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[berelinde]

I don't think anybody wants the pillow in that sense.

Anders may *think* his friendship with Varric will end the moment he blows up the Chantry, but I'm not sure it will. Varric was probably shocked by what Anders did and it probably damaged their friendship, but his loyalty to his friends seems to exceed his loyalty to the city. Varric's reaction was probably like a lot of peoples' Hawkes: "Goddamn it, Anders! GTFO!" Followed by a lot of quick thinking about how he's going to get the guy out of there without somebody lynching him. Look at how Varric treats his brother if Anders cures him. If Hawke says that it's too late, that nothing can save Bartrand, Varric is happier if you kill him. If Hawke has Anders cure Bartrand, Varric is happier if you let him live. And this is how he acts toward somebody who was always a brother, never a friend. Also, if Hawke dismisses Anders after he kills/almost kills Ella, Varric continues the friendship - after he killed an innocent girl in a demon-possessed rage. Also look at Varric's scorn toward Cassandra: "Your precious Chantry is falling apart and you need the one person who can put it back together." He doesn't care about the religious institution; he cares about people.

I'm sure that nobody was more surprised by Varric's continuing friendship with Anders than Anders, though. He expected *everyone*, including Hawke, to desert him... which is why he starts putting that frosty emotional distance between them in Act 3.

[robertthebard]

berelinde wrote...

I don't think anybody wants the pillow in that sense.

Anders may *think* his friendship with Varric will end the moment he blows up the Chantry, but I'm not sure it will. Varric was probably shocked by what Anders did and it probably damaged their friendship, but his loyalty to his friends seems to exceed his loyalty to the city. Varric's reaction was probably like a lot of peoples' Hawkes: "Goddamn it, Anders! GTFO!" Followed by a lot of quick thinking about how he's going to get the guy out of there without somebody lynching him. Look at how Varric treats his brother if Anders cures him. If Hawke says that it's too late, that nothing can save Bartrand, Varric is happier if you kill him. If Hawke has Anders cure Bartrand, Varric is happier if you let him live. And this is how he acts toward somebody who was always a brother, never a friend. Also, if Hawke dismisses Anders after he kills/almost kills Ella, Varric continues the friendship - after he killed an innocent girl in a demon-possessed rage. Also look at Varric's scorn toward Cassandra: "Your precious Chantry is falling apart and you need the one person who can put it back together." He doesn't care about the religious institution; he cares about people.

I'm sure that nobody was more surprised by Varric's continuing friendship with Anders than Anders, though. He expected *everyone*, including Hawke, to desert him... which is why he starts putting that frosty emotional distance between them in Act 3.

They actually made my "What to do with Anders" decision a lot easier by how they wrote Elthina.  Yes, she was blinded by Faith, and as such totally ineffective in the Mage/Templar problems, but dammit, she was a nice lady anyway, and didn't deserve her fate.  If you have The Exiled Prince installed, you can get a bit more insight into her as a person as well, but even w/out it, which I did my first playthrough, there's enough, if you talk to her at all, to show that it's not stupidity that leads to her ineffectiveness, but faith that the Maker would deal with it.  Considering how the Maker acts throughout the franchise, this faith may be misguided, but I can hardly fault somebody for having that kind of faith.

Varric doesn't give a rat's ass about the mage/templar problems, he has friends on both sides, sibling Hawkes not withstanding.  His reaction to the Opinions response in dialog kind of bears that out:  I think I'm sick of mages and templars.  At this point, I think if he could have a crisis moment and leave, this might be it, regardless of how you play it out.

[berelinde]

I'm not going to argue about Elthina's motivations. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Her lack of understanding of the vast temporal power she wields is tragic. Depending on your point of view, the endgame events of DA2 may have been the Maker's will, explosion and all.

If you listen to Anders's dialogue throughout Awakening and DA2, you will realize that he is actually fairly devout. He isn't like Sebastian, congratulating himself on his piety with every third breath, but the entire point of his manifesto is to demonstrate that enslaving mages goes against Andraste's teachings. He argues his case poorly, but that does not make him wrong. Even if he is Andrastian, Anders is not pro-Chantry. You can't blame him for hating the organization that has been abusing him and everyone like him for a thousand years. For all we know, Anders may have been serving the Maker by tearing down an organization that has perverted the words of Andraste to serve its own ends.

Yes, Elthina was a nice lady. Alain is a nice boy. That did not protect him from being raped nightly by templars until he worked up the courage to flee with Grace. There are nice people on both sides of the war.

[robertthebard]

Aveline hits the nail on the head though, Sincerity doesn't justify this. I have no doubt that he sincerely believes that slaughtering innocents, and Elthina, was the right thing to do. However, I reserve the right to disagree, and had he targeted the Templars instead, I think I could view it in a different light. As we can see, it wasn't Elthina's will that was being executed in the Gallows, but the Templar's wills. In fact, we know from Dissent that it's not even the Divine's will, nor apparently Meredith's, at that stage of the game anyway. However, the Divine isn't there, and Meredith, while she may not disagree, isn't very proactive about stopping the abuses either. Regardless, if he'd targeted her, or the Templars in general, I could view it differently, especially since he knows it's not the Chantry per se that's doing it, but the Templars themselves, taking advantage of ineffectual leadership from both Elthina and Meredith.

Modifié par robertthebard, 08 juin 2012 - 04:22 .

[berelinde]

Elthina was Meredith's direct superior. Elthina was responsible for every atrocity Meredith or her templars committed. She was a nice lady with a *lot* of blood on her hands. A beatific smile and platitudes do not absolve her of responsibility for the templars under her command. As the Grand Cleric of Kirkwall, the Knight Commander reports directly to her, just as the templars report to Meredith. Elthina preferred to remain ignorant of the actions of the templars, but ultimately, she was their boss. Elthina may have been a religious leader, but she was also the general-in-chief of the largest standing army in the Free Marches. If it is difficult for you to understand how someone can possess both civil and military authority, consider that the President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces. In that light, ignorance of the actions of her subordinates goes beyond irresponsible lassitude. It becomes criminal. If you tell Elthina that Alrik was acting against Chantry law by making Harrowed mages Tranquil, Elthina asks how you know about the action of a subordinate whose body was found just days ago in the tunnels under the Gallows. She knows *exactly* what her people are doing and chooses to do nothing to put an end to it. Her inaction in the matter of Mother Petrice and Seamus Dumar ultimately contribute to the Qunari uprising, as well. Had she taken responsibility for her subordinate's actions, violence might have been prevented there, as well. Or at least postponed. In both cases, war was inevitable. It was just a question of when.

The game is very careful not to tell you what to think. It allows the player to form whatever opinions they want. But claiming that Elthina, a key military figure in Kirkwall, was blameless for the actions of her underlings requires more selective and subjective observation than I am capable of. I am not capable of that much self-deceit.

Modifié par berelinde, 08 juin 2012 - 05:49 .

[robertthebard]

I don't disagree, but a charming wit, fetish for cats, and an obssession that all things Chantry, true or not, is bad doesn't excuse what happened either. After all, he did believe that the Tranquil Solution ran all the way up the chain of command, yet finding out differently didn't affect his overall plan. In the Exiled Prince, we learn of another "fraternity", or perhaps a more militant branch of one of the existing fraternities within the circle. We don't know, for a fact, that Anders isn't working directly with them when he talks about his Mage Underground. We don't know that he does either, and I'm not going to suggest that he is, but it's possible. It's also possible that he got the formula for his bomb from them. That's very low on my probability scale, but it is there. Of course, what we do know, from his own dialog, is that he took the Spirit into himself for exactly the ends he achieves. He wanted the war, and did what he had to do to make sure that it happened.

The monkey wrench in his works would have been had Meredith simply ordered his public execution to placate both the people of Kirkwall, and the mages that were just as appalled at what he'd done as the citizens of Kirkwall might have been. Of course, that would have taken a lot from the endgame. Somebody else hit it though, saying that free mages aren't dangerous, and then blowing up the Chantry, as a mage, doesn't lend a lot of credibility to his statement. In fact, it better serves Meredith's position than the mage's position.

[berelinde]

Blowing up the Chantry forced Meredith to reveal herself as a mad despot. That was the entire point.

It was a coup. Anders killed a military figurehead and six templars. Meredith reacted by saying "A mage killed the Grand Cleric! Kill every mage in Kirkwall!" She could have executed him. He was right there and he would have gone willingly. But she didn't. She did not want justice, she wanted someone to blame for the genocide she had been looking for an excuse to wreak upon the city. That would have happened one way or another. Meredith had written to Val Royeaux for the Rite of Annulment, and considering that the Divine was planning on leading an Exalted March on Kirkwall anyway, the Rite would have been authorized. By precipitating the conflict when and how he did, Anders ensured that everyone knew that Meredith was out of her mind. The mages fought back. By acting when and how he did, Anders helped at least a few mages survive. Considering that Meredith's insanity would not have ended with the murder of every mage in Kirkwall, who would have been her next victims? Elves? Sailors? Shopkeepers?

So yes, no one is likely to argue that executing Anders under those circumstances would have been closer to justice, but it would have caused more bloodshed later on.

Kirkwall was an explosion waiting to happen. It was a sealed glass flask filled with an unstoppable reaction between weak, ineffectual leaders, tyrants, and innocents. The flask was under increasing heat and pressure from both present and past atrocities (the Veil is very thin in Kirkwall thanks to its bloody past). All that was required for the entire thing to blow up was for one thing to give under the strain. There needed to be a flaw in the glass. Anders is not responsible for the reaction in the flask, for the conditions acting upon the flask, or for the inevitable explosion. All he did was tap the glass.

[robertthebard]

It really was, and it was going to come to a head sooner or later, Anders just ensured that it was sooner. He believes it was the right thing to do, I don't. However, what I believe doesn't matter in the course of the game, because it has to go down the way it does. It's just that, having traveled with him, albeit sparingly in some playthroughs as I enjoy other companions more, I don't see him as much less of an abomination than Ella did. He is certainly prone to out of control episodes, in some circumstances, and as somebody pointed out, what would happen if someone wasn't there to hold the leash? One thing we know happens is the Chantry gets destroyed.

[berelinde]

Which probably saved a lot of lives. Had the Chantry not been destroyed, the mages would have been killed to the last infant and Meredith would have had to find another group to persecute. The cost in truly innocent lives would have been a lot higher than one military leader and six templars.

Nobody is telling you that you have to like Anders. Personally, I can't stand Leliana, so I understand disliking a character because the things they do irritate the crab out of you. It's just that it's important to recognize that your preferences are just that, not moral superiority or insight that the rest of the player base just doesn't comprehend.

[robertthebard]

Not every conversation has to be "I'm right because" and "You're wrong because", some of them can just be conversations for the sake of conversing, and getting an insight that wouldn't be available w/out doing so.

[esper]

To wrap up the pillow thing first (I keep getting locked out of this .... site)
I agree that Varric would not want for Anders dead, but I also think that Anders would not regonize that. I think that Anders is so wrapped up in how a horrible thing it is he is doing that it is beyond him that anyone would forgive him, much less agree.

As for the whole Elthina thing, I cannot feel sorry for her. Both in the qunari crisis and the mage crisis Elthina's criminal neglect caused had to have as much blood on her hand as Anders. Some people are in a position where they cannot say 'There is nothing I can do'. Elthina was one of those.

What I find ironic is how the game tries to point at Vicount Dumar (Is that his name) as an ineffective leader when he is the only one of the leader authorities that actually actively tries to do something with the Qunaries. I mean Dumar has no army, Meridith's templar belongs under Elthina who refuses to react on the situation, the guards have been found to be corrupt three years pripr and now have a new guard captain that are more concerned with the guard's safety than the civils. The Vicount was a bound on head and feets as much if not more than Elthina, but at the very least he tried. He tried diplomacy and he hired the mecenary noble (Hawke) who had seen to been able to at least talk with the qunaries. He may not have been able to do much, but at the very least he regonized that he had to try.

[Cantina]

For the pillow thing, it was um odd to say the least seeing Anders trying to give it to Varric. I really would not want the pillow if it were offered to my Hawke; it would be, well cheesy.


I do not think people realize that Elthina was a corrupted old shrew who deserved what happened to her. The Divine intervened with the previous Viscount because he was trying to kick the Templars out. Good for him! However, this resulted in his execution and Elthina put Knight Commander Meredith in charge of the Templars. They allowed Viscount Dumar his position only because he supported the Templars. He has his hands tied throughout his rein. Whatever the Knight Commander says goes, or he risks losing his head like the previous Viscount.

Elthina cannot take sides because if she comes out and supports the Templars, the Mages will then have a good reason to rebel. Why? Because then it shows The Chantry cares nothing about the Mages. Elthina cannot support the Mages because if she does, she will lose her precious bodyguards. Elthina move is to sit back and try to reason with both sides, but it does not work.

Meredith knows she can get away with it, if Elthina intervenes, well that shows she is incapable of being the Grand Cleric due to appointing someone the Knight-Commander when they clearly were not suited for it. Elthina just does not want to look like an ass. Oh sure she was offered help, but she refused, again if she took the help, it would prove she is incapable of being Grand Cleric.

It is rather obvious that the Grand Cleric does not care too much at all for the Mages and only wants to maintain power within Kirkwall no matter how bad things can get. When things get bad and help is not going to happen, the only thing you have left is to fight.

Good for Anders for destroying The Chantry, it may have been the wrong way for some people, but to me it was the right move. When your backed in a corner with a tiger in your face, sometimes the only way to escape/survive is to stab the tiger.

Modifié par Cantina, 09 juin 2012 - 08:11 .

[cowoline]

Elthina was a kind woman, but after confronting her about Patrice abducting Qunari I really realised how useless she is. This is not just about her not taking sides. This is about her being incable of controlling people who are directly under her command. She wanted to stay neutral in the templar/mage debate, alright I can see why she would do that, but that does not excuse her turning a blind eye on those of her people who abuse their power and in extention her own. If Elthina wanted to be a neutral purely religious leader then she should pull out entirely from the political arena.

Pillow discussion, I don't think that there should be put to much thought into that. It was a good way for bioware to show just how much Anders was digging his own grave. A romanced Hawke might be an more obvious choice for the pillow than Varric, but since Anders is fully convinced that Hawke will kill him, imagine what she/he will do to the pillow? Burn it?

As for Anders blowing up the chantry, I always got the impression that his concience will suffer for it. Imo it might become just as heavy a burden as Justice. What Anders did was "insane", but it was not coldhearted, it was despeartion.

Personally I had an easier time forgiving Anders for blowing up the chantry, than I did when i found out he agreed with giving Fenris to Danarius.

[Dwarva]

Something that's been bugging me after reading some fanfic is......did Anders seriously not consider the chance he might be made tranquil after blowing up the chantry? It's never addressed as an option in game (I think), but in a lot of post game fic I've read it comes up in the options of 'what to do with him' and he always (understandably) reacts venomously to the possibility of him being made tranquil.

In game he just assumes he's going to be killed for his choice but he surely must have considered alternative punishments... Given that, for all he knew, Meredith would make the choice about what to do with him and how overzealous she is, I'd have thought she'd pick making him tranquil over killing him myself...

Modifié par Staarbux, 11 juin 2012 - 09:18 .

[Fox In The Box]

ASUNDER SPOILERS AHEAD;




I suspect that Anders is immune to tranquility. In Asunder, there was a mage who was cured of his tranquility by being possessed - but as I recall, he said that all one needed was to to have one's mind touched by a spirit to get the connection to the Fade back. Or something to that effect. In order to make Anders tranquil again, I think you'd have to separate him from Justice first.

[Dwarva]

Fox In The Box wrote...

ASUNDER SPOILERS AHEAD;




I suspect that Anders is immune to tranquility. In Asunder, there was a mage who was cured of his tranquility by being possessed - but as I recall, he said that all one needed was to to have one's mind touched by a spirit to get the connection to the Fade back. Or something to that effect. In order to make Anders tranquil again, I think you'd have to separate him from Justice first.

Aaah very interesting! I'm literally just starting Asunder but read that anyway. Thanks for the info.

[Fox In The Box]

Staarbux wrote...

Aaah very interesting! I'm literally just starting Asunder but read that anyway. Thanks for the info.

You're welcome! And my apologies for spoiling you.

[berelinde]

It would not have discouraged him, I don't think. In my opinion, he anticipated that the reaction would be immediate and violent. Making a mage tranquil requires preparation and lacks the satisfying crunch a mage's neck makes when an axe swings through it. Also, many people see it as a gentler alternative to execution, although a true sadist who truly understood a mage's fears (as Meredith did) might sentence him to be made tranquil and then locked him in a cell for a week or so to think about it, like that cured tranquil in Asunder. Had Meredith time and had a crisis not been imminent, maybe she would have done just that. But what Meredith *really* wanted was an excuse to do something she was going to do anyway.

Edit: Yeah, forgot about that.

Modifié par berelinde, 11 juin 2012 - 11:13 .

[Ivucci]

I'm only just starting to read Asunder, too, and don't know all the details, however, I thought the part about curing Tranquility was pretty much a new discovery and Anders - or anyone in Kirkwall at that time - might not have been fully aware of the possibility...?

I would say that for a crime like this, some kind of public execution would be naturally expected and deemed "appropriate". Making him Tranquil - while undoubtly being the worst form of punishment from his point of view, and possibly the most cruel and satisfying from Meredith's point of view - would still leave him alive, sort of, which would likely be unacceptable for some. Plus, I had the impression the Rite of Tranquility is not originally supposed to be an official punishment, unless a templar with a grudge decides to use it that way.

Anders also probably didn't think too far beyond the explosion and forbade himself from pondering what would happen to him afterwards.

Modifié par Ivucci, 11 juin 2012 - 12:40 .

[robertthebard]

Ivucci wrote...

I'm only just starting to read Asunder, too, and don't know all the details, however, I thought the part about curing Tranquility was pretty much a new discovery and Anders - or anyone in Kirkwall at that time - might not have been fully aware of the possibility...?

I would say that for a crime like this, some kind of public execution would be naturally expected and deemed "appropriate". Making him Tranquil - while undoubtly being the worst form of punishment from his point of view, and possibly the most cruel and satisfying from Meredith's point of view - would still leave him alive, sort of, which would likely be unacceptable for some. Plus, I had the impression the Rite of Tranquility is not originally supposed to be an official punishment, unless a templar with a grudge decides to use it that way.

Anders also probably didn't think too far beyond the explosion and forbade himself from pondering what would happen to him afterwards.

He knows.  "The sooner I die, the sooner my name will be remembered ..." hate to all ..., but suddenly I can't remember the rest of the line.  He deliberately martyred himself, or assumed he would be, for the cause.

[berelinde]

I'm sure there are youtube videos that contain the correct line. Hate to all is a little severe for failing to remember a line, don't you think? 

Modifié par berelinde, 11 juin 2012 - 03:19 .

[Ivucci]

robertthebard wrote...

He knows. "The sooner I die, the sooner my name will be remembered ..." hate to all ..., but suddenly I can't remember the rest of the line. He deliberately martyred himself, or assumed he would be, for the cause.

I could be wrong but I think that line is just in a pro-templar playthrough, which basically has him alone against the world, so to speak, and he only says that after you decide to kill him, not before.

I wanted to make a different point though. The way I see it, he expected to be killed but didn't occupy himself too much with thoughts on how it would be done - will I be tortured or killed instantly or executed later - or with various what if's - what if they make me tranquil instead. This was mostly in response to Staarbux' question/thought on whether or not Anders considered he could be punished by being made Tranquil.

[smallwhippet]

Hello all. I'm attempting a rival romance with Anders but it doesn't seem to trigger in the post-Dissent Questioning Beliefs. The flirt prompts are there, but even if I choose them, it doesn't seem to register. It's annoying, to say the least! Any suggestions?

[berelinde]

Did you leave Darktown and come back? I think I had to do that for one game.

[Cantina]

OK, I've been thinking....

Does anyone else feel the Devs chose to screw up Anders (not deliberately) do to the amount of people who wanted a romance with him?