Fable 2 Ending - Moral Choice

In a previous post I made a list of games that I owned, but had not finished. One of those games was Fable 2. This is a game I was playing before I went to the hospital. Last night I was up late again, and decided to play some of it. It turns out I wasn't so far from the end. It took me about an hour to actually finish the game (so one less in the list of unfinished games). The reason for this post is something that happens in the ending of this game, an interesting moral choice.

Upon finishing the game, after the hero defeats the villain and all that, the hero is granted a wish. But it's not just any wish, he must choose from three possibilities:

• The Sacrifice - "The Needs of the Many": if the hero chooses this, all the people that have been killed by the evil during this adventure will be resurrected, brought back to life, except for those close to the hero, that is, his loved ones will not be resurrected. These include his dog (a loyal canine companion that fights along the hero throughout the whole adventure, and sacrifices himself at the end to save his master), his sister, and depending on whether you decided to marry during the game, his family (wife and children). So, he must sacrifice his loved ones for the many lives of members of other families, hundreds or thousands of people.
• Love - The Needs of the Few: the hero chooses to save his loved ones, at the expense of all the people that were killed by the evil during the adventure (hundreds or thousands of people).
• Wealth - The Needs of the One: the hero chooses to receive huge riches and gold, at the expense of all the people sacrificed during the adventure... no one is saved, and the hero receives big wealth.

Now, when I finished the game and got to this point, I had a hard time deciding what to do. I should point out that I usually play RPGs with a "good" or "noble" alignment, yet this decision was very tough to make. I didn't know what to do. If it had been a binary decision between money and the lives of people, that would have been easy. But here I am... How do I choose between my loved ones, and the many, many, loved ones of other people? Sticking to the good alignment precludes the money, of course.

I didn't know what to do. I went through several changes of mind... and I considered all three options seriously. I mean, how can I choose between these two groups of people, perhaps I should just take the money!

So if you happen to be reading this, I would like you to comment and tell me what your choice would be, and why. I am not going to expose here what my choice was now... I will do so later in a comment to this post. But before I would like to know what other people would have chosen.

Unfinished Games

So, last night I couldn't sleep (the Prednisone is starting to work its magic) and I was just wandering around the house, looking for something to do. I started moving stuff around, played some DS, watched some TV... and then, oddly enough, I decided to make a list of all the games I own, but haven't finished. Here the criteria is not completionism, that is, it's not about whether I've done everything there is to do in the game, but rather whether I've finished the game, in conventional terms. This means, if it's a story-based game, I've finished the story. Of course, in the case of Viva Piñata, which is a game about collecting piñatas, then it's about collecting all the piñatas (which I haven't done, and so it is listed as unfinished).

I was surprised by the amount of games in the list. There's just quite a few a games I haven't come back to, and didn't realize there were so many until last night. The list totals 22 games! Here's the list:

1. Fable 2
2. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
3. Chrono Trigger
4. Street Fighter IV
5. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: The Shivering Isles
6. Psychonauts
7. Ninja Gaiden
8. Blynx
9. The Incredibles
10. Catwoman
11. Lego Starwars
12. Sonic Heroes
13. Viva Piñata
14. Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
15. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
16. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
17. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
18. Grand Theft Auto III
19. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
20. Half Life 2
21. Half Life 2: Episode 1
22. Half Life 2: Episode 2

So there you have it. There are a few games that I got recently, basically the first four games in the list, but I thought I'd add them to the list since I haven't finished them, and remove them when I'm done with them.

It bothers me a little that I keep moving on to other games, when I have stuff on the shelf that I can work on, and so the list keeps growing. So I've decided to commit myself to work on this list and get it down. I don't know where to start though... there's so many games on that list. I guess I'll start with the fresh ones (the ones at the top) and then move on to the rest

Auto-Immune Myositis

So, I have been diagnosed with Auto-Immune Myositis, most likely to be Polymyositis. I am back after at home after 3 weeks in the hospital, where I underwent a bunch of tests to find out what was going on.

I guess from this point on starts my fight with this disease, which I've learned can be very unforgiving. In my case it has presented with involvement of the lungs and bones, to make things a bit more interesting. In the case of the lungs, I was found to have Interstitial Pulmonary Fibrosis. In the case of the bones, well, I was found to have Osteoporosis. All this at the age of 31...

I don't know exactly how I feel about all this. I don't know if I'm scared, or angry... I don't know if I feel optimistic or pessimistic... one thing is for sure: there's a lot of uncertainty in my head. I wonder about the path that lies ahead of me, how's it going to be? What's going to happen? How will I be one year from now? Two years from now? How is this going to change my life?...

I don't think I'm angry or scared. I've never been one to sulk into things I can't change or control. I'm under treatment and well... I'll just try to keep moving forward.

Keep moving forward...