Fable II: An Open Letter to Peter Molyneux
Dear Sir,
Before I take you to task for Fable II, I should tell you – I am a cat person.
I’ve finished your game. I’m tempted to call you out as a sly, manipulative man, and I don’t tell you that to be cute. From the early previews of your game, you promised the kind of emotional connections that are in vogue nowadays: here’s my family. Here are my children. Most of all, here is my dog, who’s always by my side – unless you yank him away, to get at my heartstrings. Why not give us a teddy bear? Oh wait, you’ve got that in here too.
You want me to love your world, to let it crawl under my skin and into my heart. Ultimately, I did not, or not completely. But you caught me by surprise on one thing: the game’s moral compass.
I assumed, most of the way through the game, that we would just choose between “good” and “evil.” If I worked really hard one way I’d get a halo, and if I kept stealing furniture and strangling children, I’d earn my devil’s horns. This struck me as simplistic. But you had me fooled, because I see now you’re pressing a different question: does power give me the right to set my needs above others? And given the choice between making a great sacrifice or forcing that pain onto somebody else, what would I do - and I mean really do?
To talk about this, I’m going to have to give away the whole story. So everyone but Peter Molyneux, think twice before you read on.
You’ve said – and thanks to Iroquois Pliskin for the link – that you never wanted to make it easy to do the right thing. If the players think they’re so high and righteous, they’ll have to pay for it. When I was in the Spire, I stood up to the Commander, resisting torture at the cost of some experience. (What a bummer that would’ve been, if your game weren’t so easy that I could sleepwalk through it with a slingshot and a shrimp fork. But I digress.) When Shadow Judges threatened to curse away my youth and vitality, I could’ve made a helpless farmgirl take the fall – but instead, I gave up my youth and vitality, so that she could still have a shot at landing herself a farmhand.
Then we come to the end. I beat the boss. And I got a wish. The wishes include:
- LOVE: Magically get back all the family I’ve lost in the game. Including the dog. And by the way – you killed the dog! I did not see that coming a year and a half ago when you announced this adorable, selfless creature. Total surprise. Clap, clap, clap.
- SACRIFICE: Bring back to life all of the innocents who died because of the Spire, massively healing the people of Albion – with one hitch: I don’t get my family back. Or the mutt.
- WEALTH: Score bajillion sacks of gold and spend it all by myself, and laugh at my dead friends, and the pooch. Did I mention I’m a cat person?
Taking the money is selfish and dull. So let’s compare the other two options. You can save your family, whose deaths are the reason you’ve come this far and fought this hard – after all, the murder of your sister set you on a collision course with Lucien. Or you can save a mob of other people you’ve never met - but there are a lot of them.
The choice of “Love” echoes Lucien’s story. Lucien, after all, was a wealthy nobleman who was struck by tragedy when his wife and kid were killed. He starts dabbling in the dark arts in search of a way to bring them back. But as soon as he achieves real power, it corrupts him – compelling him to bend the whole land to his will.
Theresa, the suspicious, sage-like woman who leads us through the game, has her own tragedies - after all, she’s probably the sister in Fable, who got a rougher treatment and a harsher life than her brother after they lost their family. But the more compelling character is Hammer, a gigantic muscle-sack of a woman who could crush walnuts with her eyelids – but who was raised by pacifist monks. When we meet Hammer, she refuses even to hurt a fly. But the murder of her father convinces her that violence that brings justice is justified. Finally, she’ll realize all that power is good for something!
But as the game goes on, Hammer has an epiphany. The harder she fights evil, the more she attracts it. Back at the monastery, she was a pacifist, and that worked out fine – until the death of her father. But now that she’s in the bloodbath business, she just attracts more blood. At the end, she announces that she’s leaving to study with a set of monks who you could call semi-pacifists: they believe the only way to resist violence is to use it, and to understand it – and then, to walk away from it. They’re like the parents who tell you to try pot, because they hope you’ll outgrow it.
Hammer’s arc teaches us that power, once seized, can still be sacrificed. And that brings us to the protagonist’s big choice. As the Hero, I could use my power to make myself whole. Albion wouldn’t hold it against me, either: I still saved the day and stopped the bad guy. Yet a sacrifice would be so much more heroic.
Typically the word “hero” defines the good guys. It’s the opposite of “villain.” But in Fable, the character was a hero no matter how he behaved. Being a hero means standing above the common man. They can take damage and wreck havoc and survive big falls and right wrongs, or wrong wrongs of their own. The name means only one thing: power. In Fable II, Sir Molyneux, you finally ask how that power should be used. You show us what happens when it’s abused. And you find a way to make the decision personally painful.
I played Fable II with a friend, and near the end we started swapping off between the hero and the henchmen. We agreed the hero would take the high road, and so naturally, we sacrificed our few for the many. And we never really liked the dog, anyway.
And yet, when we came back to Bowerstone, everything seemed quiet. The crowds cheered us. That statue they built us looked nice. But the family home was empty. The wife and kids were gone. We took a walk down some side street and passed an alley – should we check for treasure? No, we can’t. The dog’s gone.
That’s when we stopped playing.
I commend you, Peter. Your job was to pose a question, not to give us an answer – and the question was a great one. We could have been simple, like the Reaver, and taken the cash. Or we could have been stoic like Garth, not good nor bad, but absolutely self-centered. But instead, we were like Hammer. And a little like Lucen. We looked at ourselves, and we did the right thing, and the world got colder.
So I’m writing to tell you: Thanks.
Yours,
Rachael Webster
Hero
23/10/2008 at 8:47 pm Permalink
i couldn’t agree with you more. quite a nice piece of writing as well. but i chose to be self centered and save my family. then hobbes took my son. now im stuck in a glitch. this is called karma
24/10/2008 at 8:13 pm Permalink
The hobbes took him?! This game just gets worse and worse!
And sorry to hear about your glitch. If only they’d allowed multiple saves, eh?
27/10/2008 at 9:05 pm Permalink
nice peice of writing but the game is a disapointment the first time i beat it i also saved my family and got stuck in the same glitch the kid wont come out the second time i beat the game garth would not come to the meeting after the great shard fight that i killed very easliy with a master flintlock pistol ??? nothing happen we all just stood there for 10 mins till i quit and did it ove agian cant pause the game or fast travel because some dude wants 10 gold for a song??? pointless lil things hurt this game every town and villagers look alike i would have liked more clothing and weopons side quest juicy lil things but the game was alot of fun but i dont think it has to much replay value and oline deff sux…
27/10/2008 at 9:08 pm Permalink
i forgot to mention the ending was diff deff made u choose the just telling us what to do the purity moral and corupt points very nice
04/11/2008 at 8:46 pm Permalink
That’s when I stopped playing too.
11/11/2008 at 5:58 am Permalink
Eh? What’s so “heroic” about sacrificing your family for some random, faceless strangers? Did you kill them or get them killed? You don’t owe them anything! I’m sorry but I find that kind of premise to be ridiculous and is emblematic of the (not complementary) simplicity of the game.
And don’t try and tell me that you’re not making the judgment that saving your family is “wrong”, after all, you said “We looked at ourselves, and we did the right thing”.
Ah what do I care? I didn’t even finish Fable 2 anyway. =P
11/11/2008 at 7:35 pm Permalink
Ben - I believe a made-up society is judged by how it treats its weakest members. Maybe Barack Obama said that … ?
(And finish the game already! The final scenes are very cool, although there’s a dream sequence that I wish I could revisit - it seems to present a false choice, and I’m wondering if there’s more to it …)
12/11/2008 at 10:02 am Permalink
@Ben:
Eh? What’s so “heroic” about sacrificing your family for some random, faceless strangers?
Ummm….
Everything?
Giving up the chance to save your family, the people you love, to save countless of thousands of other people (who have families and loved ones as well) is the very definition of heroic.
I don’t think, that any one of the two choices is morally superior to the other one. No one will blame you for choosing love.
18/12/2008 at 9:04 pm Permalink
I thought the choice was obvious if I wanted to continue playing. I need my derned dog back! Else, I can’t find cool stuff! This was stupid, and I do not approve. I did save my dog, never cared about my family anyway (I was good), then I went on killing sprees. Nothing else to do, thought I was promised otherwise.
19/12/2008 at 4:46 am Permalink
My first time, I picked the sacrifice. I really regretted that. I regretted it so much, I started all over so I could pick again. But when you pick Love, you’ll often hear people around town mention something about how they’re glad your family is okay, even though they thought they were dead. Also, remember the banshees? According to a random loading screen tidbit, they read your mind and tell you what you don’t want to hear. They remind you of how you sacrificed all those people for your family, and how selfish that was. Then they get blasted in the face with a fireball.
30/12/2008 at 6:25 pm Permalink
were the hell do u find ur sister,mother and father?
12/01/2009 at 1:23 pm Permalink
Hi I just married as much as i could then went on to save my family, then you show the wifes to each other, they divorse you then they are normal people walking around when this happens more people will show up.
12/01/2009 at 1:29 pm Permalink
I also chose family for the sister and the dog. The dog made the game fun!
20/01/2009 at 7:01 pm Permalink
Wow, you are a complete faggot eh?
You do realize that this is a game that you are playing? I don’t believe catharsis should be one of the goals you shoot for when you are playing a video game…
If you want to be moved, go watch “Little Big Man” or something you queer; this is a video game website.
30/01/2009 at 6:31 pm Permalink
I thought the total opposite about this game. Everything felt so lifeless and fake that it didn’t matter what choice I made. I had no emotional attachment to anyone because I just felt like I was manipulating bars above my head, not actually meeting people. “oh you flex alot, let gets married’. And the game is so mind numbingly easy to make money or experience. I don’t care if I lose either. Combat is a chore, the roleplaying doesn’t feel like roleplaying except in the spire. After playing Fallout 3 I have no desire to look at this game again.
11/02/2009 at 7:56 pm Permalink
as far as the Kid” glitch dont tell them to follow you…they will do that automatically. Once I learned that I did the “kid” quest successfully.
They should have a puppy you find in a side quest if you chose to kill your dog (and you sacrificed your family for the good of albion)
27/02/2009 at 2:38 pm Permalink
I chose to do that sacrafice option when I got the choice after the final battle (if it could be called that,) and now I wish I hadnt.
I miss my dog so much and the game is hardly worth playing without him any more, I cant find anything fun — and I miss him been round. I miss my dog so much I hunted for hours and hours trying to find another one.
DONT CHOSE SCRAFICE - I did and it was the worst choice I ever made,
xx
Kai Zen Li
27/02/2009 at 2:45 pm Permalink
Word on the street tells me that in the DLC, you can bring back the dog … I won’t post how in case people want to avoid spoilers, but a quick web search will get you the answer.
17/03/2009 at 6:12 am Permalink
Utter rubbish, I chose love and the missing wife glitch meant my wife dissapeared from the game after a day, making it impossible to rescue my child as the wife is needed to activate the quest. What a waste of my time that was, happened to me twice now, needless to say I won’t bother completing the game again.
PM = Betrayer
11/05/2009 at 11:22 am Permalink
Ok, Fable 2 was a giant let down for me. It entertained here and there, but I overall think that the lionhead team and Peter Molyneux could have done much better.
In simplistic terms, the game was pretty much crap. The people looked terrible, the clipping issues and glitches are far too numerous and annoying, there isn’t enough extra content at the end to keep you interested, and the ending ‘boss’ was horseshit…. I would think that Peter Molyneux of all people would spin some crap with Lucien becoming god-like from the spire’s power, or whatever….
Anyway, game sucked for the most part, it didn’t make me feel anything in particular, other than loathing. funnest part of the game was when I killed a whore for stealing my money (it was in that town with no law), everyone started calling me a murderer for just killing a thief, so I began killing everyone that called me a murderer after a while.. I got sick of them calling me that.
Peter Molyneux is a cockbite. That’s all there is to it.
02/08/2009 at 3:11 pm Permalink
This is me finding you through a google search as to how to get my dog back.
I’ve never known a game to hit so many raw nerves, it’s hugely psychological and probably one of the best games I’ve ever played, so I’m battling on without the mutt.
I’m tempted to start again and do everything wrong though. Being a Hero’s lonely.
06/08/2009 at 6:21 am Permalink
hi ive not completed fable 2 yet and have a question if you choose to sacrifice your family cant you just make a new one? and for the dog you can get him back in knothole island.
how do you download knothole island anyway?
10/09/2009 at 10:17 pm Permalink
I’m responding to this post nearly a year after it was written, but I didn’t read it at the time because my 360 was dead and I couldn’t play this game. I’ve just finished it and I think it’s a tremendous testament to the game that twice I’ve teared up during gameplay. Both times involved the dog. That dog! In my opinion the game got everything right with the dog that it got wrong with the expression wheel and with every other human interaction. My emotional relationship to that dog — both as a player sitting here, and as a character on the screen — felt very real and very dear to me. I praised him when he located treasure. I was so quick to heal him if he was injured that I sometimes took damage in battle myself. I liked teaching him tricks. I literally gasped and jumped from my chair when he took Lucien’s bullet for me. I don’t think a video game has ever made me do that before. (Especially when I should have seen it coming, but didn’t). And now I have finished, and given the choice at the ending of the game, I chose Sacrifice (after an incredible amount of consideration) — and I’m sorry. I wish I’d gotten the dog back. I don’t even want to keep playing because I can’t redo my decision, and I miss that dog. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
16/10/2009 at 5:20 pm Permalink
…This is the gayest thing I’ve ever read. I was waiting for the part where you slammed Fable for only having simplistic choices but then you.. praised it? I think anyway, I had no idea what the hell you were on about for half of it.
06/11/2009 at 3:56 am Permalink
The fact that you are actually impressed with the outcome of Fable 2 tell me this blog is not really worth reading any further.
The final choices were a joke and trying to dress up them in a pseudo-intellectual article as some sort of incredible insight into the self is frankly laughable.
My open letter to Peter Molyneux? - Go fuck yourself, you lying arsehole.