{"id":2109,"date":"2009-02-09T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T17:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=2109"},"modified":"2018-10-08T13:44:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T17:44:47","slug":"fable-2-plot-failures-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=2109","title":{"rendered":"Fable 2 Part 4: The Goldun Riter!"},"content":{"rendered":"
Here is the final stroke on the dead horse that is the plot of Fable 2. You might want to read part 3<\/a> if you missed that.<\/p>\n

The usual spoiler warnings apply.<\/p><\/div>\n

Oh, it is such a bother being as incredibly awesome as I am.<\/td><\/tr>
Oh, it is such a bother being as incredibly awesome as I am.<\/td><\/tr><\/table>You and world-class jerk Reaver make your way through the winding secret passages under his mansion. Along the way he brags about past evils he’s done, the people he’s murdered for a laugh, and the debauchery he’s engaged in. He’s hundreds and hundreds of years old, having renewed his life over the years at the cost of countless innocents.<\/p>\n

Lucian’s men make it down into the tunnels, and Reaver is cavalier about mowing them down with his ‘leet marksmanship. Oh, I have to kill waves of men using my fabulous skills. How droll. Aren’t I awesome?<\/em><\/p>\n

Reaver is the classic GMPC. The author-insertion character who is smarter, wittier, and better than everyone else. Here is someone you may hate, but the designer won’t let you kill their precious avatar. Instead, you have to follow him around and do what he tells you. While you wade in and fight the bad guys he gets to stand back, look cool, and get all the snappy one-liners. <\/p>\n

As a bonus, Reaver talks down to you constantly, demeaning you and insulting you even as you fight to protect him. And since you can’t speak, you can’t respond in kind.<\/p>\n

Once again: Lucian wants this Reaver guy alive. Theresa has never explained why we<\/strong> need him. He’s given you three reasons to kill him now and is obviously a massive liability. There is no justification for not immolating him and walking away. This was by far the most frustrating part of the game for me, as I “fell” for his stupid schemes by designer fiat. <\/p>\n

I actually wouldn’t object to a character this annoying, as long as:
\n1) You get to settle up with him in the end.
\n2) He doesn’t kill the momentum of the game by overshadowing the main villain. <\/p>\n

So it’s a double fail for Reaver, although if he’d been a regular mid-game villain instead of a mandatory albatross of an ally he could have been a lot of fun.<\/p><\/div>\n

You exit the escape tunnels and find yourself on a beach where you join up with Hammer and Garth. Now all four heroes are together in one place. Reaver keeps insulting everyone and trying to leave. He doesn’t care about any of this, and would like to get back to his life of hedonism and treachery as quickly as possible. <\/p>\n

You get outside of Reaver’s super secret escape tunnel of secrecy and find that Garth and Hammer – who have never been in this town before – knew where you were going and where to meet you? <\/div>\n

Lucian pulls out all the stops, and throws everything he has at you.<\/p>\n

Everything except that teleportation kidnapping that worked so well on Garth earlier in the game. Lucien just teleports in more soldiers. You also have to fight a huge shard. (A big floating pyramid thing.) It’s not a bad boss fight.<\/div>\n

The battle ends, and Theresa teleports in. She talks Reaver into joining by pointing out that if Lucian destroys the world, Reaver won’t have anyone to sacrifice to the Shadow Dudes. Reaver agrees, and then she teleports all of you back to the Guild Cave.<\/p>\n

Wow. That teleportation sure would have come in handy when we were trying to get here<\/em>. Or when we needed to escape. Or when I was with the Shadow Dudes. Or pretty much at any point<\/em> before now.<\/div>\n

Back at the rock spire you’ve been using as a base of operations, your group gathers on the stone roof for the Ultimate Ceremony of Ultimate Destiny. You stand in the middle, the three heroes stand on pedestals around you and beams of light shine, with you at the nexus. <\/p>\n

And still Theresa has not explained to anyone what this will do. You are treated like a child by the writer. The writer-surrogate characters all boss you around, and you simply do as you’re told without ever having anything explained to you.<\/div>\n

Then, Lucian teleports in. Theresa teleports away. Lucian does a little requisite bad guy posturing, and then the other heroes are all kidnapped via teleport.<\/p>\n

This teleporting business is about as lame as it gets. At least Lucian is using his<\/em> teleporter again. Why didn’t he come here before? How did he know to come here now? <\/div>\n

Lucian then taunts you with the knowledge that he just got done murdering your entire family. Again. Spouse, kids, everybody. Then he kills your dog. Then he shoots you in the face.<\/p>\n

I haven’t tested to see if he kills all of your families if you’re a bigamist. I’m kind of curious about that one. <\/p>\n

Anyway, what exactly does this guy have against the player, really? His senseless bloodlust negates the one minuscule thing that his character supposedly had going for him, which was that he was so distraught over the loss of his wife & daughter that he wanted to bring them back to life or re-shape the world or whatever. But if he’s so upset<\/em> about their deaths, then how is it he has the desire to gun down defenseless women and children who aren’t even a threat to his plans?<\/div>\n

You awaken in a dream world. You’re a kid, living on a farm with your sister. She suggests the two of you run around the farm and play together all day.<\/p>\n

But if you’re smart you’ll turn around and click on the bed, which will skip the entire, “Waste a bunch of time without explaining what in the flaming hell is going on” section of the game.<\/div>\n

After playing with sis and romping around the farm, you go to bed. You are awakened in the night by music. You leave the farm and head down the road. Eventually you come to the music box, the one that fizzled at the start of the game. As you pick it up, you hear your sister say, “You’ve passed the test. Your reward is the opportunity to face your enemy, and the means to destroy him.”<\/p>\n

Suddenly, you are back in the real world, at the entrance to the Spire. You’re holding the music box.<\/p>\n

Never is it explained how you survived a point-blank shot to the face. Or what that dream world business was all about. Or how you got to the Spire. Or what “the test” was, who issued it, who judged it, what it judged, or why you passed. <\/p>\n

It is the quintessential Deus Ex Machina: Suddenly, you are winning for no reason<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Victory was taken from you by writer fiat. Now it’s being foisted on you by writer fiat.<\/p><\/div>\n

The ceremony of ultimate (albeit ambiguous) destiny takes place on a precarious platform at the heart of the Spire. Only good guys use handrails.<\/td><\/tr>
The ceremony of ultimate (albeit ambiguous) destiny takes place on a precarious platform at the heart of the Spire. Only good guys use handrails.<\/td><\/tr><\/table>You enter the Spire. Lucian has re-created the Ultimate Ceremony of Ultimate Destiny here in the tower, with the other heroes around him and himself in the center. Colorful beams of light pour into him, although as before it’s not really clear what the beams are doing. You walk up to him and are prompted to press a button. When you do, the music box takes away the colorful beams coming from the other heroes, leaving him vulnerable. <\/p>\n
It’s the classic tabletop gaming trope: The entire game is just the author wanking off as he pits his Ultimate Evil Guy against His Ultimate Awesome Weapon. You win not because you were brave, strong, or resourceful, but because you did what you were told. The artifact did all the winning for you. I actually don’t mind not having some crazy multi-stage boss fight, it’s just that this moment was scripted in such a way as to take all of the drama out of it. At the very least, the player should have some idea what the heck this box is and what advantage it will give them before they hit the button.<\/div>\n

You can then shoot him once and win the game. He falls and dies off screen.<\/p>\n

I hope. Note that you’ve been shot by Lucian twice and fallen out of his high window. Here, you shoot him once and he falls off screen. (And if you angle the camera just right you can see there is water<\/em> below.) Since you survived a bullet and a fall, it makes sense that you’d want to double-check Lucien and make sure he’s done. But once he falls out of view, he’s forgotten and nobody speaks of him again.<\/p>\n

Whatever you do, do not<\/em> waste time listening to what he says, hoping that some logic will emerge from this wreck of a character. If you take too long, Reaver will kill-steal the final boss from you and no that is not a joke.<\/em><\/div>\n

Theresa will then teleport in…<\/p>\n

Give me a break.<\/em><\/div>\n

…and stand where Lucian was standing. She says the Spire is now ready to deliver a wish, and as the big hero you get to make it. Will you:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Bring back to life everyone who died in the making of the tower? Thousands of people.\n<\/li>\n
  2. Bring back your loved ones. Your sister, your family, your dog.\n<\/li>\n
  3. Get a big bunch of money. According to Theresa, it is “more wealth than you can possibly imagine”, etc.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    Lucky for us that the hero arrived once the Spire was ready to make with the wish-granting, but before Lucien actually made his life-long wish. That can’t have been a very large window of opportunity.<\/p>\n

    Before you get all click-happy and make your choice, know that:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Those “thousands” of people never actually appear anywhere. You just get a generic letter from “The People of Albion” thanking you for bringing their loved ones back to life. And good points. I saw no other difference in the gameworld when contrasted with the other endings.<\/li>\n
    2. You don’t actually get to see your sister again. I wanted my sister to come back and live in the Castle, like she wished for at the beginning<\/em>. No, you just get a letter saying she’s happy and doing fine here in not-part-of-the-reachable-gameworld-ville.<\/li>\n
    3. “More money than you could imagine” is blatant false advertising. You get 1 million. There is actually a property in the game that costs 1 million (Castle Fairfax, Lucien’s old home and where sis wanted to live) so it’s entirely possible to make this wish and be broke five minutes later. My evil character has just finished his trip to see the Shadow Dudes for Reaver, and he’s got 6.8 million. A million bucks isn’t really enough to tempt him into giving up his beloved killer black dog. There is just no reason to pick this.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      And while we’re at it: I can bring back thousands and thousands of people I don’t know, or a couple that I care about? How does that work exactly? Why can’t I wish for the return of “everyone killed by Lucian”? Surely adding my few people onto the Spire Death Tally isn’t going to push the magic wish machine over some arbitrary limit.<\/p>\n

      Actually, screw that: My wish is for Reaver to drown in his own urine. Or maybe I want to do that “nuke the world” thing that the last guy wished for. Or maybe I’d like to have my youth back that Reaver stole from me.<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n

      The wish made, Theresa then teleports the other heroes away. Reaver poofs away to the other side of the world and nobody asks if you would like to, you know, settle up with him. In fact, nobody ever mentions your lost youth, ever.<\/p>\n

      Because nobody cares. This story isn’t about you. This is a story about the writer’s ultimate evil bad guy versus his author-insertion know-it-all and his Artifact of Mysterious Destiny. You are a supporting character – a silent one at that – and what you think or feel is unimportant.<\/div>\n

      Theresa then declares that she owns the Spire and teleports you away. “Begone”, she tells you.<\/p>\n

      And so the story ends with the writer laughing at you. “Ha ha! I got you! You totally fell for it! She totally pwned you, dude!”<\/p>\n

      If you were wondering why your character obeyed this idiot woman no matter how much her goals ran contrary to yours, now you know: The writer didn’t actually have the brains to outsmart you, so he simply railroaded you into doing stupid things. <\/p>\n

      If you actually want to outsmart a player then you need a good writer with a fine touch<\/a>. And then you can fool some<\/em> of them. (You’ll never fool all of them. You can’t beat people in aggregate.)\n<\/div>\n

      Allow me to present the first ever Twenty Sided Goldun Riter award for egregiously bad storytelling.<\/p>\n

      goldun_riter.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

      (I considered retroactively awarding this to the original Fable<\/a> and Indigo Prophesy<\/a> as well, but I didn’t want to steal Fable 2’s thunder by making it share the limelight with the narrative blunders of the past.) <\/p>\n

      This four-part series, unlike Fable 2 itself, has a surprise ending: <\/p>\n

      I liked<\/em> Fable 2, even though the story was award-winningly horrible.<\/em> I realize this sounds like heresy coming from a “story first” critic like myself. Perhaps you feel like I’ve betrayed you by claiming to have enjoyed the game after dragging you through this four-part, seven thousand word odyssey of inanity. I’ll try to justify my appreciation in another post, which will hopefully soothe your rage and earn your forgiveness.<\/p>\n

      I wrote this series because I think stories are<\/em> important. I don’t expect Lord of the Rings when I start up a game, but I do expect the story to relate world that is internally consistent, with characters that have reasonable motivation. (Particularly the player character.) <\/p>\n

      Also, I’ve written it as a service to you. I found the game much more enjoyable once I knew the plot and I stopped expecting it to deliver satisfaction. It is my hope that if you do play the game at some point, this series will blunt your misery and allow you to focus on the parts that can provide entertainment. Perhaps you will even have a laugh at the expense of the writer.<\/p>\n

      The award winning<\/i> writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Here is the final stroke on the dead horse that is the plot of Fable 2. You might want to read part 3 if you missed that. The usual spoiler warnings apply. Oh, it is such a bother being as incredibly awesome as I am.You and world-class jerk Reaver make your way through the winding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[612],"tags":[28,190],"class_list":["post-2109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retrospectives","tag-fable","tag-goldun-riter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44263,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions\/44263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}