[SPOILERS] Should I spare the Maid?

[Muse]

I read the wiki for the quest and ♥♥♥♥. I mean, she's gonna come back anyway, being a fae and all, so what's the point of killing her?

[mpnorman10]

I always toast her... but sometimes it takes a few tries due to the Threshes and those darn plants.

[alexshiro]

Maid is the Wreck-it Ralph from Ballads storyline? Spare her.

[Muse]

Originally posted by mpnorman10:

I always toast her... but sometimes it takes a few tries due to the Threshes and those darn plants.

Unless you mean on hard difficulty, just use a staff. It makes everything easy.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by alexshiro:

Maid is the Wreck-it Ralph from Ballads storyline? Spare her.

This is the exact reason I've started sparing her. She doesn't deserve the treatment she gets from the rest of the House of Ballads, and it's only because she's the designated villain of their legends.

[grimjac100]

I look at it differently, I guess...I never spare her. Sure, some of it is the writing, but...there's nothing saying she can't pack a weekend bag and catch a train to Outtahere. The House of Ballads are, as I see it, a troupe of actors playing their roles. There's a few conversations with NPCs (interactive and overheard) along the lines of "I chose this" or "I want to join..." Even your intro quest to become Sir Sagrall has you pitted against other Fae hopefuls...

She gets a shot at freedom and instead of taking it, she goes for revenge and dominance. Maybe that makes sense, in certain ways, but it doesn't make her a poor misunderstood innocent. In today's world, as an example, if a bully beats heck out of you every day on the way to work and you have no choice, that sucks...then a door opens to a sporting goods store that offers a clear path of retreat to your place of work, avoiding the bully forevermore. If you choose to grab a cricket bat and beat the bully's head in rather than avoid him and go on about your life free of him...you are not the Good Guy.

Not saying her actions aren't understandable from a certain POV, but understanding does not imply agreement.

She finds herself with a fresh start and a new shot at life. She chose to put that shot across my bow, and she learns why that's not a life-affirming tactic. Every. Single. Time.

You'd think she'd learn.

[OKMB]

Seeing as we're discussing spoilers anyway, if you spare the Maid, she's one of two characters in the game you can marry.
The other is a character in Dead Kel.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by grimjac100:

I look at it differently, I guess...I never spare her. Sure, some of it is the writing, but...there's nothing saying she can't pack a weekend bag and catch a train to Outtahere. The House of Ballads are, as I see it, a troupe of actors playing their roles. There's a few conversations with NPCs (interactive and overheard) along the lines of "I chose this" or "I want to join..." Even your intro quest to become Sir Sagrall has you pitted against other Fae hopefuls...

She gets a shot at freedom and instead of taking it, she goes for revenge and dominance. Maybe that makes sense, in certain ways, but it doesn't make her a poor misunderstood innocent. In today's world, as an example, if a bully beats heck out of you every day on the way to work and you have no choice, that sucks...then a door opens to a sporting goods store that offers a clear path of retreat to your place of work, avoiding the bully forevermore. If you choose to grab a cricket bat and beat the bully's head in rather than avoid him and go on about your life free of him...you are not the Good Guy.

Not saying her actions aren't understandable from a certain POV, but understanding does not imply agreement.

She finds herself with a fresh start and a new shot at life. She chose to put that shot across my bow, and she learns why that's not a life-affirming tactic. Every. Single. Time.

You'd think she'd learn.

That's the thing. She truly wants to change, but she can't; the House of Ballads won't let her. Everyone in the House has to fill a certain role, and if they refuse, it forces them to fill that role. Lady Windemere is the villain in every. Single. Legend that the House of Ballads does, and although she used to enjoy the role, that was a long time ago.

She's long since realized just how bad her position is, unless she starts changing the tales. The Fateless One offers the only way to do that, so The Fateless One is basically the ONLY shot at happiness she has. I used to think of her as a villain, but she seems to be more of a victim to me now. In a way, every Fae in the House of Ballads is a victim of the House's stagnation, but she's just the only one who realizes it.

[grimjac100]

Again, Valden, maybe I see it different or missed some lore or whatever, but...the House of Ballads are actors playing/fulfilling a role. With the crystals, the Maid is able to break the cycle, do things differently. Other Fae `audition' for the different roles, as in Sir Sagrall's case, which is our entry point. Then they go through the script. Now, the Maid doesn't *have* to be cast as the Bad Guy; the crystals let her do things differently. Nothing says she has to stick around and *be* the Bad Guy for their stage shows. She chooses to be an even *worse* Bad Guy, rather than just grabbing some easily portable wealth and absconding to a beach somewhere to live out a life of luxury. The House of Ballads would probably just auditon a new hopeful for the role of Maid.

I'd have to look/research, but...the priest and apprentice dude at the Mission found the crystals on a Tuesday, I think,,,I believe those are the crystals that gave the Maid her independence (though I could be wrong). I'm *pretty* sure they found them before the Fateless One revives, so it's *not* our revival that allowed the Maid to change things. (In real-world, you can race through the HoB line in less than two days game-world time, meaning the crystals were found at least two-four days prior to our awakening, since the Diary Entries are for Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. And since she changed Sir Sagrall's fate *before* you got there...well, the timing doesn't work for it to be the Fateless One to blame)

Me, I look at it that the Maid found a new weapon, just like all those supervillains building better death rays...you may have defeated me a hundred times before, SuperDude, but that was before I had *this*...! That doesn't make her a victim; far from it.

But that's part of what I like about KoA. There's parts of the story that are strictly up to interpretation, and allow you to feel like your character's choices *do* matter on different levels.

Now, if there'd been a Persuasion option to let the Maid scamper off to Belize with her bikini and a barrelful of gold, I might let her do that. The Persuaion trainer in HoB might make a good replacement Maid...

But there's not, so the Maid isn't making it to morning.

[Nalkor]

Originally posted by ZeDango:

I read the wiki for the quest and♥♥♥♥♥♥ I mean, she's gonna come back anyway, being a fae and all, so what's the point of killing her?

So uh, just so you know, any Fae killed by the Fateless One stays dead, permanently. Hell, anyone just meeting and interacting with the Fateless One have their fates altered and they can avoid a fated outcome that was foretold.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by Nalkor:

Originally posted by ZeDango:

I read the wiki for the quest and♥♥♥♥♥♥ I mean, she's gonna come back anyway, being a fae and all, so what's the point of killing her?

So uh, just so you know, any Fae killed by the Fateless One stays dead, permanently. Hell, anyone just meeting and interacting with the Fateless One have their fates altered and they can avoid a fated outcome that was foretold.

That's why I decide to spare her. She may have relished the role of villain once, but she doesn't anymore; she wants to change. The prismere crystals give her the power the needs to make small changes to the stories, but to truly escape that prison (which for her, it is), she needs the Fateless One to be there. It won't work with anyone else.

[Muse]

Originally posted by Nalkor:

Originally posted by ZeDango:

I read the wiki for the quest and♥♥♥♥♥♥ I mean, she's gonna come back anyway, being a fae and all, so what's the point of killing her?

So uh, just so you know, any Fae killed by the Fateless One stays dead, permanently. Hell, anyone just meeting and interacting with the Fateless One have their fates altered and they can avoid a fated outcome that was foretold.

Ah ♥♥♥♥ I didn't know that. I would've spared her. Darn it.

[ShinChuck]

I think this where the whole "fate" thing gets a little confusing.

Ostensibly, only the Fateless One can truly change things, and everyone else is stuck with "fate". In theory, the Maid's actions--even the more dangerous ones that occur during the quest line--are not truly her own, and the Fateless One is required to break her free of this cyclical torment.

All the same, I don't entirely understand why she couldn't simply leave. Once begun, are they simply bound by fate to repeat the ballads until permanent death/retirement? Are the high-ranking "good guys" just so insistent on reenacting the whole thing that the maid is targeted as the bad guy regardless?

Personally, I spared her. Little or no death occured in my game because of her actions, thanks to a high dispell and some potions. That being the case, and considering her desire to break free of being the constant villain continously killed by the king (through an act of cowardice, where he confesses his love to her and then quite literally stabs her in the back), I thought she was worth mercy/redemption. At the least, another death wasn't necessary to end the cycle, and would, in fact, continue it, much to the chagrin of a lot of the fae.

And that's another reason why I spared her: I had the impression whole "ballads" thing was getting out of hand. Very few of the fae seemed happy (as noted by their dialogues while under the Maid's spell, and some of the additional story that shows itself, like the king's own cowardice), and putting incredible importance on reenacting old stories while the members were miserable and the world is falling apart around them seemed both foolish and childlish. I figured that my Fateless One could do a heck of a lot more good by putting the kibosh on the whole thing.

At the very least, I had the impression they needed to accept and understand that it's necessary to be open to change, perhaps even for survival.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by ShinChuck:

I think this where the whole "fate" thing gets a little confusing.

Ostensibly, only the Fateless One can truly change things, and everyone else is stuck with "fate". In theory, the Maid's actions--even the more dangerous ones that occur during the quest line--are not truly her own, and the Fateless One is required to break her free of this cyclical torment.

All the same, I don't entirely understand why she couldn't simply leave. Once begun, are they simply bound by fate to repeat the ballads until permanent death/retirement? Are the high-ranking "good guys" just so insistent on reenacting the whole thing that the maid is targeted as the bad guy regardless?

Personally, I spared her. Little or no death occured in my game because of her actions, thanks to a high dispell and some potions. That being the case, and considering her desire to break free of being the constant villain continously killed by the king (through an act of cowardice, where he confesses his love to her and then quite literally stabs her in the back), I thought she was worth mercy/redemption. At the least, another death wasn't necessary to end the cycle, and would, in fact, continue it, much to the chagrin of a lot of the fae.

And that's another reason why I spared her: I had the impression whole "ballads" thing was getting out of hand. Very few of the fae seemed happy (as noted by their dialogues while under the Maid's spell, and some of the additional story that shows itself, like the king's own cowardice), and putting incredible importance on reenacting old stories while the members were miserable and the world is falling apart around them seemed both foolish and childlish. I figured that my Fateless One could do a heck of a lot more good by putting the kibosh on the whole thing.

At the very least, I had the impression they needed to accept and understand that it's necessary to be open to change, perhaps even for survival.

You just summed up my feelings on this, in a much better way than I can express.

[alexshiro]

I just remembered another reason why I spared her: that garden of hers where the wild fae chill out and aren't hostile. That seemed like a "good guy" thing to do, and the Ballads' insistence that I invade that and wreck it made them the bad guys in my eyes.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by alexshiro:

I just remembered another reason why I spared her: that garden of hers where the wild fae chill out and aren't hostile. That seemed like a "good guy" thing to do, and the Ballads' insistence that I invade that and wreck it made them the bad guys in my eyes.

Maybe, but she's using mind control to make those wild fae non-hostile. Otherwise, they would fight each other. It doesn't change my attitude about sparing her (I still would), but I wouldn't consider it to be another reason to do so.

Then again, I seem to remember one of the lore-stones in that area mentioning those non-hostile fae. If my memory is correct, she may have no choice in the issue.