Dragon Age

Hey does anyone know how much control Justice/Vengeance has over Anders. I know he compels him to fight for Mage freedom and do various violent things. But does he exist as a voice inside his head, or are the two one entity. It's for a Fanfic I'm writing. (God I can't believe I typed those words.)

Anders speaks of him as though he's present in his head but separate, but the line between the two is pretty blurry and becomes moreso over time. I don't think they're entirely distinct individuals anymore, but they're not fully merged either.

So a line like "he felt a compulsion" would be a good representation of Justice in Anders head?

It depends on what point in the story it takes place in. During Acts I and II, Justice is present as a part of Anders. Where Anders ends and Justice begins isn't entirely clear. He has compulsions, beliefs, desires that aren't wholly his but aren't unrecognizably foreign either. Plus his Superpowered Evil Side, which is 100% Justice/Vengeance.

In Act III, Justice has essentially completely overtaken Anders. He's a complete abomination at this point; just about everything that was Anders is gone, replaced by the possessing entity who manipulates his body towards its purpose. In this case, that purpose is Vengeance.

One of the great things about DA 2 is that it's actually up to the player to decide the nature of Anders and Justice's relationship. In Act I, Anders and Justice's fates rest on the edge and you tip it one way or the other. A Friend Anders will merge with Justice, supported by your encouragement. The line I recall goes something like "You tried to help a friend, how can that be wrong?" Anders stops resisting, Vengeance stops pushing and the two seem to come to terms with each other and properly merge.

Rivaled Anders resists because you keep berating him that what he did is stupid and that he's untrustworthy. He agrees with you and does his best to fight it. The scene for this I remember most is Vengeance showing up and saying "this does not concern you!" to which Hawke says "I was talking to Anders" and finally Vengeance replies" I AM ANDERS!" By Act III, Anders has lost the fight for control of his body, if not his mind, and so everything still ends up happening, but he is explicitly forced into it.

But yes, there is no easy answer for how "complicit" or "culpable" Anders is because he is so dependent on your choices.

If I had to write a fanfict about it, I would probably put Justice's thoughts inside Anders' inner monologues. Maybe in italics, or something, so that the reader can understand who's thinking what but it's also clear that Anders cannot understand which thoughts are his and which are Justice's. Then maybe in Act III get rid of the distinction.

Thanks for the advice.

"Those particular villagers were not sent off to the Joining. Blackwall even says that while he won't be there next time someone attacks, they will, and they'll be able to defend themselves."

Maybe he was just training the local village idiots to stab them with the pointy end then? It seems really odd from a writing stand point to me. Let me rewatch the scene.

• rewatch*

Ok. Yeah. Seems odd. He refers to them as 'Conscripts' during the scene suggesting that he intended to recruit them. But then he orders them to 'take back what they stole and return to your families' followed by 'You saved yourselves'. Maybe he felt that the thieving and bandit problem in Redcliff was too much to accept their service?

If Rainier's been telling people he's a Warden, then there are probably people who ask to join. Based on his own background, there are also those he conscripts to 'save' them, whether from a life of further crime or the gallows. Not really important which is which, but the ones in that cutscene are most likely some of the former, made desperate by the war and the bandits, just to go by what Rainier says after training them.

He's aware of the Right of Conscription but doesn't fully understand it. He's willing to conscript/recruit anyone who asks, though, based on his idealized view of what the Grey Wardens are.

edited 2nd Jul '16 9:36:55 AM by Unsung

what I thought went on was he conscripted them into an ad-hoc militia, nothing to do with the Wardens, just someone trying to help the little people who just so happened to be a Warden, and he is technically correct, anyone CAN kill and Arch Demon, but kill it for good? that takes a Warden

I know we talked about this a while back but what book/comic/whatever recounts the story of Isabela leaving a bunch of slaves to die? I was just revisiting the Arishok situation in DA 2 and reading some comments and I'm kinda conflicted because I like both of them. But in my moral equations I always forget about this slave thing because in the actual game, Isabela's only accounted history with slaves is freeing them, not drowning them. It's frustratingly contradictory.

Flashback in Dragon Age: Those Who Speak, a comic that follows on from The Silent Grove. In order to avoid being caught by Orlesian ships — who I think hang slavers — she ordered all the slaves to be dumped over the side (drowning them).

It leaves a bad taste in her mouth, and the next time she discovers she's been tricked into transporting slaves she frees them (as mentioned in DA2).

edited 3rd Jul '16 2:08:10 PM by Lavaeolus

Thank you. So I guess it was sort of a Heel Realization for her.

With a dash of My Greatest Second Chance mixed in for good measure. She felt horribly guilty about the judgment call she made, underwent some Character Development, and made a better choice when the opportunity presented itself again.

However, recognizing that a specific choice was a bad one is not the same as recognizing the personal flaws that resulted in it. Isabela is still, by and large, a character defined by selfishness and is still in need of much growth. When presented with the opportunity to make an equally terrible, selfish choice but one that's unrelated to her pang of conscience, which direction she falls is variable.

That's the tragic irony of the choice to give Isabela to the Arishok or protect her: an Isabela who flees with the book and doesn't return deserves to be hunted down by the terrible consequences for her choices, but an Isabela who returns to face responsibility does not. The Isabela who returns is taking her next steps towards rehabilitation, and surrendering her to the Arishok is effectively a Heel–Face Door-Slam.

I mean, she's still a criminal and a fugitive, but in Hawke's band, who isn't? There's a reason Aveline is so passive-aggressive. Hawke is basically her underworld contact.

Even if I, as Hawke, judged Isabela as completely unreedemable, I'd rather Mercy Kill her than hand her to the Arishok. A life of being mindraped and tortured into that sort of lifestyle would probably be a fitting punishment only for the worse Complete Monster villains out there.

Luckily Hawke only knows about her saving slaves and not about what pushed her to save them, so it's not really a problem. :P

edited 5th Jul '16 8:32:22 AM by Cozzer

To be fair, by the time the Arishok begins his invasion, Hawke also knows about her stealing the Qunari tome that started the whole thing, and her decision to cut and run as soon as she got her hands on it, abandoning everyone in Kirkwall to burn at Qunari hands. Countless innocent people are dead because of a conflict she began, then prevented from reaching a peaceful resolution.

Which brings us right back to the irony. If she decides she is entirely comfortable with paying for her decision to free the slaves with the brutal murder of countless Kirkwall citizens, then she is a reprehensible individual who deserves to face justice. Not necessarily the cruel and unusual justice of the Qunari, but that's the choice she made when she committed a crime against them, specifically. Choices have consequences.

But the Isabela who has another attack of conscience and makes the incredibly brave choice to return and face the responsibility for what she's done is an Isabela who recognizes the part she played in everything that's happened and the lines she has crossed and is making an effort to do right by her mistakes. The only Isabela you can give over to the Arishok is the one who deserves a chance to change.

I don't know, my personal moral compass says "fuck it" on the subject of cruel and unusual justice, regardless of the circumstances. I would never say that giving somebody to the Qunari for torture and mindrape is "the right thing", no matter how much the guy or girl brought it on him/herself.

On the other hand, I could totally see Hawke giving Isabela to the Qunari if she was captured by the city guard or something while escaping. It wouldn't be "right", but when you have a city-wide fight going on it would definitely be an acceptable sacrifice to end it.

But I agree with you that giving an Isabela who returns to the Qunari is not something that happens in a city my Hawke is interested in protecting.

edited 5th Jul '16 9:02:31 AM by Cozzer

<.< My Hawke didn't care overmuch about concepts as grand as protecting the city until the Arishok made her famous and, consequentially, ambitious. Keeping the city safe was Aveline and the City Guard's job. Also the Templars' job. Not the responsibility of an ex-smuggler's mercenary band of fugitives and renegades.

That's one thing I really like about DAII: much like Mass Effect II, the cast isn't comprised of people you would reasonably expect to be the "heroes" of the piece.

• A Dalish elf exiled from her clan because her dangerous blood magic and pursuit of forbidden knowledge makes her a constant threat to herself and others.
• A Grey Warden deserter who deliberately, knowingly became an Abomination.
• A homicidal vigilante who escaped a life of slavery to plot revenge, whose short fuse and freaky superpowers are rivaled only by his open, unapologetic Fantastic Racism.
• A selfish, dangerously reckless pirate captain who repeatedly demonstrates a willingness to sell out innocent lives for her own gain.

Plus Varric and Hawke as the brains of the operation, and Aveline as their compromised police contact, caught in the hard place of having to straddle the line between covering for Hawke's band of ne'er do wells while simultaneously using them for the advantages offered by having a gang of underworld thugs at one's disposal.

Under any other lens, these people would be the bad guys and with the constant, sometimes literal infighting, the game makes no attempt to downplay exactly why. But DAII is all about the blurred lines that exist somewhere between the definitions of "hero" and "villain".

edited 5th Jul '16 9:19:15 AM by TobiasDrake

This being a quasi-medieval setting, if you draw the line at turning someone in on the basis they might face Cold-Blooded Torture, then you're likely to end up a fugitive yourself. Nobles largely have carte blanche when it comes to dealing with anyone who commits a crime on their lands. The Templars have considerable latitude too, just because the stakes of heresy in this world are actually very high. Elves and mages are treated as potential criminals from birth, and presumed guilty, subject to the mercy of the nearest authority if they so much as step one foot out of line. It's just very easy to commit a crime, and the punishment is often excessive. So basically, principles are a luxury few can afford.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't turn over Isabela to the Qunari either. For a lot of people, and Isabela in particular, brainwashing would be a fate worse than death even without the torture. The Qunari just aren't the only ones with problems. Most people in the South acknowledge this, and it's why someone as committed to doing the right thing as Aveline can be both a guard and an accomplice to the Hawkes and co.

I like this murky moral complexity and imperfection. During development, Bioware always said Dragon Age was going to be dark fantasy, and not just because of the darkspawn, either. I think they've had some trouble zeroing in on how dark they wanted it to be. DA2 was, for me, always the high point (of low fantasy) in the series.

Hawke connects Aveline to at least one apostate, possibly two, just by showing up. Varric, though, is on nodding terms with the Carta and the Coterie, and although we never really learn all that much about his family business(es), consider that from Aveline's point of view, he's the contemporary equivalent of a Corrupt Corporate Executive.

edited 5th Jul '16 1:36:22 PM by Unsung

Anders is by and large a very good person for most of DA 2. He deserted the Wardens but so did everyone in my Awakening run. And Fenris of course is no more a vigilante than Hawke is when you murder all those gangs at Night . (something Aveline encourages, mind you) And Merrill...I won't get into that quagmire again.

Isabela is the roughest character in the group but she dresses it up better than everyone else. There's a reason she's good friends with Zevran but she does a better job of concealing it than Zev did. She honestly comes off like a fluffy, Disney pirate more than anything. Then I got her Act III quest finally in my last run where she lets the slaver go in exchange for a new ship.

In my first run of DA 2, I handed over Isabela without hesitation. The fact is, in spite of it being the only game so far lacking a qunari companion (outside Tallis in DLC) Dragon Age II does by far the best job of any game yet in establishing why the qunari are appealing. A guy elsewhere, a poster much smarter than me, was responding to a topic I made about Favorite Bio Ware Villains with nominating the Arishok. I will quote him:

" The Arishok is the violent face of the Qun, but still in a way that seems like it has a point. Kirkwall is exactly the sort of social situation that makes the Qun seem logical. In DA 2 you are faced with a city that really is a den of corruption, vice, and chaos, and is tearing itself apart as you watch, and the Arishok refuses to be complicit in it. Moreover, the Arishok has a solution. It may be a very extreme solution, but the Qun provides simple, clear, easy-to-understand solutions to the chaos in Kirkwall. When even outsiders get desperate enough to join him, like the elves accused of murder, you can see why."

And I saw why. I got A Worthy Rival without even meaning to because I simply agreed with him all the time naturally. And so when Isabela came back, someone emblematic of everything the Qun struggles against. someone who's act of greed had resulted in all this death. how could I do anything BUT hand her over?

And really, can you say it was wrong? If you fight for Isabela and Aveline is there, you promise him there will be punishment for Isabela. Now maybe on my last run where I romanced her there was some spanking but otherwise? Isabela faces no more punishment than that guard who raped that one elven girl and prompted her brothers to seek out personal vengeance when the city guard authorities did nothing. (Aveline instantly loses her argument with the Arishok the moment this comes up, too. It's rather embarrassing for her)

The fact is, as Hawke moves up in the city-state and with Guard-Captain Aveline at his side and everything else, your companions are completely safe from any legal authority. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing because that means Templars and Kirkwall Templars are...won't get into that either.

I have come to really like Isabela so the choice is harder now but I definitely see why giving her to the qunari is a very valid option.

In conclusion, I would say the ME 2 Squad - comprised of two agents for a terrorist group, three who are career killers, a morally ambiguous doctor, a crazy convict with several murders under her belt and probably more I'm forgetting - make DA 2's party look like saints.

Otherwise, Dragon Age tends to have more morally grey party members than Mass Effect. ME 2 is very much the exception. In Mass Effect 1 and 3, your party consists of pretty much nothing but goody-goodies. And Wrex (ME 1) or Javik (ME 3).

edited 5th Jul '16 10:47:17 AM by Nikkolas

You can be a good person and still be a criminal. Where justice is outlawed, etc. Likewise, the Arishok and Knight-Commander Meredith are all about good intentions taken too far. To the point where the Qunari disavow the Arishok and formally apologize (sort of— depending on his successor) for his actions, and actively serving Templars are working to subvert Meredith's orders from as early as year 1 in Kirkwall.

Any time we see what makes life under the Qun appealing, it's almost invariably undercut by some example of why we or some other character would be unable to survive there. The Arishok is pretty much dead-on in his assessment of Kirkwall, but it's an outsider's perspective, taken out of context. It's objective and logical, but it's not really fair because it doesn't take into account the personal or the historical, and his reaction is all out of proportion regardless: the siege of Kirkwall happens because the Arishok just can't stand to remain there any longer, doing nothing, not because it's an actual demand of the Qun. Rather, it's because the Qun is so rigid and inflexible that he can see no way to return home other than the most extreme measure possible. Qunari don't bend or snap, they shatter.

The deaths that happen during the siege might be on Isabela's conscience, but the blame is not on her head. Running away with the Tome and letting Kirkwall burn to save her own skin is pretty callous and cowardly, but it's still not the same as giving the order herself. Meanwhile, coming back to face the music is an undeniably heroic act— even if it doesn't make up for the past three years— and since simply not being heroic isn't the same as being out-and-out evil, that's why I almost always side with her over the Arishok. Lesser of two evils, by then.

Of course, if you're playing a more Machiavellian or more extraordinarily lawful-minded character, the added boost to Qunari-Marcher relations might be worth it. What's one more life, at that point?

edited 5th Jul '16 11:33:51 AM by Unsung

The Arishok has been there just as long as Hawke has. If Hawke can feel like Kirkwall is his/her new home and become its Champion, why can't the Arishok sit in judgment over it? At one point he even asks you about what you think of the "madness" of Kirkwall and you can choose to agree with him or say you enjoy the chaos because you are opportunistic. In either case, it is two "out-of-towners" who ultimately decide the fate of Kirkwall. Nothing you can do about that and it's unfair to single out the Arishok for this.

As for there being unsavory elements to Qunari society....duh. It's not a utopia. I like Anders and Tallis' exchange in Mark of the Assassin:

Tallis: Haven't you ever looked at the world and wondered where the justice is? The equality?

Tallis: In the Qun, everyone is welcome. Elves, humans. It doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from, there's a place for you.

Anders: Unless you're a mage.

Tallis: You won't find that anywhere in Thedas.

Society is not perfect but if the good outweighs the bad, you should probably stick with it. I hope none of us here think our societies are perfect but we aren't living off in the mountains somewhere.

i would say, with the Qun, the positives far outweigh the negatives, especially when compared with its fellow DA nations.

edited 5th Jul '16 11:52:16 AM by Nikkolas

The Arishok pretty much never leaves his compound. He has no interest in making Kirkwall his home, and he states several times and in a number of ways that it is as alien and incomprehensible to him now as when he first arrived. Hawke was raised in Ferelden by parents who were native Kirkwallers, and the Free Marches aren't anywhere near as different from Ferelden as either of them are from Par Vollen. The level of understanding here is significantly different.

I'm not saying that the Arishok is bad because he's a foreigner— quite the opposite. He's a xenophobe. And even that is pretty minor compared to embarking on a rampage through the city, rounding up dozens of people with the express intent of executing them en masse.

The unsavory elements of the Qunari far outweigh the benefits for me personally (the Word of God comparison to the Borg seems apt to me), but I don't plan to try and convince you otherwise. The point I was making was that even other Qunari think the Arishok overdid it, and if you can stop the invasion by killing him rather than turning over Isabela, then I say he's got it coming.

edited 5th Jul '16 12:07:04 PM by Unsung

Plus, up until Hawke drives away the Qunari, they're nothing but what most would probably consider as nothing more than a mercenary who just happens to have noble Marcher blood. And it's not like Hawke went and said "You know what? I'll be this city's Champion, screw what everyone else says!" That title was thrust onto them by Meredith, unlike the Arishok who suddenly decided that he was the only person suited to judge over a city he considered alien.

The Arishok has what I think is one of the most poignant lines in the whole series.

"There is no rescue from duty to the Qun."

The Qunari back home could afford to judge the Arishok because they had not been subjected to what he had. Threats and plots and accusations from random people all the way up to Chantry officials and Templars; facing a lifetime in KIRKWALL and away from his homeland; forced to watch as his forces dwindle away due to murderous fanatics or simple desertion. Six years he endured all this and he was saving six more, or maybe twelve or twenty-four or...

But as he said, someone "might force our role to change." That someone was Petrice, Qunari murderer extraordinaire.

Yes, he made the "wrong call." After having every provocation, after being subjected to an alien society that is awful and evil even by our standards, let alone a qunari's. He leaped recklessly into death possibly to escape an eternity in a living hell. If Isabela even made it back to Par Vollen, I would consider handing her over more correct. However, real world knowledge tells me that she escapes with the Tome, even if you give her to your potential respected rival. He in turn faces disgrace and I like him too much to want that forced on him. Better he die in battle before he is shamed.

Life in Kirkwall made the Arishok "too human." That's how I've always seen it.

edited 5th Jul '16 12:13:54 PM by Nikkolas