Jesters were respected in that day

11:23 so W misogyny? lol

Your small description of Rathion (?) sounded very cool. It’s too bad Blizzard are weirdos about outcasts and POC.

Liked

I've been playing BG3 now that I've got a laptop that can run it, and I have to say I agree. I'm gay and not into harsh romance, so it was obvious that I was going to end up romancing Karlach in hindsight since she's the only lady in the party at the beginning who was even slightly interesting and didn't act like she'd tear my throat out if given the chance. However, I decided that I would come up with my own little oc and that I'd play her strictly with a "what would she do" mindset, so I forced myself to not pick options specifically focused on gaining approval with any specific character. It made me enjoy the game more, but it also led to me having mixed feelings about the romance immediately when literally every party member except Astarion wanted to be in my pants at the druid party. My character, a drow sorcerer named Veline, who I've been playing as neutral good barely showed an interest in most of them before this point, hell, I'd not changed my adventuring set up even once to have them around during gameplay. I'd taken Karlach, Wyll and Shadowheart (despite not liking her because I needed a healer). The rest I kept in camp doing nothing because I found Astarion annoying, Gale boring and Lae'zel useful but already having Shadowheart in my party made me resist the idea of taking anyone except the two characters I liked. I've found that I don't actually /enjoy/ any of the individual character stories, I like the story I've been making for my character, and they just happen to be there. I like BG3 because I like being Veline, a rigid drow who does her best to help those who she thinks deserves it but who approaches violence with gusto, hurling fireballs at anyone who looks at her funny. Who will lie and cheat to get what she wants and to keep useful allies on her side, but will not hesitate to kill someone for doing things she perceives as over the line. Which is why I killed Shadowheart to stop her becoming a Dark Justiciar, because Veline would have believed that not only was it morally wrong, but also that Shadowheart had stopped being useful. However, I'm fully aware that this is me projecting a character onto a blank slate and that this character I've built up only makes me enjoy the game because I decided to make her up. BG3 is a very good game but the romance feels so much like it was there because it /had/ to. I don't like how most of the characters feel so barebones when you take a step back because all the development they get that really seems to orient around the idea of "Well by saying this/making this choice, they'll be more likely to fuck you." None of the character choices feel like they matter because you as a player want to see these characters happy, it feels like character decisions are built around getting to bonk. It feels like if you reject a character they just kinda turn off in a way because the story feels built around a shallow romance and not any substance. I'd like to be able to get close to these characters with an imminent love confession.

To be fair I'm 40 seconds in and I agree with you.

Moral of the story: Blame Canada!

You're not missing much with Carver (or rather, you're saving yourself a headache). He spends the whole game bitching and moaning about being in your shadow, and if you don't take him with you to the Deep Roads, he joins the Templars to "prove himself in spite of you". Guy's an ass.

22:17 I would just like to reaffirm that you are correct. Yor's spouse absolutely would use her first name to address her I had to study a fucking quiz for this shit multiple times in high school I had to learn all the different fucking words and I took 3 years of the dang language. It's an awesome language by the bye. I'm not bitter at all. Just annoyed at stupid people

I love DA2. It's my favourite game. I agree that there isn't two sides, the mages are just correct. Although you've never chosen Carver, I love him. He's the kid that his dad basically ignored and he loves Hawke and looks up to him but feels second best. His arc is really interesting even if he's an asshole.

I agree that majority of shonen are mediocre shit.

A Stephen Sommers'-directed Universal Monsters 'verse culminating in a Castlevania standoff is the beautiful mirage of cinema. Also I'd like to throw Van Helsing's head into the ring of fun movies ^_^

omg a new vid for that vid, this is awesome!

Time to watch again!

the one thing i will say about pacing is that hazbin glosses over certain rules of the universe that are important to know, like sinners regenerating if not killed by angelic steel or lucifer agreeing to stay out of the exterminations if no hellborns were harmed causing him to be late to the final battle until razzle died and adam threatened charlie's life both of those things are given one throwaway line in the first episode, and despite what i hear about helluva boss explaining those things better, that doesnt help people only watching hazbin

The bit about Lillie should be the protagonist would actually be a genius move, omg

What’s your favourite song in Stray Gods?

Girl, you not only don't catch legendaries, but also hate Lucario? Do we share all the unpopular opiniões about pokémon? Are we soulmates?

Btw kaiden is romanceable .since me1 with a fem syemp or in me3 with male and fem Shep. I always save him tho . Since i never liked how racist Ashley was against aliens . I get that because of her backstory it make sense but she doesnt unlearn her prejudice fast enough for my liking

Came here after kinda watching another youtuber hate watching this video, and gotta say, except a very few things, I agree with you girl, never give up, I'll support you to the end, anyone that hates catching legendaries is my hero forever.

I actually love this show and I love your video too! Your video itself is really funny and has a lot of great points

What song Is that in the outro it sounds very familiar

What I am reminded of are these compilations where sitcoms have their laugh track removed, which is hilarious as it removes a critical element and replaces it with silence as actors stare at each other, instead of skipping these pauses as well to look at the pure dialogue. They get used by people who dislike them as reasons for the shows to be objectively bad, this gets used very often against The Big Bang Theory. What I hear most often is the sentiment that "you realize that the shows never were funny", but who gets convinced that you don't actually like a show? What's happening is they don't like the show, they see this and can now use this as an "objective fact" against the show. And this is another aspect of "death of media literacy": "Other people don't dislike the same stuff as me, so they must not know the same objective facts as me." It's this mindset that your personal opinions are formed by an objective analysis.

This reminds me a lot of that moral grayness video, which is fine I really really like that video

I like the real world parallels. It helps me contextualize. Usually I just use other fiction: Mages is X-Men, duh.

Yeah I still hate Anders. Less so because of what he did but how he did it. The dude have the Circle mages no warning of his actions so they couldn't prepare for when the Templars went apeshit. In fact, it looked like that was part of his plan to get them killed unjustly so the rest of the Circles rise up.

A big writing failing I almost always think of in DA2 is when Anders talks to you if you’re romancing Fenris, where he says the infamous line ‘Fenris has let one bad experience color his view of the world’ Ignoring the fact that, you know…Fenris was a TEVINTER SLAVE

As briefly touched on in this video, mages in DA are born with the capability to cast magic, and they are often oppressed people who aren't born like that. It's much easier to side with people like that because they can't help how they were born, and the writing opposed side has to work a bit more if the intention is show such oppression is worth it. But I do love how being a mage is apart of someone's identity as anything else. It's why all of my protagonists are mages because i love seeing how the games react to a mage protagonist. And for the personal and grounded story DA2 is going for, It's my favorite DA to be a mage in.

Honestly playing DA2 I never noticed that the mage Templar conflict was “Grey.” It’s written far too much that it’s Templar wrong, I could never decide to be Templar outside of a “evil” play through. Even the random murderer that kills your mom doesn’t feel like a Pro Templar position, it feels like tragic happenstance and the moment you think about it, it’s Templars fault because they failed to stop it.

Its funny how sad the "mages can fall into the hands of demons" argument is when... your a grey warden... you drink the blood of the dark spawn to gain their powers with a maybe 25% success rate... and it turns out by the end of origins the way grey wardens are made is just how dark spawn are made without the baby birding and rape I played all the routes just to see how they played out but my favorite was the first an elf mage. Cause since the grey warden doomed me to die young I just Constantined all the demons throughout the run like. Yeah sure come take my soul in 3 years leave the kid alone(little do the demons know I will be dead before then and their gonna have to take turns with my soul)

The way u talk about state power and authoritarianism makes u sound like an anarchist (compliment). Since morality is all about what people think is good or bad and people don't often think too much about their own morals, even when confronted, I def agree that the thought of "moral greyness" is used so they dont have to actually think about or confront what they actually believe and how that interacts with the world. Ever since learning about power relations and oppression, there is very little I have found to be 'grey' with respect to what people do, and when something does appear grey, its just because I don't know enough to understand yet. Thus, I think its useful to seek more knowledge when you think something is 'grey' or honestly whenever u catch urself in any sort of thought termination.

yknow somewhere out there there’s a good timeline where toffee really was hired to be ludo's advisor and spends the entire series being the straight man to all his nonsense. what we could have had....

i needed this video back when i first got into this franchise (i started with da2) and had to sit with my frustration over all the handwaving and 'no don't look at that' attitude to the rampant oppression of ostracized groups. and then again when i saw anti-mage players on the internet -__- (who of course are also anti-elf, those two go hand in hand). i'm so mad at myself for not understanding the popularity of the 'knife ear' slur in fandom spaces (even outside dragonage fandom) all these years until you pointed out that phonetic similarity and fjskalfd;sja I'm so mad for not seeing it. I'm so goddamn mad. You're absolutely right.

I’m surprised to learn that they were trying to be morally grey from the beginning. As a kid playing for the first time, I thought the Mage/Templar conflict was a narrative on propaganda. After getting through the first part of the Mage Origin and being told what to believe, I naturally read every lore book I could get my hands on. Within 20 minutes of playing DA I was firmly on ‘The Chantry is full of shit’ side of things. Even if you don’t play a Mage you eventually meet Mages outside of Chantry influence and learn that things don’t add up. I’ve always found it fascinating that real world people would drink the fictional coolaid and defend the in-game status quo when throughout the games and other media, there are black and white examples of the Chantry and Templars being wrong. There is a pro-Templar corner of the fandom and they defend their stance with torrents of easily disproved BS. Wild tbh. We visit multiple cultures with free Mages and they’re fine. Many having existed before the Chantry. Take the Avvar. They don’t fear demons because they foster symbiotic relationships with spirits via their Mages and demons are kept at bay. The Chantry would destroy that if they could and everyone would be objectively worse off. And yes, Tevinter is trash but so is every other nation. We see multiple examples of slavery and oppression in various locations but Tevinter is ‘the bad one’ because Magic? Where are my critical thinkers!!! I think that, for some people, the Chantry and Templars represent something familiar, comfortable. They side with the fictional status quo because otherwise they’d have to ask questions about uncomfortable real world parallels. I think the motivations behind at least some of the writers to try and force grey into the Mage/Templar conflict come from similar feelings.

I can't remember which book it was, but a sci fi book had the sci fi equivalent to "incarceration of an entire race" that i think might be the only not 100% evil version. They sent all the enemy _who actually participated voluntarily_ (all the adults who did something to further the war effort _voluntarily_ - from soldiers who wanted to fight to politicians who_started_ the fight. Bean counters, weapon designers, ship makers - anyone on the other side who WANTED the war and worked to make it happen; those conscripted, to fight or to work, were NOT included in this, and were helped to rebuild their country without crazy warmongers) to a Space Australia (a not populated by anything that can _think_ planet.) They were checked in on every 5 years, and the story actually revolved around what to do with the inevitable _babies._ Because they hadn't committed war crimes, but on the other hand, taking them from their parents was also Not Good. And on the third hand, putting these people there was to not kill them, but not build a prison - them reproducing just gave the chance to continue their religious zealotry in a new generation... like, it was this once fringe religion that said only their species were people, and all aliens were actually _demons,_ and it was practiced by only about 10% of the populace, but that 10% took over... Because, well, it was also an examination of the aftereffects of totalitarianism/ fascism, as in, what to do with the _children_ of fascists, who are probably going to be indoctrinated from birth if left with their parents - it's abuse to take them and abuse to leave them. The characters made what i feel is the wrong choice to leave the children - this compounds the abuse of letting them be raised by crazy religious fascists (made extra crazy and wanting revenge) by creating a situation where they're potentially going to spread that harm in another war. But i also don't feel good about the "take the children" because... because while _I_ believe being raised by bigots or fascists of any kind is abuse, so many people DON'T believe that, it makes me question myself... Thoughts? Lily, I'd actually be _very_ interested in your thoughts, because you often come up with things i haven't, things that expand the initial scope, or give new avenues to explore, and that helps me firm up my own thoughts (sometimes, i admit, because i disagree with you, but mostly because you find better ways to express what i was _trying_ to express, if that makes sense. Lol) But anyone else, come and throw me a thought about it!

Not bad.

So refreshing to hear what I have been saying for over a decade.

6teen was aired in latin america and since most latin american broadcasting channels dont bother with censoring stuff since it cost money it pretty much was only translated and it was one of my favorite shows as a kid (i was around 9-10 yo) and even if its main demographics was clearly teens i would always watch if after arriving home from school

It's amazing how good this game is despite the fact that it was rushed beyond belief. It had a 13 month development time

19:21 Looked up the game that Lily was referencing and DAMN does it look good, I might need to pick it up In case anybody is wondering the name: Stray Dogs - The Roleplaying Musical

They really try to overcorrect in Inquisition by saying some Templars are promised to the church at birth. Oh look see it's completely okay that they've done all these bad things the chantry got them addicted to lyrium. They were raised this way by the church. Maybe if they'd done that from the beginning, it could've worked.

The lead dev wanting a mindless fantasy horde that made for a weaker game reminds me of James Cameron wanting the music of Avatar to sound completely unlike anything in the world so compiled a bunch of indigenous music and musical stylings that had barely been heard by people out of the culture… Only to throw it all away because I shit you not it didn’t sound enough like the American national anthem. Discarding the unique and interesting for the same stuff you’re familiar with

u should do analysis of the game "detroit become human"

If they wanted to made the Templars simbolize Security, they should made a show of them doing good works, not show their victims acting with violence.

Im shocked you barely mentioned X-zMen when they are dealing with the same themes, here!

THE HORDE, no

Allow me to be honest for a moment, the reason why I jumped into the Dragon Age franchise seven years ago... was because of Iron Bull-- Pardon, THE Iron Bull. The very first time I'd heard of Bioware was back in 2011, I was on a second date with this guy who spent most of the night bitching about DA2, and how it wasn't as good as his "beloved Origins". After dumping him, I went home and looked up DA: Origins videos, let's plays, reviews and such, did a little reading about Bioware, and nothing I saw interested me enough to try the game. Then I found videos on DA2, and while it looked a little better, visually, it still seemed like more of the same edgy teenage crap, and promptly forgot all about the game and Bioware. Until, I got into SWtOR a few years later. By then, I was willing to find information on DA: Inquisition, which led me to Iron Bull's romance arc videos on KZbin. 500+ hours of multiple playthroughs of Inquisition, I figured "why not give DA2 a try". Well, I played it once. Made a male, Mage Hawke, romanced Anders, sided with the mages (duh), and gave Hawke's boyfriend a pat on the head for what he did to the chantry. The party remained loyal to the end, except for Sebastion (but who cares?), struck down Carver for being an asshole, abandoning Hawke to join his mortal enemies, and got a decent ending. (Except for the fact that in every Inquisition playthrough, I always sacrificed Hawke in the fade. Just seemed appropriate.) Anyway! DA2 wasn't so bad, I appreciated the greater emphasis on character, getting to dive into the mage/templar conflict. The smaller scale and "lower" stakes have a greater impact than most people are willing to admit. I might buy another copy and go through it again, maybe.

Can't wait for your video on Inquisition!

Awesome that your Dragon Age 2 video comes out just as I get my copy. Honestly you can only side with the Templars if you are role playing an scumbag or you are one. Glad to see a fellow Bethany and Merrill protector.

Thank you for this.