Did anyone else find him/herself sympathising with Isair and Madae's cause?
If it wasn't because I wanted to complete the game, I think I would have let them continue their plans. ;)
I'd have brought the Mayor and cleric from Bryn Shander to let them have some fun with if it was an option in the game.
The major let down in this game, for me, was that the bad guys didn't seem so bad and you were protecting some people who probably didn't really deserve protecting.

i feel exactly the same as you. i really wish there was a mod/patch that let you join the legion of the chimera. that would be so damn cool dont you think?

I wholeheartedly agree.

Because this is a roleplaying game - and because the twin's cause was so sympathetic - I honestly thought that such a choice was on the cards.

I even went so far as to imagine that they would turn out to be the real good guys and that whoever had created the diplomatic problem (with the holy water stunt) would turn out to be the real power behind the throne.

That would have been a great twist and a far more satisfying story than the 'A is employed by B who's employed by C who's a servant of D...' variety. Imagine: the guys on the box AREN'T the villans - it's all been a red herring and someone who you've met at the start (and thought was a good guy) is really the cause of the war.

Oh well.

And I thought that I was the only one that liked them. I played as a tiefling as main character and in roleplaying values it would have been better if I could join the army of outcast because I am one.

I think that only Madae was evil Isair seems much more "nice" to me.

I'm with you on this one, guys. Yeah, I would rather have joined the legion of the Chimaera and crushed the bigoted fools.

Too bad the game does not allow you to do so. Bah, Interplay! Always expecting your PCs to be holier-than-thou paladins!

Interplay really should have conducted a survey before they released the game. then perhaps they might have made more happy customers (money).

I totally agree with all of you but since i'm a good guy :) i didn't like the thing about the slaves, so i'd probably try to convince madea and isair to pay them for their worl or to let them go :)

Totally right! Sometimes people get sick of being the good guy, and if you could join the legion of the chimera, now that would be cool!

To post starter
So i suppose you do sympathize Hang Jebat and don't think Hang Tuah was as legendary and heroic and you school teachers said he was.

Erm... wha?

I think they should have made it that if your skills and charisma were high enough you could convince the leaders like Guthma and Sherincal to join you and take over the legion.

I feel that both the IWD games have sort of been let down, because in HoW and IWD2 you can sympathise and wish you could help.

Poor Dwaggy Waggy :cry:

Yeah, I have no beef with Isair or Madae. I so would have joined if I had the chance!

Grrr... stupid non-realisticly linear storylines...

I think it would have been cool if you could have double dealed. Like first you act like your going to help Targos by killing Guthma to get their trust. Then when you get to Sherincal you sell-out Targos. But when you get back to Targos blame it on someone in the town, like Oswald saying he was simpathizing because he was in love with a duegar. If you just keep going on and selling out and no one notices you eventually just have the whole north to yourselves because you destroyed half the Legion and the Ten Towns turn on each other. Eventually they will go into an all out war and you kill any remainung survivers.

Quite the poser, isn't it?

But ...

Certainly I sympathize, but only to a point. Persecution is an explanation for what Isair and Madae are doing, but not an excuse.

What Isair and Madae end up wanting to do is massacre all the "normals" because "all normals are bigots and therefore must die." It amounts to justifying the murder of any normal, irrespective of whether or not that individual "normal" is actually guilty of crimes or bigotry against the outcasted and abnormal. What justice is there to Isair and Madae killing Oswald and Maralee, or Conlan, Swift Thomas, or Elytharra?

As a historical analogy, in 1930s-1940s Germany, perhaps there were individual Jewish persons who gave life to the stereotypes of greed and all that. Yet Hitler played on those stereotypes and turned the Jewish people as a whole into a scapegoat for all of Germany's problems. What that led to was mass murder of Jewish people, irrespective of whether or not an individual Jewish person was guilty of what the Nazis accused them of. (though consipiracy for world-domination would certainly be far-fetched for most, if not all)

And besides which, Isair serves as a reminder that painful experiences in the past doesn't have to merit a brutal, and genocidal, response. Even Mother Egenia, who loved the twins more than anyone else, admits that they're too far gone and that killing them (though mercifully) may be necessary.

To teekc:
Hang Tuah? The first time I heard about him, I realised this here was an idiot. Now I know he's just a paladin. ;)

Short explanation: Hang Tuah was a legendary character who was supposed to have existed during the Melaka Sultanate. He was the Sultan's best warrior but the Sultan then sentenced him to death using some nonsensical excuse, which I now forget, because the Sultan was paranoid about him seizing power. He was saved by the Chief Minister instead of being executed. However, his best friend, Hang Jebat, didn't know this and tried to kill the Sultan. Hang Tuah returned from hiding, slew his friend and pledged his loyalty to the Sultan instead.


To thread:
Killing them would solve the problem of the potential slaughter of "innocent" normal humans but it won't stop the problem of persecution against the "half-breeds" and the so-called "evil" races now, would it?

By comparing Isair and Madae to Hitler, wouldn't the same analogy you gave about Hitler apply to the "normal" folks? Weren't the citizens of Kuldahar quite ready to lynch Isair and Madae when they discovered them? Didn't they want to murder (genocide) all the half yuan-ti babies (who were all innocent as only babies can be)? In a hypothetical scenario, if the Mayor of Bryn Shander was their leader instead of Iselore the Druid, they probably *would* have done just that and they'd feel justified because of their bigoted view on the nature of half-breeds.

Who are the bad guys here? The humans who persecuted the half-breeds and later insulted and injured Isair and Madae when they tried to make a move for peace between the half-breed community and the humans of IWD? If Isair and Madae deserved to die, what about the Mayor and Cleric of Bryn Shander who was the cause of the war? Remember that Isair and Madae did intend to have a peace treaty and diplomatic relations with them but were injured instead.

Maybe a modern analogy of this could be that country A tries to have diplomatic relations with country B. Country B agrees and sends a present to the leader of country A which is in fact a bomb. The bomb fails to kill him but blows off his hand. Would that be a cause of war?

For the sake of role-playing, I feel that there should have been a few choices for the ending. It left a sour after-taste in my mouth like I was saving some ppl who did not deserve to be saved. I think an actual Chaotic Good character like most of my party were would have actually liked to have brought the mayor and cleric to justice as a means of ending the war instead of killing of Isair and Madae. Maybe a narrow-minded paladin (my own bigoted view of paladins here ;) ) who views all demons, orcs, etc. as evil would have no compulsion about slaying the legion of Chimaera. A chaotic evil character could have ended the story by causing an all out war by playing both sides against each other (great idea to the person who posted it).

what i would give to be a half breed Yuan-ti and live life as an assasin slinking in the shadows and bringing fear to all. being the 'boogeyman' to little children and living as a prince in a notorious double life.

evil, aye?

Yes That would have been good... but in every conversaion ends the same with Isair saying something about killing you and Madae says that sounds perfect to me brother and they attack. No matter wich line you say.

What comes to RPG's Fallout 2 has been most satisfying when it comes to freedom of actions while on the other ends lies the hack 'n slash world of Diablo's. I just can't imagine a man who talks the same way to a lawful good paladin with maximized charisma and diplomacy and to a chaotic evil half orc with minimized charisma... and the dialogue options are the same for both characters!!! IWD2 really hits the bottom in this - there really is only one line to play the game. Either you save the world or you save the world.

I haven't played the game through yet, but are there any places where it helps to be an evil character?

Sort of off-topic: Is IWD II the only Black Isle game with this "only one outcome" problem, or do their other games (BG, BGII, IWD, NWN) have a fixed plot-line as well?

I really did sympathize with Isair and Madae, I didn't want to kill them, but they were gonna kill me. Survival of the fittest, I suppose. Basically, the whole thing was handled wrong by both the mayor of Bryn Shander and the twins. But, oh well, nothing can be done now.

In general the Black Isle games (IWDs) are more combat oriented with linear plots compared with the Bioware BGs

i do know that in BG2 you could do the storyline the good way or the evil way. Thats why i was so disappointed with ID2.

Seems I have to take a look at the BG series after this one...

Bg2 has does let you go evil or good, but in the end you have the same final opponent, although both an evil and good char would want to kill him role play wise. However playing evil in BG2 is often less than satisfying compared to good, still at least you can do it. I really wanted to kill the mayor in ID2, someone should make a mod, it would be great. Hope we dont have to kill the mayors wife as well, shes a pretty nice person from what I can tell. It would be funny if she was the mastermind behind the whole half-breeds are inferior movement, and she was pushing the mayors buttons.

I don't mind killing most of the "monsters" in IWDII an agree that two wrongs don't make a right but a few more choices would have been nice. The party I play with now (2nd time) is a shield dwarf, half-orc, 2 half-elves, a halfling and a gnome. They are as close to neutral as I can get and in it for the money and adventure. Don't really care about the humans. I'd like adrow but wonder about the day vision problem.

The day vision problem is barely noticed. You wont notice it, actually.