Dishonored

now that's what i call Body Surf .that time stop possesion was really cool too.

"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

I finished Death of the Outsider recently and I'm a bit confused about the ending. Specifically, I went with the non-lethal method, releasing the Outsider from his connection to the Void. I liked that this was an option because I wasn't really onboard with the premise of assassinating him in the first place, for reasons that I'm so glad Billie actually brings up in the argument with Daud: "Why are the choices we make his fault?"

But there's another unspoken question that I don't feel ever got adequately answered: if we don't think that the Outsider is personally responsible for everything bad that has ever happened in the entire universe and his death will instantly end all hatred and bring peace to the Isles forever, then what are we even trying to accomplish by depowering him? Like, I can actually understand the internal logic behind killing him, because if you take the lethal option, Billie does it because she accepts Daud's argument that he's the ultimate evil.

But if you reject that logic, you reject the fundamental reason behind why you're even targeting him at all. At that point, why even depower him? If you don't blame him for everything, why not just walk away and let the Outsider keep right on Outsidering? The motivation behind refuting Daud's logic and yet still ending the Outsider eludes me.

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Well for one It's pretty clear the Outsider wants out. He's the one that engineers all this. So the questions is less "Why wouldn't you depower him" but why would you? His existence is a living nightmare he wants to escape, risking death (and remember, The Outsider knows all possible outcome, he KNOWS death is a likely possibility) is an acceptable cost

The Outsider may not be the Objective Evil which Daud claims he is but his actions are not things which are GOOD either.

For every Daud or Corvo, we've got a Delilah Copperspoon.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

I mean, not really? Delilah is explicitely an outlier. Granny Rag and the Royal Executionner seems the more "common" negative outcome. And while they are a bitch and a cannibal she's benign compared to what even non-outsider powered assholes have done. Lucas Abele and Hirram Burrows didn't need Outsider Powers for what they did.

I mean, the very proof that your statement is kinda idiotic and nonsensical is we only got "One" Delilah for both Corvo and Daud.

edited 2nd Jan '18 6:59:24 PM by Ghilz

Not to mention that Daud killed hundreds of people on the low end, thousands on the high end while being the Knife of Dunwall (not even counting the assassinations his dozens of minions did for a living or the assaults on Overseers) and not caring about collateral, it got to the point where people just wouldn't say his name. He's a terrible example of someone not abusing their power.

Granny Rags was actively working to breed rats and spread the plague.

edited 2nd Jan '18 7:20:39 PM by TheCuriousFan

I need a new sig.

Corvo and Emily would be my reference there, not Daud.

As for the Outsider wanting this, eh, I'm not sure about that. He seems more resigned to the inevitability than outright seeking this outcome. He knows the end is coming for him, but in all the conversations with him, he never indicates that he actually wants it to occur.

Further, he has never, in any game I've played, been as hostile as he was to Billie Lurk. In other games, the Outsider gives you a choice to accept his mark or refuse it. He brings you into the Void and sticks a cryptic-ass surgeon general's warning speech on it, and then you can take it or don't. It's always your choice.

Billie didn't get a choice. She didn't get a warning speech. She didn't even get to visit the Void. The Outsider came for her in her own bedroom and attacked her, burning the Void into her arm and face without giving her the chance to choose one way or the other. In the very first contact she ever had with him, he permanently disfigured her without her consent. He's never been so violent before.

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Those videos posted last page are great.

He gives her the means to do this. All he had to do if he didn't want her to kill or free him, is do nothing. If anything forcing it on her will just further antagonize her and guarantee she'll go after him and not use those powers for Personal reason (Like Daud did).

The entire Franchise is the Outsider's plan to free or end himself. He knew by sending Daud after Delilah that Delilah's return would fracture time. And he knew that by doing that, and giving Emily the time piece, Emily would save Stilton, and this would turn Billie into a Liminal being. Billie, whom, incidentally, he knew was one of Daud's associate (And he'd need someone connected to one of his "chosen" to free himself since you need a dead chosen to read his mark at him to free him). Like you said, he gives his chosen a choice. But why doesn't Billie get a choice? Because there's no one else who can do what she can: End him. He needs someone who is a liminal being. And Billie is the only one.

When you remember the Outsider sees all branching path the future can take, there's no way he's not willing to let the plan go through for the plan to happen at all. He's had to intervene a bunch of time for it to even get that far. He set all the pieces in position starting with the first game.

Yes, but the plague was started by Burrows. And his own incompetence lead to its spreading out of control. Again, you don't need Outsider powers to be a terrible person.

edited 2nd Jan '18 8:29:37 PM by Ghilz

A liminal being? I might have missed something, because I have absolutely no idea what that means. Billie is somehow uniquely empowered to enter the Void in a way that nobody else on the entire planet ever could? And it's related to the Timepiece Emily got?

edited 2nd Jan '18 8:43:59 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

As I understand it, the fact that Billie exists in two states between different timelines is part of what allows her to draw on the Void directly, rather than through the Outsider's mark. The Transversal power is noteworthy here; it's Billie flitting between two different states.

There is one Billie who lost her arm and eye after she went out searching for Stilton when he disappeared (having gone mad at Delilah's reality-breaking resurrection). This is Billie as she appears at the start of Dishonored 2. Then there's the Billie who, thanks to player shenanigans, kept both her eye and her arm because Stilton never disappeared; a time-travelling Emily knocked Stilton out before he could attend the ritual, leaving him maybe bruised but otherwise unharmed.

The term "liminal being" isn't something used in the series itself, if you were curious you missed something. The time-travelling stuff is only possible because Delilah smashed time at Stilton's manor by resurrecting herself from the Void, something no one's done before.

I think one of the running themes in Dishonored is that power, more generally, tends to corrupt. The player can resist this by using their magic in more muted ways, but both those who hold political power and those who hold magical power tend to abuse it for their own benefits. Granny goes mad, Daud uses it to establish a reputation as a legendary assassin, and almost every non-magical target uses their power to go piss on the poor.

edited 2nd Jan '18 9:41:59 PM by Lavaeolus

Aha. I thought it might be something from Knife of Dunwall; it's the one Dishonored title I haven't played. I wasn't that interested in Daud and didn't realize there was going to be a Myth Arc. I thought it'd just be, like, the zany adventures of the wicked assassin who killed the Empress and gave it a pass.

EDIT: "Power corrupts" is one of those themes that sound really clever and meaningful on the surface but kinda fall apart when left to their own devices. Cool. Power corrupts. So what are you proposing as the alternative?

Both Dishonored 1 and 2 are about restoring an absolute monarch to the throne. It kinda undermines the "power corrupts" theme when your answer to what should happen with the Crown is, "Well obviously Emily should have it 'cause she's got the Divine Right by blood to rule absolutely." Everyone with power sucks except her because proper governance is hereditary, I guess.

Meanwhile, Death of the Outsider's alternative to power is anarchic chaos.

edited 2nd Jan '18 9:53:09 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

There's a bit of implication that Emily's bloodclaim isn't what really matters. Delilah might have a stronger claim to the throne than Emily — though as far as real life Delilah's claim is obviously circumspect at best — but a low-chaos Emily is willing to work for the best interests of the people whilst Delilah plans on turning everyone into a mindless, adoring statues. As they head up to Dunwall, low-chaos Emily will use this as the reason why they deserve the throne over her.

Admittedly that itself is not really complex, nor does it grant a long-term solution to preventing abuse of power. Dishonored is good at presenting a very corrupt society, but its solutions to that corrupt society tend to be "what if one guy put everyone through an ironic non-lethal punishment".

edited 2nd Jan '18 9:53:09 PM by Lavaeolus

Yeah. That tends to be the issue with "power corrupts" as a theme; the best alternative most works that use it can offer is to f*ck over all the guys who currently hold power and then just hope for the best afterwards. But "power corrupts" isn't situational; it's an absolute statement. If one's going to make that the crux of their argument, they need to be prepared to offer a non-corrupt alternative to power.

Musing on the Outsider, it still bothers me that we're meant to just agree that he, as a concept, must end. 4,000 years ago, a bunch of dudes did a thing to take the primal force of the Void and make it stop lashing out wildly in random spasms, giving it a guiding will and intelligence. And now that's not a thing anymore, so we're back to random spasms of f*ck you that will lash out at everyone forever. Uh, go team?

Like, abducting a kid off the street and murdering him, that's totally a bad thing. But I still just don't see how the Outsider existing is objectively bad for the Isles. It's not like they even put in methods of control and are forcing him to do their bidding; the cult is just as much at the mercy of the Outsider's whims as everyone else. He has all the power and what he does with it...isn't always great but could certainly stand to be a lot worse.

I don't know. I just don't see what's so terrible about the guy that apparently makes him the villain of the Myth Arc this entire time. He seems alright to me, and so far as the now wild and untamed forces of the Void go, I'm kinda inclined to side with the Devil we knew. Literally anything could happen now whereas with the Outsider, we had a fair idea of what to expect and the worst wasn't that bad.

edited 2nd Jan '18 9:59:54 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

The Outsider empowers whoever amuses him at the time. Also, the videos indicate he is behind the plague of Dunwall because he gave a young boy his mark who unleashed his rats on the rest of the world. He's Chaotic Neutral not evil but his shit-stirring is not something which has an overall positive effect on the world even if the people in Dishonored are some of the worst of Victorian evils.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

But is that worse than living in the X-Men universe, with the Void randomly empowering people with no rhyme, reason, or restraint of any kind? Or worse, doing the kind of shit that happened to Billie and the Cultists to people with no rhyme, reason, or restraint.

Billie outright points out in the denouement that unmaking the Outsider won't actually stop the empowering. The Void is still there and it's still gonna do what it does, but now there's nobody controlling it. It's as powerful as it ever was, its influence is as strong as it ever was, but now it's wild and primal and will lash out unchained.

This isn't a "We killed God" scenario. This is "We fired God and hired Cthulhu to replace him." That does not strike me as a net good.

edited 3rd Jan '18 7:51:55 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

The "Tales from Dunwall" videos aren't fully Canon as they predate the release of the game (As seen by Piero having Wallace's face in his video before their models were swapped). The game itself has Burrows confirm that he started the plague on purpose by importing Pandissian rats to kill the poor. The Heart also backs up his confession as it calls the plague "The Doom of Pandyssia" which matches Burrows' source of plague rats.

Plus the plague symptoms in the video occur way faster than they do in the game proper.

Eh, fair enough.

I actually have not played Death of the Outsider despite loving the Dishonored series (Steampunk! Grimdark! Emily!) because I don't really see why killing the Outsider is a good thing. He's a character I'm greatly fond of even if he is a Chaotic Neutral stand-in for Nyarlathotep.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Why is dropping the vault in Death of the Outsider mandatory for the subtle approach in the mission rather than something that makes you auto-fail anything related to being subtle?

I need a new sig.

It's not. The way you're probably meant to do it is by using the Vault controls. There's a mic next to them; when the guard asks what you're doing, all you have to do is use it and say you're testing the mechanics. Ignoring him is what sets him off (and then, of course, the rest of the bank).

For what it's worth, that caught me out initially. 'Sweird.

edited 9th Jan '18 8:08:00 PM by Lavaeolus

Doesn't that invalidate the achievement about leaving everyone asleep?

I need a new sig.

No. You can wake up that one guard and it's fine. It's not necessary to leave everyone sleeping (nor even put them to sleep in the first place); you just can't outright knock them out or alert them once they are asleep. (EDIT: Oh, wait, the achievement. Sorry, thought you were talking about the contract. Yeah, that does require everyone asleep, so I guess that virtually requires you to send it all crashing down.)

You can also apparently the vault controls by hitting them from outside, through the grated windows, with a bolt, or so somebody told me. Which would be a way to do it without waking him up at all, though it seems finicky to me.

edited 9th Jan '18 9:46:36 PM by Lavaeolus

It works but you can´t use a normal bolt, because that wakes up the guy sleeping at the controls, you have to use a pearl to shoot at the controls (i had trouble hitting it right, but with some reloading you can do it easily)

The achievement's description is kinda poorly written because it totally allows you to wake up that one guard as long as you remember to respond when he asks about the vault moving. I did and I got the achievement just fine.

edited 10th Jan '18 7:28:48 AM by TobiasDrake

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Finally finished Death of the Outsider. Full ghost pacifist, which annoyed me when I finally realized that Chaos wasn't a thing this time around. I totally would have slaughtered my way through the game if I had known that. Especially against those assholes at the Conservatory.

Not sure how I feel about the ending. Thematically, it made sense. The entire series has been about revenge and powerlessness, so why should the fate of the Outsider himself be any different? And the Outsider wanted out, for understandable reason. But it's hard to say where the series will go from here. It feels like it would have been easier to make a new Outsider that didn't require a brutal murder. Give the Outsider rest but still have an Outsider. I really feel like that should have been the choice, Billy either murdering the Outsider or willingly taking his place, which would presumably result in a less And I Must Scream situation.

So what now, random people get magical powers? How will that be better? For all the Outsider's faults, at least he always gave the power to the downtrodden. What would have happened if the Lord Regent had randomly been empowered?

Also, fuck the Abbey. At least now, it seems like they're going to collapse without the Outsider to hate. I would have assumed that they'd just pretend he was still out there, but the way the priestess was freaking out over the possibility of the Outsider disappearing implies that they won't be able to keep up the charade for long.