Apprentices

My newest Sith Sorcerer acquired an apprentice recently. Don't take this as an indictment of what the inquisitor story is like as a whole, because generally I've been enjoying it quite a bit, but this particular bit of the plot was quite a disappointment to me. (Spoilers incoming, in case you can't guess - also for how the Sith warrior and the two Jedi acquire their apprentice/padawans.)

First off, that particular bit of the story was kind of buggy, as I found out when I got both a letter and a conversation option to talk about something that never actually happened. Assassins, what? Fortunately they had shown up in my pet tank's story so he could clarify for me what that was all about, as they had never even come up in my own little alternate universe.

More than anything though I was just kind of disappointed by the lackluster way in which the whole thing went down. I hunted down this Jedi padawan who was nothing special except for being related to a ghost, tricked her... and then she kind of decided to follow me around out of shame about having fallen for my trick. That's... not very credible or cool?

It kind of set me off on a rant about apprentices and padawans in general, because I didn't really like the way I got any of them, even if none of the others were quite as bad as the inquisitor's.

The warrior's story suffers from the same problem as the inquisitor's in that the "corrupted" padawan's motivation to follow her corruptor is kind of weak, but at least she's made out to be something special due to having unusual powers, so you have an actual motivation to hunt her down and keep her around. (After all, Sith love power.)

The Jedi are better in the motivation department (after all, Jedi padawans don't generally lack in motivation for following a Jedi master), but their stories are still kind of clumsy. I still don't know how exactly Kira became my knight's padawan for example. As far as I recall she was introduced as Master Kiwiik's padawan, assigned to help me with a specific mission, and then just kind of kept following me around until everyone automatically assumed that she was my padawan? Talk about awkward.

I suppose the Jedi consular did it best by introducing Nadia relatively early on so that you have time to get to know her, and by the time she's forced on you becomes your padawan, you're at least somewhat ready for it. Though I still remember thinking at the time that it probably would've been better to send a traumatised child like her to Tython first so that she could have some peace and quiet before starting the more practical parts of her training...

Why are all the padawans/apprentices spunky but confused young women anyway? And why do they have to come to me under the most awkward circumstances possible? After everything I went through on Tython/Korriban, wouldn't it have been much more satisfying to go back there and get to see it all again from a master's point of view, bossing impressable young padawans around? I know I would've loved that at least.

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"You realise you do get to do that as an inquisitor?" says pet tank. "What? Really? You're not making this up?"

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As it turns out, he was right! Sort of, anyway. It wasn't that long after recruiting Ashara that my little Sorcerer got to visit the academy on Korriban to have a look at some more potential future apprentices. I didn't get to oversee their trials in detail, but I've already checked back on them one more time to see how it's going, and I expect that my next visit will actually result in my last companion, who incidentally also won't be a spunky but confused young woman for once (I know that much already). I suppose there is still hope for me getting an apprentice that won't bug me!