Is it really that bad to insist that Keldorn stays in the party?
Dharius
Member Posts: 665
I used to think that this was a bad thing as you're keeping him from his family and he is a bit of a old codger. But, then again, you may really need a paladin (and there aren't any other choices) to protect countless innocents from Jon Irenicus, and (in TOB) the Five and perhaps the return of Bhaal.
So I'm not sure it's so bad after all. What do you think?
PS Similarly for Jan, Nalia and Mazzy - arguably they should be with their families too...but you don't hear so much about that. Anomen is probably better off without his though.
So I'm not sure it's so bad after all. What do you think?
PS Similarly for Jan, Nalia and Mazzy - arguably they should be with their families too...but you don't hear so much about that. Anomen is probably better off without his though.
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Comments
jan poses no problem as his family is perfectly able to take care of his beloved turnips. if you do his quest
living an adventure like the one at your side is perfectly suited to him.
i suspect that very few of nalia's family is left
mazzi is a warrior and an adventurer, if not with you she will probably lead a group of fighters/adventurers by herself, no difference.
about keldorn i feel guilty every time, but in the end is his choice and the choice is done according to the way he is, he is born to be a hero and a pally, not a good husband, and this is not your own fault.
his family problems are born way before you meet him and probably also if you prefer to leave him with the family there will be only a temporary relief for his pour wife.
i hope only that you chose the way that leave his pour wife out of prison, she don't deserve to pay with the life the fact that he is an hero but a really bad husband.
or at least we can "RP" that as we want to have him in the party
Also I usually head canon that after spending a few months with me, he heads back to his wife and spends a lifetime being happy with her.
And eventually dies heroically defending a mountain pass.
When it comes to Charname, he/she could insist on having Keldorn in the party because he/she is needy, or really believes that an inquisitor can make a diference, because he/she knows that in the end its the paladin's choice and no one else's so you shouldnt feel guilty because you believe that ,or even because you really dont give a damn about him or his family so you manipulate keldorn into staying with you.
When it comes to keldorn, lets be honest here: he hasnt known charname for long and , even if he did , even if it were Torm himself inviting him to the party ,it would still be Keldorn's choice and no one else's. That applies to any of us, our choices may be made based on several reasons, but its still our choice.
To make it short, yes. It could be a selfish act to have keldorn stay with you, and it may lie on the player's conscience, but our Lord Firecam is no pawn .
To a certain extent, Firecam is very much a pawn, and we the chessmaster. We can send him on an adventure or we can send him home to his family, but he doesn't truly have a say in the matter. Not the same way that we do.
I don't think Keldorn would stay at home for more than a week, regardless of what charname does.
The situation we are shown is not normal. He is based in Athkatla, yet his children hardly know him and he hasn't been home for weeks. And that's ongoing and has been the same for years.
When you meet him in the sewers, he's practically under the bloody floor of his house yet when you turn up with him, it's as if he's been deployed overseas for months.
Why hasn't he been walking for the five minutes it takes to go home at the end of the day?
Why does he essentially live at the RH building?
Take him or leave him, it's up to you. But I wouldn't feel bad about believing what you have seen and heard for yourself about his domestic arrangements.
Plus it's so weird he asks charname, a 21yo virtual stranger, what to do about his wife playing away.
Still, you make a good point, we've been understating how much it says about him that he doesn't seem to visit at all, for such extended periods of time, even while living so near to his family.
Just why doesn't he want to go home?
You know, want. Not some overblown nonsense about duty keeping him away.
Like saying Hi to the children, fancying a quick shag with the missus, (got to have done it a couple of times...or have they.....are they his???...........is the RH simply a cover for the Athkatlan YMCA..............I think we should be told...............)
Like that doesn't exactly require an advanced understanding of the family unit or anything.
Workaholics don't usually finish their shift and then check into a hotel just down the street from their family, not even thinking to visit for extended periods of time.
When that all falls apart I want to be able to say I had no part in it.
And I agree that Keldorn has been oblivious to his family problems. But once they are pointed out, as much as he thinks he would like to retire to be with his wife, he still places his duty above any personal considerations. He knows the PC is a Bhaalspawn, one who is trying to walk the path of right, and he feels it is his duty to see that happen. He thinks his wife understands that his duty must come before his family. (I have my doubts. Hard to continue to support someone who is never there for you.)
I imagine the Order is no better than the PC: you want to retire? Great--you totally deserve it--but we really need you to do X first...
Joking aside, tough choices like these do make the game more interesting. Rather than discuss what is "objectively" good or bad, I rather see this as a good opportunity to define your character. What does 'charname' think is right or wrong in this case? It could go either way.
I mean. I'm a big fan of Paladins, but that is basically a Paladin class feature
first of all we know that he is a follower of torn, so duty is everything for him, probably he must weight the duty towards the RH against the one towards the family. feelings, his own ones or other people ones, come after and must not interfere with duties.
second he is quite rigid in his way of thinking, the episode with viky if both are in the party shows us this side of his way of thinking: drow=evil, evil=killkillkill. even if she is an outcast in a hostile environment, that ask you help, proves you to be trusty and loyal, even if in the end she can change her alignment and point of view about life.
3rd he is not so sensible about his family and self centered, the fact that he wants to send her wife in prison cause she was not up to her duty instead of humbly asking her to forgive him for how bad he was as husband shows it. your influence can, if you choose, change him and make him willing to change his attitude towards the family, but we have no clue of how this changing his mind is only temporary, if it would really have been a real change he would not ask you about it, he would have know by himself where is his place. he would have told you:"sorry charname now i have to go, my real duty is my family" and live. and he would certainly not agreed to follow you with just a single day with the family.
don't get me wrong, i like keldorn and to read his epilogue the first time gave much more emotion than it should happen for a pixel toon in a pc game. he is great, he is a real hero, but his doom is that he is so single minded. torn, the RH and the pally duty is almost everything for him, he can for sometime realize that thee is also other in the life and that other can be as important, but that is his nature.
and this is the wonderful thing, because in the game people can change, charname and 2 npc can change alignment, and anomen can change his attitude towards life. so why keldorn should not be able to change?
@ThacoBell chose to RP that he does, @UnderstandMouseMagic, i and others RP that he does not. our decision is not about if to keep him with us or let him go, is much deeper. our decision is about how his inner nature is. and according with our RP decision we make choices.
if we RP that he really changed we free him from his duty, and he will never more available (in soa) for us.
if we decide that there is not a permanent deep change in his attitude towards life and priority of duties we can still have him with us.
in the case the fact that he accept to follow us instead of telling:"no thanx, now i realized that my place is elsewhere" is a clue that he would anyway very soon prioritize again his pally duties towards his family ones.
the game reacts perfectly to our decision about to RP a keldorn's inner nature permanent change or only a superficial temporarily one
"first of all we know that he is a follower of torn, so duty is everything for him, probably he must weight the duty towards the RH against the one towards the family. feelings, his own ones or other people ones, come after and must not interfere with duties. "
But raising a fmaily is also a duty. So matter what, Keldorn is abandoning a duty. But look a tit this way. Keldorn is well past retirement age, the order does not press him into service. He can legitimately retire after a lifetime of duty to Tyr, and take up a new duty to his family. There is zero chanve Tyr would disapprove of this.
"second he is quite rigid in his way of thinking, the episode with viky if both are in the party shows us this side of his way of thinking: drow=evil, evil=killkillkill. even if she is an outcast in a hostile environment, that ask you help, proves you to be trusty and loyal, even if in the end she can change her alignment and point of view about life."
Not quite true. He is hostile to Viconia, but this seems limited to the Drow. He gets along really well with Korgan. He is certainly pragmatic enough to not go murder crazy based solely on alignment.
"3rd he is not so sensible about his family and self centered, the fact that he wants to send her wife in prison cause she was not up to her duty instead of humbly asking her to forgive him for how bad he was as husband shows it."
His whole life, he has been one of those paladins that holds to "law" slightly more than "good". You see this exemplified when his reaction is to follow the law and report his wife, condemning her to prison. But its not just a jump in and "this is how it has to be." Look at his dialogue, he is tormented by this. He looks to anyone nearby, asking for an alternative. He knows this isn't right, and even though his first instinct is to lawfully imprison her, his sense of good is holding that in check. Its doesn't even matter that charname is the one to suggest another resolution, Keldorn was despereately looking for an alternative, I bet even if Viconia had made the suggestion, he would have gone along with it.
He will not abandon his family a second time, and destroying it to follow the letter of the law is not "good". Reconciling him with his family, only to take him away immediately is an act of evil.
We only assume that Keldorn's family will be happier if he stays at home, and we assume that Keldorn will stay with the party if we ask him to (if our rep falls too low, if he fights with Viconia/Edwin or others, or if he dies by some misfortune, then this won't happen) until the end, but neither of these outcomes are guaranteed.
So I'm beginning to think that this is a dilemma situation, like whether to leave Imoen in Spellhold once we find her, like many others in the game, that we interpret how we want at the time. Maybe
To Lucasta, Going to the Wars
Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee (Dear) so much,
Lov’d I not Honour more.
Richard Lovelace.
This has always been one of my favourite poems and cuts to the heart of what the Keldorn quest is about.
But the problem with the quest in game, for me, is that I'm far too literal.
When I see Keldorn hanging around in Athkatla, well he's not gone to war.
Simply, his excuse doesn't wash.
Had they placed him away, at war, it would change my perspective somewhat.
But what we are shown, well I just don't see him settling down with the family because he hasn't had an excuse why he couldn't have combined the two previously, or at least from when we meet him.
It's a very good quest and as @Dharius and @gorgonzola have pointed out, it's not straightforward.
I think the parrellel of Keldorn is not with some historic Knight/Paladin, but rather a high flying company exec. who sacrifices family for business then wonders why it's all gone wrong.
But he always had a choice, it was in his control. The RH is not the standing army.
There's something nasty with the way he reacts to the infidelity, the immediate denial that his wife has a right to a life of her own which he has previously chosen to ignore.
but don't open the spoiler if you don't like horrible practical jokes
and when we went to the RH building where he was? in that room with that young charming esquire. was with the esquire that he was doing his "duty"...
the whole thing is really so simple, love is blind, camaraderie make people close and what once was a pleasant "duty" towards his wife had sadly become an far from pleasant duty.
no other reason can explain why he never pay visit to his own home and family, that is surely not so distant from the temple district.
joke aside there is a good reason for me to take him with me, in a whole life of fighting he was able to reach a really low level, in few weeks with me he reaches level cap.
oooops, also this is a joke, sorry