How dare he cheat me?

Dragon Age Origins Blog infidelity Alistair and Infidelity

I have been replaying Origins again because I wanted it to be even more fresh in my mind before starting Awakening. Alistair was my romantic interest the first time around so this time, I have committed myself to dallying with someone else. At first, this was merely motivated by my desire to get another achievement, but as I started playing, I realized the decision was influenced by deeper emotions.

Whenever a dialogue sequence begins between my new character and Alistair, I feel like I have to be quite careful not to suggest anything inappropriate. It is as if this new character is a friend of my old character and cannot flirt with her friend’s boyfriend. Complicated and seemingly irrational, I imagine you’re thinking. How can I even think such things when it is obviously an entirely separate timeline? Alistair has never known my first character nor has my present character known any of my others. She is free to do whatever and whomever she likes. For some reason though, it doesn’t feel that way to me.

Not only am I trying to keep things very Platonic between dear Alistair and myself, I can’t help but notice things about him that made my first character like him. For example, I had entirely forgotten about the scene between Alistair and the player-character directly after Ostagar at Flemeth’s hut. You wake up, have a bit of dialogue, and then stumble outside to be greeted by a very lonely and sad Alistair. He was just so happy to see me alive and well that I could not help but feel a flutter. “No,” I tell myself, “it’s just because all his friends just died. Keep it cool.” But I can already sense the danger there.

Dragon Age Origins Blog alistairhut Alistair and Infidelity

Besides this feeling of responsibility I have to my character’s “friend”, I also feel somewhat angry at Alistair. How dare he even let this character think that he’s a potential target for flirtation!! Doesn’t he remember last night?? “If he so much as hints at a lamp-post, I am going to…” Wait, different timeline. He’s not being an unfaithful cad. I’m just getting too involved in my own character’s experiences.

Although I am one to get involved in stories and typically have either positive or negative feelings about the characters (if well done), this interactive anachronistic experience with one is entirely different. I do not think it would be possible in a linear textual narrative at all, and not even in something like a “Choose Your Own Adventure”. In a game, I not only react to the characters, but I become one myself and not always the same one. I have the opportunity to play a role in the story, but a role that is only half written. I am the one who develops the character, perhaps a different one every time.

Not only is this interactive authorial experience different from that in a linear textual narrative, but so too is the presentation of the characters. In a book, one’s imagination does much of the work. We put faces and voices to characters as we interpret their descriptions. Before film put us all on the same track, my Gandalf would have likely sounded much different from yours. In a game, the character has a face and voice supplied to us and our imagination is never burdened with the creation. We may accept Alistair’s face and voice as his own, but it actually takes a great deal of skill to make this happen. In the scene I mentioned above at Flemeth’s hut, Alistair’s expressions (facial animations) and vocal intonations work together to create a believable character feeling recognizable emotions. When he saw me, Alistair’s expression and words were so infused with hope and relief that it was not just someone reading a script; it was Alistair speaking to me.

“But wait, this new character isn’t really me, right? She can do whatever she wants, even Alistair,” I say with an evil and somewhat guilty grin.

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