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[Chernaya]

hobbit_of_the_shire wrote...

While I am appauled at what Anders did at the end of the game, I still feel pity for him and sort of understand him. Without his hatred being twisted into an ugly thing, his original goal to free all mages is IMO an honourable one. On the flip side, I don't know if I can EVER play a Templar or fully side with them. The whole concept of them, along with its heavily Chantry-influenced actions, is a total turn-off for me. I'm sure personal biases play into my thinking (not religious and anti-military). To basically go mage-hunting just because he/she is a mage totally does not jive with me. I need reasons. Did the mage commit a crime? Or is it just an order from a senior officer, or simply done in the name of the Maker?

I don't think I could ever side with the templars, either, although I'm curious to want to try it... I see mages as the oppressed and templars as the oppressors in the big picture - of course there are tons of exceptions with bad mages and honorable templars, but the main idea of which group is the underdog is pretty clear.  I usually end up wanting to help  the mages, because when I put myself in their shoes I wouldn't want to be locked up my entire life either because of something I was born with and have no control over. On the flip side, a lot of Templars are just doing their job and trying to make a living...not all though.

I wasn't surprised at what Anders did in the ending at all, most likely because of all the hints that he throws at you beforehand. And the fact that the spirit inside of him was starting to get stronger and more uncontrollable.  I'm not saying I was overjoyed at it, but I already have ill feelings towards the Chantry and their message. It was more the fact there were innocent people inside. Then again, Hawke and pretty much every main character in the game is a murderer. I know that he did what he did because of vengeance, and that he fought it, but ultimately lost that battle. It makes me feel so bad for him... :/ I couldn't hate him for it at all. How his character is so deep and emotional and tortured is probably one of the reasons I got so attached to him, actually. I mean I liked Awakening Anders already, but so much depth was added in the short amount of time from that until 2. It was a bittersweet thing, because I miss his sillyness a lot, too. haha.

Modifié par EionaCousland, 30 septembre 2011 - 03:14 .

[LobselVith8]

phaonica wrote...

What details are you referring to, specifically

I meant how Anders and Justice are so intertwined that they seem to share each others' thoughts and feelings, while Wynne doesn't seem to have the same issue with the Spirit of Faith who she is bonded with. Even though the two have a symbiosis with their respective Spirits, it seems as though the nature of their merger is radically different.

[Chernaya]

I think the spirits might have different goals... the spirit of faith wanted to simply aid and keep Wynne alive, while Justice wanted to fuel Ander's motivations towards the freedom of the mages. I think the emotional bond Anders and Justice shared is probably what helped merge them into almost one being. I don't know the real anwser though, if there is one. Just a thought.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

eyeofhorus87 wrote...

Naqey wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

That's another problem, though... the conflict ends up couched as one of religion vs. no religion, which it isn't. Nobody ever even seems to consider the possibility of a new form of Andrasteism that retains all the positive qualities while removing the hatred, bigotry, and apartheid. It's all either "well, religion is good so we have to put up with the bad things" or "religion is bad, rawrrawrrawr." Nobody seems to think you can have your cake and eat it too, but you totally can. I've eaten that cake, and I still have it. Anders mentions it early on, but he seems to lose hope as he fails to encounter anyone who is both devoutand open-minded.

CGG, I couldn't possibly agree more! Even though I generally like the DA forums here, I cannot help but be *amazed* again and again how people will frame the mage - templar conflict exactly along the lines that you have set out. How often have I had to read something like "the chantry must go because the Maker religion in its entirety is evil". But that's just not the problem at all... it should become obvious in the fact that Anders himself keeps referring to the Maker even when he argues why mages should be free (Mages' gifts are granted by the Maker). The greater part of his manifesto actually argues why the Maker would not want this injustice to go on. He obviously doesn't think of the Makers as the problem, but of the present form of the Andrastian religion.

I have spent far too long trying to type my thoughs in a coherent manner!  I guess, I agree and disagree with what you both are saying. 

To disagree: I don't think it is possible to 'have your cake and eat it' in the DA2 universe. It's great that both of you think in today's world you can have your cake and eat it when it comes to religion (which is definitely something we should strive for, I'm not someone who would ever presume to tell someone what to believe) but end of the day we still haven't lost our grip on the bad side of religion in today's world.  Thedas is no where near doing that, and I would say no one in Thedas believing in the Maker is in that situation.

I will quote the thing I always quote: 

"That... is what heroes are for." 

Thedas is a world where a single powerful personality can accomplish amazing things. Someone like Hawke or the Warden, if they began to advocate for some kind of a reformation, might be able to start a real movement. And there is some precedent for people thinking that way: Wynne, Alistair, and Anders all seem to have thoughts like that, though none of them are especially devout. We've already got a king, that was enough for England to start a whole new church that seems to have done all right for itself.

And change could be achieved either ethically (by strongly advocating a new way of thinking, Martin Luther style) or underhandedly (by framing the current Divine for using blood magic to assassinate her predecessor, and installing a divine of your choosing in her place.) My justification for the latter is that if the Maker lets me get away with it, it was obviously part of his plan from the start, right?

Yes, we haven't gotten away from the bad things associated with religion in the modern world, but that doesn't mean that no individual religion has managed to get away from the bad things. Quite a few have... there are a number of specific sects of various religions that discriminate against no one and advocate for bigotry against no one... and some of these institutions are centuries-old churches, in weathered wood-and-stone buildings built in the 1700s. Some of those old colonial churches are perfoming legal gay weddings TODAY (well probably not today, because today was a weekday, and most weddings are on the weekends, but you get my point.) Just because not every religion has doesn't mean that no religion can, is what I'm essentially saying.

[ForgeDark]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

eyeofhorus87 wrote...

Naqey wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

That's another problem, though... the conflict ends up couched as one of religion vs. no religion, which it isn't. Nobody ever even seems to consider the possibility of a new form of Andrasteism that retains all the positive qualities while removing the hatred, bigotry, and apartheid. It's all either "well, religion is good so we have to put up with the bad things" or "religion is bad, rawrrawrrawr." Nobody seems to think you can have your cake and eat it too, but you totally can. I've eaten that cake, and I still have it. Anders mentions it early on, but he seems to lose hope as he fails to encounter anyone who is both devoutand open-minded.

CGG, I couldn't possibly agree more! Even though I generally like the DA forums here, I cannot help but be *amazed* again and again how people will frame the mage - templar conflict exactly along the lines that you have set out. How often have I had to read something like "the chantry must go because the Maker religion in its entirety is evil". But that's just not the problem at all... it should become obvious in the fact that Anders himself keeps referring to the Maker even when he argues why mages should be free (Mages' gifts are granted by the Maker). The greater part of his manifesto actually argues why the Maker would not want this injustice to go on. He obviously doesn't think of the Makers as the problem, but of the present form of the Andrastian religion.

I have spent far too long trying to type my thoughs in a coherent manner!  I guess, I agree and disagree with what you both are saying. 

To disagree: I don't think it is possible to 'have your cake and eat it' in the DA2 universe. It's great that both of you think in today's world you can have your cake and eat it when it comes to religion (which is definitely something we should strive for, I'm not someone who would ever presume to tell someone what to believe) but end of the day we still haven't lost our grip on the bad side of religion in today's world.  Thedas is no where near doing that, and I would say no one in Thedas believing in the Maker is in that situation.

I will quote the thing I always quote: 

"That... is what heroes are for." 

Thedas is a world where a single powerful personality can accomplish amazing things. Someone like Hawke or the Warden, if they began to advocate for some kind of a reformation, might be able to start a real movement. And there is some precedent for people thinking that way: Wynne, Alistair, and Anders all seem to have thoughts like that, though none of them are especially devout. We've already got a king, that was enough for England to start a whole new church that seems to have done all right for itself.

And change could be achieved either ethically (by strongly advocating a new way of thinking, Martin Luther style) or underhandedly (by framing the current Divine for using blood magic to assassinate her predecessor, and installing a divine of your choosing in her place.) My justification for the latter is that if the Maker lets me get away with it, it was obviously part of his plan from the start, right?

Yes, we haven't gotten away from the bad things associated with religion in the modern world, but that doesn't mean that no individual religion has managed to get away from the bad things. Quite a few have... there are a number of specific sects of various religions that discriminate against no one and advocate for bigotry against no one... and some of these institutions are centuries-old churches, in weathered wood-and-stone buildings built in the 1700s. Some of those old colonial churches are perfoming legal gay weddings TODAY (well probably not today, because today was a weekday, and most weddings are on the weekends, but you get my point.) Just because not every religion has doesn't mean that no religion can, is what I'm essentially saying.

Well, yes the Church of England is fairly harmless, but after it was originally set up by Henry 8th, Queen Mary came along reverted back to Catholicism and then burnt a load of people at the stake. Today, (not a consequence of Queen Mary) it is illegal for a Catholic to become Queen/King of Britain. Who knows what would happen if someone of a non-Christian faith wanted to marry into the royal line...

Well, I don't to write an essay on my issues with the CoE, so I'll stop with just pointing out how many divisions have been caused in that church because they will allow (celibate) gay bishops. And let's not forget the very important 'celibate' part of that. So even today, the CoE is not free of discrimination and that was set up about 400-500 years ago. I say it would be better for Thedas not to have to go through 400-500 years of struggle just to get to a place where the Chantry is 'kind of' not bad. It would be 'better' if  everyone stopped believing in the Maker altogether, thus destroying the Chantry. Of course, that isn't possible, so it's not an option but if it it were I would say it would be amazing. The reason that I wouldnt' want it to be possible, is because I would never force beliefs upon somebody. I'm just saying, if it disappeared over night magically, I think everyone would be better off  Maybe. Then again, something else would probably take its place because I'm definitely not someone who thinks religion causes all of the ills in the world  Like I said, people are suspicious of mages in Thedas without the Chantry telling them to be, so I'm sure they could find some other justification to lock them in a prison

(As an aside: In the UK it is illegal to perform a gay marriage in a church, even if the church wants to perform one. But hell, most countries in the world don't allow it at all... Thankfully I'm privileged enough to live in one of the very few countries that allows 'civil partnerships'. Most people aren't.)

Modifié par eyeofhorus87, 30 septembre 2011 - 06:45 .

[Naqey]

Nilfalasiel wrote...

Edit: The best comparison I can come up with is removing Valen's demonic taint in NWN. Of course, it didn't have a personality of its own, but 1) it did affect him, made him moody and irascible, ie. affected his personality, and 2) it did actually compel him to want to fight devils, much as Justice compels Anders to defend mages. So you could argue that it was part of who he was. And yet, he clearly suffered because of it, even if, as far as he knew, there was no way to get rid of it. So when my protagonist got the possibility of removing his taint, she went for it, because she felt he'd be happier without it. Even if it essentially removed what made him a tiefling (ie. part of his identity) and only left a human with horns and a tail.

I guess what I'm trying to say that, in both Valen's and Anders' case, I feel that the procedure would be better for them, even if it's a lot more unequivocal in Valen's case. Take the bad with the good, yes, but if there's a possibility to remove the bad without irreparable damage, then why not? Again, bad is not only bad for Anders, here, but bad for Justice as well.

And that's just the thing, Justice does have a personality. You can't compare him to Valen's taint (thank you for making me think of Valen - I LOVED that guy, one of my favourite bioware romances). Valen's taint was just that: a taint. It had only negative effects on him, and it was to be identified quite easily what is Valen and what is the taint. That's not true for Anders/Justice. Justice is a person in his own right. I don't think he just brought some easily predictable additions to Anders' personality (like Valen's taint did), but has effected a profound change that created a whole new person. Justice isn't simply all the things that we do not like about Anders/Justice, like that urge to kill templars, that unrelenting fierceness. I think that we can also find him in Anders/Justice' compassion, his devotion, his selflessness.

Of course, we do not know the exact nature of the merger. There are enough instances where we could argue that Anders and Justice are still separate persons ( I have done so myself just a few pages earlier), but at the end of the day my Hawke would be scared that if he separated Anders and Justice, he would be left with a stranger. Which doesn't mean he couldn't fall in love with new(old?) Anders, but it would be like... falling in love with somebody else...

eyeofhorus87 wrote...
To disagree: I don't think it is possible to 'have your cake and eat it' in the DA2 universe. It's great that both of you think in today's world you can have your cake and eat it when it comes to religion (which is definitely something we should strive for, I'm not someone who would ever presume to tell someone what to believe) but end of the day we still haven't lost our grip on the bad side of religion in today's world.  Thedas is no where near doing that, and I would say no one in Thedas believing in the Maker is in that situation. If you follow a religion that is doing terrible things, whether you are aware of that or not, you are not following a religion without the hatred. In fact, it is exactly that that is the problem with the Chantry. The masses follow it thinking it does good, and by that complete blind faith they allow that religion to do terrible things. If the Chantry says it is morally good to lock up a mage, it is good to lock up a mage. Some of the mages even think that they shoudl be kept in the Circle. Are those mages following a religion that is good? They certainly believe so, and by thinking that they are allowing themselves to be oppressed. Without any belief in the Maker, people would have to decide their own morales, instead of falling back on this divine authority. 

To agree: On the other hand, If I thought stopping people believing in the Maker would solve the problems in Thedas, I'd say yes, destroy the Chantry. Things aren't that simplistic though, people are not just suspicious of mages because the Chantry tells them to be. The Chantry just takes advantage of that.

You make it sound like the Andrastian religion is a brainwashing system. I deeply dislike the notion of "brainwashing". Because it always implies that if you just do away with it, everything will be back to normal (and thus fine). But really, I prefer the term "frame": it is a way of framing people's perception of reality. What would happen if you do away with Andrastian religion? People would not fall back on some kind of vacuum where they suddenly would have to decide their own morales, I disagree with you at that point. Instead, some other frame would emerge. And the non-religiousness of that new frame would not automatically grant that it's better in anyway. The most inhuman systems our world has seen in the last century where purely laical.

But you say yourself that simply doing away with the Chantry doesn't solve Thedas' problems. I think a new frame is needed. And here I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the "religion as one integral monolithic unit" concept of religion which seems to be underlying much of the discussion. Granted, much of the Chantry centred around that one framing "mages have made the Maker turn away from his children, they are dangerous and need to be locked away to save them from themselves". And in its current form, most of its institutions are deeply intertwined with that. Which doesn't mean we couldn't replace one framing with another, more mage friendly, and yet retain core elements of the Andrastian religion. Maybe not it's institutions, that's why I can ultimately come to terms with what Anders has done and don't despise him for doing it. But other parts, like the belief in the Maker and much of its ethics.

Modifié par Naqey, 30 septembre 2011 - 08:12 .

[Naqey]

eyeofhorus87 wrote...

Well, I don't to write an essay on my issues with the CoE, so I'll stop with just pointing out how many divisions have been caused in that church because they will allow (celibate) gay bishops. And let's not forget the very important 'celibatie' part of that. So even today, the CoE is not free of discrimination and that was set up about 400-500 years ago. I say it would be better for Thedas not to have to go through 400-500 years of struggle just to get to a place where the Chantry is 'kind of' not bad. It would be 'better' if  everyone stopped believing in the Maker altogether, thus destroying the Chantry. Of course, that isn't possible, so it's not an option but if it it were I would say it would be amazing. The reason that I wouldnt' want it to be possible, is because I would never force beliefs upon somebody. I'm just saying, if it disappeared over night magically, I think everyone would be better off  Maybe. Then again, something else would probably take its place because I'm definitely not someone who thinks religion causes all of the ills in the world  Like I said, people are suspicious of mages in Thedas without the Chantry telling them to be, so I'm sure they could find some other justification to lock them in a prison

Haha, you preceded me just by *seconds*! But you see the problem yourself... something else would indeed take its place. That's why "if everyone stoppled believing in the Maker altogether" won't solve anything. Like I argued, religion is not a monolithic entity. Believe in the Maker is one part of it, but people always like to see this specific part as a synecdoche - as if everything else was unchangably tied up to this. But the whole rest can even exist without this one part.

Modifié par Naqey, 30 septembre 2011 - 08:14 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

You've also got to bear in mind that, in Thedas, there's a very real possibility that the Maker actually exists. I mean something's goin' on up there, and sure as hell ain't Elgar'nan anymore.

That's actually the conclusion my Mahariel came to, though don't think she didn't fight every step of the way. The Dalish stories are beautiful (I wish I knew who wrote them), and the myth of Dirthamen actually made me cry the first time I read it (though I'm not sure if that was because it reminded me of some extant myth half-remembered from my childhood). The Elven gods sound pretty great, and if I could I'd just go and get them back again. But even Mahariel knows fetching back the old gods is likely beyond the purview of even the greatest of heroes, so she had to accept that her gods were gone, at least for now, and something else was in their place. Part of the reason she took option: god baby was that she was curious as to what a new god of any sort would do. It was unlikely to be significantly worse than what was happening now, at any rate.

When I made my little quip about the king, I wasn't trying to set forth the CofE as an unassailable moral paragon, rather I was trying to use it as an example of the effectiveness a sovereign monarch can have on establishing a new religion. Imagine if a King somewhere declared Unitarianism their national religion. Well, coffee sales would go up exponentially (that's a Unitarian joke, folks), but that's pretty much the most pleasant, helpful, and inclusive religion out there. I know a Unitarian minister who is also a Buddhist monk, at the same time. It's pretty chill, overall.

And there's an argument for religion that Sebastian and Merrill have in game: Seb points out that the Chantry is the major charitable organization in Thedas. Now, Merrill of course rebuts that in her egalitarian tribal society, the tribe supports its weaker members itself, but outside of a loose tribal structure, that kind of universal support of underprivileged group members doesn't tend to happen. And you can't just blame humans for being stupid and not as good as elves (though I'd love to do just that), it's part of the whole thing with cities and not really knowing who your neighbor is and the inherent inequal distribution of wealth brought on by a more advanced society. I'm not 100% with KoP in believing that it's impossible for a developed nation to learn from the example of mutualism set by a looser tribal one, but the likelihood of such a system springing up from nothing to replace an existing structure that is torn down seems quite unlikely.

Which is why replacing an aggressive and authoritarian, politically involved church with something subtler and gentler that retains the positive qualities while excising the negative ones is appealing. I don't think we'll ever actually GET that option, though, because the "best" option is never available in this kind of game... otherwise everyone would just take that one.

[Arquen]

Funny.. there were no topics, and now there are two topics going on almost simultaneously, LOL.

Reading the past few posts I am reminded of a quote:

"But maybe something more wonderful will take place: the world will truly move forward, past all gods and goddess, past all devils and angels. And in such a world...all the stories I have told you are finally as useless as an ancient knowledge is to man and to us. Its images and its poetry can be beautiful; it can make us shiver with the recoginition of things we have always suspected or felt. It can draw us back to times when the earth was new to man, and wondrous. But always we come back to the way the earth is now." -- Marius, Anne Rice

About the religious thing. It really doesn't have to be religion or no religion. I agree there. The problem is that the chantry and the Templars are beyond reform. As is Thedas' way the new "frame" (as Naqey said) seems to only come out of turmoil, war, and drastic action. That is how Tevinter came to be, Qunari came to be, Ferelden came to be, Orlais, the Chantry and the Andrastian faith. So while it is a nice theory about "having your cake and eating it too," the problem lies in the way this has to be achieved.

One of my favorite things Anders says is that "[Andraste] removed the tyranny of magic and replaced it with a new one." In essence that is what happens all the time in Thedas. One thing replaces another, and inevitably (although I think Andraste had good intentions) corruption and need for power seeps into the system and we have people like Meredith and Elthina and the Divine cropping up trying to support a system of propaganda and lies. The Chantry and the Templars all support this inherent fear of mages. Regardless of that the fear is always there because of the history of mages and what they are capable of. So when Anders blows the Chantry and starts the "reform" process, that inherent fear isn't just going to disappear.

It will be a long road, and in the end I agree with Naqey -- that a new frame will exist to fill the vacuum of the Chantry. At this point it really doesn't have anything to do with gods, religion, or spirituality (most churches really don't when you think about it), but more about keeping the "faith" locked into people. Since a lot of that faith comes with the inherent fear of mages, I don't see it turning out as a compromise situation. There really is no compromise. Anders says so himself. That leaves war, rebellion, and a new framework that we can only "hope" is going to be better than the circles and tyranny we have now.

Modifié par Arquen, 30 septembre 2011 - 10:33 .

[Nilfalasiel]

Naqey wrote...

And that's just the thing, Justice does have a personality. You can't compare him to Valen's taint (thank you for making me think of Valen - I LOVED that guy, one of my favourite bioware romances). Valen's taint was just that: a taint. It had only negative effects on him, and it was to be identified quite easily what is Valen and what is the taint.

Yes, I'm aware of that distinction, it's simply the closest comparison I could think of, as I said. Also, yes, Valen rocks

That's not true for Anders/Justice. Justice is a person in his own right. I don't think he just brought some easily predictable additions to Anders' personality (like Valen's taint did), but has effected a profound change that created a whole new person. Justice isn't simply all the things that we do not like about Anders/Justice, like that urge to kill templars, that unrelenting fierceness. I think that we can also find him in Anders/Justice' compassion, his devotion, his selflessness.

I disagree with you there. Justice is a spirit. Spirits are extremely single-minded beings. Even accounting for his shifts towards more "human" feelings in Awakening, Justice was still single-minded. As Vengeance, he's perhaps even more single-minded, and I don't think he has anything to do with Anders' compassion. Anders says it himself "Justice is righteous, Justice is hard". There's no room for compassion or caring there. Meaning that the compassion and caring are coming from Anders himself. He also already had those qualities pre-merger (even though, again, that's something a Warden would know...but if Hawke and the Warden were ever to meet, this is also something a Warden could reassure Hawke about). But if Hawke has any notions of what spirts or demons are, she/he would also be aware of the fact that they are primarily governed by one emotion and one drive.

For all his humanisation in Awakening, Justice isn't human, and becoming Vengeance wasn't beneficial for him at all, since it radicalised an already pretty rigid stance.

Of course, we do not know the exact nature of the merger. There are enough instances where we could argue that Anders and Justice are still separate persons ( I have done so myself just a few pages earlier), but at the end of the day my Hawke would be scared that if he separated Anders and Justice, he would be left with a stranger. Which doesn't mean he couldn't fall in love with new(old?) Anders, but it would be like... falling in love with somebody else...

But what if, as I said, separating them is beneficial for them both? Bringing Justice back to being Justice as he was in Awakening definitely sounds like it would be better for him too. Surely, if you love someone, you want what's best for them? If push comes to shove, I think that, if she had such fears (which I don't think she does), my Andersmancing Hawke would put them aside, if she felt she could benefit Anders and Justice by splitting them. If Anders changed too much afterwards...well, too bad for her. At least, it would be healthier for him.

I think that, if assured that there was a way of safely effecting a split, even a friended Anders could agree to it: I think part of the acceptance is because he doesn't know of a solution and neither does Hawke, and it is the path of less resistance against something that, for all they know, is inevitable. But the only beneficial effect the merger has had is forcing action in the mage/templar situation, and even that was done in a less-than-ideal way. Other than that, neither Anders, nor Justice themselves have derived any personal benefit from it.

[LobselVith8]

EionaCousland wrote...

I think the spirits might have different goals... the spirit of faith wanted to simply aid and keep Wynne alive, while Justice wanted to fuel Ander's motivations towards the freedom of the mages. I think the emotional bond Anders and Justice shared is probably what helped merge them into almost one being. I don't know the real anwser though, if there is one. Just a thought.

That's a strong possibility. It would explain the differences between Anders in Kirkwall and Wynne after Uldred's rebellion if it's an issue of the Spirit's motivation. Justice was certainly pro-active when The Warden originally encountered him in the Fade.

[ForgeDark]

Naqey wrote...

You make it sound like the Andrastian religion is a brainwashing system.I deeply dislike the notion of "brainwashing". Because italways implies that if you just do away with it, everything will beback to normal (and thus fine). But really, I prefer the term"frame": it is a way of framing people's perception of reality. What would happen if you do away with Andrastianreligion? People would not fall back on some kind of vacuum where they suddenly would have to decide their own morales,I disagree with you at that point. Instead, some other frame would emerge. And the non-religiousness of that new frame would not automatically grant that it's better in anyway. The most inhuman systems our world has seen in the last century where purely laical. 

But you say yourself that simply doing away with the Chantry doesn't solve Thedas' problems. I think a new frame is
needed. And here I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the "religion as one integral monolithic unit" concept of religion which seems to be underlying much of the discussion. Granted, much of the Chantry centred around that one framing "mages have made the Maker turn away from his children, they are dangerous and need to be locked away to save them from themselves". And in its current form, most of its institutions are deeply intertwined with that. Which doesn't mean we couldn't replace one framing with another, more mage friendly, and yet retain core elements of the Andrastian religion. Maybe not it's institutions, that's why I can ultimately come to terms with what Anders has done and don't despise him for doing it. But other parts, like the belief in the Maker and much of its ethics. 

When I said that people would have to decide their own morales – I wasn't suggesting that it would always be good morales. Just that you could no longer justify bad actions by saying some divine authority told you to do it. Making a mage tranquil – justified because of the Chantry. Mages probably would be made tranquil without the Chantry, but I think far more people would be uncomfortable about it than when they think the divine being told them to.


Plus I don't see what belief in the Maker is bringing to the party other than justifying good people to do bad things. You can have ethics without the Maker. Why bother reframing it, just get rid of the whole thing altogether

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...


You've also got to bear in mind that, in Thedas, there's a very real possibility that the Maker actually exists. I mean something's goin' on up there, and sure as hell ain't Elgar'nan anymore. That's actually the conclusion my Mahariel came to, though don't think she didn't fight every step of the way. The Dalish stories are beautiful (I wish I knew who wrote them), and the myth of Dirthamen actually made me cry the first time I read it (though I'm not sure if that was because it reminded me of some extant myth half-remembered from my childhood). The Elven gods sound pretty great, and if I could I'd just go and get them back again. But even Mahariel knows fetching back the old gods is likely beyond the purview of even the greatest of heroes, so she had to accept that her gods were gone, at least for now, and something else was in their place. Part of the reason she took option: god baby was that she was curious as to what a new god of any sort would do. It was unlikely to be significantly worse than what was happening now, at any rate.  
....

And there's an argument for religion that Sebastian and Merrill have in game: Seb points out that the Chantry is the major charitable organization in Thedas. Now, Merrill of course rebuts that in her egalitarian tribal society, the tribe supports its weaker members itself, but outside of a loose tribal structure, that kind of universal support of underprivileged group members doesn't tend to happen. And you can't just blame humans for being stupid and not as good as elves (though I'd love to do just that), it's part of the whole thing with cities and not really knowing who your neighbor is and the inherent inequal distribution of wealth brought on by a more advanced society. I'm not 100% with KoP in believing that it's impossible for a developed nation to learn from the example of mutualism set by a looser tribal one, but the likelihood of such a system springing up from nothing to replace an existing structure that is torn down seems quite unlikely. 

Which is why replacing an aggressive and authoritarian, politically involved church with something subtler and gentler that retains the positive qualities while excising the negative ones is appealing. I don't think we'll ever actually GET
that option, though, because the "best" option is never available in this kind of game... otherwise everyone would just take that one.

I actually think the existence or non existence of the Maker is totally irrelevant. Something can exist without people revering it. I may be wrong here since I haven't looked too much in the lore – but hasn't the Maker abandoned his children anyway? So what's the point in reverence or any kind of religious system if he doesn't give a damn? You may as well forget him altogether. From a scientific perspective, it would be nice to see if there is any evidence for the Maker but that doesn't mean you have to do anything about that information. Just because something created you doesn't mean you have to do a damn thing it says 

Also, sure religion can be used to help the poorer in society but the Chantry has shown itself to be incapable of that role, it discriminates against a whole group of people and helping the poor is what is allowing them to do the bad. The support of the people is important, and so without helping the poor I really don't think the Chantry would be in the position it currently is in. People should be revolting against their leaders instead of looking to the Chantry to help, I think it is the responsibility of the STATE not a religion to help people. The sooner a revolution happens in Thedas the better.

Arquen wrote...

It will be a long road, and in the end I agree with Naqey -- that a new frame will exist to fill the vacuum of the Chantry. At this point it really doesn't have anything to do with gods, religion, or spirituality (most churches really don't when you think about it), but more about keeping the "faith" locked into people. Since a lot of that faith comes with the inherent fear of mages, I don't see it turning out as a compromise situation. There really is no compromise. Anders says so himself. That leaves war, rebellion, and a new framework that we can only "hope" is going to be better than the circles and tyranny we have now. 

I think that's true, I honestly wouldn't mind if a 'good' version of the Chantry filled that hole, only that I think a frame without religion would be just as good as one with it.

Modifié par eyeofhorus87, 30 septembre 2011 - 07:56 .

[Naqey]

Arquen wrote...

Funny.. there were no topics, and now there are two topics going on almost simultaneously, LOL

Yeah, funny, isn't it ? It's like the challenge of "there is no topic" suddenly got people going! 

Arquen wrote...

Reading the past few posts I am reminded of a quote:

"But maybe something more wonderful will take place: the world will truly move forward, past all gods and goddess, past all devils and angels. And in such a world...all the stories I have told you are finally as useless asnan ancient knowledge is to man and to us. Its images and its poetry can be beautiful; it can make us shiver with the recoginition of things we have always suspected or felt. It can draw us back to times when the earth was new to man, and wondrous. But always we come back to the way the earth is now." -- Marius, Anne Rice

That is breath-takingly beautiful! I love it, even though I've never read the vampire books by Ms Rice. It's exactely the literary aesthetics I mentioned earlier  Let me add a quote of my own, which is the background to my participation in the discussion; it's taken from Lewis Grassic Gibbon's "A Scots Quair", a great Scottish classic:
 
"And she thought then, looking on the shadowed Howe with its stratus mists and its pillars of spume, driving west by the Leachie bents, that men had followed these pillars of cloud like lost men lost in the high, dreich hills, they followed and fought and toiled in the wake of each whirling pillar that rose from the heights, clouds by day to darken men's minds - loyalty and fealty, patriotism, love, the mumbling chants of the dead old gods tha once were worshipped in the circles of stones, christianity, socialism, nationalism - all - Clouds that swept through the Howe of the world, with men that took them for gods: just clouds, they passed and finished, dissolved and were done, nothing endured but the Seeker himself, him and the everlasting Hills." 

eyeofhorus87 wrote...

When I said that people would have to decide their own morales – I wasn't suggesting that it would always be good morales. Just that you could no longer justify bad actions by saying some divine authority told you to do it. Making a mage tranquil – justified because of the Chantry. Mages probably would be made tranquil without the Chantry, but I think far more people would be uncomfortable about it than when they think the divine being told them to.

Plus Idon't see what belief in the Maker is bringing to the party other than justifying good people to do bad things. You can have ethics without the Maker. Why bother reframing it, just get rid of the whole thing altogether

Sure, you can have ethics without the Maker, too, but I would argue that it is more difficult. Of course you are quite right in saying that once the Chantry was gone, then nobody would have the excuse of some divine authority to enslave mages. But the reverse logic also says that once you have no Chantry to keep mages in check, then they will be bound by nothing. Men's hubris is something strong and terrifying, especially when all he acknowledges is himself. In the world of Dragon Age, human hubris can have more terrifying effects even, since there is a whole class of men who by their very nature are terrifyingly powerful. In all likelihood, the story of the magisters' original sin is true - Corypheus is proof of that. Even Anders seemingly didn't want to to believe just how far human hubris can go - he denied that the original sin ever happened - and he seems really taken aback after his encounter with Corypheus.

eyeofhorus87 wrote...

Also, sure religion can be used to help the poorer in society but the Chantry has shown itself to be incapable of that role, it discriminates against a whole group of people and helping the poor is what is allowing them to do the bad. The support of the people is important, and so without helping the poor I really don't think the Chantry would be in the position it currently is in. People should be revolting against their leaders instead of looking to the Chantry to help, I think it is the responsibility of the STATE not a religion to help people. The sooner a revolution happens in Thedas the better.

Really?  Has the Chantry really shown itself to be incapable of that role? I would strongly argue against that. What have we seen of the Chantry in Dragon Age? By the very nature of our protagonists - they are always strong and self-reliant, and never count amongst the weakest of society - we have always seen more of the bad sides of the Chantry; all our protagonists are either mages themselves or have a lot of dealings with mages. But that's because they are special. That's not the ordinary Thedas' citizen's life. Our protagonists are no poor, no orphans, no widows, no cripples, no sick, no... whatnot! Just speak to the sisters in the Chantry. I would argue that caring for this people is the *most prominent* role of the Chantry.

I generally agree that it should be the state's responsibility to care for people - I myself live in a state where all kinds of social insurances are obligatory and mainly taken care of by the state. But that presupposes a certain kind of state which is capable of doing that; such a state is a modern development. I would rather liken Thedas' state structures to medieval/early modern structures in our own world - these states where not capable of shouldering responsibilites of such a dimension! Which doesn't mean that there couldn't be some other, non-religion-bound system of social caretaking that would work for the kind of state we have in Thedas.

Arquen wrote...

It will be a long road, and in the end I agree with Naqey -- that a new frame will exist to fill the vacuum of the Chantry. At this point it really doesn't have anything to do with gods, religion, or spirituality (most churches really don't when you think about it), but more about keeping the "faith" locked into people. Since a lot of that faith comes
with the inherent fear of mages, I don't see it turning out as a compromise situation. There really is no compromise. Anders says so himself. That leaves war, rebellion, and a new framework that we can only "hope" is going to be better than the circles and tyranny we have now.

Very true... but it's not like that fear was only propaganda and had no foundation at all. I'm not a political visionary; realpolitik is something which works better with me. But still, what options do we have? If you free mages: no good. If you keep them in check to protect people from them, it will most likely end in surpession. So what's the third way? I'm increasingly in doubt whether there is a third way.

Nilfalasiel wrote...

I disagree with you there. Justice is a spirit. Spirits are extremely single-minded beings. Even accounting for his shifts towards more "human" feelings in Awakening, Justice was still single-minded. As Vengeance, he's perhaps even more single-minded, and I don't think he has anything to do with Anders' compassion. Anders says it himself "Justice is righteous, Justice is hard". There's no room for compassion or caring there. Meaning that the compassion and caring are coming from Anders himself. He also already had those qualities pre-merger (even
though, again, that's something a Warden would know...but if Hawke and the Warden were ever to meet, this is also something a Warden could reassure Hawke about). But if Hawke has any notions of what spirts or demons are, she/he would also be aware of the fact that they are primarily governed by one emotion and one drive.

Even if Justice was as one-dimensional as you suggest - which I'm not sure I can agree with - I still think that his influence of Anders' personality is greater than what you suggest. But I think we have different understandings of how personality traits work here. If you take a "personality trait" as a singular unit, self-contained and all, then yes, you are right. Justice is just a single-minded addition to Anders. My view is a little different though. Don't laugh at my comparison, it might seem a little odd, but it's the best I could come up wiht. You've surely used a watercolour paint set in your life? Well... let's say character trait one of Anders is yellow, trait two is red. Now let's add Justice, whose is blue. We won't have yellow, red and blue in the end, but green and violet. Let's stick with the compassion example. True, it was probably always there in Anders, but Awakening Anders was also very selfish, so that compassion couldn't take it's full effect. But with Justice, the very same compassion has taken a whole new dimension - that poor lad is straining himself to total exhaustion just helping all the Fereldan refugees... I don't think Awakening Anders would have that in him.

Edit: wow, and THAT is what happens if you procrastinate really hard...

Modifié par Naqey, 01 octobre 2011 - 07:53 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

For me, the Maker existing (or not existing) does matter, and it's because of a little thing I call magical theory (also known as thaumaturgy, or the etheric sciences, or a dozen other names that address taking something that is basically a sideways slanted scientific method and using it to divine the nature of the universe and the rules of the mystic arts.)

Even if The Maker exists and isn't doing... whatever it was he used to do anymore, because of the Black City, the Chantry's whole argument about what will fix it doesn't seem to hold a lot of water. I mean, it seems dumb to leave the future of your entire planet up to a coin-toss battle between the people who know about you and the crazy horned guys who think you're a load of crap. I would be in the fade a lot, askin' spirits (the Maker's first children, after all) what they thought about the whole deal. Someone in that crazy place must have at least some clues, so we can use etheric sciences to figure out why the heck the blights are happening, and how to stop 'em.

Also, if the gods have changed once (and I'm of the impression that they may have changed more than once, though I'm not sure... are the Old Gods the dark counterparts to the Elven pantheon? Or are they the gods the Pantheon itself replaced? Are they the Dwarf Gods, from back when the dwarves had gods?) they can change again. If the current god is being a dick then we can try to figure out what brought about a change of gods last time, and do it again, hopefully get ourselves a better set, or get the nice ones back again,

Honestly, if the blights are tied to the corrupted, slumbering forms of the old gods (of whom there are a limited number), then maybe the best tactic is to assemble an army of Wardens and such around an area where a sleeping old god is, and then intentionally trigger the "blight," wake the demon, kill it and bam. Technically, if the "old gods corrupted" theory is true, we only have like what... three more blights left, is it? I don't remember. Maybe we could do them all in a row, to get them out of the way.

That's the most frustrating thing about Thedas: nobody seems to be even remotely interested in actively pursuing etheric science, or developing a cohesive magical theory. They just want to use magic as canons or band-aids, rather than figuring out how all this nonsense works and why the city is so black and how the elves pulled off that immortality thing they used to do and why there are those holy ashes that seem to be able to cure anything and who's talking and what time is it?

There's a lot of stuff people guess at... the nature of mergers versus possession, the differences between spirits and demons, but I've devised some gorram experimental protocols to try to determine these things. I want to do some fade-based detective work on this stuff, but nobody else seems to care.

For one, I don't think Anders' merger went bad because it was fundamentally a terrible idea. I think it went bad because Anders approached it the wrong way, mentally, and had nobody around him capable of helping him get his head back on straight.

I think it's very possible that the world benefited from Anders' and Justice's merger, even if each of them individually suffered. I think the coming war needed to happen, and letting things get a couple of decades worse until someone crazier snapped would not have been a good plan. This was coming, and better it come wihen the Qunari and the Tevinter are still distracted by each other. But maybe not. Maybe if we'd waited a year, five years, we would have gotten a mage for our time, a brilliant speaker who would melt hearts across Thedas.

Or maybe not. Maybe if we'd waited things would have just done the same thing they did the last time we just waited for five years twiddling our thumbs: maybe things would just get slowly worse while we waited, until the sun finally went down. That's something we can never know.

Sometimes I think that our boys, Justice and Anders both, sacrificed their happiness, their freedom, perhaps their very souls for a chance few of us get: the chance to make a real, concrete difference in the world. If you were given a chance, even if it weren't guaranteed, to right one of the most profoundly horrific wrongs in the world, what would you do to get that chance?

So our boys are out there, paying anything to roll the dice just one more time. Some will win, some will lose... some are born to sing the blues. But the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on.

[Giggles_Manically]

Neither the chantry nor the Qunari actually seem interested in actual scientific growth.
Or actual research into the arcane.

The most commonly held belief is that nationalism, humanism, war, and pride drive science.
Only the last two are there in Thedas.

Hell it was not even till the last 200 years that some of the most important inventions came into being.
Thedas is in a period of time when:
A) People dont have really any need they realize right now.
Over-arching world religions dont see a need since they have an answer already.

Just look at what happened to early biologists like Darwin and others who tried telling us something as fundamental as how our bodies work, They were attacked with paranoia.

Until nations actually act like nations, that really wont change much.
The Chantry will collapse when nations decide to declare themselves a nation, and not just part of the Chantry.

It could also be that my paper in World Religions is titled: "Reformation: Faith vs. Nationalism"

[Naqey]

Looking for the "etheric theory of everything/final theory", CGG? That is true and daunting science indeed... I'm suddenly reminded of the Theosophical Society and Blavatsky. Thedas could definitely use something like that, I share your frustration for the obvious lack of interes in Thedas. I mean, Sandal is surely overrated and all, but I never seize to be amazed by his "prophecy". Somehow it gives me goosebumps. One day the magic will come back. ALL of it.

[Arquen]

And the new frame will be Sandal's prophecy, and the new god will be Morrigan's child.. lol.

Sorry, at work so can't really do wordy, but I always figured that the most important elements that will change Thedas are Flemeth and Morrigan. Our protagonists and even Anders are simply pawns in a bigger game of power. *yeahIjustblewyourmind* lol!

[Naqey]

Giggles_Manically wrote...

Neither the chantry nor the Qunari actually seem interested in actual scientific growth.
Or actual research into the arcane.

The most commonly held belief is that nationalism, humanism, war, and pride drive science.
Only the last two are there in Thedas.

Hell it was not even till the last 200 years that some of the most important inventions came into being.
Thedas is in a period of time when:
A) People dont have really any need they realize right now.
Over-arching world religions dont see a need since they have an answer already.

Just look at what happened to early biologists like Darwin and others who tried telling us something as fundamental as how our bodies work, They were attacked with paranoia.

Until nations actually act like nations, that really wont change much.
The Chantry will collapse when nations decide to declare themselves a nation, and not just part of the Chantry.

It could also be that my paper in World Religions is titled: "Reformation: Faith vs. Nationalism"

Wait... let me get this straight... so you relate the "scientific curiosity", that urge for scientific endeavour with phenomenons that are purely... "modern" (like the nation state)? That is a very Western-centric view... and since we are speaking about etheric science in particular, let me point out that the depth of insight into the etheric science had reached an amazing level of deepness in for example ancient India. Sure, war and pride were there (are they ever lacking in human societies?) but nationalism and humanism surely weren't and there was an "over-arching religion" which had all the answers already.  (Sorry, I'm an indologist, so that part of me is speaking; that's the only example I can draw on with some level of certainty) 

I don't know what exactely it is which accounts for the lack of interest in Thedas, but I don't think it is either the Chantry or a lack of nationalism...

Modifié par Naqey, 01 octobre 2011 - 10:08 .

[ForgeDark]

Naqey wrote...


Sure, you can have ethics without the Maker, too, but I would argue that it is more difficult. Of course you are quite right in saying that once the Chantry was gone, then nobody would have the excuse of some divine authority to enslave mages. But the reverse logic also says that once you have no Chantry to keep mages in check, then they will be bound by nothing. Men's hubris is something strong and terrifying, especially when all he acknowledges is himself. In the world of Dragon Age, human hubris can have more terrifying effects even, since there is a whole class of men who by their very nature are terrifyingly powerful. In all likelihood, the story of the magisters' original sin is true - Corypheus is proof of that. Even Anders seemingly didn't want to to believe just how far human hubris can go - he denied that the original sin ever happened - and he seems really taken aback after his encounter with Corypheus.

Honestly, I think it's rather sad people think you can't have ethics without a religion telling you what they should be. Then again I'm of the mind that the main reason people don't steal etc. is because they see it as wrong rather than because the state tells them it is illegal. I mean, the state tells us it is illegal to go over 70mph on the motorway and a large number of people ignore that.  I also don't understand your arguement about mages - are you saying what the Chantry does is right becase mages have such potential for harm? If not, what could it do differenty? How does basing a system around what the Maker said make any difference to a new system? Most religious texts can be interpretted in the way you want them to be, so what really is the point in looking to what the Maker/Andraste may or may not have said when looking to a new way? 

Naqey wrote...
[
Really?  Has the Chantry really shown itself to be incapable of that role? I would strongly argue against that. What have we seen of the Chantry in Dragon Age? By the very nature of our protagonists - they are always strong and self-reliant, and never count amongst the weakest of society - we have always seen more of the bad sides of the Chantry; all our protagonists are either mages themselves or have a lot of dealings with mages. But that's because they are special. That's not the ordinary Thedas' citizen's life. Our protagonists are no poor, no orphans, no widows, no cripples, no sick, no... whatnot! Just speak to the sisters in the Chantry. I would argue that caring for this people is the *most prominent* role of the Chantry.

The reason I say it is incapable is because the Chantry abuses the role it has taken. It helps the poor, and uses that to hide its crimes from others. It has proven itself to be incapable of using the power it has for good.  It is the 'good' sisters of the Chantry that allow these crimes to happen. Look at Elthina, she sits and does NOTHING. Despite her power, she does nothing. Which is fine to most of the people in Kirkwall, because what they see is this organisation that is helping the weak in society. This same organisation which tells them the Gallows is fine, because by Elthina telling Orsino to shut up she is really justifying what Meredith is doing. Sending Orsino back to the Gallows is a sign to Kirkwall that what he is saying must be untrue, an exaggeration. By doing nothing, she takes the side of Meredith. I'd say it is true that helping the poor is the Chantry's most prominent PR role. It allows the rest of what it does to remain hidden.

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Even if The Maker exists and isn't doing... whatever it was he used to do anymore, because of the Black City, the Chantry's whole argument about what will fix it doesn't seem to hold a lot of water. I mean, it seems dumb to leave the future of your entire planet up to a coin-toss battle between the people who know about you and the crazy horned guys who think you're a load of crap. I would be in the fade a lot, askin' spirits (the Maker's first children, after all) what they thought about the whole deal. Someone in that crazy place must have at least some clues, so we can use etheric sciences to figure out why the heck the blights are happening, and how to stop 'em. 

The first mistake is assuming that the spirits are the Maker's first children. By assuming that, you are biasing any answers that they would give you. You start with a null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is that the Maker does not exist. You cannot prove the Maker doesn't exist, but you can prove that he does. So sure, question the fade spirits, but don't make an assumption about what they are before you start. 

CulturalGeekGirl wrote... 

Also, if the gods have changed once (and I'm of the impression that they may have changed more than once, though I'm not sure... are the Old Gods the dark counterparts to the Elven pantheon? Or are they the gods the Pantheon itself replaced? Are they the Dwarf Gods, from back when the dwarves had gods?) they can change again. If the current god is being a dick then we can try to figure out what brought about a change of gods last time, and do it again, hopefully get ourselves a better set, or get the nice ones back again,

That sounds incredibly dangerous to me. How could anyone ever define what a 'better' set of gods would be. What function would these Gods even need to fulfill? Seems to me this kind of idea is what started the whole Golden City/Black City thing in the first place  Anyway, if you're the one that is putting a God in its place - surely that makes you more powerful than that God? 

Modifié par eyeofhorus87, 01 octobre 2011 - 10:09 .

[ForgeDark]

Naqey wrote...

Giggles_Manically wrote...

Neither the chantry nor the Qunari actually seem interested in actual scientific growth.
Or actual research into the arcane.

The most commonly held belief is that nationalism, humanism, war, and pride drive science.
Only the last two are there in Thedas.

Hell it was not even till the last 200 years that some of the most important inventions came into being.
Thedas is in a period of time when:
A) People dont have really any need they realize right now.
Over-arching world religions dont see a need since they have an answer already.

Just look at what happened to early biologists like Darwin and others who tried telling us something as fundamental as how our bodies work, They were attacked with paranoia.

Until nations actually act like nations, that really wont change much.
The Chantry will collapse when nations decide to declare themselves a nation, and not just part of the Chantry.

It could also be that my paper in World Religions is titled: "Reformation: Faith vs. Nationalism"

Wait... let me get this straight... so you relate the "scientific curiosity", that urge for scientific endeavour with phenomenons that are purely... "modern" (like the nation state)? That is a very Western-centric view... and since we are speaking about etheric science in particular, let me point out that the depth of insight into the etheric science had reached an amazing level of deepness in for example ancient India. Sure, war and pride were there (are they ever lacking in human societies?) but nationalism and humanism surely weren't and there was an "over-arching religion" which had all the answers already.  (Sorry, I'm an indologist, so that part of me is speaking; that's the only example I can draw on with some level of certainty) 

I don't know what exactely it is which accounts for the lack of interest in Thedas, but I don't think it is either the Chantry or a lack of nationalism...

Is there evidence there IS a lack of interest? I mean, the Circle Tower in ferelden certainly seems to do a lot of research - wasn't that why Sandal was there in the first place?  

Edit: And of course, that whole thing at Warden's Keep was research.

Modifié par eyeofhorus87, 01 octobre 2011 - 10:13 .

[Nilfalasiel]

Naqey wrote...

Even if Justice was as one-dimensional as you suggest - which I'm not sure I can agree with - I still think that his influence of Anders' personality is greater than what you suggest. But I think we have different understandings of how personality traits work here. If you take a "personality trait" as a singular unit, self-contained and all, then yes, you are right. Justice is just a single-minded addition to Anders. My view is a little different though. Don't laugh at my comparison, it might seem a little odd, but it's the best I could come up wiht. You've surely used a watercolour paint set in your life? Well... let's say character trait one of Anders is yellow, trait two is red. Now let's add Justice, whose is blue. We won't have yellow, red and blue in the end, but green and violet. Let's stick with the compassion example. True, it was probably always there in Anders, but Awakening Anders was also very selfish, so that compassion couldn't take it's full effect. But with Justice, the very same compassion has taken a whole new dimension - that poor lad is straining himself to total exhaustion just helping all the Fereldan refugees... I don't think Awakening Anders would have that in him.

And that's what I'm getting at: it's not healthy for him.

I wouldn't be so quick to describe Awakening Anders as "very" selfish though. It's not every person who will have the courage to throw himself into a cause like defending mages, and Anders' initial reluctance to do anything about it doesn't really strike me as selfish, but rather normal. You see people being saddened and shocked by poverty, famine, environmental concerns everyday, but not everyone is going to give all their money to a charity, join an NGO and go off on missions to Ethiopia, or join Greenpeace and go board oil drilling platforms with protest banners.

Moreover, in Awakening, he's just successfully managed to escape from the Circle, something he's been wanting to do for years. I can't fault him for at least trying to savour it for a while. Besides, had he been "very selfish", I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have come back to help if you tell him to run after first meeting him at Vigil's Keep. Compassion is an innate trait for him, and I'm not sure exacerbating it to the point of abnegation is a positive evolution. That's the thing with your example: it's just as easy to perceive it as Justice subtracting something from Anders, rather than adding anything. He removes his instinct of self-preservation. Of course, straining himself to exhaustion to heal people is going to have them idolising him, and I can't fault him for wanting to help, but not only is this unhealthy for him, it's also detrimental to his efficiency. A modicum of concern for your own wellbeing is necessary for any normally functioning person. I'm not saying that he should become entirely self-centred, which, to be fair, I don't think he could ever be, Justice or no Justice. I'm simply saying that pushing oneself to the limit in every single situation never did anybody any good. If you're trying to promote a cause, dying for it is not always the best solution.

Beyond all this, I'm simply not seeing any compelling proof that separating Justice would alter Anders beyond recognition. The way I see it, it would simply tone down the unhealthy aspects of his dedication. I don't think he'd ever be able to be as carefree as he was in Awakening again, he'd simply stop throwing himself at every available sword, so to speak. And as for Justice himself, it would hopefully moderate his "EXTERMINATE" mindset and give him the ability to look for attenuating circumstances again, as he was beginning to do in Awakening. He was beginning to gain more dimensions at that point, I do agree there. It's just that the merger completely removed them, IMO.

[BBK4114]

 My problem with the Chantry is this institution has absolute power in Thedas. Only Tevinter and the Qunari don't toe the line.  And what happens when anything/anybody has that sort of power? Well I believe along the lines of :  “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” - Lord Acton. 

Anders once asked my mage warden what she thought Andraste would have thought of the state of mages in Thedas now. She told him she thought Andraste would be appalled. She also told Wynn - in front of Anders who'd already said that trying to separate the circle from the Chantry would be a disaster - that change would never come unless the mages forced it.

The Chantry leaders took ONE thing out of everything Andraste said (Magic is meant to serve man -  never to rule over him) and through fear and power twisted it.  I can't find  anywhere in the Chant that says mages should be imprisoned and tortured, taught to loathe themselves for being born. I can find nothing about Templars.  I see exactly what Malcom Hawke taught his children: magic must serve that which is best in me. But the Chantry uses the fear of Tevinter & mages in general as an excuse to build the most powerful army in Thedas - educates them and yes, indoctrinates them to believe, as Cullen says, mages are not real people like you and me! 

As for the mages who want to be the power in Thedas, I kind of equate them to Magneto & crew in the mutant debates in X-Men. The Chantry's oppression & persecution of mages inevitably leads to this but those mages are wrong too.  I believe as my Hawke does,  mages aren't any better or any worse than anyone else, they're just different!



@CGG--I'm right there with you. I agonize over other's problems and points of view. I am an empath too. I cannot understand those who cannot put themselves in another's shoes. That inability really breeds misery doesn't it?

Modifié par BBK4114, 01 octobre 2011 - 08:18 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

eyeofhorus87 wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Even if The Maker exists and isn't doing... whatever it was he used to do anymore, because of the Black City, the Chantry's whole argument about what will fix it doesn't seem to hold a lot of water. I mean, it seems dumb to leave the future of your entire planet up to a coin-toss battle between the people who know about you and the crazy horned guys who think you're a load of crap. I would be in the fade a lot, askin' spirits (the Maker's first children, after all) what they thought about the whole deal. Someone in that crazy place must have at least some clues, so we can use etheric sciences to figure out why the heck the blights are happening, and how to stop 'em. 

The first mistake is assuming that the spirits are the Maker's first children. By assuming that, you are biasing any answers that they would give you. You start with a null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is that the Maker does not exist. You cannot prove the Maker doesn't exist, but you can prove that he does. So sure, question the fade spirits, but don't make an assumption about what they are before you start.

I don't actually assume that the spirits are the maker's first children... damn you, tone and the internet! Imagine I said "the makers' first children, after all" in a slightly sarcastic voice. My point is this: there are dudes who live in the Fade. We can talk to those dudes. Why don't we do that more? It seems that they'd be pretty good sources of information.

That said, the etheric sciences don't and can't follow the same rules as conventional, physical science. If they did, I'd just say "let's use science on it" rather than "let's start to display an interest in the etheric sciences."  The conventional science that etheric sciences most resemble are the social sciences... psychology, sociology, anthropology, which pretty much everyone has to admit are largely hoodoo.  Hoodoo supplemented with some pattern recognition and experimental reproducability, but hoodoo all the same (and I say this as someone with a psych degree.)

{Sidenote: Even in actual normal conventional Science,  I think it's inappropriate to use the null hypothesis when talking about the existence of something. Because it's not a specific thing that can be measured by experimental data. "There is no relationship between using the sacred ashes and recovering from illness" is an example of a good null hypothesis. "There isn't a teapot orbiting the Jupiter." is a bad one.) 

Anwyay, the etheric sciences have to be a bit looser, because a lot of the time they are dealing with beings and forces that posess sentience and at least the illusion of free will, so there are some ethical constraints when it comes to experimentation... in the same way you wouldn't deliberately remove a child from all human contact in order to conduct an experiment on the effect of human contact on human development, you wouldn't, say, deliberately try to get a spirit to become a demon in order to see precisely what causes that. That would be cruel and unethical. Instead, you have to talk to spirits and demons, build case studies, look at patterns between them that emerge from that data. It's still scientific... sort of... which is why I call it etheric sciences, but it is several degrees to the left of the conventional scientific method, in the same way that sociology is.

We're talking observation, interview, and pattern recognition vs. clinical experimentation and purely physical measurement. Both may contain some statistical analysis at the end, sure, but they are... different.

That doesn't capture the fundamental difference between conventional and etheric sciences, though, and that's harder to explain I'm pretty sure I'm going to screw it up, but I'll make an effort. A conventional scientist tries to narrow everything down to the most likely theory, and focus on refining that theory to an ever-more-honed point. An etheric scientist is careful to never completely dismiss any theory that has a chance of being relevant, and to maintain varying levels of certainty in all avenues available.

For example, a conventional scientist probably, at this point, believes that nothing can move faster than light (regardless of the single possible piece of experimental evidence to the contrary that CERN has, which probably won't pan out.) An etheric scientist would, instead, simuntaneously believe that it's likely that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but also that there's a chance that something CAN. Rather than trying to prove or disprove one or the other hypothesis, the etheric scientist would continue to hold both those possibilities in her head, adjusting their likelihood based on evidence she observes, but always believing that either one has a chance of being correct.

This is a terrible way to do actual science (though a fun way to think about it.) It's necessary in etheric science because there's a significant chance that what you believe to be possible may influence what is, in fact, possible. Thus, while conventional science is all about disproving possibilities, etheric science is all about maintaining varying levels of openness to all posibilities, no matter how unlikely. While you can build a picture of how you think things probably work, and use that to move forward, you have to constantly have a tiny voice in the back of your head that says " anything can happen child, anything can be." 

And now I'm out for the afternoon, probably. Just as the thread is getting good again, too.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 01 octobre 2011 - 10:57 .

[ForgeDark]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I don't actually assume that the spirits are the maker's first children... damn you, tone and the internet! Imagine I said "the makers' first children, after all" in a slightly sarcastic voice. My point is this: there are dudes who live in the Fade. We can talk to those dudes. Why don't we do that more? It seems that they'd be pretty good sources of information.

Sorry  I agree, talking to them more would be good. Then again, I would also argue it's a good idea to talk to the demons in the fade too. 

That said, the etheric sciences don't and can't follow the same rules as conventional, physical science. If they did, I'd just say "let's use science on it" rather than "let's start to display an interest in the etheric sciences."  The conventional science that etheric sciences most resemble are the social sciences... psychology, sociology, anthropology, which pretty much everyone has to admit are largely hoodoo.  Hoodoo supplemented with some pattern recognition and experimental reproducability, but hoodoo all the same (and I say this as someone with a psych degree.)

OK - I am admitting my ignorance here - I had never heard of the term 'etheric sciences' before this discussion so probably a lot of what I'm saying is very ignorant. I actually still don't think I quite understand what is meant by the term (I have tried to ask some questions below). However, saying that, I don't see why you can't use the conventional, physical sciences when studying the Fade.

{Sidenote: Even in actual normal conventional Science,  I think it's inappropriate to use the null hypothesis when talking about the existence of something. Because it's not a specific thing that can be measured by experimental data. "There is no relationship between using the sacred ashes and recovering from illness" is an example of a good null hypothesis. "There isn't a teapot orbiting the Jupiter." is a bad one.)

I don't see why 'There isn't a teapot orbiting Jupiter' would be a bad null hypothesis if you actually wanted to know if there was a teapot orbitting jupiter. You could experimentally measure a teapot. You couldn't say for sure your method would ALWAYS detect a teapot, but if it found one you could use that method  to disprove the null hypothesis. I'm assuming I'm just not understanding your argument here against the null hypothesis? 

That doesn't capture the fundamental difference between conventional and etheric sciences, though, and that's harder to explain I'm pretty sure I'm going to screw it up, but I'll make an effort. A conventional scientist tries to narrow everything down to the most likely theory, and focus on refining that theory to an ever-more-honed point. An etheric scientist is careful to never completely dismiss any theory that has a chance of being relevant, and to maintain varying levels of certainty in all avenues available.

For example, a conventional scientist probably, at this point, believes that nothing can move faster than light (regardless of the single possible piece of experimental evidence to the contrary that CERN has, which probably won't pan out.) An etheric scientist would, instead, simuntaneously believe that it's likely that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but also that there's a chance that something CAN. Rather than trying to prove or disprove one or the other hypothesis, the etheric scientist would continue to hold both those possibilities in her head, adjusting their likelihood based on evidence she observes, but always believing that either one has a chance of being correct. 

This is a terrible way to do actual science (though a fun way to think about it.) It's necessary in etheric science because there's a significant chance that what you believe to be possible may influence what is, in fact, possible. Thus, while conventional science is all about disproving possibilities, etheric science is all about maintaining a level of openness to all posibilities, no matter how unlikely. 

I don't understand. Careful never to dismiss any theory? But - why? If you know something has been disproven, why continue to consider it? I don't see what doing that brings to the party. I mean, I don't even see how it's a fun way to think about it. How would we ever get anywhere if we kept thinking about things that had been disproven? 

I think, if I understand correctly, that etheric is science for supernatural stuff? Which, I mean... the Fade... is a place. It kinda reminds me of a quote from Tim Minchin's 'Storm':

'Do you know what they call
'Alternative Medicine'
That's been proved to work?
Medicine'

My point being the Fade is a real place in DA so the methods of the physical sciences would be valid. You would start completely from scratch, but the method itself would be fine to use. 

[Chernaya]

Nilfalasiel wrote...



I disagree with you there. Justice is a spirit. Spirits are extremely single-minded beings. Even accounting for his shifts towards more "human" feelings in Awakening, Justice was still single-minded. As Vengeance, he's perhaps even more single-minded, and I don't think he has anything to do with Anders' compassion. Anders says it himself "Justice is righteous, Justice is hard". There's no room for compassion or caring there. Meaning that the compassion and caring are coming from Anders himself. He also already had those qualities pre-merger (even though, again, that's something a Warden would know...but if Hawke and the Warden were ever to meet, this is also something a Warden could reassure Hawke about). But if Hawke has any notions of what spirts or demons are, she/he would also be aware of the fact that they are primarily governed by one emotion and one drive.

For all his humanisation in Awakening, Justice isn't human, and becoming Vengeance wasn't beneficial for him at all, since it radicalised an already pretty rigid stance.

I agree with this. I don't think it neccesarily has to be because of Justice whenever Anders does something we dislike, either. It is both of them, now. It's pretty easy to tell when Justice is the dominant entity inside of Anders, glowy blue eyes or not. Anders would have not done many of the things he did in DA 2 had it not been for Justice merging within him and becoming Vengeance, and Justice/Vengeance acting upon the one thing it is supposed to act on. The spirits' are named after their assigned roles - a spirit of faith, justice, ect - so I really do think that the one role is what they exist to do, no more or less. Before they merged, Anders still cared, but not to the degree of threatening his own life, or the lives of innocents. That is where Vengeance steps in, and takes control. I still find it hard to say that Justice/Anders are completely merged, because there are moments where Anders will do things that are still selfish, and more closely relating to his former self, such as romance and the like... but I think it's slowly changing that as the years pass.