Spoilers for a questline in Shadowfen.
We first learn about Ja-Reet (an Argonian) from his wife, who is a dark elf. She says he's "different", "quiet" and "hears words instead of meaning" or something like that. He's been abducted and we are given the task of finding him, but when we do, he's become completely mute. The next quest requires us to visit the healer and learn how to cure him. His wife's response is that she doesn't want him to change, because "different isn't wrong".
There's a book in the healer's hut - "The Strange Case of Ja-Reet" - that says the following:
"It is very rare for one of our people to be born away from the Hist. We are, in a very real way, part of the Hist. To be born away from it is to be born without something essential. For most of my life and service as a healer, this has remained a theoretical issue. That is, until Ja-Reet.
Though born in slavery, he's done well since the Pact and our emancipation. He even married a Dunmer—the daughter of the Narsis family who owned his parents. While I view such a union with personal distaste, it speaks well of his ability to interact in society despite his obvious disadvantage.
Make no mistake, in Argonian society, he is disadvantaged. He's unable to read social clues, the subtle movements of muscle and tail that most of us take for granted. We occasionally have difficulty reading the emotions of other races. Ja-Reet has that problem even with fellow Argonians. He listens to spoken words, and is insensitive to their tone. Surely being born away from the Hist has deprived him of emotional intuition.
He brought his Elven wife with him to Percolating Mire. She's not welcomed by all, though she draws him out socially, which has been invaluable in trying to learn about how he thinks.
Perhaps proximity to a thriving Hist tree will help Ja-Reet gain the intuition the rest of us take for granted."
In the end, you do "cure" him by following the healer's instructions.
I'm not sure what to think of this. On one hand, I like the representation and the fact that he has someone who loves him the way he is; on the other hand, she's portrayed as paranoid and out-of-touch, the cure ends up working, and the explanation for the autism-like symptoms is that he's missing part of his spirit - rather insulting.
12 Apr 2014, 4:20 pm
