252 réponses à ce sujet

[TobiTobsen]

LobselVith8 wrote...

It's not house arrest, Dean, when you can get raped, tortured, given a lobotomy, or murdered with no agency over your own life. You had Anders' friend begging him to kill him he didn't want to be a "Templar puppet" anymore. You have multiple characters, including Hawke, who can address the Chantry controlled Circles as slavery. Having no control over your life is hardly just house arrest.

In the Kirkwall circle that seems to be the case. But not in every circle around Thedas if you ask me. Never heard of something like that in the Ferelden circle. The only one who was going to be made tranquil was Jowan and that for being a blood mage.

I'm a supporter of circles like the one in Ferelden, but even I will accept that the templars in Kirkwall are doing horrible things on Merediths order. The mages on the other hand don't seem to be much better. There are blood mages everywhere. But in the end it seems like both partys are not responsible for the behaviour they are showing.
If you read the codex entries of the guys who are searching for the reason behind the high number of blood mages in Kirkwall and listen to Leliana you will notce that both will tell you that something else seems to manipulate both factions to that behaviour, iirc. Plus the veil seems to be awfully thin in the city after Tevinter ruled the place.

[Everwarden]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Proceeds from mage goods go to the Circle. This is the entire basis for an entire fraternity in the Circles, the group that advocates that this should be the entire focus of mages, so that the Circles, and mages, gain the money to benefit themselves. If the sales went directly to the Chantry coffers, and not the Circle's, the fraternity would not exist.

Source please. The wiki article explains the fraternaties as subgroups of mages based upon their belief on the relationship that should exist between the Circle and the Chantry, there is no mention of where the funds go. There is no evidence at all in the game that the mages EVER have currency or buy anything at all for themselves. It stands to reason that the Chantry would take the earnings.

A further point that I failed to mention is that mages have their reproductive rights stripped, and all children are 'given' to the Chantry. I can't fathom how someone could say that this does -not- qualify as slavery. It's so clearly slavery. Slavery is not defined by being forced to work under harsh conditions, but by being owned by someone else. 

[ISpeakTheTruth]

All of the mages that we saw in the tower trying to fight the Templars weren't blood mages. If they had been they would have gone all demon on them. From a lore stand point I'd say there were hundreds of mages in the tower when the attack happened and I only saw maybe 10-15 blood mages on my way. So that's a very small amount of the Circle mages that were blood mages.

As for Orsino he had given up all hope at that point the few mages that hadn't been sent away to warn the other circles were just slaughtered in front of him that with a lifetime of being oppressed by the Templars and facing an almost imediate death at there hands made him do something he would never have done otherwise.

That being said there should have been a way to talk him out of doing it. It would have been nice to have him cut his wrist and start the ritual then have Hawke talk hims down. I could see something like this happening.

Orsino: I have no choice! She's forced my hand! Everyone already thinks I'm a blood mage why disapoint them?
Hawke: If you're going to die than die as a man proving her wrong. Don't die a monster proving her right.

That would have been a great moment. If only it had happened.

[LobselVith8]

Tobi, considering all the Circles broke free from the Chantry in the end, I'd say the mages considered it bad enough to emancipate themselves and become independent.

[lost lupus]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

The proper relevant analogy to the mages is house arrest, mixed with quarantine. While you can certainly argue that house arrest and quarantine are equivalent to slavery, you'd certainly have a far greater burden of proof to argue the equivalence.

slavery
1. (Law) the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby a person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune
2. the subjection of a person to another person, esp in being forced into work
3. the condition of being subject to some influence or habit
4. (Business / Industrial Relations & HR Terms) work done in harsh conditions for low pay

sup·press
play_w2("S0907900")
 

1. To put an end to forcibly; subdue.
2. To curtail or prohibit activities.
3. To keep from being revealed, published, or circulated.
4. To deliberately exclude.

at best its supression it and it frequently travels into the definition of slavery
house arrest is for someone who has done something wrong, by using the term quarantine your trying to supress the argument

how a slave is treated is irrelevent the fact that they are slave's is not
everyone has the right to freedom to have control over their own lives 
you take away a persons freedom simple for existing then they are a slave

whether mages should be locked up and treated like slaves is the issue dont try and water it down
the issue is given what they can do does it justify taking away their freedom? for the good of others. 
should they be confined and subjecated? for pontentional wrong doing

[TobiTobsen]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Tobi, considering all the Circles broke free from the Chantry in the end, I'd say the mages considered it bad enough to emancipate themselves and become independent.

Totally accept that. Nevertheless I'm still convinced that mages need to be watched, but surely not as harsh as the templars in Kirkwall are doing it.

[Specimen 47]

can we accept that it's poor writing? nearly every mage of note (meaning mages with names, not nameless NPCs) were blood mages, and that the templar oppression was heavily implied but never spelled out like the blood mage "problem" was? the word "oppression" and "slavery" was thrown around a lot, but there were fewer quests that actively showed just what the templars were doing, in comparison to seeing a blood mage (or abomination or nercomancer) at nearly every turn in the game.

the narrative is skewed against mages, and seems even more so when Hawke his/herself is a "good" mage.

[Everwarden]

Specimen 47 wrote...

can we accept that it's poor writing?

Yes. 

[RazorrX]

Mages need oversight, and not just by mages. Templars are a good idea, they just were not policed by the chantry. You give ANY fanatical group free reign and they will end up abusing it. Kirkwall is an example of how bad it got. From the moment you arrive you hear how bad it is in the circle, and it just gets worse as time goes on.

Did anyone ask the High Cleric about Merideth? She replied that it was not her position to judge Merideth. Then WHO is supposed to do that???? Where is the oversight? The Seekers were doing a ****** poor job of it. Little Miss Prissypants Bard of Orlais sure did not offer any solution beyond the fact that the Chantry was gonna come in and wipe the city clean. Probably giving Merideth a promotion after annuling the circle.

Mages alone end up corrupted (Tevinter) Templars alone end up abusive (kirkwall) so what needs to be done is a cooperative joint rule with oversight.

If a mage is accused of blood magic - a board of mages and templars should judge and rule. Any use of blood magic should be dealt with harshly and with finality. You are found guilty - you die.

The Circle should be required to have review by outside sources - Ie another circles leadership comes and checks up on things. This would involve a Knight Marhal, First Enchanter and Grand Cleric (as well as a much more capable Knight Marshal of the Seekers).

Mages should be allowed family visits, and have approved furloughs based upon merit.

There are a lot of things that could be done to make it less oppressive and thus reduce the chances of what happened in Kirkwall.

However you are dealing with the Oppressed (mages) and the Fanatics (Templars) so there will probably never be compromise.

[Everwarden]

RazorrX wrote...
If a mage is accused of blood magic - a board of mages and templars should judge and rule. Any use of blood magic should be dealt with harshly and with finality. You are found guilty - you die.
.

Blood magic isn't as bad as everyone suggests in game (even your BLOOD MAGE Hawke insists that it's evil). It can be used for evil, but so can a fireball.

Bugger that! No chantry lapdogs are going to tell me I can't stab myself! 

[Elystia]

LOL! I love the title of this topic...that's exactly what I am saying right now as play my first playthrough.

Every time I turn around I'm fighting blood mages or slavers.

I'm like "What the hell?" and then I run into mercenaries..um ok, not too exciting but I'll take what I can get.

Where's all the darkspawn? I miss my old enemies. lol. They were the reason I wanted to play again.
I loved killing darkspawn!

[Makeshift Riot]

greatcrusader44 wrote...

Did I miss something, I sided with the mages and Orsino becomes a Harvester, which killed only a small group of Templars, then we had to kill him?!? Why did he attack us?

Because both he and the Knight Commander are insane. There is no winning.
Even if you side with the Templars it will probaly end with a fight with crazy face and the sword of crazy.

[Dean_the_Young]

LobselVith8 wrote...

It's not house arrest, Dean, when you can get raped, tortured, given a lobotomy, or murdered with no agency over your own life. You had Anders' friend begging him to kill him he didn't want to be a "Templar puppet" anymore. You have multiple characters, including Hawke, who can address the Chantry controlled Circles as slavery. Having no control over your life is hardly just house arrest.

Of course you can be raped, tortured, or murdered in prison when there are bad guards. Those prisons may even have a policy of killing prisoners under certain conditions. They are in no way mutually exclusive. But it doesn't mean whatever those guards do is sanctioned policy.

All detainment is having control over your life taken away. That's why it's called detainment. That some people want to call it slavery doesn't mean that it is: it means that those people view it as slavery whether it is or not. A number of people called a High Dragon the Prophet Andraste: that doesn't mean the Dragon was the Prophet Andraste.

Abuses are absuses because they are beyond the normal, and Kirkwall's Templars under Meredith certainly did conduct systematic abuses. Those abuses, however, don't include rape or torture or all the Tranquility operations, while the sanctioned Tranquility abuses was an abuse of an existing system that was not supposed to be used in such ways.

As long as you keep pointing at the particularly extravagent abuses of one rogue Templar and his cohorts, and try to paint it as typical of the entire system, you undermine your own position and credibility. You'd have far better luck focusing on the sanctioned, systemic abuses by Meredith... though you can also expect to be countered by how even those were in large part a change from prior based on both the Idol's affects, and still aren't universal across the Chantry and Templars.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 15 mars 2011 - 06:55 .

[Vaemer-Riit]

I see blood magic as another tool, just like primal magic or entropy magic. Even the Templars use blood magic (phylacteries[I probably spelled that wrong]). The only problem with it is what people do with it and that it is normally learned from a demon.

As for the mages, I posted this in another topic.

Act 1 had very few blood mages, and the templars where not to repressive yet.

Act 2 more blood mages but still not many, templars are starting to become more repressive (rumors of the Tranquil Solution ect).

Act 3 blood mages fighting in the streets, templars are sending death squads to mages families and creating tranquil for voicing an opposing opinion.

Even the mission where you work for Meridith to retrieve the 3 mages. One was an elf who snapped because of the ****ty ways society treated elves, the 2nd was afraid of being made tranquil (the templars at this point where doing this for voicing an opposing opinion) and the 3rd mage just wanted to meet someone outside the circle(so he wouldn't die a virgin).

As for this this:

Dean_the_Young wrote...

As
long as you keep pointing at the particularly extravagent abuses of one
rogue Templar and his cohorts, and try to paint it as typical of the
entire system, you undermine your own position and credibility.

The abuse of the Tranquil procedure was not just Sir Alrik's hat. The Templars as a whole where using it as punishment. The problem with this is that it is against the Templars own laws, once a mage is past their Harrowing the Templars are not allowed  to make them tranquil

Modifié par Vaemer-Riit, 15 mars 2011 - 06:58 .

[Statulos]

Everwarden wrote...

RazorrX wrote...
If a mage is accused of blood magic - a board of mages and templars should judge and rule. Any use of blood magic should be dealt with harshly and with finality. You are found guilty - you die.
.

Blood magic isn't as bad as everyone suggests in game (even your BLOOD MAGE Hawke insists that it's evil). It can be used for evil, but so can a fireball.

Bugger that! No chantry lapdogs are going to tell me I can't stab myself! 

Even with the best intentions on mind, blood magic always finds its way to spoil things. Merrill is a very good example in that regard.

[Dean_the_Young]

Specimen 47 wrote...

can we accept that it's poor writing? nearly every mage of note (meaning mages with names, not nameless NPCs) were blood mages, and that the templar oppression was heavily implied but never spelled out like the blood mage "problem" was? the word "oppression" and "slavery" was thrown around a lot, but there were fewer quests that actively showed just what the templars were doing, in comparison to seeing a blood mage (or abomination or nercomancer) at nearly every turn in the game.

the narrative is skewed against mages, and seems even more so when Hawke his/herself is a "good" mage.

No, we shouldn't simply accept it as poor writing. That's just pigeonholing something that isn't satisfying, and in this case it isn't satisfying because there isn't an established equivalency.

That's not bad writing, though. There's no inherent reason why a circle that's been widely, and frequently, accused of spreading and practicing blood magic must show these accusations to be unwarranted. They certainly can be valid accusations, especially when (a) external sources are outright accused of influencing and encouraging more blood magic than would be found, ( blood magic and demonology have always been shown as an all-too-easy fallback that can never be taken away from someone, hence the entire reason mages are in the position in the first place, and © the Circle's own leadership has been dabbling and encouraging the spread and practice of blood magic. You have intrensic and external factors aligned in pushing for so many blood mages.

All sides don't need to be equal in composition: that's just false equivalency, which while dramatically satisfying to people who prefer one side or another, isn't 'good writing.' Not to invoke too fine a point, but that's actually rarer than most people accept.

[dakphillips]

I really liked that they made it a point to show not all Templars are hardliners like Meredith.  But aside from Hawkes family having magic (with either Hawke as a mage or with Bethany), they did a poor job of portraying the Kirkwall cicle in similar shades of grey.  Like other posters have said, it would have been great to have an on-going quest line about the veil to the fade being thin in Kirkwall as is.  I can only imagine how cool it would have been to periodically visit the Fade and see the spirits of tormented and condemned souls as a way to learn Kirkwalls history and understand the presence of so many demons.  But as it stands if I didn't have DA:O as a backdrop showing me many mages can be good people, I would have an opinion more in line with Fenris after completing DA2.

[Dean_the_Young]

Why should the Kirkwall circle have been a similar shade of grade? What, exactly, is detracted from the meaning, and tragedy, whether they were guilty or not?

The tragedy and atrocity isn't whether the Kirkwall Circle was guilty of being blood magi or not: it was that the Templars by and large didn't know and didn't care. It wasn't even why the Annulment was being carried out either.

If you sided with the magi, you weren't siding with them because they were innocent of all crimes. You were siding with them because they shouldn't all be killed for a single crime none of them committed. You were fighting against an acknowledged misaimed charge: whether they proved Meredith's earlier charges and pressures correct, she was using an entirely different pretext to kill them.

[ladydea]

Doc Faust wrote...

And we didn't even get his awesome dragon staff.

You mean this staff?



Sorry if someone already mentioned its existance already, I stopped reading after page 7.

[StowyMcStowstow]

Both choices are bad. The Mages are blood mages, and the templars are led by a crazy person, who is actually crazy. Neither choice is a great choice, but I chose the mages because I like mages, and the templar were gonna kill everyone. Orsino was overkill, but in the end just made me roll my eyes because he was the only one I had to fight. There were no templars in the area.
Which made his use of blood magic...

ENTIRELY POINTLESS.

[The Baconer]

It is curious how so many mages in this game turn to blood magic. Haven't they figured out that the Force Mage tree is so much better?

[Lauretha_L]

The Baconer wrote...

It is curious how so many mages in this game turn to blood magic. Haven't they figured out that the Force Mage tree is so much better?

I laughed. If it was facebook, I'd 'like' that comment
And anyway the Spirit Healer with elemental is the best. It gives nice boosts and allows your character to heal as well as kill.

Indeed! And in Orsino's case it was extremely out of character, idiotic AND pointless. It so didn't make sense to me that I am actually wondering whether I should write a fanfiction version of it... Hm... do I care enough? That's the question.

[JamesX]

I like Fenrir's line in pointing out that Mages all turn Blood Mage when it comes down to it. Few have the dignity to resist when faced with death.

LobselVith8 wrote...

Tobi, considering all the Circles broke free from the Chantry in the end, I'd say the mages considered it bad enough to emancipate themselves and become independent.

Welcome to bad writing 101

There is no reason that all Circles would break away from the Chantry.  Irwing and Gregor (Feralden Circle) have a great relationship.  Even Cullen (who supported mages at the end against Merridith) was rejected from Feralden Circle for being too volitile against mages.

Even in the game lore descriptions the Mages LOVES the Grand Cleric.  In fact everyone does.  Even Madden Meredith.  There is no way they didn't just burn Anders alive for what he done - instead resorting to Hawk to say "You are forgiven."

Modifié par JamesX, 15 mars 2011 - 10:13 .

[Everwarden]

The Baconer wrote...

It is curious how so many mages in this game turn to blood magic. Haven't they figured out that the Force Mage tree is so much better?

Pfft. Force sucks. Blood magic for the win!!!

[Darian Tylmare]

Yeah it was pretty extreme that virtually every mage used blood magic. Why don'T they understand that the power to throew a fire ball, which they are taught to use since a very young age (Witch Hunt), isn't just enough power?
The mages really annoyed me in the end as I stood against their oppressors and all I got was another lousy attempt at my life through blood magic.