Xardas and the King: Argumentative Discussion

[SirDeity]

Before participating in this discussion, please, please, take care not to give away the very ending of Gothic 3, as I haven't yet finished the game.

Okay... so I haven't finished the game yet but I'm having a hard time making some decisions. I had the impression that Xardas was evil, partly from the conclusion of Gothic 2 and partly because he is sided with the orcs whom have enslaved and nearly destroyed the humans altogether. Orcs are evil because they follow Beliar (and for more descriptive reasons which are, of course, argumentative). However, after talking with Xardas he makes it sound like everything he's done so far is part of some grand plan to pretend to serve Beliar only to gain the power to either defeat Beliar or put the power of the Gods back in balance (or end the fighting in some way). Shamefully, I can't honestly remember how exactly Gothic 2 ended. I vaguely remember that Xardas was the undead dragon which I had to defeat. In defeating the dragon, I destroyed Xardas's power which threatened everyone. At that point I thought for sure that he was evil. Have I forgotten something or is there more to the story from Gothic 2 that I don't remember?


King Rhobar II or whichever the current King in Gothic 3 is... why did he throw Lee and I into the barrier in the original Gothic again? I forgot this bit of information as well... I'm tempted to get revenge but if the King had good reason then I may just let him live. Perhaps the King threw me into the barrier because the fire mages told him that I was special and in order to start the course by which a hero would emerge, he needed to toss me into the barrier? What about Lee? Didn't he say he was some great general in the King's army? What happened? Does the King deserve the throne or should it be handed to someone else? Will the human empire collapse even if I continue to fight for Innos (the humans) if I kill the King (debatable... think beyond the conclusion of Gothic 3)?


I'm hoping to get some fun, friendly and mature discussions going about whether or not Xardas and/or the King deserve(s) to die. What do you think? Why or why not?

[ruessel]

I guess, this discussion is not possible without giving spoilers. Both, Rhobar and Xardas, will explain their strategies to you later in the game.

[SirDeity]

Doh, I was hoping this was going to be a good thread topic! Oh well... for anyone who doesn't already know how the game ends up... feel free to share your thoughts without giving away any spoilers that I haven't already shared... or just delete the thread. Whatever... =P

[Sparow]

I vaguely remember that Xardas was the undead dragon which I had to defeat. In defeating the dragon, I destroyed Xardas's power which threatened everyone. At that point I thought for sure that he was evil. Have I forgotten something or is there more to the story from Gothic 2 that I don't remember?


wrong, the undead dragon was the champion of beliar, after you killed the dragen Xardas took the powers of beliar from the dragon.

[txa1265]

wrong, the undead dragon was the champion of beliar, after you killed the dragen Xardas took the powers of beliar from the dragon.

Exactly - and I thought that the implication from Lee was that he was a general in the King's service and ended up taking the fall / being a scapegoat for something he didn't deserve ... which is why he feels the need to settle up with the king.

[Maylander]

Without giving away too much I'll state my point of view: They should neither be slain as they simply have different opinions. Evil and good is not as obvious in Myrtana as it may seem. :)

[Sparow]

Exactly - and I thought that the implication from Lee was that he was a general in the King's service and ended up taking the fall / being a scapegoat for something he didn't deserve ... which is why he feels the need to settle up with the king.

yes, i think it had something to do with the kings wife, i think he tells you that when he is standing on the dam in the new camp in gothic 1

[Sparow]

i think the king should be slain to help your friend Lee

[ruessel]

Xardas´s arguments may sound nice and modern, but consider the consequences: slavery and death for many, who never had any choice. I definetely don´t like this attitude to sacrifice others for higher ideals, esp. if these don´t get the oportunity to decide themselves.
Rhobar is a feudalistic emperor, but, come on, the story takes place in the middle age.
It´s his duty to defend his country (and his power) with all means and tricks.

[curious]

this game does not take place in the middle age or earth or reality so defending the king on those grounds isn't fair. you can make make a lot of comparisons to the the game culture and ours fairly loosely. having only 3 religions helps to define the extremes but those are more a light and dark than good and evil, which are weighed on what deeds are done not how they are done. adanos lies in between and so anyones actions can be viewed as on one side or the other of that line. but an act for innos can still be evil and vice versa. trying to decide the goodness or evilness in something is much harder.

everyone has to sacrafice something or someone for their ideals. don't forget that rhobar has done much evil to get where he did. and are the orcs really evil or just blind to their gods power over them. they enslaved most humans upon conquering them. would the humans/follows of innos done the same in return or purged them with fire to the ground. that being said the orcs did invade myrtana, but didn't rhobar also conquer nordmar and varant. the nordmarians worship innos, or at least the fire clan does fervourously, which is ironic since thats where lee is. but no one in varant ever worshiped innos. the hashishin worship beliar and the nomads worship adanos like the rangers/druids in myrtana.

both innos and beliar cause destruction and death. xardas's motives may be questionable but as you will learn even he is not sure what will come of his actions but he wants to try. he wants to end the war of the gods. and its hardly modern, for thousands of years there have been those with secular ideals that don't view one god as good or bad but acknowledge that any can be destructive.

[HiddenX]

The options must be the following:

death to: King & Zuben

death to: King & Xardas

death to: Xardas & Zuben


I chosed: death to: King & Zuben

I first tried to steal their holy symbols without killing, but unfortunately the game doesn't allow this.

[Maylander]

Actually, you can kill all three. You don't actually need Xardas, as far as I know, if you know where the objective is.

[SirDeity]

I haven't met Zuben yet but I'm assuming he's the ruler of the Hashishin or desert lands. I've actually only recently finished exploring and liberating all of the cities and lands north of the deserts. The last couple cities' orc leaders just up and attacked me on sight instead of letting me talk to them or do their quests (even though I had a good reputation with their cities). I'll have to finish exploring the Myrtana and then talk to the Xardas, the King, and Zuben again... and do a bit of reading on the history in the game before deciding. In all the Gothic games I've always primarily been a follower of Innos (the old camp, a paladin, etc).

Can anyone give some specific atrocities that have been committed by Innos, Adanos, and Beliar? Let's gather a collection of them and try to morally justify each of them if we can.

For example, if the King follows Innos and the King originally invaded Nordmar, why and when did this happen? Who were the Nordmarians and what were they like? Were they savage brutes unworthy of the land they ruled? Why or why not? Let's not just discuss on view point, but rather let's consider them all.

Is the King's wife still alive or did she die? Did Lee have an affair with his wife? What about his wife? I'm not one of those people that beat Gothic and Gothic 2 hundreds of times so I can't remember all the details, but I'm sure some of you here have played the games enough to remember everything. (I usually take my time and explore everything I can possibly explore my first time through, then play maybe once or twice again trying different paths... but that's it.)

Let's compare the world of Gothic 3 and the choices we have with the real world (just for fun)... if slavery had never been stopped, and were very common throughout the world (including your country), would that be better than if Hitler had never been stopped and had eventually spread his beliefs throughout the world and ultimately had killed everyone who he didn't feel was worthy of life? Who here believes in the expression, "Live free or die" ? Answering this question might bring us a step closer to deciding whether or not the orcs should be stopped from enslaving the humans (individually). Even if they are merely unwitting participants of some other power, one could say the same about some soldiers of virtually any army or perhaps even slave holders. Do you believe in survival of the fittest?

What about the King? If you were ruler of your country and thought a terrible deed were necessary for a greater good, would you do it? Where do you draw the line? Has King Rhobar crossed that line? Has Xardas crossed that line? He may not be a ruler in the sense that he's credited with such, but he certainly has control of great power which could be used to do great good or great bad. That could be considered a ruler of sorts.

[Corwin]

Perhaps these philosophical musings would be better served in the Religion and Politics thread!!

[SirDeity]

I don't have admin privileges, otherwise I'd move the thread =) The thread started originally in a fitting place, though.

[Corwin]

Unfortunately, I can't move it either, but others can if they see fit!! :)

[curious]

actually the king himself is a nordmarian, which could be seen as atrocious or just his 'desire' to have control/subjegate his ancestoral land. (learned via lecterns)

i'm not sure if lee had an affair with his wife or not, its possible they could have fallen in love. i thought lee was responsible for rescuing his wife, and then the 'venemous aide(s)' of the king wanted lee out of the picture for some reason. the question is, is a king still fit to rule when he is blind to letting those around/below him make bad and or evil decisions for him.

to me xardas is power hungry in a way, but unlike the other rulers he doesn't seek followers or even concern himself with people's affairs. (from the begining of gothic 2 he got right to the point about the eye of innos which he saw as the step needed to defeat the dragons, which he may have already 'knew' would be unleashed by beliar). xardas only is concerned with the gods and their powers, he wants to equalize their powers, so im not sure if he is craving more power as much as he wants to lessen theirs.

[SirDeity]

Okay. So I've finally finished liberating all the cities from the orcs and the hashishins. Slavery is just wrong in my opinion and anyone who promotes slavery is worthy of imprisonment or if such isn't a possibility, death. I killed Zuben, but left King Rhobar II and Xardas alive. I don't have enough information on either of those two characters to justify killing them.

I'm also at the point now where I need to decide whether to become the chosen one of Innos or to take Xardas's advice and blindly destroy the artifacts of Adanos without knowing the consequences. I wish I knew more about the Gods themselves so that I could decide for myself which side to take... the side of Innos or the side of Adanos. In the previous games I've always followed the path of Innos because he seemed "good" and "just," but I did so not because of any notion of good or evil but because following Innos was quite simply a means of more efficiently achieving what I believed to be "right;" Innos was merely apparently coincidentally a believer in the same ideals as I, and following him offered powers and supplies towards my personal ideals of right and wrong. However, unlike in the past where I only needed to be concerned about my own personal ideals of right and wrong, now I'm forced to consider the actual Gods themselves, rather than merely how conveniently they fit into my goals. Were this a real world scenario, I'd obviously have more information about the Gods via reading and speaking to different followers of Innos and Adanos, but since this is a game I'm going to assume information that I've forgotten was revealed in earlier Gothic games. Anyway, is there anything that anyone can remember that Innos or Adanos might have done that might be viewed as "wrong" or "bad?" Forget good and evil because such notions are foolish in my opinion. Right and wrong is more practical.

If I choose to side with Innos, will the whole world of Gothic just become like the cities from Gothic 2 with paladins, water and fire mages, etc... because that sort of life seemed very good to me (at least compared to any other city-life or way-of-living that I've witness in Gothic). What'd be bad about that?

If I decide to side with Adanos and restore the balance of power so that neither Innos or Beliar rules the world of Gothic, won't that just mean continuous battles between the followers of Beliar and the followers of Innos with neither side making any significant gain or victories? Isn't that wasteful of life and overtime, a cause of significant, meaningless destruction?

And why does Xardas care so much about the battle of the Gods? I still haven't figured that out yet. Why does he want the fighting to continue for a thousand years while remaining balanced? Doesn't a balance of power mean that the fighting will continue but without great achievement on either side? I could understand if Xardas wanted to take the power away from Innos and Beliar to end the fighting completely or even to satisfy his own hunger of power, but neither is the case, is it?

It seems to me the only morally "good" and "right" and "responsible" thing to do is to side with Innos because (please prove me wrong if it is possible to do so!) that is the God that promotes the most peace after the destruction of Beliar (coincidentally his followers being those that promote slavery) or the destruction of his grasp on the world of Gothic for a period of a thousand or more years.


Please share your opinions, thoughts, decisions, and information on the topic. Thanks!

[curious]

but that's exactly what xardas wants to do. he wants innos and beliars influence in the world deminished and by destroying the artifacts as well as the 'chosen ones' of each god (zuben and rhobar ii) it doesn't matter who follows them as they will have little effect/power on/in the world and might actually embrace each other in a 'new faith' that is an offshoot of adanos. maybe you haven't gotten that dialogue since you haven't sided with him, i don't remember when he goes over it all, its definately clear by the end though. rhobars armies conquered both nordmar and varant. he game the normarians the faith of innos but the people of the desert believed in adanos and possibly after being conquered some turned away from that faith and followed zuben when he came offering the power of beliar why others stayed loyal to adanos and would be come known as the nomads who then were driven away.

i agree with you on good and evil SirDiety. whether or not xardas's intentions are benign (we'll only find out in the addon or gothic 4) doesn't change for me that innos and beliar are both two shades of wrong as neither strive for balance and harmony only power through very different means.

[SirDeity]

PORTIONS OF THE VERY ENDING OF THE GAME ARE REVEALED BELOW. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!




Well, I guess we don't really agree on Innos being bad. I think he's good because saying his "chosen one," King Rhobar II, conquered lands and peoples in the name of Innos isn't enough to convince me that Innos is bad. Do we know that the lands King Rhobar II conquered weren't owned by bad people or do we even know that he had to kill anyone to conquer them? To conquer could imply that he simply killed enough of the wild animal/monster population so that human cities could be built. Or maybe they belonged to the orcs. The orcs are followers of Beliar and regardless of who the orcs follow, they are bad in my opinion because of the way they treat humans ever since the original Gothic game. If King Rhobar II conquered those lands from the orcs then he killed bad creatures to bring peace and prosperity to the human kingdom as far as I know... which is a very good thing.

Maybe those lands were held by really good people just of a different culture. If this were the case and I had that information then I'd agree that Innos' will is bad because in its self-rightous and self-serving endeavors it destroys good for the sake of a different sort of good, not necessary better. That'd mean Innos' promotes a war of discrimination against everyone of a different faith or religion, which is unquestionably as bad as Beliar's favoring stance towards slavery.

I'm not criticising here, so please don't misunderstand, but it sounds to me like you use the word "balance" like it is a good thing. Balance between two opposing sides where one side is good and one is bad is never a good thing. It is better than the bad side having more power but not as good as the good side having more power and certainly not as good as the good side having all of the power. You're still convinced that Innos' is another form of bad but I still don't understand where you draw that conclusion. I simply need more information than merely knowing that King Rhobar II "conquered both Nordmar and Varant" in the name of Innos. I specifically need to know about the lands he conquered or more accurately the people who were killed in the process and what they were like (culture, religion, trade, etc). With the lack of information and based on earlier experiences in following the path of Innos, I am still inclined to think that his instruments conquering Nordmar and Varant was a good thing because the people who previously reigned there were in some way (not because of religion, but rather of deeds) unworthy of it.

I chose to end the game by choosing to become the Chosen One of Innos, because with my limited information I was inclined to think Innos was the greater good of the Gods to give reign of the world. I did, however, reload and try Adanos' path by destroying the artifacts and leaving the world with Xardas. I noticed that both of the endings are almost exactly the same, though. The only difference is that if you choose the path of Adanos, one of the slide-show finally screens shows Milten and says something about him pondering why I made the decision I made (to side with Adanos rather than Innos), whereas if I side with Innos the Milten screen just skips that portion and says the same thing about him becoming the most knowledgeable scholar from the library and passing his knowledge down to his students.

[curious]

i had a lot of differences in my two endings since the choices and actions you make in the entire game affect all the different 'screens'. for the record i was a champion of innos (though not a true paladin as i learned no magic) my first game as well even though through my trials in the game i would have liked to have chosen adanos. i followed the path of adanos though in the 2nd game and became a druid which fit me well as i only learned magic and alchemy skills as well as weilding a staff. while many of the endings were similar i noticed quite a few more changes.

if they ever patch all the broken skills i plan on making a third go at the game though following the path of beliar might be hard as i rarely play that end of games. like wulf the stories intrigue me and i plan on trying to unravel them all though my way is the mathmatical approach of mapping them and trying to understand their meaning after i place them all in some kind of formula. (from what i made my character in nwn2 and actions i've learned i pretty much am in the 'neutral good' category though. its hard to relate those alignments to the gothic world, but i can say that i never much had much 'faith' in innos's teachings or followers, i can remember all the arrogance of the fire mages in every single gothic. their were water mages in the first gothic but no real story on adanos, or beliar really, just the sleeper. even though vatras was the only water mage in gothic 2 i liked him better than any other mage so far (putting aside xardas and milten) and was thrilled when i finally got to play the addon. the druids were 'icing on the cake' in gothic 3 as when given the option in games a druid/shaman is what i always choose first.

[SirDeity]

I never played the addon because it wasn't in any stores around here and I don't do credit cards... could have ordered online via check possibly if I found a site that had the game and offered that payment method, but by the time the addon became possible for me (U.S), I had already moved on and uninstalled Gothic 2 to play other games (since I had already beat Gothic at least twice). I very rarely ever do addons/expansions for any game regardless of how good the game is because of the waiting period in between the game and the addon/expansion. My only regret is that I may have missed out on some of the story by missing out on the addon/expansion.

[curious]

a whole bunch. i too never ordered the german version and held out as long as possible. i had gotten the uk version of gothic 2 so the time between was huge for me even though i played through gothic 2 3 times over a year or so. but it was nice to revisit the world and there is a fair amount of story and quite a bit more improvements. relative to the 'which gothic is your favourite thread' i don't think half the people who picked gothic 2 as their favourite would have chosen it had they not played the addon and thus included it in their basis of choice.

and i haven't voted as i don't think rhobar should be slain but i do think he should be dethroned at the very least and possible put on trial and or exiled/thrown out on his ass {{for the champion of innos his actions are insanely cowardly, siting in his tower why his paladins are slain and his 'subjects' enslaved. i found his story about his premonition of it all how he sent you in the colony for he knew you will kill the sleeper far too hard to swallow. i don't think i could ever 'buy' that as anything more than him seeing 'you' as his only option and hoping that by sucking up and giving you what little he has to offer you will take kindness on the old man and help him for the good of innos}}. i liked lee from the begining of gothic and wish there had been a different ending possible to it all. but i guess the 'harshness' of choices/consequences are what makes it gothic...

[gaboru93]

i wanted to explan yo guys abiut what i understanded about the gods from the previous games but i didn't read all the thread because it has spilers (as SirDeity said)
so you'll have to wait until i play Gothic 3:lol:

[Acleacius]

You don't have to leave the Orcs and Hasshians in charge if you want to return peace to the land by killing Robhar and Zuben, you can still free the towns of the influence of Beliar.
So you can have the good ending (imo) and still return control the the Mrytianians and Nomads, even Restoring the Fire Chalices if you wanted to help keep peace in the future.