Melkor the Manbaby Part 3: End of the World (And I Feel Fine)

Okay, guys. This is it: the final Melkor entry. Honestly, I'm not even sure what to do with the blog, after this. It might be impossible to top Melkor's complete domination of my life, right down to the way I see the world. If you've stuck with us so far, thanks! Here's our recap:

As an experiment to explore the ideas of manhood in video games, I built the most whiny emo bitch-baby I possibly could inside of "Dragon Age: Inquisition." I then set him loose to vomit his pathetic, simpering awfulness across the game-world--pissing off Varric, Cassandra and the whole damn gang with his priggish attitude and "WHY WON'T ANYONE DATE ME" dialogue.

"I'm such a NICE GUY, I don't understand why Cassandra won't go out with me!"

Since I started this series, a lot's happened. And I mean, a lot. Since my last entry back in December, we've had yet another mass shooting perpetrated by a violence-obsessed loner. Yet another entitled asshole, taking out his deluded aggression on the innocent.

Oh, and this happened.

And this.

Wait! Let's not forget terrifying shit like this.

Yeah. There were so many earth-shattering acts of hubris and aggression since Part Two that... honestly, I'm just gonna stop while I'm ahead here.

Anyone not living under a rock should see the fact America has a violence problem in its male population. Yet, how to solve that problem? Nobody seems to have the answer. Finding it may be the central project of my generation--on top of fixing the damn government and making sure our national monuments don't get fracked. But I digress! You didn't come here for an op-ed. You came here for... ENTERTAINMENT!!!

"Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?"

Since our last entry, Melkor's antics continued. He successfully wooed Cassandra (somehow), gotten Iron Bull's buddies killed (oopsies) and nominated Vivian for Fantasy Land Supreme Court--accidentally. A lot of mistakes, but hey, at least he has a totally dope lightsaber spell now!

"Vwoom! VWOORM!" "Sir, they've started ethnic cleansing in Orlais again." "Sorry Cullen, I can't hear you over how AWESOME I look right now!"

It's been a trip. There is a considerable amount of grinding in Dragon Age, and let me tell you, the carpal tunnel is real. But the good news is... The fight is over. The end has arrived.

At long last... I have finished the main campaign.

I've beaten DA: Inquisition once before, but it was a hollow victory. My blundering forays into the lore, brainless political mistakes and things like "having a life" got in the way of properly finishing the game. And let me tell you, there is a lot to finish here. A true completionist could spend thousands of hours exploring every inch of Thedas, uncovering every secret.

Honestly... Fuck that noise.

I enjoy the game's minutiae quite a lot, but it's the character development I'm drawn to, not hundred-page summaries on elven history. And I got what I was looking for.

Nothing says "character development" like a massive army of murder-goons, on the march to their next bloodbath!

Let's crunch down some of the big game-changers leading up to the end, shall we?

1. After lots of arguing, I finally managed to make friends with Spock Solas, our elven magic expert. Of course, he turned out to be an ancient elven wolf-god and possible villain for the next game, but hey. At least we had some nice chats.
2. Blackwall turned out to be some random asshole. This was extra-shocking because I'd been having Melkor look up to him--only to have his trust betrayed! Juicy and painful. Good writing.
3. Leliana, my long-time favorite character from Dragon Age: Origins, turned into a total goddamn sociopath by the end. Well... Okay. Guess who's NOT going to be Magic Pope, Leliana? That's right, you. No more coffee, either--I'm cutting you off.
4. Melkor finally, finally, finally proved his love to Cassandra! All it took was lots of flattery and patience, to break through her crusty exterior--plus the Dragon Age equivalent of dirty magazines. Don't ask.
5. Melkor finally got to prove who was the edgier edge-lord by fighting Corypheus, lackluster main villain. To prove his superiority, Melkor brought a B-team of Varric, Dorian and some random guy named Cole to kill Corypheus, and holy shit it fucking worked!! Okay, Cole died like 8 times during the final fight, but we did it! We killed the ancient evil! Begging the question... What comes next? Not for the franchise, but for our team? It's hard to kill an elder god, and then just retire and do brunch on Sundays. We are a crack squad, dammit! We do NOT brunch! (Although honestly, part of me hoped the crew would get a Breakfast Club-esque moment, after the credits.)

Admit it. You'd watch 'Breakfast Club: Dragon Age Edition.' You'd watch it, and cry like a baby.

To my surprise, the post-end-game was just... more of the same. You finish the game, have a brief quiet party with your friends in the castle, and then you get right back to business. There's a small montage of how the game-world turns out, and your love interest (in this case Cassandra) chats with you about the future of the world, blah blah BLAH. But saving the world--perhaps not shockingly--just leads to more politics and problems. The world is changed, but not always improved, by your actions.

And that's what I like about this game. It's truly a world for our time--the game starts with a magical act of terrorism, and you spend at least half of the campaign trying to stop people from killing each other, due to religious differences. This is heavy stuff, and it's dealt with realistically. You need slow, patient, calculated moves to stop the chaos.

And Melkor wasn't patient or calculated. At least... Not at first.

Definitely not at first.

As we covered in the previous entry, the act of leading changes a person. It can destroy them, or it can build them up. Melkor began his saga as an overgrown man-child, snatching up Templar recruits and whining about his elven heritage. However, as the game went on, I found myself making more and more responsible decisions because it seemed logical for Melkor to make them at various points during his development.

Sure, he screwed up. A lot. Empress Celine got assassinated under his watch, and his aggressive, insecure behavior nearly drove several people away from the party. But over time, as he grew to fill the roles of Inquisitor, my make-believe manchild became more of... well, of a man. It was fascinating to watch.

And this played throughout every second of his character development.

Part of this is due to the amazing writing of Dragon Age. The dialogue options in the game are simple, but they branch out into hundreds of different choices and reactions, many of which influence how the Inquisitor is seen by his party. Is he worshipped as a god? Feared as a dictator? Or perhaps, just maybe, loved as a good friend?

Okay, we admit, he doesn't have the MOST friendly face out there. More of a Ramsay Bolton than a Jon Snow, if I'm honest. But hey, some people are into that! Scary, scary people.

I think I struck a balance between all of these. While Melkor offered kind advice to that random spirit/demon teenager thing and earned the respect of the party's more serious members, he also had a man brain-wiped for defying his will and forced Blackwall to stay and lie, after he'd learned of the Warden's betrayal. Oh, and he also drank an ancient elven well of spirits like it was sweet, sweet Flavor-Ade. The guy is flawed, for sure.

But he's also developed in leaps and bounds from the simpering, grumpy chauvinist I started with. The Melkor who confronted the Disturbed logo guy Corypheus during the game's climax was a stronger, more self-assured version of his former self. And hopefully, I can continue that trend during post-game. Providing I can even boot the game without the disc exploding from over-use.

You know how long it took me to get these accessories? A LONG TIME. That's how long.

One thing I found especially odd during Inquisition was the romance. People are pretty unnerved by romance in video games, and rightly so--they have long been a source of weird, creepy fantasies for gamers without a love-life, and the programmers in charge of making them are not always interested in spelling out what a healthy relationship looks like. And yes, Bioware is famous for SAUCY RAUNCHY PIXEL SEX between the player and whatever NPC receives his/her affections. But unlike Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age Origins, which had unhealthy and tasteless approaches to romance (you literally romance people in Origins by bribing them until they love you) Inquisition was tasteful and smart about its writing. The mannequin-like makeout sessions are still super weird, though. Not recommending those.

It's weird, this played through the entire sex scene with Cassandra. Phil himself was hiding in the bushes, as an Easter egg. Great game, Bioware.

So after endless hours being sucked into the world of Dragon Age, was it worth it? What did I learn along the way? Well, I learned that people are way too accommodating of unstable people in power, that's for sure. Once someone reaches the top of the totem pole, they can easily be surrounded by yes-men and make horrible mistakes--or worse, succeed at malicious agendas. Given the way Melkor had started, I was honestly sure he was going to cause a genocide by the end of the game. Luckily, his friends steered him away from abuses of power.

Speaking of power, it wouldn't be an obnoxious think-piece if I didn't link this post to guns somehow, would it? Magic in Dragon Age is very similar to guns in America: It's easy to get, it's politically divisive, and you can straight up kill the fuck out of someone with it if you're unstable or just feel like being an asshole that day. 

Pictured: One of Melkor's many sad, ham-faced victims. Not pictured: the charred mass of his corpse, which we left smoldering in the road, without any sort of proper burial.

Melkor did misuse his magic several times, along the way. But in the end, he chose discipline over wanton violence, working with Knight-Enchanters to improve his skill and get himself under control. He also dealt with his anger... mostly through dragon-hunting, which is tragically not an option to American youth, since we hunted our dragons to extinction ages ago.

In the end, Melkor did the right thing: he focused his aggressive nature and persecution complex towards productive stuff, and dealt with his issues. He even wound up with the girl of his dreams, after finding out you can't "win" girls like they're prizes. All in all, I think the experiment was a success. I created a deeply flawed person, watched him grow and eventually, save the world! And I think that kind of progress is possible for everyone... but only if we share the responsibility of improving ourselves, and our own personal "kingdoms" along with us.

And there are limits to this experiment. At the end of the day, DA: Inquisition is just a video game. I can't solve the world's problems with armchair psychology and funny GIFs. If I could, you bet your ass I would be all over that.

If funny could save lives, Filthy Frank could have stopped Fukushima. THINK ABOUT IT!

Instead of a solution, all I can offer is advice: the next time you sit down to blaze through Monster Hunter, or Star Wars Battlefront, or In the Name of the King or whatever--think about the world you're inhabiting, for a little while. Does that world teach you and inspire you to make the real world better, or is it just an escape you've run to because the real world is unbearable? If the real world is unbearable, why the hell do you feel that way, in the first place? What's causing it--and what can you do to change it, right now? How many Melkors can you reach, and prevent future awful catastrophes?

I don't know if you can make a difference. But I highly encourage you to try. Because if we all gave a shit and acted on it, the world would be a better place.

I guess this would be a good place for a mic drop.

Thanks for reading, guys. Tune in next time for... whatever comes next.

END OF PART 3

The Saga of Melkor the Manbaby: Part 2, In Which Melkor Gets a Fancy Chair

Hey there, true believers! Salutations from Ferelden, land of mystical elves and TERRIBLE posture. Not to mention bad hairstyles, weird fashion choices, and stupid facial tattoos.

His chiropractor is the richest man in all of Thedas.

Since I’ve written the first part of Melkor’s saga, the crisis of male insecurity continues to spiral. In spite of mass shootings lawmakers just passed a bill making it easier to carry bang-bang shooties, an Indiana police officer was suspended for daring to suggest that guys have an easier time in the world than gals, and oh yeah, agricultural workers in the U.S. are taking their own lives in record numbers, possibly because they find it more socially acceptable than asking for help. Guys continue to be in crisis due to a ritualistic, endemic reinforcement of their insecurity, and they continue to endanger others due to this problem. Just... You know. A little reminder of where we're at, right now.

But, back to the elves!! Melkor has been busy in Ferelden. He's killed his first dragon, gotten absolutely nowhere in romancing his crush, and has acquired a slightly more intimidating outfit than "whatever the Inquisition had in the lost and found."

Bringing the man-romper back, one Elf at a time.

 Let's recap. When last we left our whiny, emo protagonist, he'd been put in charge of the Inquisition--an ancient order designed to root out corruption and evil. Apparently, last time they started up one of these, it resulted in lots of dictatorship and torture. So, obviously the logical thing to do is start the whole thing up again and put an elven teenager in charge. Good plan, Ferelden. You really nailed that one.

Melkor's journey has gotten a little darker. Soon after allying with the Templars, his army's camp was attacked by a horde of evil wizards. These guys (apparently) are something called the Venatori, and they're led by an illustration from a 13-year-old boy's sketchbook of SUPER DARK AND EDGY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS.

"CRAWLING IN MY SKIIIN! THESE RED LYRIUM WOUNDS, THEY WILL NOT HEAL!"

For obvious reasons, this pissed off Melkor. Not only does the bad guy, Corypheus, have an army and a Darkspawn dragon (so cool!) he's also competing with Melkor for the #1 "Most Grimdark Character In Dragon Age" title. Melkor can't have that. He is the most edgy edge-lord here, not this Two-Face wannabe. So, he tries to duel the big evil guy... and gets his shit slapped.

"I'm gonna read him ALL my dark poetry. That'll show the POSER."

I took a video of this hilarious encounter, but my PS4 deleted it. Boo, hiss. Suffice to say, Melkor did not do well. The mystery mark on his hand made him vulnerable to Corypheus' magic, and also, he broke the first rule of playing mages in video games: Never, ever try to tank the boss. As a mage, you are squishy, and squishy does not do tanking. Squishy hangs in the back, and tries not to die.

Apparently Melkor hasn't played WOW, though, so he got throttled and then tossed down a mineshaft while his trebuchets went all Mulan on the bad guy's ass. 

It wasn't QUITE as epic as this scene, but really, that's setting the bar kind of high for Bioware.

Cue Melkor struggling through the snow, to collapse at his own army's tattered refugee camp. Damn, this got dark fast. It's almost like his horrible decisions have consequences, or something!

A short break for some armchair psychology. Privilege and insecurity thrive in the absence of challenge: when you're accustomed to walking all over people, the slightest resistance can make you feel like the world is ending. It's not, of course: you're just waking up from a dream of delusion where you thought your needs were more important, or somehow better, than everybody else's. But the reaction to this resistance can have serious consequences. Melkor isn't an asshole, but he is an arrogant Elf who's spent his entire life learning magic and simmering with rage towards humans and Dwarves. His personality is a primed explosive, waiting to go off.

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find Dragon Age: Inquisition slowly defusing that bomb. As we covered previously, democracy is hard--it requires compromise. Compromise, at least in theory, removes privilege as both parties try to find equal ground. But sometimes it takes more than a board meeting to help one young Elf realize he's mortal. Sometimes it takes a wake-up call, like Corypheus bitch-slapping him off the side of a mountain, for instance.

Suddenly, Melkor's on the same level as everybody else. Soldiers, generals, Inquisitor: we're all just miserable popsicles in the wake of the Venatori attack. After a sad discussion on religion and a really weirdly placed sing-along that is totally not a ripoff of Pippin's song from Return of the King, we can finally move on to my favorite part: the long-delayed, vitally important, MELKOR REDEMPTION ARC! Hooray!!

But first, we need a place for all these Inquisition soldiers. Somewhere sturdy. Somewhere like... a big, convenient castle that nobody has mentioned until now, and which has been conveniently abandoned for centuries in a strategically placed mountain pass.

... Wait, what?

Are you telling me this castle has belonged to the Inquisition this whole time? If so, why the hell weren't we using it to begin with? Was Hugo Weaving shooting a movie there, or something? Is that why we've waited this entire game to use our super-convenient, badass giant fortress?

Whatever, Bioware. Fine. We'll do this your way.

So we move into the new castle. Melkor gets elected Inquisitor, and makes a speech about how elves are awesome and everybody else sucks. And so begins the feedback loop of gameplay in Inquisition. See, Bioware games are famous for two things: salacious romance between fantasy and sci-fi races, and micromanagement. Micromanagement is meticulous, obsessive tinkering with squad abilities, gear, and game-world diplomacy, and it flopped real hard in Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda.

Someday, Ryder. Someday they'll make a game for your franchise that doesn't suck ass.

This stuff is tedious, time-consuming, and absorbs huge amounts of effort. Running a squad in Dragon Age is like being the leader of medieval Seal Team 6, if that leader had to spend endless hours crunching numbers and ensuring his team can chain exactly the right spells in exactly the right order. For hours.

And I fucking love it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a math guy. My dad's dyslexic, and I'm pretty sure long division is actually the Devil. And yet, I cannot resist the gameplay loop of Inquisition. You go out, you grind, your party gets its ass kicked. You limp home exhausted, and pull overtime at the forge to make sure Iron Bull doesn't fucking die from fire next time! Because god dammit, you have worked too hard on this squad for characters to die in combat! Too! Fucking! Hard!

It's a hefty dose of investment bias, compounded by your emotional investment in the story. It's a devious, cruel way to bring players back over and over and God help me, it's my favorite part of the game.

"Well, THAT quest is over. Time to go home and do MATH! Woo!"

Surprisingly, these endless hours of tinkering and perfectionism have had an influence on Melkor's character, too. He started the game as a cold, almost Spock-like loner who refused to care about any of his new "friends," even when those friends saved his life. They're humans, after all--why should he care about them? But for the Inquisition to survive, the Inquisitor has to invest in it. He has to do homework. He has to hump ass across thousands of miles of unstable, war-torn fantasy-land doing obnoxious quests and earning the approval of his party. In short, he has to consider the needs of others before his own. A lot.

Now, I could just throw that stuff to the wind and start chopping off heads. The game's judgment mechanic makes that possible: you get your own Iron Throne Inquisitor's Chair, and from there you can levy judgment on the heads of the FOOLISH UNDERLINGS below you. It's very despotic, and really, seems like it could benefit from a jury or something.

"This next prisoner says Mass Effect Andromeda is a good ga--" "HANG HIM. HANG HIM NOW."

Even though this seems right up Melkor's alley, I can't see him jumping right to it. Because he's also a people-pleaser, just like a lot of compulsive narcissists and liars out there, and he can't help but chase after his group's affections. At his core, he's still an insecure teenager. And while insecurity can result in horrific violence, it also exists for a reason: to push us towards the acquisition of social status. Without fear of losing social status, many great leaders would've never entered the world stage. By the same token, we'd be spared a lot of bad ones as well. It's a double-edged sword.

So even though his childish nature makes him want to go all Red Queen on these fools, he still feels a need to please them. To be their leader, and go where no Elf has gone before. Remember, he's carrying the hopes of an entire people on his shoulders. Not even a rampant egoist is immune to that kind of inherited pressure.

"Must... prove... masculinity... to... my weird Irish elf community!"

 And so, Melkor falls into the trap of... Kinda being a good person, sort of? It's like forcing a sullen preteen to do community service. He may bitch and pretend it's the worst thing that's ever happened to him. But in truth, he's making a difference in his community, and meeting people whose views run contrary to his own--which is like Kryptonite to privilege and xenophobia. Sooner or later, this experience will change him. He'll finally grow as a person.

Well... In most ways. In a lot of ways, he'll still be an asshole.

"It's called a Dracolisk, DAD! It's BETTER than a horse! You wouldn't understand!!"

Tune in next post, when Melkor goes to a fancy dinner party... And commissions a dwarf to write porn for his crush. No, really, this is a thing you can do in Dragon Age. I told you the micromanaging went deep, didn't I? So deep.

 Maybe too deep. I've been playing this game in my dreams. Please send help.

See you next time!

Video Games as Thought Experiments: the Saga of Melkor the Man-Baby, part 1

Let's start with some heavy stuff first: Insecurity kills. It's not really up for debate, anymore. We've got insecurity in the White House, and it's wrecking the place every day. We've got insecurity in the streets, where road rage incidents turn normal people with problems into speeding battering rams. And we've got insecurity in our homes, where the slightest argument with a neighbor can spiral out of control into a "domestic dispute" that kills dozens.

I'm no stranger to insecurity myself. I've got the ol' social anxieties, the small-bicep blues, and savvy readers will note that novel I keep promising still isn't published. But I consider myself lucky. The majority of American men got hit with the insecurity stick a lot harder than I did, and they have less access to tools they need to fix it.

In lieu of that, a lot of guys take to the wrong places to resolve their fears and self-doubts. Places like MMA (I enjoy the sport myself, but there's no denying the fandom is toxic), online trolling, and Nascar. Dealing with male rage is difficult, and as a country we don't really know what to do about it. We don't know how to talk to our young men, to teach them how to reign in that frustration or put it towards something productive. But most of all we don't understand where it comes from, how it can take root in an otherwise well-meaning human being. I believe that this understanding is the key to solving things like the gun crisis, the idiotic testosterone supplement industry, and it might even help us figure out why some douche-bag cut us off on the highway on-ramp. But I'm not a psychologist, or really a behavioral scientist of any kind, so the only way I can really tackle this problem is with fantasy. Namely, with video games.

Enter Melkor.

Look at that mug. You can smell the "nice guy" a mile away, can't you?

Melkor is a character I've created in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I have purposely designed this avatar to look, behave and sound as insecure as possible. For those who don't know, "Inquisition" is a game designed to put the player at the forefront of a crusade to take back "Ferelden," a fictional country, from the forces of evil.

No, not THAT Inquisition. *tuba noises*

However, as with a lot of Bioware role-playing games, the emphasis is less on being a faultless heroic force for justice than it is about making you question your choices. The game is full of choices, both insignificant and world-shattering, and I thought it would be fascinating to take a character totally unsuited to responsibility... and see what happens when he controls the world of Dragon Age.

Let's find out, shall we?

Pre-Game: Manbaby Rising

In creating Melkor, I chose the traits that would make him a minority in his world. Insecurity thrives outside the circle of social acceptance, after all. To start with, I made Melkor an Elf. Elves are not quite reviled in Ferelden, but they aren't anybody's favorite people, either. They don't revere the normal God of Ferelden (gasp!) they're innately connected to magic (gasp, again!) and if that wasn't enough, they have pointy ears too. (Double gasp!) Elves aren't quite as "othered" as Qunari (big demon folk) or Darkspawn (the stand-in for orcs) but they are certainly outsiders.

Next, I made him a Mage. Mages are definitely a reviled group in Ferelden. Imagine if the obsessive, bug-collecting guy from the condo next to yours could shoot lightning from his hands... and also was a living gateway to a world of horrible demons. You'd be a little suspicious, right? Well, in Ferelden there's a whole group dedicated to keeping Mages in check. They're called Templars, and if you think they sound a bit reactionary, you'd be right. Their job is basically to kill rogue Mages.

The game added a bit of extra fun for me here by making Melkor a Daelish, one of a bunch of exile elves that... well, I won't bore you. But suffice to say by game start, Melkor was already feeling like an outsider. A put-upon, grumpy, emo-haired outsider with fire magic. What could go wrong?

Answer: Everything. Everything could go wrong with this.

So Melkor starts off in chains, accused of killing the Pope of this world. Great! I hastily assured the guards that I was innocent, and was carted off to the magical Breach to put my money where my mouth was. Okay, fine. Killed a demon, closed the Breach. I can go home and listen to Linkin Park now, right?

Of course not. For some reason, Melkor is the only one who can close these magical Macguffin portals, and there's a ton of them. The Inquisition keeps him on as kind of an advisor, and then... starts letting him make really important decisions, pretty much immediately?

"We couldn't think of anyone more qualified? Seriously?"

From a game standpoint, okay, this makes sense. Melkor is the only one who can close the portals, so you'd expect they would need him. And from a design standpoint, the game creators want to put you as close to the action as possible. This works pretty well here, as opposed to other Bioware projects, with the one side effect that a whiny teen goth Elf kid is now in charge of an entire army.

Once again: what could go wrong?

Presented without comment.

So now Melkor runs everything. Awesome! This is what he's always dreamed of! An Elf Mage exile, crowned Inquisitor! He's been burning to get his hands on REAL power since the first time somebody tweaked his ears, and now HE'S on top--he'll show those human chumps who's boss!!

Except... he actually has to work with the human chumps, in order to keep his position. He can't just go riding around blasting people. Suddenly, his egotistical worldview needs to be tempered with patience. And this is where the "experiment" part comes in.

See, democracy is hard. Really hard. If you want to build a functioning society, you need to try and keep everyone happy. If you put someone like Melkor at the center of it, who's only out for himself, the equation gets really weird really fast.

Take the recent turmoil around Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, whose refusal to depart from office has created huge problems for his country. The guy is ancient, yet he won't give up his office even after the military put him under house arrest. This is insecurity at its most extreme: He knows damn well the people don't want him there anymore, and that his long career of corruption and bribery will make him deeply unpopular if he abdicates. So he clings to power, far past logic and sanity, because his deep-rooted need to be more important than everyone else is now his only reason for living.

I was going to make a joke about his wardrobe, but honestly, it just feels like shooting fish in a bucket. Dead fish.

The presence of men like this in positions of power creates cascading problems for everyone beneath them. That's why the U.S. presidency has always been such a hallowed seat: because as ugly as the country can be, we hope for someone with genuine benign integrity will take control. This hasn't worked out lately, because once a sufficient portion of the country's men hit critical insecurity levels, it was only a matter of time before the worst of the worst rose to the top. Also, there was a scary girl on the other side of the ballot! We couldn't let a girl get elected, guys! Ew, cooties!

But I digress. Back to Melkor. Melkor immediately sets about doing all the things an Inquisitor is supposed to do: moving troops, hiring spies, getting everybody to call him "Sir" because his dad never loved him and was killed by dragons. But then something happened that I didn't expect--the kind of out-of-left-field twist that every philosophical experiment should have.

In every play-through, you're sort of forced to side with one of the two warring factions in Ferelden: the Mages, with their spooky but altruistic leaders, or the Templars with their autocratic--but reliable---soldiers. Last time I went with Mages, because fuck yeah, an army that can shoot fireballs! This time I went with Templars, though, because despite him being a Mage I see Melkor as a guy who goes for the biggest gun, when trouble crops up. And the Templars with their huge armor pauldrons and giant swords are definitely the bigger gun. 

"What do you mean, 'over-designed'? Sh-shut up, YOU'RE over-designed!"

Plus, at his heart, Melkor is just a big kid. An immoral, magical kid who looks a lot like Kylo Ren, but still just a kid. He wants his toy soldiers and he wants them now. But when I went to fetch them, (spoilers ahead) I ran into this guy:

"I'm, uh, here for the Human Centipede auditions?"

This charming fellow is an Envy Demon. It's unclear whether he was always the Templar leader or kidnapped him, but he's secretly running the Templars when you show up. And part of his elaborate super-villain scheme is to trap you in a maze in your own mind, filled with the kind of horrors your future might hold if you go full "Black Hat," as they say in Westworld.

Until now, Adam Driver--er, I mean Melkor--had been fully intending to turn into an autocratic dictator. Everyone else kept him on the bottom, why shouldn't he do the same to them? Et cetera. But what he got instead was a very "Empire Strikes Back" moment of confrontation where he's forced to accept that maybe his ideals of power and revenge aren't really worth that much. 

"What do you MEAN, actions have consequences? Speak Ferelden!"

In many mythologies, this kind of challenge is a major rite of passage. For example, the major Buddhist figure Bodhidharma spent nine years in a cave, frequently being tormented by demons in his mind, in order to pursue enlightenment. To have this kind of thing happen to Melkor, who at his core is a sneaky selfish child, challenged my assumption that the game would end with him on top of a pile of skulls, cackling while using forbidden blood magic.

So, now I'm forced to question whether Melkor is even suited for this kind of experiment. Right off the bat, he's had despotism revealed as a possible destiny. This makes him self-aware--and insecurity has a very hard time surviving, in the cleansing fire of self-awareness. He was designed as a total egoist, of the snobby obnoxious Max Stirner variety, but now I actually have to get off my ass and role-play him properly. Will he bear out my points about male insecurity in positions of power? Will I find a way to curb his ambitions, and teach him to be a better person? Will he ever gather enough magical shards and weapons to prove to his crush, Cassandra, that he's Totally The Best Inquisitor Ever and she should "like, uh, totally go out on a date" with him? (Melkor's words, not mine.)

"Melkor, what are you doing with all those red crayons?" "NOTHING, SHUT UP, COLE!!"

More importantly, how can all this fantastical frippery be applied to the real world in a practical way to help reduce male fragility and increase self-awareness among hyper-masculine and confused Americans? Is such a thing even possible? Find out next time, on: "THE ADVENTURES OF MELKOR, THE MAN-BABY!"

The official theme of Melkor, brought to you by a playlist from... uh, 2008.