Pillars of Eternity - sociopolitical fiction held back by hero powerfantasy framework?

[Wormerine]

Hi folks, long time no see.

During the Christmas break I watched "Foundation" on Apple TV+, and while I had mixed feelings about the show there were couple interesting enough threads for me to start digging about stories it was based on. Aside from learning how poor of an adaptiation the show was, I came across the concept of "Sociopolitical fiction":

Which made me think about Pillars of Eternity, which focus on politics, social structures, religion and it's impact on populace make me think that at the heart Pillars of Eternity tries to be Sociopolitical Fiction. In both games, the most player can do is tip scales in favour of one of local economical and political structures.

Personally, In PoE1&2 the ususal hero heroics always rang fales to me - gaining power and becoming legendary hero capable of slaughtering endless masses of enemies, felt like "because it is a game" feature, rather than part of the narrative and themes. Especially in PoE2, where the games tries hard to elevate the player as a dragon slayer, herald of Berath, a legendary hero everyone relies on help - it feels hollow, as in the narratively we seem powerless to do anything about the ongoing conflicts.

It seems to me that PoE1&2 are more interested in its nations and ideologies, than our adventures. They seem to me like Sociopolitical Structures, stuck using hero's journey tropes they inherited from Baldur's Gate series. Would you agree?

If so, do you see a solution? In unlikely case PoE3 were created, do you think it is possible to avoid this inherent conflict? Or would the series either need to change their narrative focus, to better support a group of adventurers gameplay, or would the gameplay need to take some drastic changes to better reflect game's narrative interests?

[thelee]

it's very possible for there to be a hero's adventure inside a sociopolitical narrative, but you have to change what that hero's adventure is or your adversary is. 

i think a common criticism of the story in deadfire is that the connection between the power struggles and eothas is kind of weak (fixed a bit with the 5.0 burning book woedica dialogues) while at the same time you don't get as much of the hero's fantasy because the ultimate ending is kind of fixed.

i can see some ways out if i just spit-ball. as one example: really lean into the political struggles, and make the heads of those factions legitimately powerful--comparable to you at level 20. maybe eothas is already at ukaizo and is in the process of destroying the wheel (and may happen part-way through the adventure), but importantly the factions are already positioned there to try to harvest the soul resources, and the story is about how you make your own personal trek to ukaizo to recover your soul--allying with a faction or bringing them all down. by having the leaders legitimately powerful, it demands a power-level climb and hero fantasy of your own character. it also deals away with the ultimate ending being unchangeable because then the point is the conflict with the factions and who you want to be the allies to help you get your soul, not finding and then having to (rather, failing to) stop eothas. (compare with: New Vegas. you can find/figure out who shot you really early on, but the game is ultimately a game about the balance of power in New Vegas, not taking vengeance on Benny)

Edited January 10, 2023 by thelee

[Wormerine]

Continuing: I am thinking about companions in PoE1 vs PoE2. In PoE1 personal quest of each companion seems to be revolving around larger picture surrounding them. Each of the stories is personal to each companion by they tie to something larger. Most of companion stories could only exist within Eora - you can't have Sagani, without the Wheel and Nasitaaq culture, you can't have Eder/Durance without Saint's War.

PoE2 makes companion's "vision quests" purely personal, but also pretty generic. It's mostly about old lovers, old mentors, standing out (or patchiing lore holes depending how you look at Pallegina) - most of those vision quests could be easily transplanted into a different generic fantasy universe. I think I liked Takehu and Xoti quests the most as they tie closer to the game's world than others characters. Those two feel the most like they have been shaped by their surroundings, rather than just being characters who exist in that universe.

[Isewein]

I think Tyranny manages to do both at the same time quite well. The PC does become individually extremely powerful, but the sociopolitical constraints of various factions still realistically limit their effective ability to influence the outcome of the narrative.