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[Tealsie]

ipgd wrote...

Tealsie wrote...

Sort of silly. There seems to be far more soiling of garments(and loss of garments) in this thread than in a certain other thread, though with a fair amount of discussion in both.  
...not including before the game came out. The Fenris thread pre-game-release was... disturbing. Not in a good way.  A bit like how this thread gets to be at times.

I'm not sure we're reading the same threads.

Apparently not? odd...

[ipgd]

leggywillow wrote...

ipgd wrote...

Tealsie wrote...

Sort of silly. There seems to be far more soiling of garments(and loss of garments) in this thread than in a certain other thread, though with a fair amount of discussion in both.  
...not including before the game came out. The Fenris thread pre-game-release was... disturbing. Not in a good way.  A bit like how this thread gets to be at times.

I'm not sure we're reading the same threads.

I think the problem is a simple miscommunication.  I believe the definition of "fangirl squee" being used here is including "fabulous depravity", which is obviously an incorrect use of the term.  ::insert necroboner::

Granted, that bloated, rotting dead guy's pants probably were pretty soiled.

[Jean]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

The Fenris thread is just like the thread about my husband.

[mellifera]

ipgd wrote...

Tealsie wrote...

Sort of silly. There seems to be far more soiling of garments(and loss of garments) in this thread than in a certain other thread, though with a fair amount of discussion in both.  
...not including before the game came out. The Fenris thread pre-game-release was... disturbing. Not in a good way.  A bit like how this thread gets to be at times.

I'm not sure we're reading the same threads.

Fenris' thread is about as interesting as him. As in, not.

[Ryzaki]

Huh.

Thought the cheap potshots was beneath this thread. Sucks to be proven wrong.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Ah, I see the Fenris / Anders rivalry translated to RL.

[upsettingshorts]

Ryzaki wrote...

Thought the cheap potshots was beneath this thread.

Would you prefer hard punches in the face?

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 09 juin 2011 - 03:27 .

[leggywillow]

Ryzaki wrote...

Huh.

Thought the cheap potshots was beneath this thread. Sucks to be proven wrong.

Pssh, it's the Anders way.  ::high-fives her catty apostate::

[Ryzaki]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Ah, I see the Fenris / Anders rivalry translated to RL.

Still can't top the Alistair/Loghain debates.  (only thing I've seen more filled with nerd rage was Near vs Light debates) 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 09 juin 2011 - 04:45 .

[ipgd]

Ryzaki wrote...

Huh.

Thought the cheap potshots was beneath this thread. Sucks to be proven wrong.

Are you new?

[mellifera]

I actually don't hate Fenris, I just couldn't resist trolololo :~

Modifié par yukidama, 09 juin 2011 - 03:29 .

[Jean]

I've never actually seen an Anders vs Fenris knock-out drag-out argument anywhere before yet

[Amondra]

yukidama wrote...

I actually don't hate Fenris, I just couldn't resist trolololo :~

It's hard to resist when it is right there looking at you.

[upsettingshorts]

Fenris doesn't inspire any strong feelings for me except vague disappointment.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 09 juin 2011 - 03:36 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

I'm getting tired too, especially since we've reache the supposition stage of the argument, where no side can hope to win or sway the other, because there isn't enough data available and there isn't any way to obtain more data... and the data that is available can be interpreted various ways.

(This is where we are/were with the Collector's Base forever. And then as soon as we had any evidence that keeping it wasn't objectively the best choice, everyone said that it not being objectively the best choice was bad writing. Hahaha good times.)

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
But again, it all shakes down to this: you have absolutely no evidence that there is any possibility of mages openly communicating with state leaders in such a way as to establish communications and interactions of the kind you suggest. You believe that it's how they should behave, but have no evidence that it's an actual thing they could do.

Every single one of your proposals has you leaving mages to wait for a state like Nevarra to just up and decide to ally with them and Ferelden and that just... doesn't seem likely. Even if mages have the ability to communicate with the state without the state seeking their aid first (and we have absolutely no evidence that such a thing is possible), I don't know what in Thedas political history makes you think there's any significant chance of that happening.

They can communicate with state leaders and other than the example I provided, we have Orsino going out and having a speech in front of all nobles in the most militarized city in thedas. We have the Orlesian king of Ferelden with a mage advisor, you potentiall have a mage in the royal court in Ferelden (Wynne)...etc etc. Yes, I have evidence that they can, or at the very least can try before going on a blind suicidal war.

No, my proposal has mages to try and convince states like Nevarra and Ferelden to hear them out. And ultimately, yes large scale change will depend on them. It's called waiting for and siezing an opportunity. It requires patience and not recklessness. If mages honestly think they can impose themselves on everyone else, they are sorely being misled, unless they wish to establish a magocracy. So we're back at square one.

None of your examples actually worked, though. And the "king of Ferelden having a mage advisor" thing happend through blind dumb luck. Now, it's true, if any of the previous examples of a mage allying themselves with a friendly power had actually worked, we wouldn't be having this conversation now. You take the evidence that they've tried before several times (and failed every time) as evidence that it can be done. I take that as evidence that such attempts are unlikely to work, even if the state involved does attempt to work with the mages in good faith.

I will concede that both of these conclusions are equally logical - as long as you don't take into account genre savvy pattern recognition.

If you take into account genre savvy pattern recognition, you know that such changes are unlikely to happen without the intervention of a single figure who has a lot of agency - either someone like Flemeth or someone like Andraste or someone like the Warden or even, yes, someone like Loghain. In the history of Thedas, there does not seem to be a single major positive change that has been wrought without a single man or woman taking charge and doing a thing. If such a figure was truly working on this the way you imagine they are, they would have made some move in the last ten years. They would be visible by now. This is basically an ollyollyoxenfree for them. Hell, it could be the event that creates them.

Anders has been waiting his entire life for such a figure. Now that he has only a few years left, he's tired of waiting. You fault him for that. I don't.

Basically, if such a "player" exists, the game as it stands is not one where they can act, or they already would have. So by changing the fundamental nature of the game, he changes where the levers of history are. Maybe he'll move them so that a potential world-changer now has access to them. If the man who was going to work things out with the mages was in power now, he would have acted by now. If we shift the situation so a whole different group of people are in power, maybe one of them will be that figure.

I keep finding central cruxes of our disagreemet. Do you just have a trunk of cruxes somewhere? Did you get them wholesale? Anyway.

A crux of our disagreement is the value of chaos. I say that if you're playing a game where the odds are heavily stacked against you, changing the game completely is a good move, even if you don't know whether or not the new game will favor your side. I call is "the Shahrazad gambit." Or, more aptly "Calvinball."

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Genre Savvy, remember? I am Genre Savvy, and so is Anders, according to my argument (and yes, I do believe it is possible to be Genre savvy in real life. See also: "You're in the wrong universe for fair.")

Because Anders, in his mental condition, really knows what kind of world he lives in?
Time and time again, he's shown to be paranoid, obsessed and narrow minded.

He knows enough to know that single people make great changes in Thedas, be it the Warden, Hawke, or Andraste. He clearly states that he believes he lives in a world where nobody exists who both can and will help the mages if the rules aren't changed, so he changes the rules. He does this by flipping the table where the game is being played, but it's still a conscious effort to change the game fundamentally, to create a situation where some form of change will most likely occur.

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
Anders is trying to both create a situation where the next Warden, the next Hawke has a reason to sympathize with mages. Anders has a reason to have faith in such people: He's met both of
Thedas's recent Protagonists, and seen the changes they can cause.

By blowing up a chantry?

Except both can be very pro-Templar (the Warden could have given Anders
up to the Templars). So that point is irrelevent to his thinking.

By starting a revolt.

And that's what he starts... a revolt, Not a War. If the Chantry steps aside and lets the mages walk free, there will be no war. But that's not likely to happen.

I don't think that the Warden and Hawke are irrelevant to his thinking. Some Warden recruited him (even if yours didn't) so if he's thinking of a Warden he's thinking of whoever saw something in him of enough value to recruit him. And even Rivalry Hawke believes there needs to be some kind of peaceful change for mages. So I think that even a Rivaled Anders whose WC sold him out to the Templars has reason to risk this.

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
My 30-50% number is based on the idea that it's all about giving the reins of the future ot the next Protagonist to happen along (or to Hawke himself), and they've got a 30-50% chance of siding with mages. Hell, from what I've seen on these boards, they're more than 50% likely to believe that the mages at least need to be in a situation that is better than it was at the beginning of DA2, so even a Templar-leaning protagonist may end up making things better for mages in the long run than if nothing had been done.

Metagaming. Anders doesn't know that writers would think it's a better idea to have this.

But Anders does have reason to believe his cause is fundamentally just, and that any truly wise and just person who comes across this conflict will naturally take the side of mages. His reasons for believing such a thing are simple: Justice told him that his cause was just long before he became corrupted.

It's a combination of genre savvy and a fundamental faith that heroes will do what is right.

"What good is magic, if it cannot save a single mage?"
"That is what heroes are for."
"You're right... that is exactly what heroes are for."
-Shamelessly paraphrased from Peter S. Beagle

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
This small band of people won't do anything if they don't manage to get allies, and if they keep looking at all others as enemies. Which is what Anders and the Resolutionists are doing. I question their ability to get allies now, when they started the war. This is something they should have done before.

The point of this Revolt is to get the people who won't do anything out of power, and new people in their places. It's also intended so that the Resolutionists don't have the reigns of the movement anymore. Anders doesn't agree with blood magic or the Resolutionists' tactics (he's a Libertarian, but not a Resolutionist). This act forces the more reasonable mages to stop fence-sitting.

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
Here's why. I am going to quote my other post, which you didn't replay to:

"Now what could have been done. Meredith's incompetence pretty much meant that almost everyone despised her. From the populace, to the nobility, to Aveline's guards, to mages and even Templar elements. I strongly
believe that an opposition coalition could have been established to oust Meredith.

Now I assume you will say "But Meredith is not the system, you are only removing her". To an extent, that's true and that falls under more realistic objectives. But imagine for a sec. A popular uprising, that comprises people from all walks of life including mages and Templars, removes the Chantry's most powerful KC in its most sensitive and militarized Circle (which the Chantry at least implicitly approved of), to establish a legitimate government that would act as a moderator in mage / Templar relations without abruptely removign the system.
{several paragraph snip}

That's why an Exalted March on a mass popular movement allied to mages, is something bigger than a mage insurrection against everyone else. Even if less bombastic. It compromises Chantry power is almost every way.

I don't see any way to cause this popular uprising you suggest. I don't think even Hawke is capable of organizing that would reach full steam, before a RoA came back from the Divine or the Divine threatens and Exalted March.

Now you could argue that Hawke coulda shoulda woulda done it if he'd been more of a proper Protag and less of a passenger on the ship of fate. I will agree wholeheartedly that they should have given him the option to try and fail, or made it very clear that he and Anders were trying and failing in that three year gap.

Still, I don't think that a popular Anti-Meredith movement would have destabilized the whole Chantry. Even if they had tried to start a movement and succeeded, in the face of an anti-Meredith movement, the Divine would just replaces Meredith, and threaten an Exalted March if the protests continue post-Meredith. In this case, the only thing that has changed for mages is that things are marginally less awful for them in Kirkwall, and there is absolutely no reason for any of their allies to remain faithful after their common cause is achieved... namely, Meredith is gone. I don't think the Divine would be foolish enough to march against a populist movement... she would just respond to it in the way that would remove popular support.

The point of this fight isn't to make things marginally less bad in Kirkwall. It's to change the system so that things can never get as bad as Kirkwall anywhere else.

I just don't see an Anti-Meredith popular movement ballooning into international Anti-Chantry sentiment, unless the Divine is substantially less intelligent and manipulative than she has already shown herself to be. I just don't see it as the slam dunk you suggest.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 09 juin 2011 - 04:03 .

[ladyofpayne]

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/306/index/7573905 
Favorite one gender romance

[leggywillow]

Filament wrote...

leggywillow wrote...

::insert necroboner::

Into what?

Everyone.

[KnightofPhoenix]

[quote]CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
None of your examples actually worked, though. And the "king of Ferelden having a mage advisor" thing happend through blind dumb luck. Now, it's true, if any of the previous examples of a mage allying themselves with a friendly power had actually worked, we wouldn't be having this conversation now. You take the evidence that they've tried before several times (and failed every time) as evidence that it can be done. I take that as evidence that such attempts are unlikely to work, even if the state involved does attempt to work with the mages in good faith. [/quote]

Due to different circumstances. Ferelden was in the middle of a blight and civil war, of course the alliance with mages would nto have worked. As for the Orlesian mage advisor, he didn't care so much about mage rights (only himself). That's why they didn't work. What I am saying that those connections were however established and there is no reason why they are not worth exploring as an option.

I am not saying it's guaranteed to work. I am saying the attempt is possible, and more likely to work than war (or  blindly going into one). And if it doesn't work? Well at least you're in a position to try something else and not past the point of no return.

[quote]
If you take into account genre savvy pattern recognition[/quote]

Which I don't and am not interested in doing, as I am interested in judging Anders from an in-game perspective without metagaming.

[quote]
Anders has been waiting his entire life for such a figure. Now that he has only a few years left, he's tired of waiting. You fault him for that. I don't. [/quote]

I fault him more for being unqualified to make any such decision. If he had formed an organization, and had some plan in mind, even if it ended up aleinating potential allies. If he was something like say Magneto, I would be less harsh on him. 

[quote]
Basically, if such a "player" exists, the game as it stands is not one where they can act, or they already would have. So by changing the fundamental nature of the game, he changes where the levers of history are. Maybe he'll move them so that a potential world-changer now has access to them. If the man who was going to work things out with the mages was in power now, he would have acted by now. If we shift the situation so a whole different group of people are in power, maybe one of them will be that figure. [/quote]

It's not one where HE can act. Mages can act otherwise and in more subtle ways.
And essentially, you are saying that he did all this with the huge assumption that someone after him will fix his mess. Not only is  that, for me, compeltely reckless, but also corwardly as he assigns the harder task to some unknown mysterious figure that may not even be born, while he takes the easy job and then wants to die so that he doens't experience the consequences of the mess he created.

That, for me, is a corward.

[quote]
A crux of our disagreement is the value of chaos. I say that if you're playing a game where the odds are heavily stacked against you, changing the game completely is a good move, even if you don't know whether or not the new game will favor your side. I call is "the Shahrazad gambit." Or, more aptly "Calvinball." [/quote]

When that happens to be the lives of thousands, then no, I dont' see this as a wise or good move at all.
I see it as laziness and not wanting to search for altneratives.

Who is he to gamble with the lives of thousands? Who appointed him? What qualifies him? Did he ask the opinion of mages when he did that?

[quote]
By starting a revolt.

And that's what he starts... a revolt, Not a War. If the Chantry steps aside and lets the mages walk free, there will be no war. But that's not likely to happen.[/quote]

And why is that to get sympathy? If the Chantry capitalizes on his act and spreads the word of his act of terror, why would anyone born in an Andrastrian context sympathize?

If mages start succumbing to extremists, blood magic and demons which they are very likely to do, why would anyoen sympathize?

[quote]
I don't think that the Warden and Hawke are irrelevant to his thinking. Some Warden recruited him (even if yours didn't) so if he's thinking of a Warden he's thinking of whoever saw something in him of enough value to recruit him. And even Rivalry Hawke believes there needs to be some kind of peaceful change for mages. So I think that even a Rivaled Anders whose WC sold him out to the Templars has reason to risk this.[/quote]

Except he can not be thinking of any Warden, and he can not be thinking positively of Hawke. So this entirely depends on the import, choices we are having, which is irrlevent to his thinking as he does exactly the same anyways. So it can't be used as an argument. Hawke can send him away in Act 2 and try to get him arrested in Act 3. He could do everything against mages and keep siding with Templars.


[quote]
But Anders does have reason to believe his cause is fundamentally just, and that any truly wise and just person who comes across this conflict will naturally take the side of mages. His reasons for believing such a thing are simple: Justice told him that his cause was just long before he became corrupted. [/quote]

And that's completely irrelevent to me, whether he thinks he is being "just" or not, and I certainly do not care aobut Justice's opinion when he himself said that his views are inadequate to the real world.


[quote]
The point of this Revolt is to get the people who won't do anything out of power, and new people in their places. It's also intended so that the Resolutionists don't have the reigns of the movement anymore. Anders doesn't agree with blood magic or the Resolutionists' tactics (he's a Libertarian, but not a Resolutionist). This act forces the more reasonable mages to stop fence-sitting. [/quote]

And by doing so, can join the Resolutionists who were the ones to have always advocated war or become just as extreme. War polarizes.  Many mages will go extreme, as they are pushed against a corner. Anders saw to that. Whether they call themselves Resolutionists or no is irrlevent.

Mages will very likely resort to blood magic for a simple reason. They do nto have access to lyrium and will need all the firepower they can muster. They can do so via blood magic. And since they are not trained to handle war, they will be very vulnerable to demons.

Anders had no plans and ideas on how to deal with this. At all.

And as DA2 showed, the mages were completely and utterly pathetic, despite having all the defensive advantages, and despite Meredith, like an idiot, giving them time to prepare. They could have at least lasted for a few days, but they didn't even manage a few hours.

[quote]
I don't see any way to cause this popular uprising you suggest. I don't think even Hawke is capable of organizing that would reach full steam, before a RoA came back from the Divine or the Divine threatens and Exalted March. [/quote]

The people were already pissed off by act 2. And I do believe there was a way to rally them up, yes. Without them, the mage underground would have been nothing. The mages already had them by their side, they just needed to organize them more. 

As for the Divine threatening an Exalted March. That would be shooting herself in the foot. That would be a stronger signal.


[quote]
Still, I don't think that a popular Anti-Meredith movement would have destabilized the whole Chantry. Even if they had tried to start a movement and succeeded, in the face of an anti-Meredith movement, the Divine would just replaces Meredith, and threaten an Exalted March if the protests continue post-Meredith. In this case, the only thing that has changed for mages is that things are marginally less awful for them in Kirkwall, and there is absolutely no reason for any of their allies to remain faithful after their common cause is achieved... namely, Meredith is gone. I don't think the Divine would be foolish enough to march against a populist movement... she would just respond to it in the way that would remove popular support. [/quote]

You have yet to understand that mages being part of a popular movement has never happened before. The entire premise of the Chantry is that such a thing can't happen and that mages need "Chantry protection". And that a sovereign state kicking out a KC never happened before. And yes, unprecedented events have a shock value. Add to that Kirkwall's commercial and geo-political importance in he region and it's bound to have a ripple effect.

This act alone strikes at two pillars of the Chantry. That A. they have the full support of the people and can muscle in politics without the weaker states saying a thing. B. that mages and society are secluded and cannot cooperate.
That has real potential to destablizie the entire Chantry and either force them to over-react, or to swallow the slap they just took.

As for the allies having reason to retain their coalition with mages. They do have reasons, which are military in nature. The Chantry easily stripped them of independence because they were weak. If they want to preserve their sovereignity, it's in their interest to keep mages as allies.  Could they betray them? Sure, it's always a possibility. But they would be putting themselves in th Chantry's mercy again, and they have little reason to trust it.

[quote]
I just don't see an Anti-Meredith popular movement ballooning into international Anti-Chantry sentiment, unless the Divine is substantially less intelligent and manipulative than she has already shown herself to be. I just don't see it as the slam dunk you suggest.
[/quote]

She is an idiot and she is incompetent and that was very much shown.
If she wanted to remove Meredith, she would have when her incompetence was made obvious. She didn't. Instead she was contemplating an Exalted March.

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 09 juin 2011 - 04:28 .

[beckaliz]

@Tealsie That's so sweet! Oh there's nothing better than snuggling a kitty on your chest... And I can totally picture Anders like that with his kitty, camping down in the scary Deep Roads.

I'm really curious to see how things will turn out in DA3 based on choices from the first two games. In DAO I played elf mage Reyonii Surana, and I went through Awakenings with her and she gained Anders's friendship there. So, she was good buddies with him. But... I'm wondering how that will affect things later, if she meets Correm Hawke and learns that he killed her buddy Anders. So I suppose I just wonder how they will play things out in DA3 based on if your Warden survived the blight and you played Awakenings AND you took Anders with you.

That's a whole lot of ifs, though, isn't it... Hmm. I hope BW can successfully juggle all the variables. :\\

[Evilnor]

Yeah, there gets a point where there's too many variables kicking around, and the developers have to start deciding what to cut and what to keep. So far, I've been impressed with everything that BW has been able to keep track of between DAO and DA2, but there could always be more.

Also, Carver inspired much stronger feelings in me than Fenris did, and he was only around for 1 act. He's interesting, but not particularly compelling to me. Not like Anders is, anyway.

[Aggie Punbot]

Ryzaki wrote...

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Ah, I see the Fenris / Anders rivalry translated to RL.

Still can't top the Anders/Loghain debates.  (only thing I've seen more filled with nerd rage was Near vs Light debates) 

Do you mean the Alistair/Loghain debates?

[Ryzaki]

TS2Aggie wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Ah, I see the Fenris / Anders rivalry translated to RL.

Still can't top the Anders/Loghain debates.  (only thing I've seen more filled with nerd rage was Near vs Light debates) 

Do you mean the Alistair/Loghain debates?

 

Bah. Leave me and my typos alone. *fixes* 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 09 juin 2011 - 04:39 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

Ryzaki wrote...
Bah. Leave me and my typos alone. *fixes* 

I find your typos endearing.

[Ryzaki]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...
Bah. Leave me and my typos alone. *fixes* 

I find your typos endearing.

 

Aw. Thanks KoP.