169 réponses à ce sujet

[SovereignofDeath]

It's very easy for me to be pro mage when I'm a mage, mostly because I try to be as evil as possible. My only problem here is that I can't join forces with the blood mages.

[nicethugbert]

Karnor00 wrote...

At the start of the story, and most of the way through my stance was that it is wrong to oppress mages.  The fact that they can be tempted by demons doesn't mean that they all will be.  And its unfair to condemn the innocent majorty for the actions of a few abominations, no matter how destructive those abominations are.

By the end of the story I found myself thinking that the templars don't go nearly far enough and that the Qunari have the right idea.  The reason is that practically every mage I meet in the game is evil or an abomination.  And note that I don't regard blood magic as inherently evil here so I'm not writing people off simply for being blood mages.

Good mages:

Hawke (if Hawke is a mage)

Bethany

Alain - one of the apostates hiding in a cave in Act 1.  Doesn't turn into an abomination or kill people.

Ella - the mage that Anders/Justice tries to kill.  Has a very small part but no evidence of evil or demonic posession.


Dubious mages

Merill - while she doesn't technically turn into an abomination or intentionally massacre people (her clan start the fight if you do down that route) she did still spend most of the game listening to demon whispers and falls prey to the demon promises in the fade.

Feynriel - if you help him out then he doesn't turn into an abomination.  On the other hand hes already losing to 2 demons when you enter the fade to save him, and the only reason he isn't an abomination yet is that they are both fighting over him.  And you can easily sacrifice him to Torpor without him objecting.  I can't see him staying demon free for long even if you do save him.


Evil mages - everyone else.  I've noted a few below

Orsino - My great anti-abomination hope turns into a disgusting fleshy heap at the end.  While this techincally may not have been demonic in origin its still pretty evil, plus there's the fact that he immediately turned on me rather than just killing templars.

Anders - Kills an innocent unless you stop him.  Plus blows up the chantry including a lot of people who aren't directly responsible for the mages plight.  If he had blown up the gallows then I might have understood.

Grace - even if you save her in Act 1 rather than turning her over to the templars she still turns evil and tries to kill your brother/sister in Act 3.


So basically, aside from Hawke's immediate family and a couple of minor characters (where there isn't anything to indicate evil/abomination status), every mage in the game is either an abomination or a murderer.  I found it pretty hard to defend freedom for mages at this point.  Although that said, the Circle clearly isn't working either.

Hmm, so I can use this logic to eradicate the dwarves because of the Carta?  Can I use this logic to eradicate humans because of all the trouble I went through to clean up the kirkwall gangs?  Can I use this logic to eradicate the templars for their bribable and sadistic lyrium junkies?  Can I .....  Destroy the world, except for the Qunari, those big ole comfort lovers.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 30 mars 2011 - 01:32 .

[Aelia]

Joy Divison wrote...

Aelia wrote...

It is NOT that I disagree with you.  It's that BW made my agreement hard to swallow, and intellectually difficult to justify.  We didn't really need to see the Templars behave worse... what we really needed to see was some Mages rise to the occassion and do things truly selfless.

-A

I'm pretty sure that's the point.  Mages in DA don't rise to the occasion an do thing truly selfless.

If they did, it would be too easy to side with them at the end.

I have to disagree here, 'cause if I don't then I could never side with the mages.  If they are ALL destined to go bad, then the Templars have the right of it.

In my opinion the more difficult moral dilemna occurs when the vast majority of mages are good people.  It's enough that when that 1% goes bad catastrophic events result.  Here's my analogy....

People in general are guns.  Each capable of maiming and killing.  Most don't do that.  But some do, because they are greedy, blood thirsty, etc., etc.  Others will do it in defense of themselves or another, etc., etc. 

Now mages.... they aren't guns.  They are friggin' nuclear weapons. When they go wrong, the damage isn't nearly as localized.  Moreover, there are constant forces whispering in their ears telling them how nice it would be if they would only just detonate.  Therein lies your moral dilemna.
 
Do we let people capable of that much destruction walk around putting EVERYONE else at risk even though it so rarely happens.  The rarety provides the injustice, because 99 are being oppressed for fear of the 1.

By not showing the selfless acts of the mages, BW has created a false impression that 1 is being oppressed for fear of the other 99.  For me, there isn't really a dilemna anymore, idealism has to give way to practicality.  More innocents can be saved by eradicating the group as a whole.

*edited for typos and to complete a thought

Modifié par Aelia, 30 mars 2011 - 01:45 .

[Asdara]

I think it is important in this conversation to recognize a simple fact: magic isn't "normal" in daily life. We, as players who have characters in "high adventure" situations see magic used both for good and for bad FAR more than the common dockworker or baker is ever going to. We're thinking of it as a power that half our party - half the people we associate with most - generally has in some form, and it's commonplace for us. Society doesn't have that point of view in Thedas. Magic is unnatural, magic is unpredictable, magic is something you pay a great deal of sovereigns for if you need healing and have the luxury of getting it.

As one codex put it (paraphrasing): it is a power that only a few possess and if they were not contained they could ask you for anything and you would be powerless to refuse them because they have power you cannot contend with.

THAT is the issue of mages being "free" or "imprisoned" - if they are free, how many of them - even if none EVER turned to blood magic OR demons - would use their advantage to disadvantage someone else? Tevinter Imperium is the worst case example, and they enslaved all non-magical people with the fact that "Hey, we can rain fire on you, we can freeze you, we can invade your dreams and feed your children to our power if you resist our slightest whim"

There's a large scale issue here that can't be discussed in a vacuum where we're only talking about Templars, Mages, and Adventurer types like ourselves.

[Asdara]

Double posts... 

Anyway - oppressing mages IS bad - letting them loose means they could oppress others (read: likely would, if not right away eventually, if not en masse at first, a culture would grow that endorses the actions of oppression against people who aren't magical eventually)

It's a deeply complex moral question with social and cultural fallout resulting from any set up

Modifié par Asdara, 30 mars 2011 - 02:41 .

[Camenae]

Why exactly are people debating whether or not the mages have "good reason" to turn to blood magic, because the veil is thin and whatever else?

Interning for the district attorney's office, *most* of the defendants I see have had lives so horrible that I can't even imagine. Incest/rape/being beaten for years and years are all commonplace, and I feel SO BADLY for these people.

But does that mean we should just forgive them and let them leave and do their thing?

[LobselVith8]

Camenae wrote...

Why exactly are people debating whether or not the mages have "good reason" to turn to blood magic, because the veil is thin and whatever else?

Interning for the district attorney's office, *most* of the defendants I see have had lives so horrible that I can't even imagine. Incest/rape/being beaten for years and years are all commonplace, and I feel SO BADLY for these people.

But does that mean we should just forgive them and let them leave and do their thing?

I think the argument tends to focus on how it's a form of magic that templars don't have a defense against. According to the codex on the Templars:

"It is this sense of ruthless piety that most frightens mages when they draw the templars' attention: When the templars are sent to eliminate a possible blood mage, there is no reasoning with them, and if the templars are prepared, the mage's magic is all but useless."

Since there's usually no reasoning with templars (which explains how the charlatan, the Magnificent D'Sims, was killed when templars suspected he was a mage who was healing the infirm when he was really a trickester who was pretending to heal the sick for coin), the solution would be to protect themselves with the only means that can protect them from the templars: blood magic.

If we're talking about apostates, the templars tend to have a brutal response to them (and we seldom see exceptions to this), from the Apostate codex:

"No matter how a mage has become apostate, the Chantry treats them alike: Templars begin a systematic hunt to bring the apostate to justice. In almost all cases, "justice" is execution. If there is some overriding reason the mage should live, the Rite of Tranquility is employed instead. Whether we of the Circle of Magi believe this system fair is irrelevant: It is what it is."

Considering the choice is between life and death, most mages would likely choose a path that would aid in their survival. I don't think blood magic is bad, personally. I think Merrill stands as an example of a mage who uses blood magic and isn't in the same category as the antagonists that we frequently run into.

[Derrick1011]

I like how everyone is all "Just kill the mages!"

You realize there's a war on at the end of the epilogue, right? And the mages are winning?

[nicethugbert]

Asdara wrote...

I think it is important in this conversation to recognize a simple fact: magic isn't "normal" in daily life. We, as players who have characters in "high adventure" situations see magic used both for good and for bad FAR more than the common dockworker or baker is ever going to. We're thinking of it as a power that half our party - half the people we associate with most - generally has in some form, and it's commonplace for us. Society doesn't have that point of view in Thedas. Magic is unnatural, magic is unpredictable, magic is something you pay a great deal of sovereigns for if you need healing and have the luxury of getting it.

As one codex put it (paraphrasing): it is a power that only a few possess and if they were not contained they could ask you for anything and you would be powerless to refuse them because they have power you cannot contend with.

THAT is the issue of mages being "free" or "imprisoned" - if they are free, how many of them - even if none EVER turned to blood magic OR demons - would use their advantage to disadvantage someone else? Tevinter Imperium is the worst case example, and they enslaved all non-magical people with the fact that "Hey, we can rain fire on you, we can freeze you, we can invade your dreams and feed your children to our power if you resist our slightest whim"

There's a large scale issue here that can't be discussed in a vacuum where we're only talking about Templars, Mages, and Adventurer types like ourselves.

But normal is dangerous too so using the same logic against normal that is used against mages makes as much sense.  It makes as much sense as the qunari.  The qunari do not have personal names.  Each individual qunari is named after his role in society.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 31 mars 2011 - 09:44 .

[TobiTobsen]

Derrick1011 wrote...

I like how everyone is all "Just kill the mages!"

You realize there's a war on at the end of the epilogue, right? And the mages are winning?

O'rly? Just because the circles are rebelling, they are not winning. The chantry is just wetting their pants because the war is destroying everything and the templars are going rouge, not because the mages are winning. And I fail to see how a mage vs templar conflict could turn out good for the mages. The templars are specifically trained on anti mage techniques. Additionally I don't think that most of the people are all "Whoa mage freedom! Awesome! Abominations for everyone!"

[IanPolaris]

I think it's safe to say that when Varric is being questioned, the mages *are* winning (at the very least the 'war' of popular opinion). The Interrogator mentions several times that the champion was sent to Kirkwall to spread heresy and dissent against the Chantry.

If the mages weren't winning, the seekers wouldn't be browning their collective trousers and the Templars wouldn't feel the need to secede from the Chantry. The Templars would simply annul all the circles and be done with it.

No, the near simultaneous revolt by all the circles of Thedas seem to have given the mages at least a temporary advantage.

-Polaris

[TobiTobsen]

IanPolaris wrote...

I think it's safe to say that when Varric is being questioned, the mages *are* winning (at the very least the 'war' of popular opinion). The Interrogator mentions several times that the champion was sent to Kirkwall to spread heresy and dissent against the Chantry.

If the mages weren't winning, the seekers wouldn't be browning their collective trousers and the Templars wouldn't feel the need to secede from the Chantry. The Templars would simply annul all the circles and be done with it.

No, the near simultaneous revolt by all the circles of Thedas seem to have given the mages at least a temporary advantage.

-Polaris

The seekers are just afraid because the chantry is falling apart, imo. And that has nothing to do with the fact that the mages are winning, but with the fact that the mages AND the templars are openly defying the rule of the chantry. 940 years of chantry rule are going to end and the seeker know/fear it.

Modifié par TobiTobsen, 31 mars 2011 - 11:02 .

[dsik6462]

Jade empire 2 is crossing over to the game where the warden the champion and the hero of jade empire 1 all come together that would be so stupid it just might explain everything hahaha

[DamnThoseDisplayNames]

I think that seeing all that (all the ****mages I mean) it's actually the only reasonable solution for Hawke (if he's a mage himself) to be a pro-mage and lead them. If not him, then who? That pathetic excuse for enchanter, Orsino? And I will not even start about Anders.

Modifié par DamnThoseDisplayNames, 31 mars 2011 - 11:19 .

[LegendaryBlade]

Nodscouter wrote...

Catt128 wrote...

So Anders is an evil mage? In my opinion things are much more complex than "good" or "bad".

Yep. It would be a better idea to rate it by a ''renegade/chaotic and paragon/lawful'' scale.

He blew up the chantry and killed countless innocent people for reasonining that ultimately didn't hold up. His actions cause Meredith to call for annulment of the circle.. I don't know what you consider bad, but that is pretty ****ed up.

[Kagura_Hakubi]

 At times, I felt like I only sided with the Mages because my sister was there, and she'd made at least a couple of friends. I'm fairly sure she was lying to me about being treated well - she seemed awfully despondent and 'out of it' when we finally got to meet again - but she was still my sister.
Meredith was a very motivational speaker, and I think she probably would have tricked me if not for Beth. It was very easy to get swept up in her "Look what this mage did, the others are just waiting for their chance" rhetoric, no matter how obscene it really was.
I'm pretty sure Ben Franklin (I think it was Franklin? One of you yanks, anyway)  doesn't have an equivalent in Thedas, but it doesn't make the line about "Those who give up civil liberties for the sake of safety deserve neither" any less poignant.
Of course, there's always the Warhammer 40k solution. All Psykers (who have the same "awesome power from a parallel world, but huge beacons for demonic possession" thing going on that Mages do in Thedas) get rounded up by the Imperium, shipped off in slave ships, and then sorted by power level and focus - the greater majority of them get "soul bound", a process by which a more powerful psyker puts a booby trap into their minds that explodes their heads if they start to be possessed. The others get fed to the Emperor to keep him alive or recruited into the Inquisition and given ridiculous amounts of training to stop them getting possessed... to the point where even if they're corrupted to evil and the daemons' causes, they still do so under their own will rather than that of a daemon.

So there's an idea - keep 'open circles', more like a mage's guild... but make registration and psychic booby-trapping compulsory. Oh, it's probably a good idea not to tell anyone who hasn't had it done exactly what the 'new harrowing' actually involves, only that it means that mages can't become Abominations, but I can't imagine any non-mages objecting. In fact, even some Mages would probably like the idea - they're dead either way, but at least their body won't go on to kill their loved ones.

[Mnemnosyne]

There's probably no way to do that, though. I'm sure if there was a way to do that some would prefer it. It'd almost certainly be commonly used in Tevinter, if nothing else.

But keep in mind the Chantry wants to control the mages for other reasons than 'they may become abominations'. They also don't like people that are powerful like that running around outside their control. It's just that the abomination thing is a really convenient way to convince everyone that the mages are dangerous and need to be controlled.

[Rifneno]

LegendaryBlade wrote...

He blew up the chantry and killed countless innocent people for reasonining that ultimately didn't hold up. His actions cause Meredith to call for annulment of the circle.. I don't know what you consider bad, but that is pretty ****ed up.

And I don't know what you consider "countless" but the people in one Chantry isn't it.

Kagura_Hakubi wrote...

I'm pretty sure Ben Franklin (I think it was Franklin? One of you yanks, anyway)  doesn't have an equivalent in Thedas, but it doesn't make the line about "Those who give up civil liberties for the sake of safety deserve neither" any less poignant.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."  Yes, Ben Franklin.  One of my favorite quotes, though it's been overused in recent years for obvious reasons.  It also perfectly sums up why I don't sympathize with the coward Circle mages who are dragged into the war "against their will."

[DKJaigen]

TobiTobsen wrote...

Derrick1011 wrote...

I like how everyone is all "Just kill the mages!"

You realize there's a war on at the end of the epilogue, right? And the mages are winning?

O'rly? Just because the circles are rebelling, they are not winning. The chantry is just wetting their pants because the war is destroying everything and the templars are going rouge, not because the mages are winning. And I fail to see how a mage vs templar conflict could turn out good for the mages. The templars are specifically trained on anti mage techniques. Additionally I don't think that most of the people are all "Whoa mage freedom! Awesome! Abominations for everyone!"

We will seen in DA3 then hey. in my opnion the mages have more advantages then the templars

[Bayz]

TobiTobsen wrote...

 Additionally I don't think that most of the people are all "Whoa mage freedom! Awesome! Abominations for everyone!"

Excuse me sir, I am. :happy:

I don't think the problem in the Chantry is actually with the mages directly, but with their personal army going rogue...too much money taken from the Chantry charity for that ntch...