10 replies to this topic

[sundog005]

Anyone else find the whole Paarthurnax killing a bit bloodthirsty? I fell out with the Blades big time over this.

 

Seriously Beth writers need to lay off the aggression juice, Oblivion was the same with a certain murder innocent Breton farmers with no alternative Fighter's Guild Quest  and the murder the LAST Unicorn with no alternative Quest.

(MUST KILL EVERYTHING RAWRRR! <beats chest and thinks fire is a keen invention>).

 

Delphine is an ass anyway i wanted to poke her in the eye when she came out with that crap about the Greybeards being weak for not using power, i guess she's never seen Star Wars or EVERY other villain in EVERY other epic tale who abuses their power....it never ends well (I need to make a <poke eye> animation)

 

Anyways, rant over and thanks to Arthmoor for an awesome alternative!     http://skyrim.nexusm...m/mods/18465//?

Edited by sundog005, 12 October 2013 - 10:57 PM.

[CaptainRC]

Actually, there is an alternative to the Fighter's Guild quest that you mentioned.  When you see that the "goblins" are not attacking you on sight as they normally do, then you can realize that something is wrong... so you can choose to run away from the village.  When you reach a certain distance, the sap you drank takes effect again and the quest proceeds.

[Cathlem]

You don't have to kill Paarthurnax if you don't want to. Only if you want to be friends with the Blades, which, frankly, isn't worth it in my opinion. I didn't kill Parth, and have no plans to (other than that one time for the Drago Souls achievement).

[Rennn]

You don't have to kill the unicorn, you can choose not to do Hircine's quest. If you don't want to kill rare animals, why would you want to perform tasks for the Daedric Lord of the Hunt anyway?

[MidevalGuy]

Anyone else find the whole Paarthurnax killing a bit bloodthirsty? I fell out with the Blades big time over this.

 

Seriously Beth writers need to lay off the aggression juice, Oblivion was the same with a certain murder innocent Breton farmers with no alternative Fighter's Guild Quest  and the murder the LAST Unicorn with no alternative Quest.

(MUST KILL EVERYTHING RAWRRR! <beats chest and thinks fire is a keen invention>).

 

Delphine is an ass anyway i wanted to poke her in the eye when she came out with that crap about the Greybeards being weak for not using power, i guess she's never seen Star Wars or EVERY other villain in EVERY other epic tale who abuses their power....it never ends well (I need to make a <poke eye> animation)

 

Anyways, rant over and thanks to Arthmoor for an awesome alternative!     http://skyrim.nexusm...m/mods/18465//?

 

What is interesting (to me) is the Paarthunax Dilemma is a text book case of lundonarrative dissonance. For those that don't know, it's when there is a disconnect with what a game promotes and what the player is doing as he/she plays the game. 

 

I am going to make an educated guess most players view(ed) Parth as an ally who has done nothing but help the Dragonborn up until Delphine gives them the order to kill him.  This is where the ludonarrative dissonance comes into play by revealing Skyrim's (and most video game's) hypocritical morality that says it's okay to slaughter hundreds of Drugar, Bandits, Rogue Wizards, even other Dragons, etc., but the minute you're told to kill an ally, it's suddenly not Okay. We see this in almost every game out there, the most blatant example being the most recent "Tomb Raider" game where Lara is presented as this remorseful, generally normal person who hates violence, but who the player then uses to shoot, stab, strangle, decapitate, burn alive and kill as many cultists on the island as possible all the while Lara keeps trying to maintain this "I don't want to hurt anybody!" shtick.

[Rennn]

 

Anyone else find the whole Paarthurnax killing a bit bloodthirsty? I fell out with the Blades big time over this.

 

Seriously Beth writers need to lay off the aggression juice, Oblivion was the same with a certain murder innocent Breton farmers with no alternative Fighter's Guild Quest  and the murder the LAST Unicorn with no alternative Quest.

(MUST KILL EVERYTHING RAWRRR! <beats chest and thinks fire is a keen invention>).

 

Delphine is an ass anyway i wanted to poke her in the eye when she came out with that crap about the Greybeards being weak for not using power, i guess she's never seen Star Wars or EVERY other villain in EVERY other epic tale who abuses their power....it never ends well (I need to make a <poke eye> animation)

 

Anyways, rant over and thanks to Arthmoor for an awesome alternative!     http://skyrim.nexusm...m/mods/18465//?

 

What is interesting (to me) is the Paarthunax Dilemma is a text book case of lundonarrative dissonance. For those that don't know, it's when there is a disconnect with what a game promotes and what the player is doing as he/she plays the game. 

 

I am going to make an educated guess most players view(ed) Parth as an ally who has done nothing but help the Dragonborn up until Delphine gives them the order to kill him.  This is where the ludonarrative dissonance comes into play by revealing Skyrim's (and most video game's) hypocritical morality that says it's okay to slaughter hundreds of Drugar, Bandits, Rogue Wizards, even other Dragons, etc., but the minute you're told to kill an ally, it's suddenly not Okay. We see this in almost every game out there, the most blatant example being the most recent "Tomb Raider" game where Lara is presented as this remorseful, generally normal person who hates violence, but who the player then uses to shoot, stab, strangle, decapitate, burn alive and kill as many cultists on the island as possible all the while Lara keeps trying to maintain this "I don't want to hurt anybody!" shtick.

 

 

True.

 

The developers of Zeno Clash stated that they considered this specifically because they didn't want their protagonist to be a mass murderer. You almost never kill enemies, but simply beat them up, and you often see them alive later.

 

Dishonored also handles this well. In order to get a happy ending, the player must choke out enemies instead of killing them (even keeping their comatose bodies safe from hungry rats when possible), and use stealth rather than violence to accomplish objectives. Killing indiscriminately will ultimately cause the rat plague to infect more people, making gameplay more difficult, and it will trigger a much darker ending. Characters will reference that you're maniacally evil in that case, so there's really no dissonance there.

Edited by Rennn, 14 October 2013 - 07:21 AM.

[elricshan]

i have never had an issue with his dilemma. Because the blades are dragon hunters. I see no reason why a blade would not give a Dragonborn that ultimatum as they see all dragons as evil. if they had a Thalmor help you in the start of the game and then made the blades such an ultimatum that we needed to kill that thalmor people would not think that it would be strange to give such an ultimatum.  Because as far as they are concerned you are talking with the enemy, an dragon. If it was a good written thalmor they gave the ultimatum about instead people would not be that angry about it.

 

BUT i think that they should make a truce, one greybeard starts to learn one blade about how to use the thuum, in exchange for that they have say in witch dragons to slay and witch to kill and so they gain more power (the blades) and the greybeards can save those who follow the way of the voice with the ability to send blades after the dragons who break away from the way after they have joined.

[EnaiSiaion]

 

I am going to make an educated guess most players view(ed) Parth as an ally who has done nothing but help the Dragonborn up until Delphine gives them the order to kill him.  This is where the ludonarrative dissonance comes into play by revealing Skyrim's (and most video game's) hypocritical morality that says it's okay to slaughter hundreds of Drugar, Bandits, Rogue Wizards, even other Dragons, etc., but the minute you're told to kill an ally, it's suddenly not Okay. We see this in almost every game out there, the most blatant example being the most recent "Tomb Raider" game where Lara is presented as this remorseful, generally normal person who hates violence, but who the player then uses to shoot, stab, strangle, decapitate, burn alive and kill as many cultists on the island as possible all the while Lara keeps trying to maintain this "I don't want to hurt anybody!" shtick.

 
Deconstructed by Saints Row 3. The final mission has you rushing to save a fellow Saint while heroic music plays. Afterwards you realise that you just ran over 50 people and caused 10 accidents on your way to save 1 person. This being SR, it was probably intentional.

And in SR4, all of the events past the very start are your fault. Again, it takes a while to sink in that you did exactly what the big bad told you not to do or else he would [spoiler deleted], so he did. This was definitely intentional.

[MidevalGuy]

i have never had an issue with his dilemma. Because the blades are dragon hunters. I see no reason why a blade would not give a Dragonborn that ultimatum as they see all dragons as evil.

 

The problem, or dissonance with this particular choice/quest is it contradicts the lore the player has been presented up until this point.

 

Delphine and Esbern almost cream their pants once they find out the player is Dragonborn because the Blades aspire to be the best dragon slayers in the world. However, they will never be able to do what the Dragonborn does no matter how hard they try. So, instead they treat the Dragonborn as their "guild master" which means the Blades are supposed to do what the Dragonborn says, and not the other way around. This is where the dissonance rears its ugly head because Bethesda gave players absolutely no choice if they want to be head of the Blades and use their resources to find Word Walls and unlock Dragon Shouts.

 

The Paarthurnax Dilemma also highlights the unusual amount of limited choices players are given in Skyrim (the game) considering it is supposed to be a "do as you please" RPG for the most part.

 

There is another thread on this forum that talks about how most of the worthwhile artifacts are Dedric and some of the things the player has to do in order to get them force them to play a certain way/mindset whereas a better written and constructed game would give players alternatives and/or multiple paths to the achieve the artifacts. This actually fits lundonarrative dissonance to a tee because the actual definition is where players are given the illusion of freedom, but there is none.

[Rennn]

 

 

There is another thread on this forum that talks about how most of the worthwhile artifacts are Dedric and some of the things the player has to do in order to get them force them to play a certain way/mindset whereas a better written and constructed game would give players alternatives and/or multiple paths to the achieve the artifacts. This actually fits lundonarrative dissonance to a tee because the actual definition is where players are given the illusion of freedom, but there is none.

 

 

That's one part of your argument I don't agree with. Daedric Lords are supposed to be extraordinarily powerful and usually evil beings. It makes sense that they would impose a morally reprehensible task upon the player, as a requirement for attaining their favor and their weapon. The Daedric Lords, in a way, are bound into their weapons. It would actually break lore and increase ludonarrative dissonance if you could acquire these weapons without doing what the Daedric Lords command you to do.

 

Ie, if you're a paladin player who refuses to beat a man into submission on behalf of Molag Bal, then clearly Molag Bal is not going to gift you his mace, since it is a divine weapon that he controls. Furthermore, a paladin player should not want the artifact of a Daedric Lord whose motto is "The weak shall be punished by the strong," no matter how useful it is.

 

The only problem with the vanilla Daedric quests is that you usually don't have the option of refusing and declining the weapon. The quest sits in your journal forever.

Edited by Rennn, 14 October 2013 - 09:14 PM.