Random DA things

[zillah975]

I love this game like burning. After I'd been playing on the PS3 for several months, I bought a shiny new laptop for the sole purpose of having it for the PC and I'm now playing it on BOTH the PC and PS3, because it's JUST THAT AWESOME. *draws hearts* I have four working laptops now, because of the three I had before, none would run DA.

The following rantishness is from looking at the game from the POV of a character within it, not from the POV of a player who understands why things have to go a certain way in order to position the player character to proceed down a certain path and become the big hero.



There. Now.

Okay, have you noticed that Duncan is a manipulative, evil bastard? I was crushing on him so hard at first, but my human wardens and my newest City Elf warden just want to punch him in the face. Alistair may be all starry-eyed over him, but oh my god.

My human wardens. First, while her father lies dying at their feet, Duncan promises to get her and her mother to safety only if her father agrees that she'll become a Grey Warden. She doesn't get a say in this, and her DYING FATHER is being blackmailed into it on the lives of his wife and child!

That's a pretty big strike against poor old Duncan.

Second, it turns out that this thing that Duncan blackmailed her dying father into agreeing to will get her killed, either immediately upon joining, or within just a few decades -- when she will descend into the deep roads and fight monsters in the dark miles below ground until they kill her. RAWR.

Third, POOR SER JORY. OMFG. He's got a pregnant wife at home! but does Duncan even try to talk sense into him?! No! He's all, "oh, he pulled his sword, I HAD to kill him," but you notice that Jory looks about as threatening as a kitten up a tree until Duncan draws his sword and advances on him? Because I sure noticed that. Doesn't even once try to reason with him, or explain things to him further. No, he just tricks him into leaving his wife and child, then stabs him to death when Jory expresses some dismay at Daveth's gruesome and untimely death!

Also, creepiest group ever, the way Duncan, Alistair, Jory, and your Warden just back slowly away while Daveth chokes to death. Jeez, guys, maybe it wasn't even the blood, maybe he just swallowed wrong! Somebody could at least TRY to help him!

The human origin is definitely the worst (for Duncan's character, I mean) of the ways I've played through so far. But the City Elf is also kind of grim, as I realized when I played through the opening on the "I am a selfish asshole" setting and discovered that if things go a certain way, your pal gets carted off to prison to be executed and Duncan's all, "hey, I only need one warden. Too bad for him."




I feel sort of guilty for still crushing on Duncan, even knowing what a bastard he is.

Are there any "Duncan is a manipulative evil bastard" fics out there for a girl who both crushes on him and wants to punch him in the face?

Comments

[aroihkin]

Yeah, the only Wardens of mine who haven't kind of hated him was my Brosca, who still resented his ass for yanking her away from her shiny new carta... and my brand new Aeducan, who sort of used Duncan for a damn change.

Of course, he's just doing whatever it takes to survive long enough to behead his little bro. ;)

I don't have any fic recs, but yeah. I've seen it too.

[valiasedai]

Duncan may be a bastard to normal people, but he isn't a normal person with normal responsibilities. There's a Blight, he needs skilled fighters and while I can't imagine he felt great about recruiting you over your dying father, or recruiting Jory when he has a wife (pregnant or otherwise) he ultimately sees it for the greater good. Joining survival is lower during a Blight, as well. I personally think that Cousland is the worst in terms of recruitment and not caring. The others are (in my opinion) a mix of "I'm saving your ass from dying/prison" and "You're pretty damn good with that, so let's go."

As far as Jory goes - maybe he could have had reason talked into him, but maybe it was the final straw in Jory's otherwise spectacular display of bravery. Even when you're in the Wilds he's pretty skittish, to the point all of my PCs (as well as myself >.>) wanted to slap him and tell him to grow a pair. Jory did shitty on the field test when it came to "Dealing with horrors of being a Warden." He then balks at drinking darkspawn blood - can you imagine Jory being able to kill innocent people JUST because they're tainted? Burning villages because the Taint has affected everyone? Being a Warden is a shitty job in terms of it being a "I will die early and horribly" sort of career, but it's even worse because you have to put aside moral qualms and do what is necessary. Even as the Hero of Ferelden, I felt bad killing the tainted guy in the Wending Wood (during Awkanening) at least partly because he didn't do anything. He begs you to put him out of his misery - something HoF had a VERY hard time doing. Warden-for-two-decades? She would have done if even if she had to hunt the poor bastard down.

tl;dr - He seems a bastard to us because we don't have his responsibilities. Jory is pretty cowardly and Wardening is SRS BZNS of sometimes killing innocent people. Wardens are greater good >>>>> individual lives.

I don't know of love/hate fic, but I'm sure it exists. I DO know the Cousie floating around my head is going to absolutely loathe Duncan.

[prisoner_24601]

Yes pretty much exactly this.

He's a man with a really shitty job to do - and really the only one who has the knowledge of how bad things are going to be. Is it cold and manipulative of him to recruit a warden over their dying father, or kill Jory or leave the warden's cousin in prison? Yeah, it is. But Duncan is a pragmatist trying to stop a blight (and really the only person around who gets how bad it's going to be) and tough and ugly choices need to be made. So I tend to find him sympathetic in a way that I wouldn't if his goal was his own political advancement or a power grab for personal gain. I tend to have a weakness for characters like this, actually, lol. I do however get why certain types of wardens with different viewpoints and goals would hate his guts, and it makes for an interesting conflict between the PC and Duncan.

Letting the recruits fall on their face/ass during the joining ritual is pretty crazy - however, I assume this is some sort of limitation with the game engine since this happens in Awakenings too. And sort makes me *facepalm* every time as I shout at the screen for someone to catch the poor bastards doing a faceplant.

[zillah975]

See, I totally get why he does it, but believing that the ends justify the means doesn't actually make the means any less manipulative or horrible.

Also, I don't get why he has to kill Jory. If it's because Jory's a coward, well, I'm not sold on the idea of Jory as a coward. There's a difference between cowardly and cautious, and at least for the dialog options I chose, he's cautious, not cowardly. He doesn't abandon the party, he doesn't shy away from battle when they find it, I really think he's just a thoughtful, cautious soldier who doesn't want to die needlessly.

After all, he has a pregnant wife to go home to. I'd be cautious too.

And he balks at drinking darkspawn blood not because it's icky, but because it apparently has a high chance of killing him. Again, Jory doesn't want to die needlessly, and that looks pretty needless, I must say. Especially since he has all of maybe five minutes to process this turn of events.

Mileage may vary, especially with different dialog options, but I really want the "Jory and Daveth live" AU. Maybe the "Jory and Daveth and Duncan all live" AU. That would be fun to write. I may have to consider this more thoroughly.

[elysium_fic]

There's a difference between evil and pragmatic.

I crush on Duncan, hard. But that doesn't stop me from seeing that he's a stone-cold pragmatist who will do WHATEVER IT TAKES and will not stop to consider the niceties.

When you have to weight each person's individual but ultimately small drama against a threat that will turn the world into a LIFELESS BARREN WASTELAND, suddenly those little personal dramas pale in significance.

Is it going to matter who is in control of Highever when the darkspawn overrun it?

What's going to happen to Jory's wife and baby if Ferelden is consumed by the Blight?

Puts things in a rather bleak perspective, doesn't it?

[zillah975]

I never said I didn't understand why he does it. But understanding it doesn't make it any less vile, in my mind. I mean, there are other ways he could approach some of these situations. And honestly, recruiting wardens who don't want to be there doesn't seem like the best strategy. I'm not sure I'd trust someone at my back whom I had to blackmail her dying father in order to get her there.

And I maintain that what happened with Jory was entirely unnecessary -- and that's a failing on the part of the storytellers. There really isn't any reason in the narrative for Duncan to kill Jory so quickly. If there were dialog options, or if Jory attacked Duncan rather than just clearly planning to defend himself, I could deal with that. But as it stands, nope, it just makes Duncan very, very quick to kill a guy who might have made a good Warden if someone had given him a few minutes to process things and understand his options and the consequences.

I mean, I'm not really sure that choosing to talk to someone for a few minutes before killing them is a nicety, exactly. :)

[niniane]

Yes, I agree 100%. Duncan is absolutely ruthless. Which isn't so good when it = Jory's death, but is necessary for the reasons you described. *shrugs* It's part of why I like a lot of the other more ruthless characters (Anora, Bhelyn, Branka). Yeah, they're all pretty ruthless, to the point where it seems nearly evil. But at the same time, the alternatives most of the characters are facing isn't really that much better.

[klarabella]

Jory's wife and child live at Highever, a port city, and have a good chance of leaving Ferelden in time.

[zute]

I've been far too caught up in his kind eyes and calm voice to actually see what he does as evil. :)

[zillah975]

Hee!! I know what you mean, I had to play through the human noble origin four times before it occurred to me that telling my dad he'd only save us if I became a Grey Warden might be considered manipulative....

[niniane]

:) I do wonder how much the game does this. Like, the character's we're supposed to like are all pretty (other than Anora, who seems to play up the "I'm a sweet little princess who needs rescuing....actually, not so much", and possibly Isolde and Goldanna, who are quite attractive, but who I think the game hates anyway), and the ones we don't like aren't so much. Evil game! We need a less look-ist universe!

[valiasedai]

Don't forget his beard!

[zute]

Oh! I just remembered there was a fanfic someone wrote where Duncan manipulated everything so he could recruit the Cousland character. I remember reading it on fanfiction.net... long ago. I don't remember who wrote it or what the title was.... I should try to find it.

[klarabella]

Fractured Wisdom

[sarahsponda]

I think he's way more evil if you play the Aeducan or Tabris origin evil. Because then it becomes really clear that he doesn't give a crap about who you are as a person, he just wants a good fighter.

The Aeducan scene played like this:

Duncan: Oh, hello, princess. I won't ask what put you down here. I know how harsh Dwarven politics can be!

Me: I KILLED MY BROTHER B/C HE SUCKS. THEN MY OTHER BROTHER SOLD ME OUT. CAN I JOIN YOU IN ORDER TO HAVE MY REVENGE?

Other Wardens: Wait, what?!

Duncan: Heh. Heh. Nothing to see here!


The Tabris scene is even worse. I took Vaughan up on his deal and sold Shianni to him. (Rented? Anyway.) I also blamed it all on Soris and handed him over to the guards, and washed my hands of the whole thing. A job well done!

Duncan knew everything and recruited me anyway. He said it was because he wanted somebody who would do "whatever it takes". But I'm just sitting there thinking "My Tabris is a goddamned sociopath. Is this really the sort of person you want to be responsible for?"

[zillah975]

One of these days I'm going to play through the entire thing on Evil. So far I haven't been able to. I do something bad to see what happens, and then I can't stand it and I have to go back to the last save point and re-play it so it's not so evil. But I'm determined! I just can't decide which origin to do it with first, since I may not be able to make myself do it a second time.

[prisoner_24601]

Roflmao. Omg. I really, really need to play an evil Aeducan now, because that sounds freaking awesome.

[zillah975]

LOL!! Now I want "Dragon Age in Fifteen Minutes".

[darkrose]

I actually think there's an argument to be made for taking Vaughan up on the deal. He's absolutely right when he says that killing him is going to lead to a purge; the only wrinkle is that if you don't kill him, Howe comes in later, imprisons him and blames the elves anyway.

On the other hand, Duncan knows that my Tabris will pretty much kill anyone who gets in her way, regardless of the long-term consequences. In Mira's case, when she asks why he didn't help with the rescue, he explains that he thought two elves sneaking in and sneaking back out would be better than going in guns blazing, so to speak. He didn't realize that Mira doesn't sneak very well, and that she was going to slaughter anything that wasn't an elf and steal anything that wasn't nailed down.

The only origin where I feel that Duncan's really an unmitigated bastard is the Dalish. Fortunately, that's also my least favorite origin to play.

[onemorealtmer]

Wait...murdering Trian is bad? But he's a jerk! Clearly that means he'll be a bad King, right? La!

(Don't mind me, I'm just finally playing the Aeducan origin for an AU fic I'll be doing soon. She doesn't seem to think killing Trian is bad....)

[klarabella]

Jory's death seems so pointless but this has more to do with the reason for it. I don't credit the plothole around Grey Warden secrecy to Duncan's character.

Duncan is a very interesting character. One the one hand pragmatic, on the other hand he must have a softer side (a soft spot for his recruits).

I'd love to read pre-Blight Duncan fics.

[zillah975]

I find Duncan increasingly fascinating on repeated playthroughs. Less charming, but a lot more interesting.

[darkrose]

One of the....interesting storytelling choices with Duncan is that his character makes a lot more sense if you know the secondary canon.

Duncan was a street thief who became a Warden at around 18 after he killed a guy during a robbery who turned out to be not only a Warden, but the fiance of Warden Commander Genevieve. She conscripted him off the gallows because she thought death wasn't a sufficient punishment. He was freaked out by the fact that the man he killed looked pretty happy to die.

So then he goes on this big quest and becomes BFF's with Maric and Fiona, and watches nearly everyone in their party die horribly. He also discovers the real truth about the calling, which is that Grey Wardens don't die from the taint--they turn into darkspawn. Oh, and by the way, there's a Blight coming, probably centered in Ferelden, and you get to try to rebuild the Warden presence there. And while you're at it, could you keep an eye on Maric and Fiona's kid?

Then 20 years pass, and Duncan starts feeling the Calling. He's pretty sure he's going to die; if he's lucky it'll be ending the Blight. The king is really helpful, but he's also a glory hound and an idiot. The one person who might understand how to approach this strategically sees Duncan as an Orlesian first, and a member of the order that almost got Maric killed second, and possibly as "the obnoxious kid Maric liked better than me" and won't listen to anything Duncan has to say. Oh, and he conscripted Alistair to keep him from becoming a templar; I'm sure Fiona had Things To Say about that.

By the time the game starts, he's pretty monomaniacal: stopping the Blight is the only thing that matters, and with the possible exception of conscripting Alistair, everything he does is geared toward that end. Based on The Calling, I kind of wonder if living for so long with the taint affects a Warden's mind as well as body, and by the time they're ready to head to the Deep Roads for the last time, they're more than a little batshit.

I don't actually blame him for killing Jory as much as I do for recruiting Jory in the first place, because Jory wasn't Grey Warden material. He was scared and skittish, and at the same time, he was a glory hound. Mira has nothing but contempt for his whining; "Dude, you're complaining to me about life being unfair? Bitch, please." That said, it does kind of bug me that Duncan supposedly kills Jory to make sure the Sekrit Ritual stays sekrit, but by Awakening, everyone in Ferelden apparently knows what the Joining involves.

[zillah975]

THEY BECOME DARKSPAWN???







All of my wardens just went ballistic.



Anyway, as far as Jory goes, I still think that he just didn't have sufficient time to process. After all, it's not like he's no good fighting the darkspawn in the wilds, or tries to run away or anything, and he's not all "she's going to cook us and eat us!" when they meet Morrigan, or "omg CHASIND", like sooooome people, and he does have a wife and forthcoming child he's responsible for. It's one thing to die for a purpose, but the Joining reasonably seems like dying to no purpose at all.

I would feel differently about it if either Jory actually attacked Duncan prior to Duncan advancing on him to kill him, or if anyone had tried to talk to him about the situation. But no, it was all, "okay, now drink this poison. ... HESITATION IS DEATH. YOU DIE NOW!"

I'm pretty sure this all ties in somehow with what an ass Alistair is to that dying soldier in the wilds, with his, "Oh, he's not half as dead as he looks!" quip, but I can't put my finger on it yet....

[jamzsquared]

In response to your question, I think my take on Duncan depends on which origin story I play (like so much in DA). My f!surana was definitely put out, pissed, and angry when she was "recruited," mostly because she is such a goody two-shoes that she betrayed Jowan without a second though, did exactly what Irving told her to do, and ended up getting burned in the worst of ways (this, though, puts her on a serious trajectory for character development that I've been itching to write). Getting pawned off on the Wardens, leaving the Circle, and getting plunged in the midst of civil war and blight are not things that she feels grateful about.

On the other hand, my f!Cousland really, really, really wanted to be a warden, and so when she's forced to flee Highever, albeit under really horrible and traumatic experiences, she doesn't feel so much that Duncan exploited and manipulated the situation, but rather that he saved her from the Howes in the one way that was open to him. Still, I totally see how that 'power of conscription' business and the way that it gets used in the origin stories (in some ways, I think, sloppier than others, which I attribute to the usual spectre in all things Poorly Plotted by Bioware, which is the collaborative process of writing the story, blah blah).

Off-topic, I love the icon of your mage, Winterborn. Glad to see that I am not the only one who created a silver-haired, dark-skinned character. My first Cousland favored that look, complete with tattoos, and when I saw what her parents looked like the first time, I amused myself with trying to figure out where the hell Vanora came from. A changeling's child, quite clearly. ;)

Also off-topic, I glad to see that my contemplation of buying a new laptop in order to run DA, rather than on console, is notabsolutely effing crazy completely unusual. Am so jealous of all the fun mods and such that PC players can access...