Dragon Age

Right. I knew the writer intended that. I just wasn't aware that they had confirmed it as being bipolar.

And, I believe, there are a lot of issues with Anders in that regard. Namely, as mentioned above, he DOESN'T have scenes that would address his behavior in such a way. "I'm sure he'd agree when he calms down and apologize". The problem is, that never happens. I only have what the game shows me to inform me on his behavior and... we don't get that.

So, I feel like, if his portrayal was intended to be that of someone with Bipolar disorder, I think its a massive missed opportunity and kind of... its not very well addressed and can kind of hit a ton of unfortunate implications.

I dunno. Feel kinda weird (and borderline offensive) drawing parallels between a disorder/condition one has no control over, and Ander's situation is the result of his own actions (with Justice's prompting). Anders chose to be Justice' new host. People who suffer from bipolar disorder didn't pick that.

The whole "the difficulties of loving and trying to help someone who struggles with a part of himself that he cannot control and may never be able to control" kinda falls flat when Anders purposely engineered that. I mean what did he think would happen? The spirit would do nothing? The RL people I know with bipolar issues, I don't feel resentment towards them, coz it never was their choice. It's a bad hand life dealt them. Anders fucking chose to let a sentient spirit inside him. Even if he was ignorant the specifics of where it'd lead them, it's still a stupid move anyone with two braincells could figure out, less "No longer being in control of all your thoughts and actions" sounds like a great life plan. I don't feel pity for what Anders has become because, well, he picked that.

edited 1st Aug '15 12:03:45 AM by Ghilz

Neither Anders nor Justice expected that Anders' unexpectedly strong anger against templars and their treatment towards mages would twist the spirit into a demon of Vengeance. So no, what happened to him was not something he engineered on purpose. Maybe he heard about Wynne and how she herself was possessed by a spirit of Faith, and that led to him making his decision to let Justice inhabit his body.

edited 1st Aug '15 12:06:24 AM by ITNW1989

A) Even Wynne spirit could make her do stuff (As it does when she basically first reveals it to the party). It just did so less

B) YOUR LETTING SOMETHING SENTIENT WHO CAN CONTROL BODIES INSIDE YOU. Even IF he didn't know what was gonna happen. What did he think was gonna happen? Even without the Anger thing, did Anders decide he'd always 100% agree with Justice? That Justice would also be always 100% behind everyone of Ander's decisions? The "They didn't know" excuse only makes them even more responsible and makes me hate Anders even more. "Let myself be possessed! I have no clue what that'll do, and I won't be able to rid myself of you if something goes south! Let's do it!" It wasn't even some life or death thing, split second decision thing (Unlike Wynne who had the lives of her students at stake). No, just Anders going "I got no clue what this'll do. Lets do it." It's like walking into a chemical plant, picking a vat at random and going "I don't know what this is or what it does" and diving in there and then claiming your ignorance makes whatever consequences not your fault.

Fuck Anders.

edited 1st Aug '15 12:14:15 AM by Ghilz

Geth: Oh, right. I don't know if rogue in DAII is actually any good or not because the few times I've tried I've just gotten bored.

Ghilz: Justice was basically reasonable in Awakening. Sure, his view of the world was a little limited, but he began to grow and change and could be convinced to look at things from other angles. I don't think it's completely stupid of Anders to think they could work well together. Neither of them expected Justice to become Vengeance.

Sometimes we do stupid things for friends, and sometimes that leads to us bombing a church and starting a new world war.

I know that.

My point is, Anders decision is such a flagrant violation of common sense, even if he couldn't predict the manner in which it would blow up in his face, how could he not expect it to blow up into his face any way at all. He's letting an alien intelligence (After all, Justice is a spirit, and as Solas would tell us, Spirits are not like people. They do not think like mortals.) into his own mind, where it will have partial access to his body and full access to his memories and thoughts. So tell me, what did Anders think was going to happen? What was his golden scenario? What was the "Just as Planned" outcome he was hoping for?

And that's without going into that in Awakening it's established that Justice is sensitive enough it has the memories of the dead guy its possessing. So expecting a living person with emotions would have no impact or less of an impact is dumb as hell.

And hell, in light of what we learn from Solas and Cole in DA:I (Hindsight, I know), Ander's decision was doomed to failure from the start. There was basically no way Justice interacts with a human mind who has any kind of strong emotion and not get disaster. Wynne probably averted that because she's so boring she's a 30 year old who acts like she's 80.

I agree, but there's "Damnit I ended up with barf stains on my couch coz I let my drunk friend sleep there" and "I got involved in russian roulette on a dare with my friend and now I am saying I'm not responsible for the blood that's leaking all over the place."

And either scenario don't compare to, again, suffering from a disorder you had no choice or influence on. Ander is not a victim of circumstances, or bad luck. He made a bad decision, and maybe you're inclined to forgive him for that dumb bad and dumb decision, but I still take offense with an author telling me it's supposed to evoke mental disorders. Coz in the end, Anders is the one who picked the path Anders ended up walking.

EDIT: It's late and I can't type. Sleep time

edited 1st Aug '15 12:45:21 AM by Ghilz

Justice had access to Kristoff's memories. Nothing bad happened. It helped humanize him, in fact. Ideally, Justice would help push Anders to working together for mage rights, but something went wrong. It might not have if he hadn't gone to Kirkwall of all places. Peaceful coexistence with a spirit in the same body is possible.

I mean, I'm not supporting his decision, but it wasn't as obviously suicidal as you seem to think.

Well, personally, I have a different approach to Anders, but it requires making a distinction between Anders the mage and Anders the abomination.

Speaking of which, things inexplicably missing from Inquisition even though the game makes references to them:

• Abominations.
• Blood mages (outside of Erimond and the Wardens, who strangely don't try to use it against you).
• Ogres.
• Desire demons.
• Healing magic (apparently only NP Cs get to use or benefit from healing magic now).

Honestly, I'd prefer they kept abominations to a minimum. They're supposed to be rare and dangerous, not something you fight a path through in order to get wherever it is you're going.

Wasn't there a Vengeance abomination in the Hakkon DLC? And by the Southern Thedas definition Dorian is probably a blood mage. He certainly doesn't care about someone using their own blood to fuel a spell, which is all Jowan did.

edited 1st Aug '15 12:52:55 AM by Arha

Healing Magic has been retcon'd into being... basically like surgery. Its kind of hard to do it in the heat of battle. Though, as to why THIS wasn't used to explain the out of Battle healing and why we can't heal after killing all the bears, I don't know.

I haven't been able to afford that one yet, so it's possible. The only explanation I've come up with for the abominations is that, with the Breach, any spirit can just walk beyond the Veil if they want, which they probably find preferable to possessing a body, but the physical realm drives them insane, which prevents them from taking over a body later.

Damn, if that's how Creation magic was retconned Wynne, Bethany, and Anders must have been some badass Combat Medics to be able to do healing magic on the fly.

And something I just realized is how Inquisition's virtually retconned everything regarding the schools of magic in Origins: Primal, Spirit, Entropy and Creation.

In other news: I usually don't read the explanations for exploration missions on the war table, because unlike the other missions, there is no way anything can go wrong with them.

But today I decided to read a few, on a hunch, and man, Cullen must hate his job.

EDIT: Yeah, the spell schools are weird. I mean, I kind of understand dividing Primal into its components, but Entropy, aside from the one spell in Necromancy, is gone; Spirit has replaced Creation for the most part, losing what few unique stuff to Necromancer and Knight Enchanter; Creation itself is nowhere to be found.

edited 1st Aug '15 1:19:02 AM by Khantalas

I don't think those schools of magic are gone. You're just specializing. The whole range of possible options to explore with magic is simply not open to you.

That makes sense. I just find it weird that you have next to no knowledge regarding Entropy magic but still have access to some Spirit and Creation spells as well as pretty much the entirety of the Primal school. It makes sense for a Vashoth mercenary, less so for a First or Circle mage.

Are we talking about the war table missions like Maryden's war table mission? Because I used on that one since he was the only one available at the time, and Maryden's response at the end was gold.

"A soldier cares not for a poet's pain. Just go and fall upon your sword, you prat."

edited 1st Aug '15 1:26:23 AM by ITNW1989

I could accept that, given that you are probably not long out of the Circle, and that you would need to focus more on fighting your enemies than esoteric research.

Except, well, the spells I would consider most useful in a battle were in Creation and Spirit, and those spells aren't there anymore.

I find that hard to believe, considering that most mages discover their abilities and get sent to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters the Circle at preteen age, and Patrick Weekes once mentioned that the Inquisitor can be anywhere between mid-twenties to mid-forties, just that adulthood is assumed by then. And when your Inquisitor can give most dwarves' facial hair a run for their money, it's even more difficult to think you're a greenhorn Circle mage fresh off of escaping from being killed by Templars.

edited 1st Aug '15 1:34:18 AM by ITNW1989

I don't know any other explanation than "a few months past her Harrowing" for my Necromancer to start with only the two spells she had during the Conclave.

But, here's the thing: what are spells? Are they just mechanical abstractions for the player? Do the characters in-'verse use spell in a more freeform fashion, or do they still have spells as discrete ways to use magic, if in a less mechanically rigid way than we see?

There's a few War Table missions that can end poorly if you're not careful. The one to the other Dwarven city can end in failure if you don't pick Leliana.

Yes, but not the exploration missions. Those are just "spend power, open more map".

On the subject of mages the more I talk to Solas the less I like him. Guy is such a primadonna. Seems like everything I say to him gets me a "Solas slightly disapproves" and he's always picking fights with anyone in the party who disagrees with him.

Solas is such a sad puppy. He is only matched in self-loathing by Blackwall.

Solas does get along with Varric, Cole, the Iron Bull (though not Hissrad) and Cassandra, though, which is half of the team.

It's a shame the bloodswipe Hawke has is preset only. Would have been nice to put it with different hair colors.

Ugh, I know. I was so annoyed when Inquisition not only let you blood smears on custom faces, but also allowed you to change the specific blood smear pattern.

Exclusively for Hawke.