Quething wrote...
MichaelFinnegan wrote...
You and I know such methods work in infinitely better ways in our (real) world. But do the Thedasians know? That's the counter argument being made, against your kind of thinking or mine. I think that "no one in Thedas even conceived of a better way" is a rather ridiculous argument to put forth, but there you have it. That is what we'll have to deal with.
Heh, but that's demonstrably false! I don't necessarily disagree that "freedom" probably doesn't have the same sense of "democratic enfranchisement" in Thedas that it does in the modern West, but for a forumite to buy into Fenris' strange false dichotomy of "Kirkwall or Tevinter" is baffling. Fenris may never have met Morrigan or Lanaya, but we have. And even Fenris admits that the apostate-raised, never-Harrowed Bethany is a "strong mage" who'd never be a risk; admittedly I don't usually put much stock in Fenris' evaluation of mages, but in this case that's actualy all the more an endorsement of her mettle. We know there are other, non-Circle ways, because we've seen them repeatedly in our companions and in the Dalish for as long as the setting has existed. We even know those ways can work, because we've seen that repeatedly in our companions and the Dalish for as long as the setting has existed.
Fenris' opinion is merely
his point of view - from the standpoint of what he experienced at Tevinter firsthand, and what he personally went through under Danarius. And when he sees mages being imprisoned at the Gallows with their freedoms being curbed, in his mind it perhaps all clicked - "of course this is how it should be, otherwise Tevinter is what we'll get." And Bethany seemed like an exception to the rule to him. So perhaps what appears as a strange dichotomy to us, isn't false/strange to him at all, at least going by his personal experiences, which is how he's forming his opinions.
As with other the characters, his character is supposed to perhaps temper our opinions of mages. If someone argues that, "Fenris thinks this and that about mages and therefore it is so everywhere, or it will become so everywhere," I guess s/he's missing the whole point - as are those who argue purely for freedom without considering the consequences. It's very easy to argue ideals forgetting the in-game reality.
I guess the essential point for us to consider for now is what you wrote above - the Circle way isn't the only way. Because the Dalish somehow seems to exist without them, and even Hawke's own experience with apostates in his/her family might have provided viewpoints that other NPCs in-game might lack.
And, anyway, I don't think of real-world freedom as any kind of democratic enfranchiement or anything else; in fact, I see democracy as limiting the individual. Freedom to me is just that - absence of compulsions in the form of contrived rules and regulations. It is somehow the way the rest of nature works - order forming seemingly out of chaos. Sure, it comes at a cost, but the point is that anything else is simply not freedom.
Now, the Chantry hierarchy may have a vested interest in willful blindness here -- change is hard for any organization, particularly of that size, even if theose currently in power wouldn't lose power by it, which of course they would -- but I don't see where it follows that the average Andrastean citizen (who might well have mage relatives) would be equally unable to understand. Heck, look at the companions. Obviously they're not quite "ordinary" people. But Leliana, Zevran, Wynne and Alistair are all Andrasteans of relative degrees of devotion; two of them seem actively fond of Morrigan, the other two distrust her because she's a conniving selfish wretch. None seem particularly hung up on the danger she presents as an apostate (even Alistair only comments that the templar scrutiny she might bring would be a hassle), and none of them are particularly perturbed by Lanaya and Zathrian.
Elthina is an example of a Grand Cleric for me who thinks it best to allow things to work out without her interfering. That it didn't work out in Kirkwall is a different story. But my point is that we sometimes tend to think of the Chantry as having a singular will of its own, which of course it doesn't. So again it might be different views existing at different places - some Grand Clerics more restrictive than others and so on.
I kind of see how the Circles might have made more sense initially, during the formative years. Fall of the mighty Tevinter Imperium, the Inquisition running amok, the tendency of common folk to have feared mages, and so on. At this stage, for the members of the Chantry, the Inquisition, and mages to have agreed for having the "Circles way" out of normal society would have been a tempting and a fair idea to everyone concerned. But to continue the idea over the centuries, as if circumstances haven't changed at all, as if what was done then should be followed to eternity - that is an incomprehensible, and dare I say a rather ridiculous idea.
Or there's DA2. Aveline, champion of order, templar widow, and mild magephobe herself, easily agrees that the Kirkwall Circle goes too far and seems to see no problem with Beth or mageHawke remaining free. Varric's got a hint of magephobe to him as well and he actually actively spends money to protect Merrill and Anders. Even with NPCs, Anders' continued freedom is direct proof of the willingness of dozens if not hundreds of downtrodden down-on-their-luck refugees and thugs to turn down bounty money and even risk their lives for a mage outside the system.
Things perhaps change when one gets to know someone more personally, I suppose. Or, in the case of Aveline, to form an alliance with a mage to get out of a dire situation at the start, and for that relationship to grow later. When one changes one's mind about a particular mage, one might be more willing to change his/her mind for more such mages. This may not be true of Fenris, but his opinion is rather shaped, or biased, by events that others might not have personally experienced - he might see a mage as being mentally strong, but he may not be willing to open his mind further than that.
For a commoner, who is brought up in life thinking of mages locked up in great, big towers - prisons, if you will - the idea of a mage would be totally different from a person who gets to interact with mages. The former might see a mage perhaps as even something inhuman, whereas the latter would see a mage as any other human being, but with some gifts (or curses, depending). It's a bias, a dichotomy, that is reinforced by the Circles and the resulting isolation of mages to some extent.
All of these people are willing to sanction apostates, to accept that mages who aren't part of the Chantry and haven't been guaranteed "safe" by its rules can still be safe. Certainly they don't rely on the Harrowing as a neccessary part of mage control -- they don't even know about it. And in Ferelden at least we've seen plenty of Circle mages run around "unsupervised" by templars with the full knowledge and consent of the populace as well. I just don't see how any of this translates to a deep-seated culture-wide unwillingness to accept any solution but "lock them up in rape pens and throw away the key."
Addressing your earlier point, the fascinating aspect to me is that some commoners actually help fleeing Circle mages during Act 2. Whether this is brought about by genuine compassion for mages, even as a somewhat relative intolerance for templars, I do not know. But the notion of mages once again re-entering normal society seemed plausible.
I kind of think about the Harrowing as a templar invention. You let a military unit to come up with solutions to problems, and something like the Harrowing is what they're likely to come up with. This is a mistake on the part of the Chantry, I think. A mistake to allow mages to be dominated this way by templars - sort of going over and beyond their "appointed," roles as guardians of mages.
It might not be a "deep-seated culture wide unwillingness," per se, but rather the unfortunate consequence of events that led to the creation of Circles and hence of the isolation of many mages from society altogether. Perhaps we can look to this isolation as one of the causes of fear of mages - if we go by the notion that many people tend to fear what they don't know.
Which -- and holy crap, look, topic! -- is ultimately why Anders is wrong. By the end of the game, he's lost track of his actual principles, and started seeing the world in terms of "mages" and "everyone else." And "everyone else" is the enemy. He doesn't believe in pro-mage mundanes, he doesn't even actually believe in freedom (just mage freedom), and he thinks no non-mage will ever not actively abuse a mage except at staffpoint. And the only hope he sees for release is in forcing everyone else to see it the way he does. Hence the Chantry jenga, an act that in his mind will expose the average Kirkwall Joe's hatred of mages to his complacent people, but in fact actually creates said hatred in a community that was strongly pro-mage. (Assuming that the people really do want mage blood and that's not just Meredith's delusions, since the game seems to present that as fact, lack of evidence notwithstanding). All he's achieved for his "cause" is to make enemies of the moderates who could have been his allies, and even some of the partisans who would have been -- probably even in the Circle itself.
I think all Anders/Justice/creature ever considered was the notion that the Circles all over Thedas were an injustice, and he didn't want things to remain as they were. He didn't want the system to continue. I think he made the error of thinking that every mage at every Circle wanted things this way, in thinking that he was their unspoken representative. He also probably lost the support from the populace for every mage at Kirkwall, even perhaps outside Kirkwall - of course, as you said, lacking evidence regarding this, we'll have to put this down as uncertain for now.
I'm not saying there didn't need to be a war; I don't think we know enough about Thedas political culture for anyone to be able to definitively make that call. I'm not saying that means Anders should die; there's a legitimate question as to whether he does more good as a martyr or a member of the mage revolt, and whether his death or his atonement would be of more use in placating angry Andrasteans. I'm just saying that I see no reason to believe that exposing Meredith and making the common man aware of the atrocities mages are subject to even in the most benign Circles, coupled with presenting a coherent plan for a better way, wouldn't have effectively forced a reform. Even if that reform did still have to come at swordpoint, it would at least be swordpoint, and not staffpoint alone, which is the only way to hope to build a functioning (non-Tevinter, non-Qunari) society afterward.
But Anders actions at Kirkwall need not have produced the effect of every Circle outside Kirkwall to rebel, if they didn't desire it. What the Circles chose to do afterward was to a great extent of their own discretion. Blaming Anders for any revolution isn't entirely correct. If anything, it perhaps indicates to me that the said revolution was long overdue. Like an engine that just needed a spark to start up. I think we might be ignoring this point somewhat. Admittedly, as you said, I speak without the knowledge of why each Circle might have rebelled; I'm just offering my viewpoint.
And, yes, we agree that the situation at Kirwall could have gone differently, with Anders not blowing up the Chantry. But, considering his frame of mind, and the rapidly deteriorating circumstances at Kirkwall, I'm not sure that "other" option even occurred to him. We assume a rational way that events might have gone about, but "reason" is exactly what Anders wasn't even considering; at least not that kind of reason that goes beyond the immediacy of the moment.
As to whether killing Anders was right/wrong, well, at least for me, as I said ealier, the issue isn't clear. It isn't clear why "I" of all people should do it, or even about "what" exactly was responsible. I kind of hope that Anders and Justice an be separated again at some point, and something useful could be learned from all this. I think the fate of Anders should have been decided by those who suffered at Kirkwall. The game didn't provide this option and I wasn't feeling particularly trigger-happy.
(I can't entirely blame him, of course; everyone in Kirkwall is happy to reinforce the malignant status quo there regardless of how incompetent and irrational they have to act to do so, it's got to present a pretty pessimistic picture to someone living there. But I still can't accept poor writing and The Plot Dictates as proof that reform isn't possible without terrorism in the face of every other piece of evidence in two games.)
Kirkwall, if nothing else, provided the excuse that Anders wanted, at least in his own mind. Whether it was poor writing, which forced an action that some considered akin to a terrorist action, to do so is for us to judge it individually. If one goes by this whole DA series being a "dark fantasy," certainly this action was
dark enough, I guess, if that even makes sense.
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