KOTOR 2: Now With 20% More Content!

[Eishtmo]

There was a video I found not too long ago that tries to explain what Kreia wants and such, it's pretty good and here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z0S0Z8lUTg

It's also like 2 hours long.

[GandALF]

There was a video I found not too long ago that tries to explain what Kreia wants and such, it's pretty good and here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z0S0Z8lUTg

It's also like 2 hours long.

It makes the "no free will" mistake though which Obi-Wan refutes in ANH

This is the correct video and its not 2 hours long:

youtu.be/c0DwRAVJZ4A

[Independent George]

Here's what I love about Kreia: even knowing the endgame, I still inevitably lose count of how many lies and half-truths she tells even if I replay from the beginning. Just about every word out of her mouth is a deceit of some sort, including "and" and "the". So her plan to kill the Force... was that really her plan, or was that what she implied in order to draw the Exile to her, in the same way she drew Darth Nihlus to Taris to be defeated by the Exile? Or was her plan to kill the Force (really, just sever its connection from the galaxy's force sensitives, just as it had been severed from the Exile) was a backup plan in case the Exile failed - if Darth Nihlus succeeded, severing the connection to the Force would have starved him.

Of course, that still leaves the question of how she could do so, as it was never actually spelled out. I just handwave it as some mysterious force juju she had figured out that could be performed at the site of a wound in the force like Malachor - the important point is that I think her primary goal was for the exile to arrive at Malachor and defeat her (thus proving her teachings correct), or be defeated by her (thus proving herself stronger), or severing the galaxy's connection to the force (thus defeating Nihlus after he defeated her prized pupil). In line with the Sith teachings, it wasn't enough to defeat her enemies - it was to prove her own strength, which she does in every instance.

Based on my admittedly very limited understanding of the (now non-canon) EU, the Jedi Council was rebuilt by the Force sensitives the exile drew together in KOTOR2 - Mira, the Handmaiden, the Disciple, and Visas (I assume Bao Dur died on Taris, and Atton either left with the Exile or was killed by Sion). All of them were taught by the Exile... who, in turn, was taught by Kreia. In order to gain influence with Kreia, you have to seek out her guidance and acknowledge her points - in effect, have her gain influence with you. Except for the Disciple, none of the Exile's students were raised under Jedi traditions (and he only in a limited manner); Visas was herself an apprentice to a Sith Lord/eldritch abomination. The rest studied the Force only after having trod other paths, and lived and suffered and learned through means other than the limited one the Jedi teach. Heck, there's one conversation option in which you can explicitly teach the Handmaiden "the ways of the Force" instead of "the ways of the Jedi".

So in the end, the Jedi council is rebuilt by people who ventured far outside of the traditional Jedi teachings, under the influence of Kreia - who mastered the ways of both Jedi and Sith, who believed that the Sith were created by the the limitations of stagnant Jedi dogma (with the Jedi Civil War its inevitable result), and who believed that Revan (her former student) did not fall but instead created his own path.

And I think that's what Kreia's true endgame was - not the destruction of the Force, but the creation of a new Jedi council under her influence. She manipulated Atris into destroying the remainder of the old Jedi, and the Exile into destroying the remainder of Malak's Sith, and from their ashes the Exile would create a new Jedi order based on (but not limited to) her teachings - one that could withstand the true Sith Empire beyond the outer rim, because it was not blind to the teachings of the dark side and could act in ways the old Jedi Council would not. She wiped the slate clean so that her teachings would be the ones that endured. And she succeeded.

[GandALF]

Well the KOTOR comic series set during the Mandalorian Wars tries to reconcile the more different pre-prequel pre-KOTOR Jedi in Tales of the Jedi. It basically depicts the Order as being pretty fractured with many schools of thought with their own variations on doctrine, celibacy is not universal as some Jedi are married aristocrats to the point that its almost eugenic, there's factions like the Covenant that actually go to the dark side out of paranoia about the Sith returning, there's obviously the revanchists who just get off with basically a stern talking to and there's even a group of Jedi that actually defect to the Mandalorians. So it seems to depict the Council as being overly complacent by letting Jedi run around with many checks and balances rather than being overly dogmatic.

[bronnt]

I actually don't mind if the writing wants to get very existential. The great charm of the game's writing is that when you do things that seem obvious without thinking about them, you're often called out for it because Kreia gets all, "Hey, why did you give that starving man money?" I can dig all of those post-modernist musings, especially when they're engaging you in a conversation rather than just inserting hamfisted author tracts. But none of it actually leads up to anything that makes sense in universe, which is the problem. You've got all these gameplay elements that are tied in with the plot-like influence, plus the link with Kreia, plus a commentary on the snowball effects of small decisions, and they aren't a factor once you end up on the end-game rails.

[George]

Honestly, while I like the gameplay and a fair amount of the characters, my biggest problem is Kreia (And the relentless, in a number of cases poorly done, deconstruction). I have a problem with any game that tries to portray a character that claims "You shouldn't do good things because something bad might happen or it might not matter" as being right.

I'm fine with the message of "Think before you do something, actually try to understand the situation, etc.", because that is part of the message of one of my favourite games, Metro 2033 (Basically summed up by this quote from Khan: "You reap what you sow, Artyom. Force answers force, war breeds war, and death only brings death. To break this vicious circle one must do more than just act without any thought or doubt.")
However, Kreia seems to fall too close to the Voyager/TNG interpretation of the Prime Directive, that of "Don't try to help people because bad things might happen" (See the beggar scene)
Basically, my view of Kreia is that she's equal parts despicable philosophy, generic mysterious old person, obviously evil, and liar, jumping between boring me and making me despise her in almost every scene.

Heck, I have similar problems with Avellone's Lonesome Road, which can pretty much be summed up as "Generic Cryptic Mysterious Badass No.3256 hypocritically moralises at you for something that happened that really wasn't your fault since YOU'RE A COURIER, IT'S NOT YOUR JOB TO CHECK WHAT'S IN A PACKAGE, IT'S YOUR JOB TO DELIVER THEM, all while you are completely unable to call him out on the fact that the all previous DLCs have covered a bunch of situations that are almost entirely his fault because HE didn't think his actions through or care about the consequences(Basically, a single tragic accident vs. three cases of deliberate action, with a planned fourth deliberate action that will cause terrible things to happen not due to his carelessness or lack of forethought, but because he actually wants them to happen). Also, we randomly insert a backstory for you so that it detracts from your ability to come up with one for yourself all so GCMB No.3256 can cryptically whine at you and criticise things the creator hates about a work".

Joshua Graham was a much better character, someone who has done terrible things, has suffered for them and realised his the error of his ways, wants to redeem himself, but struggles with his violent nature. Honest Hearts, and New Vegas in general, also does a better job at the whole "There is no perfect answer" thing than KOTOR2.
In Honest Hearts, no matter what path you take to save the people of Zion, they lose something in the process, with what they lose making complete sense and being something that is actually related to and a direct result of your decisions, not the decisions of others, unlike the beggar scene where something bad happens no matter what due to the decisions of others
With the base game's main story, each faction has its pros and cons (Though Caesar's Legion is evil through and through, bandit-free roads or not)
(Also, Burned Mummy looks far cooler than Dreadlock Man With Sleeveless Trenchcoat and Old Woman In Generic Jedi Robes).

The beggar scene is among one of my least favourite scenes in any video game, since it's pretty much the whole "I'm an uncreative DM who wants to force a Lawful Good Paladin to break their oaths by putting them in a situation where they can either do something Good by breaking the law, or allowing something Evil to happen by not breaking the law" (The correct answer is to do the Good thing, since the Good part of Lawful Good is the more important part. And 5e actually states that a Paladin will only lose their powers if they make no attempt to atone for an evil action by doing penance, or if it's obvious that they are only atoning so they don't lose their powers/just keep doing evil things).
Then there's the hallucinations, especially the one where you fight a vision of Revan and for some reason you're considered evil if you don't win (Yes, symbolism and all, but in the grand scheme of things it's just annoying if you want to be lightside that you lose points not because you chose to do something bad, but because you're character isn't strong enough).
Though I will say that one part of the hallucinations I do like is what happens if you refuse to chose a side at one point, since I do agree with the idea that apathy is wrong.

Sorry if I rambled and was a bit all over the place, and if I focussed on only a few scenes, but I didn't want to spoil too much, and the scenes I brought up were the ones that stuck with me the most.

[Madner Kami]

Begger Conversation

You seem to have missed the finer point of the beggar-conversation. She scolds you for taking a moral extreme choice, whether that's a good or bad one, doesn't matter, which is the entire point. Just being goody-two-shoes is just as bad as being an evil fucktard in this particular conversation. Her point is precisely not that you should do nothing, her point is exactly that you should consider what you are doing before you are doing it. The entire Nar Shadaa-arc is about having influence and how the influence does change things.

[George]

Except that is undermined by the fact that that, regardless of how much you consider what you are doing, it ends badly due to someone else's choices, and you HAVE to go through this scene.

Compare it Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light, which have a somewhat similar idea of not simply rushing in blind, actually trying to understand the world around you, etc.
With those two games, the result is entirely based on your actions. You get the good endings in them by actually trying to understand the world, like stopping and listening to a conversation some guys are having about how things used to be, going through a level without harming anyone, or even leaving a hostile animal alive and then helping it defend its nest from another group of animals: You chose to stop and listen so you could better understand the world, you chose not to kill anyone, you chose to leave a wild animal alone because it was simply trying to defend its nest, you chose to actually think about what you were doing, and because of that, you were wise enough to get the good ending, and it is actually explained WHY you get the good ending

Spoilers: In the first game, by paying attention to various details and generally thinking more and not leaping to violence, you realise that the Dark Ones aren't actually trying to kill humanity, but simply don't know how to control their psychic abilities, which cause people to go crazy when they are nearby, and you are able to figure out that they were simply trying to communicate and actually want peace with humanity (It is explained why you are immune: Their abilities don't affect children, and you ran into one as a child, it communicated with you, which rendered you immune).
In the second game, which follows the first game's bad ending, it's because you're actions convinced the baby Dark One that has been accompanying you that you truly for part of the game that you are actually worthy of redemption, so instead of just going to rescue its family while your base is under attack, it convinces them to help you, showing up just before you would have set off explosives to deny your enemy access to chemical weapons that are stored in the base (It's a pre-war Russian Military bunker, the chemical weapons were there before your group found it) and using their powers to save you.

With the beggar scene in KOTOR2, it's basically saying "You're an idiot who didn't think about the consequences of your actions" even though the game doesn't give you an actual choice: No matter how much you think about your actions, something bad happens, defeating the very point they were trying to make since the result is the pretty much the same regardless of whether you think about what you are doing or just close your eyes and make a random choice.

[bronnt]

Her point is precisely not that you should do nothing, her point is exactly that you should consider what you are doing before you are doing it. The entire Nar Shadaa-arc is about having influence and how the influence does change things.

That's pretty accurate. The thing is, she'll criticize you just as hard if you refuse to give the beggar anything, since her whole deal is about making you think of the repercussions of your actions.

There are a ton of people who mistakenly think that she's taking a shot at altruism with that conversation. What she's criticizing is the fact that you're not actually helping him-5 credits is not enough to do anything for him (though it's a bit hamfisted in that the game immediately transformed him into a victim). You're not actually helping someone who lives such a wretched life by providing them with just a single meal. If you do actually want to help, it's going to require more than just a paltry hand-out. In a sense, it's attacking the fact that so many gaming decisions are reduced to a binary choice when the world has a lot more complexity than that.

Of course, this is also the same planet where you're handed idiotic plotrails: That whole sequence with Mira. Your character has zero choice but to go listen to her without any skepticism, and then she immediately takes advantage of you being naive (without letting the player affect this at all) by drugging you and then taking your place. Only she goes, by herself, directly into a trap (which she KNOWS is a trap) meant to restrain a well-armed Jedi. She didn't seem to have any real escape plan so she's very quickly captured herself, and only the fact that the villains catch Dr. Evil syndrome lets her live. So that whole sequence really undermines the greater video game theme of "choice" since you're not in control of the idiotic things people are doing.

[GandALF]

That's pretty accurate. The thing is, she'll criticize you just as hard if you refuse to give the beggar anything, since her whole deal is about making you think of the repercussions of your actions.

There are a ton of people who mistakenly think that she's taking a shot at altruism with that conversation. What she's criticizing is the fact that you're not actually helping him-5 credits is not enough to do anything for him (though it's a bit hamfisted in that the game immediately transformed him into a victim). You're not actually helping someone who lives such a wretched life by providing them with just a single meal. If you do actually want to help, it's going to require more than just a paltry hand-out. In a sense, it's attacking the fact that so many gaming decisions are reduced to a binary choice when the world has a lot more complexity than that.

This is where there's a disconnect between the KOTORs and the films. In KOTOR the light or dark side is an aesthetic choice you choose whether or not play a good guy or bad guy and there is no real consequence to you personally as even the bad ending is "good" in that you are a triumphant conqueror, you might be evil, but you're still successful.

In the films neither Luke nor Anakin want to be the bad guy, going to the dark side is a moral failure, the result of losing control and giving into temptation.

To make it more like the film you would have something like an xp multiplier as you went further down the dark side making the game easier if you're evil and an xp divider for the light side making it more difficult if you're good, thereby making it tempting for the player to choose the dark side even if they don't want to. This would then have to accompany a different dark side ending where instead of becoming the triumphant conqueror, Bastila kills you at last the moment and she becomes the Dark Lord, demonstrating that the dark side is successful at first but is ultimately detrimental in the long term.