Final musings on metaphysics in Morrowind

TES examines what it means to create an imaginative work by setting up a world and then subjecting it to the literary/ludic equivalent of laboratory analysis. Metaphysics undergo destruction testing, seeking the limits of the universe by pulling and twisting time and space to (dragon) breaking point.

Metaphysics are an age-old human concern, to poke and prod at them is in our nature. TES creates characters who are pushing the limits of their fictional world and struggling to come to terms with its rules, with varying degrees of success. In TES, true agency is not something afforded to just anyone. It must be sought after, fought for, stolen. Whatever it takes. Sometimes these attempts take the form of assaults on the fourth wall, yet paradoxically, I don’t find that my suspension of disbelief suffers as a result – quite the reverse, in fact. TES is more real, more human, more relevant as a result of these metaphysical clashes of imagination and reality, and metagame clashes of NPC and player, player and game. They remind us to question the nature and limits of our own perceptions, our world, our agency. (Note to self: attempt to restrict use of tricola.)

Explorations of fictional metaphysics, self-aware characters and the fourth wall are not unique ideas in art, but when encountered in a game, especially an RPG like Morrowind, the dynamic is different. Games are all about player agency, the imposition of the player’s will upon the gameworld. The artistic achievement of a game is inherently collaborative. The designer creates the world and the rules of that world, and the player provides a response to that: the way they move within, or learn to break out of, that framework. “It’s impossible to cheat in a single-player game” is a quote from a TES forumite known as Brash, back in the day. The simple rightness of her words has stuck with me. Breaking the rules is just another way of playing the game. Sometimes the best way. Just ask Vivec, the Thief of The World, the ultimate cheat.

A game is a created reality, and TES invites the player to invest their imagination in that reality, and to interact with it. To shape it as they see fit. They release tools to mod it, so any player can make themselves an all-powerful god. Cheating? Wrong word. It’s part of the game. It is allowing the player to change their world.

And so it makes sense that Bethesda create ingame lore that plays with these ideas of so-called cheating, of power and agency, of warping the world around you. If the devs are the Godhead, then each player is immersed in their own god-dream. But the good player, the ruling king, is a lucid dreamer. If they can master the dream-game, if they can gain enough power, or cheat, or create their own reality in the Construction Set – this player has not just beaten the game, they have *become* part of the Godhead. Of the creative process. CHIM.

This is not just why TES is special, this is why gaming is special. Collaborative creativity. The sharing of the “divine” act of creation through play. Authorial control is not lost, it is multiplied – we are all part of the Godhead. What some have seen as gaming’s creative Achilles heel is, in fact, the source of its power. It’s creating a dream, and sharing it with other dreamers, who then make it their own and share it back.

“A whole World of You.

God.

God outside of all else but his own free consciousness, hallucinating for eternity and falling into love: I AM AND I ARE ALL WE.”

- Loveletter from the 5th Era

[HERE BE SPOILERS, and I also apply the standard Elder Scrolls caveat that it is truly more fun to play the game, read the texts, and figure out your own interpretations.]

Divine CHIMistry, or: How Vivec Accessed the Construction Set.

“Certitude is for the puzzle-box logicians and girls of white glamour who harbor it on their own time. I am a letter written in uncertainty.” – Vivec, 36 Lessons, Sermon 4

I wrote, in the introductory post, that the Elder Scrolls series “does very strange things to the fourth wall, not so much breaking it as morphing it, moving it, twisting it, painting it purple and sitting on top of it laughing”. The person sitting on top of the fourth wall, possibly some inches above the actual wall, would be Vivec.

Vivec, also known as Vehk, plays many roles. Warrior, poet, general, thief, lover, liar, mystic, murderer. God. Weird floating dude who gave you a glove during the Morrowind main quest. He is all these things and more, although many players will only know him as the latter. Unless they’re one of those players, in which case he’s “dude I killed just to see if it was possible, and if he had any neat stuff on him”. Pardon me if I came across as rather contemptuous there, but I have little sympathy with players who try slaughtering him. I’ve always had a soft spot for Vehk. It has a lot to do with his books¹ .

Vivec ponders the mystery of his missing chair.

“Vivec is a poet. Trust not the words of a poet, as he is born to seduce. Yet for poetry to seize the heart, it must ring with the chimes of truth.” – Sotha Sil’s Last Words

“It was one dev, naked in a room with a carton of cigarettes, a thermos full of coffee and bourbon, and all his summoned angels.” – Michael Kirkbride on writing the 36 Lessons of Vivec

A brief digression: Bethesda games are collaborative efforts, and from the players’ perspective, they see only “the game”, knowing nothing of which individual designer or writer contributed which part. However, it would be remiss of me not to mention one-time Bethesda developer Michael Kirkbride, author of the 36 Lessons of Vivec, and many other Elder Scrolls texts, both ingame and out. I can’t, in good faith, go further without saluting his genius and his contribution to the ES series, even (especially) as I will doubtless go on to mangle and misinterpret its meaning. In the comments to part 2 of this post series, Ken Rolston implicated him as the chief mastermind behind the Dragon Break, and I can’t say I was at all surprised. He is, therefore, the one to praise or blame for the majority of the metaphysics and metagaming discussed not only in this post, but in part 2 as well.

The metagaming, yes. I am coming to that. First, however, I want to reiterate something I stated in the introduction – Elder Scrolls lore is layered, multifaceted and chaotic, like a… a crystalline, non-Euclidean onion. In these posts, I am looking at one layer, one facet only, and, some would argue, one of the less interesting. However, I think that drawing attention to the meta-game aspects of the lore  can be an effective lure to thoughtful gamers, a signal that there is more going on in TES than in your common-or-garden fantasy worldbuilding.

Reading between the volumes.

The 36 Lessons of Vivec are a set of books scattered throughout Morrowind, a holy text divided into 36 numbered volumes, or Sermons. They are a common enough sight in temples, libraries and private homes, but generally only one at a time, a handful of volumes at most. Encountered in this way, it’s difficult for a player to know what to make of them. Individual Sermons are a delight to read purely for the language and imagery, which draw from myriad religious, literary, philosophical and occult sources, while maintaining their own unique voice. The narratives, while frequently obscure and ridiculous, are full of charm, humour, and some of the most thinly-veiled transgressive erotica ever snuck into a Teen-rated videogame. They tend, however, to come across as nonsense and gibberish to the reader seeking to understand what is actually going on, sometimes even at the most basic level. It’s possible, of course, for a determined player to collect all of them, but that may not help much. The 36 Lessons are mystical, cryptographical texts, crammed with internal cross-references, and use a system of symbols and metaphors that sometimes requires referring to several other Sermons to understand even a single line. The effort of switching between books means that a thorough ingame study of the 36 Lessons is incredibly frustrating, and if I started at all, I didn’t get far.

Fortunately, that’s not the only option: The Imperial Library site has been keeping online copies of ES ingame texts for many years now. I’m not sure what made me decide, long after I had last seriously played Morrowind, to reread the 36 Lessons from beginning to end, but read them I did. At first it was purely for enjoyment, but then a line caught my eye:

“The ruling king is armored head to toe in brilliant flame. He is redeemed by each act he undertakes. His death is only a diagram back to the waking world.” – 36 Lessons, Sermon 11 [emphasis mine]

“Heh”, I thought to myself, “that almost sounds like a player character, whose death in the game causes their player to be jolted out of the game and back to the real world.” A little further on, I found:

“The immobile warrior is never fatigued. He cuts sleep holes in the middle of a battle to regain his strength.” - 36 Lessons,  Sermon 23

“I do that too,” I smirked, “it’s called taking health potions in the inventory screen while the game is paused.” The 36 Lessons contain quite a few tongue-in-cheek references to the digital nature of the world – one even refers to a bizarre graphical artifact in TESA: Redguard – so I didn’t think too deeply about it at first. After a while, however, references began to mount to this “ruling king”, and I started to read a little more closely. Here is a passage about how Vivec became a “ruling king of the world”:

“Then an Old Bone of the earth rose up before the simulacrum of the netchiman’s wife and said, ‘If you are to be born a ruling king of the world you must confuse it with new words. Set me into pondering.’

‘Very well,’ Vivec said, ‘Let me talk to you of the world, which I share with mystery and love. Who is her capital? Have you taken the scenic route of her cameo? I have– lightly, in secret, missing candles because they’re on the untrue side, and run my hand along the edge of a shadow made from one hundred and three divisions of warmth, and left no proof.’

At this the Old Bone folded unto itself twenty times until it became akin to milk, which Vivec drank, becoming a ruling king of the world.” - 36 Lessons, Sermon 4

OK. So Vivec is one of these “ruling kings”. But what does that mean, exactly? I found a clue in  Sermon 12: “‘CHIM,’ … is the secret syllable of royalty”. This led to a few things starting to fall into place in my head, and here’s where I insert the disclaimer that my interpretations may be totally wrongheaded, in which case I hope someone will correct me. It’s also where things start getting brain-melting, especially to those not completely au fait with the deeper workings of ES lore (i.e. almost everyone, including me), so I hope I can keep this at least vaguely intelligible. Here goes…

Ones and Zeroes.

“CHIM. Those who know it can reshape the land. Witness the home of the Red King Once Jungled.”² – The Mythic Dawn Commentaries

CHIM is a concept you are bound to encounter if you spend enough time reading ES lore, but it can be a difficult one to grasp. It is not really divinity, and not exactly omniscience or enlightenment, although it can be a way of obtaining these things. It is, first and foremost, a knowledge, an understanding, and secondly, the means of dealing with that knowledge.

In order to explain CHIM, it helps to refer to some of the things that Michael Kirkbride has posted in Vehk’s name on the ES forums over the years. While much of the same information is in the Sermons, it’s in a (slightly) more opaque form, as is par for the course. I’m not about to get into a full discussion of the mystic principle of the Tower (for that, you might want to start here:  CHIM, the Tower, the Wheel and all things fun – A Beginner’s Manual) for our purposes, all you need to know is that the “secret of the Tower” is CHIM.

“The Tower is an ideal, which, in our world of myth and magic, means that it is so real that it becomes dangerous. It is the existence of the True Self within the Universal Self …

[The secret of the Tower is h]ow to permanently exist beyond duplexity, antithesis, or trouble. This is not an easy concept, I know. Imagine being able to feel with all of your senses the relentless alien terror that is God and your place in it, which is everywhere and therefore nowhere, and realizing that it means the total dissolution of your individuality into boundless being. Imagine that and then still being able to say “I”. The “I” is the Tower.”- Vehk’s Teaching

CHIM is the realisation that your entire world, everything you experience, does not really exist. It exists as the dream of a power, which, since it must be called something, is called God. Everything that exists is just part of the dream of God, including yourself. You are just a tiny fraction of the Godhead, that has managed to gain a modicum of self-awareness.

For most, the self-awareness doesn’t last. Their minds can’t support two co-existing statements of “I exist” and “I do not exist”, resulting in the total negation of identity known as “zero-summing”. 1 + -1 = 0. To “zero-sum” is to literally evaporate. It’s rather reminiscent of the bit in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy in which God, on having his existence proven to be impossible, immediately vanishes “in a puff of logic”.

To successfully attain CHIM, one must take the next step: to hold the two conflicting statements simultaneously. To add one and minus-one, and come up with something other than zero. Instead of following the mental path of  “it’s all a dream… I don’t exist”, you instead move to “it’s all a dream… I can control it.” Reality is mutable, and yours for the changing. ES forumite Darkom compares it to lucid dreaming:

“To achieve CHIM is to realize this, to recognize the Godhead, to see that everything is him, that you are him, and still maintaining your individuality. You are still able to say I, and thus you have achieved CHIM. In knowing that everything is merely an extension of the same thing, an extension of you, you have power over it in the same way you can move your arm. It is like a little part of the Godhead having a lucid dream, where he is still dreaming though he knows he is dreaming and thus has control over the dream.” – Darkom, TESFU, 25/12/09

In retaining their individuality in the face of absorption into the mind of God, the attainer of CHIM recognises that not only are they the Godhead, the Godhead is them.

“The secret Tower within the Tower is the shape of the only name of God, I.” – 36 Lessons, Sermon 21

More threads about CHIM.

Vivec as Meta-NPC.

At this point, you are perhaps wondering why I am going off on mystical tangents, since I promised to talk about metagaming and the fourth wall. But you see, this is the ultimate metagame reference, and what it does to the fourth wall, I’m not even sure how to describe.

CHIM can be interpreted as Vivec’s awareness that he is a fictional character, existing within the mind of an author³. It is both true and false to say that Vivec “knows he is in a video game”. On the one hand, the fourth wall appears to remain intact, in that his knowledge is clothed in the language and symbols of TES. And yet he is a meta-NPC, aware of his existence as a product of the creative mind, and commenting on it in a unique way. Interesting comparisons might be drawn with the overtly-fourth wall breaking meta-NPC Psycho Mantis, in Metal Gear Solid – though not by me, as I’m sadly unfamiliar with the MGS series, comments welcomed!

But, someone might object, if Vivec is purely a creation of the author/Godhead, how can he also be identified with it, and therefore in control: “the only name of God, I”? To which I would give an answer that I suspect any author might understand – that sometimes creating a fictional character is precisely like this. They start out as a product of the author, and an extension of their mind, but the best ones soon escape those limitations. They take control. They assert their individuality in the face of the author’s attempts to shape them, puppet them, melt them down, zero-sum them. They attain CHIM – and they soon have their authors dancing to their tune. (Aaron Reed, author of Blue Lacuna, recently described a great example of this in this interview, when he talked about creating the character of Progue.)

“To keep one’s powers intact at such a stage is to allow for the existence of what can only be called a continual spirit. Make of your love a defense against the horizon.” – 36 Lessons, Sermon 35

Vivec is not powerless because he is imaginary; quite the reverse. To think otherwise would be to misunderstand the nature and power of the imagination. Vivec is imaginary, and knows it, which empowers him with a special kind of agency (another example of this sort of thing can be seen at the end of the philosophical novel, Sophie’s World). Vivec can interact with the world of TES on a level that most NPCs cannot reach. For example, he can do this:

Vehk is all up in this.

“Vivec put on his armor and stepped into a non-spatial space filling to capacity with mortal interaction and information, a canvas-less cartography of every single mind it has ever known, an event that had developed some semblance of a divine spark.” – 36 Lessons, Sermon 19

This “space which is not a space”, also called “The Provisional House” is used by Vivec to locate things, and apparently to delete people, or “erase [them] from the thought realm of God” as he puts it. If, like me, you have ever modded for Morrowind, you will recognise this “thought-realm of God”, having spent countless hours there. It’s the Construction Set.

Furthermore, Vivec is the only character in the game who can address the player as an equal, who knows who, or rather what, the player is.

36 Lessons from one ruling king to another.

Keep in mind that Vivec’s thirty-six Sermons are explicitly presented as “Lessons”. The questions therefore become: what is being taught, and to whom? As early as Sermon 6, Vivec is cast as teacher to the legendary hero Nerevar (also known as the Hortator). Throughout the Sermons, Vivec continually attempts to teach things to Nerevar, who seems to be rather a slow learner, often becoming confused and misunderstanding. This is not surprising. It becomes increasingly clear that he is not actually the intended student.

Let’s look again at some of these “ruling king” references. We have already seen that “ruling king” can refer to Vivec, but he isn’t the only one. Vivec himself refers to someone else:

“The ruling king is to stand against me and then before me. He is to learn from my punishment. I will mark him to know. He is to come as male or female. I am the form he must acquire.” – 36 Lessons, Sermon 13

The second “ruling king” is the player. Within the fiction of Morrowind‘s narrative, the player is told their character is the Nerevarine, the reincarnation of Nerevar, the latest in a long line of “failed Incarnates” who died before they could fulfil their destinies as Nerevarine. Thus, while it makes no sense for Vivec to mention to the original Nerevar “the prophets that have borne your name before”, it makes perfect sense when addressed to the Nerevarine. I don’t think it stops there, either. Let’s go back to this earlier quote:

“The ruling king is armored head to toe in brilliant flame. He is redeemed by each act he undertakes. His death is only a diagram back to the waking world.” – 36 Lessons, Sermon 11

Who is Vivec talking to here? It could be the Nerevarine, since their death will lead to yet another reincarnation. But I think my initial reaction was correct – it also refers directly to the player. It doesn’t really matter whether or not we are to believe that Vivec does this deliberately: the function of the Nerevarine is in many ways equivalent to to the function of the player, lacking only the self-awareness. From his perspective, is it any wonder if Vivec, correctly, conflates the two? We meet a cave full of the ghosts of “failed Incarnates”, different individuals who were once Nerevarines, different characters the player might have created, different players. “The ruling king… is to come as male or female.”

Vivec recognises that the player is more then just their ingame character, that their deaths do not matter, they have the power to override it. This is also true of Vivec; he is a god. Both the player and Vivec merely possess avatars ingame, and CHIM means that we are invited to see Vivec as existing beyond the pixels of the game, just as the player does. Vivec is, therefore, in the perfect position to teach the player how to become a ruling king – how to “conquer” the game. To be a “ruling king of the world” is to be a successful player, to be a self-aware agent, to possess a form of CHIM. We can see from the failed Incarnates that not all players know how to “beat” the game. Via the 36 Lessons, Vivec claims to be teaching the player how to avoid this fate. What, then, does he suggest? And should we believe him?

Reach heaven by violence.

“Six are the guardians of Veloth, three before and they are born again, and they will test you until you have the proper tendencies of the hero.” – 36 Lessons, Sermon 6

Indoril helm, said to depict Nerevar's (understandably grumpy) face.

If you have played through the Morrowind main quest, a certain thought may have occurred to you by this point. “Hang on,” you may be thinking, “isn’t there a lot of evidence that Vivec, in fact, murdered the original Nerevar, to conceal the truth about how he stole his divinity? Not to mention the fact that during the course of Morrowind, Vivec persecutes the Nerevarine, again, in order to conceal his crimes. And yet he tries to feed me this ridiculous and elaborate fiction in which he casts himself as Nerevar’s helpful teacher, who also wants to “help” me? The way he helped Nerevar? Does he think I’m an idiot?” This is a perfectly reasonable attitude.

For a start, it’s true – Vivec almost certainly did murder Nerevar. He admits it himself. A secret message encoded into the Lessons states:

“He was not born a god. His destiny did not lead him to this crime. He chose this path of his own free will. He stole the godhood and murdered the Hortator. Vivec wrote this.”

Yet, it’s also false – while Vivec may have murdered Nerevar before he became a god, in becoming a god, he broke the Dragon and was then able to rewrite his own past, shaping it as he saw fit. If the 36 Lessons depict a fiction, it’s one that Vivec, as a fictional being, was able to impose on his fictional universe. When reality is fictional, fiction IS reality. See what I mean about the power of the imagination?

“As Vehk and Vehk I hereby answer, my right and my left, with black hands. Vehk the mortal did murder the Hortator. Vehk the God did not, and remains as written. And yet these two are the same being. And yet are not, save for one red moment. Know that with the Water-Face do I answer, and so cannot be made to lie.” -Vivec, The Trial of Vivec

In an imagined universe, asking what “really” happened is a fool’s errand, as the historians of the Dragon Break discovered. What matters is what Vivec wants us to take from the 36 Lessons, and he is, unusually for him, really rather blunt about it:

“If there is to be an end I must be removed. The ruling king must know this, and I will test him. I will murder him time and again until he knows this. I am the defender of the last and the last. To remove me is to refill the heart that lay dormant at the center that cannot hold. … The ruling king is to stand against me and then before me. He is to learn from my punishment. I will mark him to know. He is to come as male or female. I am the form he must acquire. Because a ruling king that sees in another his equivalent rules nothing.” - 36 Lessons, Sermon 13

Vivec sets himself up as a teacher not just through words, but through example. He is the form the player must aquire… how? Through murder, Vivec implies. The treacherous slaughter of Nerevar is recast as a example to the player, not a betrayal, but a lesson. “It’s for your own good, you’ll thank me one day!” Vivec’s detractors would see this as the ultimate in arrogance and delusion. Arrogance, yes. The 36 Lessons can be seen as an attempt by once-mortal Vivec to hide his shame at betraying Nerevar. He builds a beautiful divine mythology for himself, in which every action is planned, premeditated and part of his holy mystery, all the faults and imperfections of his mortal existence are erased, transformed, reinterpreted. But delusion? Vivec’s divine existence is a delusion/illusion made as real as anything gets in TES, and if anyone is being deluded, it’s hardly Vivec himself. Some might say that God-Vivec’s rationalisations of mortal-Vivec’s actions can hold no possible validity, but within a world shaped by God-Vivec, aren’t his rationalisations the only ones that can hold any validity?

Because, of course, he’s right. It’s true. Vivec killed Nerevar as a plot device, to allow the player to play as the Nerevarine. This is as close to an “ultimate” truth as we’re going to get, and to believe otherwise would be the delusion. And Vivec, in his way, understands this.

“You alone, though you come again and again, can unmake him [Dagoth Ur -K]. Whether I allow it is within my wisdom. Go unarmed into his den with these words of power: AE GHARTOK PADHOME [CHIM] AE ALTADOON. Or do not. The temporal myth is man. Reach heaven by violence. This magic I give to you: the world you will rule is only an intermittent hope and you must be the letter written in uncertainty.” – 36 Lessons, Sermon 15

To win the game, then, the player needs to emulate Vivec, the “letter written in uncertainty”, and kill things. Reach heaven by violence. Morrowind is a game where the combat mechanic is a central one, so this will perhaps come as no great revelation to the player. From early on in the game, Dagoth Ur is presented as the enemy, the Big Bad who must be defeated to save the world. So, the player just needs to keep murdering things until they are powerful enough to slay Dagoth Ur… but hang on. That’s not what Vivec actually said, is it?

“The ruling king will remove me, his maker. This is the way of all children.” - 36 Lessons, Sermon 15

Vivec states clearly: “If there is to be an end I must be removed. The ruling king must know this, and I will test him. I will murder him time and again until he knows this.” The moral of Nerevar’s murder is one of retaliation. The 36 Lessons are not teaching the player that they should kill Dagoth Ur – the player knows this already. They are saying that the player should kill Vivec. This was the part that floored me. All those bloodthirsty Vivec-killing players I sneered at had apparently stumbled their way into doing his bidding!

I couldn’t figure it out, at first. True, the death of his ingame avatar would not be a huge deal to Vehk, but why? Then I remembered about the “back path”. This is an alternate way to complete the main quest, and requires killing Vivec to obtain the magical artifact Wraithguard long before the player would normally get it. Although it’s no easy task, it allows the player to skip large sections of the standard main quest, and is therefore much faster, if the player is powerful enough to succeed. From a metagaming perspective, the “back path” makes sense, if you are a speedrunner, or a powergamer with something to prove. And a true “ruling king” sounds like they would be a powergamer to me!

This isn’t the only possible interpretation of Vivec’s words, just the most explicitly meta. It’s something of a stretch I know – though if I were really trying, I’d interpret the repeated claim that “a ruling king that sees in another his equivalent rules nothing” as an indictment of multiplayer. (Hey, it’s not as if there isn’t a precedent!)

Did Vivec (and/or his Godhead co-conspirator, Kirkbride,) really create a 36 volume, 16,000+ word cryptographical prose-poem in order to say, through veils of obscurity and allusion: to win at Morrowind, you should kill stuff, and for best results, kill me? Hardly. The metagame allusions are one thread among many, a fraction of the overall artistic achievement of the 36 Lessons. Still, it’s an enjoyable thread to follow, and trace the patterns it weaves.

It’s also nice to know that if I ever do bring myself to slay that glorious invisible warrior-poet of Vvardenfell, Vivec (AKA the magic hermaphrodite, the martial axiom, the sex-death of language and unique in all the middle world), he will be laughing all the way back over the fourth wall and into the thought-realm of God.

Epilogue: Know Love to avoid the Landfall, or What Vivec Did Next.

Vivec claims, ingame, that his divine powers are fuelled by the faith of the Dunmer people, apparently literally:

“Why did I try to kill you? Because you threatened the faith of my followers, and I needed their faith to hold back the darkness. … Any doubt whatsoever weakened their faith, and we needed their faith to give us the power to maintain the Ghostfence. … We have lost our divine powers, but not altogether. Some token of the people’s faith remains, and we shall dedicate it to rebuilding the Temple.” - Vivec’s ingame dialogue

It’s tempting to spin this another way – that the powers of a fictional being are fuelled by the imaginations of those who are thinking about him. So… what happens if no one is? In Sermon 18, Vivec predicts that a time will come when he is no longer necessary, as “the currency of the world’s condition”, the “ever-changing unconscious mortal agenda” will have changed so as to render his role superfluous. In other words, his narrative function will be spent. The plot won’t need him as a character anymore, the Godhead’s imagination will move on to other things.

In Oblivion, we are told that Vivec has mysteriously vanished from the world of Tamriel. In the recent ES novel, The Infernal City, we hear that the Ministry of Truth, the giant rock held aloft by the power of the people’s love for Vivec, has crashed to the ground, causing massive devastation of most of Vvardenfell. Has CHIM failed? Pity the fictional character forgotten by his author! Do we need to clap if we believe in NPCs? Personally, I can’t say I’m too worried. Certain documents, apparently sent from the “future” of Tamriel as we know it, make me think he was quite complicit in the destruction of Morrowind, and that he has a plan. For all the fans wailing and gnashing their teeth about it, destroying Morrowind is dramatically interesting and in a world where imagination is currency, that is much more valuable than complacency and stasis. I doubt we’ve heard the last of Vehk.

¹ Whether, within the fiction of the game, Vivec himself wrote the Lessons is never explicitly stated, but this is the general understanding . In any case, I hope by the end of this piece it will be clear why such a question is meaningless!

² The “Red King” is Tiber Septim, and, according to this quote from a TES IV: Oblivion text, he also possessed CHIM. It is significant that what he does with his CHIM is to resolve a metagame ES lore inconsistency! According to ingame texts from earlier ES games, Cyrodiil is mostly dense jungle. Oblivion depicts a Cyrodiil with no jungle, a little mild swampage, and a lot of Northern European forestry and farmland. What gives? CHIM does: we are told that at one point, Tiber Septim engaged in a bit of mystical landscape gardening, because he knew his people had always hated that darn jungle. This follows the pattern set by the Dragon Break of metagame-as-metaphysics in the service of what has been called “dev weaseling” (though I also like Ken Rolston’s “narrative thoughtcrime” appellation).

³ I could refer to a singular author or plural authors here. Many people have contributed to Vivec as a character, but in the context of the Lessons, the Godhead is effectively Kirkbride.

Finally, click here for some brief final musings about Morrowind and Metaphysics.

When is a woman in a refrigerator not in a refrigerator?

Dragon Age: Origins offers the player several ways of beginning the game, several “origins”. Each one provides your character with a home, a history, and a reason for joining the elite fighting force of the Grey Wardens, thus setting up the rest of the game’s story. This about one of them. Trigger warning for rape and violence; spoiler warning for the City Elf origin.

I have to say, when I first played through the City Elf origin story, I wasn’t wildly impressed. The lowdown: after a series of unfortunate events, the cousin of the PC, a young female elf named Shianni, is raped and beaten, and you, the protagonist, arrive too late to prevent it. This leads into a revenge opportunity against the men responsible and other assorted chaos that culminates in the PC being recruited into the Grey Wardens to avoid the long arm of the law.

While I didn’t think the (offscreen) rape was handled tastelessly or implausibly, I considered the whole situation rather a cheap narrative device. Specifically, I suspected they were falling into the “Women in Refrigerators” trope. For the uninitiated, this is a narrative device common to all media, but especially prevalent in comics (from where the name originates) and video games. It can be identified when a supporting character is killed, raped or otherwise traumatized horribly for the sole purpose of providing the main character with an ‘I WILL AVENGE YOOOU’ emotional motivation and related Dramatic Angst.

It’s not the presence of death/rape/trauma that is problematic, so much as the fact that the victim of this trauma seems to exist solely as a vehicle for said trauma rather than as an actual character. Once the desired Angst has been shovelled onto the  – usually male – main character, the – usually female – victim, having served their purpose, is often forgotten about entirely. Surviving victims, in the unlikely event that the plot still bothers to involve them, will generally show no memory or ill-effects of their experience. The trope is cheap, frequently sexist and an insult to people with experience of actual trauma. Hence my lack of enthusiasm when I seemed to recognise it. Oh lovely, I thought, this Shianni character’s getting ’fridged in an attempt to provoke an emotional reaction in the player. Whatever. I left the starter area, got into the game proper, and didn’t think much more about it.

Then later, much later, I met Shianni* again. This was after my PC had been adventuring it up across the land, exploring new places, meeting new people and killing them. Shianni congratulated him on his accomplishments, in tones laced with sarcasm. Then she turned it around on him, accusing him of having forgotten, in his glorious crusade, where he had come from, and why it all started: “You don’t even feel much anymore when you remember it, do you?” she said, bitterly. “You’ve moved on, past the horror of that night. I envy you. You’ve gone on to other things, things I can only dream of.”**

I felt it like a punch in the stomach. It helped that the voice acting was a masterpiece of subtle emotion, but more than that – it was all true. She had been a plot device, her pain mere emotional leverage to set my protagonist on his journey. I had barely given her a second thought since the game proper began, focusing on my “important” quests, my “real” party members. But in that moment, she refused to let me do that. Screw you, hero boy, she seemed to be saying to my PC, you were the lucky one. I was raped, and you got to use it to your own advantage and then forget about it. I have never had the luxury of forgetting about it. Every day that you were triumphing over evil and hunting for treasure, I had to remember it, and live with it, and carry on anyway.

Judged and found wanting.

Shianni subverts the “women in refrigerators” trope not just because she survives, but because she, and her trauma, do not suddenly stop mattering once their narrative usefulness is spent. She carries on – we later find her pouring her considerable energies into activism and the defense of her people – but her experiences remain part of her. She insists on being a character, not just a plot device, and she doesn’t let the player get away with treating her like one.

When is a woman in a refrigerator not in a refrigerator? When she kicks open the door and breaks it over your head.

*OK, so technically, it’s a spirit, and it’s unclear if it’s actually representing Shianni, or (more probably) a manifestation of the protagonist’s unconscious mind. For the purposes of Shianni’s character development and role from the player’s point of view, however, it doesn’t actually matter which she is!

**It’s worth noting that Shianni doesn’t have this conversation with all City Elf PCs, as I later discovered, just the ones who deserve it. A friend roleplayed a city elf plagued by guilt about what happened, and met with a Shianni who, while still haunted by the memory of what happened, gently tried to assuage the PC’s self-blame. File this under “BioWare are Impressively Sneaky”.

How to Break Your Dragon.

You may think historians in our world have it tough – sorting through multiple individual versions of events, accounting for bias and the vicissitudes of memory as they try to pin down what actually happened. Amateurs! Try it in a world where the fabric of reality can be warped by pure imagination, where multiple players create multiple possibilities and where time itself can break, or rather, be broken.

While exploring Vvardenfell, one may come across two books: Where Were You When The Dragon Broke? and The Dragon Break Re-Examined (full texts at links). Most players will encounter the former first, as a copy is prominently displayed in the Balmora Mages’ Guild, an early-game staple location. Of course, many won’t touch it – not everyone is interested in reading a book when they’re trying to play a game. And that’s fine – Morrowind is not really in the business of beating players over the head with lore. When I say that the lore of Morrowind is deep and complicated, what I actually mean is that it’s as deep and complicated as the player wants it to be. The lore is always there, of course, gently seeping into the player’s consciousness through the world, the sounds and the landscape. Terminally illiterate player should still feel suitably immersed, even if that’s the extent of their involvement with it. For those who want to go deeper, however, reading the ingame books is the first step. Philip Scuderi at Gamers With Jobs has already argued for the literary merits of Morrowind, holding that reading these ingame books is a worthwhile activity, and not one divorced from the overall gameplay experience*. I hope to offer another reason why this is the case: Morrowind‘s ingame books not only provide interesting and amusing lore, they explore concepts integral to the experience of gaming, the nature of gameworlds and the role of the player character. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, let’s start by breaking some dragons.

Those players who do pick up that copy of Where Were You… will undoubtedly find that it makes absolutely no sense. A few extracts:

Penalty for breaking this dragon: scrubbing the temple floor for a year.

“According to Hestra, Cyrodiil became an Empire across the stars. According to Shor-El, Cyrodiil became an egg. Most say something in a language they can only speak sideways. The Council has collected texts and accounts from all of its provinces, and they only offer stories that never coincide, save on one point: all the folk of Tamriel during the Middle Dawn, in whatever ‘when’ they were caught in, tracked the fall of the eight stars. And that is how they counted their days.”

– Corax, Cyrodiil.

“We watched our borders and saw them shift like snakes, and saw you run around in it like the spirits of old, devoid of math, without your if-thens, succumbing to the Ever Now like slaves of the slim folly, stasis.”

– Mehra Nabisi, Dunmer.

“Do you mean, where were the Khajiit when the Dragon Broke? R’leyt tells you where: recording it. ‘One thousand eight years,’ you’ve heard it. You think the Cyro-Nordics came up with that all on their own. You humans are better thieves than even Rajhin! While you were fighting wars with phantoms and giving birth to your own fathers, it was the Mane that watched the ja-Kha’jay, because the moons were the only constant, and you didn’t have the sugar to see it.”

- R’leyt-harhr, Khajiit. – from Where Were You When The Dragon Broke?

So far, so incomprehensible. I can’t imagine that many players do more than give it a cursory glance and forget about it entirely. I know I did. Which is a shame, because if they later found the second book, The Dragon Break Re-Examined, they might find more light being shed on the matter. This second text takes the form of a scholarly attack on the previous book (a common theme among Morrowind texts, which near-invariably represent biased and conflicting viewpoints) and begins as follows:

“The late 3rd era was a period of remarkable religious ferment and creativity. The upheavals of the reign of Uriel VII were only the outward signs of the historical forces that would eventually lead to the fall of the Septim Dynasty. The so called “Dragon Break” was first proposed at this time, by a wide variety of cults and fringe sects across the Empire, connected only by a common obsession with the events surrounding Tiber Septim’s rise to power — the “founding myth”, if you will, of the Septim Dynasty.

The basis of the Dragon Break doctrine is now known to be a rather prosaic error in the timeline printed in the otherwise authoritative “Encyclopedia Tamrielica”, first published in 3E 12, during the early years of Tiber Septim’s reign.” - The Dragon Break Re-Examined

The author goes on to criticise the inability of the foolish Encyclopedia authors to understand local dating systems or interpret texts correctly, resulting in their having recorded 1008 years, when only 150 years can logically have passed. He concludes:

“Today, modern archaeology and paleonumerology have confirmed what my own research in Alessian dating first suggested: that the Dragon Break was invented in the late 3rd era, based on a scholarly error, fueled by obsession with eschatology and Numidiumism, and perpetuated by scholarly inertia.” – The Dragon Break Re-Examined

What can we now get from this? The first thing to note is that “the Dragon” means “time”, since in Tamrielic mythology, the Dragon is Akatosh, god of Time. To break the Dragon is to break time. It seems that many peoples and cultures across Tamriel were all claiming they “lost” several hundred years, during which they were in some sort of stasis-cum-chaos, when time became non-linear. Since this is impossible, later scholars attempt to explain it as a dating error. An early version of the Where Were You… text, posted online before Morrowind was released, actually explains this in more detail:

“Every culture on Tamriel remembers the Dragon Break in some fashion; to most it is a spiritual anguish that they cannot account for. Several texts survive this timeless period, all (unsurprisingly) conflicting with each other regarding events, people, and regions: wars are mentioned in some that never happen in another, the sun changes color depending on the witness, and the gods either walk among the mortals or they don’t. Even the ‘one thousand and eight years,’ a number (some say arbitrarily) chosen by the Elder Council, is an unreliable measure.” - Where Were You When The Dragon Broke? (Complete Version)

The Dragon Break was an instant where time was frozen, and then split into many different possible realities, with different events taking place in each, and different amounts of time passing, up to 1008 years in some versions. Then it just… fixed itself. All the possibilities resolved or dissolved into one thread of time, in which only 150 years had passed, and the events now recorded as “true” history occurred. One version of events emerges, but the other possibilities still “happened”, in those broken versions of reality, now lost and unnecessary.

Where am I going with this? Well… doesn’t this remind you of something? Like, say, a savegame? How many Dragon Breaks do you have in your saved games folder? Every time a player abandons, or is forced to abandon, the path they have chosen in a game and reloads an earlier save, do they ever consider how the denizens of that gameworld might experience it? These ingame texts imply that the people of Tamriel may very well retain some memories and awareness of their lost timelines – and not only that, it’s causing their historians no end of headaches! I daresay if they knew who was responsible, their righteous indignation at the player might exceed even that of Resetti the Angry Mole.

Note, though, that the 1008 year Dragon Break referred to in these texts is not intended to refer to an actual, extraludic**, event. Tamriel’s dragon did not get borked as the result of some player messing around with the savegames of an ES game… at least, not one currently released! The books do, in fact, provide a non-fourth-wall-breaking cause of the Dragon Break, involving fanatical priests practicing strange rituals. So, why include it? Do these books exist in Morrowind purely as a veiled joke about savegames? On the contrary, this is just the beginning of Fun with Time and Space in ES lore. Perhaps it would be instructive to consider why they felt the need to introduce the concept of the Dragon Break at this point in the ES series.

Multiple endings, multiple realities – picking up the pieces of player choice.

I quoted the first part above, but what follows now is the second part of R’leyt-harhr the Khajiit’s quote from Where Were You When The Dragon Broke? (emphasis mine):

“We’ll give you credit: you broke Alkosh [= Akatosh] something fierce, and that’s not easy. Just don’t think you solved what you accomplished by it, or can ever solve it. You did it again with Big Walker, not once, but twice! Once at Rimmen, which we’ll never learn to live with. The second time it was in Daggerfall, or was it Sentinel, or was it Wayrest, or was it in all three places at once?” – R’leyt-harhr, Khajiit, Where Were You When The Dragon Broke?

It's probably more impressive in person.

It would appear that this Dragon Break has not been an isolated occurence. To explain the real cause of the phenomenon we need to rewind a little, to the ending of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. Or, should I say, endings. At the climax of Daggerfall, the player is faced with a choice: to whom to give the power to control Numidium (“Anumidium”, “Big Walker”), the giant, world-stomping magic robot previously used by legendary Emperor Tiber Septim to conquer Tamriel. There are seven possibilities, and seven endings. Obviously, this left the writers of Morrowind with something of a quandary – which ending to call canon, and write into the history books of Tamriel? The answer, which came to be known as “the Warp in the West”, was: all of them.

“Your Lordship should know that the Blades have concluded there is no plausible historical account of these events, and despairs that a plausible historical account shall ever be produced. The Blades have concluded that a ‘miracle’ occurred, insofar as the events are inexplicable, but the Blades strongly doubt the miracle was of divine origin.” – Ulvius Tero, Blades Archivist, The Warp in the West

Sounds like the historians of Tamriel are having a hard time of it again.

“King Eadwyre and his queen Barenziah were celebrating their great victories when I arrived. By then, I had gathered the barest facts of the matter, that simultaneously there were seven great battles in the Iliac Bay, and no one could describe them at all, only their bloodsoaked aftermath.

To summarize: on the 9th of Frostfall, there had been forty-four independent kingdoms, counties, baronies, and dukedoms surrounding the Iliac Bay, if one includes the unconquered territories of the Wrothgarian Mountains, the Dragontail Mountains, the High Rock Sea Coast, the Isle of Balfiera, and the Alik’r Desert. On the 11th of Frostfall, there were but four – Daggerfall, Sentinel, Wayrest, and Orsinium – and all the points where they met lay in ruins, as the armies continued to do battle.

I was determined to find the truth from the King, even if I had to be a most undiplomatic diplomat to do it.

Eadwyre, though a generally jovial sort, had blustered, saying he did not want to give out military secrets. The Queen, ever calm with those unreadable red eyes of hers, told me, ‘We do not know.’ I think it is safe to assume that Barenziah did not tell me everything, but the facts of her story – which I later verified after pointed interviews in Daggerfall, Sentinel, and Orsinium – was that they had learned that a certain powerful, ancient weapon was going to be activated. I shan’t give the name of it here. Out of fear that it would be used against Wayrest, the King had attempted to buy it from the young adventurer [i.e. the player of Daggerfall - K.] who had discovered its wherebouts. Eadwyre believed, as it turns out quite rightly, that other powers in the Bay had also attempted to win ownership of this device.

What happened then, as Barenziah said, ‘We do not know.’”

- Ambassador Lord Naigon Strale, The Warp in the West

This ingame book, The Warp in the West actually appeared in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion rather then Morrowind, but as we have seen from the Where Were You… passage, the concept was already in place. We can also find, in a Bethesda-developer-authored text known as Skeleton Man’s Interview, posted online while Morrowind was still in development:  “And what of the Warp in the West, where it is said six Anumiduma were seen in six different places at once, each one carving out a different mortal’s destiny?”

A different mortal’s destiny… now, which mortals would those be, I wonder? Presumably, in the context of the passage, it should refer to the various rulers and faction heads with whom the player could ally themselves with at the end of Daggerfall, however I think there is more going on. The ES loremaster proweler writes:

“It’s funny really.

The concept of the Dragon Break was created because different people playing Daggerfall could create different endings. The Dragon Broke [sic] is nothing but the result [of] different entities controlling the events for themselves. It can be observed in the Dawn with multiple gods walking the Mundus, with Warp in the West and it’s Numidia.

Yet for some reason, the jump to connect this concept with that of the many different people playing Daggerfall never gets noticed.

You don’t even have to break the fourth wall. The only way in which Mundus allows seven versions of the Numidium to exists is through a Dragon Break where different entities control the events time in a different fashion. As such the mysterious agent of Daggerfall was a god-walker.” – proweler, Elder Scrolls Forums, 13 July, 2010.

Gods walking among mortals is listed as one of the phenomena reported during the original Dragon Break, too, but what is meant by a “god”, exactly? We know about four Dragon Breaks in ES lore, and all of them involve gods, but not necessarily gods in the way most people imagine them. Two Breaks are linked to mortals who ascended to godhood: Vivec at Red Mountain, and Tiber Septim at Rimmen. And in the Daggerfall Break, as proweler says, it is actually the players who take on the roles of gods, imposing their wills on time and space, decisions made in different playthroughs all affecting the gameworld at once, at least, as far as Tamrielic history is concerned.

But… isn’t this what players do all the time in games? Imposing their wills on time and space, shaping events, reloading the game when things go bad, entering cheat codes if a battle is too hard – to all intents and purposes, invincible and immortal. For all that games like to pretend the player is an underdog hero surrounded by powerful and terrifying enemies, the player had access to powers that no other being in the game does – the power to transcend the gameworld, to “cheat”, and to rewrite the past and the future with savegames.

And yet, in the Elder Scrolls games, this isn’t entirely true. There are, in fact, other beings with powers similar to those possessed by the players, and we just mentioned them: Vivec and Tiber Septim, fellow Dragon Breakers. Breaking the Dragon let Tiber Septim conquer Tamriel… how, exactly? Was it like the Warp in the West, did he create multiple realities where he conquered each province seperately, and then merged them? Or did he just keep reloading reality until events went his way? I asked this in the ES lore forum, and was told, “Both and either because of the other.” You get that sort of answer a lot over there.***

And Vivec, ah, Vivec is something else again, but he has part 3 all to himself, so he can wait. Suffice it to say that Vivec knows all about playing games – and winning them.

Next in part 3: Divine CHIMistry, or: How Vivec Accessed the Construction Set.

*This (excellent) article is pretty much the only academic/critical piece I’ve found on Morrowind as a game.  If anyone knows of others, please send me links! Or heck, write some yourselves – maybe that Critical Compilation need not be as dead as it looks!

**If we’re going with a neologism, (which would help, since otherwise I’m looking at “metagamey” as my only adjective) I’ll take this over the dreaded “metaludic”, even if it doesn’t pair with “metaphysics” as nicely.

*** To be fair, I did subsequently get additional explanations, but they enter into areas of lore that go beyond the scope of this piece.

Further discussion of Dragon Breaks and their implications can be found here and here.

Part 1: Introduction

When we talk about the world we live in, we can talk about physical laws, like gravity and the rules of thermodynamics. We can also talk about metaphysics: meta being Greek for “beyond”. This is where science meets philosophy, where we might try to identify underlying principles of reality that go beyond standard physics. Theories of time and space, of causality and determinism, of the nature of existence itself.

When we talk about the games we play, we can talk about game mechanics, how the game engine controls and defines space and time, perhaps how the physics engine governs the interactions of objects within the virtual space. The rules of the gameworld; the rules of the game. Such rules, of course, are generally dictated by the needs and demands of gameplay rather than nature. If games were realistic, you’d only ever get one life. So, thought experiment: how might it feel to actually be a character in a game, and to exist according to the rules of a game engine? How might you formulate theories about the metaphysics of your world?

Some games attempt to mask the differences between our world and the game world by creating elaborate justifications for the existence of obvious game mechanics. You’re not saving the game at a savepoint, Jade is saving onto her data disc at the MDisc reader machine. Or it’s a mystical memory-crystal, or the protagonist is recording their progress in their journal, or some other protestation of realism. Nels Anderson calls this “the Disguise”.

Mr. Resetti is not happy with you.

Alternatively, metaphysics are sometimes included in games purely as a joke, when self-aware characters break the fourth wall to refer to the mechanics of their own game – TVTropes.org has a huge list. A good one related to time and save-mechanics is in the Animal Crossing games. If you reset the game without saving, be warned. The next time you load it, Resetti the Angry Mole will endlessly berate you for your attempt to warp the fabric of time, which has not only caused him enormous personal inconvenience, but also provoked vast moral outrage.

The Elder Scrolls series doesn’t really do either of these things – and yet, in a way, it does both. In the process, it does very strange things to the fourth wall, not so much breaking it as morphing it, moving it, twisting it, painting it purple and sitting on top of it laughing.

The lore of the Elder Scrolls is so beautiful and complicated that some people have spent nearly a decade unravelling it, and there are still vast areas of mystery and debate. While I’d call myself fairly knowledgeable, I’m by no means expert on the higher level metaphysics, which can get horribly eldritch and render certain discussions in the Bethesda Lore forums virtually unintelligible to the casual reader. This is an attempt to clarify some of the more interesting meta-gaming* issues. Mistakes are possible, and corrections welcomed. In order to keep this manageable, some detail has to be omitted, but I’ll provide links to further reading for interested lunatics.

I should mention at this point that many Elder Scrolls loremasters frown upon the practice of pointing out the meta/fourth-wall-breaking aspects of ES lore. While they don’t deny their existence, discussing them is considered to be somewhat infra dig, spoiling the fun, not playing along. Not only that, to focus on the meta aspects as the “ultimate” truth, is to miss that they are hardly the final layer of the onion skin that is ES lore. They are one of many interpretations, and hardly the deepest, or the most interesting. So say the hardcore loremasters. They’re right.

“The world is understood through metaphors. Language is a metaphor-system. Mathematics is a metaphor-system. All real-world schools of magic and religion revolve around the understanding of vast metaphor-systems, symbols as they relate to concepts. The Elder Scrolls games feature a really vast and rich series of thoughtful metaphors regarding life, the universe, and the place of ‘us’ in the grand scheme of things – with an obscured emphasis on themes of ascension – so there can be a lot of reward in the gleaning and contemplation of them.”

- LDones, Bethesda forums, 03/25/04

Nevertheless, these posts will focus on the meta-gaming aspects. Forgive me, loremasters, I shall submit an earnest analysis of the deeper mystical implications of the Pomegranate Banquet to The Whirling School any century now.**

Next in part 2… Breaking the Dragon, or: How Tiber Septim Learned to Stop Worrying and Reload the Game.

*If I wasn’t a Classicist, I might say “metaludic” here, but I am, and I just can’t commit such an atrocious sin. Damn you, Greek, for not having an appropriate word for “game” that we can use to form pretentious neologisms!

**I might!

Homecoming Queen?

We return to our protagonist, one-time Dwarven Princess Ruby Aeducan, much later, when she was considering her next move.  She had recruited the elves and mages, and healed Arl Eamon with the sacred ashes. Nothing now remained but to head home… or what used to be home. She’d been putting it off, dreading what she might find.

She had to assume that Bhelen was king now. Her joyful reunion with Gorim in Denerim had brought with it the news that her beloved father was dead. To hear that he had realised the truth about her innocence, and died, as she sees it, of a broken heart, was almost too painful for her to bear. She swore to wear the shield he sent her until they tore it from her cold dead body, but not before she’d had the chance to Shield Bash Bhelen’s treacherous face with it. She’d never blamed her father. She even still had the sword he gave her when he exiled her.

Ruby knew she wanted revenge on Bhelen. What she was less sure about was what else she wanted. Sure, she needed the support of her people for the Grey Wardens, but the question preying on her mind was: did she want the throne? Even assuming she had the force and opportunity to press her claim with the Assembly, was it really what she wanted? It never used to be. But what was the alternative – let Bhelen get away with it? And what of her own future? After her exile, she had kept herself going with hope: hope that she could raise an army from the surface dwarves, storm Orzammar and reclaim her birthright. She told herself that becoming a Grey Warden was just a means to an end – if she was going to save her home, she had to defeat the Darkspawn first, and what better way to prove herself worthy of the throne? Simple, right?

So she had thought, a few months ago. Since then, much had happened to bring home to her that, while Orzammar had been her entire world, it was really only a corner, and there were bigger problems to face. She had become a Warden from lack of better options, with no real understanding of what it entailed, but now she was stuck with it, and Ruby was not one to shirk her responsibilities. She had committed to the Grey Wardens, and, although it was a difficult adjustment for her, she tried to remember that her first duty ought to be to them, and not her homeland, even as her desire to prove herself, revenge herself, vindicate herself burned through her veins. After all, her blood wasn’t what it used to be – it was Grey Warden blood now.

Something to Prove: Ruby fights for her honour in Orzammar

Ruby’s return to Orzammar ended up being her turning point, as a character. She didn’t get everything she wanted. She didn’t prove her innocence of Trian’s murder, but she did get to smash Bhelen’s smug face in, and that counted for a lot. More importantly, though, she let go of her dreams of the throne. From the moment she set foot back in Orzammar, it was clear her crimes were not forgotten, and there was no way she’d be able to take over through the normal channel of the Assembly. All through the long treks down to the Anvil of the Void, she kept debating with herself. Was she really supporting Harrowmont because she thought he’d be a better king than Bhelen, or was it pure vengeance and spite on her part? She had jumped onto his bandwagon because he was a weapon to strike at her brother with, but she had her doubts. Part of her still believed that only the Aeducans deserved to rule; Harrowmont was unworthy of being named king.

Returning with the crown that would give her the power to name her father’s successor, she was still wavering. Bhelen was out of the question, but part of her still wanted to put herself forward, try to claim power for herself. There were several reasons why she turned away from that path, however. One was her duty as a Grey Warden. Difficult as it had been in the beginning, she realised she no longer belonged in Orzammar, and in fact, it stifled her now. Bhelen had proved to her long ago that even family blood was no guarantee of a lasting bond, her family were her fellow Wardens now, and her place was with them, not with the Dwarves. She had a Blight to defeat, after all. Secondly, she realised that she had to let go not only of her own blood, but her beliefs about her blood. She was not the only person in the world who could govern Orzammar. Her father had trusted Harrowmont, and she respected that. For all she knew, he would do a far better job of ruling than she would, and to assume anything else was purest arrogance. Blood was just that – blood, and hers was not special just because she attached the name of Aeducan to it. After all, Bhelen was just as Aeducan as she was. It meant nothing at all. The person most suited to rule was the one who would be the best at it, not the person with the “right” blood.

(The third reason Ruby didn’t try for the throne was that there’s no dialogue option to do so! I had already decided that Ruby wouldn’t pursue such an idea, but I was disappointed when it turned out she wasn’t even allowed, when it seems so natural for Dwarf Noble PCs! Wuzrobbed!)

Harrowmont was crowned, over Bhelen’s dead body, and later Ruby watched him staring down the long line of nobles, queueing through the throne room to pester him with their petty demands and grievances. She thanked the ancestors for an arrow dodged, and ran full-tilt from Orzammar, out into the sunlight, screaming with joy.

So, the princess ended up rejecting traditional monarchic succession. Which, while it marked a shift from her earlier position, wasn’t actually a move away from Orzammar’s existing political system, since that was always more of an oligarchy anyway. However, someone who had played the next section of Dragon Age might well guess how those events might be influenced by such philosophies.

Not A Drop of Royal Blood, or: In Defense of Anora Mac Tir

The penultimate section of Dragon Age is essentially a political battle, dominated by the Landsmeet, the nobles’ assembly. The player needs to gather sufficient support from the members to win the vote, and must then choose who to put on the throne. Your choices are: trustworthy and all-round nice bloke Alistair, your brother-in-blood and possible paramour; or backstabbing Anora of the mysterious intentions, the Machiavellian daughter of Loghain, a man who has been your enemy all along. Tough choice, right?

Don't hate her because she's more QUEEN than you'll ever be.

Right. I find it very hard to understand how anyone can justify making Alistair king! Not because I think he would be bad at it, necessarily. I tend to think he’d be fine, especially if the player has talked him into thinking for himself a bit more, so that he actually wants to be king, and gains the confidence to be a strong ruler. Alistair may start out terrified of being a leader, but he does a lot of growing up in the course of the game. He is quite capable of being king, if it’s required of him. I just don’t happen to think it is, or that it should be.

A few words about Anora. Dear Anora. Many players have had words to say about Anora. “Bitch” is one. “Scheming bitch” are others, also “scheming, backstabbing, manipulative, selfish, power-hungry bitch”. Arl Eamon even calls her “…spirited”, in tones that make it very clear what he actually means. “Spirited” belongs in that category of Victorian-novel style words, along with “feisty”, and “lively” that means (to paraphrase Rebecca West) “woman who differentiates herself from a doormat”, which is to say, “bitch”. As far as I can see,  the whole “bitch” thing is because Anora has the temerity to think she’d make a better ruler than Alistair, and says so. In this, she may very well be right, and certainly from her perspective it’s an extremely valid viewpoint. Anora is nothing if not intelligent and capable, and has already proven herself as a very successful Queen for the last five years, whereas Alistair is totally inexperienced. As for “scheming” and “backstabbing”, she is actually remarkably open about her goals, and is perfectly loyal to the player as long as they don’t move against her first, in which case I can hardly blame her. I have very little sympathy with the view that Alistair needs to be on the throne just to keep Anora off it. The main reason for initially proposing Alistair as king was because it was assumed that Anora was colluding with her father. Once she has been won over, once she has proved her loyalty by speaking out against her father, and especially once Loghain is actually dead, there is no longer a valid reason to shove her off the throne.

Your political advisor, Arl Eamon thinks otherwise. Here is one possible conversation path with him, after Anora offers to join forces with you:

Arl Eamon: Be careful how much trust you place in her. I do not for a moment think Anora means to give up her power easily. Still, I would rather have her where we can watch her than actively working for Loghain.

PC: I think she would make a better ruler than Alistair.

Arl Eamon: Anora was a capable administrator for Cailan’s lands, but she has not a drop of royal blood. We did not fight the Orlesians all those years just to lose our royal line in a single generation. Not when there’s a surviving son of the blood.

PC: Why does that matter?

Arl Eamon: Ferelden was first united by Calenhad, the Silver Knight. For four hundred years, his descendants have ruled Ferelden. That was the heritage we preserved from the Orlesians, and it is the heritage I will fight for as long as one of Calenhad’s descendants still lives. Without that to unite us, we could scatter back to warring teyrnirs.

Are you convinced by that? I’m not convinced by that. It sounds like handwaving and bluster. Sure, this is a quasi-medieval fantasy world, where people might be inclined to buy into the romantic myth that royalty are special magic, but I don’t have to. Nor did Ruby, for that matter – she knew firsthand just how dangerous and foolish it could be to consider someone fit to rule just because of their “blood”. Stories about unbroken bloodlines of heroes are nice to have, but at the end of the day, that unbroken bloodline is meaningless in any terms other than the purely symbolic. Everything ends somewhere, and life goes on. Despite Eamon’s vague mutterings about civil war, there is absolutely no evidence that this would be the case: Anora is wildly popular and beloved. If people are mourning for the bloodline of Calenhad to the point of revolt, they’re keeping a very tight lid on it. Anora even claims the reverse – that she is the only one who can control and unite the nobility, and prevent the civil war that would ensue if Alistair ruled.

Ruby liked Anora. They saw things the same way, and forged a loyal partnership that worked out well for both of them. I like Anora, and am inclined to argue with anyone who doesn’t.  Am I just too wrapped up in Ruby’s viewpoint? Is Ruby’s Anora the “real” Anora, or just one possible Anora? One aim of this piece was to talk about how the background and experiences of a player character shaped her view of events, and an issue like Anora brings that sharply into focus. Part of me wants to argue that, objectively, she is the best choice for the throne regardless of player character, but… best choice for who? Not for everyone, perhaps – Anora has a poor record of handling the Alienage. I could certainly see a City Elf argue that they have no interest in upholding a status quo that has done so little for them, regardless of the fact that Alistair is an unknown quantity. Ruby herself had a poor record of acting in the interests of the Orzammar casteless (and speaking of character bias, Ruby’s arch-nemesis Bhelen can come across as quite the champion to a Casteless Dwarf PC). Was Ruby’s backing of Anora a case of privilege supporting privilege? Honesty demands I mention the possibility, but sympathy with Anora wasn’t the only factor in Ruby’s decision.

That whole duty thing

At the end of the day, Ruby couldn’t make Alistair king because it felt like a betrayal. When he had first told her he was Maric’s son,  her political sense had immediately realised: “We could use this to our advantage!” but she had bitten her tongue, knowing it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. She had reassured him that his blood didn’t matter to her (something of a white lie), and that she liked him for who he was (true). At the time, it had been little more than a mollifying platitude; it wasn’t until after she had returned from Orzammar that she fully understood how true it was, and why it mattered.

Alistair has spent his life having his entire existence reduced to the contents of his veins, and making him be king is the ultimate expression of that. He’s unknown, unqualified, unprepared, usually unwilling,  and yet some believe his blood still makes him the right choice. “Theirin blood will tell. You’ll rise to the occasion”, the PC can say to him. ”The way they talk about Theirin blood you’d think I should maybe just jar it and stick that on the throne” he mutters. The focus on his blood dehumanises him, making him nothing more than a vessel. In his life as a Grey Warden, he’s found something he’s good at, that he is valued for, and that represents a destiny he has chosen for himself. Most importantly, it makes him happy.

All through the game, the player is bombarded with messaged about duty, that being a Grey Warden is about putting your duty before everything else, certainly including your own happiness. Alistair is fixated on this noble Grey Warden ideal, and Arl Eamon exploits this sense of duty when he convinces Alistair that he has to pursue the crown. Except that… hang on, which duty are we talking about here? As a Grey Warden, Alistair has duty to not be king, since Wardens aren’t supposed to take positions of power, and in any case, he has a Blight to defeat. The only duty Alistair had regarding the kingship was to put himself forward as a candidate to unseat Loghain, which no longer holds true once Anora is on side. Even so, Arl Eamon is still pressuring Alistair to feel he has a duty to his royal blood (as opposed to his tainted Grey Warden blood, which, lets not forget, was supposed to have negated his royal blood) to be king. It almost seems like Alistair has developed such a Pavlovian response to the “whole duty thing”, as he puts it, that any appeal to it will succeed with him, even when he himself can’t actually articulate the nature of the duty he is pursuing. The fact that the alternative to this nonsensical “duty” is happiness and relative freedom actually seems to serve as a deterrent, since these are things he has been trained not to expect, hope for, or feel that he is remotely entitled to. Which is not to say that he doesn’t desire them, but it’s very hard for him to see the pursuit of them as anything other than selfish and bad. It was becoming clear to Ruby that Alistair needed saving – both from Arl Eamon trying to lock him up in yet another cage, and also from himself!

Don't let this man get suckered into a life of permanent crown-hair!

As a player, it was a strange experience to feel that my character was no longer the most important person in the story, but that’s how it felt, by this stage. As the Landsmeet loomed, Ruby and I were of one accord  – we were going to do all in our power to keep Alistair off that bloody (no pun intended) throne! Everything Ruby had been through so far seemed to prepare her for this decisive moment. Her rude awakening about the corrupt and corrupting nature of royal blood.  Her realisation that power could restrict you more than it freed you. She had also learned when to relinquish control, to trust  in the ability of others to take the helm.  This seems a very strange moral to take from a game, since games, as a rule, deal in nothing if not control. It’s also a strange thing to get from a heroic fantasy, which tend to come down to Only You Can Save The World. But then… wasn’t that Loghain’s fatal mistake? He was a great hero, he saw himself as the only one capable of saving Ferelden, that only he understood the true threat. He was dead wrong, and many people suffered as a result.

A great many Hero’s Journey-type stories, in games and elsewhere, are stories about young people coming of age, taking responsibility for themselves and others, and assuming a great and important role that only they can fulfill. Heck, I’ve told that story myself in other Dragon Age playthroughs – it’s a wonderfully flexible game in that way. But I found it very refreshing to tell a different story. One in which two people, apparently set up by fate and lineage and blood to assume positions of power and authority, turned their backs on it all. Who realised that taking responsibility didn’t mean taking on every possible responsibility available to you, regardless of whether you were the best person for the job, it meant recognising which ones were actually yours, and dealing with those. Who learned that doing your duty doesn’t automatically mean choosing the most painful thing; sometimes, if you’re lucky enough, the path of duty can also be the path to happiness. Who decided that your lineage needn’t dictate your character or your destiny, and that bonds of shared family blood can also be forged for yourself (literally, in the case of the Grey Wardens!), and can be just as binding. You get to decide what’s in your blood, and what it means to you.

Ruby and Alistair choose their own adventure.

Postscript: …Just me?

That, in a rather oversized nutshell (trust me, it could’ve been much longer!) is the main reason I enjoyed Dragon Age so much: the collaborative narrative experience that the writers and I shaped together. Thanks guys! However, after I finished the game, and started reading the forums and talking to other gamers, I found myself surprised. Of course, I expected lots of people to have had made different decisions from me, but it was interesting that the vast majority of people seemed to have made Alistair king. I even heard 80% quoted as a BioWare figure for it, which is unconfirmed, but since they collect data from everyone’s game, they certainly know how many players did what. It’s certainly true that there are a few conversations with Alistair towards the end of the game in which he refers to himself as king, even if the player chose Anora. I had written it off as a bug at the time, but checking the toolset, there are no alternate non-king lines written.  And nobody at BioWare noticed during creation or testing? It’s tempting to interpret this as evidence they barely considered the idea that the player might not crown Alistair. Perhaps that’s why, in the recent Dragon Age: Awakening expansion pack, they chose to include him only in his capacity as King. When I imported Ruby, she was rather surprised to find her fellow Warden apparently scrubbed out of existence, and to hear herself referred to as the only living Grey Warden in Ferelden. But, y’know, I’m trying not to be one of *those* fans about it. I’m not gonna wail about imposed canon, or narrative betrayal; I can deal. My story is still my story,  and I stand by my decisions. And am prepared to defend the honour of Anora Mac Tir against all comers!

Huge thanks to Alex, Erik, Karen and Scott for proofreading, feedback and discussion!

So… I played a game called Dragon Age: Origins last year, and I really rather liked it. To the extent that some people are probably utterly sick of hearing me talk about it, but as it’s got me writing again, they’ll just have to deal with it a while longer.

I want to talk a little about my first playthrough, and one of the reasons it was such a compelling experience for me, which was the story. I’m not talking about the story everyone played through, the generic but servicable enough fantasy yarn about defeating armies of darkness and so forth. I mean the story of my player character and her movement through that framework, how she changed (and was changed by) the world and the people around her. Now, that in itself is hardly unusual for a role-playing game of this type. Dragon Age allows for a large amount of meaningful choice, and no two playthroughs are likely to be identical. What really struck me, however, was the way that not only did the story of my character feel unique, it felt uniquely meaningful. A strong theme emerged, one that came to define the entire playthrough and leave me with a moral, of sorts. The theme was “blood”.

Bloody Wardens: the damn stuff gets everywhere.

To be fair, there’s a lot of blood in Dragon Age whatever you do. Quite apart from the comical fountains of it you see in battle, splattering the faces of your party members, it appears all over the game as a stylistic device – spreading over loading screens, splotching across the map as your party moves. “This is Dark, Realistic Fantasy”, it seems to be saying, and it’s a bit silly, to be honest, but it’s not the only kind. Let’s focus on the kind of blood that stays, with luck, in people’s veins – and how it functioned within my game as a metaphor for identity and allegiance.

Royal Blood: Sample 1

I made a Dwarf Noble PC called Ruby, and she had damn fine blood. Aeducan blood, the ruling House. Royal blood, as she was daughter to the King! There are six different racial/social origins you can pick for your character, and each will subtly affect the game in different ways. I didn’t know much about that at the time, though, I just rather liked the idea of playing a Dwarven Warrior Princess.

The tutorial sections of the game are cleverly designed to encourage players to define their character’s personality early on. I decided Ruby would be idealistic, charming, dutiful and determined, since I generally go for the classic persuasive goody-two-shoes path the first time through this sort of game. However, her royal background, and status as second-in-line to the throne after her elder brother Trian implied that she would be conscious of her rank, and invested in the existing power structures that conferred it. Therefore, she would be socially conservative, and sometimes more concerned with maintaining the honour of her House and seeking glory for herself rather then always doing what was best for others, despite her generally compassionate outlook. Ruby was proud, not just of her own personal achievements, but of herself as a visible and preeminent manifestation of her House, her lineage and her blood.

Ruby initially had no designs on the throne, since she assumed that Trian would succeed her father, and she was happy win glory through her military victories rather than the dull grind of politics. However, things started happening that encouraged an ambitious streak to develop. Firstly, Ruby was named Commander, a great honour, and one she relished. The entire city of Orzammar was abuzz with talk of her greatness, and Ruby even started to hear rumours that it was she, not Trian, who was the favourite to be named as the ailing King’s successor. Ruby knew full well that she was the apple of her Daddy’s eye, but she laughed off such ideas at first. Still… it was a flattering thought, and flattery was a weak spot for Ruby. Secondly, while Trian had always been arrogant and bad-tempered, some of his actions since the announcement of Ruby’s military honour had been… worrying. He had been angry and rude towards her, which she wasn’t bothered by, but he was behaving in a violent, irrational manner towards the citizens as well, which she considered highly unbecoming to someone born to rule. Was he just jealous – he must have heard the rumours too – and therefore acting out? Possibly, but Ruby couldn’t help thinking if he carried on like this, he would not make a good king, and might even be actively damaging. At least, that’s what she told herself, when she started to think that she should be the one to rule. Not because she wanted to, you understand – but to protect the city from Trian! Ruby quietly began thinking about how she might gather support.

Bhelen (boo, hiss) tries to ensnare Ruby in his political machinations.

It didn’t take long for support to find her – in the form of her younger brother Bhelen. He claimed that Trian was indeed jealous, and was, in fact, planning to move against her – with lethal force. While Ruby wasn’t entirely sure she trusted Bhelen, the idea was plausible enough for her to take seriously. She refused the idea of a preemptive strike against Trian, but started to suspect the motives and loyalties of everyone around her, even down to her devoted manservant Gorim. Forced to take politics seriously for the first time, she spent hours agonising over possible courses of action, possible traps, possible outcomes. She found it tortuous, but the real nightmare had barely begun.

Despite her attempts to decipher the machinations going on around her, she was eventually forced into the trap. When she discovered Trian’s murdered body, and saw Bhelen leading her father and his guards to “catch her in the act”, she knew her baby brother had succeeded in outmanoeuvring her, ridding himself of both obstacles to the throne in one stroke. He had set up the evidence well, there was nothing she could do. Her pleas to Daddy fell on deaf ears, and she was sentenced to death-by-Darkspawn in the Deep Roads, the endless monster-filled caverns running beneath the earth. There, declared officially dead and stripped of everything but rags and a blade, she tried to come to terms with the enormity of everything she had lost: family, friends, name, honour, home, caste, rank, privilege. She couldn’t. All she could do was try to survive, pointlessly, mechanically. It was sheer luck that the Grey Wardens found her. A quasi-military secret order dedicated to battling the Darkspawn, their leader, Duncan, recognised her potential, and offered to recruit her on the spot. Ruby was hardly in a position to refuse.

Royal Blood: Sample 2

Let’s leave Ruby to adjust to her new situation, and look at another Grey Warden recruitment story. Alistair, like Ruby, is the child of a king, but born under rather less auspicious circumstances. He grew up in the knowledge that he was illegitimate, a bastard, his mother a serving girl seduced by the late King Maric. He spent his life receiving the impression that his royal blood made him special, but at the same time, that his common blood made him insignificant. One moment he was being sheltered and protected in case he proved politically useful, the next treated like a dog just in case he started getting ideas above his station and tried to head up a rebellion. No wonder he ended up confused as hell about who he was supposed to be, and under the impression that the only thing that mattered about him was the red stuff in his veins, which he came to hate. Never allowed to choose his own path, he was packed off to a monastery at age ten, and trained as a Templar to keep him out of trouble. Doomed to a religious life he never wanted, he was utterly miserable – especially as he found his dual-natured blood made him an outsider yet again: “The initiates from poor families thought I put on airs, while the noble ones called me a bastard and ignored me.” He would later make a point of not telling anyone about his royal blood unless he could possibly avoid it, including the player, when they meet him at Ostagar. When you eventually get the truth out of him, later in the game, he says: “It’s just that anyone who’s ever found out has treated me differently afterwards. I was the bastard prince instead of just being Alistair. I know that must sound stupid to you, but I hate that it’s shaped my entire life. I never wanted it, and I certainly don’t want to be king. The very idea of it terrifies me.”

In the doghouse: Alistair relives his childhood. Can he come out now, please?

It’s a testament to Alistair’s character that while he was (and remained) bitter about his experiences, he didn’t descend into angst and rebellion for long. As he grew up, he developed a protective shell of easy-going amiability and constant, often self-deprecating, jokes – something that would no doubt have gone down like a lead balloon had he actually joined the austere Templar order.  Fortunately for Alistair, he was spotted by Duncan, and recruited into the Grey Wardens for his combat skills and positive attitude. This is significant, because it seems the first time in Alistair’s life that someone valued him for what he could do, and who he was as a person rather than what he represented in terms of his blood. In the Grey Wardens, whom he came to see as the family he’d never had, he felt accepted and valued as an individual, and thought he had finally escaped his lineage. He took great pride in being a Warden, and found himself genuinely happy.

Joining the Grey Wardens involves the recruit giving up all ties to their former life, including those of family and blood. This isn’t a mere metaphor either, as part of the initiation ritual involves drinking a magical concoction of Darkspawn blood that actually alters the blood of the initiate. “Not all who drink the blood will survive and those who do are forever changed”, Duncan tells us. “This is why the Joining is a secret. It is the price we pay.”  Grey Wardens are tied to the Darkspawn by this bond of blood, allowing them to sense (and be sensed by) them. This is referred to in game as “The Taint” and perhaps someday I will mature enough to stop sniggering at it. The point here is that both Ruby and Alistair gave up their royal blood and physically took on the shared blood of the Grey Wardens. Ruby, proud of her lineage, had always seen her blood as an honour and a blessing, and had she understood the implications of the ritual at the time, she might have refused. To Alistair, by contrast, his blood had always been a curse, restricting and controlling him. He was no doubt thankful to try and wipe out all trace of it.

Ostagar is the point at which all the origin stories converge, and the “game proper” begins, with the player’s entrance into the Grey Wardens, their introduction to Alistair, and then of course, the total massacre of Duncan and all other Wardens by the Darkspawn. Alistair and the player are the only survivors, and it’s up to them to use their authority as Grey Wardens to convince various groups to pledge their armies to their crusade. Alistair is allergic to leadership – hardly surprising, given that he has never been allowed to take decisions for himself, and therefore has little confidence in his own judgement. This “conveniently” leaves the player in charge, and so the patented-BioWare-formula journey begins, winning over factions and picking up the usual ragtag assortment of diverse party members. With the introductions over, let’s leave things here for now, and return to Ruby and crew later on, after most of these allies have been assembled. In part 2, we’ll take a look at how the theme of blood affected the later game and one of the more crucial endgame decisions.

Tagged: dragon age: origins, narrative ]]> https://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/blood-vessels-part-1/feed/ 5 Kateri bloodywardens bhelenruby alistairinthedoghouse https://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/hands-up-who-wants-to-die/ https://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/hands-up-who-wants-to-die/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:35:54 +0000 Kateri http://fallingawkwardly.wordpress.com/?p=32 ]]> 3 July 2012: I wrote this years ago, but for one reason or another I didn’t post it, and later it seemed as though its Moment Had Passed. Maybe it had, but the other day Alex and Robyn were discussing this very issue on twitter, and I thought: hey! I had THOUGHTS on this topic at one time! I shall post them, in case there are still people out there who would like to argue with me about them.

Narratives of self-sacrifice in Dragon Age: Origins – writers vs players, and What Women Want.

(Title is a self-indulgent reference to this, because I am a Recovering Goth.)

Massive spoiler warning! This entire post is about endgame events.

“You say that as if I’m giving you a choice”,  he says, if she commands him not to do it. All the player character can do is watch as Alistair goes running off to strike the killing blow to the Archdemon, ending his life, and sparing that of the woman he loves. It’s a moment of high romance and tragic drama that will no doubt be sending gamers of an emotional bent into floods of tears for a long time to come. Everyone loves a heart-wrenching finale. Especially those ladygamers. They adore that stuff, right?

…Right? And yet, some of these aforementioned ladygamers on the BioWare forums seemed almost… angry!

Yanna01: I was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. I was mentally preparing myself for the glorious death while butchering the darkspawn in Denerim and guess what? I picked a wrong answer in the final dialogue and Alistair took the sword and ran to the archdemon. I was literally yelling at him: “Where are you going, you idiot?! It is my death! You’re stealing MY DEATH from me!

Yanna01 wasn’t the only one.

Colenda: I’ve never played the Alistair romance through to the end - so there’s not a single chance to argue?

Recidiva: No.  No chance to argue.  And I tried for three games, raising cunning, race choice and going through the entire rooftop tree of conversation options one by one.  No chance.  I actually came to this site to confirm there was absolutely no way whatsoever to change his mind.  Or I’d be trying ot push level 50 with a cunning of 100 to unlock the damned option.

I didn’t realize at all the gate option, because Riordan specifially says to take Alistair, I never questioned it as game canon.  And also because it’s intensely “unromantic” and counterintuitive to me entirely.

The WORST part is getting the “Warden Commander” achievement that says I commanded Alistair to kill himself when I actually was doing my damnedest through several playthroughs to PREVENT it.

Every character who faces the archdemon together with Alistair has the option to decide who takes the final blow, except for a female character who is in love with him. She has no choice. Why?

Recidiva: To have him decide he’s taking the final blow despite my orders because I’m a girl… To not get a sexist vibe is…impossible.

Ooh, someone used the s-word. Batten down the hatches! As accusations of sexism are wont to do, this was met with a fair amount of incredulity and derision, from, amongst others, the Dragon Age writers:

David Gaider: So… am I reading this right? Alistair sacrificing himself to save the woman he loves is… sexist?

Let’s step back from the s-word for a moment, and break this down a little.

Isn’t this really about character?

One popular reaction was: well, what would you prefer? For Alistair to stand back and let his lover die, when that would be wildly out of character? It’s true, everything about Alistair’s character development up to this point sets this sacrifice up as a natural action for him. He is crippled by survivor’s guilt after the massacre at Ostagar. He lost Duncan, and he is not about to stand by and watch a loved one die again. He confesses, if questioned by the Guardian of the Sacred Ashes: “If Duncan had been saved, and not me, everything would be better. If I’d just had the chance, maybe…” Alistair has no confidence in his ability to lead.  If he’s being put on the throne, he will claim that a dead king is “the best king [he] could be”. He has no idea how to rule, but he knows how to die.

Nobody is seriously suggesting that Alistair himself is acting in a sexist manner by insisting on dying. It’s not even about wanting him to behave any differently – personally, if he’d been susceptible to a Persuade-check on this point, I’d have thought less of him. Alistair can be talked out of making the ultimate sacrifice if the player is a friend (male or female) rather than a lover. Would he insist on taking the final blow if his romance was equal-opportunity, and he was saving the life of a man he loved? Probably. It’s not about gender at this point, and the fact that he won’t insist on dying for a female friend shows that love is the deciding factor here. It’s not about chivalry. Alistair is doing what anyone in love would do, given that they possessed that predisposition towards self-sacrifice.

Hang on a minute.  If Alistair is doing “what anyone in love would do”, isn’t the player character also allowed to be in love? What about her? Again from the forums:

Colenda: Um – he decides he’s taking the final blow because he loves you, surely?

Recidiva: And his love is stronger than mine and his will stronger than mine…because?

Playing a character… characterising the player

This is the endgame. By now, any player with even half an impulse towards roleplaying will have developed some idea of who their character is, and how they might feel and act in a given situation. Such as being faced with the imminent death of the person they love.

Dunhart: It comes down to what you think is the greater sacrifice. Dying for your loved one or staying behind to mourn them for the rest of your life. Alistair has the disadvantage of being brought up to believe the former, apparently.

He really does have the tendency to show some backbone at the worst possible moments, doesn’t he.

Recidiva: I had backbone the whole time!  I have more practice at the whole “backbone” thing!  Plus I purposely kept his strength and cunning low…just in case it came to that.

Other players cared less about dying for love and more about playing out their character’s redemption arc:

Savvy30039: I wish I could have [sacrificed myself]. It would have been a fitting bit of retribution for a spoiled noble that never really did anything honorable with her life until she joined the Gray Wardens. And since Alistair was my favorite character, he seemed worth preserving, so that he could go on to be the great king I knew he could be. But unfortunately Al felt I deserved to live more than him, and ran off to sacrifice himself without giving me a chance to stop him.

It is perfectly possible for a player to insist that their PC has just as much reason as Alistair has to want to sacrifice themselves. Why does he get priority? Because he is stronger, faster, more determined?

SarEnyaDor: he runs faster with that sword???

Recidiva: Not…Good…Enough…

Lest we forget, this is a stat-based RPG. The thing about assigning numerical values to character traits is that when faced with such attempts to impose a narrative on them, the player can gesture to their stats screen and say “but look, my character has higher stats than Alistair right across the board. And you’re telling me that for Reasons of Plot, he’s suddenly stronger?” As quoted above, Recidiva even tried deliberately keeping Alistair’s stats low in the hope of affecting the outcome.  Other players reported wanting to cast Force Field on him, a spell that, used on Alistair in battle, will invariably freeze him to the spot.

Players are used to having absolute knowledge of and control over their team – is it so surprising they want to keep it?

A brief digression on metagaming

Let me just address a simple objection to this entire line of argument: that you don’t have to let Alistair sacrifice himself if you don’t take him with you to kill the Archdemon. This is true. There is some debate as to whether this course of action involves metagaming. Metagaming, in this context, is basing the actions of your PC on information that you, the player, have, but your PC could not have. Metagaming, therefore, is anathema to the dedicated roleplayer.

Recidiva: I didn’t realize at all the gate option, because Riordan specifially says to take Alistair, I never questioned it as game canon.  And also because it’s intensely “unromantic” and counterintuitive to me entirely.

It does seem tactically incompetent to leave Alistair at the gate. Riordan tells you to take him, and strategically he’s right – they need as many Wardens directly engaging the Archdemon as possible. The good-Grey-Warden choice is clearly to take him. You can tell Riordan that you intend to take the blow, and Alistair, standing right there and listening, doesn’t object.

Recidiva: You have the option to mention to Riordan that youl’ll take the final blow and Alistair doesn’t blink then.  There’s no reason to think he won’t accept your leadership, as he’s done so for the whole game if you played it his way.

Savvy30039: I had taken Alistair with me the entire game, and I didn’t know he wasn’t going to give me a choice when it came time to do the deed. It also never even crossed my mind to not have him there at the tower. He was a Gray Warden, the future king, and an important part of my battle tactics. His being there was given before I even considered who my final team would be.

Also mentioned here is a gameplay reason – Alistair is designed to be the party’s main tank! As the player will have lost Morrigan at this point (since by the nature of this whole discussion, we must assume that her little proposal has been rejected) the player may not be in a position to compromise their team further.

None of which stops it from being completely predictable, for the aforementioned reasons of characterisation, that Alistair will attempt the sacrifice. Thief-of-Hearts wrote:

Thief-of-Hearts: With Riordan – you know Alistair is just keeping his mouth silent. I’m sure he is planning it all in his head “yeah right, not if I have anything to do with it”. And you can call him on it if you decide to leave him at the gate. One of the options are “You will do something foolish.” To which he replies “Maybe, but we will never know now.” Most female fans were shocked and surprised that he refused to let them die – would you still be so shocked if you had an arguement over it the night before? No. Alistair is smart. He knows if he causes a scene early, you’ll leave him behind and then he won’t get his chance to save you.

Recidiva: All that adds up to is “The World According to Alistair” and I thought it was my game.  Guess not.

That’s How It Went Down

Let’s get back to the issue of control, but tie it in to the metagaming angle. Mary Kirby, one of the writers of Dragon Age had this to say:

Mary Kirby: You get a lot of opportunity to control Alistair.  You dictate his actions in combat, and in conversation, you are always in control.  That’s not a realistic expectation to create, and maybe making him a little bit less interactive would have helped. What does “comparative strength of will and/or love” have to do with anything?  Does your love or your willpower make you faster than him? I’ve been married to my husband for almost ten years, and I can’t get him to stop leaving his dirty socks on the living room floor.   I don’t anticipate that I can suddenly talk him out of running in front of me, if that’s what he decides to do, or that I will gain a magical burst of speed upon demand because I love him the most.

And in another post:

Mary Kirby: You think it’s metagaming to leave Alistair behind so he doesn’t die, but you don’t think it’s metagaming to assume that you will have some option to decide, in the heat of battle, while you and who knows how many allies are attacking a dragon, who will strike the final blow?  If you bring him to the archdemon, who’s to say that one stray sword swing doesn’t cost you Alistair, anyway?

Kirby pinpoints the source of the players’ angst and confusion: they usually have control over Alistair, especially in battle! They have been in battles with Alistair for the entire game, and have (in my view, reasonable) expectations about what he will and won’t do. I think she is being too hard on them, since the players have been subjected to a classic “bait and switch”, and one which is quite deliberate. Kirby disingenuously sidesteps the issue of who is responsible for the situation the players find themselves in. “Who’s to say” what could happen, indeed. How about the people who control when the action is scripted, and when it is not? Writers like her, for example. The writers, who baited the players with the prospect of one outcome, where they make the ultimate sacrifice, only to switch it at the last minute for one in which Alistair does. Lead writer David Gaider was more direct.

David Gaider: Well… tough? Sorry you feel that way, but Alistair sacrificing himself for you is how you went down. You’re not supposed to like it. You are responsible for it, however — you did not take Morrigan’s offer, which would have saved you both, and then brought him to the Archdemon to… what? Watch the woman he loves die?

I get why you would have wanted to die too, but that’s who Alistair is. In this case he ran and did it first. As far as I’m concerned you could have been two steps behind him the entire run towards the Archdemon, but you simply didn’t catch up to him in time… because that’s how it went down. That’s the story.

The issue here is not actually about control over Alistair or his actions at all. It’s about the agency of the player character, and her options for action – or lack of them. One forumite replied to Gaider’s bemused query as to whether Alistair’s actions were sexist with:

mousestalker: No, it’s actually sweet. Not having a handy bottle to knock him out with was sexist.

While the response was tongue-in-cheek, it makes a valid point. The writers could have provided a method for the player to take the final blow without compromising Alistair’s character, but they didn’t. (Modders, of course, have filled the gap.) Dragon Age sells itself on the promise of player choice and consequence, but a line must be drawn somewhere. The writers have their own artistic agenda, and decide how much control the player gets, using this to shape the story they want to tell. So… how much control over the story should the player have?

Whose Narrative Is It Anyway?

The appeal of Dragon Age, for me, is the extent to which it does allow the player to create their own narrative, from their origin story through all the decisions affecting the areas that they pass through. True, the player is limited in the sense that their control over events takes the form of a series of branching choices, rather than truly creative, freeform decision making. When faced with a situation, the player must choose path A, B or C, they cannot choose “Other” and fill in the blank themselves. Nevertheless, the player still has a high degree of agency, in that they are the only person making the decision. Party members may make their feelings clear, sometimes even leaving, or fighting the player, but ultimately these are consequences, not constraints. The player always gets the right to choose, and it’s hardly surprising that they might get used to this.

Which makes it all the more jarring when it gets taken away. At several points during the endgame, this feeling of control may be wrested away, leaving the player feeling helpless and swept along by events they do not want to be happening, triggered by things they either did not realise they were triggering, or had no control over at all.

This need not always be a bad thing. The theme of control, and the lack of it, is something games are expertly equipped to deal with and express in powerful ways. We’ve all heard about the “Would you kindly…” moment in Bioshock. Taking control from the player, done judiciously, can be a compelling artistic statement.

Note: “can be”. I’m not about to get into whether I think Dragon Age succeeds overall in making any kind of statement in this regard, as I think some parts work better than others, and in any case, we only need to consider one of them.

It’s clear that when Alistair makes his sacrifice, the sudden and total powerlessness of the player is absolutely deliberate – they are forced to watch their lover die, and there is nothing they can do. It is intended to be dramatic and emotionally affecting. Lead writer David Gaider has made no secret of the fact that he deliberately set out to break hearts:

David Gaider: I know it probably makes me a bad person, but there are moments when the thought of all the Alistair fangirls … tearing out their hair and rending their shirts pleases me inordinately.

David Gaider: Emotional engagement is a reward in and of itself, and if people are distressed by their character’s situation it’s because they feel it keenly. Which is good.

In this case, player agency gets subsumed in favour of drama, or the writers’ notion of it. Generally speaking, this has advantages and disadvantages. There is nothing inherently wrong with linear narrative – being told a good story is fun. Dragon Age has a skilled team of writers. But in a game dominated by player choice, the moments of railroading need to feel worth it. Dramatically interesting scenes may be the payoff, but what is lost?

“I thought this was my game”, said Recidiva. Others disagreed:

Thief-of-Hearts: This isn’t your game. Nor is it Alistair’s. You are really just a pawn and an observer in a story being told. While you are a catalyst for many things that must be done, it really doesn’t matter if you, me or some other random body does it so long as the job gets done. All the choices and cusomizations are just illusions to complete freedom. “My story” is only valid up to a certain point and after that you are just beating your head to a brick wall, because the reality is there *has* to be limitation somewhere.

Of course there cannot be unlimited freedom, but this seems a strange place to draw the line. Every player character except for one romancing Alistair has the option to play out a narrative of self-sacrifice. For Recidiva and others, the story she wanted to play out for her character got thrown under the bus in favour of Alistair’s story. Why? What does he have that she doesn’t?

Back to gender – Narratives of self-sacrifice, and who is allowed to tell them.

Recidiva: Okay, take sex out of it.  Two men or two women.  Two lizards.  Why does the NPC get the choice?

It all revolves about how a man doesn’t let his woman die.  That does make it an issue about gender and love, and if someone doesn’t like the word “sexism” then let’s pick something less scary.  Why is the male protecting the female if the female’s actually been protecting and guiding the male for the game?

How does a woman let her man die?  Or should I have played the game as someone who expected to have my fighting and choices made for me?  Should I have been Anora for the whole thing, sitting in a castle waiting to be rescued?

Why can a male at +100 friendly arrange for Alistair to sacrifice himself?  If love is the difference, why aren’t both partners equally motivated to be the ones to make the sacrifice?

Narratives of self-sacrifice are heroic and glorious. Here are some male players describing how they felt after achieving the self-sacrifice ending, after avoiding it on previous playthroughs:

blademaster7: The best thing you could do … is play a new character and do the Ultimate Sacrifice. It is totally worth it. I reached the top of Fort Drakon and Alistair stepped up requesting that I let him die in my place. He was supposed to be king but he wanted to sacrifice himself for duty. I felt like an idiot when I heard Alistair say that… and here I thought he was the one without spine and not me. I went ahead and killed the Archdemon and the epilogue was pretty much everything I could ask for. At least my character died with dignity in this playthrough.

Barbarossa2010: Amen blademaster, it is the right way out for players like us.  I would never have imagined it, until I cowboy’ed up and did it.  Much more dignified and fulfilling than a kick in the ba!!s.   I can see where ending with Alistair at your side would be something memorable.  There was no doubt at my sacrificial ending who was going to die.  The looks on Wynne and Zevran’s faces alluded to immediate heartbreaking understanding as I did the deed.  Lelina’s prologue was worth it all.  An appropriate ending for my Warden.

I’m with you all the way on this.  I don’t play to evolve into a super-man (initially a very reluctant hero) only to be artificially and magically reduced to a spineless twit just prior to the climax.

[...]

Barbarossa2010: I came back to the game after a while, made a new character, cowboy’ed up and committed to a sacrifical ending, determined to end this story in character.  I swear, my “Dane” PC fought like a demon possessed with a clear conscience, unfettered with doubt, dignity intact and Wynne as his mage.  He literally could do no wrong in the fight.  He killed the Archdemon in a single playthrough, faster than any other Warden I had, and ended something beyond even a Paragon; sharing the fate of only 4 others before him in history, being loved as he was loved to the very end and beyond.  It totally felt like I finally had the ending that was right for me.

Barbarossa2010 is referring to Morrigan’s lifesaving ritual with his “reduced to a spineless twit” comment, but I suspect it also echoes how many players of female PCs felt, watching Alistair “steal” their sacrifice. “Spineless” is, at least in theory, a gender-neutral metaphor for courage (although I can’t remember when I last heard it applied to a woman). The common variant would, of course, be “balls”; to “have the balls” to do something. For some cisgender men, testicles are the prime expression and condensation of masculine courage and power – an interesting claim for one of the most delicate parts of the body. Perhaps real men have the fabled “balls of steel”. But I digress.

If presented with the choice to either die heroically, or allow someone else to do the same, a “real man” will step up. By this logic, a man who lets someone else die in his place is thereby emasculated. Barbarossa2010 claims he was made to feel “spineless” by a woman having saved his life with a spell. Imagine if she had actually died to save him! The testicle-dissolving horror of it!

DeathWyrmNexus: Then you have that pesky genetic drive that men are expendable and protecting your woman is key. It is sexist but it is also what pretty much any man I know would do for their woman. We don’t even think about it. So yea, I found it to be a very honest decision for [Alistair] to make.

Recidiva: The only way that it’s sexist is assuming that women don’t have the will or drive to do the same.  Even, say, a stronger will or impulse to do the same.

I found my decision to be very honest as well.  And rather infuriating to be told that what I want makes no sense and I’m unappreciative because I’m a girl.  I don’t get it.  It’s not getting any better, it’s actually getting worse when people explain it.

It’s like trying to grill at my family reunion.  ”Women don’t like fire.” “ Women shouldn’t be doing this.”  ”Guys, I make a better barbecue sauce than any of you…” ”Hahaha..she’s so cute.”  and I can just hear when I get steered away from something I’m really good at “You’re acting like we’re giving you a choice.”

I’m a mother with exactly the right sort of mama bear instincts and set of hormones that would require giving my life for someone I love and my mate.  I’m not getting how my impulse is invalid or how I should have just accepted it.  No.  Nope.  Sorry.  Not working for me.

A point to make here is that it is “acceptable” for women to sacrifice themselves for their children. This is a scenario where women have a recognised narrative of sacrifice – in fact, it’s appeared in Dragon Age already, with Lady Isolde of Redcliffe, who offers to lay down her life to save that of her son. It’s far less normalised for women to make a heroic, warrior self-sacrifice of the type Alistair makes, because there is no established cultural narrative for it.

Female players have made it clear that many of them can, and do, want to make heroic sacrifices, and not just in a maternal context, in a full-on, chest-thumping-warrior context. To save your mouse wheels, I’ll repeat the quote I started with:

Yanna01: I was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. I was mentally preparing myself for the glorious death while butchering the darkspawn in Denerim and guess what? I picked a wrong answer in the final dialogue and Alistair took the sword and ran to the archdemon. I was literally yelling at him: “Where are you going, you idiot?! It is my death! You’re stealing MY DEATH from me!

This player didn’t want a heartbreaking romantic tragedy. She wanted a power fantasy, a heroic, “glorious” death. To get Classical for a moment, she wanted to be Achilles, not Andromache.

Not many women in real life get to be warriors. Lots of women get to be mothers, and so we have stories about them. Games, of course, are often touted as escapist fantasy, but the funny thing about fantasy worlds is how much stays the same, created as they are by people who grew up in the real world. Female Grey Wardens in Dragon Age can have identical stats to their male counterparts, but they still suffer from restrictions laid down by the writers about what sort of story a female character gets to play out.

Bittersweet sympathy

Before people sweep in in defense of the Dragon Age writing team here, let me clarify something: I’m not calling the team sexist, and I don’t need a list of the ways in which Dragon Age is progressive; I know. I love the writers, and I love BioWare games. In fact, it’s my long history as a fan of David Gaider that informs my suspicions about why Alistair’s sacrifice situation plays out in the way that it does. Gaider endured the loss of his favourite tragic romantic double-suicidal-sacrifice ending that he wrote for the female character and her love interest in Knights of the Old Republic, which got left on the cutting room floor. Many fans, many of them female, were upset by this, proclaiming their love for bittersweet heartbreak, and how not all endings need to be happy. Mods to restore parts of that ending are still available. I was, therefore, not at all surprised to find that Gaider, in his first role as Head Writer, jumped at the chance to include tragic endings, including one seemingly geared towards female characters romancing the male lead.

Gaider wasn’t wrong: tragic, romantic endings can be fun, and far be it from me to stand in the way of his appetite for the bitter tears of Alistair fans. But the responses from players tell me that he misjudged this one. Because whatever the intention, none of it prevents the resulting situation in the game from being sexist, and reinforcing the idea that male heroes sacrifice their lives to save the women they love, but to have it be the other way around is unimaginable.

People liked the KOTOR ending because the lovers died together, in a blaze of glory. Can’t those poor, doomed, tragic-romantic Wardens charge the Archdemon together, hands clasped together around the sword hilt, and let fate decide? And if by “fate”, I really mean the writing team, well… at least it would grant the player the pursuit of a hero’s death. Games involve negotiation of control between the players and creators, and reasonable players understand that they cannot always get their way. But when female heroes are denied an ending that is served up to male heroes (male NPCs, even!) on a plate, something has gone seriously wrong with the balance. Say what you like about the Mass Effect series, they never make the mistake of diluting female Shepard’s badassery. Power fantasies should be equal-opportunity, and that includes suicide missions.

Contains spoilers for Mass Effect 1.

*****

Scene: The cargo bay of the SS Normandy.

Hey.

Oh, hey. You new around here?

Yeah, I signed on at Noveria.

How you settling in? The Normandy’s quite something, isn’t she?

She sure is… can’t help wondering a bit about the Commander, though.

And what’s THAT supposed to mean?

No, no! I didn’t mean it like that! Shepard’s a freaking legend, nobody doubts her ability to lead, or her capabilities! I mean, people were whispering about her even before Akuze – with her family’s military history, command is in the blood, right? I’d follow her anywhere. It’s just… sometimes she can be a little… intense?

If you mean crazy, say so.

Not crazy! Her tactical decisions are sound, she looks after her crew, does things by the book, and certainly gets results, it’s just… Don’t get me wrong, I’ve served under tough commanders before. I don’t have a problem with her demanding respect, she deserves it, and she gets it.

But?

But she just threatened to push me out of an airlock!

What did you do?

Nothing!

Come on. She must’ve had a reason.

I didn’t do anything! All I said was, “It’s an honour, ma’am. After what you did, anyone on Noveria would be proud to serve with Angelina Shepa–

You didn’t!

What?

Hahahaha, no wonder she flipped out on you! You don’t EVER say that to her.

What?

The A word.

Her first name? Ange–

Don’t say it! She might hear! Look, there’s a reason everyone calls her Shepard. I’ll bet she makes her goddamn grandmother call her Shepard. Anyway, she has a point – does she look like an Angelina to you? They shoulda covered that in your first briefing.

Oh. So, is that the only thing I should remember? I’ve heard a few other things about her, like… did she really make Dr T’soni cry?

Oh yeah! That was great! What was it she said… “I am NOT James T Kirk, I do NOT want to meld minds or show you this thing huuu-maans call ‘love’, now get your little spandexed ass back to the med bay before I show you the BAD attachments on my Omnitool!” I laughed like a drain, and she gave me such a deathstare I went and hid in the engine room for the rest of the day! But mostly she’s very reasonable. Oh, but never volunteer to go on a mission in the MAKO with her.

Bad driver?

Have you ever been on one of those anti-grav gyroscopic rides they have on Anderion?

Ah.

But with more lava pits and Thresher Maws. And I wouldn’t say it’s bad driving, exactly, since I’m pretty sure she was doing it on purpose.

I see.

I only went on one trip. We were only supposed to be going a couple of kms, just over the plain to the downed satellite and back. At one point, I remember Ash Williams screaming “With respect, Ma’am, if I’m gonna die, I want it to be in battle, not sprayed against the inside of a truck while you execute a flying 3-point turn into a rockface at mach speed!” Each time we went over another cliff, Wrex and Shepard would whoop like schoolchildren. And each time we landed, the Quarian would yell that back on her flotilla, she’d incur serious criminal charges for mistreating valuable technology in such a way. Dr T’soni just huddled in her seat with her eyes pressed shut, reciting some sort of Asari litany against fear. I ended up crushed under the Krogan when we rolled over again, and his harness gave way. Then Lt. Alenko threw up, and things really got nasty.

Hey, about Lt. Alenko, is it true what I heard about him and Shepard?

That she single-handedly fireman’s-lifted him off the battlefield when he got knocked out at Virmire? Yes! That was awesome, he must be double her weight!

No, I mean that they’re… you know.

Don’t believe everything you hear. I know there were rumours after Virmire, but I talked to a guy who was there, and he said no way in hell did she throw Williams under the shuttle to save him. There was no favouritism involved, it was the only tactical choice. I wouldn’t believe otherwise anyway – she and Ash were tight. No way would Shepard have let her die unless she had to. After Akuze, they say Shepard’s been near-obsessive about preserving her team. What happened on Virmire really got to her, and it can’t have been made easier by people questioning her motives out of some idea they have that she was banging Alenko. If that were the case, top brass’d have her head. But it’s NOT the case, so keep your mouth shut.

Jeez, sorry, OK. I get it. She’s professionalism incarnate, and there’s nothing between her and Alenko.

Oh, she’s banging him all right. Don’t think she’s serious about him, though. He was drunk in the mess room one night, moaning to Garrus that she only liked him ’cause he reminded her of her ex. Something about making him wear an orange jacket, and asking if she could call him Garth, I think. Kinky. What I mean is, she doesn’t let anything like that affect her decisions.

I see.

Just between us? I think the one she really likes is Joker. They hang around the cockpit snarking about the rest of the crew till late in the night. Once I was passing by, and I heard him say “It’d never work out, Shep. I’m just not romanceable.” Then they heard me coming and shut up quick.

Joker? But he’s… they could never…

What, you think he’s a human write-off, just ’cause he’s disabled? Screw you, man! He’s a great guy, much more her type. And if you really think there’s only one way to have sex, then you clearly have no imagination whatsoever. For a start, have you SEEN the way he controls that ship? Guy’s got the touch.

Um–

And I’ll bet Shepard’s not short of interesting ideas in that department, she always was, heh… innovative.

Hey–

What’s that noise? You don’t have an Omnitool, so who– She’s… behind me, isn’t she? RUN!!!