Captain Zuul keeps blanking and vandalizing the page. Could somebody talk him down and/or ban him?
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He's been banned. It's a troll who's been around some time already, and keeps making new accounts.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Where are The scrappy and broken base/base breaker about characters gone ? I clearly remember a few lines about Carver, Isabella and Merril being there
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The Scrappy entries were removed because they were already under Base Breaker. Base Breaker and Broken Base are still here.
For future assistance, if you wonder where an entry went, check the history page, in this case here
. It's the "history" button among the blue buttons on top of a page.
Well, the ones you readded needs to be split between the characters.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Woobies. We need a Dragon Age II page just for them. Every party member had a shitty life, with Sebastian, who PROBABLY has it the easiest, losing all his family(blood or otherwise) by the endgame. Everyone with the surname of Hawke qualifies; Malcolm constantly lived on the run and was forced to delve into blood magic to save the people he cared for the most, Leandra lost everything she built, had a child die as she escaped death, lost another, either to death or to an organization with issues, and then there's All That Remains, etc. For the NP Cs, there's Ser Thrask, whose moment of weakness led to his daughter dying, only for him to die years later attempting to oust an unstable, insane, if somewhat well-meaning, extremist by ANOTHER. Viscount Dumar, Gamlen, Nyssa, etc...
Edited by 112.201.129.28
Regarding this:
- The writers made their absolute best effort to portray all mages as Always Chaotic Evil — it doesn't matter what their values were, if they appear, you'll be fighting them, often under extremely contrived and ridiculous circumstances. The number of good mages in this game can be counted on one hand.
This is just biased POV. The amount of good templars can be counted on the other. DAII is a game of extremism—you see horrible, depraved templars and mages alike. I personally believe the mages probably had a bigger focus to deter people who automatically side with revolution, rebellion, and freedom. People who wouldn't take the threat of mages seriously. There's fair arguments on both sides that is presented in the game.
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However, enemy mages are portrayed in one variety only — Chaotic Evil. They summon demons, turn into abominations, or have sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies that drive them towards irrational or violent behavior. Templar characters encountered are given more character depth — Thrask, for example, is not a totalitarian. Neither is Cullen, in the end. Alrik is a Nazi stand-in, and Karras is a rapist. Meredith's actions are always given post-facto justification, and her entire character is couched in a Freudian Excuse. Orsino, Grace, Tarohne, Quentin, Gascard, and a litany of other mages are portrayed as being pretty much evil, and Orsino pretty much exists to be a boss fight — he has no character outside of it.
The need to portray both sides as extreme is hampered by one side being portrayed as one-dimensionally insane. It doesn't make the Templar point of view any more logical, because countless characters speak of sane mages, but the writers effectively shill them by making their enemies complete monsters.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
However, enemy mages are portrayed in one variety only — Chaotic Evil. They summon demons, turn into abominations, or have sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies that drive them towards irrational or violent behavior. Templar characters encountered are given more character depth — Thrask, for example, is not a totalitarian. Neither is Cullen, in the end. Alrik is a Nazi stand-in, and Karras is a rapist. Meredith's actions are always given post-facto justification, and her entire character is couched in a Freudian Excuse. Orsino, Grace, Tarohne, Quentin, Gascard, and a litany of other mages are portrayed as being pretty much evil, and Orsino pretty much exists to be a boss fight — he has no character outside of it.
The need to portray both sides as extreme is hampered by one side being portrayed as one-dimensionally insane. It doesn't make the Templar point of view any more logical, because countless characters speak of sane mages, but the writers effectively shill them by making their enemies complete monsters.
And, let's be honest, so what if the mage ending is chosen more often? Does that really warrant making half the secondary cast with as much depth as cardboard? Evil cardboard?
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Er, somehow, my post was duplicated. Disregard (and please delete) the first one.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Bethany is one of the most decent characters in the game, Emile de Launcet is completely harmless, Orsino is a generally reasonable and fair guy who makes good points (no, he has character outside of what you say), Evelina was a good person who became possessed, Ella is a good person, the rogue Starkhaven mages are not bad people, and Alain is a good person. There's a number of minor NP Cs who never attack you or do any harm.
Some of the mages are simply insane, yes, but others are just fighting for their freedom or for escape.
That said, I think there is a clear and obvious argument against your point: the fact that the fandom is so heavily divided amongst templars vs mages. You seem to be under the impression that it was an evil plot of the writers to get everyone to hate mages, but the templars vs mages thing is something they purposefully are sowing and developing for world-building, thematic tension, and so on. It's simply untrue that all mages were Chaotic Evil, and it's simply untrue that the writers have some sort of chip.
Not to mention calling Unfortunate Implications is going way too far.
Edited by helterskelter
The rogue Starkhaven mages were part of Grace's blood mage cabal. The same people who kidnap a member of your party. Orsino funded a Serial Killer For Science! and appears in maybe a few scenes and we know comparatively little of him compared to Meredith.
I'll give you the points on Evelina and Emile, but the fact that even good mages have tremendously pitiful willpower is pretty unfortunate. If the game doesn't make them look evil, they make them look like they're weak. What Measure Is A Not Badass? Absolutely nothing. Where are the mages who have both moral fortitude and the ability to kick ass?
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
But you're assuming because they are not pure and good, this is the same as them being Chaotic Evil.
For instance, you might not agree with Anders, but some people genuinely think he did completely the right thing. Bethany is certainly a good person and a mage. Merrill is obviously a good person who makes poor choices. But this is generally true of all the of characters in the game, including templars.
You're only offended on behalf of the mages.
Merrill as character derialment bothers me. Anders, sure, while I don't agree I can see the point there, but we see Merrill in the first game for all of twenty minutes and we see her in business mode, on a mission. Hardly time to guage a character. Plus she's had over a year of being alienated from her clan for her choices and missing what would seem to be her best friend (dead or gone as a Warden). That seems like fair Character Development to me.
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Merrill didn't even have a personality in the first game. She was businesslike when on a mission, but that's about all anyone could figure out. If she had been ported over as is, she'd be the most boring companion short of the Weighted Companion Cube.
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all" Futurama, Godfellas
I'd say that Merrill from DAO and Merrill from DAII are objectively very different people.
Within three seconds of meeting Merrill, she's a ditzy, clumsy, cutesy girl. Even when she's trying to be serious, or when something bad has happened. This isn't present in DAO. I'd say Character Derailment is an accurate trope. Is it bad? No. Like Geostomp said, she'd be god's worst companion if they brought he back as she was. But she was changed.
I agree with helterskelter - Merrill in DA 2 is certainly more interesting, but that doesn't mean it's not derailment to abruptly change her personality. Besides, they could have expanded upon her as she was, and they probably would have wound up with someone a little bit closer to Aveline's personality.
Alright, Dok Enkephalin, you are literally the only person I have ever had a problem with, and it keeps coming up—so what is it?
"* Continuity Porn: Mythology gags and a gratuitous overuse of recurring characters where new ones would've served the narrative at least as well, and with less damage to credibility."
You know what the problem with that is? It's negative. Unless the trope itself is inherently negative, saying things like "all of this damaged credibility" is subjective. And, yeah, I know, YMMV. But that's no reason for it not to sound consistent with the rest of the article. Did I remove it? No. I reworded it. If you had a problem with my rewording, you're free to make it sound even more neutral, to make it sound better, or anything you like. What I was taking issue with was the tone, not the trope.
So, for the last time: I don't see why you call me a lifeless curator, when I'm not the one who takes the time out of my day to leave nasty blank edits to a person I have never met.
EDIT: Also, for the record, leaving snide comments in a blank edit is simply rude. If you have an issue with an edit of mine, please PM me or take it to discussion. I'm not unreasonable.
Edited by helterskelter
Forgive me; but I don't see how exactly Dragon Age 2 having a Broken base is a YMMV. Its a fact, and which ever side your on doesn't really matter
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Because some people are more concerned and aware with parts of the fandom that don't apply to the whole.
From the outside, you couldn't tell some Bio Ware fans hate Mass Effect 2. It's beloved everywhere else. But inside the BSN, it might as well be the second sign of the Apocalypse.
In any case, the page is marked YMMV. It goes there whether you like it or not, unless you can come up with a fantastic reason why not.
I guess I have a different definition of what The Base is then.
But whatever, I don't really care that much to argue about it.
Deleted this paragraph for being obvious Natter:
Haven't played DA 2 for quite some time, so I can't exactly judge if there's a point to this argument or not. Some help would be appreciated here.