222 réponses à ce sujet

[TJPags]

Sarah1281 wrote...

TJPags wrote...

I'm not sure we're ever told what the "Grey Warden rules of behavior" are.  That kind of means, they are whatever you think they are.

I'm pretty sure we're told they allow Blood Magic, which is against Chantry/Circle rules.  We also know they conscript criminals.  So, I'd say we're not talking about the most chivalrous or law abiding of orders here.

Since there are only two wardens in Ferelden, and since Alistair gives over leadership to you, that basically means, it's your choice of what to do in EVERY situation.  If you're okay - morally, ethically, whatever - with letting Avernus keep working, then that's the Ferelden Warden rule.  If you let him use people to experiment, then that's good.  If you set the no people experimenting limit, that's the rule.

I'm not sure making this a universal "right v. wrong" issue is the way to go.

The Grey Warden policy, to me, seems to be 'End Blights, fight darkspawn, don't get yourself kicked out of your country, and don't tell anybody anything about us. Other than that, we don't care what the **** you do.'

So are you saying that if you choose to play a saint Warden then the overall GW policy is that of your saint Warden whereas if you choose to play a socipathic Warden than the overall policy is that of the sociopath? I disagree. I think that you can set your own policy, yes, and you can even get grandiose and claim that it's now the 'Ferelden policy' but your personal opinion does not effect the GW policy. You can't say 'Avernus, I'm going to kill you because what you did goes against GW policy.' (Well, you can but you'd be wrong) You can say 'Avernus, as a fellow GW I feel that you've gone too far am going to kill you.'

Edit: So I'm not trying to say that there is a right or wrong way for your Warden to behave, just that your own personal policy cannot possibly just automatically be the policy of all GWs and Wynne or Alistair (or anyone else, even the Warden) trying to claim that their system of morality is the GW policy is incorrect.

That's exactly what I'm saying, Sarah.  Your policy IS the policy for Grey Wardens assigned to Ferelden.  There's nobody IN Ferelden to say otherwise, and since, in Awakening, you're officially promoted to Warden Commander of Ferelden, whatever you did in Origins clearly met with approval from Weiskaupf.

Is it the policy for ALL Wardens everywhere?  Nope.  But given the evidence of Awakening, whatever you decide sure as heck is policy for Ferelden - whatever that policy happens to be.

[errant_knight]

Sarah1281 wrote...

And yet, they didn't even consider burning Denerim, and you can save Amaranthine without any objection, so individual wardens clearly draw the line in different places. One warden might think that Wynne and Alistair are completely correct, while another may not, without either being a failure as a warden.

I don't see how Wynne and Alistair can be completely correct that there is a Grey Warden code of morality. Individual Wardens can draw the line wherever they want and don't have to have anywhere near an 'anything it takes' morality but just begins individual Wardens have different systems of morality doesn't mean that there's any order policy that would prevent sparing Avernus, sparing Loghain, performing Avernus' experiments, leaving Ferelden to its fate, whatever. When they try to claim that things are against Grey Warden policy, they are wrong. Wynne has no business trying to decide any GW's policy and Alistair can only decide his individual policy as an individual Warden and not speak for what the entire order would do.

Edit: And even if you play a Warden that completely agrees with Wynne and Alistair, that still doesn't make it an order policy. It makes it your policy and Alistair's policy as two individual Wardens.

My point was that it's up to the player to determine where they think the wardens draw the line, and as with most roleplay, there is no right and wrong. It's left open, and conflicting incidents and data are provided. Because of that, Wynne can't be said to be wrong either.

Modifié par errant_knight, 26 octobre 2010 - 12:56 .

[errant_knight]

TJPags wrote...

Sarah1281 wrote...

TJPags wrote...

I'm not sure we're ever told what the "Grey Warden rules of behavior" are.  That kind of means, they are whatever you think they are.

I'm pretty sure we're told they allow Blood Magic, which is against Chantry/Circle rules.  We also know they conscript criminals.  So, I'd say we're not talking about the most chivalrous or law abiding of orders here.

Since there are only two wardens in Ferelden, and since Alistair gives over leadership to you, that basically means, it's your choice of what to do in EVERY situation.  If you're okay - morally, ethically, whatever - with letting Avernus keep working, then that's the Ferelden Warden rule.  If you let him use people to experiment, then that's good.  If you set the no people experimenting limit, that's the rule.

I'm not sure making this a universal "right v. wrong" issue is the way to go.

The Grey Warden policy, to me, seems to be 'End Blights, fight darkspawn, don't get yourself kicked out of your country, and don't tell anybody anything about us. Other than that, we don't care what the **** you do.'

So are you saying that if you choose to play a saint Warden then the overall GW policy is that of your saint Warden whereas if you choose to play a socipathic Warden than the overall policy is that of the sociopath? I disagree. I think that you can set your own policy, yes, and you can even get grandiose and claim that it's now the 'Ferelden policy' but your personal opinion does not effect the GW policy. You can't say 'Avernus, I'm going to kill you because what you did goes against GW policy.' (Well, you can but you'd be wrong) You can say 'Avernus, as a fellow GW I feel that you've gone too far am going to kill you.'

Edit: So I'm not trying to say that there is a right or wrong way for your Warden to behave, just that your own personal policy cannot possibly just automatically be the policy of all GWs and Wynne or Alistair (or anyone else, even the Warden) trying to claim that their system of morality is the GW policy is incorrect.

That's exactly what I'm saying, Sarah.  Your policy IS the policy for Grey Wardens assigned to Ferelden.  There's nobody IN Ferelden to say otherwise, and since, in Awakening, you're officially promoted to Warden Commander of Ferelden, whatever you did in Origins clearly met with approval from Weiskaupf.

Is it the policy for ALL Wardens everywhere?  Nope.  But given the evidence of Awakening, whatever you decide sure as heck is policy for Ferelden - whatever that policy happens to be.

 This is true, and we know that wardens behave differently in different countries, with Weisshaupt being given as an example.

[Asepsis]

I save him but tell him to do his experiments more ethically. The Warden's do what they must right? I think stopping the taint from turning Warden's into ghouls is a really big deal, and something they ought to take seriously. However I can see both sides of the argument. I just personally would like to think it would do more good in the long run.

On top of that, I don't wanna die in the deep roads!

[Mnemnosyne]

DWSmiley wrote...

He's been at it for a century, that's not very urgent.  If any of his fellow wardens volunteered to have their "pain threshhold tested" then fine - and I am in awe at their dedication and fortitude.  But I really, really doubt it.

Morality cannot be reduced to arithmetic.

"Day 97 - Energy and blood...[snip]

But there are no more subjects left.  If only I had one more, or a dozen.  The things I could do."

He may have been at his research for a very long time, but he ran out of test subjects in 97 days.  It seems like the vast majority of his successful work took place while he still had subjects to experiment on.  After that, he was restricted to theory and hypothesis, with no means of testing it.  Given a dozen more subjects, it is likely he would have discovered a means to defeat the demons, and the survivors would have escaped.

[DWSmiley]

Koyasha wrote...

[He may have been at his research for a very long time, but he ran out of test subjects in 97 days.  It seems like the vast majority of his successful work took place while he still had subjects to experiment on.  After that, he was restricted to theory and hypothesis, with no means of testing it.  Given a dozen more subjects, it is likely he would have discovered a means to defeat the demons, and the survivors would have escaped.

It's impressive he kept at least one of them alive that long.  Presumably he rotated subjects so they had a chance to recover somewhat before being tortured again.  But after 97 days did he still think the Veil was going to rip asunder any moment (if he ever did)?  Torture apologists usually cite a scenario where something Really Bad is going to happen Very Soon unless drastic measures are taken.  Morality becomes an unaffordable luxury.  But if 24 was 2,328, I don't think Jack would be their poster boy.

Modifié par DWSmiley, 26 octobre 2010 - 09:24 .

[Sarah1281]

Well the gentle old scholar is responsible for the enslavement of entire countries so yeah.

Besides killing someone in cold blood I think still qualifies for assassination. Geviniti (sp?) was given a choice. He chose death. Also you misunderstood me, my PC doesn't want to desacrate the ashes.

Uh...no, he wasn't. And we never here anything about anyone being enslaved by ANYTHING because the ashes are found.

[Sarah1281]

Acharnae wrote...

Well the way I see it the chantry is already enslaving whole countries' youth segments (mages) and what geviniti tried to do would give that institution more power. He could just promise not to say a word though. I'd have believed him

The Chantry has pulled a lot of **** but that doesn't mean that the kindly old man who just wants to travel the world and learn new things (and wrote most of the codexes) and share his findings with the world is in any way responsible for what they've done. You can say that he has to die because you don't trust the religious cult and giant dragon to keep the Chantry away from the Urn but he hardly deserves it.

[errant_knight]

Koyasha wrote...

DWSmiley wrote...

He's been at it for a century, that's not very urgent.  If any of his fellow wardens volunteered to have their "pain threshhold tested" then fine - and I am in awe at their dedication and fortitude.  But I really, really doubt it.

Morality cannot be reduced to arithmetic.

"Day 97 - Energy and blood...[snip]

But there are no more subjects left.  If only I had one more, or a dozen.  The things I could do."

He may have been at his research for a very long time, but he ran out of test subjects in 97 days.  It seems like the vast majority of his successful work took place while he still had subjects to experiment on.  After that, he was restricted to theory and hypothesis, with no means of testing it.  Given a dozen more subjects, it is likely he would have discovered a means to defeat the demons, and the survivors would have escaped.

What survivors? He tortured all of them, ran out of test subjects and needed more to kill.

[Sarah1281]

Acharnae wrote...

_The Chantry has pulled a lot of **** but that doesn't mean that the
kindly old man who just wants to travel the world and learn new things
(and wrote most of the codexes) and share his findings with the world is
in any way responsible for what they've done. You can say that he has
to die because you don't trust the religious cult and giant dragon to
keep the Chantry away from the Urn but he hardly deserves it.


If what he wants to do will give the chantry more power then yes, my PC thinks he deserves it. A sad evolution of things, but you can't really argue with a zealot... one way or another

He doesn't seem interested in giving the Chantry more power, though. He just wants to share the Urn with everybody.

Modifié par Sarah1281, 26 octobre 2010 - 10:40 .

[Mnemnosyne]

DWSmiley wrote...

It's impressive he kept at least one of them alive that long.  Presumably he rotated subjects so they had a chance to recover somewhat before being tortured again.  But after 97 days did he still think the Veil was going to rip asunder any moment (if he ever did)?  Torture apologists usually cite a scenario where something Really Bad is going to happen Very Soon unless drastic measures are taken.  Morality becomes an unaffordable luxury.  But if 24 was 2,328, I don't think Jack would be their poster boy.

The veil was already ripped.  The only reason the demons were unable to leave Soldier's Peak is because he was holding them back from leaving.  Since he can't leave, can't live forever, and can't be certain of outside help, his only option is to use the resources at his disposal to attempt to fix the problem, otherwise, a plague of demons is unleashed upon Ferelden - and worse, from an incredibly defensible location from which an unending stream of them can pour.  His research was intended to repair the damage, not prevent the catastrophe that had already happened.

And of course there's the fact that those he experimented on essentially had limited choices: die in a futile fight against the demons, die slowly of starvation, or die in a manner that has the possibility of helping Avernus defeat the demons and escape, to provide the Wardens as a whole with valuable information and power.  It is not inconcievable that they may simply have agreed to allow him to perform the experiments, but even if they did not, it was the only useful death available to them.

errant_knight wrote...

What survivors? He tortured all of them, ran out of test subjects and needed more to kill.

I meant this hypothetically in that, if there had been a dozen more people available and he had only needed say, six more subjects to reach a breakthrough, there would have been six survivors in the end. 

Unless he chooses to continue the research even after defeating the demons, which would also be a possibility, but in that case I would disagree with this choice.  Also, he doesn't seem as though he would do that - he shows no indication of wanting to experiment on the Warden, for instance, and there's no suggestion that he pursued this sort of research before being placed in a situation where it was the only remaining option.  His research should, in non-emergency circumstances, be performed on Wardens that are experiencing their Calling, so their deaths can save other Wardens' lives instead of being pointlessly killed by darkspawn.

Modifié par Koyasha, 27 octobre 2010 - 04:33 .

[Sarah1281]

Where are you getting Avernus needed to torture Wardens to death to research closing the Veil? How would seeing what kind of pain they could withstand make a breakthrough in that area?

[Mnemnosyne]

He couldn't close the veil without defeating the demons. Therefore, he needed to conduct experiments in order to gain sufficient power to defeat the demons, simply to gain the opportunity to close the veil. He probably knew how to close the veil all along, but had no chance of reaching the room with the summoning circles, and holding off the army of demons, without the power his research promised to grant.

[DWSmiley]

It seems agreed that he wasn’t doing this in the hope that sacrificing a few wardens would save the rest. Certainly not at the end.

While Avernus’ summoning of multiple demons may have been a triumph of demonic lore, thinking it created an apocalyptic tear in the Veil was a laughable conceit. His deeds are nothing compared to what the Tevinter archons of yore did when exploring the Fade and journeying to the Golden City. Yet no horde of demons was unleashed. It’s even far less than what the warden later encounters in the Blackmarsh – multiple tears in the Veil, kept open by triads of desire demons.

So after a spectacular failure, Avernus finds himself with another opportunity, to achieve a triumph of Taint lore - very useful but at what cost? It’s not just the evil of what he does to the other wardens. It risks a subtler taint, a concept lost on someone like him. Treat human beings as consumables once and it’s easier to do it again and again. “The only useful death available to them”. That’s chilling and an evil idea that spreads can be much harder to kill than an Archdemon.

If the other wardens volunteered then fine, but there is no reason to believe so and that the man is a monster doesn’t change with a coerced “I’m sorry”.

Modifié par DWSmiley, 27 octobre 2010 - 02:02 .

[errant_knight]

DWSmiley wrote...

It seems agreed that he wasn’t doing this in the hope that sacrificing a few wardens would save the rest. Certainly not at the end.

While Avernus’ summoning of multiple demons may have been a triumph of demonic lore, thinking it created an apocalyptic tear in the Veil was a laughable conceit. His deeds are nothing compared to what the Tevinter archons of yore did when exploring the Fade and journeying to the Golden City. Yet no horde of demons was unleashed. It’s even far less than what the warden later encounters in the Blackmarsh – multiple tears in the Veil, kept open by triads of desire demons.

So after a spectacular failure, Avernus finds himself with another opportunity, to achieve a triumph of Taint lore - very useful but at what cost? It’s not just the evil of what he does to the other wardens. It risks a subtler taint, a concept lost on someone like him. Treat human beings as consumables once and it’s easier to do it again and again. “The only useful death available to them”. That’s chilling and an evil idea that spreads can be much harder to kill than an Archdemon.

If the other wardens volunteered then fine, but there is no reason to believe so and that the man is a monster doesn’t change with a coerced “I’m sorry”.

This is exactly it, and beautifully put.

Modifié par errant_knight, 27 octobre 2010 - 03:57 .

[Addai]

DWSmiley wrote...

So after a spectacular failure, Avernus finds himself with another opportunity, to achieve a triumph of Taint lore - very useful but at what cost? It’s not just the evil of what he does to the other wardens. It risks a subtler taint, a concept lost on someone like him. Treat human beings as consumables once and it’s easier to do it again and again. “The only useful death available to them”. That’s chilling and an evil idea that spreads can be much harder to kill than an Archdemon.

And how is that different from the calculation every military leader makes in wartime?

[DWSmiley]

Addai67 wrote...

DWSmiley wrote...

Treat human beings as consumables once and it’s easier to do it again and again.

And how is that different from the calculation every military leader makes in wartime?

Lives may be sacrificed to achieve victory but we don’t expect military leaders to torture their own soldiers or anybody else.  Nor was Avernus making a military decision.  There is no war between humans and demons.  A demonic army is inconceivable as it’s just not their nature.  The demons at Soldiers Peak would have caused grief if they escaped but they were not an existential threat.  More serious is the threat of an ethos where people are treated as raw resources for the elite - perhaps not for those confident of membership in the elite but even for them, that confidence can be misplaced.

 Dwarves do face an existential threat and volunteer golems were a godsend - or stonesend.  But then they came for the casteless, then criminals, then political rivals - the slippery slope into a darkness no one wants to live in.

Modifié par DWSmiley, 27 octobre 2010 - 06:17 .

[Sarah1281]

...You think Avernus' morality or lack there of is more of a threat than a tear in the veil that demons keep pouring from? There weren't just a set number of demons that, once they came out, would stop coming. They would continue to come until the veil was fixed. It doesn't matter if they're an army or not, they could all do quite a bit of damage on their own and most people are not equipped to deal with demon attacks.

[DWSmiley]

Yes I do. I have no confidence in a cost/benefit analysis of doing evil. The benefit is there in front of us, beckoning. The cost is often far less clear.



And if tears in the Veil can unleash hordes of demons, I would expect a record of past events. For whatever reason, it doesn't happen.

[Sarah1281]

The demons that coming pouring from the veil when you try to seal it and all the possessed skeletons you encounter in the keep itself isn't evidence? But I guess if you really want to place someone's morality above a real physical threat then you can feel free to.

[DWSmiley]

Well, pragmatically, a maze of caverns separates the Peak from populated areas. If some skeletons make it through, any decent Bann's militia should be able handle them. And, for whatever reason, more powerful demons never come through tears in the Veil in number. If they ever did, it would surely have been recorded.



Ethically, it’s not one person’s morality that concerns me so. Partly it’s the “do unto others” thing. But more, evil degrades people – perpetrators and victims. It is the ultimate vicious circle. It spreads. The more ruthless the society one lives in, the more ruthless one has to be to survive.