To kill Harmke or not?

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Hey guys!

 

So... This is the very last decision I'm struggling with for my current character's background (Yes, I make a new one for each character). Basically, I'm torn between killing Harmke in a roleplay sense because it makes sense for my character to want to help the Devil of Caroc, and because I, personally, consider the ultimate fate for her if you don't do that to be REALLY depressing, and sparing him (While coming up with some reasoning why in-character) for one of the best pieces of armor in the game. I'm probably one of the only people who genuinely thinks about this THAT hard, but I'm hoping to get a good discussion going about the rationale behind either choice. 

 

Notably, the character I'm playing is NOT a murderhobo - They're a Cipher/Rogue who prefers a subtler touch to resolving most conflicts - but they would have felt sympathy for the Devil of Caroc since they have a soft spot for families because of their own unpleasant upbringing. 

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

Let me leave my mark here before this gets moved :D. 

[InsaneCommander]

If you want the armor, spare him. It is not like anyone will constantly remind you of what happened. And then pretend they found the breastplate in the ocean.

[Tick]

I mean, it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice if you could get both of the things you want, but couldn't you console command his armor and just kill him?

[InsaneCommander]

I killed him even with my benevolent character. He deserved it.

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

I killed him even with my benevolent character. He deserved it.

 

Honestly, he does. 

 

One of the main reasons I want to redo the flavor text for the DoC BP is because I genuinely hate the implications that

 

A: Sparing him just leads her to kill a bunch of people indiscriminately. 

 

B: This doesn't bring her any sort of satisfaction, so she just eventually rusts to a stop (Somehow, despite the metal she's made of not being capable of rusting) and gets torn apart by angry villagers while screaming internally. 

 

Admittedly I could get that by just killing him and /not/ getting the Breastplate, but that's what mods are for. At some point, I'll be working on one that'll allow me to get it by killing him, too. 

[uuuhhii]

always use the poe1 save killed harmke

so never even seen that armor in deadfire

[InsaneCommander]

B: This doesn't bring her any sort of satisfaction, so she just eventually rusts to a stop (Somehow, despite the metal she's made of not being capable of rusting) and gets torn apart by angry villagers while screaming internally.

 

Galvino said she needed some form of maintenance that she couldn't do by herself.

[Fredward]

I like killing him because I love that this isn't your mamma's redemption arc, yay forgiveness is good etc meta-narrative. The DoC is the kind of person who, partly because of who she is and partly because of what she had been made into, retreads the same ground, development as a mobius strip. Her brand of personhood and how it expresses itself is incompatible with basically any society anywhere so she's always out of whack and needing to reconcile herself with the monstrosity people (rightly, with the penchant for murder and all) tell her she is. That will never change and I like that it's not the writer not being able to write an evolution for her but rather choosing to create a character in this way, which you can tell by her endings. If you keep her from killing Harmke that drive expresses itself in another way, if she does she seems to realize her own doomed existence and chooses and ending off the beaten path.

 

So she kills Harmke in my headcanon but I overwrite it with some bitterness because that is a veeery good breastplate.

 

Also, does anyone know if the person who wrote the DoC also wrote Verse?

[InsaneCommander]

I like killing him because I love that this isn't your mamma's redemption arc, yay forgiveness is good etc meta-narrative. The DoC is the kind of person who, partly because of who she is and partly because of what she had been made into, retreads the same ground, development as a mobius strip. Her brand of personhood and how it expresses itself is incompatible with basically any society anywhere so she's always out of whack and needing to reconcile herself with the monstrosity people (rightly, with the penchant for murder and all) tell her she is. That will never change and I like that it's not the writer not being able to write an evolution for her but rather choosing to create a character in this way, which you can tell by her endings. If you keep her from killing Harmke that drive expresses itself in another way, if she does she seems to realize her own doomed existence and chooses and ending off the beaten path.

 

So she kills Harmke in my headcanon but I overwrite it with some bitterness because that is a veeery good breastplate.

 

Also, does anyone know if the person who wrote the DoC also wrote Verse?

 

I agree. But I wouldn't mind if there was a way to help her have a better ending. Maybe something difficult involving the Grieving Mother, requiring the mc being a Cypher or giving Galvino a better laboratory.

 

Edit: the mc is always a Watcher! What I thought is that maybe they should also be a cypher. Changing the Devil's memory or even trying to give her a normal body would be options, but failure would bring terrible consequences, giving her an even worse ending.

Edited September 24, 2018 by InsaneCommander