would make sense if the act of finding them is what allows the evanuris to then possess them and break free. it also could suggest that separating the forgotten ones in the void and the evanuris in the fade was an integral part of his fade-prison-veil-creation-coup scheme. he was trying to keep them apart.

what it still does not explain is what the fuck the forgotten ones are or how they play into it, because im just extrapolating. it also doesnt explain what the fuck is going on with the void, which is relevant because that is where the darkspawn originally came from.... even though we know the blight originated in the black city with the evanuris??????? whats crazy is solas could have told us all of this and yet he insisted on being a little shit and keeping his mouth shut. anyway hope u enjoyed my yapping

[crossdressingdeath]

DAI does that with a lot of things. Morrigan gets to claim to be a Elven expert, even though you know that is far from the truth if you've played Origins where she didn't know shit. Cullen gets final say in his dialogue options despite you knowing that he's lying. Grey Wardens gets shit on and the Inquisitor can wildly overstep.

DAI has this weird mix of a) expecting you to have read all the books/comics so that they don't have to explain anything and b) assuming that you haven't played the previous games so they can try to rewrite what happened.

Yeah, the required reading for DAI was ridiculous. WEaWH is always the big one because most of the others you can get by without it (even Cole's backstory isn't necessary to appreciate and understand the character, and enough of it comes up in-game to get by), but knowing what Celene and Gaspard did is kind of fucking important, Bioware. And then even when Celene purging the alienage comes up it's used as a mark against Briala for being in a relationship with her at the time even though if I'm understanding the excerpts I've seen of TME Briala breaks it off as a direct result of the purge and (as Dorian rightly points out) that'd be more Celene's scandal than Briala's anyway. Like, they try to make Celene purging the alienage into Briala's crime because she was sleeping with the empress at the time and that's just... ugh. But it's like, I would argue that it would be fair and honestly best practice to assume that people playing the third game in a series have played the first two games? DA has an overarching narrative even if the connections aren't particularly close, if someone wants to start partway through they can but the writing should expect people to be familiar with the games' stories. Maybe have some codex entries summarizing the previous games or a little intro cutscene, but... I don't know, I'm worried about the fact that apparently DAV doesn't need you to have played the first three games when literally all the setup for it is in DAI. Expecting people to have played all the games in a narrative-driven RPG series and not to have jumped in partway through is fair! Expecting people to have read five supplementary novels and two coffee table lore books to understand the plot is ridiculous. At least Tevinter Nights and The Missing so far seem to only be relevant to DAV in that they show some glimpses of what's been going on between games and give us a point of reference for some of the new characters...

The thing that gets me with DAI is that the game really wants you to side with the Templars whether it makes sense or not. Like... let's take the choice between mages and Templars as an example. The game wants you to side with the Templars. It really does, it tries its best to dissuade the player from siding with the mages if you go that route (Cullen's little "Oh... it's so dangerous... we shouldn't do it..." routine is notable when compared to Leliana and Josie, both of whom favour the mages, being very professional about you picking the Templars), it does its utmost to claim that the rebellion was unwarranted when it absolutely was not, the rebels are constantly framed as weak or mean or evil or stupid while the Templars were just misled (by... a guy who told them he'd let them murder all the mages and left out the "in service to Corypheus" bit, they still joined his little walkout to murder people, but the game doesn't get into that), it even lets you switch quests well past what should've been the point of no return if you're on the mage route (WHY CAN YOU SWITCH AFTER LEARNING THERE'S A FUCKING MAGISTER IN FERELDEN TRYING TO ENSLAVE A BUNCH OF MAGES, BIOWARE, WHY THE FUCK IS THAT AN OPTION) whereas with the Templars you can't even learn what your advisors' plan for getting you in alive is until you're locked in. And I'm not going to lie, CotJ is legitimately the better quest. I did it once to see and god damn it is quality, I don't dislike IHW but... yeah CotJ is definitely stronger.

But then you actually look at the story and... why the fuck would you side with the Templars? They left the Chantry because the Divine told them not to murder people. That's explicit, people tell you that repeatedly. They're making excuses for it, but there's always an acknowledgement that... yep, that's why the Templars left, they wanted to kill people and were mad about being told no. Leliana (the most familiar face among the advisors and given Cassandra's previous appearance was threatening Varric and Cullen's was playing yes man to Meredith for nine years and only changing sides once she became a threat to him/because not doing so would mean fighting Hawke Leliana's the one people are most likely to want to side with) is pro-mage and dismisses Cullen's claims that the Templars could help close the Breach as speculation. Which... it is. This situation is completely unprecedented, no one knows what's going to happen. But given mages are incredibly powerful and Templars are repeatedly portrayed as mostly useless in any sort of real danger that doesn't involve children or indoctrinated Circle mages (it is not a coincidence that the only people locked in the tower in Broken Circle who survive with their minds and bodies intact without the demons actively choosing to let them live for funsies are mages; the only Templar who's alive and unpossessed is Cullen, and the demons very obviously could've killed him at any time and just chose not to because they were having fun toying with him) I'm gonna say the mages are a safer bet. Also because... they invited Quiz. That could be a trap, but you know what's definitely a trap? Walking into a fortress full of heavily-armed mage killers who openly want you dead. Meeting with the Templars is really, really stupid (especially if you're a mage) and you don't even learn the plan for getting you inside unharmed until you actually select the quest. Also that plan is basically just "if there are witnesses with societal power the Templars can't murder you unprovoked" because reminder: the Templars are the absolute worst. Why would you ever want these people around. And then if you meet with the mages first like "Well I'll figure it out once I've heard what they have to say, I don't have to commit if I do things this way so I might as well" you learn that there's a Tevinter magister serving an evil Tevinter cult just chilling in Redcliffe and why the fuck would you go to the Templars at that point this needs to be dealt with. The game wants you to side with the Templars but it gives you no reason to do so, I really wonder sometimes if the writers weren't talking to each other at all.

[kalechip247]

⚠️VENOM THE LAST DANCE SPOILERS⚠️

…

i have to say… as a diehard venom fan a symbrock supporter, i am mildly disappointed by the third movie and it honestly felt like a cash grab. i loved the cute and funny bits that we did get, but it felt like they just needed to find a way to split Eddie and Venom apart. SOMEONE told Tom Hardy they couldn’t do more with their relationship and i stand by that.

in the first movie, it’s about their introduction to one another and becoming friends and in the second movie it’s about them learning to accept one another and realizing that they’re all they need. but i genuinely cannot find a theme in the third movie that matches the first two movies. it feels like they took a big step back with the third movie in terms of their relationship… in the end credits scene of LTBC we essentially get a love confession between Eddie and Venom, it’s very cutesy and gives off the vibes of middle schoolers falling in love for the first time, and there’s this mutual feeling of “he is all i’ll ever want,” but i just did not get those vibes in the TLD… very buddy comedy and very much leaning into bromance rather than romance (which is what i assumed we’d get considering all of the symbrock content the marketing team was putting out, which now just feels like queerbaiting and a stab in the back). not to mention Venom’s poor decision making, but he did change Eddie’s memories to make him think he still had cancer in the comics so i can’t really talk on that lol.

but considering how much comic lore they put into the movie (the xenophages, Knull, the Codex(which is Dylan in the comics)), i expected them to also take Eddie and Venom’s relationship a step further too, especially with the character development that they left us with in LTBC. when Venom dies while they defeat Knull (at least a manifestation of him) in Venom (2018), Issue #6, the symbiote uses this chance to say “I love you” one final time before saving Eddie.

and then in Issue #7, Eddie only thinks they’re separated and doesn’t even believe it’s dead until Reed Richards says so.

But it truly does destroy Eddie and he becomes incredibly depressed throughout the next few issues.

Issue #9–

losing Venom is the worst thing to ever happen to Eddie, and that’s what made the nature of their relationship so important, they’re entirely codependent on one another… so it’s frustrating to me that they didn’t incorporate any of that into the final movie and it seemed like Eddie moved on immediately from Venom’s death. but when Anne dumped him he became a sad sack of shit for months until he met Venom??? make it make sense.

ok that’s my hot take for the day. will i go see the movie again? …yes. but only to take notes so i can rewrite it in fanfic form.

[nighthaunting]

You ever have a moment where you reconsider something you thought a lot about in the past but then sort of turned your attention away from for a while, and your new perspective just blows the whole thing open?

Me thinking about russ and magnus during ATS/PB today after years of taking a break from HH/40K lore yielded one such series of revelations.

I was thinking about Betrayer and Russ' attempt to give Angron a lesson via the Night of the Wolf. I was thinking about Prospero Burns and Russ' belief that he's had a direct line to Magnus this whole time via Kaspar. I was thinking about that 'please'. And.

I know this is pretty much canon to the text but I've never before really Considered that one of Russ' motives in keeping this guy alive and sending him out on compliances with his Legion was (Russ believed at least) letting Magnus see the SW in action and hoping that this might influence him into trying to Avoid doing anything that might cause Russ to be sent after him.

In the past I've talked a lot about the SW keeping Kaspar around to see what would happen in terms of thinking the TS were up to something or going to do something to the Legion, which is very much the assumption the Chaos entity wanted them to make, but looking back I tbh think i slept on the concept of Russ, who canonically has taken out at least one of the Lost Primarchs in an event which is prefers not to speak (or at least the codex Strongly Implies that Russ has been used against another primarch before), and who also canonically went into the Night of the Wolf fully willing to die to make his point to Angron if only Angron could understand what he was doing.

I'm sort of compelled by the concept because in a sense Russ was letting (what he thought was) Magnus take a peek behind the barbarian mask he likes to put on, to see into a more genuine heart of his legion, letting his guard down a bit by allowing this obviously-compromised spy in. Much the same way he let the mask drop when he went to try and talk some sense into Angron, bringing up philosophy and reading and ideals that Russ' ignorant-but-noble barbarian persona would never admit to being interested in let alone reading.

And both times the gambit failed, in Magnus' case because it wasn't Magnus on the other end of the line, and in Angron's case because he was too far gone to really get what Russ was illustrating for him.

The whole thing was orchestrated so well, ironically giving the "proof" that Magnus was up to something via this sleeper agent spy that the SW were toting around with them, playing on Russ being curious enough to keep this guy around and connect the dots on the (false) links between this guy and the TS. I have this headcanon that Russ and Lorgar were actually fairly close, with Russ actually talking to Lorgar about Lorgar's writings, because he didn't seem surprised that Russ had read them and had thoughts on them in Betrayer, so I actually sort of like the idea that he had a hand in setting up the fall of Prospero? I like the tragedy of the idea that he at least had some input on the idea, being familiar enough with Russ to know he'd take the bait.

Which would make that a third time Russ got genuine with someone and had it either fail or be used against him...

[vigilskeep]

kind of insane we don't have any sort of canon basis for a dwarf from ozammar taking or marrying a non-dwarf. like, that seems like it could be at least uncommon enough to warrant some sort of codex bringing it up.

yeah! lore wise i can think of a couple of examples of dwarf/non-dwarf marriages but nothing in relation to what that would look like within orzammar culture. or even in surface dwarf culture. really big gap :( i guess they also want to avoid bringing it up too much because they didnt use the stupid elf-blooded get out of jail free card on having to design what a mixed race character would look like, and half-dwarves are supposed to be visibly half-dwarves, so that would mean having to make another body model. but throw us a bone, give me a codex, something

it doesn’t make sense for there to be no humans or elves or tal-vashoth living in orzammar and we know that’s not true even if the only examples we see iirc are apostates and mercenaries with the carta. there would be others too!! merchants selling their surface goods, anyone who wanted to be out of the chantry’s reach or escape royal justice, advantageous spouses for trading houses who want connections topside without losing their caste, elves whose traditional crafts and even song are canonically uniquely valued in orzammar, mages quietly in the employ of the great houses, maybe hired meat to throw at the roads, you name it

[bratgoatswiss]

Apologies for length, have to save the cut for spoilers.

I FINISHED VEILGUARD!

I have. So many thoughts and emotions about it and I'm still processing but I just wanted to counter some of the vitriol I'm seeing from people who are doing the Fandom thing with what I hope are reasonable, normal thoughts. Ha. Haha. Anyway. Mostly spoiler free but there's one small thing and one BIG thing that is that I'll put under the read more.

There was a lot to like about this game. The combat was fun and I think upon a 2nd playthrough it'll be even better. Some of it could get repetitive but its not a big gripe.

The characters were very endearing and felt well fleshed out as people and I enjoyed spending time with them. Most of the side quests were related to your companions in some way and I thought that was clever. Some were more interesting than others.

The writing has been contentious and I can see why. It can get cheesy and predictable in places, but overall I thought it was very similar to DA2. I enjoyed it and thought it reflected some realistic responses to what was happening around you. If you're here for gritty edgelord shit 24/7 go play Dark Souls you weirdo.

I can only speak for the Lucanis romance cause I love an angsty man, but it was perhaps, underpadded. It was slow and sweet and I did like it very much but I could have used some...more you know? I didn't even get to see my own tits and that's tragic.

Solas. I did not romance the egg in DAI. I do not like the egg. I liked how I got to handle the egg. So much. I've seen the Lavellan romance scenes and if there's any uproar from the Sollavellans (one l or 2?) it's because they didn't let you see the 2 of them fuck nasty in high definition for an hour. It's Rooks story now. You're fine. Go write fanfiction.

The lore. Hoo boy. Honestly they really did put everything in a blender and fished out what they liked. Everything is made up and the points don't matter. I don't LOVE that they retconned so much of what was in Origins. Zevran and the Crows especially seems really odd. I THINK the idea is that it's been like 20-30ish years since all that and stuff has changed or information was wrong or inaccurate or whatever? But that seems lazy. I wish they'd addressed it more with SOMETHING. But also there's 3 games worth of lore, not to mention comics and novels and like. I get it. But consistency guys. Add more codex entries or something. This is my biggest gripe. It did not impact my enjoyment too much. I loved what was added.

Spoilers below

That ending was so ABRUPT?! At least with DAI you got a ending party and final scene with your LI but here you get some end cards and voice over? I would have accepted that if we were getting DLC but this?? This is insane! Bioware I am begging on my knees to give us at least a "well we did it!" scene. The ending was epic but the ENDING was a disappointment.

Now. The suicide mission. I spent [redacted] number of hours investing blood, sweat, and tears of friendship into these 7 assholes and there is NO way to save 1 of them?? And you have to choose between Harding and Davrin??? Just those 2?? There should be a way to save them! Don't give me the no matter what crap! I don't want CONSEQUENCES I want FRIENDSHIP. If you could do it in ME2 you should be able to do it here. Also. Can we not have it be 50/50 heroic sacrifice with a black man? Like. I know you can technically choose but like why make it an option. It just feels weird.

So yeah. Initial thoughts and feelings. Overall good with some stuff I really disliked. I will be normal about this eventually.

I'll probably regret sending this out into the world when the sollavellens find me. Oh well.

[himluv]

DA Review Series: Dawn of the Seeker

<<<Previous Review: The Calling

I'm continuing on down the list in my journey to read/watch/play ALL Dragon Age content before Veilguard launches in the fall. Which means my next review is the anime Dawn of the Seeker!

Title: Dawn of the Seeker Director: Fumihiko Sori Release Year: 2012 In-World Year: 9:22 Dragon Verdict: Skip. Just read the DA wiki entry and call it good. Although, the Seether song at the end does slap.

Dawn of the Seeker tells the story of young Cassandra Pentaghast and how she came to be the Right Hand of the Divine.

So, this movie is not good. The animation style is very flat and, at least to me, visually unappealing. Everything looks bland and feels generic. The only reason I know this is part of DA is because they've told me so. 

Very few characters have actual names - most are referred to by their title. High Seeker (which in later content is switched to Lord Seeker), Knight-Commander, Grand Cleric, and even The Divine herself. None of these people are given names, which makes this movie pretty useless from a lore standpoint. 

Sure, we have a Knight-Commander, but of what Circle? It's never mentioned, as if there is only one Knight-Commander in all of Thedas. 

The only real tidbit of lore is in an absolute throw-away line that is never elaborated on. At one point the Knight-Commander says, "an event like Kirkwall will never happen again." I had to pause the movie because this threw me for an absolute loop. I thought he meant the destruction of the Chantry and the attempted annulment at the end of DA2. I had to use the wiki to discover what he was actually referring to.

A bit of codex lore explains that, in 9:21 Dragon, Divine Beatrix III (the Divine in this film) pressured Kirkwall's Templars to attempt to overthrow the Viscount. In response, the Viscount tried to give the Templars the boot, which culminated in the assassination of Kirkwall's Knight-Commander. This event directly led to the promotion of Meredith Stannard to Knight-Commander.

That's what the Knight-Commander in Dawn of the Seeker is referring to. Which is a pretty effing big event in Theodosian history, and it just never gets explained in this movie. 

Beyond that, there isn't really much here. The mages seem to be overpowered compared to what we've seen in game, and there are an AWFUL lot of Blood Mages just roaming around the Orlesian countryside. The magic we do see isn't visually recognizable as any spells from in-game and is really underwhelming. 

Cassandra as a character is pretty boring in this one. We learn about the circumstances of her brother Anthony's death, which is touching, but otherwise... Eh. She is voice acted by the same person who voiced Riza Hawkeye in the English dub of Fullmetal Alchemist though, so that's neat, I guess?

The best character is Galyan (short for Regalyan d'Marcall), a Circle Mage who barely uses any magic but it handsome and snarky. He felt like a true DA character to me, even if he served very little purpose through the whole movie. SPOILERS: sadly, Galyan died at the Conclave in 9:40 Dragon :( .

So, yeah. I've seen this film twice now, and I am utterly underwhelmed by it. Especially after having Absolution to compare it to...

No one will blame you if you just skip it, I promise.

[midnightsun-if]

So, I was wondering about the supernatural court and how it works. House Aurelia is sovereign over all, the Voltaire family is noted to be the ruling family of the vampires (but still subject to House Aurelia, so their rank would be equivalent to Grand Duke/Duchess or so?) while Caden calls Helena 'Her Grace' (regular Duke/Duchess then). The Grant Pack was also said to be important among wolf-shifters, therefore their standing should be on similar grounds to MC's Coven (Duke/Duchess or Marquis/Marchioness). The rest are a big question mark for now.

Please correct me if I'm assuming wrongly.

So the Etheric Court is a bit complicated with how it’s run at times… The Eclipse Throne, the seat of power for House Aurelia, is seen as the central area of power within it, and it’s treated as such. However, there are five major houses within the Etheric Court that are on the same level (in a sense)… It’s sort of like Morrowind— there’s a council of houses, all with the same level of power, in a way, but there’s one house that’s seen as the central house due to various reasons.

The five major houses being:

House Aurelia

House Voltaire

House Delmare

House Levyan

House Terrath

House Aurelia is seen as the central most power, and treated as such more often than not, because without them, and without the Eclipse Throne, everything else would shatter (for lore reasons that you’ll uncover deeper within Midnight Sun)— they are the glue that holds everything together, and are given the reverence and loyalty because of it. They are also the house that started the Etheric Court and brought them all together, which also gives them a level of seniority over the rest.

There are 15 total houses within the Etheric Court (although there are plenty of noble houses… few have just been given the honor of being asked to join— the MCs family being one of the 15). You’ll discover more about that within Helena’s scene!

You’re correct that the MCs Family are akin to a Duke/Duchess— at least when in comparison to House Voltaire or House Aurelia— but they’re an important family too. The Grant Pack is something I won’t get too far into, because I truly think they should be something you uncover within the game; they’re complicated, I’ll say that much.

An easier way I look at it (if you’ve gotten this far in my rambling) is that House Voltaire, as an example, rules, or overlooks, all vampires (and the species that fall underneath that bracket at times) while House Aurelia overlooks all supernaturals in general. Due to, again lore reasons, and simply because they have the capacity to do so (which is also why they’re treated in the manner they are).

Hopefully I made some sense— I promise I have cohesive plan for everything, and I’ll get deeper into it within the Codex page, but this is what I could explain off the cuff. ❤️

[hollowtones]

Okay I wanted to clarify on the Hades thing as it’s the only Supergiant game I’ve played out of the ones you listed:

1. They went with one of the more favorable interpretations of the myth. Basically, Zeus did a dick move and left Hades and Persephone both in a place where if they did anything but what they did it would have started a divine war. Hades never asked Zeus to kidnap Persephone, and Persephone wasn’t mistreated when she got there.

2. As for the Zag romance point, Meg was never Zagreus’ sister. Nyx is not her mother, and the game implies that she and Zag had a thing before the events of the game. As for Thanatos, it’s a *little* weird, but the game always takes care to say that they were *childhood friends*, not raised as brothers. How that works precisely I have no idea, probably in some “kids don’t know what’s weird about their home life” way.

Anyway I don’t want to sound like I’m saying your feelings are wrong, I actually agree about the other stuff, I just noticed you said you didn’t remember it as well and as someone who is pretty deep into the lore I never really felt like any of it was handled poorly. Heck, Demeter is even Zeus’ step-sister (and older to imply they were never ‘siblings’) to remove the connotations of Zagreus’ parentage.

Anyway have a nice day and I’m sorry if I was rude.

My issue with Persephone wasn't how they contextualize her relationship with Hades (I thought it was fine from what I remember); my issue was I spent most of the game after meeting her thinking "I wish this character had more agency", which is at least in part What They Were Going For, I Think, but something about it still bugged me. I have not played this game in maybe a year so I don't remember specifics.

The game says Nyx is Meg's surrogate mother. It squirrels that away in the codex entries, and does not go into much other detail from what I remember. There's wiggle room to give these a more generous interpretation than how it felt to me, sure. It still feels weird to me.

It's okay if you have a different reading of a story than I did, or felt a different way about it. That's normal. You do not have to justify it to me. It's fine. Don't worry about it. I'm not really interested in getting multiple messages of multiple paragraphs from anonymous strangers over the course of a couple days about two specific plot points in a video game I otherwise loved that I haven't played in a year. I appreciate your politeness about this, I imagine you specifically haven't sent all five of these messages yourself, so this is not me singling out you personally, and I'm sorry if I sound kind of exasperated here. I hope you'll understand: when I post a quick sentence or two about my opinions on something, in a casual setting, having a bunch of people come up to me to then say "well actually, here's a longform response about how I felt about it, what do you think of that", as well-meaning as most of it was, feels weird and exhausting! I like talking my thoughts on things, which I guess is why I'm replying to this. It just feels disproportionate, y'know? It feels weird to post a quick thought and then have people respond as if I'd written an essay & make assumptions about things I did not say. You're not being rude, I'm just tired, bud. No more messages about this, please.

[the-evil-pizza]

I'm having fun with ffvii rebirth, make no mistake, but I can see why my streamer of choice (tm) dropped out of it too.

Now, they of course could not get rid of the open world of course. It was a big part of the OG that you got to explore an open world map in 3d.

But it being a ps1 map it wasn't actually that big, it felt doable. Meanwhile rebirth suffers from 2 big problems.

1) it's a 2024 game and everything now has to look how it should feel while in the ps1 it was just implied that you were going around the world.

And most importantly 2) It has to bear the consenquences of being part of a trilogy that originally wasn't a trilogy.

You could feel it in remake too, that Midgard got stretched out for way too long but... It really, REALLY, is worst here.

And yeah it's for the open world sections. It HAS to be big for modern day standard and it shouldn't feel empty.

This results in way too many sidestuff that feel like a lot of smoke with no meat, differently from, like, yakuza which every side quest is fun in it's own way.

The Gilgamash side quests in the open world are fine, fun even. The combact ones acceptable, cute small challenges that help you understand how to pressure and stagger!

But did we really need to check 4 to 5 lifestreams lakes in every single zone? It doesn't add anything, the party doesn't have banter for it AND EVEN WORST! The gameplay for it is clicking triangle 3 times during every lake.

It's fodder, it feels like fodder and not a good one.

The divine Temple too are not great tbh but at least that unlocks lore in the codex.

But it is heavy it's a struggle to get to. And yeah it's not mandatory but for players that (like my streamer of choice tm and me) while not completionist likes to do what they see, it easily gives burn out.

Sorry for yapping this long folks lol

[beardedmrbean]

[Huey Zoomer Anon]

Okay I’m back…also there is waaay too much toxic positivity in the gaming industry

Also Ubisoft should have put it foot down towards Disney executives and remind them HOW big AC is

I’m sorry but release outlaws in august and shadows in November is like releasing Endgame and TROS two months apart

So the 5 months delays to Valentine Day is what they NEEDED.

At least Ubisoft is launching an investigation to wtf is going with management vs Disney who learned nothing for SW battlefront and SE avengers failures.

Also the discourse about Ghost of Yoeti, the Tsushima sequel. Yeah it weird that they did a 300 years timeskip…and people learned they hired a LBGT va to play the main lead….

…SBI worked on recent Sony sequels like Spider-Man 2….connect the dots

UGH you guys were so focusing the Ubi bashing for choosing Yasuke. You guys thought your precious Jin Sakai was safe. HAHAHA!

I mean if Ghost of Yotei take about another tip from ac2 where there is background lore like codex and crypts that explain what happened between the centuries gap from Altair to Ezio it would be good.

But….what you guys expect? This is SONY, you know the corporation that created the 2016 female ghostbusters movie which kicked off (well put it on) the pop culture gender war?

Okay I’m back…also there is waaay too much toxic positivity in the gaming industry

Even knowing what it means the term just confuses me nearly every time I see it used.

I’m sorry but release outlaws in august and shadows in November is like releasing Endgame and TROS two months apart So the 5 months delays to Valentine Day is what they NEEDED.

gotta make sure everything works just so as well, but ya launching in a dead spot for other launches can only help sales.

At least Ubisoft is launching an investigation to wtf is going with management vs Disney who learned nothing for SW battlefront and SE avengers failures.

That I hadn't heard about yet, interesting and good they're doing that hopefully they find the answers to their questions.

Also the discourse about Ghost of Yoeti, the Tsushima sequel. Yeah it weird that they did a 300 years timeskip…and people learned they hired a LBGT va to play the main lead….

Oh who cares if they're lgbt so long as they do a good job

I mean if Ghost of Yotei take about another tip from ac2 where there is background lore like codex and crypts that explain what happened between the centuries gap from Altair to Ezio it would be good.

They could also just make another game to fill in the gap

But….what you guys expect? This is SONY, you know the corporation that created the 2016 female ghostbusters movie which kicked off (well put it on) the pop culture gender war?

Ya that was going on well before that one dropped, it's incredible how many mediocre pieces of media that fail to meet expectations have their failure blamed on one of the many different isims, phobias, and the like.

We gonna blame the flop that was Wonder Woman 1984 on Antisemitism and misogyny or can we just agree that it just wasn't that good of a movie.

I started it on Tubi and it just could not grab my interest at all, might have made it about half way through it before giving up.

That was a tangent I know but I think it fits too so I'm leaving it, lol

[banshee-king]

So when are GW going to release a Chapter Serf unit for the tabletop? More than yet another tank, dreadnought, or "elite" infantry unit, I think Space Marines could really use a cheaper/weaker/more numerous unit to give their army more bulk.

Chaos Marines have cultists and daemon engines so they can take casualties without it being 100% pure Marines loses.

Sisters of Battle have arco-flagellants and penitent engines.

Necrons are a fairly elite army all things considered but they still have basic Warriors to balance out the Immortals, and Canoptek constructs to mass produce.

Even Craftworld Eldar have Guardians compared to Aspect Warriors.

Space Marines have scouts? But are they really more numerous or expendable than standard Marines? They're less numerous than serfs, the lifeblood of a chapter, and their casualties still diminish a chapter's size. And don't tell me Space Marines have the Guard, completely different codex. That's like saying Eldar have Orks because they can manipulate them to fight their wars for them.

I feel like Chapter Serfs should play a bigger role in the Space Marine "army". Deathwatch and Grey Knights can still do without them, they're strike forces unlike some other chapters. And I get why chapters like Raven Guard might not bring a lot of serfs to the battle, but what about Imperial Fists? Ultramarines? Salamanders? Black Templars?

I feel like GW should get rid of Techmarines piloting aircraft and vehicles (maybe make it a stratagem upgrade thing), and instead mainly have Chapter Serfs semi-augmented by apothecaries crew the vehicles. Then add a basic infantry unit for the Troops choice, they could even have an ammo crate upgrade that allows nearby Marine Core units to shoot more rounds or something.

A lot of armies have little subfactions in them. Necrons have Canoptek and Destroyer units, Orks have Speed Freaks and Beast Snaggas, Craftworlds have Wraiths/Guardians/Aspect Warriors. What do Marines have? Phobos marines? Yes individual Marine chapters have more lore to them entire xenos factions, but if they're going to keep getting tabletop updates anyway, at least add stuff that's different.

Codex Space Marines would honestly be so much more interesting if it wasn't just purely 100% Marines.

[weatherman667]

The worst thing about Primaris Marines is not that they are Mary Sues that swallowed the setting whole, it’s that they are uninspired.  It seems like the only way GW could think to add anything new to the setting was to make the Space Marines more Space Marine.  They then had the Indominatus Crusade that managed to created no new Chapters with battle honours.  They then add them to all of the chapters, completely annihilating the millennia of honours they have.

They then decided to have the Devastation of Baal, which makes no sense.  It makes as much sense as the US dropping multi-million dollars bombs on Afghanistan.  As a comedian said, the for the first time in history, the bombs we are using are worth more than the things we are bombing.

You can’t devastate Baal, as it’s already devastating.  You can devastate the Blood Angels successor chapter called Blood Angels.  And then you know what they would do?, take some from all of the other Blood Angels successor chapters to rebuild it.  It would be a fantastic chance to sell a bunch of new chapter badges and characters.  When they rewrote the chapter fanout, they fucked up, because they didn’t include a Death Company.

Oh, wait, Primaris Marines are free from the chapter flaws.  Now, this isn’t just about them being better, it’s about the fact that narratively, flaws and wounds are what define a character.  You don’t have a Blood Angels chapter without a Death Company.  You don’t have Space Wolves without alcoholism.  The only ones the Primaris represent are the Ultramarines.

This is also incredibly important for the meta, as the Blood Angels successor chapter named Blood Angels is the template for all of the other Blood Angel successor chapters.  So, not only are the Primaris Marines not to make a quick buck, they are losing money, as one of their biggest chapters just lost any interesting thing about it.

If they wanted to make money:

Keep the Primaris Codex separate from the Astartes Codex.

Create Primaris Chapters, and give them their own unique natures.

I was actually about the buy the codex and start on Blood Angels models when they ruined the chapter, and literally forced me to buy the Primaris Codex with the Astartes one.  I was like, okay, my next favourite would be Vostroyan Firstborn, which they don’t produce any more.

When I first got into 40k, I started looking up Squat lore, and absolutely loved it, (Dwarves are always my favourite fantasy race), only to find out they have been REDACTED.

Yes, Squats are back, but I’m not holding my breath.  There was a single phrase.  Not even a single sentence that bothered me, but a single phrase

“regardless of gender”

Now, 40k is notoriously absent of gender roles.  Astartes can only be male, biologically.  Sororitas can only be female, legally.  The Golden Boys and Sisters of Silence.

Then there’s basically Banshees and Genestealer Patriarchs.

Other than that, EVERY SINGLE POSITION in the setting doesn’t care if you are male or female.  They have female-only Militarum regiments, (that GW refuses to make models for), Inquisitors, Farseers, etc.  Presumably Necrons have gender, or at least had one before they had their souls transplanted into machine bodies.

There is one caveat, that they are adding gender roles to the new Squat society,  but then it would only seem to be there to be subverted.  The only logical conclusion is going woke.

[ofwolvesandshatteredshields]

bit of Veilguard whingeing below

More Veilguard thoughts: I’m having fun but the amount of telling not showing is driving me nuts. The characters quipping at each other gives me DA2 vibes but all these scenes where they tell you what’s happening instead of letting you do it, or figure it out, are so frustrating 😭 they also immediately sucked the complexity out of the two major antagonists which was similarly frustrating, it reminds me of DA:I where they walked in with so much potential re: the mage-templar war and then just dropped it on the ground.

On a similar note I just found a codex written by Dorian where he deadass goes “hey I know I used to support slavery but yea I was wrong. duh!” I wanted to see him get a thorny learning curve! Or at least hear about it!

That all being said I am excited to get more Titan/Fade lore and to round out my squad 😄 also I showed my friend a picture of my handsome Qunari guy and he said he looked like a blueberry. so now I cannot stop thinking of him as my big handsome blueberry.

[obsidian-warthog]

More mid Bayonetta 3 playthrough thoughts for me, this time on the homunculi. Their codex entries are boring compared to the angels and demons, they mostly just describe what the homunculus does aside from a few interesting tidbits like one being a mutation Singularity chose to make use of.

Meanwhile the angels and demons come with fun lore about their hierarchy and role. Alluding to locations in Inferno is a lot more interesting than just 'made in Oceania Bioplant.' But it does give the homunculi a bit of a distinct identity at least, the dullness is characterization for them in itself, because they're mass produced.

It could have been expressed a bit better though, like design specs or one of the characters commenting on them would make more interesting reads. Larger homunculi designs are also oddly hard for me to parse at times in the codex, might be the limited color scheme. Still not keen on this faction, but I think I see what the devs were going for better now.