#watch as i make characterization solution to gameplay choices

[sulevinblade]

DWC Prompt: Ghil/Solas, “Make me”

This didn’t go how I thought it was going to. Not totally happy with the tone of it, set shortly after Ghilanel finishes her specialization training, ~1500 words. For @dadrunkwriting.

“Make me,” and the ice around her ankles creaked in protest as the tension it held increased, tightening the hold.

“I think the decision you made may be dangerously short-sighted and I wish you would have taken more consultation before making it.”

She sighed and leaned forward on the cold stone rail of the balcony, arms folded to support her as she watched the mages’ banner being raised and mounted on the newly refurbished tower. “You think I haven’t sufficiently earned their trust yet.” She’d made them equals, given them a unifying purpose and a safe gathering place, even dedicated a portion of Skyhold exclusively to their use. Was this really such a betrayal? She was only one person.

Solas stepped forward to stand next to her. His presence at her side was normally reassuring but right now there was a distance. “I think you underestimate their fear and their skills of observation. Do you think myself, Dorian, and Vivienne are the only mages sensitive enough to realize what’s changed about you? The mages you’ve gathered are more than familiar with templars. They’ve seen the trainers arrive and they’ve seen them now assimilate into the castle’s regular population so they know whatever choice you made, it’s finished now.”

“If they already know then why do I need to address it?” Even asking the question made her stomach sink; Ghilanel knew the answer, but speaking before the entirety of the Inquisition, or even just of its mages, made her sick to think about. Cullen and Fiona were far more skilled at things like this but she couldn’t expect them to handle something this personal.

“The longer you leave this unspoken, the greater the suspicion will grow, and while the Inquisition is strong, it will not survive the departure of the mages or worse, their mutiny. You cannot allow this to go unremarked upon much longer, Inquisitor. Your people must know who they’re following.”

The title made her cringe but it also proved his point. Ghilanel turned to look at Solas over her shoulder. The sympathy on his face eased her concern a little. “I’ll come up with something. I won’t leave them in the dark, Solas. They’ve followed me this far, they deserve to know.”

It had been several days since then, however, and the well of ideas remained dry. Cullen hadn’t told the troops he was going through lyrium withdrawal. Cassandra and Leliana kept their crises of faith as private as possible; it was only Ghilanel’s position that gave her the privilege of knowing their minds. The line between being a trustworthy leader and being too open with the people who followed her seemed finer all the time and there was no example in the Inquisition for her to use as a guide.

Then, as he had done so many months earlier on a mountain path near Haven, Solas forced her hand.

She gathered her circle at the gates to depart for the Western Approach, with herself, Solas, Blackwall, Cassandra, and Alistair as the forward party. Her mind was elsewhere, on getting answers from the Wardens and what it might mean for two of the men riding with her, when she felt the temperature plummet. That and the thrumming she was now hyperaware of were all the warning Ghilanel had before her boots were encased in ice.

The air among those in the courtyard might as well have frozen too, silent as it was. Every head turned, however, to the source of the spell.

“Solas! What is the meaning of this?” Cassandra’s voice was confused somewhere behind Ghilanel’s left shoulder. At the moment, all she could follow was sound, her vision stuck somewhere in the middle distance as she processed what was happening. Noise spread out from Cassandra after she spoke, the assembly starting to react. The horses were spooked but she could hear Blackwall trying to calm them, calling over a couple of soldiers to help lead the animals away from what was happening. The last thing they needed was a panicked horse further complicating what was already a very precarious situation.

“There is a matter the Inquisitor must resolve before we can leave Skyhold, Seeker.” Solas was far enough that she couldn’t reach him with her sword. Not that she would ever try, but the effect wasn’t lost on her. Her normal methods of conflict resolution would not work here. She twisted her hips, testing the strength of the ice holding her in place. No less than she expected. She wasn’t going anywhere just yet.

“Whatever that matter is, this cannot be the best way to handle it.” The surprise and concern in Cassandra’s tone warmed Ghilanel, not for her own sake but because it meant there was no way Cassandra had anticipated something like this from Solas. Perhaps now he’d see how much Cassandra genuinely trusted him. Not that it mattered right now. Right now she knew all Cassandra saw was Solas pinning her in place with spikes of ice.

“Perhaps not, but it is the most direct and efficient. The Inquisitor knows what she needs to do.” His tone was even, level, not antagonistic in the least, but Ghilanel still heard Cassandra approaching. That was what made her lift her hand and finally focus her vision. Solas had his staff in his hand and his legs bent, clearly prepared to cast again. His face was a mask, unreadable but for the intention in his eyes. Despite herself, Ghilanel couldn’t help but feel she’d disappointed him by not taking action sooner. She’d brought this on herself.

“Solas. This is not the time or the place. Please release me.” She knew his intention, but no one else here did, and the longer she stood with her legs frozen, the larger the crowd gathering to watch grew. It contained both mages and templars, and the implications of the outcome of this for all of them were staggering. She had to handle this flawlessly.

“On the contrary, there is no better place and no more time to lose. I will not release you; you must release yourself. And be warned, should you draw your sword and attempt to use it on the ice, you will only damage your blade.” Naturally Solas would provide supernaturally hard ice for this as well. He never did anything by half. Ghilanel stared at him and shook her head.

“You are doing more harm than good right now. Think about how this looks and let me go.”

“No.” This time Ghilanel had to raise both hands as a murmur swelled from the assembled crowd and she saw several of the templars among them reaching for weapons or beginning to gather their focus. Creators, what a disaster that would be, for the mages she’d worked so hard to incorporate into this effort to see the templars around them converge on someone like Solas. She had no rubric against which to measure things like this but she’d seen Solas in the field, unbowed by half a dozen rogue templars engaging with him at once. If they tried it here, he would only humiliate them in front of the people they were meant to be protecting.

“Solas. Free me.”

“Inquisitor.” His eyes softened a little, imploring her silently, and in the moment she was shocked at her own resentment. “Make me,” and the ice around her ankles creaked in protest as the tension it held increased, tightening the hold.

“No. I will not.” Ghilanel closed her eyes, lowered her arms, and raised her voice. Best to simply get it over with. “I have sought the powers of a templar for one singular purpose, and that is to defeat Corypheus. There are templars enough among you, templars who answer to the Commander and to me. I will not allow their power to exist here unchecked and should every mage in this castle come for my life, I will never turn my powers on you. So release me or not, Solas, the choice is yours, but make it.” She opened her eyes again and settled her gaze on Solas, her speech slow and deliberate. She was done. “We are wasting daylight.”

The pitch of the crowd’s murmurs rose, curiosity outweighing anxiety as they turned their attention to Solas. For his part, he wasted no further time; the ice at her ankles burst into a cloud of snow and was quickly swept away. He slipped his staff into the straps on his back and shifted his posture straight again, moving in a moment from a challenger to the humble apostate most of the Inquisition saw him to be. “Thank you, Inquisitor.”

Ghilanel drew a deep breath and turned toward where Blackwall held the horses, refusing to acknowledge the dozens of eyes on her, including Cassandra’s and Alistair’s. She had meant her statement about wasting daylight and right now all she wanted was to start putting miles between herself and this courtyard. She gave just a few directions–Alistair to take point, she and Blackwall in the middle, and Cassandra and Solas to ride at the rear–and the party was silent as they departed Skyhold. Any conversations to be had about what just happened, and she knew there would have to be several, would wait until that night’s camp.

[secretlyatargaryen]

July 2019 Reviews

Games

Walden, a game - A delightful experience for those who love games and literature and the idea of them together. The best parts of the game are the quotes from Thoreau's book that appear on the screen when you examine something closely, like a fox or a maple tree, complete with great voice acting. The ecological detail put into the game is impressive. The worst part is that the game mechanics for completing tasks are clunky and there is very little time each day before the game forces you to go to sleep and begin the next day, and your hunger, fuel, and shelter meter always seems to be low, causing you to spend the majority of your daylight hours picking berries and collecting firewood. I get that this is supposed to mirror the experience of "living simply," but 1) it is boringly repetitive and if anything calls to mind the irony of “being one with nature” in a computer game and 2) there are a lot of other interesting things to do in the game which you do not have enough time to do, such as helping escaped slaves on their way to the underground railroad. I learned playing this game that Henry David Thoreau was basically every guy I met in college who hated the government and whose solution to its atrocities was to fuck off into the woods and smoke pot instead of actually doing anything about it. This analogy is completed by the fact that you are able to go into town and get food and clean laundry from your parents' house if you get too low on those things.

Black Mirror (2017) - No, not the Netflix series. This is a re-imagining of the Black Mirror series of adventure games developed in the early 2000s. The original game is considered a classic of point and click adventures but suffers from an unoriginal plot (obligatory part where I once again complain about horror games and their obsession with "Surprise! You're crazy! Dead women!") and the unfortunateness of early 3D polygon graphics. The second and third game took the series in a completely new and original direction and were quite good, so while I had never heard of the remake before I came across it during the steam summer sale, I was cautiously hopeful. Even if it was trash, it's just the kind of gothic-mystery-exploring-a-haunted-castle trash that I like to throw my money at. The gameplay is pretty fun (minus some quick time events where you can get killed by ghosts mostly by failing to operate the somewhat clunky controls - the game was originally ported for PS4) and the story is original but also expands upon the series mythos. An enjoyable trashy gothic yarn, although the story also felt incomplete, even to someone who has played the original games, and was both wrapped up too quickly and left weirdly unresolved.

Books

Greenglass House, Kate Milford - I started this book a while ago and it’s been on my radar for a while, and I restarted it again when I heard it was going to be on this year’s BOB list. A fun young adult adventure story which utilizes one of my favorite mystery tropes, the closed circle. The story is that preteen Milo lives in the eponymous house, which his family runs as an inn. The house used to be a meeting place for smugglers back in the day, which means there’s buried treasure somewhere in the house, and when the story starts a slew of guests arrive at the house and are stranded by a snowstorm, when things start getting mysterious. Someone in the house is a thief! I really like this book and the way that the story’s original folklore is woven into the plot. There are also several dungeons and dragons elements that play a role in the plot - to solve the mystery, Milo and his friend Meddy pretend to be characters in a role-playing game, and I love the way the story makes connections between games, stories, and language, since that happens to align with my interests.

Serafina and the Black Cloak, Robert Beatty - Another BOB book, this one also has been on my radar for a while because the series is very popular among my students, and when I went to Beatty’s website recently I saw that Disney had already put their name on it, lol. What I didn’t know was that the series takes place in my state. The setting is the Biltmore Estate in the late 1800s, and the story is a historical fantasy that utilizes some of the local folklore in some really interesting ways, although it’s more fantasy than historical. An enjoyable read with an interesting female protagonist.

Movies

Ready Player One - I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would. I had heard going into it that it was not a great adaptation from friends who loved the book, which I haven’t read. That might be why I did enjoyed it so much. I don’t think it’s anything that memorable, but it is enjoyable. I can see why the book became so popular, although I’ve read books with similar storylines. I guess a book like this is more relevant nowadays with the popularity of VR in the modern gaming market, but the story relied on some tired cliches nonetheless. I also was a bit annoyed when the story acknowledged the issue with the main character falling for Artemis’ idealistically beautiful avatar without really knowing her...and then had her turn out to be stunningly gorgeous in real life. Okay, she had a wine-stain disfigurement on her face, but she was still traditionally beautiful, and the main character gets to be with her in the end while meanwhile, his actual best friend, who turns out to be an unfeminine black girl in real life and who obviously has a crush on him, is left behind.

Picnic At Hanging Rock - I come across this movie on gothic film recommendation lists every so often and have wanted to watch it for years, and I happened to find it on youtube, which surprised me. The original movie is from 1975 and is a cult classic for a reason. Stunning visuals and a story that leaves you confused in the just the right way. After watching it, I was itching to learn more and came across last year’s amazon prime series with Natalie Dormer and watched all six episodes, and although the series was enjoyable and a good extension for anyone who enjoys the original movie, it does not have the charm or brilliance of the original. The series expands on the story, but part of the beauty of the original movie is the way the story is told in what isn’t said, and in carefully choreographed scenes where nobody on screen says a word. I can see why the movie is called “gothic” as it has some of the trappings of the genre. It takes place in 1900 at a remote and mysterious boarding school in Australia. Three girls vanish during a school field trip, seemingly without a trace. What happened to them may have been supernatural. Or they may have been murdered, kidnapped, or run off on their own. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone is gay.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - I’m a huge fan of the Shirley Jackson novel which this movie is an adaptation of, and unlike Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, this movie is actually a fairly straight adaptation of the novel. The movie captures the gothic feel of the book as well as the anxiety about gender and class from which it gets its themes, and there are solid performances all around, but the movie does seem a bit devoid of a life of its own. Despite, and possibly because of, the voice-over narration, Merricat never really comes alive as a character the way she does in the book. This is, I think, a problem with a lot of book to movie adaptations that rely on voice-overs to tell the story. I can see the appeal of this, especially with a book like this which is both heavily steeped in POV and characterized by an unreliable narrator, but I found myself really wishing the movie would just let itself tell the story rather than the narrator.

Shows

American Gods - I watched all of season two on the starz website except for the finale, which I was told that I needed to upgrade by account to watch, so if you are watching on the website or the app be aware of that. I enjoyed season two, although it lacked some of the urgency of the first season. I do enjoy some of the adaptational choices made that update the novel a bit, such as having Technology be outsourced by New Media. Also, season two saw the arrival of my daughter, Sam Black Crow. I’m also looking forward to the Lakeside subplot next season (I assume) as it’s my favorite part of the novel.

Stranger Things - I watched the first four episodes of season one when it came out, and then for some reason never finished it. I know, I know. It didn’t take me very long to watch all three seasons, which I sort of interpreted as one as a result, although I do think there’s a drop in quality somewhere in the second/third season, but overall it’s a fun show that definitely kept me interested and invested in the characters. Also, every scene relating to the upside down motivated me to clean my bathroom.

[sneaky-taffer]

So I finally got around to finishing DotO, so here are my thoughts on it. Bear in mind my run was strictly ghost/clean hands so you won't find many mention of the combat aspect of the game here:

The Good Things:

- Billie's powers. Actually a lot of fun to use. They were pretty distinctly different from everyone else's powers we played with so it was fun learning how hers worked and how to use them to get past obstacles.

- Billie. Billie is just an awesome character and its rad as heck that we get to play as the badass from Knife of Dunwall finally; she was actually one of the characters I was guessing we might be able to play as alongside Emily before the first trailer for DH2 dropped. Hecka pleased we can play as her.

- The Bank Mission. Okay, once you're inside the bank here, DotO turns into a game of Thief, and anything that can remind me of Thief is a good thing. Billie's got a lot of cheekiness in this level, I like that you have to be creeping around, and just the solution for getting the knife from the vault is great. Overall a very solid mission, and one I'm likely to replay again.

- The Oracles. Heck yeah we get to see the Sisters of the Oracular Order, we've been wanting to see them for ages and they don't disappoint.

- The Clockwork Sentinels. Not as agile as the clockwork soldiers, but boy are they way the heck more spooky. With Dolores's voice, the way they cheerfully try to promote the bank, that ceramic grin of theirs. Even though they've been nerfed they really make one want to avoid them, and they are awesome.

- Hook mines. fuckin bless hook mines, thats all there is to that

- Crossbow bolt upgrades; the fact that you can actually increase the amount of non-lethal bolts is a blessing.

- Bone Charms. Holy heck there were a lot of black bone charms and they were awesome, I was juggling them around trying to figure out which ones I wanted most.

- The cutscenes. I'm a sucker for stylized cutscenes, and the comic-strip aesthetic of the briefings were really rad.

okay, so those were a lot of things i thought doto did good on, now lets move on to...

The Bad Things:

- The acquisition of Billie's powers. Lets just cut to the chase here. I almost quit the game in disgust the moment the outsider showed his face. The fact that Arkane Studios thought it was alright to show the outsider, a white dude, essentially physically assaulting Billie, a black woman, in a scene that is so obviously reminiscent of sexual assault in order to FORCE a change onto her, and for her to be okay with it afterwards is goddamn disgusting. It was a fucking sick scene, and the writers and editors in charge of it should feel goddamned ashamed of themselves, because this was literally the worst Dishonored has ever sunk. It was disgusting, uncomfortable, and made me want to quit the game then and there because it was upsetting and not at all what we've come to expect from the Outsider. And on that note...

- The Outsider. If you're one of those people to come to me and be like "It's not your IP, Arkane can write their characters however they want!" when i'm about to criticize the characterization of all these characters, y'all can step off right now, because the Outsider is wildly out of character here. If you compare the Outsider to the other points of reference we have: DH1 and DH2, you'd see that the Outsider typically tends to stand apart from everyone. He keeps his distance, occasionally showing his face to let one of his marked know just enough information about what's going on around them to keep them going, and to let them know he's watching. In doto, there's none of that. He doesnt even show up in the void in the beginning, he just straight up grabs Billie and rips off her arm in a scene that's very ?????? It makes no sense given the character we know and are familiar with, and it just never recovers from that. He's just a completely different character here.

- Billie's motivation. Or, lack thereof. She wants to find Daud, okay that's good and all, but once she does, she loses all stakes here. WHY does she care to listen to Daud's every word? It's been 15 years, but she seemed too eager to just do what Daud wanted her to do. She doesn't have any drive, any REASON to pursue these goals. WHY does she suddenly want to also kill the Outsider and do what Daud wants her to do? There's really nothing there driving her, and it makes the storytelling weak.

- The lack of targets. There aint no targets. Sure there are important people, but tbh I straight up ignored them half the time. There was no real reason in even giving them a second glance, its like the game didn't even care if you noticed these people or not. And on that note...

- The lack of chaos system. Look, for all its faults, the chaos system is something that is inherently Dishonored since Dishonored first came out. It gives you a reason to do replays, to see what happens if you kill EVERYONE, or if you spare everyone instead. It adds variety to the game, and a reason to keep coming back and to consider your choices. Without it... there's no reason to do much of anything. Why replay the game? Why bother trying to do ghost/clean hands, or to kill everyone? Why do much of anything? Nothing you do matters in the game, so why care?

- Daud. Another characterization gone wrong. His story was supposed to have been concluded with the Brigmore Witches, and given that he and Billie still live, we should reasonably assume that in the canonical timeline, this is Low Chaos Daud. A Daud who took a step back, looked at his actions, and began to change who he was. He didn't beg forgiveness or anything, and let his actions speak louder than words as he decided to show a more merciful touch. To get a document right off the bat saying that he just went right back to killing people and never stopped, and began to blame the Outsider for the wrongdoings in the world, is just to take several steps backwards in his character development. He's already grown wonderfully as a character in KoD and BW, so to see him take these massive steps backwards is disappointing from a writing perspective.

- Bonecharm crafting. So easy to miss. Why is it not even available until you're nearly done with the game? There's no indication WHY you're suddenly able to craft bonecharms when you have the knife, and at that point it's almost not even worth it anymore.

- The length. It was a short game, and mind you I'm a slow player and put 13 hours into my first run, but it's short. It should've been DLC, tbh because...

- The Recycled Mission (the Conservatory). makes it feel like it was rushed, incomplete, and tbh not worth $30 as a standalone game. It would've made infinitely more sense for it to have just been DLC like KoD or BW.

- Bugs. Now this one isn't something that everyone has, but it's something I have that has been GREATLY affecting my gameplay. The game is buggy and wonky and needs serious patching. In my own game I was constantly battling disappearing crosshairs, disappearing button prompts, disappearing items in the black market shops... basically nothing on my HUD was showing up as it was intended to, and it made the gameplay aggravating.

i'm probably missing a lot of things but that's the stuff i can remember off the top of my head. Perhaps on subsequent playthroughs (if i do them >__> ) I'll add more depth to this

OVERALL VERDICT:

5/10

Average game, not BAD, but certainly not what I've come to expect with the Dishonored series

Ultimately, the fun gameplay just can't save the confusing and poorly written narrative. The characters were just too off the mark, the story felt like it had too few connections with the ACTUAL playable character, and that made it feel like we were just running errands for Daud rather than actually playing a character with her own drive and motivations. It really felt as though we were more on rails here, and that what little choices we DID have in the gameplay didn't amount to much of anything.

More importantly, it just didn't feel like Dishonored.

Now, for my Thiefy followers, lemme put this into simple TL;DR terms:

Thief Reboot > Death of the Outsider

There we go, I said it. Y'all know how i feel about the reboot and can probably get a strong understanding of my feelings on this game from that statement there.