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Post by biggydx on Feb 11, 2019 15:58:43 GMT
it's funny that the options with the least votes are megalomaniac and ancient evil, which is what Corypheus is. I've seen a few examples of good ancient evil done well in games. For example, The Crawler from Fable 3 is pretty sinister but alluring (in a creepy way)
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Post by LadyofNemesis on Feb 11, 2019 16:21:20 GMT
it's funny that the options with the least votes are megalomaniac and ancient evil, which is what Corypheus is. I've seen a few examples of good ancient evil done well in games. For example, The Crawler from Fable 3 is pretty sinister but alluring (in a creepy way) That thing gave me the creeps (which I suppose is the entire point) it also reminds me of The Nothing from the NeverEnding Story, it's a bit of a similar concept I think
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Post by Jarovbees on Feb 11, 2019 16:22:42 GMT
I went with Mirror, though I'm okay with Mastermind too. I'm more wary of Anti-Villain and Tragic, probably because I'm so very tired of fandom's tendency to woobify such characters.
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Post by themikefest on Feb 11, 2019 17:58:29 GMT
One who is cruel and doesn't waste time talking. If you're going to fight, fight, don't talk. Good advice from Tuco in the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly movie. Likely the best western movie ever made.
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Post by thats1evildude on Feb 11, 2019 18:12:14 GMT
Well in a sense she was I think as she was stopping the city from trying to elect a new viscount after Dumar's death after the Qunari killed him and this was before the trouble with the mages. Varric says this in the story and why would she do this if she wasn't interested in power. Because she believed she was the only one who could halt the threat of magic. Again, she was not interested in power as an end, but a means.
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Post by Catilina on Feb 11, 2019 18:27:03 GMT
Well in a sense she was I think as she was stopping the city from trying to elect a new viscount after Dumar's death after the Qunari killed him and this was before the trouble with the mages. Varric says this in the story and why would she do this if she wasn't interested in power. Because she believed she was the only one who could halt the threat of magic. Again, she was not interested in power as an end, but a means. Whatever was her reason, she took the power and insisted on it, like a dog to a bone, and abused it. Loghain also was not "power-hungry", he took it for Ferelden (and he almost destroyed Ferelden – for Ferelden...) The power is weird: causes addiction, and many who took it find a good reason to insist to it. But I can believe, she really thought she's irreplaceable and works for the people, for the good. It is also a symptom. Meredith's great villain, like Loghain.
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boxofscreaming
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Post by boxofscreaming on Feb 11, 2019 19:20:01 GMT
I don't think there's necessarily a best type of villain - it's more about the execution.
What I think is most important, for all types of villain, is that they feel like a real threat. The Archdemon and Meredith became increasingly threatening over the course of the games they appeared in, whereas Corypheus peaked too early and became less and less threatening as we unravelled his plans one by one.
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Post by sjsharp2010 on Feb 11, 2019 20:40:51 GMT
Because she believed she was the only one who could halt the threat of magic. Again, she was not interested in power as an end, but a means. Whatever was her reason, she took the power and insisted on it, like a dog to a bone, and abused it. Loghain also was not "power-hungry", he took it for Ferelden (and he almost destroyed Ferelden – for Ferelden...) The power is weird: causes addiction, and many who took it find a good reason to insist to it. But I can believe, she really thought she's irreplaceable and works for the people, for the good. It is also a symptom. Meredith's great villain, like Loghain. Exactly that was my point he insisted on taking the power because she felt she was the only one capable of wielding it right and ended up abusing her authority in the end. But yeah like Loghain she made for a great villain for it. In the end combined with what Anders did and we can argue whether what he did being right o rwrong i nblowing up the chanrty but it did force Hawke's hand where they had to stand up to her and say "no more you're going too far here Meredith"
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Post by Gwydden on Feb 12, 2019 0:27:24 GMT
This position is weird to me, because for me, a key feature of the characters I consider to be "villains" is that I can't relate to them. If I could, I wouldn't see them as villains in the first place. I do not remotely sympathise with or even understand the positions and actions of Loghain, Meredith, or the Arishok. I understand that they think their actions are justified, but I am not interested in hearing that reasoning, nor do I feel at all conflicted about killing those characters in order to stop them. Conversely, a lot of people might consider Anders a villain, but since I view his actions as entirely justified, it is impossible for me to see him that way. Which is why I don't like the term "villain" for this discussion in the first place. It literally just means "person I don't like". The "true" villain of a story can change depending on who is consuming it. You sure you don't understand them? Earlier you mentioned how robber barons think their status is earned and therefore they're entitled to their treatment of those beneath them (the same could be said of aristocrats at any point in history, truth be told). That's insight into their "positions and actions." So I would argue that it is important to know the motivations of a "villain's" actions, because it helps you combat their belief system. This is even truer if you consider most prejudicial behavior to arise out of systemic rather than individual issues. So to keep it DA related, you could say that the problems with Meredith specifically are a microcosm of the larger difficulties posed by the templar institution. Killing all the templars won't solve anything because nothing prevents more from springing up. Or with the Arishok, fine, you beat him to a pulp. The Qun goes on, because ideologies don't need any one person, or even any one group, for their survival. Moreover, in fiction, some villains are purposefully metaphorical. You are not meant to interpret them as real people so much as abstract concepts. Understanding what, say, the monster stands for is a major component of engagement with horror and related genres.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Feb 12, 2019 2:16:33 GMT
This position is weird to me, because for me, a key feature of the characters I consider to be "villains" is that I can't relate to them. If I could, I wouldn't see them as villains in the first place. I do not remotely sympathise with or even understand the positions and actions of Loghain, Meredith, or the Arishok. I understand that they think their actions are justified, but I am not interested in hearing that reasoning, nor do I feel at all conflicted about killing those characters in order to stop them. Conversely, a lot of people might consider Anders a villain, but since I view his actions as entirely justified, it is impossible for me to see him that way. Which is why I don't like the term "villain" for this discussion in the first place. It literally just means "person I don't like". The "true" villain of a story can change depending on who is consuming it. You sure you don't understand them? Earlier you mentioned how robber barons think their status is earned and therefore they're entitled to their treatment of those beneath them (the same could be said of aristocrats at any point in history, truth be told). That's insight into their "positions and actions." So I would argue that it is important to know the motivations of a "villain's" actions, because it helps you combat their belief system. This is even truer if you consider most prejudicial behavior to arise out of systemic rather than individual issues. So to keep it DA related, you could say that the problems with Meredith specifically are a microcosm of the larger difficulties posed by the templar institution. Killing all the templars won't solve anything because nothing prevents more from springing up. Or with the Arishok, fine, you beat him to a pulp. The Qun goes on, because ideologies don't need any one person, or even any one group, for their survival. Moreover, in fiction, some villains are purposefully metaphorical. You are not meant to interpret them as real people so much as abstract concepts. Understanding what, say, the monster stands for is a major component of engagement with horror and related genres. Well, language is weird, and my grasp of it is limited, so maybe "understand" wasn't the best word for what I meant, but it's the best I could come up with in the moment. I "understand", for instance, that Meredith has childhood trauma related to her sister becoming an abomination, but I DON'T understand how she came to the conclusion that mages are the problem, when to me it is clearly the culture of ignorance and fear that caused her parents to feel like they had to hide her sister in the first place. Similarly, I "understand" that Loghain has some sort of Orlais-related trauma that drives him to act the way he does, but I can't see how he plots and schemes AGAINST his own peers and the citizens under his control, and fails to see that he has become exactly as bad. He may or may not have betrayed Cailan, but by the time the Landsmeet rolls around, he has absolutely betrayed Fereldan in every possible way. I can't see the train of logic that brings these characters to their ultimate conclusions. I can't imagine myself EVER being in a position where I thought their behaviour was okay.
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Post by Reznore on Feb 12, 2019 6:34:55 GMT
Is it? I don't know anyone who genuinely considers themselves to be an evil person. If they do think that of themselves, they probably have severe depression and low self-esteem, not the un-earned sense of confidence and entitlement that normally comes with being an unrepentant asshole. Bigots don't think of themselves as bigots, they see themselves as guardians of morality. The capitalist overlords who exploit the working class don't see themselves as evil, they think they deserve their wealth. Schoolyard bullies don't see themselves as evil, mass shooters don't see themselves as evil (they even sometimes write lengthy manifestos about why the people they plan to kill have it coming). I think it's far more naive to believe that anyone would ever openly declare themselves to be "evil", or to support "evil". The fact is that evil is happening all around us, all the time. It's baked into our society. The notion that we could excise it simply by finding and defeating an obvious villain isn't "edgy", it's the comforting fantasy of a Saturday morning cartoon. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all. Corypheus hews pretty close to that trope already. You need to meet more people. Some people don't care about morality but about power and winning. They will lie to you if necessary, but it does not mean they lie to themselves.
And I wrote it would be edgy to have a villain who doesn't pity party, or have some grand sad story...I did not write I wanted a stupid villain. Assholes lies and manipulates last time I checked. I also wrote I'd want a bad guy who benefit from being bad. As in you know part of the high society, winning, and also having a massive support because it matters little what you do as long as you're on the winning team. People likes the winning team specially if they feel they are part of it somewhat.
Corypheus is not at all close to what I'm talking about. First he acts out of despair and ideology, and also has grand plan of "changing' the world. Second his whole team is a bunch of loosers because Cory is a looser himself. Cory is delusional. He never aknowledge the blight and what it's doing to the world even with his grand plan for the world.
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Post by Ieldra on Feb 12, 2019 11:19:50 GMT
From my past experiences, the game antagonists I like most have the following attributes:
1. They are Chessmasters at least in some degree. I recall with considerable fondness the antagonist of Spellforce: The Order of Dawn, where you repeatedly opposed some (as, it turned out, carefully revealed) plan of his only to discover you'd been playing into his hands...again. Sure it was annoying at times, but it's also a true achievement when you finally win.
2. They do NOT have goals for which I might have some sympathy. Since I am somewhat consequentialist, it's far too easy to make me react with "I wish we had an option to support them" in that case. As a rule, I prefer the type who's extreme in an ideology I don't like in the first place, or has personal goals I find repelling or baffling. I may understand the logic of how they arrive at doing what they do (see "sanity" below) in order to achieve their goals, but I'd never agree with their goals in the first place. (Unless of course, you actually can support them in the end. That changes the picture).
3. They are sane, in that they're not driven to their actions, and their goals, by some unspecified trauma or such, and in that they don't lose control of their emotions in key moments, but have carefully considered goals and methods. They may be antisocial in that they don't care about others' suffering, but they should still be able to see the costs of their actions, and plan accordingly. They do what they think they must do in order to achieve their ends, but rarely more.
Good antagonists in that regard were: 1. Rohen from Spellforce: The Order of Dawn (never mind the cheesy VA, and that he was far too fond of "mwahaha"). 2. Jon Irenicus from BG2. 3. Thaos ix Arkannon from Pillars of Eternity. Not really a Chessmaster to the protagonist, but hey, a thousand years or two of cunning plots and engineered wars in order to keep an existential secret secret, you have to respect that.
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Post by Heimdall on Feb 12, 2019 13:51:32 GMT
For me, I find that execution matters more than specific motivations.
In a lot of cases, I find what might be most important for an antagonist in a story is that they have a real sense of threat, like they could actually win or do a lot of damage before they lose. Otherwise they can feel a bit boring.
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Post by Ieldra on Feb 12, 2019 14:50:26 GMT
For me, I find that execution matters more than specific motivations. In a lot of cases, I find what might be most important for an antagonist in a story is that they have a real sense of threat, like they could actually win or do a lot of damage before they lose. Otherwise they can feel a bit boring. I agree with the need for a credible threat, but for me it matters what kind of threat it is. As a rule, a giant army is boring, an intricate plot is interesting. I want to have something to decipher on the way, not just a need to pull a giant army of my own out of my ass.
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Post by Heimdall on Feb 12, 2019 15:10:25 GMT
For me, I find that execution matters more than specific motivations. In a lot of cases, I find what might be most important for an antagonist in a story is that they have a real sense of threat, like they could actually win or do a lot of damage before they lose. Otherwise they can feel a bit boring. I agree with the need for a credible threat, but for me it matters what kind of threat it is. As a rule, a giant army is boring, an intricate plot is interesting. I want to have something to decipher on the way, not just a need to pull a giant army of my own out of my ass. I agree, but I think that’s partly more a problem of boring plotting. A big army with a clever leader can be interesting opposition if the plot doesn’t just come down to finding a bigger army.
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Post by Noxluxe on Feb 12, 2019 23:37:58 GMT
Anti-villains, hands down.
That said, a well-executed Lovecraftian horror like the Reapers/Leviathans surrounded by some excellent mystery like what we get a taste of in The Descent wouldn't go amiss either. But they have to be gradually introduced and scary on an existential level, not just ugly and monstrous like Coryphewhatshisname.
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Post by arvaarad on Feb 13, 2019 4:41:58 GMT
Anti-villains, hands down. That said, a well-executed Lovecraftian horror like the Reapers/Leviathans surrounded by some excellent mystery like what we get a taste of in The Descent wouldn't go amiss either. But they have to be gradually introduced and scary on an existential level, not just ugly and monstrous like Coryphewhatshisname. Yeah good cosmic horror is tough. I’d go so far as to say that even Lovecraft didn’t do it well — IMO the stories are far too short to build that level of horror. To experience cosmic horror, I have to know what the fictional world is normally like. If the monster shows up too early, I just end up categorizing it as part of what “normal” means for that world, and the sense of wrongness/incomprehensibility is completely negated. It just becomes a fantasy beast that happens to have weird geometry and extra appendages. Bioware games are probably one of the few types of media with enough piles of codices to clearly establish what “normal” is, and make it clear when something is breaking that order. In Dragon Age, I’d say Trespasser Solas gets the closest to hitting that cosmic nerve.
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Post by Ieldra on Feb 13, 2019 10:21:49 GMT
Anti-villains, hands down. That said, a well-executed Lovecraftian horror like the Reapers/Leviathans surrounded by some excellent mystery like what we get a taste of in The Descent wouldn't go amiss either. But they have to be gradually introduced and scary on an existential level, not just ugly and monstrous like Coryphewhatshisname. Yeah good cosmic horror is tough. I’d go so far as to say that even Lovecraft didn’t do it well — IMO the stories are far too short to build that level of horror. To experience cosmic horror, I have to know what the fictional world is normally like. If the monster shows up too early, I just end up categorizing it as part of what “normal” means for that world, and the sense of wrongness/incomprehensibility is completely negated. It just becomes a fantasy beast that happens to have weird geometry and extra appendages. Bioware games are probably one of the few types of media with enough piles of codices to clearly establish what “normal” is, and make it clear when something is breaking that order. In Dragon Age, I’d say Trespasser Solas gets the closest to hitting that cosmic nerve. Uh...really? Trespasser Solas is perfectly comprehensible and sane to me. He just has goals it's very hard to agree with if you're not him, or perhaps an elf. Descent's Titan would've been a fitting candidate, if the threat potential had stayed and Valta gone insane from the contact. Which might still happen, now that I think of it, but I consider it unlikely.
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Post by Noxluxe on Feb 13, 2019 12:22:22 GMT
Yeah good cosmic horror is tough. I’d go so far as to say that even Lovecraft didn’t do it well — IMO the stories are far too short to build that level of horror. To experience cosmic horror, I have to know what the fictional world is normally like. If the monster shows up too early, I just end up categorizing it as part of what “normal” means for that world, and the sense of wrongness/incomprehensibility is completely negated. It just becomes a fantasy beast that happens to have weird geometry and extra appendages. Bioware games are probably one of the few types of media with enough piles of codices to clearly establish what “normal” is, and make it clear when something is breaking that order. In Dragon Age, I’d say Trespasser Solas gets the closest to hitting that cosmic nerve. Uh...really? Trespasser Solas is perfectly comprehensible and sane to me. He just has goals it's very hard to agree with if you're not him, or perhaps an elf. Descent's Titan would've been a fitting candidate, if the threat potential had stayed and Valta gone insane from the contact. Which might still happen, now that I think of it, but I consider it unlikely.
Mhm, the Titan in that DLC really turned my crank. Generally, those quests in the trilogy where you hunt through old dwarven thaigs and learn what messed up things they were up to millennia or more ago and what terrible things happened to them have an element of lovecraftian horror. The whole trip through the Deep Roads looking for Branka is one long existential nightmare for a dwarven female warden in particular, culminating in the encounter with a broodmother and the realization of what sort of threat darkspawn truly represent for women everywhere, and what must have happened to the better part of the dwarven population of old. *shivers* At least, that's how I use it in my canon. And that abandoned Grey Warden outpost in Inquisition with an open tunnel down to what is implied to be the living remains of one of the Old Gods... Really, Bioware knows how to do creepy and old and truly horrifying. It'd be awesome to see them commit themselves more to it, like they tried to with the Reapers. Of course, a plot based around mystery kind of lessens the replay value, and Bioware has lived on replay value for two decades.
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Post by arvaarad on Feb 13, 2019 12:55:23 GMT
Yeah good cosmic horror is tough. I’d go so far as to say that even Lovecraft didn’t do it well — IMO the stories are far too short to build that level of horror. To experience cosmic horror, I have to know what the fictional world is normally like. If the monster shows up too early, I just end up categorizing it as part of what “normal” means for that world, and the sense of wrongness/incomprehensibility is completely negated. It just becomes a fantasy beast that happens to have weird geometry and extra appendages. Bioware games are probably one of the few types of media with enough piles of codices to clearly establish what “normal” is, and make it clear when something is breaking that order. In Dragon Age, I’d say Trespasser Solas gets the closest to hitting that cosmic nerve. Uh...really? Trespasser Solas is perfectly comprehensible and sane to me. He just has goals it's very hard to agree with if you're not him, or perhaps an elf. Descent's Titan would've been a fitting candidate, if the threat potential had stayed and Valta gone insane from the contact. Which might still happen, now that I think of it, but I consider it unlikely. I think where Solas hit that cosmic button (at least for me) was because of how inaccessible his cultural experiences are, even after traveling the Shattered Library, and how powerful he is. The cultural aspect is huge, and is only possible because I have a clear baseline of what’s normal in modern Thedas. Otherwise I could peacefully accept the ancient elven stuff as “oh, this just happens to be part of this universe, no biggie”. But because we’ve spent so much time in modern Thedas, I know how jarring it is. Not just on an intellectual level of “yeah, I guess the PC is surprised”, but on a visceral “this is a huge shift in how the world works, and I can feel the shift along with the PC”. As for his power, he can be reasoned with, but it’s unclear how much that would alter his path. And if he doesn’t want his path to be altered, there’s little we could do to stop him by force. This is likely true for titans too, but I guess their current passivity is lulling me into not being as afraid of them. If he turns out to be an embodied spirit, that would probably intensify the feeling. Besides potentially giving him the ability to outlive death, being spirit-ish could make his motives even more alien. Now, there would certainly be room for even more cosmic entities, but Solas gets the closest to tickling that itch for me.
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inherit
∯ Alien Wizard
729
0
Sept 14, 2023 6:08:41 GMT
9,897
Ieldra
4,771
August 2016
ieldra
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect Andromeda
25190
6519
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Post by Ieldra on Feb 13, 2019 16:12:39 GMT
Uh...really? Trespasser Solas is perfectly comprehensible and sane to me. He just has goals it's very hard to agree with if you're not him, or perhaps an elf. Descent's Titan would've been a fitting candidate, if the threat potential had stayed and Valta gone insane from the contact. Which might still happen, now that I think of it, but I consider it unlikely. I think where Solas hit that cosmic button (at least for me) was because of how inaccessible his cultural experiences are, even after traveling the Shattered Library, and how powerful he is. The cultural aspect is huge, and is only possible because I have a clear baseline of what’s normal in modern Thedas. Otherwise I could peacefully accept the ancient elven stuff as “oh, this just happens to be part of this universe, no biggie”. But because we’ve spent so much time in modern Thedas, I know how jarring it is. Not just on an intellectual level of “yeah, I guess the PC is surprised”, but on a visceral “this is a huge shift in how the world works, and I can feel the shift along with the PC”. As for his power, he can be reasoned with, but it’s unclear how much that would alter his path. And if he doesn’t want his path to be altered, there’s little we could do to stop him by force. This is likely true for titans too, but I guess their current passivity is lulling me into not being as afraid of them. If he turns out to be an embodied spirit, that would probably intensify the feeling. Besides potentially giving him the ability to outlive death, being spirit-ish could make his motives even more alien. Now, there would certainly be room for even more cosmic entities, but Solas gets the closest to tickling that itch for me. As I said, Solas is very much comprehensible, and we all know other ideologies that want to change the world dramatically, often without anyone's consent, and make it into something unprecedented even. Solas is no cosmic entity because where it counts his motivations are human and understandable by a human mind. Mere power alone can never convey the same feeling of being lost in a world you don't understand as true cosmic horror. There is no hint in Solas and his plans that the world is incomprehensible to the human mind, that we might have to become something incomprehensible, and possibly even insane to our former selves, if we want to understand it. There are no actions taken by Solas we can't fathom, in the sense of "I don't know how this connects to any goal I can imagine". Whatever your understanding of this, I'd go so far and say you're wrong to claim Solas as an element of cosmic horror. Whatever you might feel about him, it's not the same Lovecraft aimed for, it's not the same Bioware aimed for with the Reapers back in ME1.
Cosmic horror is not being confronted with beings of vast power, it's being confronted by *incomprehensible* beings of vast power, beings that exist according to natural laws we can't fathom because any logic fails us when we try to understand them, beings that do things for no reasons we can fathom because our theory of mind is not up to grasping the workings of *their* logic, beings of whom we don't even know if they see us as living beings at all, or just as automated organic matter - which, in fact, we might be in the end, or so the story may hint. Cosmic horror is existential, it undermines any human-centered philosophy along with your sense of self. Solas isn't even a contender.
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inherit
4964
0
Jun 17, 2017 17:29:55 GMT
3,700
arvaarad
1,465
Mar 18, 2017 16:32:40 GMT
March 2017
arvaarad
Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Jade Empire
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Post by arvaarad on Feb 13, 2019 16:58:42 GMT
I think where Solas hit that cosmic button (at least for me) was because of how inaccessible his cultural experiences are, even after traveling the Shattered Library, and how powerful he is. The cultural aspect is huge, and is only possible because I have a clear baseline of what’s normal in modern Thedas. Otherwise I could peacefully accept the ancient elven stuff as “oh, this just happens to be part of this universe, no biggie”. But because we’ve spent so much time in modern Thedas, I know how jarring it is. Not just on an intellectual level of “yeah, I guess the PC is surprised”, but on a visceral “this is a huge shift in how the world works, and I can feel the shift along with the PC”. As for his power, he can be reasoned with, but it’s unclear how much that would alter his path. And if he doesn’t want his path to be altered, there’s little we could do to stop him by force. This is likely true for titans too, but I guess their current passivity is lulling me into not being as afraid of them. If he turns out to be an embodied spirit, that would probably intensify the feeling. Besides potentially giving him the ability to outlive death, being spirit-ish could make his motives even more alien. Now, there would certainly be room for even more cosmic entities, but Solas gets the closest to tickling that itch for me. As I said, Solas is very much comprehensible, and we all know other ideologies that want to change the world dramatically, often without anyone's consent, and make it into something unprecedented even. Solas is no cosmic entity because where it counts his motivations are human and understandable by a human mind. Mere power alone can never convey the same feeling of being lost in a world you don't understand as true cosmic horror. There is no hint in Solas and his plans that the world is incomprehensible to the human mind, that we might have to become something incomprehensible, and possibly even insane to our former selves, if we want to understand it. There are no actions taken by Solas we can't fathom, in the sense of "I don't know how this connects to any goal I can imagine". Whatever your understanding of this, I'd go so far and say you're wrong to claim Solas as an element of cosmic horror. Whatever you might feel about him, it's not the same Lovecraft aimed for, it's not the same Bioware aimed for with the Reapers back in ME1.
Cosmic horror is not being confronted with beings of vast power, it's being confronted by *incomprehensible* beings of vast power, beings that exist according to natural laws we can't fathom because any logic fails us when we try to understand them, beings that do things for no reasons we can fathom because our theory of mind is not up to grasping the workings of *their* logic, beings of whom we don't even know if they see us as living beings at all, or just as automated organic matter - which, in fact, we might be in the end, or so the story may hint. Cosmic horror is existential, it undermines any human-centered philosophy along with your sense of self. Solas isn't even a contender.
I guess for me, personally, the incomprehensible aspect plays a much smaller role, because I’ve yet to encounter a cosmic horror monster that’s uniquely incomprehensible. Lots of stuff is incomprehensible in the same way as Lovecraftian horrors are. A prion has no thoughts, it cannot be reasoned with, it’s not even alive, but it’s a mundane (if deeply unpleasant) part of reality. Same for a star pulsing out gamma-ray bursts, or even a regular old meteorite. They simply exist. If a Lovecraftian monster has any motives, even strange ones, it’s already more relatable than those things.
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inherit
Elvis Has Left The Building
7794
0
Oct 31, 2020 23:57:02 GMT
8,068
pessimistpanda
3,804
Apr 18, 2017 15:57:34 GMT
April 2017
pessimistpanda
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by pessimistpanda on Feb 13, 2019 22:05:29 GMT
A thing can have elements of Lovecraft's cosmicism without BEING an absolutely accurate 'cosmic horror', which, like, who arbitrates that anyway?
The underpinning philosophy of Lovecraft's work (I mean, BESIDES white supremacy), is that humans are insignificant specks, at the mercy of forces we don't understand, in a cold, uncaring, godless universe. And there are definitely elements of that present in the way Solas and the elven world of the past is portrayed (particularly in the revelations regarding the nature of the elven gods). It's so vastly different from the Thedas we know as to be... pretty much unimaginable. Which I guess is how we already know that Solas is going to fail.
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inherit
4964
0
Jun 17, 2017 17:29:55 GMT
3,700
arvaarad
1,465
Mar 18, 2017 16:32:40 GMT
March 2017
arvaarad
Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Jade Empire
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Post by arvaarad on Feb 14, 2019 0:00:40 GMT
A thing can have elements of Lovecraft's cosmicism without BEING an absolutely accurate 'cosmic horror', which, like, who arbitrates that anyway? The underpinning philosophy of Lovecraft's work (I mean, BESIDES white supremacy), is that humans are insignificant specks, at the mercy of forces we don't understand, in a cold, uncaring, godless universe. And there are definitely elements of that present in the way Solas and the elven world of the past is portrayed (particularly in the revelations regarding the nature of the elven gods). It's so vastly different from the Thedas we know as to be... pretty much unimaginable. Which I guess is how we already know that Solas is going to fail. Yeah I think this hits to the nub of it. Particularly in the original source material, Lovecraft as a person was afraid of freakin’ air conditioners, never mind his views on anything/anyone outside his local area. So his bar for incomprehensibility was... low. I imagine that for him, contemplating these kinds of beings was very terrifying. But “amoral, indifferent forces of nature” are pretty much a normal aspect of our reality, so eldritch monsters seem positively mundane by comparison. However, in Dragon Age, Solas’s very existence represents an overturning of aspects of reality previously thought to be fixed. In Trespasser, I experienced that unsettling tilting feeling that I assume Lovecraftian monsters are supposed to cause.
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inherit
7754
0
Apr 18, 2024 17:10:28 GMT
3,397
biggydx
Finished Dissertation long ago lol. Now happily employed :D
2,202
Apr 17, 2017 16:08:05 GMT
April 2017
biggydx
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by biggydx on Feb 14, 2019 1:20:44 GMT
I find Anti-Villain to be pretty interesting when they're causes seem realistic; or justified. Even better if they're proven right. For as much as I get people didn't enjoy Joseph Seed (Far Cry 5) as much as Vaas or Pagan Min, the bastard was right about the apocalypse.
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