Poll: Dragon Age 2 - Hawke's Choice SPOILERS!

[nin_ninja]

Sided with Anders and destroyed the Templars...because I have a special place in my cold unfeeling heart for people that share my hatred of religious lunatics.

Amen brother. Also the Chantry kinda pissed me off.

 

[Andothul]

I freaking killed the dumbass. My Hawke works the whole freakin game to keep the Mages and Templars from killing each other and he goes and does the exact opposite x100.

Not to mention the Grand Cleric seemed to be one of the only sane leaders in Kirkwall and she probably coulda stopped Meredith.

Originally i figured Meredith would kill the grand cleric for calling her a girl and blowing her off.

One thing that really bothered me was how they handled the Mages in Act 3.
Making a bunch turn to Blood magic was kind of disingenuous to me especially Orsino thats where i think they really jumped the shark.

 

[Zaik]

I ended up dismissing Anders, who promptly turned back up when I went to the Mages' defense. Then Orsino pulls a tard and we just kill everyone.

I freaking killed the dumbass. My Hawke works the whole freakin game to keep the Mages and Templars from killing each other and he goes and does the exact opposite x100.

Not to mention the Grand Cleric seemed to be one of the only sane leaders in Kirkwall and she probably coulda stopped Meredith.

Originally i figured Meredith would kill the grand cleric for calling her a girl and blowing her off.

One thing that really bothered me was how they handled the Mages in Act 3.
Making a bunch turn to Blood magic was kind of disingenuous to me especially Orsino thats where i think they really jumped the shark.

Spoiler

The impression I got was that Orsino was a Blood Mage all along and was intentionally sneaking apostates out of Kirkwall, and Meredith wasn't entirely incorrect in what she was doing, just aimed the wrong direction. Of course, there's the dumb dwarf toy that turned her into a generic crazy badguy, but the whole "arrr we hate mages cause we're templars" thing seems a lot less forced.

 

[Souplex]

I was a mage and I chose to kill Anders and help the templars...why? Because every mage I had met in Kirkwall was a Blood magic lunatic that's why. Most of the templars were just trying to get on with it, outside Alrik(sp?) my character didn't see any evidence of abuse. Ander's killed an innocent old lady. Everyone in Kirkwall is nuts apart from Varric. I felt completely justified...bunch of loonies.

So I felt like it was just me, Varric and Dog. Against the world. The completely bonkers world.

glad to know I wasn't the only one.

Aveline, and Isabela are sane as well. But the rest are horrible.
It's a shame they had to ruin Anders as a character to tell their story. Couldn't they just come up with a new token mage?

 

[hazabaza1]

I was trying to keep neutrality, but then Anders blew up the Chantry and Meredith went batshit and I sided with the mages.
Then Orsino went batshit as well.

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

 

[Baron Von Evil Satan]

I dismissed Anders, but saved the mages as both sides were insane, but Meridith was MORE insane. Freaking zealot...

 

[Andothul]

I ended up dismissing Anders, who promptly turned back up when I went to the Mages' defense. Then Orsino pulls a tard and we just kill everyone.

I freaking killed the dumbass. My Hawke works the whole freakin game to keep the Mages and Templars from killing each other and he goes and does the exact opposite x100.

Not to mention the Grand Cleric seemed to be one of the only sane leaders in Kirkwall and she probably coulda stopped Meredith.

Originally i figured Meredith would kill the grand cleric for calling her a girl and blowing her off.

One thing that really bothered me was how they handled the Mages in Act 3.
Making a bunch turn to Blood magic was kind of disingenuous to me especially Orsino thats where i think they really jumped the shark.

Spoiler

The impression I got was that Orsino was a Blood Mage all along and was intentionally sneaking apostates out of Kirkwall, and Meredith wasn't entirely incorrect in what she was doing, just aimed the wrong direction. Of course, there's the dumb dwarf toy that turned her into a generic crazy badguy, but the whole "arrr we hate mages cause we're templars" thing seems a lot less forced.

He was sneaking some Mages out and some of them were Blood Mages but the majority of them were not.
Also as i saw it explained he had studied blood magic before and knew how to do it but had never even thought of using it until he was backed into a corner with 75% of his mages dead.

Still i think it would have been a better story if maybe he is about to use blood magic and Hawke can convince him not to or something like that.

 

[McNinja]

I really didn't like how the mages in Act 3 were handled. What with all of them turning into blood mages...

That was the point, showing that the Templars were right in their main issue. When the chips are down, 95% of all mages will turn to blood magic and demons to save their asses.

OT: Despite the above fact, I still sided with the mages as it was clear that Meredith was batshit and unwilling to compromise AT ALL, plus I had to save my sister. Also I knifed Anders, he killed one of the people who was really trying to keep it from coming to bloodshed and he destroyed any hope of that happening. I know that was his intention, my problem is that he got me to help him do it >.>

Actually, I think it was to muddle the decision making- do you side with the clearly insane woman and the people she commands many of whom are also insane, or the blood mages who want their freedom, and are also mostly insane? Orisino wasn't exactly insane until he turned into the Harvester. Also, the mages who escaped didn't turn to blood magic.

I don't equate blood magic with power. Damaging yourself =/= power. Thats like in Dragon Ball Z if Goku needed to cut himself to get to super-saiyan. Pointless and stupid, no matter how you look at it. But better than siding with an insane woman, whose troops are also mostly insane, save for a few cool ones.

 

[nin_ninja]

I really didn't like how the mages in Act 3 were handled. What with all of them turning into blood mages...

That was the point, showing that the Templars were right in their main issue. When the chips are down, 95% of all mages will turn to blood magic and demons to save their asses.

OT: Despite the above fact, I still sided with the mages as it was clear that Meredith was batshit and unwilling to compromise AT ALL, plus I had to save my sister. Also I knifed Anders, he killed one of the people who was really trying to keep it from coming to bloodshed and he destroyed any hope of that happening. I know that was his intention, my problem is that he got me to help him do it >.>

Actually, I think it was to muddle the decision making- do you side with the clearly insane woman and the people she commands many of whom are also insane, or the blood mages who want their freedom, and are also mostly insane? Orisino wasn't exactly insane until he turned into the Harvester. Also, the mages who escaped didn't turn to blood magic.

I don't equate blood magic with power. Damaging yourself =/= power. Thats like in Dragon Ball Z if Goku needed to cut himself to get to super-saiyan. Pointless and stupid, no matter how you look at it. But better than siding with an insane woman, whose troops are also mostly insane, save for a few cool ones.

There was power in the sense that it allowed you to screw with corpses and other humans' bodies. Make them bleed out of the eyes or something.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I was trying to keep neutrality, but then Anders blew up the Chantry and Meredith went batshit and I sided with the mages.
Then Orsino went batshit as well.

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Same here. At end game I trusted all of three people: myself, Merrill, and Varric. Everyone else had the potential to up and turn on me.

 

[hazabaza1]

I was trying to keep neutrality, but then Anders blew up the Chantry and Meredith went batshit and I sided with the mages.
Then Orsino went batshit as well.

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Same here. At end game I trusted all of three people: myself, Merrill, and Varric. Everyone else had the potential to up and turn on me.

Well, I trusted Aveline too. She went against the templars to help me.
That was coo'.

Though I had to convince that bugger Fenris that the templars were a touch evil. Whining emo elf crap, and all that jazz.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I was trying to keep neutrality, but then Anders blew up the Chantry and Meredith went batshit and I sided with the mages.
Then Orsino went batshit as well.

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Same here. At end game I trusted all of three people: myself, Merrill, and Varric. Everyone else had the potential to up and turn on me.

Well, I trusted Aveline too. She went against the templars to help me.
That was coo'.

Though I had to convince that bugger Fenris that the templars were a touch evil. Whining emo elf crap, and all that jazz.

Aveline hesitated too much for my liking. You could tell that she was contemplating putting a sword through your back "for the good of the city". Fenris...is well Fenris. Anders better be lucky he still had bro points with me from Awakenings. I was about to execute his terrorist ass. Killing the one reasonable leader in that dispute was not cool.

 

[Canadish]

I swear there was something in Kirkwall's water supply, everyone was god damned nuts.
Apart from Varric. Hawke was nearly sane, but the plot rails forced me to go to one extreme or the other, so I decided to make Hawke Chaotic Stupid. I went with the Templars, with the plan to kill them later as well.

Turns out you have to murder everyone no matter what you do. No choices. The default story makes you a kill em all lovin nut case. Where was the option to play peace keeper, or just bloody walk away.
Regardless, it felt good to murder the whole damned cast off, with their inconsistent character developments.

Me? Bitter? NO!

Oh yeah, killed Anders. Not for being a terrorist. But for being a dumb ass of a terrorist. Way to damage your cause, numb skull.

 

[Slycne]

I sided with the Mages, mostly because Bethany would have been killed in the Rite of Annulment and Meredith never laughed at my jokes, though really I would have preferred to simply stay out of it.

I let Anders live because he sure as hell was going to pay for what he did by helping me fix this mess, he can answer for his 'bombing' later.

 

[TheMoatMonster]

I sided with the mages and let Anders live, but only because I needed my healer for the final boss fight. If he'd been less useful, I'd have killed him without hesitation, due to all of his crazy.