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February 27, 2012 at 2:49 pm (This post was last modified: February 27, 2012 at 2:54 pm by Violet.)
(February 27, 2012 at 9:59 am)Aegrus Wrote: Vaeolet-
You want to know when Morrigan shows her intelligence- did you notice my profile signature? It's a Morrigan quote.
Now, as for Merrill. . .
I'm defending her by far the most both because you seem to hate her more than my other choices, and because she ranks first as my favorite character.
Merrill never struck me as a ditz, however. Let's review this-
She's a blood mage who wants to help the Dalish, even though they hate her because of Marethari's lies and Merrill's blood magic. Given that you said you're a blood mage, Vaeolet, I wouldn't think you'd hate her for that. You can say it's stupid to help people who don't want help, and I agree. But I also regard it as noble. Besides, she's not exactly weak for shouldering the burdens not only of her own life, but also for all the other Dalish, who strike me as useless ingrates.
To help the Dalish, she tries to repair the Eluvian, successfully recruiting the help of demons without getting herself possessed. She also knows how to repair it, which would take considerable intelligence.
Throughout the game, Merrill has some ditzy comments- for example, she gets lost easily, and she doesn't seem to understand the danger associated with muggings. Or she was just trolling Hawke with that comment. I'm not sure. To me, a lot of what she said seemed to be intentionally humorous rather than stupid.
However, much of what appears to be empty-headedness, I argue is a result of her moving from one culture into an entirely different one, with zero time to adjust or learn the new mores. As I said, by act three, she stops making fish-out-of-water comments, and starts saying more serious things.
Merrill betrays you for a demon, but notice that she isn't possessed by it, she has a good reason for betraying you (to help the Dalish, again- she says that the Champion isn't as important as an entire civilization, which I agree with), and she apologizes profusely afterwards, after she comes to her senses. You can't expect her to just immediately give up on all of her family and friends, no matter how bigoted they might be.
During her later companion quests, Marethari tries to save Merrill from a demon- however, Marethari stupidly keeps knowledge of the trap to herself, gets herself possessed in the process, and Merrill is forced to bravely kill her own mother-figure to save the party and the rest of the Dalish.
Afterwards, the Dalish, who were brainwashed by Marethari for six+ years to hate Merrill for no reason at all (Marethari claims Merrill was corrupted by the Eluvian, when instead Merrill knew enough to have a demon cleanse it before working on it)- confront Merrill, and blame her for Marethari's mistakes. However, with the Champions help, she can leave without killing anyone. It's not that hard to do, either- there are only 3 dialogue branches to choose from, and it's hardly a random guess which one will calm the Dalish down.
After all of this happens, Merrill is very grateful to the Champion, and realizes that she has to move on from the Eluvian and begin living life for herself rather than the Dalish clans.
You call her romance scene pedophilia, I say that she's over eighteen for reasons listed before, and depending on what complexion you choose for Hawke, he can be roughly equivalent to her in age (and thus life experience, because I know you don't care about the magical 18 year old line). As for the claim that Hawke took advantage of her, I have no idea where you even got that notion from. She doesn't seem to be lacking life experience by act III, which is when the scene takes place. I'll admit that her lingerie, if you can call it that, looks bad. However, that's hardly a serious offense to me, though as a costume-maker, I suppose it might be more important to you.
In the end game, Merrill does, in my opinion, the completely correct thing in wanting a peaceful resolution, but choosing without argument to fight the Templars and defend the mages when it is clear there can be no peaceful resolution. She's hardly a ditz in claiming that she'll stand by Hawke to the end.
Merrill may be awkward throughout the game, but so am I, and so are a lot of people, and I suppose I just identified with that. For a social outcast, Merrill's voice acting and characterization were spot on.
I hate kid heroes, but so far all you've provided are assertions without proof, plus one video to display how ugly her undergarments are. There's nothing wrong with the scene itself. Merrill claims to love the Champion, overcomes cultural bias by saying that she doesn't care that he's a human (which is admirable, consdiering how racist most of the Dalish are), and correctly identifies the societal implications of an elf being involved romatically with a human. She also overcomes her usual timidity by saying "if you're not afraid, then neither am I." Anyway, she pulled Hawke to the bed, not the other way around, so you can hardly claim she was coerced into sex.
Also, you claim that she has no experience with friends or lovers, so legal sex for her is pedophilia- by that argument, if someone is a virgin by their early twenties, sex with them is rape forever. It doesn't make any sense. I already explained how she accumulates more life experience than she first had in Act I. She has a lot of character growth, but i think you mostly overlooked it and focused on anything negative you could possibly exaggerate to seem meaningful. It's kind of interesting, actually- Merrill seems to have mademany of the same choices as you in the game (blood magic, kill the Templars, etc.), yet you're fixated on only the negative for her, and somehow overcome Isabella's obvious flaws. (Such as stealing the relic, thus killing thousands of people in Kirkwall, just to save her own skin.)
Btw, I lol'ed at the picture of the guy in the chicken costume.
I no longer have the energy and desire to make another hour-long post detailing why I disagree (yet again).
Bleh, you like what you like.
Fun fact: I can like evil characters (read: Isabella), but only if they are interesting as a character. I can maul the traitorous bitch if I want, and she certainly is nowhere near as intriguing to me as Zevran... but out of the shit that DAII is, she happens to be one of the better characters. Don't make me rant about how much I hate all of the characters from DAII (excluding Varric and Sarcastic Hawke), and dislike several things about DA, most notably a few of the characters. In particular... Loghain as a party member. (I love that I ranted anyway, hahahahaha.)
But the difference between the two games... is that Morrigan, Alistair, Shale, Oghren, Wynne, Leilana, Zevran, and Sten... while all flawed in their own ways, have come together under a common banner roughly involving saving Ferelden from the Blight and the Civil war.
The decent story of DA acts as prop for many character flaws, and allows them to stand out and apart from each other where they would otherwise have been mostly uninteresting.
There is no macrostory in DAII... leaving no prop for boring characters. Had Fenris and Anders been in the first game: they would have been fascinating. Anders in awakening was an awesome character (then suddenly got a stick up his ass and became a whiney emo bitch in DAII).
Varric was cool in DAII, but in DA he would have been incredible. Hell, even Merrill would have been respectable in DA, her background was relevant then and the game could really have used a blood mage (or they could have given you your friend from the mage opening, heh).
Isabella is the only character better where she is... albeit I find her repeated traitorous acts aggravating, and she is honestly a very shallow character. It's easier for a shallow character to stand out in a shallow game... she'd have been a poor man's Zevran in DA.
Aveline would have been excellent in DA, Carver/Bethany would all have been better for it (instead of the utter shit they are), all the DLC characters for DAII would have done better... DAII's "story?" holds every one of these otherwise (perhaps) decent characters down. Had the game had a good story that presented the eventual theme from the beginning (the Templar/Circle conflict)... DAII would have been an excellent game. Instead we deal with taking from the Deep Roads, fighting Qunari stuck in a city, and massive multi-year jumps used as a plot device to put massive amounts of time where it shouldn't be. The singular time this was used well was the very beginning, when you've essentially been sold for a year... everywhere else it feels unreal, ridiculous, usually pointless (aftermath of the Qunari event and transition from the deep roads, hell I don't remember if there were others), and there is no clear indicator that time has passed where it matters most: your companions, who have exactly as much nothing to do as you do.
A story is the difference between Flemeth being an old hag who talks too much, and being an ancient and powerful witch and philosopher. DAII doesn't have it.
