Logic's Insight: Dragon Age 2 2/2

Part 2...

7) The Expedition...And More Forced Drama

Fortunately, the game's first Act was so good that I powered through this inherently bare-bones system because I was invested in the characters and this deep roads expedition that we spent the whole act trying to save up for. The idea that the hero has to pay for his adventures and save up money wasn't exactly new, but it was handled pretty well and makes Hawke into a co-funder for the expedition. Along the way, Hawke even gains partial ownership of a mine that turned out to be sitting on top of a dragon nesting grounds and the dragons were pissed about that. Lots of epic dragon-slaying later, Hawke likely had enough dragon bones, dragon scales, dragon skulls, dragon eggs, dragon teeth, dragon skins and other dragon-related stuff to sell and fully fund the expedition. (An exaggeration, but don't tell me that stuff wouldn't be worth something)

We get a scene with Sandal apparently murdering more darkspawn and freezing an ogre off-screen with an "enchantment" and Varric's brother Bartrend betrays the expedition out of greed. Actually, he betrays Varric because a red lyrium idol found in an ancient Dwarf colony tells Bartrend to betray Varric and Hawke and company have to fight their way out through another path. This quest was pretty decent since we got to learn more about ancient dwarf history, encounter strange living stone demons and my Hawke felt like he'd actually bonded with Varric and in a certain scenario, Anders.

At the end of the quest, Hawke and friends kill a huge rock-biter and come across a shit-ton of treasure which will make them rich for the rest of their lives. Mission accomplished right? No. Nothing comes without a price.

But that price does not have to be contrived.

What I mean is that if Carver/Bethany is brought along on the expedition then they'll fall sick from the darkspawn taint and die. Or if Anders is in the part, he'll direct the party to where he believes that some Grey Wardens were passing through and Carver/Bethany is given over to the Wardens to take the Joining as it's their own chance to survive. Or if the sibling is left behind, then Hawke returns home to find out that either Bethany is being forced to join the Circle or Carver decided to join the Templars.

Why is this contrived drama? Allow me to explain.

Better yet, explain to me how Hawke and all of his friends can bathe in darkspawn blood from blowing darkspawn into pieces and never get sick. Yet, one step into the Deep Roads and Carver/Bethany will peel over and die? This set-up doesn't make any sense.

Yes, Origins had this darkspawn blood bathing too. But the PC was a Grey Warden as was Alistair; Morrigan was a Witch of the Wilds raised by a woman whose knowledgeable about understanding and avoiding darkspawn; Oghren is a dwarf and dwarves are said to have a greater resistance to the taint; Sten is a qunari who may also have a greater resistance to infection; Zevran was an Antivan Crow whose training involved taking multiple poisons to gain an immunity to them; Leliana likely had to do the same thing as a bard; Wynne is a Spirit Healer and an Abomination; Dog recovered from a taint sickness already and has strengthened his immune system; and Shale is a soldier of stone.

What's Carver/Bethany's excuse?

Also, the idea that big brother Hawke would let his little sister be taken away without a fight after he'd earlier slaughtered a whole platoon of templars to protect strangers seems very out of character and dumb. I couldn't even threaten Cullen or remind him that I'd saved his life or that of his men at least twice by that point. It would not be out of character for an aggressive Hawke to try to murder Cullen. Of course, this would have consequences, but it's better than this contrived crap.

You know what would not make this suck? Let's discuss:

A) Give a better reason for Carver/Bethany to get sick

How about adding in a scene where they unknowingly stumble into a darkspawn-tainted artifact and then throw it away because it's worthless? Then if he's in the party, Anders will inspect the artifact and release that it's cursed by darkspawn and likely tainted. This would give something of a plausible explanation for why they get sick with darkspawn-taint and no one else is affected. Better yet, how about having them get an infected wound that they don't tell anyone about and then it makes them sick? A darkspawn emissary casting a curse of mortality? Anything that's more plausible than apparent bad luck.

B) Not having Carver/Bethany get sick at all

Depending on Hawke's relationship with them, they may want to strike out on their own. If Anders is in the party, they listen to his stories about his time as a Warden. Despite his warnings about that being a hard life, the sibling strongly considers it and the party helps a group of wardens under attack by darkspawn. The Warden leader (let's say, Alistair if he stayed a warden in Origins) is impressed with Carver/Bethany and asks them to join the Grey Wardens. Hawke can either encourage Carver/Bethany to join the wardens, try to make them stay, or he can tell his sibling to do what the sibling wants. This would allow the sibling to stand out as their own character rather than just a plot device for forced drama.

C) Possibility of Apostate Bethany

Instead of doing nothing while his baby sister is taken away to a horrible environment, let's have Hawke persuade/intimidate Cullen into screwing off. Cullen agrees, but warns that he won't look away again due to his duty as a templar. Bethany decides that she needs to go into hiding and Hawke can either encourage her to stay with the family or send her to live with Anders whose a master at keeping out of templar hands. Then later when Hawke becomes Champion of Kirkwall, he can either use his influence to protect Bethany or turn her in to the Circle to protect his reputation. Bethany would respond in kind, either regarding Hawke as a great big brother or practically disowning him for his ill-treatment and betrayal.

8) Act 2: The Qunari are Awesome

Act 2, the arguably best part of the entire game, starts with Hawke having risen up in the world after the Expedition. During a three year time skip, Hawke has managed to buy back the Amell estate and is now a noble living in Hightown. Your companions have also all made some changes to their lives and you're able to tag along and see these changes for yourself. Aveline gets married; Merrill's research is progressing; Varric has gotten a lead on his brother Bartrend, Fenris is searching for his master and his long-lost sister, Anders is battling against an apparent "tranquil solution" that seems to be getting steam in the templar crowd; Isabella still doesn't have a crew or a ship; and Sebastian finally tracks down the people who killed his family.

This is also the point where you can "finalize" your romance choice and let it grow from there. With the exception of Sebastian, all of the love interests are bi-sexual which is convenient, but not to where it's bad. As I said before, the flavor of your romance will also be affected by what kind of relationship that you have with the companion. I do find it a little odd that you can sleep with these companions after dissing everything that they stand for, but maybe they find Hawke's beard to be irresistable.



I personally don't get the fascination either.

This is also the point in the story where the Qunari Tensions start to escalate. See, the Qunari and their leader called the Arishok had all shipwrecked into Kirkwall back in Act 1 and have been stuck ever since. You got to interract with the Arishok and the Qunari several times and all of them were fairly interesting situations. You got to encounter a wayward qunari mage called a Saarabas nicknamed Ketojan and even after saving him from tal-vashoth pursuers, Ketojan elects to kill himself in accordance with the Qun. There are even a few moments where you can get a nod of respect from the Arishok depending on your dialogue and actions involving the Qunari.

The Arishok himself is honestly the best character in the entire game. He's well-designed as fit for an alpha male qunari, he's well voice-acted and he's also well-spoken with some poignant observations about Kirkwall and his own people. Whatever you think of the Qun, you can't help but see exactly why someone would willingly work under this system. It's restricted into castes with every aspect of your life regulated and controlled, but there is still room to improve and become great at what you are best at doing. You may never be anything other than a soldier, but that soldier can eventually aspire to lead other soldiers and be proven worthy of more responsibility and honor from the Qun. In Origins, Sten only talked about how his people were better than non-qunari. Here, we can see the Qunari culture with it's positive and negative aspects and decide for ourselves.

It's eventually revealed that the Arishok is hunting for a sacred tome of the Qunari that had been stolen by Isabella, hence why he won't leave till he finds the tome and the thief who took it. At the same time, prejudice and antagonism from Kirkwall's government, it's nobility, and the Chantry pushes on the Arishok's last nerve till he just says "fuck it" and launches an all-out invasion of Kirkwall. Hawke must then lead the counterattack to save the city and confronts the Arishok in the Viscount's estate where the Arishok has already killed the viscount and demanded Kirkwall's submission.

If your friendship/rivalry status with Isabella is sufficiently high, Isabella will have a change of heart and return the tome to the Arishok. However, the Arishok will insist on taking Isabella with him as punishment for her crimes. If Hawke has earned the respect of the Arishok, he can intervene and challenge the Qunari leader to a one-on-one duel (It's epically awesome, but hard as shit! Prepare carefully before you do this!); Hawke can also screw honor and attack in an all-out party vs party brawl; or he can take a level in jerkass and sell Isabella down river to the Qunari. Whatever the choice, Kirkwall is saved and Hawke is declared the Savior and Champion of the City.

The triumph doesn't last.

9) Act 3: Mixed Results and an Unraveling Pattern

Time to tackle the giant elephant in the room. Something that's present throughout this entire game, but I'm only speaking of it now while talking about the Third Act of the game. This was intentional because this conflict is synonymous with some of the most base-breaking factors within the game and I wanted to get all of the positive stuff out of the way before I got here.

I'm of course speaking of the Conflict between Mages and Templars.

If you'll recall from my Origins review, I stated that both sides had their pros and cons due to the entangling realities, inevitabilities, hypocrisies, and so on that makes this conflict so hard to place in a black vs white dynamic. I'll applaud Bioware for actually making this the central conflict of the game as it's a conflict that will not yield any easy answers that everyone can accept. Not because there isn't a mutually safe and equal option possible, but because Thedas' social and political climate just won't allow this to happen which generates tension. At best, any solution could only be applied on a small scale or it will be a temporary fix. This situation also has a lot of applicability to the real world with issues such as racial profiling, apartheid, scapegoating, witch hunts and so on.

Hence why criticizing how the conflict is handled in Act 3 is difficult do on on an objective basis. But we'll give it a shot anyway.

Another three years have gone by and Meredith has seized power in Kirkwall, blocking the election of a new Viscount, invoking harsh actions against the Circle, and overall making Kirkwall into a police state. Meredith is openly opposed by First Enchanter Orsino, whose trying to rally the people and mage supporters into defying Meredith's tyrannic and paranoid rule and into the middle is Hawke the Champion whose called upon to try and make peace between the two sides.

By being railroaded into picking a side.

"I tried to have sympathy! Maker knows, I've tried! But how can we allow them freedom when so many would use it to commit atrocities? They control minds, they become abominations, they began the Blight itself!" Now I actually like Meredith and she serves as a good antagonist with a bit of sympathy. Having experienced just how crazy and power hungry mages could be, I could see why templar vigilance is necessary. I also like that Meredith seems to be trying to convince herself of her rightness as much as she is the character with her mixed appeals to emotion and reason. She even admits to having a personal motivation to her anti-mage drive due to her experiences with a mage sister that didn't work out well at all. However, she seems to actually pity mages more than she hates them and is willing to overlook an apostate having free reign as champion as long as they've proven their worth (hence why she's not locking up Hawke).

I'd rather have allowed for an option that allowed Hawke to actually become Viscount of Kirkwall after the Qunari Invasion (Which may anger Meredith if Hawke is a mage). I don't know, it's just that I'm bothered by the lack of pro-activity and agency that Hawke has in this story line. It's not like being viscount would drastically change anything as previous viscounts still had to give a lot of power to the templars of Kirkwall. In fact, the last viscount who tried to assert power and killed Meredith's predecessor ended up hanged and the viscount that Meredith installed was a token leader. With Hawke as Viscount, he would be in a vicarious situation where he could try to help mages, but only so much without invoking Meredith's wrath. But a Viscount who defers to Meredith too much would be seen as a doormat or yet another token leader.

But having Meredith take her extremist actions does pose a legit question: Is her vigilance warranted? Is there a justification to be made for her seizure of power in Kirkwall? Is Meredith completely sane in her choices or is she just hardened by the inherent burden that her job entails? Is this over-vigilance merely feeding an already tense problem and making it worst? Does this need for vigilance justify several breaks in Chantry Law that her templars have made against the mages? Can Meredith be labeled a tyrant when a better solution does not seem possible?

Siding with the mages becomes increasingly more difficult due to the insane amount of crazy mages who use blood magic, become abominations or use demons for their intentions. With such an over-representation of this minority of mages, it becomes harder to reason that not all mages are bad when that's most of what the game shows you. Even the developers admit that they should've shown more moderates on both sides of the conflict because this little problem escalates into a dark vs dark crisis. When both sides are so flawed, unethical and dangerous that it's hard to keep having sympathy for one or the other, then this decreases the player's attachment to the conflict. Why should I be invested in a conflict where both sides suck?

This is also the part where several companion quest arcs reach their peak. Overall, this aspect of the game is okay. Some of the quests are only passable and others are actually good (Fenris in particular) and the only that I'd really complain about is Merrill's quest. In yet another attempt at "forced drama", Merrill's keeper Marethari, takes it upon herself to intervene in Merrill's attempt to contact a demon to fully fix her eluvian and Marethari gets possessed. This forces Hawke and company to kill her and unless you essentially shove all of the blame on Merrill, you are forced to kill Merrill's clan in self-defense.

This quest was so stupid because it required everyone to do the dumbest thing possible for any drama to even exist and I hate drama that requires stupidity. Marethari really left her clan without telling anyone about it? Why hasn't she made the Sabre Clan leave thanks to Meredith's harsher crack-downs (dalish avoid templars because the latter hunt their keepers)? Why didn't Marethari try to warn Merrill or Hawke about this possession thing? How did Marethari know exactly when Merrill would visit the demon to intercept her? What made her think that Merrill was in danger considering that she and her (boy/girl-) friend along with their band of badasses have killed enough demons to make a street long carpet out of their skins? Why couldn't Marethari wait at the entrance of the cave and warn Merrill there? Why does Merrill's clan automatically assume that Merrill (someone whom they've know their entire life) murdered a woman who was essentially her mother?

Later on, Hawke is told of a conspiracy between templars and mages who mutually hate Meredith and are planning a revolt. This could be interesting as even Cullen is starting to doubt if Meredith's actions are justified and perhaps Hawke could decide to join them-

Wait...they're just crazy people who want revenge against Hawke? And they've murdered the non-crazy and moderate members of their party when they objected? Alright...murder-knife time. I guess everyone who isn't crazy or extremist is just going to be killed off since they're in the minority now...which means that any chance of a relatively peaceful solution is slipping away more and more.

This is why a Dark vs Dark conflict doesn't work too well for keeping your audience engaged in your story. See, no matter how flawed or imperfect that your character is, they still need to have something about them that makes them sympathetic, respectable, admirable or something that makes you care about what happens to them. That's why Grey vs Gray conflicts can be interesting because they allow people to go into circles about whose right and whose wrong.

Even Dark vs Grey is worth debating when the Grey protagonist makes increasingly unethical and immoral choices in their fight against the bad guy. Can a Grey Protagonist still be called a hero if he murders an innocent child to power a weapon that can stop the bad guy? Either side of that debate can argue and never come to an agreement.

But here, what starts as a Grey vs Gray conflict has now escalated into a flanderization of itself. Nearly every templar is now over-zealous, oppressive, cruel, abusive or murderous and just about every mage is other consorting with demons or using blood magic now. What is Hawke supposed to fight for now? As soon as he saves Kirkwall from the templars, what's stopping the mages from having a lethal blood orgy with the blood contents donated by Kirkwall's populace? How can Hawke justify working with the templars when they're the ones who started this conflict, seizing power in the city despite being a religious organization, abuse their power over others, and are jackasses to non-blood mages?

At this point in the game, I no longer cared about what happened to either side.

And it all just gets worst from there.

10) The Last Straw

At the end of Part 3, things really begin to escalate and prompts a confrontation between Orsino and Meredith. Just when Grand Cleric Elthina is about to be consulted, Anders shows up, lashes out at both sides and commits an action that remains the most divisive in Dragon Age history.

He blows up the Chantry.

He sets off a magical bomb that kills Elthina and thousands of people that were in the building and in the surrounding area while Hawke and company watch in shock and awe. When questioned, Anders remarks without regret or hesitation that he removed the chance for compromise because he believed that no compromise was possible. Afterwards, Meredith declares the Right of Annulment on the Circle of Mages even though they had nothing to do with the Chantry's destruction and Hawke is forced to choose between helping the templars or aiding the mages.

Let's go over the problems with this set-up.

1) The mechanics of Anders' Bomb are confusing in a bad way

I'll admit, Anders isn't one of my favorite characters in DAII and that's even admitting that he is a decent character.

That said, I will acknowledge that Anders is a driven character. His personal experiences with the Circle of Magi and his merging with Justice caused his personality to be completely overwhelmed by years of suppressed anger and sorrow. Now he is driven to free his own people and bring justice to the templars and to the Chantry that controls it. As a player who has his own problems with the Chantry, I could relate to Anders' goal.

At least until he blew up the church.

Not only was the execution of Anders' plan very jarring and out-of-place, but his motive and endgame for the act are inherently detrimental to his plan. Let's start with the plan itself.

With ingredients that one can find in sewers and caves, Anders was capable of creating a bomb that's small to be concealed under his robes and powerful enough to destroy a large building by magically deconstructing it, compressing the pieces together and then blasting them away with a powerful shock wave. Where did Anders learn to make such a device? How did he set it off? Was it timed or did he use magic to detonate the charges? How did Anders sneak past guards, sisters, and any of the hundreds/thousands of refugees taking shelter in the Chantry? Between tagging along with Hawke and evading Templar pursuers, where did Anders have the time to become an explosives master? How did he know that the bomb would blow up the Chantry and not blow up the whole district?

Not to say that we haven't seen explosives in the DA series before such as lyrium/elemental Grenades in Origins/Awakening and the Qunari Gaatlok cannon), but we had details about how they worked. Not to mention that neither were shown to possess the magnitude of structural destruction that Anders' bomb possessed. In a series like Dragon Age, details matter and make a situation more believable and therefore, more involving. By having a major event in the game become set on something that was never seen or explained before, the event loses inherent merit which makes it less dramatic because it appears to have been contrived.

As Understated Nerdrage pointed out in his review of the game, the references to 9/11 were a little hamfisted as well. A twin-towered building is destroyed and causes mass fall-out in the surrounding area, the attack by a radical terrorist invokes a fervent retaliation where people who had nothing to do with the attack are the one's who are the most harmed, and this all escalates into further violent conflict. Maybe this is coincidental and the developers weren't trying to throw in a 9/11 or a War on Terror reference, but I wouldn't be surprised if they kind of were.

2) Anders' Plan is inherently self-destructive to his goals

His motive and endgame are also subject because of moral and objective failings. Anders is so fed up with the system that he decides to force a change. Fine. But the way that he acts is completely detrimental to his plans because he's presenting a bad image for mages. The public already fears magic due to Chantry indoctrination and by committing an act of violence based on magic, Anders is affirming those fears. So now that mages are forced into conflict with the templars, they'll also be facing a public that's much more heavily convinced of the evils of magic. Now Anders has forced his fellow mages into a conflict which they'll likely lose or at best, earn a pyrrhic victory that will make their overall situation worse.

Let's not also forget that the direct target of Anders' attack was an old woman who was sympathetic to the mages and was trying to create peace in Kirkwall. Elthina even went as far as to decline Meredith's request for the RoA. Some will argue that she didn't do enough in the situation, but considering her own comments to Hawke, "You have quite the estimation of my abilities." It's very likely that she could only do so much to curb Meredith's intentions and they do have effect. So Anders decides that the best way to incite a conflict and show the world the inherent flaws of the Circle System is to kill the one person who didn't mistreat mages and was trying to create peace between mages and templars.

By blowing her up with a magical bomb...and killing hundreds of other people in the process...and causing significant damage to the surrounding district of the city. Kind of hard to see how mages are the victims when a mage just committed an unprovoked and premeditated act of mass murder.

Supposedly, Anders knew that Meredith would be paranoid enough to call the RoA on the Circle even though Anders was acting alone. But how did he know this for certain? How did he know that Meredith wouldn't just kill him right there and that would be the end of it? In a non-contrived world, Anders would be seen as proof and justification of Chantry propaganda which would only serve to harm the overall mage situation.

Some have argued that Anders at this point is desperate and essentially did this as his version of a "rage quit". He got fed up with so many mages accepting the system and so he purposefully did this action knowing that his fellow mages would be blamed in order to force them to fight or flee.

I'd also like to point out how this action makes Anders into a hypocrite. Throughout the game, he constantly berates Fenris for his anti-mage sentiment and Merrill for her attempts to build the eluvian using blood magic learned from a demon. These are decent except that Anders himself is possessed by a spirit that he cannot control and it's influence is what led him to destroying the Chantry. So, Anders became more dangerous than Merrill ever could have been. Also, Fenris' sentiment can be tempered and it can be regarded as healthy caution considering what he'd seen in Tevinter and his experiences as a slave.

Anders? He gets influenced/possessed by Vengeance into setting off this self-defeating plan that will get thousands of mages killed and if the mages lose the coming war, their life will be even worst under that new system. Did I also mention that he approves of selling Fenris to Danerius if you're cold-hearted enough to actually do it?

3) Meredith's character is weakened for the sake of "drama"

As much as I like Meredith, this quote still fits the character, "Stupid is what stupid does." Just as a Hawke who directly worked with her is starting to see her point of view, Anders blows up the Chantry and Meredith takes a level in stupid. Even though the perpetrator of the act is standing right next to her, she calls the RoA on the Circle even though they had nothing to do with Anders' actions. The problem with this scenario is that the templar point of view is supposed to be just as valid as the mage point of view and now Meredith is dipping the scale towards the circle.

Why would Hawke want to side with Meredith when she's clearly in the wrong for moral and practical reasons? When someone trashes your car and says that they trashed your car, you don't track down their friends and burn down their houses. You make the perpetrator take responsibility for their actions.

That's not to say that Orsino is off the hook either. But Meredith doesn't know about his actions. Her calling the RoA is completely based on Anders' act of terrorism and she's scapegoating the rest of the Circle out of personal paranoia. Even Cullen and other templars have started to doubt Meredith's capacity for good and reasonable leadership. Let's also not forget that Meredith is blocking votes towards electing a new Viscount and turning Kirkwall into a police state run personally by her. Now she's just committed mass genocide on the city's mages for an act that they didn't commit and she'll also cut down anyone who opposes her.

Yeah, the templar side doesn't seem too reasonable anymore. There's vigilance against an inherent and real danger and then there's mass genocide as vengeance for a crime that your victims aren't guilty of.

Then she pulled out the red lyrium sword and instantly all respect for the character evaporated. For all of her flaws, she served as a paranoid antagonist who takes sympathetic reasoning and twists it as justification for wrongful acts like Loghain. But the idea that she was corrupted and manipulated by a red lyrium sword just seems dumb and almost like a last minute cop-out. As if the writers didn't want Meredith to be fully responsible for what she did, so they write in that the idol Hawke found was bought and reforged for her. Why? Why would Meredith want a red lyrium idol? Why would she go through the trouble of reforging it into a sword?

4) You're forced to take sides in a black vs black conflict

The game railroads you into picking sides between two remarkably flawed factions and the results are practically the same.

Siding with Meredith means condoning murdering the mages for a crime that they did not commit and driving them to use demons and blood magic for the sake of their survival. The fighting starts, you meet Orsino who goes nuts, becomes a flesh golem known as a Harvester, you kill Orsino, Meredith goes nuts and attacks you, you kill Meredith, templars win the battle, Mage-Templar war begins and Hawke and company go into hiding.

Siding with Orsino is a little more justified at first, until you realize that he harbored the blood mage that murdered Hawke's mother and has secretly encouraged other mages to use blood magic and demons. The fighting starts, Orsino loses hope and goes nuts, becomes a flesh golem known as a Harvester, you kill Orsino, Meredith goes nuts and attacks you, you kill Meredith, templars win the battle, Mage-Templar war begins and Hawke and company go into hiding.

The only major differences on either front is that some companions may turn against you if you haven't maxed out their friendship/rivalry meter, but they can be convinced to return to your side with the right dialogue. You'll also become viscount if you choose the templar side, but since you disappear eventually anyway, who gives a shit? It's essentially an empty title over a wrecked city.

So I ask. If this battle was going to end the same way regardless of Hawke's actions or which side he took, what's wrong with telling Orsino and Meredith to fuck off? Or better yet, what's stopping Hawke from leaving Kirkwall altogether?

Think about it. Meredith has nothing over Hawke to compel him to join her side even if Carver is with the templars and the same with Orsino if Bethany is in the Circle. Even then, that only accounts for 1/3rd of possibilities for Carver/Bethany's future at this point with the other two being either dead or being a Grey Warden. Orsino also has nothing over Hawke to force him to take his side apart from playing the "innocent" card. Also, Hawke has battled demons, blood mages, crazy mages, rapist templars, templar platoons, powerful rock monsters, wyverns, dwarves, abominations, magisters, darkspawn, dragons, spirits, and qunari including single-handedly defeating the Arishok in combat.

Should Hawke really be scared of Meredith or Orsino? The answer is no.

This section would have really benefited from two additions. The option to not take either side and essentially using your status as Champion to rally Kirkwall itself. Orsino and Meredith would not take kindly to this and would naturally result in a destructive three way war. How well Hawke does on his own would depend on what he's done throughout the quest with his own forces possibly including non-crazy mages, sympathetic/anti-meredith templars led by Cullen, Tal-Vashoth, the City Guard, and other Kirkwall denizens who don't want this mage-templar conflict to destroy their home.

However, the best that Hawke will manage is a pyrrhic victory with the city being even more wrecked than if he'd picked sides and the mage-templar war starting anyway. But the powerless of the character would be that much more impactful because he was actually proactive in standing up for himself and this city that he called a home and it's destroyed despite his efforts. Worst, each side would say that Hawke was supporting their enemy and make Hawke into an infamous figure. Some saying that he helped Meredith and others saying that he sided with the mages. Hawke's reputation would be sullied for the rest of his life as the truth is lost to all but a small few.

A second addition would be the option for Hawke to essentially say "Screw you guys, I'm out." The Champion leaves Kirkwall and abandons it to it's own self-destruction, fed up with taking care of this diseased city only for it to constantly find ways to destroy itself. It's not the most heroic option, but who says that Hawke has to be a hero? It would also be a great surprise when Cassandra hears this from Varric:

"He just left?"

"Yep. Didn't so much as give the city a backwards glance."

"Why did he leave?"

"I didn't ask. Maybe he thought that he wouldn't make a difference. Maybe he didn't feel like risking his life this one time. Or maybe he got fed up with all of the paranoia and stupidity."

"He just...allowed Kirkwall to fall into destruction and death?"

"Maybe that would've happened anyway...Hawke just got tired of being stuck in the middle."

The short development is likely why these two options would not be possible, but the writers could at least make the templar/mage endings more interesting. Instead of fighting Orsino if you sided with him, how about battling a powerful pride demon that possesses another scared mage and mind-controlling other mages against you, your party and Orsino. You beat the demon, but Orsino is killed and he dies lamenting that he'd ever been born a mage.

Also, lose the red lyrium idol. Meredith is fine without it.

Seriously...what was Bioware thinking there?

5) No Closure

At. All.

Regardless of the side that you choose, Hawke and company bail on Kirkwall and go their separate ways. Three years later, Varric has no idea where Hawke is and Cassandra departs with Leliana and a company of Seekers to find Hawke and the also-disappeared Warden.

So what happened to Hawke? Did Merrill take her eluvian with her? Did Aveline ditch the City Guard? Is Bethany part of the Mage Rebellion? Is Carver still a Templar? Did Bethany/Carver go back to the Wardens? Did Isabella ever get her own ship and crew? Did Fenris ever regain his memories? Was Anders praised or hated by the mage community? Does Sebastian ever reclaim his birthright in Starkhaven?

Nothing. The game just ends.

Really? What about Gamlen and Charade? Bodahn and Sandal? Varric's Dwarven Merchant's Guild? What happened to Kirkwall after all of the fighting stopped? How did this impact the Free Marches? What was that red lyrium idol? What is the Enigma of Kirkwall? Was that was causing everyone to go nuts? Are we going to see Corypheus again? Did the Qunari ever launch their counter-invasion of Kirkwall in revenge for the death of their Arishok?

This isn't even a cliffhanger ending. This is more like a stop sign ending with nothing going past it. 

Lame Bioware. Just...Lame.

11) You forgot about the DLC Episodes!

Oh right. This will be short and I guess I should end the meat of the review on a positive note.

The DLC episodes labeled as Legacy and Mark of the Assassin are mini-expansion adventures that take Hawke out of Kirkwall into new locations such as an ancient Grey Warden Prison and the estate of an Orlesian Wyvern Hunter. Both were sadly self-contained and relatively short, but they were good additions to Hawke's story.

Legacy especially offers insight into Hawke's mysterious and dead father, Malcolm. Evidently, he had made a deal with the Grey Wardens to use his blood to reinforce some kind of seal in exchange for lots of coin and aid in leaving the Free Marches with a pregnant Leandra. If you bring Carver/Bethany along, you even plenty of opportunities to further bond with your last remaining sibling. There's even some tidbits for Varric and Anders with the former learning of the sad fate of the man who built his trademark crossbow and with Anders learning that leaving the Wardens doesn't erase the taint from his body. It even has a surprise ending where an ancient magister wakes up and shakes everything that we thought that we knew about the origins of the Blight and the darkspawn.

Was the Golden City corrupted by the magisters? Or was it already blackened when they got there?

Mark of the Assassin features a temporary companion named Tallis voiced and modeled after Felicia Day. Hawke tags along with her in a quest to recover stolen Qunari artifacts from an Orlesian Wyvern Hunter. The mission features an inflitration mission where Hawke has to sneak around the targeted estate, It has a ball sequence, you fight a new enemy, and it has a few more funny moments with our companions. But, it's honestly a bit weaker in comparison to Legacy though still good.

There were even plans for a genuine Expansion Pack called "Exalted March", but it got cancelled.

Leaving Hawke's story without any real closure. Bummer.

12) I'm done

There's nothing else to say about this game.

When Dragon Age 2 does stuff well, it does it really well. But when the game drops the ball, it's painfully obvious. There are legitimate reasons why many gamers consider this title to be the weakest game that Bioware has ever made. It was so hotly debated for the past three years that I actually asked myself on whether it was worth it to actually write this review. After all, what could I say that hasn't already been talked about before? Was this beating a dead horse? Would I actually contribute anything or would I just come off as whiny?

Despite this, I decided to write this review. Not for anyone else, but for my own sense of closure with this game. To sort through all of the conflicting feelings, the objective and subjective problems, and all of the good and bad in this game to figure out if I really liked this game or if I had just told myself that I liked it, but deep down I didn't.

Is it possible to like and hate a game at the same time? I suppose it would depend on the reasoning.

This isn't like Soul Calibur V where the game was so flawed, lazily put together and half-assed that I didn't care to look through the bad to find the good. Dragon Age 2 does have real effort put into it's writing and development, why else would I bother replaying this game so much if there wasn't anything actually good in the game? I actually spent more time praising several aspects of this game and even admitting good things about some of the not-so-good stuff than I did over the objectively/subjectively bad stuff. The bad stuff or the not-so-good stuff is annoying because I could see how Bioware could have done better and I've seen them do better. Hence, my disappointment was given a lot of fuel.

But so much that I forgot about the ample good things. Which brought me to my answer.

This is a good game and it should stay in the Dragon Age continuity. It should be remembered as good because there are some concepts/ideas/executions that this game does well that can/should be carried into future games and it should also serve as an example of why some things should not be repeated. Dragon Age 2 can be a learning tool to determine why it's mistakes were made and how they can be avoided in future titles.

How will we know that Bioware learned the lessons that had to be learned? We won't know till the next game comes out, will we?

The End...Until the Inquisition Begins...