128 replies to this topic

[Utotri]

also I don't understand why guys are so attracted to Morrigan. frankly, I think her personality stinks and she's really ugly (in vanilla game anyway).

I am a guy and Morrigan does not attract me at all. She employs an intelligent facade hiding nothing but a very immature mind, which is unfortunate. One would think that even in nature it would be easy to discover the myriad merits of empathy. As a shapeshifter, empathy should be a given for Morrigan but alas, it is her major flaw, because she is nothing but a heinous bimbo. This does not make any sense. Given the potential, I regard Morrigan as a major screw-up by BioWare. Luckily she is voiced very well and her role in the story is interesting.

[danscott84]

Either suffer a fate worse than death and have someone's soul get destroyed, or have you, your boyfriend, your friend, or the queen's father sleep with an impregnating creepy girl with a child that could grow up to be a danger to the whole world for all we know... horrid choice to make.

also I don't understand why guys are so attracted to Morrigan. frankly, I think her personality stinks and she's really ugly (in vanilla game anyway).

She's mysterious, can be beautiful (modified of course), sexy voice, not afraid to speak her mind, does not really care what others may think of her, strong-willed. Oh, and the biggest probably of all is explained by her achievment, Witch Gone WILD.

[danscott84]

also I don't understand why guys are so attracted to Morrigan. frankly, I think her personality stinks and she's really ugly (in vanilla game anyway).

I am a guy and Morrigan does not attract me at all. She employs an intelligent facade hiding nothing but a very immature mind, which is unfortunate. One would think that even in nature it would be easy to discover the myriad merits of empathy. As a shapeshifter, empathy should be a given for Morrigan but alas, it is her major flaw, because she is nothing but a heinous bimbo. This does not make any sense. Given the potential, I regard Morrigan as a major screw-up by BioWare. Luckily she is voiced very well and her role in the story is interesting.

I have to disagree with Morrigan being a major screw-up by BW. Read Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, and you will have a much better understanding of why Morrigan is written the way she is. As has been discussed on other boards, her character is actually the most dynamic by far of all the characters in the game. The fact that she does not fit the prototypical NPC makes her even more interesting.

[Stardusk]

Either suffer a fate worse than death and have someone's soul get destroyed, or have you, your boyfriend, your friend, or the queen's father sleep with an impregnating creepy girl with a child that could grow up to be a danger to the whole world for all we know... horrid choice to make.

also I don't understand why guys are so attracted to Morrigan. frankly, I think her personality stinks and she's really ugly (in vanilla game anyway).

She's mysterious, can be beautiful (modified of course), sexy voice, not afraid to speak her mind, does not really care what others may think of her, strong-willed. Oh, and the biggest probably of all is explained by her achievment, Witch Gone WILD.

You know the dialogue with Alistair? Beautiful like a storm....love her!

[DarkeWolf]

Well, unfortunately (and its really pissing me off, cause I've tried it 6 times now!) my game decides to go and crash when the epilogues start up. However, if you do a search on yahoo or google, you can shift thru the thousands of posts, and find references where ppl have complained, or commented that Morrigan is still pregnant, despite not having completed the ritual.

So.

But yeah, I do have to agree, that the vanilla morph they used for Mora wasn't all that. The makeup was horrible, and they did a poor job of shaping/sizing her eyes. And tbh, looks NOTHING like the RL model that they patterned (!?) her after. Tho the sacred ashes version is considerably better looking, IMO.

Myself, I think the only real screw up with Morrigan by BW was all the scenes and content that was CUT from the game regarding her. Which denies us a great deal of the stuff that the Actors know about her, that we don't. and doesnt give us the full insight as to why so many of them fell so in love with the ideal of her character.

Regardless... my opinion is that she'll be back in DA2. I've stated the reasons for that, on more than one occassion, so why do so yet again.

[brokenergy]

In my understanding, Mr.Gaider (the man who wrote Morrigan) didn't like how the DR became in the final design and would have added more to the scene. The comic and the restoration mod shows some of what Gaider originally intended for the game and I find it sad that it left a bitter taste in our mouths rather be sweeter experience in the end, but that is for DA2 or that Anime to finish off. Morrigan's character is well written and I'm struggling to find a place for her. As danscott said, read Taming of the Shrew to learn more about Gaider's influence into making Morrigan in the way she turned out to be.

Morrigan will return it is all written in the epilogue (she is the only character that doesn't die in the game) so to bring her back with an imported warden would be an intriguing experience (as they have a shared history together). As for her apperance, frankly I don't care what she looks like as looks don't determine the character's experience.

And Lehcar, I'm a chick and I like Morrigan just as much as the men do but for different reasons.

[Utotri]

I have to disagree with Morrigan being a major screw-up by BW.

Me too. It was just a hyperbole.

Read Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, and you will have a much better understanding of why Morrigan is written the way she is.

I am sorry, but you can't expect me to go read centuries old foreign poetry for the sake of understanding an argument you are too lazy to articulate. So either you explain what exactly you mean or I will not know what you mean. That said, it also does not raise my expectations if Morrigan is really based on a Shakespeare character. If there was ever a breeding ground for tired old stereotypes in anglophone culture it would be the writings of Shakespeare.

As has been discussed on other boards, her character is actually the most dynamic by far of all the characters in the game. The fact that she does not fit the prototypical NPC makes her even more interesting.

She is dynamic. I would rate Alistair as more dynamic, but Morrigan sure is up there. The problem is that I don't think her dynamic nature actually adds anything, because the mechanics are contradictory to me. The 'Morrigan experience' consists of two parts I think. There is her role in the storyline and there is her role as a developing character. The first part is fine and makes for interesting situations and choices, but her development is incomplete. Morrigan is shown friendship, maybe even love, and she says she values it, but she does not see anything wrong with leaving my Warden alone at the darkest hour because I decline a certain ridiculous request, even though she knows her help is much needed. It is completely contradictory to the progress that has been made. There are various excuses for Morrigan, but they all boil down to selfishness, immaturity and stupidity. She is quite like Sten in this way when you, as a female Warden, have the conversation about you being female. You show him the contradiction and Sten knows that he is wrong, but he still ascribes the mistake to the world instead of himself. With Morrigan I have shown how I am not selfish and not immature, yet when she gives me a proposal to possibly save my life she expects me to betray my being. If I do not, she does not understand and reacts with selfishness and immaturity, showing her lack of progress, because she should have known very well that I would never accept such an offer. Whe becomes angry and leaves, which is a ridiculous overreaction in such a scenario. Now with Sten it is all not a problem, because he is brainwashed to not let his disposition change but he does respect you for showing him wrong, but for Morrigan this is all different because the progress is clearly shown when you befriend her during the course of the game and it all comes crashing down when you snub her absurd request.

Someone (DarkeWolf I think) stated that much of Morrigan's lines were cut from the game. If this is the case then this explains why Morrigans seems to be missing certain pieces of the puzzle in the game that would have made her character more complete.

[CrapsterZ]

It does, when you do her companion quest you get a glimpse of how she has no idea at all how to relate to people, all she manages is a thank you.

Additionally, shapeshifting doesn't make her more empathic, if you talk to her in camp regarding shapeshifting, it's simply about taking on a shape by learning about the animal's form and movement with behaviour, which is easy. However, she is unable to shapeshift into other humans because being human her self, she can learn nothing from them physiologically speaking. In fact, her time in the Wilds would have caused her to be even more unempathic. Look at the only company she's had before joining you - Flemeth (who despite being a benevolent force in the game, is extremely amoral), the templars who came after her and Flemeth on occasion and the Chasind, most of whom are men who are used by Flemeth - she has seen or experienced little about compassion, love, friendship or any of the "light" side of human emotions, it's understandable how she is who she is. Yes, her character development is flawed, but I attribute that more to the fact that several key scenes and dialogue options were cut from the game that would've made everything clearer and more detailed.

Look up Asperger's Syndrome, it's very close to explaining Morrigan's mental state when it comes to relating to normal or "civilised" folk. She simply doesn't know how to abide by social norms, and doesn't understand compassion or relations with others (aside from the very skewed viewpoint Flemeth gave her).

[DarkeWolf]

Its actually a case of a LOT of stuff that was cut, or didnt make it into the game. I'm definitely not the first to point out that there are a LOT of files in the toolset that are marked with "TBD" (To Be Done) which don't link to anything. Meaning, that they never got included.
From the interview with Gaider on the Morrigan Comic, that a lot of the scene from the night before the final battler that he wanted included, didnt make it. They were never satisfied with how the scenes looked, and then ran out of time to make the release date. So they ended up leaving it on the cutting room floor.
Some of the other stuff probably for similar reasons, or perhaps MAYBE because of size limitations for the gamedeck systems? (completely guessing there...)
But yeah... unfortunately, there's a lot that went on that only the staff and actors really know about.

Terra Ex was able to recreate a small portion of some of the Morrigan Dialog. Tho as far as the scenes go, she didnt have anything to work with. Her mod is located here- http://www.dragonage...ile.php?id=1120

[Utotri]

It does, when you do her companion quest you get a glimpse of how she has no idea at all how to relate to people, all she manages is a thank you.

Additionally, shapeshifting doesn't make her more empathic, if you talk to her in camp regarding shapeshifting, it's simply about taking on a shape by learning about the animal's form and movement with behaviour, which is easy.

Animal behaviour includes various acts of empathy so Morrigan would have to be empathic to learn how to shapeshift correctly. Perhaps if there is a distinction between simply emulating the action patterns that result from certain behaviour and the behaviour itself we could say that Morrigans does the first so it involves no 'feeling' so to speak. We have no information on that I think, so I think we could both be wrong or right regarding this point.

Yes, her character development is flawed, but I attribute that more to the fact that several key scenes and dialogue options were cut from the game that would've made everything clearer and more detailed.

It certainly seems to be the case. BioWare will have a second chance with Morrigan if she reappears in DA2. I am quite sure that by then she will have had some personal progression. I hope that will satisfy me.

Look up Asperger's Syndrome, it's very close to explaining Morrigan's mental state when it comes to relating to normal or "civilised" folk. She simply doesn't know how to abide by social norms, and doesn't understand compassion or relations with others (aside from the very skewed viewpoint Flemeth gave her).

There is a case of Asperger's in my family so I'm sufficiently informed I'd say. I think the Asperger-like aspects are understated in Morrigan's personality, but they certainly are there. Her main personality trait would still be her survivalist attitude which can be linked to Asperger's, but really doesn't have to have anything to do with it and should be blamed on her upbringing first I feel.