EvilEresh wrote...
Bioware really challenged us this time with having us help start a war.
Deztyn wrote...
How is it reasonable to sit and do nothing while the flames rise around you when you are the one person who can settle things? She did nothing with the Qunari and she watched while the Templars and mages raged at each other, refusing to get involved. She could have quieted Mother Petrice but she didn't. She could have stepped in between Meredith and Orsinio earlier, but she chose to "trust in the Maker." She chose to ignore this world for the next and that's where she ended up.
You do undertsand that the reason Anders dropped the bomb on her when he did the way he did is because he doesn't want compromise, He wants all or nothing, the mages will either be free or dead, nothing in between is acceptable to him. He says it himself. Could she have stepped in earlier? No one's denying that. But even if she had it wouldn't have been to praise or condemn either one. It would have been to mediate. Something Anders wouldn't want and IMO Orsino and Meredith wouldn't have accepted.
I personally find her culpable for her inaction. She allowed the abuses of the templars to continue long past when a person in her position should have stepped in. She had a duty to stop it and she didn't not fulfill her duty, allowing things to escalate out of hand.
I think the abuses of the Templars are greatly exagerated. The only verified abusers were dealt with by Hawke. Bethany, a woman who spent most of her life
free, didn't think the circle was the total hell some people paint it as, and good Templars are better represented in the game than good mages.
Kirkwall's Circle was filled to the brim with Blood Mages. Meredith was reacting to a very real threat the best way her poor crazy mind could and did so without malice. I suspect the main reason Orsino didn't want her searching the Tower was because he knew what she would find.
So what stand should Elthina have taken? Anders wouldn't have accepted anything from Elthina but a total condemnation of the Templars and the Circles. And again I am talking about his motives here, not why some
players think bombing the Chantry was a great idea.
So... It's ok if mages can die (both physically or emotionally) at the whim of someone else as long as no one else in the world is hurt? I understand quite well what bringing down the existing power structure means for Thedas. That still doesn't make the Chantry's hold over mages (or the way they treat Templars, for that matter) right.
No. I'm saying that cheering for Anders starting a war that could cost more lives and cause more suffering for more people than the Chantry's ever caused to innocent mages, because you believe in the ideal he claims to be fighting for is wrong.
The Chantry has actively instilled a fear of mages into people. Some mages even believe that they have an evil inside of them and are being punished by the Maker because of the Chantry. Ages and ages of oppression and abuse are condoned by the holy because of a trait of birth. To control these "things" that scare them, they created a drug-addicted army of brainwashed crusaders. To me, that is the depths of depravity. It's saddening that other people will be hurt, but things need to change.
I think
mages do an adequate enough job instilling fear of mages into people without the teachings of the Chantry as required reading.
War is messy but some things are worth fighting for. What line would someone have to cross before you found something acceptable? Having watched Unthinkable recently, this is something that's been on my mind. What are the lines you won't cross and how do you value one life over another or many others? You can sit in a safe room in a safe country and say you would never cross some lines, but most people would be lying to themselves. For me, what the Chantry does to the mages and to the Templars is sufficiently abusive that I do approve.
If you're willing to make those justifications, the same logic applies to the Chantry's actions to protect the masses from the horrors of another magocracy like the Tevinter Imperium. You can't argue that
this group or innocents is worth sacrificing for the greater good but not
that group of innocents. Either the ends justify the means or they don't.
Anders blew up a building and started a war. That's all. It could end in the slaughter of all mages and the adoption of even harsher methods of dealing with them in the future (Drowned at birth when possible is the prefered method) Or a new magocracy that would make the old Tevinters shiver with dread. Or anything in between. For now he's not a hero, not a martyr, or even a revolutionary. He didn't free anyone. He's just a terrorist.
Because you don't know the end, you should never start? There is no change without uncertainty.
What is
certain is that Anders is forcing that change even where it's unwanted and possibly unneeded, and doing so in a manner that guarantees things will get a whole lot worse before they can even
hope to get better. Or do you really believe that turning most of the known world
against mages is the best possible way to ensure their lasting freedom?
Modifié par Deztyn, 17 mars 2011 - 08:04 .
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). Then, I saw him sitting on that box. He looked broken and pathetic, he had no ounce of pride left in him. He was ready to die and that broke my characters heart. In the end she decided it would be better for him to live and try to make up for what he had done rather than dying. It is left to be seen if he does in fact do that but that was my hope when making that decision.
