Another plothole x2 spoilers
Frost
Member Posts: 28
Throughout the game there were multiple opportunities in which the player character finds out that Herphernaan is actually evil. There was that one time when we scry him from a bowl in the lich dwarf dungeon, There was the other time when we discover him talking to Belhifet while infiltrating the castle to poison the food supply. There was also that other time where we discovered the cabal of necromancers under the castle, and found the physical evidence of Herphernaan's treachery for the Rashemi witch standing outside to convince her to leave his cause.
We know that Caelar has some righteous cause despite her hidden agenda and by the end of the game we know that she would have reacted to this information in some way if only because of how she rushed into hell to get vengeance on Herphernaan after he betrays her. Some might argue that she would purposely ignore it because her agenda was that she wanted to rescue her uncle however she probably would have to take this information into account and be forced to do something regardless simply because she has that angel or something following her around who was clearly also there at the parley.
However we are never able to capitalize on this information during the parley. There was only an option where you mention the necromancers but it was quickly glossed over. Seeing as how we know that Herphernaan was manipulating Caelar we should have been able to turn Caelar against Herphernaan at the parley because she truly thought he was helping her out and her later reactions lead me to believe that she would have given up had she found out that she was being manipulated by a devil. I mean we even have physical evidence against him. Ie. the notes he notes that he wrote that you find near the fugue portal.
When the betrayal happens Caelar was angry enough at him to chase him into hell then to throw herself at him then getting 1 shot by Belhifet in one of the final battle ending sequences. Because this sequence exists it proves that she ran into the portal as much for vengeance on Herphernaan as much as because she wanted to rescue her uncle. At the very least, we should have been able to reveal this information earlier which would have kept Herphernaan from surprising everyone during his betrayal of Caelar in the basement thus preventing the opening of the portal.
The Other plot hole is that we are given the option to defeat the entire dragonspear castle before the parley. Doing this actually has no bearing on the story at all. Like why are we given the option to do so if we can't even bring up the fact that we already defeated Caelar's army at the parley. And then have her entire army respawn during the siege. Defeating her forces beforehand should like do something to impact the plot.
We know that Caelar has some righteous cause despite her hidden agenda and by the end of the game we know that she would have reacted to this information in some way if only because of how she rushed into hell to get vengeance on Herphernaan after he betrays her. Some might argue that she would purposely ignore it because her agenda was that she wanted to rescue her uncle however she probably would have to take this information into account and be forced to do something regardless simply because she has that angel or something following her around who was clearly also there at the parley.
However we are never able to capitalize on this information during the parley. There was only an option where you mention the necromancers but it was quickly glossed over. Seeing as how we know that Herphernaan was manipulating Caelar we should have been able to turn Caelar against Herphernaan at the parley because she truly thought he was helping her out and her later reactions lead me to believe that she would have given up had she found out that she was being manipulated by a devil. I mean we even have physical evidence against him. Ie. the notes he notes that he wrote that you find near the fugue portal.
When the betrayal happens Caelar was angry enough at him to chase him into hell then to throw herself at him then getting 1 shot by Belhifet in one of the final battle ending sequences. Because this sequence exists it proves that she ran into the portal as much for vengeance on Herphernaan as much as because she wanted to rescue her uncle. At the very least, we should have been able to reveal this information earlier which would have kept Herphernaan from surprising everyone during his betrayal of Caelar in the basement thus preventing the opening of the portal.
The Other plot hole is that we are given the option to defeat the entire dragonspear castle before the parley. Doing this actually has no bearing on the story at all. Like why are we given the option to do so if we can't even bring up the fact that we already defeated Caelar's army at the parley. And then have her entire army respawn during the siege. Defeating her forces beforehand should like do something to impact the plot.
Post edited by Frost on
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Comments
Yes I realize the title of your post identifies that it contains spoilers. We still expect judicious use of spoiler tags.
Plot Hole 1: Hephernan - DO NOT read this if you have NOT finished the game.
My counter argument to you is two fold:
1) Why would Caelar believe us over her trusted Advisor who has done nothing to her? If you walked into a room with a dead body and your best friend in the world holding a knife would your first reaction be to say:
* YOU KILLED HER! WHAT THE HELL?!?!!?!
Or would it be
* What happened? Why is she dead?
We give the people we know best room to explain inconsistencies in their behavior and as human beings we prefer to allow ourselves to be right over facing a truth staring us in the face. How many stories have we all seen, read and been exposed to of people believing a bald faced lie when staring straight at the truth for one of a multitude of bad reasons?
2) Why does it matter? You heard Hephernan in Hell, the only person Caelar cares about is Aun. She commuted the entirety of her Crusade to the sword and the fiends of hell simply to save a single man. She lied to an army of thousands, put communities to the torch, started a war, committed unknown atrrocities, because she wanted to save her uncle...and nothing more than that.
It is clearly stated that Caelar's only care was to save Aun. Why would we expect that a woman that focused on a single goal would care AT ALL about Hephernan's good or evil. After all, it's made clear that Caelar knew going into it that the Dragonspear Dead COULD NOT BE SAVED and did what she did anyway.
The only reason she has an objection to Hephernaan in the portal opening scene is because she finally sees the additional danger beyond her plan...that if the portal stays open it would mean another Dragonspear war. She isn't going after Hephernaan to stop him, she's going after Hephernaan to make sure her plan can still be accomplished.
Why, then, do we not get the chance to persuade Caelar to turn on Hephernaan? Because there's no reason for her to ever do so. She NEVER intended to do the "right" thing. She is not good, blinded by the machinations of a hidden evil. She is the ultimate definition of ends justifying the means falling under a much broader much MORE evil plan than even she felt she was a part of.
That still would not change the fact that if Caelar Argent felt that Hephernaan was the only man to get Aun out of Hell, she'd have willingly gone along with any plan he came up with...and she did...all the way to the end.
Plot hole 2: Dragonspear Castle
Caelar has an ARMY. Listen to the commanders at the ASC Tent when they talk about their army sizes. Daggerford brought 50 men, Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep brought hundreds. All told there are at LEAST a thousand to a couple thousand Allied Troops. That leaves Caelar's army at AT LEAST that many troops...and there are a few dialogs were you get the feeling that Caelar's army well outmatches that of the Allied army.
So what is the problem? The problem is we can't put 1000 or 5000 or 10000 actors on the screen all at one time. We can't design / develop the zone large enough and put that many mobile sprites on the screen all at once. The engine isn't built for that and speaking of chaotic, that would simply make the game untenable.
So what you have in Dragonspear is "representative" of the army, just as what's in the Allied Siege Camp is representative of that army as well.
Kill the 30 people in Dragonspear castle's exterior at that point and they shift 30 more up from the underground, the warrens or the castle itself.
For all intents and purposes technology prevents us from scaling the battles as the story is intended to play out.
Do note, however, that for any of the named "Uniques" in either the Boarskyr Bridge scene or the Dragonspear Castle scene in chapter 10: If you do end up killing them, they DO NOT appear in later scenes where they're supposed to be...identifying that while killing "random dude 01" simply gets you no where, killing a named commander does indeed make that named commander disappear from the game.
Secondly even though saving her uncle was her primary agenda, there was still one outcome where she doesn't even mention the uncle and throws herself at Herphernaan in a blind rage and getting killed by Belhifet during a cutscene. So the way things played out she could have gone in there for vengeance only.
She basically only had one line If you go down that route where she basically says "Pay the price for your treachery Herphernaan!" then she dies. No mention of the uncle by Caelar anywhere. Herphernaan mentions it but Caelar completely ignores the uncle and just tries to kill Herphernaan.
It wasn't said that she knew that there was no chance, but rather that she was there primarily for her uncle and that if it were possible she would save the others as well. Either way Caelar did not seem like the type of person who would have continued on her quest without consideration to the fact that she was being manipulated. She also clearly did not like being manipulated to the point where she would throw herself at a high level devil and die instantly. Thus I find it highly unlikely that she would turn the other way when presented with solid evidence of his betrayal. Or if she did at least she should not act surprised when he betrays her in the basement
Yes she had an army that was represented by the various groups of people around the castle. However you basically take out most of them during the infiltration and subsequent escape of the supply depot when you cause them to all go hostile. Of course You can take out the ones inside the castle walls if you choose to do so before the parley. At the very least it should have resulted in dialogue options along with gameplay impact on her troops being severely weakened during the siege of the camp. Or if we go more drastic with it she should have fled directly to the castle basement, skipping the siege entirely because you had already broke her army depending on how much you had cleared out ahead of time.
If anything it should have earned you some praise by the commanding officers for your initiative and weakening her troops even further.
However as I said your actions around castle dragonspear results in no reactions or gameplay consequences despite the fact that there should have been some.