Can't say I blame you, but I do want to get videos of some of it with my own characters. It's the only thing that got me through KotET that second time.

Yeah, me too, though I'll probably take my people that are through KotET through the rest at some point. But if anything happens to change my mind on that, I'll still probably let her live.

Eh, I'll probably always save Senya. I have a few characters that would burn Arcann, I think, but I just can't bring myself to kill Senya. Mind you, not having to listen to some of their lines in the later part of KotET is not something I would mind, but the cost is just too high.

Except, she really, really doesn't. She walked away from her, leaving her to the utter horrors of Nathema. She's the parent who stood aside while the other one abused the children. Did she come to regret it? Yes. Did she come back to try to correct the mistake? Yes, too late. And then, at the last, her explanation was, "She's broken, I see that now." Giving the Outlander permission to kill the daughter that she'd failed and the Outlander tormented more. If you don't see it that way, that's fine. I like Senya, too. But people have reacted to her according to their own experiences, and some of them recognize in her behavior they've seen in their lives. Some identify with Vaylin, her problems as a child that she was tortured for, and some resent the way Senya gave up on her while nearly dying for her precious boy. I'm certainly not going to tell you your interpretation is wrong, but I'm also not up to the task of telling those people they are wrong, either. Looks like this is irrelevant to the thread Paul was referring to, though. So it goes.

Exactly, though I usually say "if Yoda can generate a lightning bolt".

I remember it now, that's about right, I think. I also just like the idea of her healing herself, without our intervention, so that always works for me.

Yeah, I could have phrased that better, sorry. I didn't mean it was OK by you, just that the headcanon appeared to help more than it does me. And storytelling does help my annoyance, it just doesn't let me view the writers of this better.

Oh, that, yes, that's a much happier thing than I imagine Vaylin becoming the new Vitiate would be. It just sounded similar.

Yeah, that was pretty much mine, too, with Vaylin returning to absorb all of that delicious energy from Ziost. That was not one of my happier story beats. But I still like the idea.

That doesn't actually help with the core issue, though I do thank you for your concern and the attempt. There was certainly a time when I would have done that, it's just long past. I'm happy that you can do it, but they gave me nothing to base it on. They described the torture and brainwashing of a child in excruciating detail, and then gave no opportunity to try to do anything about it. They had us outright say that Valkorion was not in charge. They presented our actions against Vaylin as heroic, even inspiring, when using her torture got the civilians fighting back. They referred to her as "depraved", said she was "more brutal" than her brother for killing a dozen Knights when he killed half of them. The very fact that her weakness was having to kneel to her abuser was a decision that they should have thought through better, and then we couldn't even be allowed an "I'm sorry". It felt to me as though hurting her more was supposed to be just and fair. That's the issue. I can always come up with a better story than this, but it's not just the story, which is bad enough. I just no longer have any faith that they didn't think it would be fun to humiliate, torture, and kill (multiple times) this woman, this victim of depravity. What's worse, for a lot of the fans, they seem to be right. I've just seen it too many times, I know such people exist, but had hoped that, for all their flaws, BWA was better. No longer. They just failed to present something better too many times, and that flushed years of good will in one shot. That's my central issue. And no headcanon can fix that, because it's not about the story, it's about how the story changed my perception of the writers. It's actually colored my perception of a lot of events in the game, because I used to make excuses for them, but couldn't this time. Them making some concession in canon would go a ways to improving that perception. Preferably, just allowing her to somehow be alive and allow us to treat her better, if that's what we choose. Now, to be fair, they did say this was a mistake, which does help. But I don't know if they know what the worst mistake really was, and so far they are resistant to do anything about it. Yes, I get that they can't always go back on their story, but this is one of those times I feel they should make an exception. It was just that bad. Edit: For Chapter 8, the wheel with, "You sick, twisted...", "Now you'll suffer before you die", "I don't care". Where's my, "I know what you've been through, but he/she was the last"? Arcann, if he's alive, hoping that her spirit has been obliterated. I know what they were going for, the VA even almost saves it, but as I've said, at a certain point I gave up trying to make excuses for them. "We've won". No, Commander, we really haven't, we just played into the hands of the real threat by finally killing his greatest victim so he could steal her power. Not to mention the whole "fleet will now kill millions" thing.

I had a bit like that somewhere, too, where she's lurking about and basically eats him. My wish for this story is not that she becomes her dad, but after everything, her devouring him and taking his role would be poetic.

Valky's definitely the primary culprit, here. I would appreciate it, though, if they're not ever going to just let her live, that they reveal that scene in Chapter 6* to be outright him in control, along with some of the lines in Chapter 8. That would take out some of the sting, though I'm aware that there are people that would not like that loss of agency. Normally, I would not be thrilled, but I do think in this case it makes this particular story better. If that were canon, I could probably blow it off as just another of those stories I don't care for. Prefer them to just bring her back, and I think it could be done more simply in several ways, though. Like Paul's. I still like the idea of her hanging out in the holocron, as long as she's not stuck there for thousands of years or something like granddad. *Or let us choose for that to be what happened. Some people liked the whole thing just fine. I'll never understand it, but I don't want to take their story away, either.

I've played ME2, I've never finished ME2. I do that with a lot of games.

I will have to look into that game. I'm also fond of Jack from Mass Effect, in theory, but I've never quite seen her entire story. And, yeah, it is a negative trigger in general. They just dialed it up to 11 with this one, and I can't help but feel made our characters culpable in it. My reaction is usually to roll my eyes, complain a bit, and move on to better things.

TL'DR: These days, I'm pretty sure I just need a single player or single-player-friendly game with lots of happy endings and a great deal more control over my own characters' personalities and decisions. This... is a pretty appropriate place for that conversation, actually, at least for why I left and ultimately returned to WoW. I'll start with the simple things: I'm not a very social gamer. MMO's are good for me because they tend to last a long time and get updates, if single player had the longevity I'd probably play them more often. RPG's are my favored form of computer gaming, and I try to get some tabletop games done as well. I ultimately left WoW the last time not just because it didn't have the level of storytelling that I'd prefer, but because I just got fed up with a few of the tropes they love to use. Too many times where the story revolved around a character, once corrupted, just having no way back. The number of times my character fell for the "bad guy pretends to be helping you but SURPRISE!" was too many, though at least we were not meant to actually know this was a bad guy before the reveal. Couldn't take it any longer after the Dream Dragon incident, it was one time too many. You probably see where this is going. Yes, one of the things that originally attracted me to SWTOR, aside from being Star Wars, was the generally well-voiced characters (there are certainly exceptions) and the stronger story that I could get immersed in more. My first character was a Consular, and whatever its flaws, that story appealed to me because we were able to save them rather than having to kill them, however hamfisted the story might be. I'd just had enough of the opposite happening so regularly, even years before it got me fed up with WoW. The JK intro with the broken man that deserved another chance. Even being able to take a hand rather than a life. And so on. All of that was right up my alley. Now I feel that the story decisions have radically changed, and that those details and the amount of effort put into them make it worse, not better. Mostly with the title character of this thread, whose story was just consistently not only "can't be saved" but also "let's hurt her some more", but there have been some other things as well that just set my teeth on edge. So it goes. I returned to WoW in large part because it's kind of pretty, pretty mindless*, and those elements of its story that I came to detest I was finding everywhere, including here, so may as well enjoy it for the parts I like and ignore the parts I don't. I haven't gotten to that point with SWTOR, yet, sadly. There's just this big two year plus story right in the middle that is just hard to ignore, all the more so because of how many elements and characters I like. If only they'd been handled better. *I just did the "pretty mindless" thing because I liked the turn of phrase, and because that's how I play it. Plenty of people love the level of detail and lore, even if I find it inconsistent, and make more of the game than I do, and this is no reflection on them. Edit: I'm not saying that those stories can't exist, only that personally I'm very tired of them. I also feel this one was especially toxic, with its "let's kill the abuse survivor multiple times, because it's fun, and torture her a bit for good measure in between." It can be fun. There are lots of details but a somewhat cartoonish look, which I don't know if you'd like considering the types of games I know you play. It has a lot of minigames in it that can be diverting. It's also fantasy-with-flintlocks, which is not for everyone. There are ways to get in for free for a bit, if you ever wanted to try it out.

Mainly WoW. Never thought I'd go back there, honestly, but here we are.

I don't mind, though unlike Paul my name isn't actually Phil. Glad gaming is treating you well.

Even better.

Yeah, even if I don't join in that would be great for the screen shots alone.

That is always the goal. It just doesn't always work out that way. Example: KotET.

No, my fragile brain saw your post and decided to start writing it. At least it should end up fun instead of sad. It's actually kind of funny to me that so many Disney moments are actually terribly sad.

... dammit.

Well, if you want. I'm generally a bit embarrassed by these things. Come With Me, Daughter

That's pretty brilliant, but, no, it was about Senya's failed attempt to rescue her, so it was actually pretty sad.

I actually did that, but it was an exchange between Senya and Vaylin on Nathema.