74 réponses à ce sujet

[naledgeborn]

So is it evil, or has it just been used by evil people? I can draw a real life comparison to gun control here. I say guns don't kill people; people do. My best argument in defending Blood Magic is it's awkward poster boy, Jowan. He isn't inherently evil but just a terrible decision maker in not knowing when to "pull the trigger". I do believe that Blood Magic should have regulations as should any weapon but that it shouldn't be vilified by the Chantry because of they're prejudice against magic and everything Tevinter. What are your opinions on the matter...? Legalize it or not?

Modifié par naledgeborn, 21 novembre 2010 - 02:38 .

[CalJones]

I guess we'll find out a lot more about it in DA2, given that Hawke (or at least mageHawke) is a blood mage.

At the moment I don't really have enough information. You can certainly play a primarily good character who uses blood magic in Origins, but it's hard to say what would happen in the longterm. Does it really attract demons, and will it eventually corrupt its user? Dunno. I do think the Chantry tries to control magic to an unhealthy degree (getting templars smacked up on lyrium, locking mages away in towers and hunting those who wish to be free) but whether blood magic is as dangerous as they say, I have no real idea.

[naledgeborn]

You don't necessarily have to bargain with demons to practice it (I'm pointing at Jowan again) that much is clear. Because of this I always thought the whole "Blood Magic comes from Debil!!" argument was moot. I believe it may have started with Dragon cultists/Old God worshipers and because of the Chantry and the Maker it's been stigmatized.

[Reika]

You can ask Irving about the books of blood magic on his desk in the mage origin and he says that he removed them from the library as a precaution. Which I imagine is where Jowan learned since I can't see him being recruited for Uldred's rebellion.

[errant_knight]

I think the mind control issue is the main thing, and the possibility of using other people like batteries, although apparently possession is supposed to be a greater risk for blood mages. We don't see that illustrated in practice. Another issue is the fact that blood mages are more powerful, and by using groups of people to power their spells, can do things that other mages couldn't accomplish. That means you can end up with a situation where they call the shots, like the Tevinter imperium, and have little recourse against them.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Avernus has been alive for centuries, happens to live right next to a teir in the veil, uses blood magic a lot and he was never possessed (as far as we know). Blood magic making mages more attractive =/= them being easier to possess.

I do hope we get a more objective account of the Tevinter Imperium, because from what I've seen, it was a great civilization. I want to know whether possession was a common occurrence, how they dealt with it, and how did they use blood magic other than for killing.

Knowing all this is necessary for me to form a complete opinion. But from what I know now, I would say that blood magic should be esoteric; confined within a small group of well disciplined mages (Jowan certainly not being one).

[Reika]

I agree with KoP, I'd love to see more information, preferable not completely tainted by the Chantry. While my HNF believes in the Maker well enough (especially after the Ashes), she knows the Chantry is run by people and she knows just how flawed they are.



Myself personally, I think it's all in how the mage uses the blood magic. If they use their own blood and don't do the mind control thing, I'm in cautious favor of allowing it being taught to people who have proven temperance in their approach to power. As more than a few fanfic writers have pointed out, the Chant in the game says "Magic is to serve man, and never to rule over him." But it doesn't specify what kind of magic.



I've seen blood magic in other settings (both novels and games), that was similar and the magic itself wasn't inherently evil, that it was a weapon and it depended on the wielder of said weapon.

[BHRamsay]

While I will agree the Chantry stance on magic is a tad extreme. Are we really going to whitewash the damage someone like Zathrian (spelling?) who is directly responsible for deaths of hundreds if not thousands of innocent people who might never have raised a hand to an elf had they even known of the crimes committed against the grieving father.



I'm talking about the hundreds of people who were attacked and killed or sired into being werewolves themselves during the centuries that Zathrian wandered the countryside nursing his grudge.

[Reika]

I'm not trying to whitewash anything. But I wouldn't say the blood magic made him do it, he used blood magic out of his need for revenge. Maybe it's semantics, but I fully believe if he didn't have access to blood magic, he would've found another way to do something as horrific.

[DPSSOC]

The main problem with Blood Magic, to me anyway, is that it's potentially a God-maker. Think of Jowan's Ritual; Jowan, not a talented mage in any respect, manages to duplicate a spell that normally requires multiple mages (if memory serves 6 if you go to the Circle) and a lot of lyrium with the life of one person. Not to mention that said mages aren't apprentices or recently Harrowed, they're all senior enchanters.



So if a mediocre mage like Jowan can accomplish that with just one life what could a more powerful mage do with 10? 100? 1000? 1 million? Because unless I've missed something in the lore Blood Magic is a power magnifier with no upper limit. Now I'm not keen on the Chantry's treatment of mages but that's an awful lot of power for one person or organization to have.



I'm not saying it's evil, I believe it's merely a means to an end, but it is dangerous; if not to the mage than to everyone else. Remember power corrupts and even the noblest soul might be made a monster with that kind of power.



With regards to Zathrian it's important to note that Blood Magic gave him the ability, but it was the will that made him dangerous. Zathrian could have killed them, he could have wiped them out to avenge his daughter and son but instead he wanted them to suffer, wanted their descendants to suffer, Blood Magic isn't what did that to him. Blaming Blood Magic for Zathrian's actions is like saying guns are evil because they let people kill people, when in reality, guns kill people because people kill people.

[Reika]

Oh, Blood Magic is dangerous because it is powerful. But really, isn't any type of power dangerous?



Look at Loghain throughout the game, he didn't have magic, but he did have power and look at how he used it. Same with Howe. To some degree, Anora. As well as Eamon.



Like any power, it's the intent and will that drives Blood Magic.

[DPSSOC]

Oh certainly all power is dangerous but it's a matter of scope. Loghain had influence, money, and men at his command and a Blood Mage could potentially bring it all down with his bare hands. Like I said my fear is of Blood Magic as a God-maker, the ultimate extent of it's power, so the Chantry's fear of it isn't entirely misplaced, taken too far perhaps, but not misplaced.

[Reika]

I can see where you're coming from and I don't advocate making it readily available to every mage. I see it like nuclear physics, useful to know, but you don't want every physicist or engineer to have access to it all.

[termokanden]

The problem is that we are presented with the Chantry's view, not with any absolute truth. It's probably not a coincidence that the hunt for blood mages resembles a bit of a witch hunt.

As for the power of blood magic, it is entirely unclear from the presentation. Jowan appears to be somewhat dim-witted and incompetent, and yet he is able to escape Irving and the templars with a single spell. But other blood mages in the game are really just like normal mages. Their most dangerous spells aren't even blood magic.

I don't think we can conclude from what is presented in the game that blood magic is inherently evil. I also think we are meant to question the Chantry's version of truth.

Modifié par termokanden, 22 novembre 2010 - 04:28 .

[Reika]

termokanden wrote...

I don't think we can conclude from what is presented in the game that blood magic is inherently evil. I also think we are meant to question the Chantry's version of truth.

That's what I do most of the time anyway with all of the characters I've played.

[Maria Caliban]

naledgeborn wrote...

I can draw a real life comparison to gun control here.

Right. And even in America, a country with more guns per people than any other, there are guns and other lethal weapons a citizen cannot legally own. And those guns are *less dangerous* than blood magic or any of the other schools.

Arguing that blood magic should be 'legalized' is like arguing that C-4 could be legalized because "C-4 doesn't kill people. People kill people."

[Liliandra Nadiar]

DPSSOC wrote...

Oh certainly all power is dangerous but it's a matter of scope. Loghain had influence, money, and men at his command and a Blood Mage could potentially bring it all down with his bare hands. Like I said my fear is of Blood Magic as a God-maker, the ultimate extent of it's power, so the Chantry's fear of it isn't entirely misplaced, taken too far perhaps, but not misplaced.

It has some different limits though. Hypothetically...

The tower fortress of the mage Evil McEvil is surrounded by an army of thousands. Evil has 500 slaves/apprenteces/walking batteries inside. 200 get killed to make a barrior the army can't penetrate. Another 200 are used to fuel a spell that wipes the army out. As the barrior falls, the rest of the army comes screaming over the hills, to attack. Evil doen't have enough slaves for either another barrior or the army go bye spell and, though he can cause insane amounts of damage with the remaining 100 slaves, he falls eventually.

The power limit of Blood Mage is the amount of Blood available for the spell, yes blood is almost certainly more potant then mana, but if you just don't have enough... it doesn't matter.

[DKJaigen]

Liliandra Nadiar wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...

Oh certainly all power is dangerous but it's a matter of scope. Loghain had influence, money, and men at his command and a Blood Mage could potentially bring it all down with his bare hands. Like I said my fear is of Blood Magic as a God-maker, the ultimate extent of it's power, so the Chantry's fear of it isn't entirely misplaced, taken too far perhaps, but not misplaced.

It has some different limits though. Hypothetically...

The tower fortress of the mage Evil McEvil is surrounded by an army of thousands. Evil has 500 slaves/apprenteces/walking batteries inside. 200 get killed to make a barrior the army can't penetrate. Another 200 are used to fuel a spell that wipes the army out. As the barrior falls, the rest of the army comes screaming over the hills, to attack. Evil doen't have enough slaves for either another barrior or the army go bye spell and, though he can cause insane amounts of damage with the remaining 100 slaves, he falls eventually.

The power limit of Blood Mage is the amount of Blood available for the spell, yes blood is almost certainly more potant then mana, but if you just don't have enough... it doesn't matter.

not entirely. while a bloodmage can use the blood of others as raw mana the greatest feat of the bloodmage is the ability to manipulate and mind control other people. So a bloodmage is severe threat to any government especially in absolute monarchies

[Liliandra Nadiar]

Didn't say anything about that. My comment was to the statement that Blood Magic had no limit on the power it could grant. I was just saying there was a limiting factor.

As far as the mind control aspect. There are problems there too. How many can a mage control at once, how far away can they be, how obvious is the control, can the target 'shake it off', how long can the mage hold it, can the mage do other things while holding control.

If the subject being controlled is rather obviously not acting normal, there goes the plan to take over a nation or two by enslaving the rulers.

[Mnemnosyne]

The main question I see that we can't really answer about blood magic within the game is whether it has some sort of long-term corrupting influence.  The only blood mage we see that is (arguably) not evil who has used blood magic for a long time is Avernus, but we don't have a lot of interaction with him to go on.  We know he's done some terrible things, but he's also done a lot of good by preventing the demons from escaping Warden's Peak for all these years.

Jowan is the other primary example of a nonevil blood mage in the game (other than the player character, who must do something pretty evil to become a blood mage herself) but we don't know how long he has been one, so if it has long-term corrupting effects we can't really tell from him.  He also obviously doesn't make extensive or constant use of it.

Jowan himself has done nothing (magic-related, at least - poisoning Arl Eamon is something that anyone could do without any form of magic, if they are similarly blackmailed) that could be termed as even slightly evil.  Indeed, as far as we know, the only person he's ever killed with magic is Isolde (if the player chooses to allow that course of action) and she's a volunteer.  In the tower, he's acting in self-defense, and does not cause serious harm, he merely knocks his enemies down to delay their pursuit.

On the 'how powerful is it' side, there's no way of knowing, since there is no definitive information given.  It's merely implied to be very powerful whenever it comes up.  It does provide some powerful alternate options.  But we never actually see anyone doing anything tremendous with it.  Caladrius uses what, around eight to ten slaves to slightly increase the Warden's constitution.  He also obviously can't use them in combat - either there's not enough time, or there weren't enough of them for him to do anything significant - because if he could, he would have used them to try to defeat the Warden in the preceding battle.  Jowan's use of it during the mage origin isn't particularly powerful - he knocks a bunch of guys on their asses, guys that weren't expecting him to put up a fight, probably didn't expect him to actually know any blood magic that was useful in combat, so it's effectiveness in that situation appears to be primarily a matter of surprise.

All we really know is that life can be used to replace substantial amounts of lyrium and enable one mage to do what several would be required for.  We don't know what the upper limit to this is, so we have no way of really judging whether it's truly that much more powerful than any other sort of magic or not.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

So far, the only information I see is that blood magic is bad news, and until there is far more explaination into it, or we see more individuals using blood magic who aren't either completely insane or ruthless to a major fault, I pretty much shall hold onto that view. Everytime you encounter anything to do with blood magic in game, something has gone horribly wrong, and very bad things are happening.



It remains to be seen if DA2 will continue this, or, if blood magic will be given a more neutral, sensible approach.



But so far it seems that no one in Ferelden can practice it without ripping the veil open and bringing a horde of demons, or inflicting massive amounts of misery and suffering in the process.

[atunnei]

My issue is Blood Magic is wrong, but being a necromancer and animating the dead is ok?

[Beaner28]

I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing how DA 2 continues the whole mages versus templars thing. My guess is, the future of Thedas is one without a Chantry.

[Giggles_Manically]

Faith in the Maker will contine but I do see an time frame when the Chantry collapses in on itself coming very soon.