Deified Data wrote...
DirtyFinger wrote...
Deified Data wrote...
The same reason they didn't bat an eye at Morrigan in Origins, despite her going out of her way to out herself as an apostate. It's not as if she was a Warden - she was fair game, but the Chantry ignored her for the sake of having a badass mage in your party.
Suspension of disbelief is essential, here.
Morrigan was travelling with a warden. If needed, the warden could even conscript any templars that would give lip. And besides: There was a blight going on.
In Kirkwall, absolutely nothing is happening that is distracting templars from their witch hunt. Even the violent qunari incident was over within a day.
You can't even compare those cases.
Nah, what we see here is the difference between a good story and a bad story.
Don't make this about Game A vs. Game B - "Morrigan could have been a Warden" is a cheap excuse. Some Templars, like Greagor, barely even respect the rights of Wardens as it is. Morrigan goes out of her way to taunt Templars on occasion, and we get nothing but the occasional "Bah, I can't be bothered with this now".
Aveline's husband Wesley was eager to point out Bethany as an apostate, even in the midst of a Blight. One imagines he wasn't the only Templar to have such a strict adherance to the code. No, the issue is this: Bioware created a world where mages are simply too exceptional to be walking around in regular company, Grey Warden or no. You can tell a populace that the Wardens are off limits, and free to conscript whoever they please, but that hardly worked against the bandits on the way to Lothering, did it? Or the mob of villagers who assemble in Lothering to collect your bounty? Remember that the Wardens were outlaws for the majority of Origins' campaign, with a sizeable chunk of the population believing that they were indeed responsible for Cailan's death. How many of those people were Templars, or other people in positions of power? Simply being a Grey Warden does not make you immune to suspicion and persecution, even if the plot says it should. Not everyone is of a like mind, especially where mages and Wardens are concerned.
So we are to expect an apostate like Morrigan, who gleefully advertises it to any interested party, wouldn't be picked off by people who may or may not recognize the Warden's right of conscription? The entire foundation of this argument is wrong, if held under scrutiny. It may not make sense to be a mage in DAII, but it never has. Thedas is not a friendly place for mages. Bioware only included them among the selectable classes for gameplay sake - as i said before, suspension of disbelief is necessary here or you'll be twisted up in the fiction.
In DA:O you were travelling through a rather large country, that was being torn apart simultaneously by an apocalyptic threat AND an impending civil war. You were part of an ancient order with the sole purpose of putting an end to said apocalyptic threat, an order that was pretty much universally accepted throughout all races and factions as being above any kind of regular law. Most of the time you spent in places where your being a mage or not didn't matter at all, because the people in the positions of power there supported you (Redcliffe) or didn't care because they were outside the chantry/circle system (dwarves, elves). The templars in the circle had huge problems of their own, and even so, the only mage that could even offend them was Morrigan. Given the overall situation and the fact that she was a companion to a Warden who had binding legal documents that basically told them they were his ****es - do you really think it’s that much of a stretch to think they just looked away? "Bah, I can't be bothered with this now" seems like a pretty reasonable reaction. Wynne was a respected circle mage and healer; you yourself were a conscripted circle mage, so no problem there. Now as you pointed out you
were being attacked all the time in spite of your position. But it’s not that the plot told you this shouldn’t happen, it’s part of the plot
that it happened. It’s because the world of Dragon Age and the land of Ferelden were as they were.
Now in DA2 the situation is different. You are staying in one city all the time, a city that is basically run by a hardliner templar-commander. A city full of tensions (not the least between templars and mages), but without any real, unifying threat. You are a penniless refugee among many others, at first your only supporters within the city are your lowlife uncle and some third-rate underworld connections. Either you are a textbook apostate mage yourself or your sister is, and you surround yourself with an obviously possessed renegade circle mage and a carefree elven blood mage. That sounds like trouble if you ask me (it doesn’t help the immersion that all of you are forced by the gameplay mechanics to run around with your obvious mage sticks all the time). Urm, yeah, I think I can leave it at that for now.
Well, what I want to say is his: it makes as much sense to be a mage in DA2 as it did in DA:O, mages are fun and an integral part of Thedas. Given the new setting and plot, however, it would have taken
a lot more effort from the writers/devs to make it an equally believable and immersing experience. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
Edit: basically what DirtyFinger already said with fewer words.
Modifié par TheRealJayDee, 26 mars 2011 - 12:56 .
Retour en haut
