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[October Sixth]

LobselVith8 wrote...

October Sixth wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

You don't seem to have a point, that's the problem. I address that there are other cultures out there that don't hate mages automatically, and have been argued to be no worse for having mages living alongside non-mages, but all you do is say "how much do you know about them?" in response. You gloss over how the Chantry basically conditions abominations from the codex entries and even in A Broken Circle.

Probably because that isn't my point, my point is the lack of alternative examples.

We have alternative examples. We even have in canon discussion about those very examples. You simply choose to ignore them.

October Sixth wrote...

I'm not talking about the Chantry, I'm talking about your use of the dev quote to prove something when it doesn't prove anything.

It wasn't a dev quote. Are you sure you're not the only who has problems with comprehension?

October Sixth wrote...

Please just answer my question about your native language. There's no shame in speaking English as a second language, but it'll help me better understand where you're coming from.

Coming from the person who can't tell the difference between a quote from a dev and an entry designed as a codex entry...

You said "Bioware blog," so I assumed you meant a dev posted that information. If you meant the codex you should have said so when you originally brought up the passage.

[Huntress]

Miri1984 wrote...

Since we're on the topic of mages - is the Harrowing just a waste of time? I mean, it didn't stop Uldred from becoming possessed. And is there any sure fire way of finding out if someone's a blood Mage? Or do the Templars just have to guess?

The templars do not waste time thinking, or guessing. They just need time to find and  kill the mages. Any mage running away from a circle is named Malifficar, or blood-mage, when they find this mages=DEAD won't matter if the mage never ever heard of blood magic.
Now  about the blood mage in origen that was sent to denerim, his captor was capture and sent to prision and this nice fellow Logain send the blood-mage to poison Emon.
Guess Logain didn't care much about having a Bood-mage doing his work, or any fear of letting a time-bomb lose in Ferelden... Yes make perfect sense the only who actually fear mages are the comun people.

[LobselVith8]

Getting back on topic...

Miri1984 wrote...

Since we're on the topic of mages - is the Harrowing just a waste of time? I mean, it didn't stop Uldred from becoming possessed. And is there any sure fire way of finding out if someone's a blood Mage? Or do the Templars just have to guess?

The Harrowings don't prevent mages from being possessed. Technically, anything can be possessed - animals, regular people, even trees. Abominations only happen with mages, but they can be handled - given that they were defeated long before the Chantry of Andraste or the Order of Templars ever came into existance.

Regarding blood magic, it's an issue of performing magic that can be recognized as such (like Jowan using his blood to knock out Irving and the templars in the Magi Origin). Wynne calls out a Warden who is a blood mage in a disabled scene from DA:O after the Circle is saved (and it was disabled since it bugged the Landsmeet) since she says it's no different than the magic the blood mages used.

Regarding the Harrowing, it can be argued. I believe IanPolaris has argued that it can be seen as a form of torture and I've personally wondered how important it is when you basically throw an ignorant apprentice into a dangerous situation and hope that he or she can figure it out for themselves, rather than arming them with knowledge about how deceitful the demons of the Fade can be.

[PsychoBlonde]

David Gaider wrote...

Sure, but could that person snap and start lobbing off fireballs and torch your entire neighborhood, requiring an entire unit of policemen to bring him down? Does he do that through no will of his own, or personal defect, but could literally transform into this killer without any warning signs? What if modern society found that this wasn't the act of a lone madman, but an entire class of people with the same genetic makeup? Do you honestly think that something wouldn't be done to safeguard against these "potentially dangerous" people?

Sorry, but it's a simplistic comparison that doesn't hold water.

I'd just like to address this quickly: Due to the way you folks wrote the game, there's NO EVIDENCE that this can happen IN THEDAS, either.  Uldred was clearly an ass from the get go.  Connor was a frightened kid who'd been taught some power but no real control.  You're telling me that these don't count as warning signs?  Everyone in the game who turns into an abomination either showed CLEAR signs of trending that direction OR was someone who was incapable of adult judgment (or was forcibly taken over by a voluntary coruptee).  If you wanted to really drive home the fact that mages can suddenly erupt into terrible destructive violence with absolutely no warning, you should have just had Wynne or Morrigan or Irving (or the PC MAGE!) suddenly fail a mental resistance check and BOOM dead civilians.

All this stuff about mages being so horrible and dangerous is what is known as an "informed attribute".  People in and out of the game *claim* this is the case, but the evidence doesn't back it up.  Mages aren't significantly stronger than other characters.  (Even the very best indestructible mage-tank character can fall due to some player clumsiness in pulling and a failed phys resistance check against overwhelm or grab.)  You never actually see any of the mind-controlling blood magic in action.  Yeah, okay, supposedly these templars have been mind-controlled to attack you in the circle tower.  So why don't they STOP attacking you when you kill the mage in the room?  There's never any good fundamental disempowerment vs. mages.  (Part of this being the fact that if you'd really let NPC mages shine in all their potential glory, they'd have been so annoying to fight that people would have ragequit and stormed your offices.)

I get that a lot of these things are immensely difficult to do and not necessarily even desirable in a game.  But that doesn't mean you get to just handwave that people are taking a "simplistic" approach when the hard evidence you've given them supports that very same approach.

The lore and mechanics need to be fully consistent.  If you really wanted to make a really dark world where mages are always this incredible looming threat and even the most determinedly just people consider that it's necessary to keep them under lock and key for everyone's best interests, you should have actually made them so horrible to deal with that you never fight most of them as part of regular combat.  You could have gotten away with letting people fight apprentice mages and lowly demons, but the rest of the time it should have been DM Fiat You Die unless you had the appropriate Mage-Neutralizing Macguffins.  If you were playing a mage, it should have been obvious to you, the player, that you're a sucky apprentice mage with extremely limited power.  When the Fade section came up in the tower, your Mage PC should have been helpless and you had to wind up taking control of your companions in order to get out.  (Of course, from a game mechanic perspective, this would also have sucked because you did have the option of going into that situation with no companions--I do understand that there are big mechanical problems to this approach and that in weighing options, sucking all the fun out of the game in order to make it lore-consistent is not exactly the best one.)


Ultimately, though, Thedas as it exists in your head and as Thedas it exists in the game aren't precisely the same thing.  We have to go by the game in how we interpret the world, and in the game mages are just not that nasty compared to anything else.

[2kgnsiika]

If magi existed in our world..



1) ...and I were one, I'd view non-magical people as inferior and hate them for oppressing me.



2) ...and I weren't one, I'd hate magi for thinking they're better than me and try to oppress them.



So it's not a question of how the problem should be handled regardless of view point. It's about hating people who are different. It works every time.

[LobselVith8]

@ PsychoBlonde

The problem is that we are given the reason why mages are segregated, and it has absolutely nothing to do with blood magic or even abominations, from the History of the Circle codex entry written by Chantry scholar Sister Petrine:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that nothing is more successful at inspiring a person to mischief as being told not to do something. Unfortunately, the Chantry of the Divine Age had some trouble with obvious truths. Although it did not outlaw magic-quite the contrary, as the Chantry relied upon magic to kindle the eternal flame which burns in every brazier in every chantry-it relegated mages to lighting candles and lamps. Perhaps occasional dusting of rafters and eaves.

I will give my readers a moment to contemplate how well such a role satisfied the mages of the time.

It surprised absolutely no one when the mages of Val Royeaux, in protest, snuffed the sacred flames of the cathedral and barricaded themselves inside the choir loft. No one, that is, but Divine Ambrosia II, who was outraged and attempted to order an Exalted March upon her own cathedral. Even her most devout Templars discouraged that idea. For 21 days, the fires remained unlit while negotiations were conducted, legend tells us, by shouting back and forth from the loft.

The mages went cheerily into exile in a remote fortress outside of the capital, where they would be kept under the watchful eye of the Templars and a council of their own elder magi. Outside of normal society, and outside of the Chantry, the mages would form their own closed society, the Circle, separated for the first time in human history."

Yes, a completely nonviolent protest is the reason why mages are segregated today. So much for keeping people safe from "evil mages."

[ReallyRue]

The Dalish seem to be doing alright with their mages... discounting Zathrian. And Velanna.

But Marethari is good! Merrill seemed fine. Ilshae sounded reasonable. And Lanaya is apparently ideal!

[Crocodiles]

All this talking about mages being born different is reminding me of the X-men

[Dave of Canada]

IanPolaris wrote...

Untrained villages were able to defeat and contain one of the most powerful bloodmage abominations in Thedas (Blackmarsh)....

An entire village burned down the Baroness who was trapped inside her house and she still took them down with her and kept them tortured for a very long time. This was after years (or so I assume) of her manipulating, using and sacrificing them. I wouldn't say that's a good thing.

which somehow the Circle Tower System was unable to deal with (hmmm?)

Because Uldred kept his demon-ness secret until he could get in a position where he could create more abominations? Demons aren't big stupid grunts that go "rawr attack" and even then they are extremely powerful, considering how powerful mages are described in the lore itself and how demons only amplify that power.

and that's even with that abomination being an Orlesian noble.

... how does this change anything? Nobility being able to become demons without any signs should be reasoning against mages being given rights. Imagine how disastrous it could be if a demon took over a king or a person high up in an order of things?

Just imagine how much better it would have turned out if a competant and trained reaction force were present which included mages?

And who's to say these mages won't betray the templar? Who's to say the blood mage / demon won't simply control the mage to destroy the templar?

... and more. Too many things could go wrong.

Somehow I don't think that Blackmarsh would have been extinquished along with the bloodmage......

Blackmarsh had no templar to assist them.

See the point?  Even powerful mages and abominations can be successfully brought down by mundane means.

I didn't say they couldn't be brought down by "mundane" means, a sword could chop off their limbs just like everybody else. The difference is that three individuals that were trained on how to beat abominations died to a rage-demon possessed cat.

Rage demons are the "weakest" type of demon too, so imagine a pride demon cat. How about a rage demon mage? Now imagine the pride demon mage? If highly trained individuals cannot deal with it, what are the chances an untrained and unprepared village of civilians can deal with it?

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 03 février 2011 - 09:10 .

[silentassassin264]

Dave of Canada wrote...

See the point?  Even powerful mages and abominations can be successfully brought down by mundane means.

I didn't say they couldn't be brought down by "mundane" means, a sword could chop off their limbs just like everybody else. The difference is that three individuals that were trained on how to beat abominations died to a rage-demon possessed cat.

Rage demons are the "weakest" type of demon too, so imagine a pride demon cat. How about a rage demon mage? Now imagine the pride demon mage? If highly trained individuals cannot deal with it, what are the chances an untrained and unprepared village of civilians can deal with it?

True but your rather mundane Warden in Dragon Age has absolutely no training to beat abominations and can clear out the entire Circle Tower while Gregoir is whining like a wimp waiting for reinforcements.  Abominations are dangerous yes, but they die like anything else.

[TheRevanchist]

I blame game mechanics for that situation.

[LobselVith8]

[quote]Dave of Canada wrote...

[quote]IanPolaris wrote...

Untrained villages were able to defeat and contain one of the most powerful bloodmage abominations in Thedas (Blackmarsh)....[/quote]

An entire village burned down the Baroness who was trapped inside her house and she still took them down with her and kept them tortured for a very long time. This was after years (or so I assume) of her manipulating, using and sacrificing them. I wouldn't say that's a good thing. [/quote]

Ian also addressed that had mages been avaliable, it likely wouldn't have happened. Instead, mages were imprisoned, and there was no one for the villagers to turn to who could have handled the Baroness.

[quote]Dave of Canada wrote...

[quote]IanPolaris wrote...

which somehow the Circle Tower System was unable to deal with (hmmm?)[/quote]

Because Uldred kept his demon-ness secret until he could get in a position where he could create more abominations? Demons aren't big stupid grunts that go "rawr attack" and even then they are extremely powerful, considering how powerful mages are described in the lore itself and how demons only amplify that power. [/quote]

Uldred became an abomination because he recklessly used demonology to summon too many demons that he couldn't control.

Regardless of how powerful they are, abominations have been defeated long before the Chantry of Andraste and the Order of Templars ever existed.

[quote]Dave of Canada wrote...

[quote]IanPolaris wrote...

and that's even with that abomination being an Orlesian noble.[/quote]

... how does this change anything? Nobility being able to become demons without any signs should be reasoning against mages being given rights. Imagine how disastrous it could be if a demon took over a king or a person high up in an order of things? [/quote]

Vaughan seemed plenty bad to me, and no demon was forcing him to abduct women out of the Alienage in broad daylight to be gang raped. In fact, a blood mage could have stopped Vaughan before he ever laid a hand on any of the women.

[quote]Dave of Canada wrote...

[quote]IanPolaris wrote...

Just imagine how much better it would have turned out if a competant and trained reaction force were present which included mages?[/quote]

And who's to say these mages won't betray the templar? Who's to say the blood mage / demon won't simply control the mage to destroy the templar?

... and more. Too many things could go wrong. [/quote]

Given how mages are people, and people have this tendency of wanting freedom and liberty, I don't see how being thrown into an inhumane and oppressive prison where they have no rights is going to solve all of our problems. You can keep saying that mages might go rogue, but wouldn't a taskforce of mages and non-mages trained to deal with such threats be more viable than imprisoning innocent people because of who they are?

[quote]Dave of Canada wrote...

[quote]IanPolaris wrote...

Somehow I don't think that Blackmarsh would have been extinquished along with the bloodmage......[/quote]

Blackmarsh had no templar to assist them. [/quote]

They had no mages to assist them, either.

[quote]Dave of Canada wrote...

[quote]IanPolaris wrote...

See the point?  Even powerful mages and abominations can be successfully brought down by mundane means.[/quote]

I didn't say they couldn't be brought down by "mundane" means, a sword could chop off their limbs just like everybody else. The difference is that three individuals that were trained on how to beat abominations died to a rage-demon possessed cat.

Rage demons are the "weakest" type of demon too, so imagine a pride demon cat. How about a rage demon mage? Now imagine the pride demon mage? If highly trained individuals cannot deal with it, what are the chances an untrained and unprepared village of civilians can deal with it? [/quote]

Given that people have defeated them long before there was the Order of Templars or even the Inquisition, I think it's safe to say that abominations aren't some invincible threat that can never be destroyed. People can deal with them and defeat them.

[DamnThoseDisplayNames]

PsychoBlonde made some excellent points. Overall, it's a "show, not tell" problem. As you can be a powerful maleficar in a game, but at the same time can be morally pure, never penalized for using blood magic on technical way, no Codex entry will ever help to solve anything or shift people opinions on the matter.

[PsychoBlonde]

LobselVith8 wrote...

@ PsychoBlonde

The problem is that we are given the reason why mages are segregated, and it has absolutely nothing to do with blood magic or even abominations, from the History of the Circle codex entry written by Chantry scholar Sister Petrine:

This isn't the reason why mages are segregated--it's the reason why they're segregated *in the particular fashion they currently are*.  It is the proximate cause of the Circle Towers, not the Ultimate cause.  The Ultimate cause is that mages are supposedly extremely dangerous.  But in the game, they AREN'T.

[Nashiktal]

Huntress wrote...

Miri1984 wrote...

Since we're on the topic of mages - is the Harrowing just a waste of time? I mean, it didn't stop Uldred from becoming possessed. And is there any sure fire way of finding out if someone's a blood Mage? Or do the Templars just have to guess?

The templars do not waste time thinking, or guessing. They just need time to find and  kill the mages. Any mage running away from a circle is named Malifficar, or blood-mage, when they find this mages=DEAD won't matter if the mage never ever heard of blood magic.
Now  about the blood mage in origen that was sent to denerim, his captor was capture and sent to prision and this nice fellow Logain send the blood-mage to poison Emon.
Guess Logain didn't care much about having a Bood-mage doing his work, or any fear of letting a time-bomb lose in Ferelden... Yes make perfect sense the only who actually fear mages are the comun people.

Wrong. Not all mages who run are killed. Play Awakening.

[Dave of Canada]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Ian also addressed that had mages been avaliable, it likely wouldn't have happened. Instead, mages were imprisoned, and there was no one for the villagers to turn to who could have handled the Baroness.

Have any facts that a mage would be able to have stopped it aside from speculation? If you want to bring speculation into it, I can say "a mage could have joined the Baronness and made it a thousand times worse".

Uldred became an abomination because he recklessly used demonology to summon too many demons that he couldn't control.

And he led a revolt against the Circle before hand with blood mages, hoping to take the Circle over. He became a demon, he made other mages become demon and quickly overwhelmed the Circle and planned to build an army. Who is to prevent this from happening in Denerim or Redcliffe (where it sort of already did with Connor's case)?

Give a person some power, they'll abuse it and risk harming everybody. Sealing them in the Circle Tower protects the outside world from people who turn into abominations and it protects the mages from being killed by supersticious people.

Regardless of how powerful they are, abominations have been defeated long before the Chantry of Andraste and the Order of Templars ever existed.

And how many innocent people do you suspect were killed whenever a mage slipped and was possessed? 

Vaughan seemed plenty bad to me, and no demon was forcing him to abduct women out of the Alienage in broad daylight to be gang raped.

... so? Did I say all nobility were angels? I did not, I said a demon possessing nobility is threat and you haven't dismissed this claim.

In fact, a blood mage could have stopped Vaughan before he ever laid a hand on any of the women.

Why would a blood mage even care about what Vaughan did?

Given how mages are people, and people have this tendency of wanting freedom and liberty, I don't see how being thrown into an inhumane and oppressive prison where they have no rights is going to solve all of our problems.

The "prison" is to protect the mages too. Like Wynne explains (and how Gaider mentioned it a lot), a lot of mages don't even reach the Circle because the people might blame them for something wrong and kill them. Whether the mage is responsible for not, it doesn't matter.

The Circle also isn't very much of a prison, it's more of a community. You aren't forced to do anything in the tower except learn how to control your magic, you're fully capable of seeing family and if you're good you're capable of leaving the tower. Finn for example was given the ability to leave the tower to do his research.

You can keep saying that mages might go rogue, but wouldn't a taskforce
of mages and non-mages trained to deal with such threats be more viable
than imprisoning innocent people because of who they are?

Templar can do this job quite fine already, I don't see the benefit of adding mages and putting the people at risk as "benefit".

Also please stop with this "innocent people" thing.

Given that people have defeated them long before there was the Order of Templars or even the Inquisition, I think it's safe to say that abominations aren't some invincible threat that can never be destroyed. People can deal with them and defeat them.

At what cost?

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 03 février 2011 - 09:51 .

[Solid N7]

Mages are cool but I prefer having Bethany so I will not playing mage

[IanPolaris]

October Sixth wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

October Sixth wrote...

[Would you? There are a couple problems with that.

1) In the medium of the game you're not able to access Dalish culture. Do you EVER hear a Dalish nursery rhyme?

Actually you do.  You hear the Uethenara (from the Hahren if you are a Dalish warden, or later on from Lenaya if you aren not).  You also see how Dalish teach their children and can even take part when you meet the Dalish.  Given that, we actually see quite a bit of "one day of the life of the Dalish" when we are there both as a Dalish and non-Dalish Warden.

Okay, then let me ask you a follow up question: Do we have an exhaustive list of their nursery rhymes?

My point is, and I hope you can at least agree with this, we certainly do not learn all there is to know about Dalish culture. We experience it briefly, but not completely. There are limitations to our knowledge and exposure. Therefore, there is room for cultural remnants that tell us more about the Dalish relationship with magic.

Is there more to discover about the Dalish?  Sure.  That is almost certainly true (and I think we will with Merrill).  However, just because more might be there to discover does not diminish the fact that cultural footprints that should be OBVIOUS (as Lob consistantly points out) aren't there.  If mages becoming abominations were really the dire threat the Chantry wants us to believe (and DG so artfully implies without ever actually saying so), then the impact on Dalish Society in it's hunter-gatherer form with small tribes should be obvious and profound....and we see none of that.

2) You're projecting his own social conditioning onto another culture. How do you know how the Dalish would respond to having abominations in their camps. Oh sure, you can make predictions, but to claim knowledge the way you do is downright arrogant.

Sorry but this objection in the game is completely invalid.  Elves and Humans in the game have clearly identical psychologies.  Your objection might have merit if Elves had a completely different psychology and sociology, but in the game they do not .

-Polaris

Humans have very similar physiologies too (I assume that's what you meant). That doesn't mean cultural or social practices translate accross them. Assuming you really do mean they have clearly identical psychologies you're going to have to explain how you know that.

We know they have identical psychologies because you are permitted to play one.  In DA like most other fantasy games, Elves and Dwarves are nothing more than humans in funny suits that grow up in interesting locations.  Really.

The same applies culturally.  Elves and Dwarves clearly have the same cultural values and expectations as humans as modified only by their particular situation and relationship with other groups.  Is it wrong sociologically?  Almost certainly!  But it is the game lore as it is presented (and you'll find it's typical in modern fantasy).

-Polaris

[Cloaking_Thane]

David Gaider wrote...

HopHazzard wrote...
Any person in my neighborhood could snap one day and go on a killing spree. That doesn't mean no one should be allowed to live near me. Also, in modern society we have the means to track and monitor potentially dangerous people without imprisoning them.

Sure, but could that person snap and start lobbing off fireballs and torch your entire neighborhood, requiring an entire unit of policemen to bring him down? Does he do that through no will of his own, or personal defect, but could literally transform into this killer without any warning signs? What if modern society found that this wasn't the act of a lone madman, but an entire class of people with the same genetic makeup? Do you honestly think that something wouldn't be done to safeguard against these "potentially dangerous" people?

Sorry, but it's a simplistic comparison that doesn't hold water.

Elsariel wrote...
THIS.  I wanted to write this earlier but I got lazy.    To play devil's advocate though, I think it all depends on how prevelent magic appears within people.  If only a small fraction of the populace actually exhibits magical power, it's conceivable that they'd be oppressed for a long long time.  The more people with magic, the more likely they'd be the one's on top.

And the Tevinter Imperium would show that can, indeed, happen. The Exalted March of Andraste would also show what it takes to dislodge that "superior order", and why people might think it's not okay to allow mages to "do as thou wilt".

Easy Minority Report, we've seen your movie

[PsychoBlonde]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Also please stop with this "innocent people" thing.

This is the entire point--you're asking him to concede that your position is correct and keep arguing.  Mages are not innocent of being a threat, no, but neither is any other person or thing that has ever existed in the history of the universe.  Many of them, however, ARE innocent of CARRYING OUT THAT THREAT.

It is NOT justice to punish people for things they MAY do.  You may say, well, who cares about justice when something bad might happen?  It's you who should care.  Otherwise YOU may be the one someday being punished on the basis of some horror you MAY commit, and no evidence you can present or argument you can make will sway the "righteous" who wish to destroy YOUR life and YOUR dreams on the basis of some hypothetical future they can imagine.

Justice is self-protection, and ultimately the only protection you have against whatever wild, groundless, paranoid imaginings other people may have.  If you countenance injustice, you point the sword straight at your own throat.  Oh, maybe not right away.  Maybe not today.  Maybe not tomorrow.  But how much maybe do you want to live with in order to strain after some imagined safety that nothing and no one can give you?

[Miri1984]

The world sucks. Everyone is at risk from possession, your CORPSE can become a demon (now we know why the Fereldens favour cremation). Really, it sucks to be a mage. Yet even Anders believes that SOME oversight is necessary (look at his conversation with Wynne in Amaranthine). There are a few things I really detest about the circle, though -



1.They take kids away from their parents. This is not a good thing. In any society. Admittedly, SOME parents want the mage child gone ASAP, but I'm certain there are a lot of parents who would like the chance to at least see their children once they've been taken to the Tower. Things like the debacle that Isolde perpetrated wouldn't happen if the Circle was less like a prison and more like a boarding school.

2. They make mages tranquil without their permission. Please - kill them in the Harrowing if you must, but what they were going to do to Jowan is unforgivable, and practically drove him to blood magic. Really, if you don't want mages to turn to forbidden magic, DON'T threaten to rip away their humanity because they don't study hard enough!



There is no doubt mages need to be monitored and protected and possibly even kept away from the general populace - but there has got to be a better way of doing it.

[IanPolaris]

[quote]Dave of Canada wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

Ian also addressed that had mages been avaliable, it likely wouldn't have happened. Instead, mages were imprisoned, and there was no one for the villagers to turn to who could have handled the Baroness.[/quote]

Have any facts that a mage would be able to have stopped it aside from speculation? If you want to bring speculation into it, I can say "a mage could have joined the Baronness and made it a thousand times worse".
[/quote]

And little green aliens could have come down and destroyed Thedas.  Really.

The point is that mages are human like anyone else, and that means you have good ones and bad ones.  It's not unreasonable to think that the good ones could be selected for important jobs such as policing other mages and magic in general!  Given that unarmed and untalented villagers WERE able to contain the Baroness without the help they should have expected from the Templars, I think it's reasonable speculation (and what if's are always speculation so this objection is specious) that had mages been available to fight the baroness (even mages less talented) Blackmarsh may well have survived.

[quote]

[quote]Uldred became an abomination because he recklessly used demonology to summon too many demons that he couldn't control.[/quote]
And he led a revolt against the Circle before hand with blood mages, hoping to take the Circle over. He became a demon, he made other mages become demon and quickly overwhelmed the Circle and planned to build an army. Who is to prevent this from happening in Denerim or Redcliffe (where it sort of already did with Connor's case)?
[/quote]

He led a revolt because of the living conditions imposed by the Chantry.  The bloodmage you capture says it very elequently I think.  Had the chantry not been so anti-mage, Uldred's revolt never happens.

[quote]
Give a person some power, they'll abuse it and risk harming everybody. Sealing them in the Circle Tower protects the outside world from people who turn into abominations and it protects the mages from being killed by supersticious people.
[/quote]

We should lock away all nobles then by the same logic.

[quote]

[quote]Regardless of how powerful they are, abominations have been defeated long before the Chantry of Andraste and the Order of Templars ever existed.[/quote]And how many innocent people do you suspect were killed whenever a mage slipped and was possessed? 
[/quote]

You need to show that the outside abomination rate and fatality rate are lower post-circle towe than pre.  So far no one has come close to showing this.

[quote]

[quote]Vaughan seemed plenty bad to me, and no demon was forcing him to abduct women out of the Alienage in broad daylight to be gang raped.[/quote]
... so? Did I say all nobility were angels? I did not, I said a demon possessing nobility is threat and you haven't dismissed this claim.
[/quote]

Demons can possess anyone, therefore all nobles should be locked away too.  OK......


[quote]

[quote]In fact, a blood mage could have stopped Vaughan before he ever laid a hand on any of the women.[/quote]

Why would a blood mage even care about what Vaughan did?
[/quote]

Why not?  Bloodmages are like anyone else.  A good person who is a bloodmage (and yes chantry propaganda aside, it's very possible) might object strongly to Vaugn's actions.  After all you can be a bloodmage and use only your own blood.

[quote]

[quote]Given how mages are people, and people have this tendency of wanting freedom and liberty, I don't see how being thrown into an inhumane and oppressive prison where they have no rights is going to solve all of our problems.[/quote]
The "prison" is to protect the mages too. Like Wynne explains (and how Gaider mentioned it a lot), a lot of mages don't even reach the Circle because the people might blame them for something wrong and kill them. Whether the mage is responsible for not, it doesn't matter.
[/quote]

Sure.  The Chantry creates the problem with anti-mage incitements over centures and then "protects" mages from it.  There is another word for that:  Extortion.

[quote]
The Circle also isn't very much of a prison, it's more of a community. You aren't forced to do anything in the tower except learn how to control your magic, you're fully capable of seeing family and if you're good you're capable of leaving the tower. Finn for example was given the ability to leave the tower to do his research.
[/quote]

It's a prison by any reasonable defintion of the term.  Mages have no legal rights.

[quote]
[quote]You can keep saying that mages might go rogue, but wouldn't a taskforce
of mages and non-mages trained to deal with such threats be more viable
than imprisoning innocent people because of who they are?[/quote]

Templar can do this job quite fine already, I don't see the benefit of adding mages and putting the people at risk as "benefit".
[/quote]

Apparently they can't.  In fact the best weapon against magic is magic which even the Qunari (who hate all magic) grudgingly admit.


[quote]
Also please stop with this "innocent people" thing.
[/quote]

For the most part the characterization is accurate.  Mages by and large have done nothing to deserve the treatment they get at Chantry hands.

[quote]

[quote]Given that people have defeated them long before there was the Order of Templars or even the Inquisition, I think it's safe to say that abominations aren't some invincible threat that can never be destroyed. People can deal with them and defeat them.[/quote]
At what cost?

[/quote]

Given the complete lack of an abomination social footprint apparently at far less cost than the Chantry is willing to admit.

-Polaris

[Falls Edge]

I thought the reason they were controlled so much was to prevent the most powerful mages from coming into power, andraste and Flemmeth being two of them.

I didn't think it was about so much the fact mages were vulnerable to corruption so much as mages seem to have an incredible capacity to grow in their powers, the reason for the towers and templars was to dumb them down and even make the most talented mage lukewarm at best because of the censorship that pervades the tower.

It's not even about the abominations so much as I thought it was about a mage changing the world through their actions, it's not like mages aren't incredibly valuable with what little they know.

There are forbidden texts, secret alchemical and magical formulas, elven magic which appears to be somewhat different from the towers magic it appears that magic is a highly complex and adjustable ability that can make oneself immortal or have the ability to body transfer etcetera.

It seems that magic has no real limits as it has been noted that mages actually had the ability at one point to invade the maker's kingdom.

There's a lot of different magic styles it doesn't seem strange that a couple powerful mages could control the world, with or without the abominations they're still the equivelent of guns in a world with swords, and with enough time the guns turn to death rays, the death rays to nuclear power, the nuclear power to dimensional rifts and finally the ability to destroy the fabric of space and time.

Or at least that's what I thought.

Modifié par Falls Edge, 03 février 2011 - 10:13 .

[IanPolaris]

Nashiktal wrote...

Huntress wrote...

Miri1984 wrote...

Since we're on the topic of mages - is the Harrowing just a waste of time? I mean, it didn't stop Uldred from becoming possessed. And is there any sure fire way of finding out if someone's a blood Mage? Or do the Templars just have to guess?

The templars do not waste time thinking, or guessing. They just need time to find and  kill the mages. Any mage running away from a circle is named Malifficar, or blood-mage, when they find this mages=DEAD won't matter if the mage never ever heard of blood magic.
Now  about the blood mage in origen that was sent to denerim, his captor was capture and sent to prision and this nice fellow Logain send the blood-mage to poison Emon.
Guess Logain didn't care much about having a Bood-mage doing his work, or any fear of letting a time-bomb lose in Ferelden... Yes make perfect sense the only who actually fear mages are the comun people.

Wrong. Not all mages who run are killed. Play Awakening.

Gregoire is a radical liberal for a Templar.  That fact and his friendship with Irving is the only reason that Anders is still alive.  Anders also says that 'eventually they would just brand him malificar, true or not, and just kill him".  Why didn't they do so already?  Gregoire and that makes Anders very much a special case.  Most templars are nowhere near as liberal as Gregoire.

-Polaris

[Rimfrost]

I agree with Falls Edge. What I took away was that if you scratched the surface of the whole thing it was a powergrab by the templars and much of the possessing etc was basically not true, including the idea that blood magic is always evil. It also seemed to be a huge interest in controlling the lyrium trade.



That said the idea of super powers brings up interesting question. It's clear that there will be a spectrum of choices and no perfect solution.



Me? as a mage I'm troubled that the chantry/templars are setup to be trial,judge and executioner in one. It seem clear that it would be better with a system where all power was not with one or the other group. Until that happens I understand mages who work for change