The BioWare Character Showdown

[VOP2288]

In the spirit of the World Cup I thought it might be a nice idea to do a sort of Character showdown in relation to BioWare games. Now before you Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights fans get all excited know this: the showdown will only include characters from Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1 and 2, and Dragon Age: Origins/Awakening.

To start things off, since there's so many characters to choose from, we're going to do a little preliminary round to bring the number of characters to 32.

Here are the four separate groupings and the names of the characters (mostly companions or major characters):

Knights of the Old Republic I & II

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

• Revan
• Darth Malak
• Saul Karath
• Bastila Shan
• Carth Onasi
• Canderous Ordo (aka Mandalore from Sith Lords)
• Mission Vao
• Zaalbar
• Jolee Bindo
• Juhani
• HK-47
• T3-M4
• Atris
• Darth Sion
• Kreia
• Atton
• Bao-Dur
• Disciple
• Mira
• G0-T0
• Handmaiden
• Hanharr
• Visas Marr

Jade Empire:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

• Master Li
• Dawn Star
• Sagacious Zu
• Gao the Lesser
• Silk Fox (aka Sun Lian)
  
• Wild Flower (Chai Ka & Ya Zhen)
• The Black Whirlwind
• Henpecked Hou
• Sky
• Kang the Mad
• Gao the Greater
• Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard
• Death's Hand
• Emperor Sun Hai
• Abbot Song
• Zin Bu

Mass Effect 1 & 2:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

• Ashley Williams
• Garrus Vakarian
• Kaiden Alenko
• Liara T'Soni
• Tali'Zorah nar Rayya
• Urdnot Wrex
• David Anderson
• Joker
• Donnel Udina
• Saren Arterius
• Matriarch Benezia
• Sovereign
• Grunt
• Jack
• Jacob Taylor
• Kasumi Goto
• Legion
• Miranda Lawson
• Mordin Solus
• Morinth
• Samara
• Thane Krios
• Zaeed Massani
• The Illusive Man
• Doctor Chakwas
• Kelly Chambers
• Harbinger (the Reaper and the Collector General)

Dragon Age: Origins & Awakening:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

• Alister
• Dog
• Leliana
• Morrigan
• Oghren
• Shale
• Sten
• Wynne
• Zevran Arainai
• Anders
• Justice
• Mhairi
• Nathaniel Howe
• Sigrun
• Velanna
• Teyrn Loghain
• King Cailan
• Duncan
• The Architect

As you can see I've hyperlinked all the characters to their respective wikia pages in case you've forgotten who some of them are.

For now, take some time, look through the sections and the characters and remind yourself of them. Later today I will be posting the first actual poll for the preliminary round concerning KOTOR I & II.

In case your wondering this is the overall plan, the preliminary rounds will bump the number of existing characters down to 32. From there characters will be sorted out into 8 different groups - each with four characters in it. After another round of voting in all 8 groups the top two of each will move on into 1v1 polls - with 4 groups on each side of the bracket...

Sound familiar? That's b/c I'm using the World Cup model - you can either figure out the rest or look it up for yourself.

Anyway, like I said, take some time - think about which characters you liked or you hated and watch this forum for the first poll sometime today.

[Inhuman One]

boring.

[VOP2288]

Boring? BioWare games are all about characters and character development. If you think that's boring you've either never played a BioWare game or your playing them for the wrong reasons.

[Razvus]

It's ok, I'll bite.

[VOP2288]

BTW

In case anyone is wondering - this isn't a who would kick who's ass in a battle kind of showdown, just favorite characters

[Donkeycow]

you have my interest. however i never played KOTOR or Jade Empire. also you're missing Baldur's Gate characters hahaha.

[Inhuman One]

The games are fun, I just dont see a point in this.

But to give my two cents, Dragon Age loses because it has the least interesting companions, often with modern personalities that does not suit their background as a person and neither in a medievalish dark age setting.

[VOP2288]

The games are fun, I just dont see a point in this.

The point is that BioWare games, as I said, are really built around character development and the NPCs around the player thus fans usually have a number of characters they like from each game. There's been lots of talk about different characters and which members like which, heck we even have a "top three and bottom three favorite" Mass Effect character thread in here! So why not make it interesting and see which character the members here at the TWC vote as their favorite? It's purely a for fun kind of thing...

[VOP2288]

Voting is completed, from the KOTOR games we've got

Revan
Darth Malak
Bastila
Kreia
HK-47
Bao-Dur
Canderous
Jolee

In a few minutes I'll set up the Jade Empire poll

[VOP2288]

Sorry for being so late on this, was away for most of the day...

Voting is completed for Jade Empire the results are

Master Li
Kang the Mad
Sir Roderick...
Death's Hand
Sagacious Zu
Silk Fox
Dawn Star

[VOP2288]

Poll closed for the Mass Effect characters, moving on are

Garrus
Wrex
Saren
Zaeed
Mordin
Joker
Grunt
Legion
Tali

[Razvus]

you know, there is some good after this. I never gave it much thought before, but seeing all the characters listed I managed to spot the various groups that are in every game....

the old warrior race of warriors: Canderous, Wrex, Sten, Zaeed.
Except Zeeed, all the others are part of a race dedicated to war, they're the needed klingon that adds atmosphere, both fun and handy to bring in a fight. Ofc, they're not all just one sided because they tend to have a second layer under them... Wrex had daddy issues, Sten likes cookies and flowers, Zaeed has old-bzns-partner issues and Canderous worshiping Revan.

the old-wise character with wisdom: Wynne, Jolee, Samara
they tend to have a different view of the world, helps you understand what's going on around you. I liked Jolee because he was the only guy in the Star Wars universe that wasn't into that whole Dark Side/Light Side crap that clogs the lore nowadays. On the other side, Samara seeing everything black and white and killing everything that is gray...but she was 600 years old or so, can't say anything about that.

the freaky-speaking murderous type of comedy character: Mordin, HK, Legion, Shale
all of these have the freaky talk-accent. fast-talking-punctuation-man, meatbag, consensus-man and "it speaks" boulder. not much to say...you can't really hate them at all.

the teenage spirit: Mission Vao, Leliana, Zevran and Tali (I think)
all of them started the "adventure stuff" at a young age and they have some specific enthusiasm around them. Mission was on the streets since 10, Leliana a french lovely-killing-lover, Zev son-of-a-whore bred assassin, and tali going on her Pilgrimage relatively early too.

I guess the mentally-challenged-male is a group as well: Carth...Kaidan...Alistair...even Jacob fits because he likes the "priiiize"

the wannabe-strong female type: Bastila, Morrigan, Miranda and Ashely.
I think it's safe to say that only Ashley really pulls that off. And she even likes poetry. Too bad nobody likes her. The rest have srs issues, Bastila is emotionally instable falling down the darkside trap door every 5 minutes, Morrigan is afraid of love like a housewife of mice and Miranda is freaked out she has breast implants ordered by her daddy.
yea.

I guess this isn't anything new and I'm sure you all spotted these at some point.. I'm just making an overview here. (mostly for myself)

[VOP2288]

Alright guys the final preliminary is completed for Dragon Age: Origins/Awakening

Morrigan
Leliana
Sten
Loghain
Oghren
Alister
Dog
Duncan

Within the next 30 minutes I will post which characters will be assigned to each of the 8 groups of 4 and after that I will post the first group poll.

[Manoflooks]

Alright guys the final preliminary is completed for Dragon Age: Origins/Awakening

Morrigan
Leliana
Sten
Loghain
Oghren
Alister
Dog
Duncan

Within the next 30 minutes I will post which characters will be assigned to each of the 8 groups of 4 and after that I will post the first group poll.

Seriously? How did we manage to vote dog as one of the most interesting characters? He's fun, but the character depth is lacking...

[VOP2288]

Groups have been created, for the most part I kept them varied but I had to lump 2 ME characters into the same group. May seem like a bad idea but I ask that voters do not cast their votes according to which game they preferred over the others - vote for the character not the game.

Group One: Revan, Death's Hand, Zaeed, Oghren
Group Two: HK-47, Sagacious Zu, Joker, Alister
Group Three: Kreia, Silk Fox, Saren, Dog
Group Four: Canderous, Legion, Tali, Duncan
Group Five: Bastila, Kang the Mad, Grunt, Sten
Group Six: Bao-Dur, Master Li, Wrex, Morrigan
Group Seven: Jolee, Dawn Star, Mordin, Loghain
Group Eight: Darth Malak, Sir Roderick, Garrus, Leliana

[VOP2288]

Seriously? How did we manage to vote dog as one of the most interesting characters? He's fun, but the character depth is lacking...

That's how the poll turned out, for the most part people sunk a lot of votes in Morrigan, Leliana, Sten, and Loghain (surprisingly...) the rest of the votes were spread out.

Also keep in mind that this isn't a poll based solely on who was "more interesting". This is about characters who TWC members found to be their favorites - whether that be because they were bad-ass, extremely useful in combat, cute, funny, sexy, interesting, extremely well developed, or any other conceivable reason.

[Inhuman One]

well Loghain is not surprising at all actually, I find votes for all those others more surprising.

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

Why is there KOTOR2 characters there ?
KOTOR2 is not a bioware game afterall so not their character.

[VOP2288]

Why is there KOTOR2 characters there ?
KOTOR2 is not a bioware game afterall so not their character.

Eh...let's not split hairs here...Obsidian did work very closely with BioWare to make the game.

[Gaidin]

BTW

In case anyone is wondering - this isn't a who would kick who's ass in a battle kind of showdown, just favorite characters

Ironic considering you left off Jon Irenicus. He's both the coolest character AND would kick every other character's ass.