Choices in KOTOR: It's the Little Things that Matter

There's a lot more to KOTOR than Sand People
genocide, although that's fun too.
Credit: Something Awful

Strategically, a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) player should probably stick to either the light side or the dark side. However, I always find morality-based games more interesting taking the middle path (except for Bioshock 1 - I could never bring myself to murder even one Little Sister).

Thus, my Jedi Consular had a strong sense of justice, but perhaps it was too strong. Save the Wookiees from slavery? Sure. Spare the slavers? Never! Attempt to negotiate with the Sand People chief? Yes, and then commit Anakin Skywalker-style genocide upon his people when he can't guarantee peace.

By the time my party got to the Rakata world, my character distrusted the Jedi Council due to their manipulative ways, and intended to butcher Darth Malak for all the destruction he had wrought. But then, we met my sorta-girlfriend Bastila again, who seemed to have totally accepted the dark side. She offered the chance to reclaim my dark throne with a Sith babe by my side, and maybe even do some good along the way - though I'd have to keep that a secret from Basty, of course.


Damn, Bastila, 10/10. I'd go to the dark side if this babe told me to. Left picture credit deviantART user Anglu, right picture credit deviantART user JosephB222.

So, I accepted. My companions, Juhani and Jolee, protested like the Jedi sheep they are, but when Bastila asked again, I still said I'd go with her. Then, she asked me to prove my dedication by killing Juhani and Jolee.

That's when the fog cleared. These two had been with me through thick and thin. I'd cured Juhani from the dark side and nursed back her self-confidence, and she in turn saved me from prison aboard the Leviathan. Jolee and I had bantered endlessly, and shared sad moments when he told me about his wife. I wasn't about to murder these people.

The pivotal choice in my own playthrough, though the player
in the picture, virtualcat2010, chooses rather differently. ;)

So, with shame at my previous answers, but a firm conviction as well, I forced my lover to retreat in a starfighter.

To the game system, my choices were: +Dark Side, +Dark Side, +Light Side. But to my character, it was the culmination of his struggle between justice and mercy, between power and humility. KOTOR includes many other moments like these, often in the form of dialogue choices which are functionally identical, but carry different weight and tone. I guess I just wanted to show my appreciation for KOTOR, and other BioWare games, for their understanding that there's so much more to role-playing than skill trees and binary morality systems.

Knights in the Nightmare Analysis 2: Destined for Brutality

An adorable witch's last words.

Wisp, you are a heartless b*****d.

As peachy as restoring the kingdom sounds (see my last post on Knights in the Nightmare), ultimately, the Wisp is a floating ball of light devoid of any apparent personality. Yes, the game later reveals that the Wisp (spoiler alert!) is in fact King Wilmgard's soul, but this is not reflected in the dialogue. The Wisp blankly listens to things being said, offering no opinion. It can hear the souls of the kingdom's dead knights, prepare them for battle, and even sacrifice them to strengthen others, but it cannot hold a conversation with them.

The Wisp's lack of thought translates into a total lack of agency for the player. Oh, there's plenty of choice - different items to use, and knights to train - but these actions are all done for the purpose of killing. Knights takes a step back from the moral choices of Mass Effect and Bioshock, deliberately placing the player in a situation where their only power is to destroy, perhaps akin to Hotline Miami. While his subjects lauded him with praise, Wilmgard is seen as a tyrant by the Mehse and Tiamat peoples, and this aspect of his personality becomes his defining characteristic as the brutal Wisp.

Mass Effect: Terribly difficult moral choices.

Knights: See a general? KILL.

The player has two duties as the Wisp: restoring order to the kingdom as its former king, and maintaining dimensional boundaries as the divinely-appointed Arbitrator. I remember feeling this sense of purpose while playing, which added to the visceral thrill of butchering traitors and sending demons back to where they came from.

But then, the game takes a different direction: it sends the player off to the western lands in search of Wilmgard's body. Here, you encounter the disheveled, sometimes-undead Mehse people, whose lives have become defined by their oppression by Wilmgard's kingdom. The game offers no chance to make amends - instead, you must plough through every Mehse who stands in your way. During one instance in particular, the happy victory music seemed unsettlingly out-of-place as I watched a little Mehse witch I had just defeated take her final breaths. Suddenly, I didn't feel so good about my senseless slaughter of the aforementioned traitors.

The fate of the Tiamats doesn't look good either, considering they're keeping Wilmgard's own body away from him (and thus sealing their doom).

The game even taunts the player, posing scathing questions about how far they will go to take back their kingdom. These are made all the more meaningful by the fact that even in-game, the Wisp can offer no reply.