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Avadon 2 Final impressions thread (Spoilers onboard!)


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Interesting point of view. After doing his special quest, I've concluded that Dedrik is an idiot. "I want to slaughter these people! Oh, I don't want to slaughter these people! No, I want to slaughter these people! Oops, I didn't want to slaughter these people!" A non-idiot would stop and think a little more before doing something so drastic and permanent like, oh, slaughtering a bunch of people. I'm tackling the quest kind of reluctantly, simply because I want to keep endgame options open and I assume that means I need to fulfill all the companion quests.

 

Alcander really has grown on me to be my favorite of the companion Hands so far.

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Interesting point of view. After doing his special quest, I've concluded that Dedrik is an idiot. "I want to slaughter these people! Oh, I don't want to slaughter these people! No, I want to slaughter these people! Oops, I didn't want to slaughter these people!"

See, that to me is evidence of how conflicted he is. I see him as willing to accept the idea of killing fellow Pact soldiers in theory, and even perhaps in the heat of battle; but once it's over, the reality of what he's done starts to sink in, and he has to struggle to come to terms with it.

Alcander is refreshingly clear and unapologetic about his motives. And sarcastic. Having him and Khalida together is quite entertaining.

^This. Although my favorite combination so far is Alcander and Dedrik, just for the back-and-forth that goes on between them.

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I don't see how being "being conflicted" in any way contradicts "being an idiot." :D Merely being conflicted does not make a person interesting, reasonable, or likable. If Dedrik were sensible, he would not wait to decide - in the middle of a fight to the death - that he started - whether or not he should kill those people. He just looks stupid and indecisive. Being conflicted about a complicated issue is one thing, and giving careful thought is one thing. Being conflicted about whether to murder a bunch of people who've done no wrong to anyone, impulsively rushing to do the deed, and then thinking later - that's the mark of a fool. Granted, the world is full of fools, so it's realistic to a degree, but that's not the same as well-written, interesting, or likable.

 

I agree that Khalida and Alcander have some fun exchanges together. "Alcander, I hate you."

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This is true, as well, I suppose. However, I would say that it's somewhat debatable who actually started that fight. Sure, Dedrik was the one who actually stepped in and did the killing, but the Kva would/should have known that by building a fort near the border of the Contested Lands and sending armed mercenaries there, that the Wyldrylm wouldn't take such a thing lightly. Besides, there's also the issue of Dedrik's banishment here. He's been away from his homeland and family for who knows how long, and the only way to get that revoked even partially is for him to do this.

 

He may be impulsive and, yes, a bit foolish, but I have a hard time seeing him as an idiot. Out of his depth maybe, but not an idiot.

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Alberich, I think you are missing the fact that cultural differences matter a lot. The 13 colonies were all culturally alike without major historical baggage all being British in descent. Massachusetts was not too unlike Pennsylvania, which was not terribly different than Georgia. No major conflicts had been fought between the states. The one major issue that the early US had to deal with was slavery, which was temporarily resolved by the 3/5th compromise allowing the federal government to achieve its initial legitimacy from the South, and ultimately by the US Civil War after that legitimacy had temporarily failed. Even today, the South is culturally dissimilar from the rest of the nation and there is still animosity about the Civil War and Reconstruction, but not inasmuch that there are widespread, serious questions about the legitimacy of Washington, DC.

 

A better modern day example is the United Kingdom (UK) or even Canada, where you actually have major cultural fault lines. The various members of the UK have distinct cultures and fought bloody conflicts. Scotland is due to conduct a referendum for independence that actually has a credible chance of succeeding. In Canada you have Quebec, which has a distinct and ingrained French heritage, and also periodically holds similar referenda.

 

For other modern examples, the USSR failed because the member states never really accepted the legitimacy of rule from Moscow. Never mind that Latvia and Kazakhstan have very distinct histories going back centuries. The EU appears to be succeeding because it is about economics and trade, and does not directly threaten the sovereignty of its members. I doubt the EU could hold together as a unified government because the cultures are too distinct (France, Germany, and Italy are vastly more different than New York, Michigan, and Oregon).

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Feels good to have actually defeated Redbeard on my first playthrough (albeit on normal, but with only 3 characters). Eventually I just played the last half of the game with Alcander and Khalida. Together with my sorceress, they made a pretty devastating trio. I can see how you wouldn't be able to 100% this game on Torment with a sorceress, though... Yikes. I had a hard time in some optional, solo areas.

 

It looks to me like game 3 will start with a cloistered/vanished Redbeard, possibly with Heart Callan or Heart Protus trying to hold things together and the Council leaning heavily on the Black Fortress. I got what I consider the "best" possible ending (PC concentrating power successfully in Avadon for the purpose of militarily defending the Pact), but it can't possibly be canonical. (How I wish! Being the Keeper in A3 would be AY-MAY-ZING!)

 

The 13 colonies were not all British, actually. Let's not forget the Dutch, whose holdings here were essentially conquered by the British. Also, let's not forget that there was a pretty good French and Spanish population in the New World. Lots of cultural differences, and many stemmed from religion. Massachusetts had blasphemy hangings, and plenty of people fled to Rhode Island and other areas. (At least a couple modern states were formed by colonists splitting away from major colonies--Delaware split from Pennsylvania.) Conditions and culture were by no means identical among the colonies, and they had some serious mutual distrust which shaped the federal government in its iterations.

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Yes, I did simplify a bit because I didn't want to have a three-page long post detailing this and why they are comparatively minor. We can spend all day pointing out differences between the colonies, but my point remains that the US colonies themselves were quite culturally homogeneous (French and Spanish colonies were not part of the original US) sharing a fairly common ancestry and lacking any major bloody conflicts between them compared with those displayed in the Pact and, in the real world, many other attempted governmental unions throughout history. Picture trying to nit together Athenian Greece, Celtic Britannia, France during the Ancien Regime, Feudal Japan, and (insert culture most like the Kva) into a coherent central government.

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