115 réponses à ce sujet

[Mykel54]

As far as i remember, in origins the dalish make a difference in the dalish origins regarding the mirror. Then in DA2 Marethari also calls the thing inside the mirror a demon. The only person that seems to call everything spirits is Merrill, which never calls the "bad spirits" demons, if i remember correctly. I wonder if Merrill is particularly obtuse or if other dalish also support this theory that there is no demons but only spirits.

[LobselVith8]

Based on what Anders says in DA2, the difference between spirits and demons is religious; specifically, Andrastian.

Anders says to Merrill, "Spirits were the first children of the Maker, but He turned his back on them to dote on His mortal creations. The ones who resented this became demons, driven to take everything mortals had and gain back the Maker's favor."

Modifié par LobselVith8, 01 avril 2011 - 11:12 .

[Vormaerin]

There's no evidence that they are different in kind. They are all Fade entities that embody certain emotions or intellectual constructs (like Justice). The only practical difference is that demons are more interesting to unpleasant people and making deals with them is more likely to have negative consequences because the emotions they focus on are more negative.

I'm pretty sure that the Andrastians would torch Wynne and Anders as abominations just as fast as they would any "demon" possessed person.

[IanPolaris]

I don't think the Dalish make a specific sepertion between demon and spirit, and Anders himself seems to imply that the distinction is largely an Andrastian one.  That doesn't mean it's not important since the Fade is in a lot of ways an emotional reflection of the real world and the feeliings of those mortals in the real world (in DAA Justice himself wonders if spirits believe in a higher power because there is one or if it's a reflected belief of thousands upon thousands of mortal dreamers).

Frankly, and I know this is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way, but Merrill IMHO is probably the sanest and wisest of all the users of magic, Keeper and Mage-Hawke included, and I find it particularly obnoxious that the writers in DA2 put the wisest words of magic (and likely how magic 'really' works) into the mouth of a ditz just to make the Templars and Mage-Haters look better.  In fact that mage-hate in DA2 (by the writers) is IMHO way over the top and frankly obnoxious.

-Polaris

[Bayz]

Vormaerin wrote...

There's no evidence that they are different in kind. They are all Fade entities that embody certain emotions or intellectual constructs (like Justice). The only practical difference is that demons are more interesting to unpleasant people and making deals with them is more likely to have negative consequences because the emotions they focus on are more negative.

I'm pretty sure that the Andrastians would torch Wynne and Anders as abominations just as fast as they would any "demon" possessed person.

Oh boy...should have turned her

Well they wanted to do it to Anders already before he became one

[SDNcN]

I thought the difference was that demons feed off of human emotion while spirits don't.

IanPolaris wrote...


Frankly, and I know this is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way, but Merrill IMHO is probably the sanest and wisest of all the users of magic,
Keeper and Mage-Hawke included, and I find it particularly obnoxious
that the writers in DA2 put the wisest words of magic (and likely how
magic 'really' works) into the mouth of a ditz just to make the Templars
and Mage-Haters look better.  In fact that mage-hate in DA2 (by the
writers) is IMHO way over the top and frankly obnoxious.

-Polaris

Are we talking about the Merrill in DA:2 or some other Merrill?

Modifié par SDNcN, 01 avril 2011 - 11:26 .

[Vormaerin]

I think its just that spirits of joy, justice, and all that fluffy stuff would starve in the world of Thedas, so they don't bother

[Bayz]

lol'd

Still Justice seems to love it taking as how he was supposed to get back to his place and "renewed the visa" with Anders...

[Iosev]

I particularly like this conversation between Merrill and Anders:

Merrill: Are you alright?
Anders: I nearly killed an innocent girl. How could I be alright?
Merrill: I'm sorry.
Anders: You're sorry? For me? This could be you! You could be the next monster threatening helpless girls.
Merrill: Anders...there is no such thing as a good spirit. There never was.
Merrill: All spirits are dangerous. I understood that. I'm sorry that you didn't.

[Tigerman123]

Justice makes a distinction between spirits and demons in Awakening, so it's definitely not just an artificial human concept, so whether or not the Elves recognize it is neither here nor there. I guess Merril is right in the sense that demons are simply spirits perverted by envy of/the desire to feed off/ the wish to dominate mortals, so spririts aren't inherently good any more than humans are, and have the same capacity for naughtiness.

Modifié par Tigerman123, 01 avril 2011 - 11:37 .

[Oneiropolos]

Well, I suppose it comes down to if you want to define something as 'good' or 'bad'. I personally DO. According to the Chantry documents, spirits were the first children of the maker. Then they didn't DO anything with the gifts they gave him because they were apparently content to praise him all day. So he was disappointed and created the second children, which were the mortal races. Then a book also discusses how the spirits watched the mortal races, and Wynne tells us some watch benevolently in curiosity (Justice in Awakening seems to back up this concept) ad some watch in jealousy. The jealous ones are the ones who WISH to possess people and have twisted in on themselves to become 'demons'. So Merrill asserting that there is no such thing as a 'good spirit' is wrong. We've seen and met several. But she is correct whens he says all spirits are -dangerous- because we've seen that too. But her refusal to see a difference between good or bad is naive and self-destructive. Anders SEES that Justice has been twisted. It's just too late for either of them. He continues through the game to try to get Merrill to grasp that being an abomination is horrific.

Anders admits his own hatred of the templars is what pushed towards Justice being twisted to Vengeance. Wynne, on the other hand, is worried she's an abomination, but your warden has a chance to talk with her about it, and you can tell her it's what she does now that determines if she's a monster or not, not that she has a spirit in her. Wynne can control it, because she is generally kind and seeks wisdom. So the spirit of Faith in her isn't twisted, though it cannot last in her forever.

I believe most Dalish DO see a difference between good and evil spirits, and thus spirits and demons. It's Merrill trying to make an excuse for using blood magic and demons to help her that refuses to see it.

[LobselVith8]

SDNcN wrote...

Are we talking about the Merrill in DA:2 or some other Merrill?
 

I think Ian is talking about the same Merrill who uses blood magic for several years proficiently and extrapolates information from a cleansed shard and ancient lore in rebuilding a two thousand year old piece of elven technology.

[IanPolaris]

Tigerman123 wrote...

Justice makes a distinction between spirits and demons in Awakening, so it's definitely not just an artificial human concept, so whether or not the Elves recognize it is neither here nor there. I guess Merril is right in the sense that demons are simply spirits perverted by envy of/the desire to feed off/ the wish to dominate mortals, so spririts aren't inherently good any more than humans are, and have the same capacity for naughtiness.

I wouldn't take Justice's unvarished word on that.  In DAA Anders challenges Justice on exactly this same point (aren't demons nothing more than spirits with particularly 'colorful' personalities) and Justice flies off the handle and gets very angry with Anders....but never denies it.

YES I am talking about the same Merrill.  I realy hate how the writers try to picture the one person in the story that understands and can use blood-magic responsibly AND understand spirits better than perhaps all other mages in Kirkwall combined and tries to make her into some 'dumb blonde'.  The anti-mage tone in DA2 is really obnoxious.

As for what spirits believe, spirits tend to believe what moral dreamers believe because their 'reality' is shaped by the dreams of mortals.  Thus the distinction might indeed be real but also due entirely to the force (in dreams) of the Chantry.

-Polaris

[Vormaerin]

Tigerman123 wrote...

Justice makes a distinction between spirits and demons in Awakening, so it's definitely not just an artificial human concept, so whether or not the Elves recognize it is neither here nor there. .

Because asking a spirit if its naughty or nice is a great way to determine the truth of the matter  

Justice is a fruitcake in Awakening and he's totally psycho in DA2.   *Anders* blames himself for corrupting Justice, but there is no objective evidence that he actually did so. 

[TJPags]

Meh, I've always figured the difference is man made . . . "bad" spirits are called demons.

I doubt there's any real difference. Demons are defined by their dominant trait . . so is Justice. Even when called Vengeance. Demons feed on and amplify a persons feelings. . . .see Janders.

A rose by any other name and all . . .

[IanPolaris]

I think Merrill is basically right and the authors don't want the player to understand that, so the put the right answer into a character that they then paint as a complete twit.  The problem for the authors of DA2 is that Merrill (and certainly not the Merrill in DAO) is NOT a twit when it comes to magic.

Spirits tend to reflect the human emotions they embody.  Merrill herself quite correctly says that it's stupid to blame a spirit of desire for being what it merely is....an embodiment of desire.  Spirits that don't try to activily possess people don't do it because they are benevolent.  They do so because they are incurious at best and contemptious of mortals at worst.  In DAA Justice was becoming increasingly "demonic" the longer he was away from the fade which meant that Anders offering to be his host was an especially stupid thing to do....and it's a mistake that only happened because Anders foolishly believed (because of his strong Andrastian faith) that there was such a thing as a 'good' spirit.  It's exactly this sort of mistake that Merrill would never make.

Merrill understands that she is putting herself at risk of becoming an abomination and asks her dearest friend/most respected rival (and often lover) to "take care of her" if that happens/  Merrill walks into this with her eyes wide open understanding the risk.  That puts her above pretty much all the other mages in Kirkwall, mage-Hawke included.

-Polaris

[Bayz]

TJPags wrote...

Meh, I've always figured the difference is man made . . . "bad" spirits are called demons.

I doubt there's any real difference. Demons are defined by their dominant trait . . so is Justice. Even when called Vengeance. Demons feed on and amplify a persons feelings. . . .see Janders.

A rose by any other name and all . . .

Same at this side of the  screen

Modifié par Bayz, 01 avril 2011 - 11:56 .

[Vormaerin]

IanPolaris wrote...

The anti-mage tone in DA2 is really obnoxious.

Its a little over the top, certainly.  I do wish more of the "Enigma of Kirkwall" stuff was front and center. 

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the mage-hammering is a direct response to the fans' refusal to accept the devs' word that the world was actually safer with the Circle system.  They tried to have a nuanced approach to both sides in DAO and got buckets of pro-mage propaganda in response.  So Kirkwall is kind of a "Fine, you don't believe me?  Here's what mages are really like!"    So now most mages and templars are 'tards, with some good ones on both sides.  Whereas in DAO, it was the other way around.  Most were good, with a few bad apples on both sides.

[IanPolaris]

Vormaerin wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

The anti-mage tone in DA2 is really obnoxious.

Its a little over the top, certainly.  I do wish more of the "Enigma of Kirkwall" stuff was front and center. 

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the mage-hammering is a direct response to the fans' refusal to accept the devs' word that the world was actually safer with the Circle system.  They tried to have a nuanced approach to both sides in DAO and got buckets of pro-mage propaganda in response.  So Kirkwall is kind of a "Fine, you don't believe me?  Here's what mages are really like!"    So now most mages and templars are 'tards, with some good ones on both sides.  Whereas in DAO, it was the other way around.  Most were good, with a few bad apples on both sides.

That's because the circle system as it's presented (and certanly like it's run in most of Thedas) is EVIL.  There is no real nuance about it.  It's evil.  It'a system that locks away people and take away their human rights and dignity not for anything they have done but simply because of what they are.  It's evil in the real world and no matter how much you try to excuse or justify it in Dragon Age, it's evil in Thedas too.  In this Anders/Justice is completely correct.

I don't think that David Gaidar and others quite realized how many people would recognize an evil system for what it is.  "Security" is a time honored (and usually wrong) excuse for such systems IRL and there is strong evidence that's true in Dragon Age as well.

-Polaris

[TJPags]

IanPolaris wrote...

Vormaerin wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

The anti-mage tone in DA2 is really obnoxious.

Its a little over the top, certainly.  I do wish more of the "Enigma of Kirkwall" stuff was front and center. 

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the mage-hammering is a direct response to the fans' refusal to accept the devs' word that the world was actually safer with the Circle system.  They tried to have a nuanced approach to both sides in DAO and got buckets of pro-mage propaganda in response.  So Kirkwall is kind of a "Fine, you don't believe me?  Here's what mages are really like!"    So now most mages and templars are 'tards, with some good ones on both sides.  Whereas in DAO, it was the other way around.  Most were good, with a few bad apples on both sides.

That's because the circle system as it's presented (and certanly like it's run in most of Thedas) is EVIL.  There is no real nuance about it.  It's evil.  It'a system that locks away people and take away their human rights and dignity not for anything they have done but simply because of what they are.  It's evil in the real world and no matter how much you try to excuse or justify it in Dragon Age, it's evil in Thedas too.  In this Anders/Justice is completely correct.

I don't think that David Gaidar and others quite realized how many people would recognize an evil system for what it is.  "Security" is a time honored (and usually wrong) excuse for such systems IRL and there is strong evidence that's true in Dragon Age as well.

-Polaris

Whether the Circle as it exists is EVIL is opinion, not fact.

[LobselVith8]

Vormaerin wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

The anti-mage tone in DA2 is really obnoxious.

Its a little over the top, certainly.  I do wish more of the "Enigma of Kirkwall" stuff was front and center. 

But we're completely removed from the mage perspective. The problem is that Hawke never really has to endure the persecution of being an apostate. Everyone magically forgets that Hawke is a mage, even when he demonstrates magical ability in front of the City Guard or the Order of Templars. Considering that Hawke's status as an apostate is pretty much ignored for most of the game, the decision to be a blood mage is ignored completely, we deal with characters who conveniently forget that Hawke sided with the First Enchanter against the Knight-Commander (including Ser Thrask and his clandestine operatives) and we have Orsino turning into the GoA Harvester in a moment that doesn't seem to make much sense since Orsino is never acknowledged as getting his hands on any documents from Amgarrak, we're never really afforded a look into life as an apostate beyond the vague "the templars are asking questions" that Varric references early on in Act I.

[Shinsetsu]

IanPolaris wrote...

I wouldn't take Justice's unvarished word on that.  In DAA Anders challenges Justice on exactly this same point (aren't demons nothing more than spirits with particularly 'colorful' personalities) and Justice flies off the handle and gets very angry with Anders....but never denies it.

YES I am talking about the same Merrill.  I realy hate how the writers try to picture the one person in the story that understands and can use blood-magic responsibly AND understand spirits better than perhaps all other mages in Kirkwall combined and tries to make her into some 'dumb blonde'.  The anti-mage tone in DA2 is really obnoxious.

As for what spirits believe, spirits tend to believe what moral dreamers believe because their 'reality' is shaped by the dreams of mortals.  Thus the distinction might indeed be real but also due entirely to the force (in dreams) of the Chantry.

-Polaris

I think that Merrill's personality is exactly what allows her to be so wise. When she tells Hawke about watching a mugging outside her home and how exciting it was, she displays the same sort of child-like curiousity that allows her to make observations about the Fade and the Spirits within it. And I think that this is what makes her so interesting as a character: to the casual observer, she's an idiot toying with dangerous magic, but as someone who's close to her, you see that she's brilliant, cautious, and responsible with her efforts. She knows the risks and is willing to accept them, even if the price to pay is her own life. In a way, she reminds me a bit of The Doctor of Doctor Who.

[LobselVith8]

Vormaerin wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

The anti-mage tone in DA2 is really obnoxious.

Its a little over the top, certainly.  I do wish more of the "Enigma of Kirkwall" stuff was front and center. 

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the mage-hammering is a direct response to the fans' refusal to accept the devs' word that the world was actually safer with the Circle system. 

Is it safer? We have mages resorting to blood magic and becoming abominations because of the Chantry controlled Circles. We have a brutal system where mages are being raped, tortured, being made tranquil, and killed in order to enforce the status quo. We have the templars torturing a Dalish child for information on the apostate Feynriel. We have the Knight-Commander order the genocide of all the Circle mages in Kirkwall for something all of them are innocent of.

Vormaerin wrote...

They tried to have a nuanced approach to both sides in DAO and got buckets of pro-mage propaganda in response.  So Kirkwall is kind of a "Fine, you don't believe me?  Here's what mages are really like!"    So now most mages and templars are 'tards, with some good ones on both sides.  Whereas in DAO, it was the other way around.  Most were good, with a few bad apples on both sides.

Except it removes Hawke from every having to experience life as an apostate because there are never any negative reprecussions from being an illegal mage. Hawke is never under the threat of being made tranquil or killed, he's never under the threat of being imprisoned or having his rights stripped from him because Hawke is protected by the plot. Maybe your reasoning explains why David Gaider thought that one "need only glance at your average templar vs. mage thread (previous to DA2 coming out, in particular) to see that most people fall on the side of the mages almost by default."

[Bayz]

@Shinsetsu

After seen her in combat she seem to me as a Person of Mass Destruction

Was it previous to DA2 coming out?

Modifié par Bayz, 02 avril 2011 - 12:38 .

[Vormaerin]

IanPolaris wrote...
That's because the circle system as it's presented (and certanly like it's run in most of Thedas) is EVIL.  There is no real nuance about it.  It's evil.
-Polaris

Its as evil as the draft.  Its the same situation.

When the system works, its not nearly as oppressive as its made out to be.  Wynne has no trouble getting permission to come and go more or less as she pleases.   Other mages are treated similarly.   The problem for mages like Anders is that he doesn't want to ask permission, so he keeps running away.   Going AWOL.   So the MPs bring him back to camp.  And, because he's a known troublemaker, he doesn't get his leave passe signed...   endless circle.

Greagoir and Irving are clearly friends.   Greagoir just takes Irving's word that the circle is cleansed; takes it over Cullen's, for that matter.

Kirkwall's Circle is the complete opposite.  A blood mage as first enchanter and a psycho as Knight Commander.  And even then, Bethany comments its not nearly as bad as she thought.

The problem we face is that we are ALWAYS seeing the Circle from the perspective of the renegades.   If you spend all your time adventuring with militias, John Dillingers, and outlaws, its obvious the American government is corrupt and oppressive...