This is an olllllllllllllllld post I found chilling out in the "Draft' section of Blogger. In May 2013 I once again went to twitter with my thoughts about Dragon Age 2. That time, Let's Player Joseph and I were retroactively discussing the supposed "shack" that Hawke lives in during Chapter 1. I'm not a fan. Our conversations ended up addressing something that I felt was a major issue with the Hawke character. Everything below the break is from May 21, 2013.
Conversation after the break
@photoleia well technically there was no major DLC aside from bonus items originally, but I think its supposed to be after the arishok.
— Joseph Harwick (@BrosefStalin42) May 19, 2013
@brosefstalin42 Fair enough.Well if they really didn't want me playing it now, then they shouldn't have put the quest thingy in my home.
— Photographer Leia (@photoleia) May 19, 2013
@photoleia I liked that shack. It encouraged me to adventure rather than stay in.
— Joseph Harwick (@BrosefStalin42) May 19, 2013
@brosefstalin42 Family is supposed to be destitute & that's a nice house for that. But I guess it's pretty poor w/ her family's fall & all
— Photographer Leia (@photoleia) May 20, 2013
@brosefstalin42 All things considered/comparably speaking. Mom thought she was leaving poverty behind in Kirkwall & the let down hit hard.
— Photographer Leia (@photoleia) May 20, 2013
@photoleia Well, remember the uncle pretty much gambled it all away - cheaper to live in a nice spot in Lowtown than the Hightown mansion.
— Joseph Harwick (@BrosefStalin42) May 20, 2013
@photoleia Gambling debts can be pretty bad. #WillWorkForMeadAndGamblingCredit
— Joseph Harwick (@BrosefStalin42) May 20, 2013
@brosefstalin42 Maybe that is what bothers me. I bought the fact that Dustown was run by pimps and cartels & that life there was miserable.
— Photographer Leia (@photoleia) May 20, 2013
@photoleia I wouldn't want to mess with Hawke.
— Joseph Harwick (@BrosefStalin42) May 20, 2013
@photoleia Which is why Lowtown didn't portray what you think it should have - nobody wants to mess with Hawke for fear of death.
— Joseph Harwick (@BrosefStalin42) May 20, 2013
@brosefstalin42 Exactly.Maybe if we had seen part of that year when she was taking names & being out of gum I would have bought it more.
— Photographer Leia (@photoleia) May 20, 2013
@brosefstalin42 I wouldn't have been completely sold, but I would have bought it more. That's one reason the Dwarf Commoner story worked.
— Photographer Leia (@photoleia) May 20, 2013
That problem lies in that fact that gamers are supposed to just believe that Hawke is a force to be reckoned with. On one hand that is kind of a given since this is a cRPG Hawke is the player character. It goes deeper than that though. Even before the game really gets off the ground, we find that Hawke is feared/respected in certain circles had (thanks to her fighting prowess) has made quite a name for herself. The game wants us to believe that this is due to the year she spent working off the entry cost to Kirkwall. Bioware, however, doesn't put a lot of effort into explaining how she actually achieved this renown or what she did in one year. She had to have done everything in order to have her name on everyone's lips. One of my major literary pet peeves is when authors describe a character as being a certain way, never provide any concrete evidence to back the trait up, and then expect the audience just to swallow it . You know, the she-is-smart-because-I-say-so mentality. I know the intro to DA2 really dragged on, but the game could have benefited from focusing a little more on Hawke's early days in Kirkwall.
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