Who do you think will have the famous BioWare idiot ball this time?

I'm going with either:
The Archon
The Black Divine
Or Solas himself, as I think otherwise he's going to be too powerful a character, but that's a discussion for another time.


Just my opinion

Solas.

But since it wasn’t just the Grey Wardens who possessed the idiot ball (Cory, the mages/templars, Bianca, Solas, The Advisors (solas was suspicious as hell from the get go), Orlais, teagan trespasser) my bet is that the whole plot is: everyone is dumb and the murder knife is still missing, good luck.

But Solas will be the most obvious.

Solas is more Loki then Satan. (Probably a clue how he gained power ). And apparently there are Dalish cults that worship their Satan. Hell there are real world cults that worship Satan.

I don't really see why not. Granted I highly doubt that all the Dalish will just automatically start following him because reasons, but a fair few might see him as the only means to getting the freedom they want...or the vengance. Remember this is someone who has led a somewhat successful rebellion against God-Kings before.

As for the topic at hand...I am not actually sure what the exact permeters of the 'idiot ball' are so I hesitate to comment, nor am I sure that such a thing is neccessarily a badplot device given that characters and fictional organizations do tend to have flaws and weaknesses of character which can lead to blind spots.

Again Solas as an example, whatever his brilliance, is definitley a character who is being chased by the own ghosts of his character.

Not Solas. Nothing he's doing is idiotic. It's malicious, but not idiotic. He knows exactly what he's doing and what the consequences are.

So I think it will be the Qun. They've been too competent so far, so they're due a period of really bad decision making.

That's not idiocy. He knows what's going to happen when he tears down the veil, he knows it's going to destroy civilizations. Its not idiocy, it's maliciousness because he just doesn't care what non elves think.

People who perpetrate mass murder and genocide are not idiots simply because they commit mass murder and genocide.

Dalish, of course... and mages... as always.

Solas is Loki, the trickster.

I’m immediately suspicious of any definition of “idiotic” that penalizes action much more harshly than inaction. If I can avoid the “idiot” label simply by never disturbing the status quo (even if the status quo is bad), there’s something wrong.

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine IRL. When people fail to act, they’re also making a choice, but they often get a free pass to dodge all responsibility for the results. But if they choose to intervene, suddenly they’re saddled with all the consequences... even if the new situation is better overall.

A topical example would be self-driving cars. Even if they have a better safety record than human drivers, and switching would save many lives, people will still think they’re wildly unsafe every time they have even 1 accident. As soon as people take action to introduce them, they’ll get blamed for every glitch. But if they had instead chosen to do nothing, they wouldn’t get blamed for the continuing fatalities due to human drivers.

That’s not the kind of calculation we want people to make. If someone has the power to improve a situation, and does nothing, they should bear responsibility for the consequences of their inaction.

In other words, it should be possible for a passive observer to be idiotic.

Good point! I guess I was more focused on cases where inaction is pitted against mundane/everyday suffering. If there’s a new and specific threat, people have an easier time counting the cost of inaction.

If inaction means “nothing changes, but our current situation is extremely bad to begin with”, that’s where inaction seems to have an unfair advantage over action. People have accepted that suffering as the norm, and any change to the norm will be heavily scrutinized, even if that change is better on the balance. Anyone who tries to change things is criticized for every misstep, even by people who are sympathetic to their cause. Meanwhile, those who do nothing get to sell themselves as cautious and measured, even as people continue to suffer around them.

Tell me about it! DA:O could have basically been a propaganda reel for the Wardens, because of how much it cleaned up their image.

They were super shifty and corrupt in The Calling. Then, a month or so later, Origins comes out, and they get to act all saintly and “politically neutral” because the institutional corruption gets killed off early on. At least Origins had the Warden’s Keep DLC, which talked about their coup attempt in Ferelden (aka the reason they got banished in the first place). Then finally in Legacy and DA:I, we had some true callbacks to The Calling, and all the secretive power-tripping that went with it.

I see why they needed to have that brief heroic moment in Origins — it wasn’t really the Wardens as an organization, just a couple recruits. And the Blight wasn’t very far along in their bodies, so they weren’t as mentally compromised by the calling.

Still, I worry that brief rehabilitation might confuse people. Not us, of course, but perhaps more casual fans.

Hell you could even see the seeds of the brewing conflict between the Orlesian Wardens and Weishauppt in Origins. Granted this is near the end, when you talk to Riordan and ask him about the Wardens. Go back and watch it. It's been years since I played Origins all the way through, this last time really stuck out to me. He talks about how the Grey Wardens basically rule the Anderfels and describes them as 'cold'. One of the canon decisions I keep kicking back and forth in my head is whether to spare Hawke or Loghain to go stir up shit at Weisshaupt. Both are appealing, for different reasons. Loghain, for the sheer IRONY, and Hawke because, well, Hawke. This is also why I like making my own Warden kinda sketchy too. Like this time I finaly sided with Caridin and did away with Branka, BUT, I wiped out the Dalish with the Werewolves because, c'mon, if I can't have Golems Imma get me some frickin' WEREWOLVES for my army. Also, all my Wardens spare Loghain and either exile, kill, or marry off Alistair.

TLDR: Grey Wardens are sketchy as SHIT. I like playing that up with my PC's whenever I can

As for the idiot ball...probably both Tevinter and the Qun.

I'm on Team Everyone, there are going to be multiple instances of the idiot ball being tossed around. That said, I think the elves will get it the worst with what we've seen from Trespasser, and I don't look forward to the huge in-game backlash should they get caught. My Lavellan spent Inquisition trying to improve things for her people and this is what comes of it? Heartbreaking.