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

Staring at the Wall: 'The Last Jedi' Meets Zen Buddhism

**Warning: This post contains movie spoilers. If Disney has not yet herded you at gunpoint into seeing the Last Jedi, you might get spoiler juice on your new pantaloons.**

By now, a significant portion of the world has seen Rian Johnson’s fun, rollicking and utterly bizarre Star Wars entry, The Last Jedi. It’s sold over a billion dollars in movie tickets worldwide, and has Star Wars fans bitterly divided over its content. Is it genius? Is it garbage? Personally, I’ve seen it and I don’t really care whether it fits the ‘canon,’ whether Rey is a Mary Sue, or whether Punished Luke Skywalker’s beard is the right shade of grizzled. What I’m more interested in is the movie’s strange, unexpected and seemingly accidental themes of Zen Buddhism.

As an amateur Zen scholar, I can’t promise a balanced and detailed exploration of these themes. But I did want to lay them out, in case people had missed them. And it seems they have. The reigning debates over the movie involve whether a “hyper-spaceram” would work, what Kylo Ren’s pec routine is, and… uh, this. (Trigger warning, for murdered Porgs.)

Was the 'Star Wars' fandom always so full of sociopaths? Damn, guys. Talk to your Patrick Batemans sometime.

So… Yeah, not exactly a movie provoking high-minded philosophical discussion. And yet amongst the pop-culture swill, I sense a great disturbance. As if a thousand Buddhist references cried out, and were silenced by a fan arguments and more goddamn Porgs. Seriously, fuck off with the Porgs! I'm sure the kids in the audience loved them, but they creeped me out! Those black, dead eyes stare into my soul!!!

(Real talk for a second? I didn't like TLJ very much. It's a fun movie that tries to be too many different things, and succeeds at... well, none of them. It's like Rian Johnson crammed every fan-fiction idea he ever had into it, leaving zero time for plot and characters. Or dialogue. I know, I know, Star Wars has never had good dialogue. But at least somebody skimmed the Force Awakens script with a red pencil, once. Did they fire that intern, or something? Is that why we got "I sense the [character] conflict in you, Ben Solo!" Wow, much dialogue, very realism. When the SNL skit for Force Awakens has better writing than a billion-dollar movie, you know something's not right.)

I rest my case.

Moving on. So the entire gist of Luke Skywalker and Rey's arc is one of master and student, right? The transmission of knowledge is a big theme here. Even George Lucas, whose personal 'vision' turned the prequels into nonsense, understood the basic relationship between master and pupil as a part of the hero's journey. And that's great, in theory. But since the OT we've been deluged by Mr. Miyagi types in media, characters who exist simply to pass wisdom to their students, usually right before dying in a noble moment of self-sacrifice. (See: Obi-Wan.) It's become a cliche--a useful storytelling tool, but still a cliche.

Enter The Last Jedi. It's silly, it's weird, its pacing makes a Fast and Furious movie look slow and gentle. But one thing it gets right is Luke's relationship with Rey as a teacher. Namely, that he's a huge jerk about the concept of teaching her. His whole attitude is "Fuck off, kid."

And guess what? That's totally a Zen thing.

Stay with me, now. Let's hop in a time machine and zoom back to the 5th century, in the foothills of Western China. Zen Buddhism was called Chan during this period, and its practitioners were very few. One of them was a guy named Bodhidharma, who I've covered in blog posts before. By all accounts, Bodhidharma was a really grumpy guy. Unlike the peaceful, tranquil Buddhas in popular culture, he was a cranky bastard--he only left his life to become a travelling monk because he was mad people hadn't heard of Chan in other parts of China. I mean, look at this guy! He's basically the original Grumpy Cat!

"The hell is a 'meme'? Buzz off."

Not exactly a cheerful dude, was Bodhidharma. But luckily (or unluckily) for his students, he was also a genius at meditation. Unlike other brands of Buddhism, his version was designed to help "point directly into one's own mind, see into one's true nature, and attain Buddhahood."

Sounds pretty Jedi, huh? Well, it should. The parallels between Star Wars' order of Force monks and real-life Buddhism are so strong that entire books have been written about them. And rightly so--even though Lucas lost his mind since the OT, his original concepts for the Jedi were similar to Buddhist aesthetics. Some of this got toned down for the franchise, but some of it stayed, while other ideas of his were... tastefully edited.

"No George, we can't make C-3PO 'sexy.' Stop asking."

When Rey tries to get Luke to teach her, he repeatedly tells her that she has no idea what she's asking for. He slams the door in her face, over and over. He drinks weird alien milk and scowls at her, a gesture designed to mock her and probably the audience as well. In short, he acts pissy, short-tempered and mortal... just like Bodhidharma.

And like Bodhidharma, he forces his student to wait. And wait, and wait, until the student is forced to reach inside herself and find the patience and focus needed to deal with the blank wall that is their teacher. That focus helps them, on their journey towards enlightenment. In practical terms, it's a great way to teach the student how this whole "mentor" thing is actually going to work. The teacher is not your friend, they're not your surrogate father figure or your wise happy-Buddha idol. They're here to do a job. And if you don't like it, you can GIT AWT.

Learning isn't easy, it usually isn't fun, and quite often it hurts. Just like when Luke gets zapped by training droids in A New Hope, learning to master yourself is painful. And scary, and frequently depressing. Speaking of scary...

Let's talk about the Spooky Hole. Oooh, spooky!

"So it's a hole full of evil?" "Yep." "What do you do with it?" "I throw beer cans in it."

The Spooky Hole is a creepy gulf at the bottom of Luke's monastery-island. It's intentionally similar to the dark-side cave in Empire Strikes Back, and Rey gets a similar scene as she faces her internal fears there. Except while Luke faced the specter of Darth Vader, Rey faces... herself.

There's no Buddhist cliche older than "defeating yourself." But Last Jedi does it in a novel and kind of disturbing way: the cave traps Rey in a line of clones of herself. (Almost an "Attack of the Clones" amirite? Too soon, huh? Yeah, too soon.) They all act as one, and she has no way of knowing whether she's the real Rey, or just a copy of a copy of a copy. The scene's pretty hokey, but it stuck with me, because at the end of this confrontation she reaches a wall.

Beyond that wall, she's hoping to see the faces of her parents. But in the end, she just sees herself. Bodhidharma famously meditated in a cave for nine years, and when his student asked to join him, he pretty much responded like this:

 

"ALSO THIS CAVE IS OUT OF TOILET PAPER! PLEASE BRING ME SOME!"

 To him, the act of gazing at a wall was the greatest act of enlightenment one could do. One of his successors, the Buddhist writer Tanlin, quoted him as saying: "Those who turn from delusion back to reality, who meditate on walls, the absence of self and other, the oneness of mortal and sage, and who remain unmoved even by scriptures are in complete and unspoken agreement with reason."

Heavy stuff! Which is why it's so surprising to see themes like that, in a movie full of silly pop-culture space battles. There are Buddhist themes all over TLJ, even when Luke pokes Rey's hand with grass as she's meditating and says "There's the Force! Do you feel it?" When she says yes, he smacks her hand for being a dumb-ass, much like instructors in a Zen monastery use a "warning stick" to get their students to focus. Themes of facing yourself, and non-violent resistance, even show up in the final scenes: when Kylo Ren goes after the seemingly invincible Luke Skywalker on Krayt, he discovers he was only fighting an illusion--the real Luke was Jedi-mind-tricking everyone from light-years away. What a tweest! Kylo Ren was slashing and chopping at his own issues, his own anger and his own delusions. The only one he was harming was himself.

I don't know what the next Star Wars is going to look like. It's possible the non-Zen, non-mindful leaders of our world will reduce us to nuclear ash before then. But I'm excited to see if these themes continue--maybe even excited enough to buy a 3-D ticket, next time.

You're never going to get me to see SOLO, though. Don't even try it.

You blow up my Extended Universe, and give me THIS? Fuck off, Mickey. Fuck straight off.

Until next time, in a galaxy far, far away!!

Tired of scrolling Facebook at the office, or in class? Looking for more of my weird stuff to read, or just a distraction from our weekly political crisis? Well, feast your eyes on this! I've crafted an elaborate video game meta-narrative that might get me sued by Guy Fieri! Read it quickly, before I'm destroyed by copright lawyers!!

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!