499 réponses à ce sujet

[LupusYondergirl]

Thank you!

I tried to reply a few times earlier but I was in the middle of that blizzard and the internet got really spotty where I was staying. Most of my posts the last few days have been made from my iphone. But, we till had power, which wasn't the case for everyone, so all things considered it wasn't bad. Back home in the snow belt now where there is, ironically, very little snow, so I could actually type something reasonable out.

[Addai]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

You find them the way you find any criminal- through law enforcement. Templars are posted wherever there is a Chantry or monastery, so they are all throughout the country.

By the time they are found, an abomination could've laid waste to several villages.

And that can still happen, with apostates, escapees, and those like Isolde trying to get out from under an oppressive system.  The system makes it worse.

[IanPolaris]

And again, what about those places where the Templars don't hold this kind of sway? I don't hear about "Abominations Gone Wild" in those places either currently or historically, and given the damage one can do, we should have.



-Polaris

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

IanPolaris wrote...

And again, what about those places where the Templars don't hold this kind of sway? I don't hear about "Abominations Gone Wild" in those places either currently or historically, and given the damage one can do, we should have.

-Polaris

This. Despite the hold of the Chantry over much of Thedas, there are many places where there are no templars in charge, no circles, where mages run free, so to speak. Yet these places are not overrun by abominations and maleficar. Oh, I'm certain that such events do happen, naturally. But not to the extent the Chantry would have people believe.

Rivain is a good example. It is a country that, because of long occupation and influence from the Qunari, that the Chantry is weak and non-influential. They have a long tradition of hedge mages and such, and even revere magically gifted people. Yet the place is not overrun with abominations or maleficar trying to take over the world. The Dalish, the Avvar, and Chasind also have non-chantric magical traditions, no unusually large number of abominations or magical mayhem there.

My personal belief is that the Chantry overblows the fear and danger of magic to justify it's iron grip on Circles of Magi. This monopoly on magic gives the Chantry alot of power in Thedas. We see in the magi origin that even the king can't get mages for his army without Chantry approval, and even then, the Chantry doles out a pittance of mages for the King's army. We also learn magic is really the only thing Thedas has that keeps the qunari at bay, the leveling factor against an enemy that is technologically superior. This ownership of such a powerful resource again secures the Chantry's power and position that can rival, even in some cases, trump, the power of soverigns and national leaders. And by extention, this hold also gives the Chantry reason to continue it's monopoly on the lyrium trade, another major instrument of power and control.

Personally, I do not think that removing Chantry control over the magi would really negatively impact life in Thedas. Even with Chantry control over the circle, abominations happen. One can even reasonable decide it is the Chantry's iron grip and oppresion of the Circle that caused it in the first place. The in-game convos you have with various mages seem to indicate that many turned to "forbidden magic" and sided with Uldred because they were tired and desperate to be free of the opprsive sitation, and the codex on the Rite of Annulment seems to indicate that despite Chantry control, things get out of hand in Circles relatively frequently.

The templars, as Alistair states, are the military arm of the Chantry, the tool with which the Chnatry exercises it's absolute control over the magi. They keep them addicted to lyrium to further instill absolute loyalty and obdience to the Chantry above all else, including their own soverigns and governments. I wouldn't say the templars are "bad" or "evil", but it is clear the Chantry is more interested in making them blindly obiedient soldiers who will do anything in the name of the Chantry, no matter how repellant or morally/ethically questionable. Thus, despite meeting a couple of seemingly decent templars, as a whole, my view of the Templars is of a legion of brainwashed, drug addled fanatics who will kill first, and probably not even ask questions later, if the Chantry tells them to.

I do believe the Chantry's hold on the magi and lyrium is an obstacle that any good monarch/leader should worry about and seek to end, if for no other reason than the amount of power that such monopolies give the Chantry, even above the authority of whatever nation they exist in. The Chantry is an extra-national organization whose power and reach is more than that of most nations of Thedas, and if one seeks total control over their nation's destiny and future, then the presence of such a powerful entity that can trump the power of your nation's leadership is something that really shouldn't be ignored.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

Glaucon wrote...

@LupusYondergirl

Hi,  Nice post up there with some good points (imo).

I think referring to the tranquil as 'lobotomised' is hyperbolic.  The Tranquil have their emotions and capacity to dream removed not their mental capacity, which is in fact improved due to the removal of emotional interference.  So it's an excessive word that has an element of appealing to our emotions -- the mental image of a lobotomised person is very negative ala One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

The image is actually appropriate. Despite what the popular image of lobotomies are, they do not turn people into drooling vegetables. Lobotomized people can continue to function in a reduced capacity in society. So tranquility as a sort of magic lobotomy. It removes the ability of the person to be a complete "person". They can no longer feel or dream, as well as robbing them of personal ambitions and motivations, curiosity and reflection. The codexes make it pretty clear that they become little more than talking automatons.

I came across two instances of Magi that willingly chose to be Tranquil.  One is the female mage who we find praying and can suggest that tranquillity may be an option for her.  That Mage despises her power and thinks it 'evil'.  There is also a discussion between two Magi that I have overheard where they discuss another Mage choosing the Tranquil freely.  Now I know that doesn't support the Right of Tranquillity but it does show that the Tranquil are not all un-willing subjects.

Kelli is a neurotic nut. She believes magic is evil. Given the chance, she would support all mages being killed and tranquil, so her opinion on the matter is pretty moot. She wallows in self loathing and religous dogma. Beyond Kelli, however, you can;t really say that mages who choose tranquility do so "freely". They are given a choice: death or lobotomy. Not much of a "choice",. really.

I don't see the validity in assigning equality to racial profiling (i.e. Racism) and a Mage being sent to the Chantry.  It's a bit of a straw man itself as no one is referring to Racism per se and Magi come from most Races.

Racism might not be the appropriate term, but it is bigotry, Racism is simply one type of bigotry. It is a reasonable comparison, however, because magi are born what they are, they do not choose. To hate mages or feel they are wicked because of what they are, is a type of bigotry. Mages can be dangerous,. So can non-mages. In fact, in game, the biggest "evils" and greatest harm is done by non-mages. Abominations are but one danger in Thedas. There are far worse dangers that have little to nothing to do with magic.

I don't think 'Slavery' is the correct term, rather, I think that the Circle is an example of 'Servitude'.  Finally applying current moral standards to Ferelden isn't useful at all.  Ferelden is not 21st Century Earth, and it's most definitely not 21st Century Western Democracy either.

Slavery is close enough. Servitude implies there is some sort of choice. Mages have none. Either get locked up away from society and family, or become hunted like an animal. Has little to do with moral standards, and more to do with backwards thinking and ignorance/fear.

[Dean_the_Young]

My answer to the OP's stated question is: Templars are only as bad as the person behind the mask. In the same way, Dalish are as bad as the person, Grey Wardens are as moral as the individual, and so on.



My answer to the question of 'are the Templars, as an organization overall, really that bad' is that they are not. They are not an idle scare-mongering group.



They serve a real need on the part of the non-magical hypermajority, the threats and dangers they address are very much real, and no evidence has yet been presented that other civilizations don't have problems with Abominations. All we can safely assume is that their systems have their own ways of dealing with those Abomination problems. We can not assume, however, that those solutions are nicer, more pleasant, or better for everyone involved, while we do know that those systems come with their own drawbacks.



To pose a specific example: we do not know that the Tevinter do not have their own version of the Harrowing as a proof of license of sorts. We do not know that the Tevinter suffer fewer abominations. We don't know much about the modern Tevinter at all. Among what little we do, however, is that the Tevinter system is hand in hand with the fact that Mages dominate Tevinter. Perhaps, and it can well be possible, that the Tevinter are wiser, benign meritocratic technocrats, more enlightened in treatment of the populace, and that Abominations are a not a problem, or are so few they don't matter. Or perhaps, and this is just as possible, Tevinter has more abominations but just doesn't care, because the majority of the cost falls upon the non-magical commoners and the weak-willed mage him/herself, and the rest of the mage-ocracy and large parts of the populace just accept it as an unavoidable fact of life in a proper mage-dominated society, in all that entails. We don't know. We can't say that doesn't happen because we don't hear about it for the very simple fact that we don't hear about a lot of things. pleasant and unpleasant, in the Dragon Age universe, especially the farther from Ferelden we get.



The Templar system, no matter what else you think of it, is not mage-dominated. To the non-magi, that's a pretty significant start right there.





But, and here I get a bit more on track, that's all tangental to 'are they that bad.' To which, on another line of argument, I again say 'no.' They pose restrictions, yes. They could well pose less restrictions. But they could pose infinitely more, harsher, and worse. While 'just because others are worse isn't an excuse' is perfectly true, it does provide context. The Templar system lets mages prove themselves safe, and then live largely safe, productive lives in relative comfort, with the opportunity to make and maintain a broad number of ties.



For all the things we take for granted that the Mages are denied (children, biological family, privacy), they are guaranteed many more that much of the rest of Thedas would beg for. Community. Safety. Health. Food. Shelter. Professional, even meritocratic, advancement. It is a cage, and it can barely be called a gilded cage if at all, but it is a living, if you can pass the Harrowing.



Mages in the Templar system do not risk being killed outright, as they do in entirely unregulated populations in which magic users aren't dominant. They do not have the tongues cut out, live their life in chains as the Qunari practice. They are not left to a Darwinian survival of the fittest against the world and risks possession by centuries-old Abominations, as the great Morrigan and her many sisters did. The Templar system might not be the best, but it is far from the worse. Mages are also largely removed from all but the most extreme threats of banditry, Dark Spawn, Civil War, famine, disease, corrupt and scheming noblemen, race tensions, and economic oppression, like most of Thedas.



The mage life might not be that good, and it unquestionably comes with a lot of riders, but it isn't that bad. Not in the context of what life in Thedas is. The standard of measure in Thedas isn't Western civilization ******-2000 AD. The standard of comparison is Thedas.





My answer to 'are the Templars good' is that they can certainly be better. 'Better' isn't even necessarily the opportune word: they can certainly be nicer, and more pleasant, and in some respects that might even be better, while in others not so much. Some restrictions should be loosened. Others deserve to be hardened.





But my answer to the (here unposed) question of 'should the Templars be disbanded' is 'no.' Not until something better, for everyone and not just the mages, can replace it.

[Dean_the_Young]

IanPolaris wrote...

And again, what about those places where the Templars don't hold this kind of sway? I don't hear about "Abominations Gone Wild" in those places either currently or historically, and given the damage one can do, we should have.

-Polaris

Why should we?

Mages outside of Ferleden aren't the focus of the game. Anything outside of Ferelden isn't the focus of the game. Ferelden is the focus of everything comprehensive in the game.

Except in so much that it relates to Ferelden, we barely get more than the broadest summations of anything, and even in Ferelden, the focus of the game and all our experiences, we quickly learn to take our knoweldge from a number of sources for context and clarity, not singular documents.

We can point at 'Abominations Gone Wild' multiple times in Ferelden alone in the course of the game itself. When we don't get 'historic' lists of Abomination oubreaks and patterns across Ferelden itself, the focus of the game and the lion's majority of codexes, why should we expect extensive documentation from elsewhere? We don't get lists of historic abomination outbreaks in Ferelden despite our knowledge and experience that such things do happen, and you draw negative-proof conclusions from a handful of brief paragraphs of summation on other nations?

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 29 décembre 2010 - 04:11 .

[Dean_the_Young]

LupusYondergirl wrote...

Slavery= Forcing someone to work for you and profiting by their labors, yes?

No. Or, at least, not unless you intend to expand the definition of slavery so broadly that you make it meaningless, or at least dilute it so that it has no moral weight.

Besides the lack of evidence of having to force the Tranquil to work for them, or the lack of profiting for the Tranquil from the work they do, or the destination of the funds (why not directly to and managed by the Tower, for example), and a general lack of support for most of your fears of abuse in the first place, and the rather realms of difference of threat between a normal person in our world and a single mage in Thedas (and I won't even stop to quibble about that being 'one of the most reprehensible things the US has ever done)...

besides all that, there are so many expansions and logical derivatives of that definition that you could apply it to any sort of coercion, and yet there are many formes of coerced work that fall well short of what we would consider slavery. Especially when one remembers that slavery is not, and never has been, solely a 'take' relationship, and that the 'masters' have always given something back (shelter, food, even money).

To take but the simplest in these economic times: you need a job to pay your bills. Your boss knows you need that job. The boss, by virtue of your weak position, can dictate how much you get paid, and what you do, and it will always be for his benefit. You are not in a position to refuse, because the costs (or impossibility) of trying to get another job, any other job, are simply too high. That is a relationship in which he coerces you to work for him, for his own gain.

But it is not slavery as we would acknowledge slavery.

Nor is a child being forced by their parents to clean dishes malign slavery. Nor is a teacher forcing a student to write an apology on a chalk board. Nor is the government requiring you to go through the effort of filling out tax returns to hand them your money.


It is an incredibly weak, poor definition, even past all the semantics or mis-applied comaprisons mentioned above.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

[quote]Glaucon wrote...

[quote]I suppose we will have to disagree.  But I think that you make my point in your response.  Namely, that it is a popular image of Lobotomy that it reduces the subject to a drooling vegetable.  It is that popular concept that makes using the word hyperbolic.  I don't really know what a 'complete person' is?  I don't agree that it robs the Magi of curiosity or reflection as we can discuss Owain's reflections on being made Tranquil.  The Tranquil are renowned enchanters which suggests both curiosity and high mental function --contrary to the reduced mental function of a Lobotomy; OK I accept that the redundant networks within a Brain can eventually replace the lost functionality but it is first lost.  The Tranquil gain mental function.  Describing them as Automatons is perhaps even more inappropriate , unless by Automaton we mean robot?[/quote]

Other than extreme concentration to work with Lyrium, that's about it. Not much of a gain, really, in fact, they lose far more than they gain. Basic survival/self preservation instincts, for starters (think of the tranquil in the tower, who stand around while abominations and malicous magic are afoot, instead of trying to find safe harbor). They also lose the ability for abstract thinking and individual inititive.

This makes them little more than automatons, like robots. Things that can carry out various functions when told to do so, but beyond that, they might as well be a talking table or chair. Other than the basic physical needs of food, water, shelter, they have about the mental capacity of semi-hive insects. Higher animals, such as birds and most mammals, have more mental variety and ability for development than the tranquil do.


[quote]Yeah she is certainly neurotic.  But even a neurotic can choose death.  It is the ultimate freedom to refuse subjection and accept death.  Plato during his trial ultimately chose death so as to remain consistent with his beliefs, so can anyone else.[/quote]

Sure, one can choose death, and in many cases, depending on what's at stake, death can be considered the more desirable fate. This does not change the fact, whether we are discussing Tranquil, Plato, Socrates, ect, that the system under which death/vs undesirable existance, is backwards and foolish, and wastes potential.

[quote]That isn't Chantry teaching.  The Chantry states that magic should serve man not control them.  I see no 'hate' in that; only common sense.[/quote]

What the basic Chant of Light says, and how it's implied, are quite different. The Chantry fosters fear and loathing of magic to further support its imprisonment/control of mages. It is not common sense, really, but a tool to help set the proper scene in which to conduct it's business. There are a number of times in the game where Chantry personnel all but state magic to be vile, dangerous, and a "necessary evil". ( For starters, the Chantry mother in Ostagar when Uldred offers to light the beacon, for example).


[quote]I think that there is a nuance between slavery and servitude.  Servitude comes from law whereas slavery comes from force.  The Chantry have the law to support placing Magi into Servitude whereas slavery is illegal in Ferelden.[/quote]

Both slavery and servitude come from the law, depending on where you live. The mages are forced into the Circle. they are taken by force from their families. They are retained in the circle by force. They do not have a choice. Societies where slavery is legal and widely practiced operate in the same way. While ferelden law might not allow "normal" people to be slaves, mages are not considered in the same capacity as "normal people" and thus, do not really have the same rights/status as everyone else. Slavery works in a similar fashion, in many cases, and in many societies, enslaving one group of people might be illegal, but enslaving or exterminating another might be perfectly acceptable.

[Genraku]

After reading a few pages I think a distinction needs to be made between the templars and the circle itself.
The way I see it, (and to borrow a line form someone else) The templars do not make the laws concernign mages they only enforce them. Not liking the templars or the circle does not equate to wanting abominations.
I try to see templars for what they are: soldiers and enforcers of the chantry. This extends beyond their dealings with mages as templars are just as able to fight regular people as they are mages (and are trained to do so.)

I agree that mages need to be trained but I do not thik that implies needing to be imprisoned ( to my knowledge the guards at front said you were only allowed to leave on official circle business and with the permission of the first enchanter) The circle is not ideal but it's a sad fact that there simply isn't another facility in Ferelden with the infrastruture to train and coordinate a large group of mages,
Abominations will happen with OR without chantry supervision, the circle is simply there so that there's a nice big group of templars on hand to kill the abomination when it appears.


That said, I think the current design of the chantry circle causes more problems than it solves, the mages feel caged and begin to resent thier templar gaurds who are supposed to be there to protect them(and everyone else) from abominations and maleficar.

Give the Mages more freedom and they wont feel caged, and would then be able to CHOOSE to stay at the circle if it was seen as a haven rather than a prison. Yes mages are dangerous but so is anyone driving a car or even a tank, give them training to take care of themselves and send templars to take care of the nasty ones.
Save the prison for the actual mage criminals (assuming the templars didn't kill them outright)

as an example: Anders isn't a maleficar, and there really isn't a need to send templars after him, he may even end up killing maleficar he encounters. Yeah he becomes a grey warden but only after he's escaped the tower, and the templars STILL try to rein him in.
Giving mages more freedom would free them up to actually help the templars track and eliminate real maleficar, instead of wasting their time chasing fleeing but benign apostates.

Back on topic:I don't think templars are bad, I only think the way they're used is a waste of resources,

Modifié par Genraku, 29 décembre 2010 - 05:27 .

[BelgarathMTH]

I agree completely with Dean the Young. I bow to his vastly superior rhetorical skills in stating my own opinion on this issue.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

Glaucon wrote...

@Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

Yeah I always get Socrates and Plato mixed in together. There is my Apology ;-)

No worries, I've done it myself in other situations. Especially if I am taking cold medication.

[IanPolaris]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

And again, what about those places where the Templars don't hold this kind of sway? I don't hear about "Abominations Gone Wild" in those places either currently or historically, and given the damage one can do, we should have.

-Polaris

Why should we?

Mages outside of Ferleden aren't the focus of the game. Anything outside of Ferelden isn't the focus of the game. Ferelden is the focus of everything comprehensive in the game.

Except in so much that it relates to Ferelden, we barely get more than the broadest summations of anything, and even in Ferelden, the focus of the game and all our experiences, we quickly learn to take our knoweldge from a number of sources for context and clarity, not singular documents.

We hear about things outside of Ferelden all the time, and past occurances of abominations including frequency of annulments are commented on all the time in the codicies as are some details of non-chantry magical traditions.

True some details may be sketchy, but considering the damage abominations can do (and that's not really in question), if the rate and likelihood of abominations were as great as the chantry likes to claim and has brainwashed people into believing, then there should be (relatively) frequent and dire outbreaks in non-Chantry people (for example the Chasind should have a 'superleader'...read abominatin...every generation or so) and such dire consequences WOULD be generally known.

They're not, and that counts as evidence against the chantry just as the lack of unbeliever souls in the fade also counts against the Chantry as Morrigan points out.

We can point at 'Abominations Gone Wild' multiple times in Ferelden alone in the course of the game itself. When we don't get 'historic' lists of Abomination oubreaks and patterns across Ferelden itself, the focus of the game and the lion's majority of codexes, why should we expect extensive documentation from elsewhere? We don't get lists of historic abomination outbreaks in Ferelden despite our knowledge and experience that such things do happen, and you draw negative-proof conclusions from a handful of brief paragraphs of summation on other nations?

Those occure almost entirely as a result/in-context with circle mages.  Of all the abominations you fight in the game, only ONE comes from a (presumed) apostate (Renauld's apprencies during the Mages Collective Quest).  Even then I point out that this is a case where mage policing other mages WORKS (Renauld's apprentice I mean).

To answer your rhetorical question about Tevinter, as Anders says, they do in fact have a better way of dealing with magic.  Magic and Mages do have to be trained and regulated.  No one reasonably disputes this.  In Tevinter, mages do this and apparently do it very effectively (which really should come as no suprise).  The way I see it, in thier stance against magic and extreme hatred of it, the Chantry has become almost everything that Andraste hated about the Magisters in the first place.

-Polaris

Edit:  If there were frequent abominations in Tevinter we most certainly would hear about it.  The vast majority of abominations (esp the lower order ones of rage and hunger) simply don't play nice with human beings and don't have any regard for anyone but themselves in a rather stupid way.  Given that Tevinter is pinned between hostile Andrastian Nations and the Qun, this is something they could not afford.    In addition to that, there apparently is commerce and communication (and apparently quite a bit of it) between Andrastians (even some Andrastian mages) and Tevinter.  Do you really think that if there were frequent abominations, that the Chantry wouldn't hesitate to yell, "I told you so" (for their own consumption if nothing else)?

Hasn't happened.  In short, in both old and modern Tevinter (esp given that bloodmagic is tolerated there which should according to the Chantry make the abomination rate even higher), there is enough communication and it's important enough that we SHOULD hear about such issues if they happen at the rate the Chantry wants us to believe.

Modifié par IanPolaris, 29 décembre 2010 - 05:55 .

[Rvlion]

The chantry is a case of religion gone bad. Completely clueless and oppressive like medieval Spain… Or medieval Brittain during the crusades. The templars are tools used by the Chantry to subdue people who otherwise could become significantly more powerfull then themselves, however the whole idea of becoming an abominations also is a good point to at least keep them mostly in one place.

However some minor traveling and the whole “you will never see your family again, because we are your family now” seems to be rather harsh. Losing titles fine, but losing your family is just does not seem like a good thing to me… Like Starwars and the Jedi…

Modifié par Rvlion, 29 décembre 2010 - 06:15 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

Rvlion wrote...
Like Starwars and the Jedi…

Take a Tranquil and recite the Jedi Code and you will see that they fit perfectly.

[IanPolaris]

Rvlion wrote...

The chantry is a case of religion gone bad. Completely clueless and oppressive like medieval Spain… Or medieval Brittain during the crusades. The templars are tools used by the Chantry to subdue people who otherwise could become significantly more powerfull then themselves, however the whole idea of becoming an abominations also is a good point to at least keep them mostly in one place.

However some minor traveling and the whole “you will never see your family again, because we are your family now” seems to be rather harsh. Losing titles fine, but losing your family is just does not seem like a good thing to me… Like Starwars and the Jedi…

Let's not forget, "The chantry will take your children from you evil mage" as well.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Glaucon wrote...

@IanPolaris

I don't think that Tevinter would advertise any issue it has with Abominations precisely because of its geographical situation.

Not necessary that they do.  There is apparently a lot of information flow and commerce between Tevinter and the Andrastian nations as a whole including Tevinter.  People talk quite casually about going to Minrathous many times (for example) along with Tevinters openly acting as merchants, trade factors and the like. 

Given that, if abominations occured in Tevinter at anything like what the chantry predicts, everyone would hear about it PDQ (or Tevinter would shut itself off).

That doesn't happen.

-Polaris

[Dean_the_Young]

IanPolaris wrote...

We hear about things outside of Ferelden all the time, and past occurances of abominations including frequency of annulments are commented on all the time in the codicies as are some details of non-chantry magical traditions.

No, they aren't.

We occasionally get brief mentions of things outside Ferelden. These are neither constant (usually select NPC's who can be lost in the crowds, or the particular party member who focuses on a singular area without great detail), detailed (broad-brush descriptions that ignore or skip nuance, statistics, or local context, and are usually being simple expository background, the exact sort of narrative Dragon Age constantly undermines), or even accurate (another trait of the Dragon Age franchise: there are no perfect narrators), Of those who provide the most foreign exposition, our party members, none of them give relevant focus to foreign magical traditions and histories and tragedies: Leliana tells the tale of Flemeth, Sten mentions that the Qunari cut off the tongues of the mages they do have, and Zevran doesn't have anything of detailed significance to add to the subject.

Codicies dealing with non-chantry magical practices are virtually non-existent. The closest we get is the overal codex entries on other countries in general, entries that are also short, broad reaching, largely lacking in details, and not focused on the particulars of their history or plus/minsus of their traditions.

Even the Codex mention the average of 2.5 Rites of Nullification in 700 years doesn't give details of the who, when, where, or anything else of the situation.

True some details may be sketchy, but considering the damage abominations can do (and that's not really in question), if the rate and likelihood of abominations were as great as the chantry likes to claim and has brainwashed people into believing, then there should be (relatively) frequent and dire outbreaks in non-Chantry people (for example the Chasind should have a 'superleader'...read abominatin...every generation or so) and such dire consequences WOULD be generally known.

This isn't inherent at all, for a number of possible combinations of reasons. The damage of various abominations varies based on the type, with more frequent outbreaks also being more frequently weaker abominations from the more numerous lesser demons, which consequentially do less notable damage. The Chantry can lack the eyes/ears on the ground to know about all these happenings. The nations involved may not care so much about the initial damage of the abominations for it to make much of a stir.

Nor, even if the Chantry did make such a claim, would we be obligated to hear of such propoganda. We are, again, largely left in the dark about other lands far away in general, and the more specific you get the less we know. The Chantry has seven hundred years of propoganda and policies and positions it must have made, and yet we'd have a hard time making a list of a hundred.


And besides that, what claim does the chantry make about the 'rate' and 'likelihood' of abominations? I will freely admit I don't recall being pounded into the head with any such 'all maleficars will become dominated'. Then again, I'd never heard the X number of Annulments in 700 years figure, and I've played through a number of times. I'm taking that on faith as well.

They're not, and that counts as evidence against the chantry just as the lack of unbeliever souls in the fade also counts against the Chantry as Morrigan points out.

Negative evidence (something not disproven), while useful for spinning a theory on possibilities, is not equivalent to positive evidence (something happened). The sheer ease of counterexamples of this sort of logic should be apparent in how weak it is.

Those occure almost entirely as a result/in-context with circle mages.  Of all the abominations you fight in the game, only ONE comes from a (presumed) apostate (Renauld's apprencies during the Mages Collective Quest).  Even then I point out that this is a case where mage policing other mages WORKS (Renauld's apprentice I mean).

Flemeth? Zarathrian? (Arguable, given the unclear nature of his existence.) Conner? The Abomination quest-boss in the capital?

To answer your rhetorical question about Tevinter, as Anders says, they do in fact have a better way of dealing with magic.  Magic and Mages do have to be trained and regulated.  No one reasonably disputes this.  In Tevinter, mages do this and apparently do it very effectively (which really should come as no suprise).  The way I see it, in thier stance against magic and extreme hatred of it, the Chantry has become almost everything that Andraste hated about the Magisters in the first place.

Anders has never been to Tevinter, is quite openly a biased opinion, and gives no facts to back up his claims, and you'd accept it as support of facts never offered anywhere in the game?

Tevinter 'works', but that neither tells us it works better, neither in preventing abominations in general, or that it works out better for anyone but the mages who rule it.

Edit:  If there were frequent abominations in Tevinter we most certainly would hear about it.  The vast majority of abominations (esp the lower order ones of rage and hunger) simply don't play nice with human beings and don't have any regard for anyone but themselves in a rather stupid way.  Given that Tevinter is pinned between hostile Andrastian Nations and the Qun, this is something they could not afford.

Your insightful analysis is supported by anything other than a map and armchair generalship... how?

Your assertions lack facts. Why would we have heard about them, when there are so many other things about Tevinter we most certainly have not heard? 

   In addition to that, there apparently is commerce and communication (and apparently quite a bit of it) between Andrastians (even some Andrastian mages) and Tevinter.  Do you really think that if there were frequent abominations, that the Chantry wouldn't hesitate to yell, "I told you so" (for their own consumption if nothing else)?

Yes. And we can provide multiple reasons, which I will not insult your intelligence by patronizing on.

We can also look at who controls the commerce with Tevinter, and ask why the Mages would admit to more abominations if they did happen, if they could lie and more or less cover up the true scale of any problem. They would not be the first nation to put a public face with others that was contrary to how things happened at home.

Or we can look and ask what convinces us that the Chantry in some places doesn't teach that Tevinter suffers more Abominations than Ferelden. We don't get many Chantry lessons at all, few enough to know that there are many things that would be said that we don't know.

Hasn't happened.  In short, in both old and modern Tevinter (esp given that bloodmagic is tolerated there which should according to the Chantry make the abomination rate even higher), there is enough communication and it's important enough that we SHOULD hear about such issues if they happen at the rate the Chantry wants us to believe.

Why would more low-level abominations be important enough?

It's the big ones, the rare Lust and Pride Demons, that cause the mega-disasters that the fear of mages.




Edit: Just to restate a point that never fit in well:

We can not take a lack of evidence one way or another as an assertion that two systems work equally well. We can not say that Tevinter works better simply because we do not hear that it is worse, no more than we can say Tevinter works worse because we do not have any reliable source of information suggesting that it works better. Nor can we simply assume that Tevinter and, say, Ferelden are completely equal, in the same fashion that Ferelden and Orlais are (not) completely the same or Ferelden and the Anderfels or the Anderfels and Tevinter. We do not have the sort and quality of information that would allow us to judge one way or another.

It's the same lack of information that prevents us from making other comparisons. Which works better at handling the risks of Abominations and the bodycounts: Tevinter or the witches of Rivain?

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 29 décembre 2010 - 07:20 .

[Dave of Canada]

Personally, I don't understand how Connor and such are "victims" of the system. Connor hid from the templars, he did a deal with a demon and got possessed. What do you think would happen without the templars? Would Connor suddenly not have been hidden? Unlikely, Isolde was ashame her son was a mage. Not that the templars were there.

Isolde, being a pious woman, hated the fact that Connor was a mage (thus unable to gather any titles for himself) and would be taken away. Templars or no, mages would be taken away from their homes because it's a safety precaution not only for the public but for the mages himself. Gaider has brought it up a couple of times where if the Templar didn't involve themselves, mage children would be killed by the fearful public (and I imagine something similar to the Salem Witch Trials happening, "she's a mage! A MAGE!").

Is that a much better fate than being sent to the Circle? You could debate that if you'd like, though i'd rather prefer having life in a closed community rather than death in an open world.

The simple fact of the matter is that many people (in this thread) are letting their anti-Chantry sentiment enter the conversation, we're not dealing with the Chantry in the matter but the Templars. Are the Templars necessary? I'd say yes, they are.

Trained or no, Mages will develop sense of power and yearn for more. The difference between the two views (Templars or no-Templars) is that the yearn for freedom is replaced by the yearn for more than what they have, humanity (in general) is flawed and will always strive for more than what they have. Having the Templars suddenly disappear won't make that go away, the whispers of demons will alway be tempting regardless of where you are (even without a demon though, a mage could suddenly decide to become a bandit or something and cause a hell of a lot more problems). 

One (common) argument brought up in this thread is how come we don't see abominations elsewhere is a little simple, reason we don't see them in say... the Wilds, with the Dragon Cultists and such is simple; Gameplay mechanics.

The game wouldn't throw abominations everywhere you go because they want to show you how dangerous they are, they want to keep battles relative to the area. You're fighting cultists? You fight cultists, they aren't going to throw in a random abomination in there for nothing.

It's not some idle threat that the Chantry is exaggerating (note: They could be exaggerating the frequency, though that doesn't change how disastrous it is), Qunari have safety precautions for it too and they don't even have Templars.