DreamerM wrote...
I think the way it was done, with Anders setting off the blast remotely and never having to look his victims in the face, is vaguely cowardly. He can go on now about how sorry he is, but he wasn't really in there, so he'll never have to remember his own carnage firsthand. It makes it easier for him to keep justifying it to himself, and make it easer for Hawke to forgive him.
And I think he set off the blast that way just because it was easier to stage then an elaborate destruction, and also kept all the characters in one convinient location.
And I don't buy that a mage should need explosives to destroy a building. Especially a mage who is technically an Abomination, which should mean he's basically got the magical equivalent of a nucelar power plant inside of him. Like I said, I waited the ENTIRE GAME for an incident like the one in Jennifer Halper's story, where Vengance could flatten a whole group of heavily armed Gray Wardens and Templars just by thinking about it. That would establish Vengence as a real threat that everyone, even Anders, can be afraid of without sounding "whiney."
Plus it makes Justice look like some short of spirtual bully for demanding Anders fix the world without actually giving him any tools to make it happen. Speaking of which, except for a one-sentance convo in the fade, you never get a chance to actually TALK to Justice himself, and I thought that was a missed oppertunity too.
Justice/Vengeance isn't
intended to be an obvious threat, or even neccessarily a threat at all. Part of the game's core principles is the ambiguity between good and evil. Just like the devs didn't want to be too clear on whether the templars or the mages had the moral high ground here (I still think there are more reasons for one over the other, but that's just a case of mileage varying).
Justice, however, tends to get demonized by quite a few people. And there
are legitimate bases for concern. It seems he was the one who approached Anders (judging by the short story), which puts his possession in a suspect light. He's definitely a source of constant stress for Anders, too. But let's look at the good he's done: before possessing Anders, Anders was largely selfish and self-serving. What's the first thing we see him doing in DA2, though? Helping the sick. Do you see DAA!Anders hosting a free clinic for refugees and the downtrodden? Similarly, he's heavily involved in the liberation of oppressed mages. DAA!Anders made it clear he watched his own skin first and foremost, and risking it for others was
not something that held much appeal to him.
Thus, it seems being possessed by Justice also made Anders a bit more altruistic. As a staunch mage supporter, I also believe Justice gave Anders the strength and power to fight an oppressive regime. Or rather, Anders had the power in the past, but not the sense of responsibility. To put it in Spiderman terms, Justice became the Uncle Ben voice of guidance. Did he take it too far? Well, that's the crux of the game, isn't it?
As for the explosion, I always assumed it was some mixture of magically augmented gunpowder, basically. The Qunari plots threw their blackpowder in our faces. Then you have the Engima of Kirkwall saying the whole city was designed as some kind of rune or another, possibly to amplify power. I assumed Anders utilized both these concepts to construct his jenga device.
And I believe there's a reason to keep Justice out of it. Saying "a demon made him do it" would be the easy way out. I think the devs wanted to make it clear that this was
Anders acting. He may have been influenced by Justice, but at the end of the day, he was the one pulling the trigger, so to speak.
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