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Skipping BG2 Romances

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  • winterswinters Member Posts: 252
    jacobtan said:

    @winters‌

    Earlier on, you said Dorn "undevelops". What do you mean by that? is it because he's needy, the romance dies effectively (no more exploration into the relationship), the romance degenerates into some lewd pseudo-porn-fanfic, or something else? My friend also complained about the romance and now simply chunks Dorn when he first meets him, but I didn't find out why Dorn's annoying.

    Uh, I'll try to explain it but it obviously will be a bit spoilery.

    I still can't compare him to other EE npcs apart from (partially) Hexxat, but in BGEE and the first half of BG2EE the player has at least some initative when talking with him, unlike most others, who just dump stuff at you. You are allowed to taunt him, to play word games (and he can be really well-spoken PLUS this voice), to introduce new stuff in dialogues (no matter how disturbing - this whole "did you just compare me to your father?!" thing, awesome!), even the unfortunate event with him attacking a party member you choose as the one talking about Dorn behind his back. Or Dorn giving a random comment about him "being a fool for love" and the whole awkward thing with his relationship with his previous evil team - I'd say that the best rule for every story works here perfectly, meaning - show, don't tell. It's getting to know someone not through what he wants you to learn, but by gathering together all those random, small bits and pieces that create a person.
    And then at some point almost all interaction with Dorn gets reduced to "yay, I finally have someone even more powerful than I am to kill and destroy things with" and not much more. The problem is also that ToB part of his quest and dialogue is awfully bugged and it destroys immersion completely.

    Oh, one more thing I like - this romance is absolutely un-touchy-feely, but it feels sincere, no matter NE alignment. NE is the ultimate egoist and Dorn simply starts to treat charname as obvious part of his world, he applies to her/him all that he applies to himself - we want power, we want to survive, we will take our revenge. No doubts here, no suspicion, no matter his previous obsession and paranoia and everyone's favourite Phaere (but this part could have been written even better IMO). See, character development. Also, the relationship doesn't end on having sex as some kind of great finale. It's obviously present but it simply happens (a.whole.lot) and I liked how this part was written, a lot - heat of the battle, blood boiling, stuff. I simply regret that it all gets watered down with time, maybe the author ran out of ideas? Pity.

    Bear in mind that I wrote this all from memory and I saw all the dialogue just once, so it's obviously imprecise!

    jacobtan
  • jacobtanjacobtan Member Posts: 655
    @winters‌

    Thanks! And no, I don't eat people up for imprecision, even if it might look like it!

    From the way it appears, the romance feels unfinished. Probably ran out of time, ideas, or both. He's not someone I'd pick, since I only play good-neutral parties and his personality seems somewhat flat. But as a powergamey type of character, he's still fantastic.
  • winterswinters Member Posts: 252
    edited April 2014
    @jacobtan , I eat people up for imprecision. Sometimes.

    Anyway, that's exactly what seems to be the problem - he doesn't start with flat personality, he acquires it in time :/ I hope it's not my overly snarky, pseudo-intellectual charname's fault, ahaha. I usually play more-or-less neutral parties and I went in more E direction because of him, that's what I call high Charisma. This is why I can't get over this fascination simply dying with no explosions in the background. Not literal explosions, obviously, there was enough of those. I simply hate wasted, brilliant opportunities and I consider Dorn exactly this.
    jackjack
  • CoutelierCoutelier Member Posts: 1,282
    Although I don't really bother with romances that often, I have been playing the game for thirteen years so I've done them all at least a couple of times and done some other weird experiements and things just for fun or to give me an excuse to play again.

    So, I have on occasion tried to create a PC with a particular romance in mind; basically tried to imagine what that NPC's ideal man or woman would be like. Aerie for example, I saw the rather dull and obvious claim once that she would prefer fighter-types because she wants to be protected... I'm not sure that's true. I think she knows she needs her help, but ultimately hopes to become strong in her own right, and big muscular guys might actually just be threatening to her because of her past with the slavers (apart from Minsc, obviously). No, I think what she looks for is, not a gnome necessarily, although a little bit of quirkiness and eccentricity wouldn't be amiss, but basically she wants the sensitive intellectual type... I picture Daniel Jackson from Stargate as being exactly the kind of person she would fall for.

    Jaheira I think on the one hand wants to mother someone, like, well, Khalid. But possibly I think she would be equally impressed by a man who's tough and decisive and takes charge.
  • winterswinters Member Posts: 252
    edited April 2014
    It seems to be the best topic for this - From Jaheira to Liara: A Brief Survey of BioWare Romances.
    Elrandir
  • TwaniTwani Member Posts: 640
    Huh. A pretty good read. I could take both sides of it, though I wished the article had actually looked at Bioware's latest romances- specifically, the ones in the SWtOR MMO. There have been interesting things done in them, both good and bad.

    Interesting things involve being able to cheat on your lover and have them react to it horribly, opportunities to have one night stands and flings, have a slow building relationship in the style of BG2 or a fast immediate one more like Liara from ME1, being fantastically betrayed by your boyfriend and possibly husband, and, perhaps most importantly, never being able to say 'no, let's break up' after the relationship gets started. Yeah. That last one.
    Elrandir
  • WebShamanWebShaman Member Posts: 490
    Magic is a b1tch, isn't it? ;)
  • alkahestalkahest Member Posts: 5
    jacobtan said:

    Just wondering - if Anomen's voice is turned off, and his portrait changed to something more appealing, would he get all the hate he's getting now? :/

    I tried that once. Only good enough for me from not kicking him out from the party, but not enough for romancing with him.








  • FreyaFreya Member Posts: 28
    I just skipped all of them because I didn't know the game was even going to have them to be honest, for both genders.

    I just assumed it was going to be like BG1 and there wasn't going to be anything like that.. so yup haha. =-)
    jackjack
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