Ok, here are my "posting from work" level thoughts...
In a technical sense his writing has improved, though I can still name several fanfic writers who are better. He needs a harsher editor.
However, no one really grabbed me here. There was no Loghain or Duncan type character to really capture my sympathies. I just don't feel like the same depth of emotion went into Rhys. I did like him, I just didn't feel along with him. His motivations were less clear than either of them and he didn’t feel as fleshed out. With Loghain you got to see his father and all that happened at the refugee camp, with Duncan there was the sequence in the Fade and the stories of his time on the street. With Rhys… really, nothing. You don’t see flashbacks or hear stories about how he might have felt being raised in a Chantry orphanage. We’re told he has a past with Adrian, but not much about what happened, or why things changed. Too much telling in general, without any showing to back it up.
In the end Adrian pissed me off. Probably in no small part due to the number of people who have mailed me on ffnet and such and compared her to Maggie… since, well, Adrian does bad, bad things, and I would like to think Maggie is nicer than that. At first I liked her, but as others have said, she's almost comical in her single mindedness. And that move at the end was utterly unforgivable. Gain the world but lose your soul, etc. She could have been just as devoted to her cause without being so utterly heartless.
Unlike everyone else, I enjoyed Wynne here. I thought he did a good job showing a darkness just below her calm old lady surface. Although WTF was up with that staff ex machina? And what staff was it, since it clearly seemed like it should have been a specific one from Origins… It seemed so random. Her response to Orlais tearing itself apart in civil war was really perfect for someone who had lived with occupation. And omg she fucked a Templar! Greagoir? Or someone we don't know... Either way, tee hee hee!! In general she came across as someone playing a patient game of chess who is looking ten moves ahead. It made me look back at her comments in origins and see that there as well, although it may be reaching on my part. I liked her better for it, since she seemed far less like someone who was rolling over for the Chantry, and far more like someone who biding her time for the perfect moment.
I kind of hoped for an Anders spotting at the very end, when they had the final conclave. But then, I hope for Anders spottings everywhere…
And I was unclear as to if Cole’s intervention with the Lord Seeker would delay or prevent the Templars from marching on them.
And Cole… seriously, wtf? OK, my first theory was that he was, somehow, going to turn out to be the OGB. I sort of prefer that idea to what it actually ended up being. Rhys was the killer? While Cole killed with only Leliana as a witness? IIRC, Rhys had an alibi for another of the murders, too. So how does that work? Was Cole a demon? A spirit? And at the end? What was that- he possessed the Lord Seeker? Killed him? I suspect we will come back to that little plot thread in DA3. I really don’t mind a book that keeps me wondering, but I don’t like when my first thought is to set it down and say “what the everloving fuck just happened?” it goes a bit too far. The end was simply confusing.
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In a technical sense his writing has improved, though I can still name several fanfic writers who are better. He needs a harsher editor.
However, no one really grabbed me here. There was no Loghain or Duncan type character to really capture my sympathies. I just don't feel like the same depth of emotion went into Rhys. I did like him, I just didn't feel along with him. His motivations were less clear than either of them and he didn’t feel as fleshed out. With Loghain you got to see his father and all that happened at the refugee camp, with Duncan there was the sequence in the Fade and the stories of his time on the street. With Rhys… really, nothing. You don’t see flashbacks or hear stories about how he might have felt being raised in a Chantry orphanage. We’re told he has a past with Adrian, but not much about what happened, or why things changed. Too much telling in general, without any showing to back it up.
In the end Adrian pissed me off. Probably in no small part due to the number of people who have mailed me on ffnet and such and compared her to Maggie… since, well, Adrian does bad, bad things, and I would like to think Maggie is nicer than that. At first I liked her, but as others have said, she's almost comical in her single mindedness. And that move at the end was utterly unforgivable. Gain the world but lose your soul, etc. She could have been just as devoted to her cause without being so utterly heartless.
Unlike everyone else, I enjoyed Wynne here. I thought he did a good job showing a darkness just below her calm old lady surface. Although WTF was up with that staff ex machina? And what staff was it, since it clearly seemed like it should have been a specific one from Origins… It seemed so random.
Her response to Orlais tearing itself apart in civil war was really perfect for someone who had lived with occupation. And omg she fucked a Templar! Greagoir? Or someone we don't know... Either way, tee hee hee!!
In general she came across as someone playing a patient game of chess who is looking ten moves ahead. It made me look back at her comments in origins and see that there as well, although it may be reaching on my part. I liked her better for it, since she seemed far less like someone who was rolling over for the Chantry, and far more like someone who biding her time for the perfect moment.
I kind of hoped for an Anders spotting at the very end, when they had the final conclave. But then, I hope for Anders spottings everywhere…
And I was unclear as to if Cole’s intervention with the Lord Seeker would delay or prevent the Templars from marching on them.
And Cole… seriously, wtf? OK, my first theory was that he was, somehow, going to turn out to be the OGB. I sort of prefer that idea to what it actually ended up being. Rhys was the killer? While Cole killed with only Leliana as a witness? IIRC, Rhys had an alibi for another of the murders, too. So how does that work?
Was Cole a demon? A spirit? And at the end? What was that- he possessed the Lord Seeker? Killed him? I suspect we will come back to that little plot thread in DA3. I really don’t mind a book that keeps me wondering, but I don’t like when my first thought is to set it down and say “what the everloving fuck just happened?” it goes a bit too far. The end was simply confusing.