#vs some things (happening in the gallows) are worse than death

[kirkwallguy]

i know this banter makes some people uncomfortable but these last two lines are so good and sum up the difference between fenris and anders SO well. it makes me crazy. and both of their views are influenced by the chantry.

[thessalian]

Thess vs A Grand Cleric’s Job

I’ve been playing DA2 again and I’ve finally put to words my issue with Grand Cleric Elthina, at least in terms of the way she really is not doing her damn job.

She keeps saying, “I can’t take sides”, and that’s true insofar as it goes. However, her great grand ideals get a little screwy when she follows it up by saying, “My job is to stand off to the side and pray these two find a way to peace”. Because no. No, Grand Cleric, that’s not your fucking job. Because after so many years, it’s clear that Orsino and Meredith are not going to find a way to peace without a mediator.

Grand Cleric Elthina’s job was not to stand off to the side and pray, refusing to get involved in any way. Her job was not to send those two off to their metaphorical rooms like chastised children, allowing them to stew in their own resentments and live inside their own heads. Her job was not to basically add fuel to the fire by allowing them to think that being so intractable was in any way cool.

Her job was to be a fucking mediator.

Her job was to sit both of them down in a room - a neutral space that neither would want to see destroyed, as an arbiter they wouldn’t want to kill, and make them fucking compromise. She said, “Both have good points; both have flaws” - she needed to put the Chantry’s gold and her life where her mouth was. She needed to flag up the good points and the flaws and help them find where the two could coexist. Her job was to say, “Neither of you are going to get exactly what you want, but if we sit down and talk about this, maybe we can find a way where both of you can come close. Now talk like fucking adults and I will be here to check you when you start in on your bullshit”.

I mean, she saw what happened with the Qunari, when roadblocks were in place between Qunari and Kirkwall’s rulership and stubbornness prevented the sides from coming to an understanding. If the fucking Arishok had just said, “I’m looking for something that was stolen and I can’t go back without it; if you want me gone, help me find the damn thing” ... well, Act 2 would have looked very different, but a lot fewer people would have died. Elthina was clearly aware of what happened there, how anti-Qunari sentiment among the people (HER OWN PEOPLE) just made things worse. She would have known that anti-mage and anti-Templar sentiment was growing among the people, egged on by Orsino and Meredith, and that someone was going to take matters into their own hands at some point. At some stage, it was going to stop being an issue contained within the Gallows grounds. Arguably, given Grace and Aldric and Thrask and the rest, it already had become an issue that spread beyond the Gallows grounds.

But no. Instead, she let the whole thing simmer, and outside forces obliged her to die for it, and yes, we needed that for Act 3 to conclude the way it did. All because she couldn’t do her damn job and arbitrate fairly and without bias between the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter because somehow, that wasn’t her job. Except where it was.

I understand the needs of plot and everything, but however much I enjoy that game (and I do, believe me), I’m often a little disturbed by how much of the plot is solely dependent on everyone involved being incredibly fucking stupid. I understand that a bit of convenient ignorance is necessary for most plots to operate, but that much, that obviously? There were ways of making things work the way the writers wanted it to without having everyone involved effectively sharing a brain cell that was apparently on loan to Hawke of all people more often than was feasible. But of course, that would have taken time and development was rushed so they went for the more convenient method of having Kirkwall’s motto be, “Using logic is punishable by death” ... which I guess is partly explained by the whole Enigma of Kirkwall, “The very bones and foundations of this city are made of crazy-making evil” thing.

Oh well. Still fun.