I can see it now: Commander: I am eternally grateful to you for saving me and bringing me back to the world of the living. Truly, it is far more generous than I would ever have been. You have given me another chance which I have not, so far, done anything to deserve. I have so much blood on my hands, and I make no excuse for it. I enjoyed it. I can never make amends. However, considering my history, I hope you will take this in the spirit I intend: If you hurt my brother, it is the last mistake you will ever make. With all my gratitude, Vaylin

Sorry about that, I've seen a lot of that kind of thing lately that did prove to be mockery on a number of subjects and sometimes it's hard to tell. For that matter, mockery on just this subject. It wears after a while.

No one took them seriously. I simply took them as mockery of the original request rather than as good-natured humor. If it wasn't mockery, I apologize. I thought maybe that was wrong at one point, so I amended the post to indicate that it had amusement value. But the fact that you just attributed my response to not being able to see that you weren't serious, which was perfectly clear, rather than possibly getting your intent wrong? Not sure what to say about that. Especially since you even quoted the edit but still assumed that I took them seriously. By "amusement value", I was acknowledging the joke. I was not saying it would be amusing in the game. Is that clearer?

No. If we were the Avatar, we would have both insisted on and actually found a way to take her alive. Probably by being instructed in a new Force technique by a giant lion turtle, but still.

Or, you know, she actually gets the help she needs. Like Arcann "the survivors will be motivated/bomb five worlds to ash/start a war for something he did/put killer satellites over six worlds" Tirall did. Just a thought. Because he's either just as broken as she is considering all that and can or cannot be helped as much as her, or he's just evil and doesn't deserve to be and the option is ridiculous. Personally, I prefer having the choice, so I prefer having the choice for both. Doesn't matter, she's dead and even the OP has dropped it. And before someone objects with "but she wouldn't allow it", yes, I know, neither would he before suddenly he did. I'm talking about what would be a more reasonable set of "requirements" for Vaylin becoming a companion than the above, I'm well aware of how they decided to write and use the character, thanks. Edit: Just to be clear, the above suggestion does have its amusement value. It's just that, if such a thing had been done, I would have preferred more "redemption" and less "crazy".

I don't know about the OP, but I think she died too easy, considering her build up, and think she died after all kinds of bad storytelling and characterization of both her and several other characters, including my own. It's aggravating unless they do something more with the character. But all the commentary from the devs I've seen, combined with the way Arcann's final email was written, make me believe that the door is closed on any possibility there. The whole thing was rushed and is now being swept away for whatever is coming next. I can't even object to that, BWA is ultimately a business and a lot of people want this story to be done. I just wish that it wasn't being left as the mess I perceive it to be.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear: I'm not actually against Arcann becoming a companion, I just notice that every time the idea that Vaylin being a companion or even being allowed to live comes up the fact that he CAN be is kind of glossed over. The post I was responded to listed several other characters that are similar in madness and disdain for life, but somehow such posts always (in my experience) fail to mention him, who is allowed to be a companion. In fact, he's basically forced on you (I wouldn't have taken either of them in Chapter 8 if I'd had a choice, though I'd absolutely take them for Chapter 9) if you don't kill them. Basically, I was trying to say that Arcann and Vaylin should have been treated the same, not necessarily that he shouldn't be allowed to survive if the player so chooses. But I do agree that he shouldn't have been let off the hook as completely as he was. You should be allowed to imprison him in Chapter 6, and if you don't, members of the Alliance should up and leave. I also don't think that hunting him down should have been inherently DS, someone seeking justice rather than mercy shouldn't be branded as "bad". I do think that showing him mercy is pretty inherently LS, though.

You forgot NO TO ARCANN. Because once you kill off a full half of your troops and quip, "The survivors will be motivated", you are just as much a psychopath as any of those. Oh, wait... And, yeah, it's dead, because so is she. One of the worst stories of its type I have ever seen, and that's saying something. BWA must be so proud.

Why not? Memory is cheap and no one is being abusive, and anyone that doesn't want to comment can just go on by. (edited for clarity, the first sounded a bit abrasive)

Yeah, the only way I can make this make sense for all characters in my head is to assume that Valkorion was controlling them and giving them power. All PC's may very well come to the same end (regardless of my annoyance with the story, she IS leveling the base), but the path there just has too many moments that, say, an LS Consular should have done differently.

I will give you this: you just in two sentences wrote a better scene than the pros at Bioware. Good job. Plus, bonus points for wanting to check for yourself. Let us know how it goes. (deleted a bunch of stuff that was really unnecessary since you'll just play it)

I said plausible chances, which they don't give you a single time. But you do mention "the pain she had to grow up in", which is exactly what I think the writers were going for. I still think they blew it. Using the phrase is the entire point of Chapter 6. It's the entire plan, confront her while standing in a crowd of civilians, and use the phrase, not to actually stop her, but to show the people that she has a weakness. A weakness they have no power to exploit. After this, any chance to try that the writers give you is moot, because there is no way she is ever going to believe that you are not a pawn of her father. So, when you ask her about it in Chapter 8, I can't take it seriously, because you are either being controlled or just another creep out to hurt her, from her point of view. Chapter 1, you get to say something sympathetic, but end it with "Killing him won't heal your scars", which is utter nonsense to begin with and, further, in her state, isn't a great thing to say. Chapter 3, you get to talk about how you're both being manipulated. Almost a good one. Still not a real offer of help, though, and then Valk pops out and does the command phrase. Added to because then you listen to his nonsense of "If I hadn't conditioned her, you'd be dead", and can't respond with, say, "What nonsense, if you hadn't conditioned her this probably wouldn't be happening, you utter monster." This is the crux of most of my disgust with this whole thing: not only do you kill between one and three of the Emperor's victims, you also listen to the scum, the world-eating monster that destroyed his own family, and don't give him nearly enough backtalk. Chapter 8 was almost plausible, but you've already blown it by that point in a decision that BWA didn't feel was important enough to let you make but forced it on you in Chapter 6.

Maybe if I put it up front people will get it: I'm not objecting to her needing to die. I don't like it, but it is not by itself the problem. It is A problem, but if it were just that, I wouldn't be here talking about it. Arcann offered her help. At that point, he had stood with their mother, who in turn not only abandoned her as a child (again, to make this clear, I DON'T BLAME SENYA FOR THIS, but that little girl who got taken off and broken has good reason to), but also stood with the Outlander, the pawn of her tormentor, who had just, moments before, used the phrase on her. There was no way at that point that she would accept Arcann's help. What I'm saying that simply seems to be hard to understand is that Arcann should have been allowed to offer her help BEFORE all that happened, so that we could see her reject it. That would not have been difficult to do, but Bioware blew it, much like having the ceiling collapse before she could actually make a decision. I'm objecting to all the crap Bioware gave us leading up to that moment, the fact that our characters are not given the opportunity to not actively make it worse. I object to BWA's continuing insistence that somehow her depredations were worse than the guy standing next to you when you fight her, if you choose to let him live, after he burned worlds and killed half his knights. Clearly, he enjoyed killing at least as much as she did. Or, if he didn't, if he was in his right mind when he did those things, relatively, he should be dead or at least imprisoned for his crimes, not a trusted member of the Alliance all of a sudden. I object to "brainwashing or death" for the two broken people. I never said Vaylin wanted you dead just because you use the trigger phrase on her. I said that Vaylin wanted you dead for a few reasons, including the trigger phrase, but also because you are a pawn of her father, you listen to him and take his advice, because Bioware insisted on writing a story where my character was given no option but to make things worse, over and over again. If I have to sit through yet another "she's too far gone to save, there was just nothing else we could do", I'd prefer not to have my character be forced to contribute to that. To torture her further. I never denied that Vaylin enjoyed killing people, though that's because her mind and ability to have compassion were destroyed by dear old dad, according to the holos. They specifically mention that. If that means she can't be saved, so be it, but the character that has even a slight chance is more interesting than the mustache-twirling villains (both her and Arcann, but look, he got his miracle) they gave us. I never said Vaylin didn't have to be stopped by whatever means were available. However, other means were available to try and that you are never given the option, including at the end when she is already beaten and rather than taking her down once and for all you are forced to stand there like an idiot and listen to the real villain. Again. With predictable consequences. I never said that saving her was original. But not saving her, yet another victim of Vitiate, is BOTH unoriginal and disgusting, between being yet another crap stereotype of abuse victims gone bad to try to yank a tragic storyline out of this and needing to die and the story leading up to it. We know they could have done a less awful story, they did it with Jack, they did it with Arcann (and he still gets brainwashed rather than doing the work to recover, so not great, either). Even if she ultimately does die, they should have done something better here. There was so much bad in this story. It starts with the "abuse victim needs to die" and just grows out of control from there so that they can get that end. All I wanted was to be able to make different, less disgusting choices during the story, even if the ending was the same. But I guess that's too much to ask.

You don't respond with "Let's take him down together", you respond with nonsense like "Killing him won't heal your scars". It's awful. She wants you dead, because you listen to her abuser. She has no way to really know that, but she believes it, and she's RIGHT. She also wants you dead by the end BECAUSE YOU DO USE THE PHRASE ON HER. The writers give you NO choice in that. If you could choose not to, the whole thing would be five times better right there. And I had no interest in playing the character that used her torture, who listens to her world-devouring abuser father. That's what they foisted off on us. Of COURSE she wanted you dead, you never gave her any kind of reason to want otherwise. It's a bad Criminal Minds episode, not Star Wars. Plus, you know, I specifically said it didn't have to work. I specifically said she might reject even a genuine attempt. I just wanted the ability to have one. Arcann rejected attempts to reach him right up until suddenly he didn't, and that came when you beat him down that last time and his mother saved him. Vaylin never got that. There were two times she might have: on the ship, when the roof collapsed before she made the decision (presumably to resume her attack), all they had to do was have the roof collapse after she showed her intent, and one more when Arcann offered her a chance in Chapter 6, which was after you had used her torture to troll her. She was NEVER given a choice in any way that was plausible. That's the problem. If she had been, she would have rejected it, because the writers believe that yet another story of an abuse victim becoming a monster and just HAVING to die was a story we needed yet another example of. Plus, another abuse victim that became just as bad a monster got magically brainwashed, so we get the message that "If you're broken, get or stay brainwashed, otherwise you have to die." Driving the abuse victim to her knees and watching her whimper while you listen to her abuser one last time, rather than acting to take her down before she blows up, then impaling her? Absolutely disgusting. The whole thing was a CF of mental illness stereotypes, forcing us to continue the abuse, and then kill the character, as was the dark side choice series for Arcann. But people insist that this is a good story. It's not original, it's not healthy, and even within that tired trope, it was particularly awful. They had absolute control. We didn't need to be possessed by her abuser. We could have simply not responded by listening to him and going along with the use of the phrase. Almost every step along the way we hurt her more, even if we give lip service to wanting to take her alive. And the few times we try to talk her down? Nonsense that she would never listen to coming from her abuser or his puppet. Arcann was saved by Senya, I am perfectly happy to let Vaylin be saved by an NPC too, because you're right, the PC can't do it at that point. They could have allowed us to make the choices that might have allowed her to be saved, or at least make a plausible attempt, but since didn't and made us hurt her instead, I'd be happy to see her saved and escape the Outlander's abuse because of an NPC genuinely helping her. That doesn't even go into not being able to give Valkorion lip every time he gives you his nonsense abuser excuses. That would be grand, again, even if she has to die at the end.

Valkorian also smacked you around as a Force ghost. I see no real problem here.

What does it have to do with an unreliable narrator? She talks about Vaylin being free, based on what? After Betrayal, I don't really trust her view of events. They contradict both the trailer and the fact that the torturers on Nathema exposed her to things that make NO SENSE if she's the monster her mother thought she was. Her judgement cannot be trusted, and I actually like the character, I just recognize that she is meant to be flawed. Plus, the little girl in the video didn't look "troubled" until grown Knights were hitting her with sticks. So, a little girl with superpowers that react to emotions hurts someone that dropped a ball, and then a grown man hitting her with a stick (which is also described as "slightly frustrated", what nonsense). That in no way indicates this "born evil" nonsense, and if that's really the story Bioware was trying to tell, I need to make sure not to buy a product that they ever touch again. And the woman that ABANDONED her to Valkorian and the man that sided with her gave a chance, and you took that seriously? Maybe if there had been someone involved that she might listen to and hadn't tortured her with her command phrase further, but no such person was available because Bioware didn't allow us to be. It didn't even have to work. It just needed to be an option there even if it failed, which since Bioware presented her as "more brutal" after he burned five whole worlds and had half his knights murder to other half to "motivate" them, but still getting saved, I knew we were never going to be given such options. Finally, yeah, sure, the woman who was tortured for over a decade enjoyed expressing her hate. So did Arcann, but we were given the miraculous ability to save him. He was every bit a monster, he just seemed calmer. I will never understand why this is so difficult. But I don't blame you. You just fell for Bioware Austin's garbage writing. I entirely blame them for their victim blaming nonsense, and for the fact that it wasn't even applied evenly. At least in the latest press release they referred to the villain as Valkorian, not the kids, because after almost two years of presenting them as the real villains and making your character actually listen to the real monster of the piece, they admit it. Much too late, but they finally did.

A mass murderer that exceeds any monster in Earth's history, and it's ok because "he had reasons"? Please. Arcann is a psychopath that killed millions (he says, seems like it should be tens of millions or billions) when he randomly bombed five worlds. His "plan" was nonsense from any other viewpoint: that he was doing it for the lulls. He even agrees once he gets magical Force healing applied to him that there was no excuse. And the fact that "he had reasons" is one of the things Valkorian might say about the Outlander doesn't leave me impressed with that argument, either. At least BWA got that right by giving him that line. He needed a miracle to save and got one (literally: it took magical Force powers). She needed the same and did not get one. They were both purely the victims of Valkorian, and we only get to even try to save one. Not even with the vaunted "choices that matter", which is apparently the choice to gleefully kill companions. Yay?

I appear to have the same problem, submitted a ticket yesterday.