Cerebus

Check the "Good Book": One bite is enough.

The problem still is: What is "heroism" and how can you check it in a computer game? Another example: If Luke goes into the prison block to rescue the princess, he could have different reasons for it: a) "Man, if I rescue the broad, I will be super rich!" b) "How cool is that? After 18 years of farm life I will finally score a date with a sentient creature." c) "I feel the urge to be a Jedi. I MUST do something to get Obi-Wan's attention. He will be so impressed." d) "Wow. Whenever I do good things, the Force gives me this tingly feeling. I'm hooked. Give me more, dammit! Here! Let me perform charity on you, random hobo! I'll give you five shiny credits for 10 minutes of your time. You like it?" e) "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." f) "Holey Moley! Gee, I just wanna help people." In the end, actions are as fluent as words. Like it. But how will you block an evil character from doing "good" deeds? "Quickly! While the dark side is not looking. Here's your missing daughter. My pleasure." Then again: He could act as nice as he wants but still be a sadistic bastard. So if he passes a certain alignment level, all his "good" deeds will be considered fake automatically? That might work. However, ... ... you'd have to be careful not to start an avalanche that would limit your choices to selecting the speed in which the slide-show passes. Yoda:"Light side- Dark side. WHATEVER! I'll do whuat I WUANT! Screw you guys, I'm going home."

But she is also cool, and delivers critical observations that make her more believable than Jedi-Master Christian Mo'R-Ality and his crew. So, in the end, I would rather follow her, if only because she's more entertaining. And this leads me back to the beginning of this thread...

Yeah, that's right. However, it makes it all the more shocking when she switches from Yoda-like mumbo-jumbo to a provocative pointed observation.

Yes, I agree with you. But Kreia definitely professes to know a lot about the Force, the Universe and Everything (if my memory doesn't fail me, that is). And since she goes to such length to do stuff to the Force and find a Jedi that cut himself off from it etc. etc. then I expect her to know quite a bit. And with knowledge come more questions. Once again, I totally agree with you. Nothing is better than a good mystery. As long as it prevails, the audience is interested. In case of Star Wars, the mystery is a soft, undefined thing in the background. There is the occasional vague explanation, but that's it. It is an impersonal energy, some kind of current running through the collective unconscious, whatever. Ask no questions, hear no lies. As long as it enables Luke to blow up the Death Star, Vader to choke some poor sod, Qui-Gonn Jin to run and jump like a bunny and Exile to use [Force persuade], I'm quite cool with it. The declorions in TPM were definitely a step in the wrong direction. However, they were a stupid idea, so I just try to forget about them and that's that. But now comes this fascinating old woman, claims that the Force is aware of itself and has a will of its own, that there are other entities alive in the Force, trying to gain control of it and us, and that there actually is a way, a better way, to live without it. She says that our morality is bound to the Force, as are our very thoughts. At the same time, there is thought outside of the Force. And now, I'm curious. Someone has started solving the Force's mysteries. Only problem is: If you start solving a mystery, you will end up doing it. And once it is solved, the magic's gone. Kreia's offered me a bite of the apple of Eden. And I've taken it. Now I want it all. And what I got didn't satisfy me.

(w00t) (w00t) (w00t) Good stuff!

Just so you don't get me wrong: I like good romance. I like Star Wars. But I also like disruptive, controversial literature. And the latter one, being more cunning and aware of itself than the former, will always be on top in a direct confrontation. Because it is a cynic, sarcastic bastard of an artform and will hold no punches. And since TSL puts them in the same cage together...

True. But only because Star Wars is founded on romantic ideals. If you accept that and immerse yourself in the fantasy, you don't want to hear anything about "declorions" or "force-spawned immaculate conceptions" etc. The Force is the Force, "and that one, strong in the Force he is, like his father before him", and there is the Light Side, and there is the Dark side, Good, Evil. Period. No more questions. BUT: If a Kreia comes along, and dares to be an interesting character, and dares to ask interesting questions that eat away the protective layer of the romantic bubble, hinting at a philosophical truth beyond the romantic illusions fed to us so far, then I want to know more. And the answers had better be good!

So it's all about making one's own decisions and stop believing in destiny? Hmmm. Not too innovative a point. An important revelation, perhaps, for people who still believe in horoscopes.... If it is meant to inspire people to take action and responsibility, though, I believe it is the wrong message, at the given time. Poor disillusioned old me, for one, could really do with a little sense of destiny right now. I think I learned the "disconnected from the Force" lesson so well that it gets harder and harder to take an interest in anything. The least you can expect for 40 Euros is the revelation of the hidden mechansims of life and its secret purpose And I still have trouble with the "F-word". It is too vague

Is that from the game? Reminds me of an old 'MAD' RotJ parody: "Search your feelings, Father! The good in your evil is stronger than the evil in your good." With other words: Rethoric that echoes more than it really means. It could be an interesting point, but only if the Force, the will behind it and the new options open to the "blind man" were properly explained. I'm really afraid, though, that good, satisfying answers to these questions are as likely to reveal themselves as the meaning of life itself.

Yeah, I heard lots of good things about Planescape. I tried playing it once, but the German dubbing really sucks! KOTOR 2 also offers the opportunity to choose between [Lie] and [Truth], but this option remains "ein Tropfen auf dem hei

Yeah, that is one of he points I keep forgetting myself. The reason for that is that the idea of a "forceless" being is kinda vague, especially because the Exile's rediscovery of the force is celebrated as a big event, even by Kreia. And considering the stuff he can do with it and Kreia's philosophy of making use of every tool available, I find it strange that she would refrain from using the ultimate means. The problem here, I guess, is that the Force itself is such a remarkably nondescript concept. What is it? A source of infinite Energy? A conscious entity? Can one use the former without being controlled by the latter, etc, etc. ? I find it strange that Kreia would let her "

True, the Exile is probably not meant to be a prototype

Heh. It took me so long to write my reply to the previous post that I couldn't read yours earlier. I see we came to the same conclusion.

Well. tragic conflicts are not a common commodity on the video game market. And I agree with you ( - if I understood you correctly, that is - ) that the fact that OE tried to address more complex views on morality in the game's story while at the same time filling it with stereotyped good/evil decisions was a little like offering grapes and water to Tantalus. A major problem with the "Grey" approach is the dual Good/Evil-meter: If Kreia is right, and all actions are only means to an end (of which one should have no illusions) then the action in question should not lead to "Light" or "Dark" points being credited to your moral account. Either your goals 'are' on the 'Light'/'Dark' side or they are not. It probably doesn't matter at all. Imagine Emperor Palpatine suddenly discovering that building shelters for homeless Ewoks makes the citizens of the Empire 1.5% less likely to join the rebels. Would he suddenly end up on the Light side just because he did the "right thing" a couple of hundred times? The same goes for the TSL main character: if you have to prevent 'drifting' to either 'side' by commiting a countervailing atrocity/ act of charity once in a while, then you are not the morally independent agent Kreia wants you to be. "F**k! I really don't care about anybody and I really want to keep the nice damage bonus that comes with Dark Mastery, but I also need to be nice to my party members so that I can get them to follow me blindly. Guess I will have to kill some Jawas later on as a penance for asking Atton about his feelings, even if only for completely selfish reasons." If that is not a case of true tragic conflict..... I guess the only sollution would be to offer an infinitely more complex set of possible answers: a) I want to help you b) I want to help you (but just because you've got a great body) c) [Lie] I want to help you (in truth planning to stay inactive) d) [Lie] I want to help you (in truth planning to harm the other) e) [Not caring at all but playing along just for the sake of argument] I want to help you. f) [being swept away by emotions at the moment but forgetting all about the promise later on] I want to help you and so on, and so on, and so on....

(Approaching Malachor V) Visas : "I think my eyes are getting better. Instead of a big grey blur, I see a big red blur." Exile: "There's nothing to see. I used to fight here, you know." Visas: "You're gonna die here, you know. Convenient." Exile: "Just stick close to Atton and Goto. I've taken care of everything." Visas: "Oh... great!"

But isn't it best when the first is achieved via the second? Or vice versa? I would also tend to agree with somebody else's post (sorry, I haven't come to terms with multi-quoting yet) that the role of video-games in relation to other media has changed in the past and is bound to change even more in the future. In the final analysis, I believe a good, intelligent RPG is indefinitely more difficult to write than a screenplay. To allow for radical changes of perspective and completely different behaviour while presenting a more or less constant storyline at the same time is a very courageous undertaking indeed. (I don't want to think about how much work was put into a game like Fallout 2, for example) It is possibly the highest challenge when it comes to plot construction. And shouldn't artists always strife for "higher grounds"?

Another time? Do you think OE will get to a more detailled presentation in Kotor 3?

[Kreia:] "Don't be afraid to disagree. Confrontation makes us stronger!" Yes, I see that you are right concerning Kreia's dialogue lines. I've played the game only one time and therefore have limited knowledge of her words - still waiting for the patch before I start a second "reading". There definitely were very impressive moments when she presented her theories and reminded me of Nietzsche, something along the lines of your paraphrase. And I agree, she only wants to get rid of the Exile's belief in "good" and "evil" in the christian sense and make certain he does not delude himself about the things he does. Like I said, Kreia was the single most impressive element in TSL for me - a permanent shiver down my spine and a constant slap in the face of conventional Star Wars romanticism (I'm really curious whether OE will dare to continue this line of presentation in Kotor 3, challenging SW on the SW-stage itself). My argument was aiming more in the direction of the player's possible reactions to her world view, though. I got the impression that you couldn't really play the game in "grey" mode, especially when it comes to choosing dialogue. But I may be mistaken here, too. Perhaps the problem is that I somehow forced myself into the classic morality system, playing a goody-two-shoes Jedi and not giving the game the chance to develop its modernist ideas. I'm quite sure, however, that the ending and its options did not satisfy me. I agree that Kreia did not turn into a mindless killing machine all of a sudden. But she still returns to her Darth identity and hangs around her old Sith playground. I was hoping she would stay an independent agent, the true alternative to Dark Side and Light Side she was during the main phase of the game. But perhaps I was a victim of my own romanticism yet again in this case, dissatisfied that she didn't provide me with all the answers and left the Exile alone with the burden of choosing his own path after the old belief systems have fallen apart. Perhaps, the true problem I had with the game was that I still expected Star Wars to somehow 'kiss it all better', offering a distinguishable set of morals in a little illusionary world (while being delighted by the games more disruptive intellectual aspects at the same time) . All I can say for the moment is that it really was an interesting mixture, at least up to a certain point, and that I look forward to taking a second look at it. Maybe now that I got the hero-role out of my system with the first game, I can concentrate on its "grey" side and find it satisfactory after all. I still suspect, however, that the game's romantic aspects and its intellectual innovations will prove an instable combination in the long run - if not in terms of storyline, then at least when it comes to making money. For I suspect that the larger part of the target audience does not want to be confronted with the erosion of romantic ideals.

I, for one, thought that Kreia was the most impressive character in the whole game - perhaps the only thing that makes it truly great in the end, despite its obvious flaws. The problem is that she challenges the concept of morals - a challenge that is a little too powerful for the fabric of the Star Wars universe, perhaps. Of course, she is not the first to do it: Writers like Bernard Shaw and Nietzsche are the pioneers of this line of thought. However, both of them were fiercely set against romance (in the sense of "heroic tale"). And since Star Wars is perhaps THE romantic tale of our time, the attempt to mix it with Shavian anti-romanticism is risky indeed. For example: Her argument in the bum affair is not really about the bum himself - she doesn't care about anyone except the Exile. She just tries to lead him away from Jedi (christian) morality. For her, the coming of the "Superman" is all that matters. And the "Superman" - in the Shavian/Nietzsche sense - must act without being constrained by conventional rules of conduct. A point she should have considered, though, is that the Exile, being the strongest person around, could still solve everybodies problems - not out of charity, but because he would become even stronger by taking away the challenges presented to other people. In this sense, he would help himself by stealing other people's resources - and this, Kreia should approve of! The game, however, doesn't truly allow for such a solution. We are forced to be either charitable or passive. The spectrum of possible actions does not go beyond romanticism, the binary ideal of beneficient Knight and cruel oppressor. In the end, the whole experiment of mixing classic Star Wars romanticism with "modernist" anti-moralicism clearly fails: We want answers to the very interesting philosophical questions posed during the game, but none are given. Instead, Kreia, the powerful third party beyond Jedi-Morality and Sith-Cruelty, loses her identity and just becomes another Dark Lord and end-level boss. That, for me, was the biggest disappointment, far beyond the nonexistence of some robot planet. But then again, the stakes were a little to high to expect to win.

OH COME ON! You cannot let the Mynoc go to prom night alone! Give the little sucker a chance: I was told they are very good kissers! For god's sake, even the Pit of Sarlac managed to get a date. Don't you have any lonely friends you could set the Mynoc up with?

You mean compared to "meaningful"

(If I were you, I would always go for the Hutt. Perfect companions for cold winter nights.)

Well, actually I should be working on my diploma thesis right now.