This is true, the hatred of one man should bring us all together.

I meant your characters.

Oh, this again. Let's look at that. If I take Arcann's monstrous actions to be for "military reasons", that's actually WORSE. He kills millions or billions for a brief tactical advantage. He has half his knights and claims that it will "motivate" them. She was insane because of what was done to her, if he did the same and worse while in his right mind, he's a monster that should die. Not smiling doesn't impress me. But I actually don't view him that way. I'm perfectly happy that he got his redemption arc. I don't think it was done well, but I did want it to happen, because to me he was another victim, just as Vaylin was. He just presented differently. He still did horrible things. He was in no way more rational. Before the ritual, Senya even said that without it, he would lash out at them, even after he had saved her life in a moment of clarity. He was broken, and he got help, and was then able to fully express his remorse for what he'd done, but it was after he got help, with the exception of some individual moments, similar to how Vaylin showed another side when she met fake Thexan. And, while I'm not interested in it for myself, I am also happy all of you got your romance option. As for if their genders were flipped? The only reason that the hate for Vaylin has died down is because they got what they wanted already in her utterly grotesque story. There has been every bit as much or more for her all along, the "bat---- crazy" comments, the "why didn't she go with Mom?" comments, the "b---- deserved it" nonsense. Probably, some would flip sides, but it isn't the pattern you seem to think, at least not from my observations. Personally, I"d just love it if this contest about which one of these abuse and brainwashing victims was worse or deserved to die for it would die in a fire. They both should have been helped if we so chose, not one over the other, and I am deathly tired of hearing both about "space Hitler" and "psycho chick". They were both victims of an eldritch horror who was the only real villain here, both did wrong, but one of them we got to choose to help, the other we were forced to hurt more before killing her. That's it.

Well, much as I would like something done with her, why would they trust Vaylin at this point? Given that she might be grateful for bringing her back/freeing her/letting her make Valk Kneel, and regardless of my feelings on the story, she does have a lot of rage.

I didn't think it was possible for Theron to betray you again.

Force ghost, ghost transferred to clone, ghost tracking down her body and healing it from where Doctor the Hutt has it on ice, whichever, I'm good. As for Valkorion, I really hope he's just gone. He's the villain that keeps coming back, and that was good for a while, and I don't think his end was quite as dramatic as I'd hoped for. But, ultimately, this story made him lesser in some ways than what he was, and I'm just not interested in his return, except in a very specific circumstance. Eat a planet? Fine, you can be the Galactus of Star Wars. Familial abuse? Nah, you can stay dead.

Personally, I'm not interested in her as a romance option, but I'd be perfectly happy to see it if it meant they were going to fix her terrible story. Even a little bit.

I don't know how she became That Character, honestly, and I'd like to be able to amicably part ways with several characters, or not amicably but without killing them, either. To me, death or complete acceptance into our inner circle should never be the only two choices. I get that there are a lot of characters that would kill them, but the way it's being handled is not ideal. My LS Consular might very well kill the Last of his Kind, but probably would let some of the recruited Sith go. The idea that Lana remains our indispensable confidant is absurd for quite a few characters, even though I rather like her, myself.

This is why I don't care for ANY companion deaths, even when the character I'm playing would choose that path. It's possible that we just wouldn't have gotten much more development for them, anyway, that the devs are just focusing on the few characters regardless, but it certainly feels as though the dead characters are written out of the story for everyone, even people that chose otherwise. If so, that's not fair to them, and I don't care for it. Hopefully, it will get better, but I'm not exactly counting on it. At least we can still hang out with them, though. And that right there is why that particular choice grates on my nerves, because I got that feeling, too, and I'm not interested in learning anything from the child abusing planet eating monstrosity. I'd like to not be forced to listen to him at all, as fantastic as I thought his VA was. I'm good with her not killing one of them, however much extra effort I have to put into it, and the dialogues we had afterward (either ending with her saying, "You're fun" or "Choice. I could get used to that") always struck me as perfectly viable ways to win her over. Not to change her views, not to just wash away all that trauma in an instant like happened with Arcann, just to prove to her that we aren't going to hurt her further. I'd have been good with that. Being able to stop her by such means from trying to level the base would have been fantastic. Or, no redemption at all, and kill her for the terrible things she's done. I'm good with that, too, I object to using her trauma to defeat her and being given no other choices to even try, and to yet another tired story of mental illness and trauma creating the villain. It took the trope of "too broken to save" that I wish would die in a fire and took it well beyond.

I wouldn't mind Arcann's "redeemed" personality if it had been by his own hand. Yes, I see a lot of people that say that, "Oh, but he made the decision to protect his mother, that's how we know that he's GOOD," and, all right, but he had this huge pile of problems and his own trauma to work through, and instead of showing that, we get treated to Vaylin's brainwashing on Nathema in reverse. I didn't care for that, nor for the way his crimes were ignored while Vaylin just had to die for hers.

I would accept them simply doing better going forward. From the last interview with them, it sounds like they might. I'd mainly like Vaylin around as a token that they understand and will do better, but really, that's just the easiest way, not the only way.

I wouldn't be surprised. I can understand a person wanting to save both because they're victims, or neither because they're monsters. I can see someone wanting to save her but not him, because the mind control imagery is so much clearer and because her death was so obviously part of Valkorion's plan. But I see a bunch of people that want to save Arcann but think she deserves to die and I just don't get that, but those are the voices the devs seemed to listen to, if this wasn't their plan all along. I do like the way you described his death, though. Much better than his execution on his knees that they actually gave us, I've always felt that he should have died fighting or as the direct result of the fight. What I would have liked to have seen, since this is Bioware and "you can't save everyone" is one of their hard-and-fast rules, is that we have options that allow us to save any two of them. The siblings, or the mother and one child. Or none at all, if we so choose, though I can't see myself taking that more than once. Even kill the siblings, and Senya lives but leaves, her work done and too heartbroken to stay in the Alliance. As it stands, though, I know it won't get re-written. I don't even think it should be, it's the kind of thing they should have done right in the first place, and that can be really hard to pull off, especially when you throw in the types of strains game-writers get. I do think they should allow us to bring her back, though, because as it stands, the story was thoroughly botched. A spirit companion would be decent, since we do free her, but I'd really like to see her alive again, and there are ways to do that, too.

I don't know why they did this, but, sadly, it worked. Plenty of people have praised the story for being so sad, that we couldn't save this broken young woman. I even saw one game blogger who said, in effect, that the unfairness between the two, that he could be saved while having gone through, at least in what was shown, far less but committing equal or greater crimes was good storytelling. Poignant and all that. And, you know? If it had been remotely unique or original, that might have been true, but stories where "this one is too far gone to save" are a dime a dozen. There's nothing interesting in it. And, while the same could be said for being able to save her from herself, at least then we wouldn't have a story where our characters are forced to prove to her that she will just be tortured some more if she backs down. And then the story blames her for not backing down. The fact that her story gets so much praise is just perplexing to me.

I assume that the GEMINI frequency is simply gone. Maybe it still exists on Iokath or something. But since they were all connected together, I kind of like the idea that they were able to create a backup. KotET and the finish to the story didn't sit well for me in all kinds of ways, and not just because of the Empress. That was just the most striking part of it.

Hopefully they'll do this one thing and change her fate, even if it's only in a two minute bit that leaves us with her getting therapy. Or helping us burn the galaxy down, I'm good with either at this point, Either way, I'd like to see her able to hang out with our characters, honestly. Or with us deciding that she needs to stay dead, not a decision I feel I would ever make but I'm not going to take that away from anyone that feels that way.

For the Fleet, I'm just assuming that GEMINI-Whatever the number is channeled the frequency back to Iokath and they're being stored. Probably not if we kill SCORPIO. I just didn't care for that plot point, I know that they're just trying to wipe out this story as thoroughly as possible but I just would have preferred them leaving to being so thoroughly wiped out. Always be lots of ways to reverse the travesty that is Vaylin's story. Her hanging out in her granddad's former home is my second favorite, right after her just sitting up one day and saying, "What? THERON survived it without a trace of Force power and you thought I'D stay dead? It just took me a while to get back here from Zakuul on my own. You could have at least given me a lift after I helped you destroy the MOST MONSTROUS THING IN THE GALAXY!" Light Side: Sorry. Neutral: So what are we going to do with you? Dark Side: Kill her again. Or not, side with her with promises to burn the Galaxy together, whatever.

Well, I'd really like there to be fewer "you can kill this character" bits unless they don't appear to end the character's story, so I'm not sure about killing Lana, if that's what you mean. However, less of her and more of our old companions would be very nice. More story with our companions, including the last of them coming back. More story that follows from our class story. Fewer villains who are villains due to mental illness or torture or implanting diodes in their heads, or at least do those stories better if they just can't help themselves. I know it's Star Wars, so I'm not including the corruptive influence of the Dark Side in that, but even that's getting on my nerves. I'd like a couple of those stories overturned, so, yeah, a Vaylin companion, or better a brief and entirely voluntary story followed by a companion, even if she never appears again, but also continue Darth Zhorrid's story a bit if she's not dead (and let me kill Jadus, or ally with him I suppose, but offing the slime would do me some good). Or just put them on the console or let us get them as CM characters if they truly think that would be weird after Revan and Vitiate and Malgus and so on. Spirits or visions, especially if they come back like Eclipse Squad and thank us, isn't a great choice. I'd like to see us genuinely able to switch sides. That's probably not possible, or if it is it probably wouldn't be "my Knight still throws rocks at the target instead of lightning (or vice versa), but it would be nice. The way I expect it would have to be done, we may as well just create a new character on the other side with the same look and close to the same name. Most of what I'd like the best probably requires money and resources I don't know they have. So it goes.

Yeah, I feel as though they damaged Theron severely with that story. I'm also not really thrilled that they wiped out the droids, but what can you do?

I think there's almost no chance, because whatever I just said, I think you're right and the fans would have a cow. I just felt my normal need to go on at length about why I think they should, including that there's really no in-game reason not to anymore.

And I see that's already been said. I'm still leaving this, though. Oh, I know, but it still would have made more sense, and having the characters stay in character rather than be zombies would be nice to see. I mean, if 4X isn't going to ever do anything in story again, and his role in the party is no longer necessary because of the changes to companions since the beginning, it no longer does any real harm other than not having the companion around. Which I do consider important, obviously, but if I'm playing a character that would side with the Empire, I doubt I want the Republic's cheerleader hanging around, anyway, and if I just view the companions as mobile gun turrets, I don't need him for that, either. Plus, they have been doing it, even when they give us a choice: there haven't been any substantial conversations with most of the characters that you could choose to kill, even if you chose to keep them alive. I only remember Arcann actually mattering at all out of those.

I think that all companions should have the possibility of blowing you off if you tick them off too much. Siding with the Empire should lose you 4X at least.

Yeah, I didn't care for "get him back by doing PvP forever" thing on either side, personally. But, oh well.

It's a pretty fair match (the picture at the end of the link), really. She doesn't look angry enough, of course. Yeah, but she seems like a pretty solid character from what I've heard. Haven't heard as much about her counterpart, and I have yet to even get through Nathema. I simultaneously miss and am glad to be rid of the Vaylin vs. Senya picture, but I'm satisfied with her and Bucky blowing stuff up together.

Yeah, I took a shot of it as it was loading so it would even have the little gear on it. I feel kind of bad replacing Tau, though.

Title page with Bucky and Vaylin It's still a screenshot, I think it counts. Artist's page vianiel.deviantart.com/ fleeting-sanity.tumblr.com/