Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Infinitron]

That said, I just want him to be a CNPC. I think it'd be nonsense to have him turn up as a forced villain or antagonist. Then you might just as well let him stay dead.

Haha, somebody doesn't like the idea that Durance's transformation into a godkilling supervillain was what MCA intended all along.

Fairfax, your new task is to find out what sort of antagonist Durance was supposed to end up as in MCA's original plans, and how.

 

[Prime Junta]

You can goddidit anything. If Woedica could allow Thaos to reincarnate with his memories and personality intact, why wouldn't Magran (or some other god) be able to do the same with Durance?

Because Thaos was kind of a special deal made during creation of the gods. Their, sort of, caretaker. No other example of being like him we know of. It's probably forbidden to do such things anymore.

Sounds like ex post facto rationalisation.

I.e. it could be, but I don't remember coming across anything in the canon to explicitly state this. Awakenings are pretty common. Why wouldn't a god be able to awaken a soul of his choice at will? That's all it takes really.

Edit: of course, it's only been five years since P1. Durance would have to be an awakened toddler with his personality and L16+ priest powers. And that would be awesome.

 

[Popiel]

Sounds like ex post facto rationalisation.

I.e. it could be, but I don't remember coming across anything in the canon to explicitly state this. Awakenings are pretty common. Why wouldn't a god be able to awaken a soul of his choice at will? That's all it takes really.

No, you asked about doing the same thing for Durance as was done by Woedica for Thaos. Now you speak about only Awakening soul of someone who was Durance in previous life. These are not the same things, and latter can ideed be easily granted by any deity I believe.

 

[Prime Junta]

No, you asked about doing the same thing for Durance as was done by Woedica for Thaos. Now you speak about only Awakening soul of someone who was Durance in previous life. These are not the same things, and latter can ideed be easily granted by any deity I believe.

Okay, so apart from Awakening him with every new birth, and making him her champion (which, as we know, gods do all the time), what exactly did Woedica do for Thaos? (That possession thing he does? Looks like an x-clusive magic spell to me, not something requiring divine intervention. A variant of Dominate.)

 

[Luckmann]

That said, I just want him to be a CNPC. I think it'd be nonsense to have him turn up as a forced villain or antagonist. Then you might just as well let him stay dead.

Haha, somebody doesn't like the idea that Durance's transformation into a godkilling supervillain was what MCA intended all along.

Fairfax, your new task is to find out what sort of antagonist Durance was supposed to end up as in MCA's original plans, and how.

What? No, I wouldn't really have minded that at all. In many ways, Durance already is a god-killing supervillain in PoE1. The nonsense is in the context of the end(s) of PoE1. I honestly have no idea how you could read my post and come to the conclusion you did without being retarded.

You can goddidit anything. If Woedica could allow Thaos to reincarnate with his memories and personality intact, why wouldn't Magran (or some other god) be able to do the same with Durance?

That could be pretty cool, but it begs the question as to why she'd do that. Also, Durance's soul is all kinds of fucked up, and it'd probably get even more fucked up if someone slapped a band-aid on it as it went through the wheel, only to then awaken it in a 5-year-old.

Edit: Now I actually want a PoE game set, say, 150 years later, where Durance shows up, like, two full incarnations later, as the broken fucker we all know and love, and he still can't explain why Magran won't let him die/go through the wheel normally.

 

[Infinitron]

That said, I just want him to be a CNPC. I think it'd be nonsense to have him turn up as a forced villain or antagonist. Then you might just as well let him stay dead.

Haha, somebody doesn't like the idea that Durance's transformation into a godkilling supervillain was what MCA intended all along.

Fairfax, your new task is to find out what sort of antagonist Durance was supposed to end up as in MCA's original plans, and how.

What? No, I wouldn't really have minded that at all. In many ways, Durance already is a god-killing supervillain in PoE1. The nonsense is in the context of the end(s) of PoE1. I honestly have no idea how you could read my post and come to the conclusion you did without being retarded.

I just want him to be a CNPC

 

[Popiel]

Okay, so apart from Awakening him with every new birth, and making him her champion (which, as we know, gods do all the time), what exactly did Woedica do for Thaos? (That possession thing he does? Looks like an x-clusive magic spell to me, not something requiring divine intervention. A variant of Dominate.)

Thaos always Awakes at exactly the same age with exactly the same soul identity as his previous lifetime, and as we can guess from the game, with a sort of matching body to boot. This is some serious animantic engineering way beyond standard Awakening. All his memories are intact, same with personality, his Awakening is smooth and does not involve any clashing personas within one mind, which is a constant theme among the Awakened. Awakening is unlocking some part of a previous lifetime within a new soul, two beings now sort of coexist within one body, and this always (we never saw any different case) creates conflict. What Thaos does is directly reincarnating into a new body, same person and sort of same soul it seems. And, as you mentioned, he possess some wacky animantic abilities nobody else seems to possess or understand, which may be connected to his special status or may not.

 

[Luckmann]

That said, I just want him to be a CNPC. I think it'd be nonsense to have him turn up as a forced villain or antagonist. Then you might just as well let him stay dead.

Haha, somebody doesn't like the idea that Durance's transformation into a godkilling supervillain was what MCA intended all along.

Fairfax, your new task is to find out what sort of antagonist Durance was supposed to end up as in MCA's original plans, and how.

What? No, I wouldn't really have minded that at all. In many ways, Durance already is a god-killing supervillain in PoE1. The nonsense is in the context of the end(s) of PoE1. I honestly have no idea how you could read my post and come to the conclusion you did without being retarded.

I just want him to be a CNPC

Yup. That's absolutely what I want for PoE2. Been pretty open about that since the beginning, honestly.

Had Durance become a villain by the end of PoE1 and the ending of PoE1 been completely different, this would obviously not be the case, because there's no way that could've been done in a reasonable fashion. Seriously, I'm still confused as to what you're not getting here.

Edit: MCA:s ending to Durance would undoubtedly have been better than the shit we got.

 

[Fairfax]

Fairfax, your new task is to find out what sort of antagonist Durance was supposed to end up as in MCA's original plans, and how.

There you go:

I am flattered and sad. My apologies - and the apology is not an excuse - I enjoyed writing Durance very much (and the Grieving Mother), and I poured as much as I could into those characters to be the best they can be.

Spoilers Follow

I do feel that both suffered on my part because the GM is naturally divorced from the environment and I used my particular node count editing pass with Durance to make him more diety-grumbly with the player rather than more hooks in the environment. That said, the original version (which may still be intact in the final sequence, I haven't played all the options) did allow for Durance to still "believe" in Magran, and there was an evidence chain for Woedica for Magran - you needed to be aware that Durance's soul had been "sheared" by the Grieving Mother (and that's why Magran seemingly turned away - it was harder for him to be seen by the goddess because soul-wise, he was a different person) but I believe this was changed to the Godhammer explosion instead. His staff was also supposed to give evidence of the "truth" of it, since while Durance's surface thoughts and rationalizations would allow for his own explanation, the staff's symbols don't lie.

Also, while I knew there would be a Woedica revelation, to play to the Magran "ignoring" Durance during that sequence was a weakness that I should have hammered home more in the dialogue.

So yeah, I could have done better with that, and I apologize. Overall, any quest with Durance should not have left an open loop if he chooses to still believe in Magran.

My hint with the character was that Durance could eventually "avatar" himself like Eothas because he was so maddened by the betrayal and either take on Magran's aspect or even Woedica's aspect since he desired justice so strongly. I thought both the Grieving Mother and Durance would make excellent villains/antagonists for a sequel, but I wasn't involved with Pillars after the core release.

 

[Luckmann]

Oh man. The only reason Durance thinks that Magran is fucking him is because she literally doesn't recognize him, because his soul was scrambled by Grieving Mother and/or fractured by the Godhammer in an act of martyred sacrifice conceived of by Magran herself? That's some cruel-ass fucking irony right there. That's downright depressing. This actually casts both Magran and Durance in a very different light, if it can be considered canon.



This also makes me hate the ending where you either jump to unhinged and unsubstantiated conclusions about how Magran worked with Woedica, or else Durance actuallly throws himself onto the fire, even more. And that's completely besides the point that MCA:s original ideas for the ending sound fucking awesome. I would gladly have accepted Durance as a major antagonist for PoE2, as he assumes the mantle of the chosen of Woedica, and pursues the truth of how he was used by Magran and what really happened to Eothas, only to find out that Magran didn't mean to turn her back to him at all, but she merely didn't recognize him beneath those horrific, horrific scars that goes beyond any pocked flesh or scarred skin.

Or anything to that effect.

 

[Neanderthal]

In House of Weal novella its hinted that Durance becomes some kind o arch heretic.

 

[Infinitron]

I have to say there's more dramatic irony in Magran's own Godhammer hiding Durance from her than him being hidden by some random cipher midwife.

Oh man. The only reason Durance thinks that Magran is fucking him is because she literally doesn't recognize him, because his soul was scrambled by Grieving Mother and/or fractured by the Godhammer in an act of martyred sacrifice conceived of by Magran herself? That's some cruel-ass fucking irony right there. That's downright depressing. This actually casts both Magran and Durance in a very different light, if it can be considered canon.

You're jumping to conclusions. Magran might still want to kill him if she could see him.

Fairfax Just to be clear, is the "evidence chain for Woedica for Magran" evidence that Magran was working with Woedica at one point? Is it evidence that Magran would have killed Durance if she had been able to recognize him, the same way the other makers of the Godhammer were?

 

[Luckmann]

I assume that the "evidence chain" relates to the ending of the game as-is, the absence of which is why the ending of Durance's storyline is so fucked up. The evidence of Magran knowingly defending Woedica and opposing Eothas, whose actions would've been entirely justified, would mean that Durance was used against Eothas on entirely unwarranted grounds. The worst thing is that you reach this conclusion entirely without evidence, whereas without this very odd conclusion to the quest, it's entirely possible to assume that Magran was herself manipulated by Woedica to attempt to stop Eothas for acting outside of the established ruleset.

But you can't even suggest this to Durance, you either do nothing, say nothing, or you push the very specific conclusion that Magran was knowingly working with Woedica, and that Durance was involved in the murder of a god whose actions were entirely justified, despite a complete lack of evidence.

[...]

You're jumping to conclusions. Magran might still want to kill him if she could see him.

[...]

Not at all - it's entirely possible that Magran would actually put him to the torch if she could, assuming that Magran was actually working with Woedica. It's entirely possible that that's what happened to the others in the Dozen. The point is that Durance thinks that Magran is fucking with him, but it may only be because she literally cannot recognize him. If she could, Durance might die, but at least that would resolve the situation, and it would be far preferably to Durance, I think.

 

[Infinitron]

I assume that the "evidence chain" relates to the ending of the game as-is, the absence of which is why the ending of Durance's storyline is so fucked up. The evidence of Magran knowingly defending Woedica and opposing Eothas, whose actions would've been entirely justified, would mean that Durance was used against Eothas on entirely unwarranted grounds. The worst thing is that you reach this conclusion entirely without evidence, whereas without this very odd conclusion to the quest, it's entirely possible to assume that Magran was herself manipulated by Woedica to attempt to stop Eothas for acting outside of the established ruleset.

But you can't even suggest this to Durance, you either do nothing, say nothing, or you push the very specific conclusion that Magran was knowingly working with Woedica, and that Durance was involved in the murder of a god whose actions were entirely justified, despite a complete lack of evidence.

Yes, I agree that the way that plot goes down is an ass-pull. The question is, is it an ass-pull because it wasn't MCA's original idea? This talk about an "evidence chain for Woedica" suggests that it was his idea, but we need more details.

 

[Luckmann]

I assume that the "evidence chain" relates to the ending of the game as-is, the absence of which is why the ending of Durance's storyline is so fucked up. The evidence of Magran knowingly defending Woedica and opposing Eothas, whose actions would've been entirely justified, would mean that Durance was used against Eothas on entirely unwarranted grounds. The worst thing is that you reach this conclusion entirely without evidence, whereas without this very odd conclusion to the quest, it's entirely possible to assume that Magran was herself manipulated by Woedica to attempt to stop Eothas for acting outside of the established ruleset.

But you can't even suggest this to Durance, you either do nothing, say nothing, or you push the very specific conclusion that Magran was knowingly working with Woedica, and that Durance was involved in the murder of a god whose actions were entirely justified, despite a complete lack of evidence.

Yes, I know the way that plot goes down is an ass-pull. The question is, is it an ass-pull because it wasn't MCA's original idea? This talk about an "evidence chain for Woedica" suggests that it was his idea, but we need more details.

If there would've been an evidence chain, it wouldn't have been an ass-pull, and would've gone down entirely differently. Either way, evidence or no evidence, it's still a supremely shitty ending, because there's literally no other choice than to argue a very specific trail of thought. Even if it didn't come out of nowhere, that would still be shit.

 

[Fairfax]

I have to say there's more dramatic irony in Magran's own Godhammer hiding Durance from her than him being hidden by some random cipher midwife.

It wouldn't be random. In MCA's original concept, Durance spent his time after the war hunting Eothas sympathizers and then the people deemed responsible for the Hollowborn crisis, which led him to the Grieving Mother. He tortured her, and then she "sheared" his soul in self-defence.

 

[Drax]

Stop spoling the gaem! I might try to play it for more than 3 hours some day!

 

[Luckmann]

I have to say there's more dramatic irony in Magran's own Godhammer hiding Durance from her than him being hidden by some random cipher midwife.

It wouldn't be random. In MCA's original concept, Durance spent his time after the war hunting Eothas sympathizers and then the people deemed responsible for the Hollowborn crisis, which led him to the Grieving Mother. He tortured her, and then she "sheared" his soul in self-defence.

I believe that there was some implied rape going on there as well, and both of them ended getting fucked up, with Durance's mind shattered and Grieving Mother's mind.. well... fucked. No puns intended. I have no idea where I picked that up, though, I'm pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere. Grieving Mother was basically hunted down because she was pretending to be a Watcher and the entire village/town/tower where she operated was sacked, to boot, as Durance was leading mobs around looking for Eothas-worshippers, and somewhere along the way he heard about Grieving Mother and it ended up in a super-fucked situation because she couldn't actually help him with his problem.

Fuck, sometimes I feel like I just want to give MCA a hug, because anyone that can come up such consistently tragic depictions of the human condition can not not be suffering from some kind of daemons. Durance was an enormous asshole and I doubt that he was some kind of supremely nice-guy village parishioner before the Godhammer was dropped and all his friends died in the detonation of the world's first soul-nuke, but the fact that you can feel sorry for someone that blew up what's basically the god of being a bro, cuddly feelings and family gatherings in front of the fire, raped/soul-fractured a mother, and led fiery pogroms against people that happened to be on the wrong side for all the right reasons, says a lot.

But thinking about it, I wouldn't even be surprised if Durance had a wife and three kids before he was blown off the bridge and had his soul ground to gravel, with bits and pieces of his comrade's souls smashed into his core, while conveniently covered in their scorched remains and pieces of bone, and never ever went home again, as nothing made any sense anymore, lost in a fever-dream of disjointed hate and fire. Could've taken him months to even realize who he was, that Magran wasn't there for him anymore, and why he was even hunting followers of Eothas.

 

[an Administrator]

Rape!

 

[Quillon]

I believe that there was some implied rape going on there as well, and both of them ended getting fucked up, with Durance's mind shattered and Grieving Mother's mind.. well... fucked.

And there was a hollowborn child out of that whose soul was on his way to the machine outside Cilant Lis, and fucked with about to be Watcher's soul /second implied [soul]rape.

Weeell, either they should have given him or he shoulda taken the lead, sounds like it was always gonna be disconnected/stand too far out from the rest of the story if his work wouldn't have had cut/edited.

 

[Fairfax]

I have to say there's more dramatic irony in Magran's own Godhammer hiding Durance from her than him being hidden by some random cipher midwife.

It wouldn't be random. In MCA's original concept, Durance spent his time after the war hunting Eothas sympathizers and then the people deemed responsible for the Hollowborn crisis, which led him to the Grieving Mother. He tortured her, and then she "sheared" his soul in self-defence.

I believe that there was some implied rape going on there as well, and both of them ended getting fucked up, with Durance's mind shattered and Grieving Mother's mind.. well... fucked. No puns intended. I have no idea where I picked that up, though, I'm pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere. Grieving Mother was basically hunted down because she was pretending to be a Watcher and the entire village/town/tower where she operated was sacked, to boot, as Durance was leading mobs around looking for Eothas-worshippers, and somewhere along the way he heard about Grieving Mother and it ended up in a super-fucked situation because she couldn't actually help him with his problem.

This shared past was mentioned in PoE's Collector's Strategy Guide, I believe, but I don't remember anything about rape, only "torture".

Fuck, sometimes I feel like I just want to give MCA a hug, because anyone that can come up such consistently tragic depictions of the human condition can not not be suffering from some kind of daemons.

Yes, his work is consistently tragic, with a grim outlook on human nature in general. Inner demons would be a reasonable explanation, but it could also be something likes to write about because it's not something he deals with IRL. Hopefully he'll shed some light on it in the interview.

 

[Bohrain]

Rape!

 

[Infinitron]

I love when Avellone writes dysfunctional creatures which can no longer pretend to the status and dignity of a human being, always a good read

Codexers can't get enough of Avellone's tropes because he writes the sort of characters they would want to be if they lived in a fantasy setting. Poetic geniuses hollowed out by their traumas and obsessions.

 

[Roguey]

Weird that Avellone would suggest GM as an antagonist. All she cares about is delivering babies in the sticks.

 

[Lacrymas]

He managed to turn a simple village midwife into an interesting and tragic character, if that's not talent and creativity I don't know what is.