4350 réponses à ce sujet

[Master Shiori]

GavrielKay wrote...

I will agree that's true, but I'm not convinced the Chantry is open minded enough to consider radical compromise despite this.  They've had 1000 years to think up ways to head this off.  I'm also personally probably closer to Anders point of view than the Chantry's.  I don't think the Chantry would consider any compromise that my Hawke (or I) would be satisfied with.  I think it's time for the corrupt militant religio-politic organizatin to fall on its face.  Obivously, that's just me

Fair enough

Ultimately, it's up to the Bioware themselves to decide how this plays out and how different characters react.

Regardless of what they decide it seems that things will get very interesting.

GavrielKay wrote...



I tend to role play pretty darned close to what I actually feel for the majority of my playthroughs.  I toss in a few where my character behaves totally different from how I would for fun and to see how it plays out in the game.  So my Hawkes think Meredith is crazy long before we know she's crazy, that Elthina is a weak willed incompetent and that the Chantry heirarchy are far more invested in their power than the good of the people.

My canon Hawke is a mage who recognized that people fear magic and was determined to make herself an example of a responsible mage who can use her powers for the good of everyone. She felt Meredith and Orsino were both wrong and refused to take sides until Anders blew up the Chantry. She got along well with Elthina and the less fanatical elements within the templars like Thrask, Kelan and Cullen, while opposing Karras, Alrik and Mettin.
She protected the mages from RoA but refused to take part in their revolution, since she believes violence isn't the solution. If the Chantry offered to reform the Circles she would help them as long as it resulted in a new, more just system.

My other Hawkes are divided between supporting the mages or the templars. 

[Master Shiori]

IanPolaris wrote...

Master Shiori wrote...

Right now they don't enjoy open support from the Chantry, but aren't being condemned for breaking off either.

How do you know this?

-Polaris

Because they wouldn't need to break away from the Chantry if they had it's full support. And because if the Chantry wanted to deal with it's runaways templars it would do what I posted earlier.

Right now the Chantry doesn't support war, as Cassandra herself tells us.

[Beerfish]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


[/i]Anders ran out of hope that the situation for the mages would either resolve itself or be resolved by Elthina. For a thousand years mages have given up more and more rights that other citizens are allowed and that didn't help either. Fear of mages grew even worse, mostly due to Chantry propagandist dogma calling their gift a curse from the Maker. Because only the Chantry knows what the Maker's intentions were.

Nice excuse for one man to take that kind of action on behalf of everyone everywhere.

Chantry propoganda?  Could be, could also be the numerous occasions of free (or temporarily free) mages causing massive havoc and death or the couple of cases of mage circles disintegrating into chaos and death.

[TEWR]

Beerfish wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


[/i]Anders ran out of hope that the situation for the mages would either resolve itself or be resolved by Elthina. For a thousand years mages have given up more and more rights that other citizens are allowed and that didn't help either. Fear of mages grew even worse, mostly due to Chantry propagandist dogma calling their gift a curse from the Maker. Because only the Chantry knows what the Maker's intentions were.

Nice excuse for one man to take that kind of action on behalf of everyone everywhere.

Chantry propoganda?  Could be, could also be the numerous occasions of free (or temporarily free) mages causing massive havoc and death or the couple of cases of mage circles disintegrating into chaos and death.

Fearing a man for what he can do and not for what he does is never justified. The past of people should never dictate the future of people. If I should fear people for what they can do then I should always be afraid when I drive through the really ghetto neighborhoods when I'm picking up my brother. I should be afraid that someone there will point a gun at me and shoot.

You should judge each person individually, not as a collective.

And the Chantry propaganda existed long before mage circles disintegrated into chaos. Tevinter was based around mages ruling over men. It was their tradition and the very backbone of their society. That does NOT mean that mages elsewhere will make a carbon copy of the Tevinter Imperium if they're free. Has there been one mage that we've seen who has wanted to rule over men and hasn't been possessed by a demon? No? Ok then.

[Ryzaki]

Oh? So Idunna was possesed?

[IanPolaris]

Master Shiori wrote...

Because they wouldn't need to break away from the Chantry if they had it's full support. And because if the Chantry wanted to deal with it's runaways templars it would do what I posted earlier.

How do we know that they haven't?  I haven't seen any information either way, and I don't think you have either.

Right now the Chantry doesn't support war, as Cassandra herself tells us.

That's not what Cassandra says.  She says, "Not all of us support war".  She says nothing about the Chantry.  The scene works equally well if the Seekers (who Varric assumes are part of the Templars if you'll recall) have gone rogue themselves.

We don't know exactly what the Chantry wants.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Beerfish wrote...

Chantry propoganda?  Could be, could also be the numerous occasions of free (or temporarily free) mages causing massive havoc and death or the couple of cases of mage circles disintegrating into chaos and death.

If you treat a person like an animal, don't be suprised if he behaves like an animal later.

Chantry....I am talking to you.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Ryzaki wrote...

Oh? So Idunna was possesed?

We aren't exactly sure what Idunna wanted other than act at the behest of abomination Tarohone.

-Polaris

[Xilizhra]

Was Tarohne an abomination, though? She summoned one, but I noticed no hint of her becoming one.

[EmperorSahlertz]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Fearing a man for what he can do and not for what he does is never justified. The past of people should never dictate the future of people. If I should fear people for what they can do then I should always be afraid when I drive through the really ghetto neighborhoods when I'm picking up my brother. I should be afraid that someone there will point a gun at me and shoot.

So I shouldn't fear the man pointing a gun at me, because he havn't shot me yet? When you drive through the ghetto, you shouldn't be afraid (depending on which ghetto ofcourse), because you can't be sure wether people you drive by are armed or not. With a mage, you can always be certain that he is a mage. He can't help it. And by being close to you, he is endangering you, wehter he wants to or not. Even if the chance of possession is small, it is ever present.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

And the Chantry propaganda existed long before mage circles disintegrated into chaos. Tevinter was based around mages ruling over men. It was their tradition and the very backbone of their society. That does NOT mean that mages elsewhere will make a carbon copy of the Tevinter Imperium if they're free. Has there been one mage that we've seen who has wanted to rule over men and hasn't been possessed by a demon? No? Ok then.

Tarohne wasn't possessed..

Modifié par EmperorSahlertz, 13 mai 2011 - 06:56 .

[EmperorSahlertz]

Xilizhra wrote...

Was Tarohne an abomination, though? She summoned one, but I noticed no hint of her becoming one.

She wasn't. I don't know where they are getting that from.

[Ryzaki]

IanPolaris wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

Oh? So Idunna was possesed?

We aren't exactly sure what Idunna wanted other than act at the behest of abomination Tarohone.

-Polaris

Tarohone wasn't an abomination as far as I can recall. 

[TEWR]

Xilizhra wrote...

Was Tarohne an abomination, though? She summoned one, but I noticed no hint of her becoming one.

She probably was. She was bat**** insane at the very least, so I wouldn't list her as a person who wanted to rule over anyone. She could barely rule over herself.

[Silfren]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Silfren wrote...

 and I think there's sufficient evidence to call what Anders did not an act of terrorism but the opening salvo in an declaration of war.

ter·ror·ism
1. The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims

Which basically means that every single war that has ever been waged has been terrorism, down to the last one.

[TEWR]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...


So I shouldn't fear the man pointing a gun at me, because he havn't shot me yet? When you drive through the ghetto, you shouldn't be afraid (depending on which ghetto ofcourse), because you can't be sure wether people you drive by are armed or not. With a mage, you can always be certain that he is a mage. He can't help it. And by being close to you, he is endangering you, wehter he wants to or not. Even if the chance of possession is small, it is ever present.

If he's pointing a gun at you, then has taken action against you and you have reason to be fearful. Don't twist my words around please.

And you can always tell who is a mage? No you can't. Mages are good at hiding their powers with their training (especially in the case of Kirkwall when you can make Fireball fireworks, wear magically enchanted robes, and carry huge staves). Proper training against spirits would make the chance of possession nonexistent. The Dalish way of training their Keepers and Firsts is the right way to go. The Circle's is only decent. They're launching a person into the Fade with no knowledge of what they'll face.

Tarohne wasn't possessed..

To the best of our knowledge anyway.

[IanPolaris]

Xilizhra wrote...

Was Tarohne an abomination, though? She summoned one, but I noticed no hint of her becoming one.

She claimed to be one in the dialog (even boasting that she sought the demons out), but it's true we don't see that in game play.

-Polaris

[jlb524]

IanPolaris wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Was Tarohne an abomination, though? She summoned one, but I noticed no hint of her becoming one.

She claimed to be one in the dialog (even boasting that she sought the demons out), but it's true we don't see that in game play.

-Polaris

She said she sought them out and embraced them (the demons).  I wouldn't say that means she allowed one to possess her.

[Sylvianus]

How many of Kirkwall's populace had mage relatives in the Gallows? I notice this hasn't even been touched upon. We already know that a lot of Kirkwall citizens were sympathetic to the mages. Do we have their opinions? How many of them had decided that the Chantry had gone too far and was in dire need of change? How many of these people had children, siblings, or lovers taken prisoner? How many saw their loved ones made Tranquil without due cause? How many of these people were bloody well sick of the Chantry and its templars and reacted to the explosion of the Chantry and the subsequent mage revolt as "about damn time. Where do I join up?"

I assure you, people who felt that way exist. The only "face" of the general population that's been mentioned is that of people who would react to the Chantry explosion with increased fear and hate of mages and conclude that their imprisonment is justified, but no populace is ever that unified, no matter how much effort is made to make the other viewpoints invisible. There's always going to be a population of some size that fully sympathises with the revolutionaries, no matter what extremes they go to.

True enought.

Silfren wrote...

Sylvianus wrote...

Or do I protect my people against a threat at the same time I killed innocents. Blood calls for blood from the chantry's blow.

The situation went wrong. Butit had already become untenable with all these mages who were going crazy.

Do you really think that the circle was not corrupted ?Actually, they are all beautiful, all innocent. It is to be naive, after all that has been experienced in the game. And the veil acts.

The Circles are a product of the Chantry.  If they're corrupt, looking at the Chantry's chosen methods for running the Circles is the first place one ought to be looking. 

Also, yes, after a thousand years of punishing any and all mages for the past crimes of Tevinter Magisters, that blood definitely called for blood.  The Chantry deserved the bloody nose Anders gave it.

Again, I never disputed that the Magi had no good reason to attack the Chantry. If I was mage, I take this attack as welcome. After killing Anders as well (as an event that remains unacceptable to me to start a war by such a cowardly , taking weapons on innocent, and be mage does not relieve me of an argument close to the people.) After that, I would defended the Magi.

Besides, I plan to do a playthrought like that with a mage.

But I'm not a mage this time, I am not fighting for me and my brothers, Chantry is not my enemy. My enemies are not those of the Magi. My considerations are not the same as those of the Magi. So it is understandable that I can consider them as a threat if they threaten what I see as important to me.

Well otherwise It's technically false that say the Chantry is evil.

The Chantry helped at Lothering the people when his lord and his army abandoned the village. These are Chantry and Templars who managed the city, helping refugees to flee.

The same thing in Redcliffe. The Chantry has done an admirable job. Generous, courageous in times facing the imminent arrival of darkspawn or zombies.

Mother Hannah is an example of the goodness of priestesses within a system that has failed, yeah. Leliana thinks with her heart as many of them.

The Chantry is not the enemy of people. So yes, Anders killed innocent people, in the eyes of everyone except mages. It is terrorism. It doesn't matter the name you want to call that to give you a clear conscience. Anyway It doesn't bother me at all.

Also, It is wrong to say that everything chantry said about Tevinter's Imperium and mages in ancient times, is propaganda. Dogma can be played in many ways. But I listened carefully Flemeth, read the writings of the elves, and many points converge on the harm caused by mages at this time.

Many things gives a similar view on Andraste despite maybe some differences.

The brother Genitivi also gives a similar view to Chantry about Tevinter's mages at this thime. And no, his point of view is not biased, since he called into question several times Chantry's vision and her interpretation. Never dogmatic references. It is a study of a savant wich remains focused on the facts.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 13 mai 2011 - 07:27 .

[Silfren]

Dave of Canada wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

That pretty much makes the U.S, Germany, Britain, etc. terrorists doesn't it? Since countries that declare war are using violence for political reasons. Or am I wrong (I'm actually really curious as to if that is the case. I'm not disputing the definition of terrorism.)

Technically, it depends where you're from. I used a simplistic term because the person seems to have ignored a previous discussion with a more defined definition.

Everywhere in the world have different definitions for terrorism, though it's basically to inspire fear among the people to achieve a goal. Somebody blowing up a building because it's funny isn't a terrorist (more of a psycopath), though the same man who does it to show people... well, I can't think of an example (5AM) so I'll just continue with Anders:

Anders blows up the Chantry to make everybody "pick a side", to show everybody that there can't be peace. By blowing up the Chantry, he made his goal clear and now everybody is afraid and news of it will likely spread throughout Thedas / the Chantry-ruled countries. He could've picked more valuable targets, maybe killing the Knight-Commander or something... though that wouldn't have had the political effect he (probably) wanted.

I won't name any specific real world examples to start a debate about it, though. 

*sigh* We had a discussion about this once already, but the problem is that "terrorism" is not a neutral term that serves merely as a descriptor. (And it's useless to quote dictionary terms at me, because there is no single agreed upon definition followed by every nation).  It's disingenuous to make statements like "Oh, I have no problem with what Anders did, but I don't like to pretend it's not terrorism" because that ignores the reality: most people consider terrorism to be categorically different from acts of war, and attach an extremely negative connotation to it.  The reason some of us are pushed to dispute that we believe Anders is a terrorist is not always because we personally like the character and hate the concept of terrorism, thereby having to re-define the word in order to make ourselves feel better, though I will concede that that likely is a problem for some people who have internalized the word as synonymous with pure evil.  Often it's instead because once you admit to supporting an action that you define according to that word, there's no escaping that most of your audience is going to interpret it as you admitting that you support one of the most evil things imaginable to the modern Western mind.  In particular a lot of Americans--and I am an American, lest I be accused of bashing--will interpret it as you thinking that bin Laden was a real stand-up kinda guy.

When the popular imagination has dictated the framing of the debate, you have to choose your wording within those bounds.  Unless you want to take the time to write a paragraph or five to re-establish the parameters you're arguing from, which isn't always going to matter.  The subject of terrorism is one such case where it usually doesn't.  So when a lot of us choose to argue the point of whether Anders was a terrorist and his act one of terror, that's why: because if we try to pretend that we're just using a neutral term as a mere descriptor, we're going to be written off as supporters of the utmost evil because the majority of the world just does not see it that way.

Modifié par Silfren, 13 mai 2011 - 08:17 .

[TEWR]

jlb524 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Was Tarohne an abomination, though? She summoned one, but I noticed no hint of her becoming one.

She claimed to be one in the dialog (even boasting that she sought the demons out), but it's true we don't see that in game play.

-Polaris

She said she sought them out and embraced them (the demons).  I wouldn't say that means she allowed one to possess her.

I would. Embracing a demon with open arms in the Fade generally means/leads to possession. Uldred was able to still retain a human form until he saw fit to morph into a pride demon. The Baroness did to. Tarohne might have been able to do the same.

Edit: Just so people don't try to use Merrill as a counterargument. That's a different scenario.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 13 mai 2011 - 07:24 .

[Ryzaki]

My issue with that is that every other abomination was made clear through gameplay. You see the abomination (or in some cases the demon) rise from their corpse. 

Except for Tarhone. That would be an awfully strange oversight when they bothered to get it right every other time.  

Modifié par Ryzaki, 13 mai 2011 - 07:29 .

[Xilizhra]

Also, Idunna never mentions it in her letter.

[jlb524]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I would. Embracing a demon with open arms in the Fade generally means/leads to possession. Uldred was able to still retain a human form until he saw fit to morph into a pride demon. The Baroness did to. Tarohne might have been able to do the same.

Edit: Just so people don't try to use Merrill as a counterargument. That's a different scenario.

I think it's b/c she goes on to state how Ancient Tevinter held demons in check and made them their allies that I think she's controlling them (or thinks she's controlling them) and didn't necessarily become possessed.  That's just my interpretation, though.

[Silfren]

Rifneno wrote...


I agree. We don't really know what happened with the merge except that it went bad, nor the nature of spirits and how they work in certain situations. But we do know that Wynne was also possessed by a spirit and she had a good bit of anger in some things too. Even if the Warden tells her he's going to slaughter the children she's protecting she doesn't turn glowy abomination. Perhaps Justice was pretty much doomed to be corrupted as soon as he was flung into the mortal realm. Maybe even he got tainted somehow by the Countress demon. That woman was the most evil thing I've seen in Thedas. The woman she's based on is quite possibly the purest example of true evil in our real world (IMO) and that's saying a lot.

No, my anti-organized religio-political bodies bias is showing,

That's a fancy way of saying "intelligence."

Why thank you!    Also, my personal theory regarding Justice and Anders vs Wynne and Faith hinges on what Isabela herself said in banter with Anders.  Justice as a concept can't properly exist in a world of people.  You see in Awakening that Justice can't comprehend the idea of owning a pet.  Also, his agitation over Aura.  He was so hellbent on making amends for Aura's anguish over their first meeting that the idea of it being an even greater injustice to insist on forcing himself on her rather than letting her alone was something he couldn't conceive of.  He seems rather locked into having a reaction for every action, as if justice is nothing more than a scale for balancing one action against another, but things just can't work that way in contextual situations involving people. 
I'd expect the corruption of faith would be fanaticism, and perhaps the difference between Anders and Wynne is that she on the whole was a wiser and more serene person than Anders.  But then again maybe Faith as a pure concept has a greater chance of co-existing with human complexity than that of Justice.

[Silfren]

Master Shiori wrote...

GavrielKay wrote...

Do you imagine that Hawke and Anders have been desperately working with Orsino, Meredith and Elthina trying to get something done.

Actually, the codex entries on Anders tell you what happened to him during those "missing" years. They don't go into detail but give you a rough idea.

Um, no they don't.  They don't go into explicit detail of everything he did every week of every month for every year.
 

GavrielKay wrote...

Master Shiori wrote...


I think that any Chantry idea of compromise was likely to be so far off from what Anders wanted as to count for little to him.  The Chantry has precious little motivation to give up their stranglehold on the lives of mages.  When the starting position is as lopsided as the mage vs. Chantry situation, a compromise is awfully likely to continue to favor the dominant party by a wide margin.

Anders' idea was for mages to be free without any supervision and the abolishment of the templars, the Circles and possibly the Chantry. Ofc, the Chantry wasn't going to accept such radical demands.

If he proposed a reform of the Circles that gave greater freedom to mages within and a system of control that would prevent abuses at the hands of the templars, then that could have been acceptable to the less conservative elements within the Chantry.

The Chantry has never before faced a threat of a mage uprising on a global scale. Even if the current rebellion is put down it won't prevent the same thing from happening in the future. The only permanent solution lies in compromise between the 2 sides.

Anders has gone on record as acknowledging that mages need to be policed.  He specifically refers to them needing to "empowered to police [them]selves."  I think that's a pretty good indicator that he's not completely blind to the fact that mages need some kind of oversight and doesn't mean for mages to be completely above the law.  He just doesn't think the way to do that is by locking them away and preventing them from being able to walk around like everyone else.

Modifié par Silfren, 13 mai 2011 - 08:21 .