» Fri Jun 25, 2010 11:14 am
I read all posts from the beginning now and oh my, this discussion is going into a direction... not unexpectedly though.
First off, this is all just about a game and about fictional beings. It additionally being about a game which isn't even finished, yet, is bad enough already in my eyes, but that's besides the point. I don't really care about what's going on in a game or what other people do in their's. It's not real. And while I might not always approve what one does I'm not going to tell him not to. Besides, people won't listen anyways so why bother? I always prefer people going online on a virtual killing spree or even only duck hunting with auto-cannons over them doing this in real life at any time. Killing a virtual thing doesn't have consequences after all.
With regards to the stereotype dragons and inevitably having to kill them, as my username tells I'm a dragon fan myself. Drake's the name of a little heroic dragon in a story of mine which is spinning since 5 years back now, every day some more events, either during my sleep in dreams (don't you just love it when you can control what you dream?) or during the day in my imagination when I find some free time or feel like it, now consisting of several months worth of story told. I started writing it down a while ago but didn't get very far, yet. Thing is I have a certain view of dragons, maybe quite an idealistic one. I always imaginated them as supernaturally intelligent and wise sentient beings (Oh, by the way, I don't like people always talking of other animals not being sentient either. Just because we can't realize it doesn't mean they aren't, maybe in a way we just can't understand or something. Doesn't matter.) and I fail to understand why such beings should always only be killing ferocial monsters. Isn't their race depicted far older than we are? What pessimistic view of the universe would it be to deny the possibility of them having developed as far as we have, or farther? But that's only my own view, and I'm not going to tell anybody how their view should be. I personally don't even consider TES dragons as actual dragons, as they rather classify as wyverns from all I've read anyways, but this again is irrelevant.
Now, I was since I started playing Oblivion playing the game as Drake, my little dragon. I came up with explanations for how he got from ancient Earth to Nirn in the first place and being the prime example for a dragon of his kind he immediately became Cyrodiil's protector of all things living. That's what my dragons are, since time immemorial, when the eldest and wisest of them all decided it's time to end the feral existance of their bloody past and become a civilised, caring, protecting society. It was his wish for all dragons to obey to a sort of Codex Draconis, among other things telling a dragon doesn't kill, if it can be prevented, and that it's the inborn duty of all dragons to help and protect anything weaker than them, which being the most powerful race in existance ultimately made them inborn protectors of everything living, no exceptions. Now, there is this little dragon Drake, a role model of the Ancients' way of living, trapped in an alien plane of existance unkown to him, forced to fight to the death (due to game mechanics) against everything he'd sworn to protect. I admit the first things I did was adding means to end a fight non-lethally. It was starting to hurt not to beat those beasts to death but only knock them out or paralyze them all the time, but it was Drake's way and I was playing as him.
Nevertheless there came situations where he "had" to kill, and did so, though always with an uneasy feeling of regret afterwards. He likes the fighting, even enjoys it, being the young playful dragon he is, viewing it as a sport sort of, always improving his skills towards perfection, sometimes even "playing" with his enemies and his own superiority, but he never fealt right with the killing. I even played those mods which incorporated other dragons into the game, and of course they were the bad guys. But Drake even killed those, as it couldn't be helped. He might have been successful so far in always converting his enemies back on Earth sooner or later, but this realm, Nirn, was different now. Not killing the bad guys meant not saving the innocent. There's no way around, if he wants to save the lives of many, and this is the only time when killing is tolerated as a last resort option. And when, and that's still an "if", I'm going to play Skyrim next, it will be as Drake again, of course, and he will also kill off those nasty attrocities who call themselves dragons, if it can't be helped.
Coming back to the "god and angels" scheme depicted here several times, you can even go further and make the existance of dragons "not" following Alduin an inevitable point to stay within the scheme. I'm not talking of Luzifer here. I've seen many fictional creations where either the angels or god himself chose to take some rather questionable actions, like destroying the world or mankind because there's no more hope for a future or whatever. There were always those who got used to "love" humans as told to by their god in the past and to value life, as it was his creation, even if he himself lost all faith in its future. Those still believed in humans and that they actually can act the way god wants them to and there's no need to destroy them all. First they only fealt uneasy while following their orders, fealt it was not right what they were doing. They started doubting the decisions of their superiors, either as results of a misperception of the situation and its hopelessness or a wrongly understood means to make things better, and sooner or later they began denying those orders, opposing their superiors and finally fighting for mankind, as they were always told to by god before, always in the hopes their superiors or maybe even god himself will finally realize the wrongness of their decisions and reconsider ultimate destruction. So if the dragons in Skyrim really are like the angels of god Alduin, there inevitably will be some like these, questioning the rightfulness of their orders according to their own feelings. Of course religious fanatism always overrules (it's the same in real life nowadays in many countries we know and just about all religions, even my christian one) so there will be only very few of them. But still "some" will be.
For what it's worth, I will see what Skyrim is like in November then, and not make any decisions or assumptions due to mere rumors until it's done and out. If then I don't like what it is, the people wanting me to port my stuff to Skyrim already now will have to find someone else to do the job. That's it. What others do or not do, what they think about it or not, if they like the game how it will be or not, is of no meaning to me and doesn't remotely tangent me the slightest. However, the way people are talking to each other here on the other hand "does" concern me, and it proves quite fine why I'm not very fond of my own kind at times either.
