Spoilers for some story decisions in Stray Gods
Feminina:
As the grim silence leads me to assume no one has anything new, I will return to yesterday's discussion of Aphrodite's choice to die. I was thinking about the other time that you have a choice to either push someone in a direction or leave it to them to choose, which is Hecate deciding whether or not to accept Astarion's love. In that case, "let her choose" (which I did repeatedly because, again, it's her life and her decision) resulted in her choosing the love story.
With Aphrodite, "let her choose" means she chooses to die, even though it means missing out on what is (rather oddly, but I suppose one can be in love with life itself) presented as another love story – "Everybody!…wants to see you fall in love again."
Obviously, different people make different choices and it's perfectly reasonable that they may sometimes pick something we don't really approve of (death) and sometimes will pick something we all, I assume, greatly approved of (romantic love with a humanoid bull-creature).
I just thought it was interesting that they kind of had one of those being the 'good' path and one the 'bad' one…as if to say that sometimes the right call is to use your influence, while other times, you should just keep it to yourself.
Loothound:
That's interesting. I think there's a reasonable distinction between the two situations. So, Aphrodite's default action was to pass on, she's done it many times, and it takes direct and firm intervention on Grace's part to shift it. In the case of Hecate and Asterion, the default action is nothing happens, because that's what has been happening. That's what will keep happening if Grace isn't involved, and I don't know about your playthroughs, but in mine Grace was trying to Cyrano de Bergerac (sp?) the whole thing and NOT be a factor. Now, it didn't work out in mine, Grace had to make herself known, but if letting Hecate simply choose ends up with her and Asterion, then maybe it would have worked that way if Grace's presence had never been known.
I'd say that the one requires Grace's intervention to shift, while the other one merely needs Grace as a facilitator. If Asterion and Hecate were to only ever get together, in game terms, if Grace actually used active influence then I feel like it's a different level of influence. How that plays into whether there is come comment on good vs. bad actions, I have no idea.
Moral decisions be weighty, y'all.
If we were to apply the circumstances to real life, I think we can all agree that we'd be more okay with someone actively pressuring someone to not off themselves, as opposed to actively pressuring someone who is not otherwise in distress to get into a relationship.
Great, now I'm wishing I'd pushed harder on the Aphrodite thing, even though she was vey much in distress.
Feminina:
Yeah, I agree. I didn't feel awesome about not talking her out of it, even though no one blamed Grace and everyone continued to respect Aphrodite's decision.
But…not all decisions are equally good, I guess the game is gently saying.
Butch:
Which is rare in games! Usually the Paragon/Renegade choice is obvious. Hell, sometimes it's even color coded. This game, less so. "Charming, Kick ass and clever" aren't "good/bad." It's not even really presented as "forceful/passive" or however Horizon did it.
Hmm.
Loothound:
Yeah. They're really much more about attitudes than actions, and yet the nuances of that matter to what happens. It's nice, and not something you get much of in games with more violent mechanics.
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