Question about DAO (Spoilers)

[IOwnTheSpire]

Dragon Age: Origins is a favourite game of mine (I'm a fan of BioWare in general, that includes DA2 and ME3) but there's one aspect that bugs me.

The ritual with Morrigan to produce the child so you don't have to sacrifice a Warden seems like an easy way out; the option to do it (no pun intended) is always there for me, there's no special conditions to meet before it's available, and it seems like it should only be there if certain conditions are met. I can't think of any reason NOT to do the ritual; sex vs. losing an ally? Not a hard choice.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The idea is that it is essentially a deal with the Devil. Morrigan has her own agenda and is very clearly manipulating the Warden throughout the game, which culminates when she suggests that they conceive a child. Considering Morrigan's less than clear intentions and obvious penchant for doing anything that grants her power, do you really want to give her a child that has a Darkspawn taint that will give said child lots of power? Power which Morrigan can exploit.

Personally, I've always turned her down.

 

[Diablo2000]

The idea is that it is essentially a deal with the Devil. Morrigan has her own agenda and is very clearly manipulating the Warden throughout the game, which culminates when she suggests that they conceive a child. Considering Morrigan's less than clear intentions and obvious penchant for doing anything that grants her power, do you really want to give her a child that has a Darkspawn taint that will give said child lots of power? Power which Morrigan can exploit.

Personally, I've always turned her down.

Yeah... I felt that way too.

Spoiler

Until Inquisition, turns out she's not a bad mother and the child lose the Old God soul anyway, so much for easily exploitable powers and the dificult choice that it used to be.

 

[RJ 17]

The idea is that it is essentially a deal with the Devil. Morrigan has her own agenda and is very clearly manipulating the Warden throughout the game, which culminates when she suggests that they conceive a child. Considering Morrigan's less than clear intentions and obvious penchant for doing anything that grants her power, do you really want to give her a child that has a Darkspawn taint that will give said child lots of power? Power which Morrigan can exploit.

Personally, I've always turned her down.

This pretty much describes the situation, but just needs a clarification: it won't be a tainted Darkspawn child...it will be a child with the soul of an Old God, presumably free from Darkspawn Taint.

Soooo yeah, that's an even worse picture: would you trust Morrigan with a child that has the soul of an Old God? What will this child be capable of? Why does she want it? And why does she say "You'll never see me or the child again"? It's a very, very shady deal, and if you're playing a right and honorable Warden in your personal RP, there's plenty justification for turning her down.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Yeah... I felt that way too.

Spoiler

Until Inquisition, turns out she's not a bad mother and the child lose the Old God soul anyway, so much for easily exploitable powers and the dificult choice that it used to be.

I think the problem is prior knowledge makes pretty much any difficult decision seem like a no-brainer.
If you don't play Inquisition then the choice still has a lotta weight behind it since you can't know the outcome. Not to mention it still means that particular macguffin is still up for grabs.

 

[Areloch]

I actually courted Morrigan on my first playthrough. And honestly, she came across like a stereotypical princess. Putting on lots of snobby airs, but if you spend time with her, she's pretty much like everyone else - if a bit more selfish comparatively. It's especially apparent when you talk to her and are nice to her/treat her like she isn't "the witch" of the party. She tends to be taken aback and perplexed that you're being nice for niceness sake.

It spells a character that was raised to be better-than-thou(and really, she WAS raised by Flemmeth) on top of being an outsider of regular society for 99% of her life. Treat her like anyone else in the party and she becomes a regular person with a bit of a snobby attitude, not a potential harbinger of doom a la her kid plot.

Given that, I really didn't take issue with her plan (less so, given that my character and her were hooking up already anyways).

 

[RJ 17]

This actually is a part of the problem to me, yes, Morrigan is pretty selfish and thinks mostly of herself, but not really evil or despicable, I didn't really feel like I'm doing a giant mistake with it. It's less deal with the devil and more deal with a vulture. Even further thinking of it I can't see what she can do that would fuck the world much more than it's already is.

Really it's a "Guilty By Association" situation. Purely the fact that she's Flemeth's "daughter", has her own interests and motivations (which tend to lean towards the shady side), and is clearly rather manipulative makes her not entirely trustworthy with a God Baby whose powers we know absolutely nothing about.

In the end it turns out to not be that big of a deal, however given what we know about her from DA:O there is grounds to mistrust her.

At least in my opinion, there is.

 

[DoPo]

Yeah... I felt that way too.

Spoiler

Until Inquisition, turns out she's not a bad mother and the child lose the Old God soul anyway, so much for easily exploitable powers and the dificult choice that it used to be.

I think the problem is prior knowledge makes pretty much any difficult decision seem like a no-brainer.

"Hindsight is 20/20", eh?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Man, I hated Morrigan! I stabbed her without blinking when the option arose.
Good riddance to a poorly thought out character!

 

[bliebblob]

I refused for a combination of several reasons.
1) Spite.
2) The lifespan reduction for grey wardens, even if it was a huuuuuge dick move, does make survival less relevant anyway.
3) It was the end of the story. My character was "disappearing" one way or the other.
4) I was hoping that, if I fought well enough, I could keep that third warden (whatever his name was) alive long enough for him to be the one to deal the final blow. Thus saving myself and Alistair without giving into Morrigan. He seemed perfectly willing to anyway. So I was kind of salty he then goes and dies in a cutscene.
5) Long story short: after her loyalty mission I saw Morrigan very much as a victim of Flemeth's upbringing and tried to bring her around by being kind to her; disproving her cynical world view. Arguably sucessfully: especially her reaction to being rescued and the mirror gift felt genuine. So when she made her proposition I felt prety betrayed, yes. But I also got the feeling she wasn't doing it for the sake of being dastardly, not any more anyway. She just genuinly did not understand why it was a bad idea. Heck, viewed from the right angle one could argue it was actually an attempt to save me and/or Alistair! Just in the most Morrigan-esque way possible. So me refusing wasn't only about being spiteful, it was actually mostly to save her from unwittingly becoming just like her mother. A final lesson in kindness if you will.

The possible existence of a demon baby itself didn't actually bother me too much. Even after that little gambit of her I felt she had become significantly less like her mother, so the baby might have very well turned out an okay guy/gal. And if not, well... If mortals can take out an elder darkspawn omfgwtfbbq360noscope god-dragon then I guess we'll manage a demon child too. Heck, if it had come to that my character could very well have led the charge. Seeing how creating it also significantly upped her chances of being alive to see it.

 

[happyninja42]

Dragon Age: Origins is a favourite game of mine (I'm a fan of BioWare in general, that includes DA2 and ME3) but there's one aspect that bugs me.

The ritual with Morrigan to produce the child so you don't have to sacrifice a Warden seems like an easy way out; the option to do it (no pun intended) is always there for me, there's no special conditions to meet before it's available, and it seems like it should only be there if certain conditions are met. I can't think of any reason NOT to do the ritual; sex vs. losing an ally? Not a hard choice.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

There is a condition (as I recall), you have to obtain that book for her from Flemeth, which means you might not do that in your particular playthrough.

As to the cost of it, it definitely felt (to me), that it was an "unintended consequences" kind of thing for later in the series.

As to reasons why not to do it, the biggest one I can think of is.

You don't trust the crazy, possibly evil witch from the wilds, and don't like the idea of giving her a blood ritual offering of your seed. Considering she says it will push the power of the Archdemon into the child, it could easily end up some kind of antichrist kind of End of the World type kid. I mean, she could be lying of course, she says it will save you, but maybe it doesn't, and you end up giving her some crazy power that really shouldn't be. I mean she doesn't really show the greatest example of morality and good judgement over the course of the game. So when she comes to you and is like "Oh hey, we can totes keep you from dying, you just need to shag me and knock me up. Why? Oh well, you know, all that evil energy that usually kills the person killing the Archdemon, I'm going to channel it into my womb, into the kid. What could possibly go wrong with that scenario?"

xD

Now personally, I took that choice, because I romanced her in my playthrough, and revealed that she did actually care about stuff. But, in another playthrough, for someone who didn't romance her, she wouldn't behave that way, and it would make sense to be hesitant to agree.

But yeah, short version, it has ramifications, they're just not felt in DAO, they will be felt later on in the series (I'm guessing, haven't finished Inquisition yet, but I'm pretty sure it will factor in.)

 

[G00N3R7883]

I can't think of any reason NOT to do the ritual

How about "lets not create a new body for an ancient evil soul, and then let one of the most untrustworthy and manipulative characters in the world have free reign to teach it how to harness its power or possibly steal that power for herself".

Honestly, my first playthrough, with no advanced knowledge of the plot, there wasn't even a single second that I considered accepting Morrigan's offer. It just seemed to me like the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. Trading one all powerful evil now, for another all powerful evil in about 20 years.

My Warden would have gladly given his own life to end the threat. If necessary he would have expected any of his friends to do the same. As it turned out, I chose not to kill Loghain, because I didn't want to annoy the new Queen, so I was able to have Loghain sacrifice himself, killing two birds with one stone.

Edit: the fact that Bioware never really did anything with this choice in future games doesn't really change that in the moment, any kind of hero character will refuse the deal.