The Nature of My Game

 BioWare: because Edmonton is too boring without video games.

I finally finished Dragon Age: Origins (about six months after everybody else) and I've come to agree that yes, BioWare is still up to their normal tight standard of moral screwery. A BioWare game is never short of awkward situations that cause the player to have to carefully consider the outcomes and significance of his or her actions. The main plot is much less complicated, as it centers around beating down an unambiguously evil threat to virtually all life, the player's included - but it's the ancillary moments that lead to said beat-down that really make the game shine in one's memory.

Spoilers ahead: My favourite moment wasn't even a side-quest, but just a single, simple encounter. The second of three moments in which I would have to pause the game, pace around the room for several minutes, consult with friends, and ultimately check a strategy wiki before settling on a course of action. A desire demon has enthralled a Templar, and given him a mental illusion in which his secret, lifelong desires of having a wife and children have been fulfilled. The demon asks the player to simply move on and leave it be with its new host. If the player insists on exorcising the demon, it will trick the Templar into attacking the player, and both human and demon will have to die in this case.

A knee-jerk reaction says the demon should be killed, but let's look at potential reasons for why. Killing a demon in the name of deterrence is right out, because demons are bastards by nature and cannot be deterred. Direct personal gain is also out, because there's not much here for loot, and it'd be much easier to just let them go without a fuss.

The big reasoning behind wanting to kill the demon is of course that it has abused the Templar's personal freedoms. There is always a potential risk that a demon might similarly abuse the player character's freedoms, so the player should establish a precedent or protocol for his or her own future rescuer by acting appropriately in regards to the Templar.

In that case, we can take a quick look at our potential fates for the Templar: One, he leaves under the demon's influence, either to spend his life in deluded happiness, or to be abandoned by the demon and left in despair at a later date. Or two, he dies now at the hands of the player character, never to experience happiness again. Which fate would you prefer?