1927 réponses à ce sujet

[Darkrider296]

You honestly can't say ****'s on the forum. Last time I checked that's not a swear word lol

[EmperorSahlertz]

Darkrider296 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

Terrorism is never justified.
Also, he took responsibility because he developed a martyr complex, he thinks he will be killed for it and that everybody will remember his name as the great mage liberator.. rather than another in a long line of self destructive abominations.

What about the terroism in WW2 by resistance groups against the ****'s, is that not justified? 

 
That depends on which part you of t you are referring to. If you mean the sabotage of tactical and strategic important German assets by resitance fighters, then yes those were justified. If you mean the targeting of local civilian ****-party supporters for simply being ****s, then no. People should not have to fear for their lives, simply for voicing their opinions, despite what you think of those opinions.

Darkrider296 wrote... 
If you bring Anders to the Gallows there is some MAJORLY screwed stuff going on there. He tried to be reasonable (trying to see if he can talk to Cleric in Act II) but after a while he hit the wall. Too many people wanted to uphold the status quo. Anders has lived a constant life of oppresion was sick of 'moderate' reform crap being put forth. The Templars by and large are zealots who will not loosen any of their power (Plus I'll never understand the love for Cullen that many fans have). Thedas is in need of an Earth shaking event so that eyes can be opened, whether people like it or not

You don't "open peoples' eyes" to the plight of the mages, by blowing up one of the biggest structures of Faith for 90% of the population...... If anything, Anders succesfully alienated the mages even more...

[Urzon]

Darkrider296 wrote...
 Thedas is in need of an Earth shaking event so that eyes can be opened, whether people like it or not

Earth shaking events can blind eyes just as much as they can open them. They only thing Anders did after bombing the Chantry was give the general population a common enemy to fear, and he showed them just how much damage a single mage can do.

Because after the common folk look at the smoldering ruins of the Chantry, they aren't going to think, "Aww, those poor mages," or "Those mages sure do have it rough if they would do this." All they would be thinking of is the death of the Grand Cleric they loved, and who is going to pay for this.

[Lazy Jer]

Foryou wrote...

Okay say what you will about Anders blowing up the Chantery, but was Anders Justified for what he did even if it was wrong. I mean is he justified for blowing up the chantery. Due to him thinking that it was the only way to solve the Mage Templar Problem.
To be honest I think he is justified I mean he thought that the end would justify the means. To add on he took complete responsiblity for his action and didn't put up a fight when he confessed to what he did. He was fine with being killed as well.

I disagree.  I don't think he was justified at all.   The question itself is very subjective and depends highly on one's personal opinions, but to me he bombed a church and  killed innocent people, all to bait Meredith into calling for the Rite of Annulment and force a conflict between the mages and the templars.  I know people will disagree but I don't think the ends justified the means at all.  The ends weren't that great and the means were horrific.

I wanted to say, too that there's a big difference between confessing what you did and being willing to suffer the consequences and being justified.

[katiebour]

 Oooh, lookit the undead thread!

I've written extensively on this before, but let me sum up and add some goodies, and reiterate my Tumblr post on the subject.

Just played through the Origins Circle Tower again yesterday- if you talk to the blood mage on the second floor, she says (my paraphrasing):

"The templars were always, always watching.  We just wanted to be free.  The magic was a means to an end."

and this:

“You don’t really believe that, do you Wynne?  Change rarely comes peacefully.  Andraste waged war on the Imperium; she didn’t write them a strongly worded letter.  She reshaped civilization, freed the slaves, and gave us the Chantry.  But people died for it…”

“We thought…  someone always has to take the first step…  force a change, no matter the cost.”

Mages have been subjugated/denigrated/de-humanized/tortured/murdered for ten centuries.  For a thousand years.  In real life, if any group of people had had a similar experience for that amount of time based on a characteristic beyond their control (skin color, perhaps, or sexual orientation) would we be as angry if they took drastic measures against their oppressors to be free?

Most Templars (including Cullen) come out and say that mages "aren't really people."

Mages can't form emotional attachments, lest the person in question become emotional collateral.  Their children are taken away at birth and only in extreme circumstances do they ever find out what becomes of them (Wynne is an exception, and only because she was the companion of the Hero of Ferelden.)

Mages are ripped away from their families as soon as their magic manifests, and in the cases of families like Jowan's and Anders', they are reviled by their family members as evil, cursed, a sin made flesh.  Jowan was physically abused by his parents once they realized he was a mage.

Oftentimes they are convinced that they are, in fact, evil simply by being (remember mage Kelli in the chapel and with Wynne in DA:O?  She actually says that the Templars should kill her simply for existing, to 'cleanse her of her evil.'  Her crime?  Being born a mage.)

They are put through a ritual designed to test their willpower and ability when they are little more than children, pushed into the Fade where the magical equivalent of a dinnerbell has been rung, and a demon waiting to possess them.  If they fail they will be killed.  If they take too long they will be killed.  There are men with swords standing by and waiting to kill them.

And all of that at the ripe old age of 17-18. 

They are subject to the whims of their often sadistic jailers, who will beat them, rape them, and try to provoke them into becoming possessed simply to have an excuse to cut them down.They are rarely allowed outside- no sunshine, no fresh air, no running in the fields or playing ball games (Finn was so pleased that after Anders' abortive swim across the lake that they were no longer allowed outside.  But the rest of the apprentices probably felt differently...)  

No frolicking in the snow, or ice skating, or even standing in the rain.  They are kept inside, under guard, where their existence is regulated from sunup to sunset- classes, meals, and sleep, all under the watchful eyes of the guards who are there to kill you if you screw up.  Some of the mages are five or six years old.

They are forced into crowded quarters with 20-30 people (remember all the bunkbeds?) and no privacy.  No doors on the bathrooms, no closed areas for bathing or other bodily functions, no privacy for dressing or sleeping or kissing your girlfriend or boyfriend or other intimate acts.  

Even the Harrowed mages are crowded into rooms without doors, where three beds, separated by a wall or a bookshelf mock the convention of privacy.  Only the senior mages get DOORS.

They are given no autonomy.  As Emile says, he’s never had a drink, never cooked something for himself.  They are treated like overgrown children all their lives and then punished for not being adult enough to resist temptation.  And if they are brash enough to want more, to hope for more, if, like Anders, they come to the Circle at an age where they remember what it’s like to run free, to have family, friends, crushes on the pretty girl next door, pets, work, freedom, they are branded rebellious troublemakers.  If they run away from their stone prison they are hunted like animals (using what is, hypocritically enough, pretty much blood magic, as confirmed in Asunder) and dragged back.  If it happens often enough the punishments become severe, like being put in solitary confinement for a year.

Plenty’s been written on the extraordinarily traumatic nature of solitary confinement and the long-term consequences it brings- I won’t reiterate that here.  But it’s torture, pure and simple.

And when a mage can’t take it anymore, he’ll either fall apart internally or externally.  Anders says the most common way for a mage to die is by his own hand, and just imagine that for a moment- Anders has seen mages, multiple, kill themselves- has found their bodies, perhaps, or had friends that simply gave up the fight and didn’t come to breakfast the next morning.  If they fall apart externally the demons are there, taking them over and puppeting them in a grotesque parody of power before they’re cut down.  Either way they’re dead.

*********

Now put yourself in his shoes.  Remember what you were like at 5, or 7, or 12?  Remember your parents, your family, your world?  Now imagine that it’s been discovered that you have a trait totally out of your control- something dangerous and feared, yes, but no more so than a sword in the hands of a child.

Imagine your parents cursing your name, beating you, locking you up, handing you over to armed strangers.  Imagine your mother tearfully pressing a pillow into your hands and knowing that in all likelihood you will never, ever see any of your family again.

Imagine these strange armed men then drag you across the countryside, screaming, crying, afraid, lonely, and bring you into a prison.  You are thrown into a large room full of strangers, people you’ve been told to fear all your life until you realized you were one of them.  Maybe they make fun of you, the new kid, the one who can’t read, who doesn’t know a fireball from a sleep spell.  Imagine the first time you have to take a crap in front of dozens of strangers.

Imagine being thrown into a boarding school where you never get to go outside, where your days of working in the fields with your parents or playing with your dog or cat or sibling are replaced by lessons, lessons, and more lessons.  Where you are taught to harness the power inside of you and simultaneously condemned for having it in the first place.  Where you are taught to heal, to help others, but never allowed to actually do so.  Maybe you remember when Aunt Bernice was sick, or the cow sprained a leg, and you wish you could just go home and help, where you could fireball the damn wolf that keeps eating your family’s sheep.  But you can’t go home, ever, and so you’re reduced to setting up sock blinds and performing ridiculous arcane exercises that may or may not have practical value, ever.  You’re cursed, useless, and in the eyes of your jailers, a punishment inflicted upon the world.  You’re less than human and you will be watched, always, in case you slip, and if you do, the templars will be there to cut you down.

**********

This is Anders’ reality.  And when he fights back, does he immediately go blow up the Chantry?  No.  The first thing he does when he stops running is set up a clinic to heal people, to help, and to hide.  He only gets involved in the mage underground because he came to help Karl, his first lover.

Imagine finding the first person you ever cared about lobotomized.

So he blows up the Chantry then, right?

No.  He sits down and writes out well-thought out arguments, and goes around begging people to read it.  He tries to send it to Orsino, Meredith, anyone who will listen and make changes.  He tries the peaceful route.

But no one is interested in logic, in how mages, properly trained and cared-for are no more dangerous than a trained soldier.  How they could help.  No one is interested in the fact that mages are the Maker’s children, too, and as his creations don’t deserve to be punished for something completely out of their control.

And this is Anders with Justice riding sidesaddle in his head.  Awakenings Anders would just have cut and run- he has a history of it, and after Dissent he tries to run, before he hurts anyone.

But Justice won’t let him leave, won’t let him abandon his people and the fight they both sacrificed so much for.  You can tell him to leave, and cut him out of your party.  Justice finds a way to make it happen.

At the beginning of Act III, in your house, Anders reveals that the mage cause is all but lost.  Most of the people he worked with have been killed by Meredith.  No one is reading his manifesto- no one is even considering his viewpoint, because the system as it is has endured for a thousand years.

How do you change something a thousand years in the making?

How do you incite your fellow mages to rise up, at last, to see the slow death for what it is, how do you fight for the freedom simply to live as a human being?

You do it by forcing the hand of your common enemy.  Anders didn’t blow up the Chantry to kill the Grand Cleric, or to kill anyone, for that matter.  He did it because it was the one thing that would guarantee that Meredith would order the Rite of Annulment on a Circle full of innocent mages.

He exposed, to all of the mages, once and for all, that their guilt or innocence doesn’t matter.  The Templars have the power of life and death over them, and will exercise it at their whim.  There is no one to protect them, no one to save them when the Rite is ordered.

Meredith would have ordered it anyway (had already sent to Val Royeaux for permission, as is revealed if you go and talk to the Templars in the Gallows at the end of Act III) but that particular execution of the Rite would have been cloaked under the guise of “They’re all blood mages and they deserve it.”    They all would have died without a murmur, the Circle wiped clean, and no one left to argue their guilt or innocence.

Anders’ actions make it crystal-clear that he is the one to blame for the Chantry, the Circle was in no way responsible.  But Meredith takes it out on them anyway, because the people will demand blood, and after all, they’re just mages, it’s not like they’re human, right?  Keep in mind that the Circle is full of innocents, men, women, children, Bethany.

Anders reveals to all of the mages beyond a shadow of a doubt that they exist at the Templar’s sufferance, to be executed regardless of guilt or innocence.  The Circle is a death sentence.  Change and revolution won’t come from the outside- so he creates it on the inside, and pushes the Templars to reveal who they really, truly are- executioners.

There are fourteen Circles of Magi in Thedas, each with dozens, or even hundreds of mages.  For a thousand years, untold generations of mages have come and gone, been imprisoned, tortured, killed.  Unless someone does something, untold future generations will continue in the same vicious cycle.

Anders steps up, with Justice’s help.  He takes on the mantle and burden of being the savior of his people.  The compassionate healer kills a building full of innocent people (and it nearly destroys him to do it) in order to save thousands upon thousands of innocents in the present and future.  He knows that he deserves to die for what he’s done and begs you to put him to the sword.  As long as the revolution occurs, his own life is unimportant.

*****

Anders is an epic figure, a tragic hero, a cursed and blessed man.  He refuses to accept that he, or any mage deserve their treatment, and he fights, unceasingly, for all of them.  He sacrifices his life so that justice may be done.I know exactly who Anders is, and I love the hell out of him.  Vive la ****ing revolution, baby.  

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas

—————————

“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
”-Patrick Henry

Modifié par katiebour, 22 mars 2012 - 02:57 .

[smallwhippet]

@katiebour: well said!

[Koire]

Great, now we have five (five!) active threads about Anders at once... Really, Bioware, bring him back for DA3 for those who did not kill him, and you may rest assured there will be something worth discussing on the forums for the next year 

Modifié par Koire, 22 mars 2012 - 04:35 .

[Lazy Jer]

Koire wrote...

Great, now we have five (five!) active threads about Anders at once...

Is that counting or not counting the ones that have derailed completely?

[Darkrider296]

katiebour wrote...

 Oooh, lookit the undead thread!

I've written extensively on this before, but let me sum up and add some goodies, and reiterate my Tumblr post on the subject.

Just played through the Origins Circle Tower again yesterday- if you talk to the blood mage on the second floor, she says (my paraphrasing):

"The templars were always, always watching.  We just wanted to be free.  The magic was a means to an end."

and this:

“You don’t really believe that, do you Wynne?  Change rarely comes peacefully.  Andraste waged war on the Imperium; she didn’t write them a strongly worded letter.  She reshaped civilization, freed the slaves, and gave us the Chantry.  But people died for it…”

“We thought…  someone always has to take the first step…  force a change, no matter the cost.”

Mages have been subjugated/denigrated/de-humanized/tortured/murdered for ten centuries.  For a thousand years.  In real life, if any group of people had had a similar experience for that amount of time based on a characteristic beyond their control (skin color, perhaps, or sexual orientation) would we be as angry if they took drastic measures against their oppressors to be free?

Most Templars (including Cullen) come out and say that mages "aren't really people."

Mages can't form emotional attachments, lest the person in question become emotional collateral.  Their children are taken away at birth and only in extreme circumstances do they ever find out what becomes of them (Wynne is an exception, and only because she was the companion of the Hero of Ferelden.)

Mages are ripped away from their families as soon as their magic manifests, and in the cases of families like Jowan's and Anders', they are reviled by their family members as evil, cursed, a sin made flesh.  Jowan was physically abused by his parents once they realized he was a mage.

Oftentimes they are convinced that they are, in fact, evil simply by being (remember mage Kelli in the chapel and with Wynne in DA:O?  She actually says that the Templars should kill her simply for existing, to 'cleanse her of her evil.'  Her crime?  Being born a mage.)

They are put through a ritual designed to test their willpower and ability when they are little more than children, pushed into the Fade where the magical equivalent of a dinnerbell has been rung, and a demon waiting to possess them.  If they fail they will be killed.  If they take too long they will be killed.  There are men with swords standing by and waiting to kill them.

And all of that at the ripe old age of 17-18. 

They are subject to the whims of their often sadistic jailers, who will beat them, rape them, and try to provoke them into becoming possessed simply to have an excuse to cut them down.They are rarely allowed outside- no sunshine, no fresh air, no running in the fields or playing ball games (Finn was so pleased that after Anders' abortive swim across the lake that they were no longer allowed outside.  But the rest of the apprentices probably felt differently...)  

No frolicking in the snow, or ice skating, or even standing in the rain.  They are kept inside, under guard, where their existence is regulated from sunup to sunset- classes, meals, and sleep, all under the watchful eyes of the guards who are there to kill you if you screw up.  Some of the mages are five or six years old.

They are forced into crowded quarters with 20-30 people (remember all the bunkbeds?) and no privacy.  No doors on the bathrooms, no closed areas for bathing or other bodily functions, no privacy for dressing or sleeping or kissing your girlfriend or boyfriend or other intimate acts.  

Even the Harrowed mages are crowded into rooms without doors, where three beds, separated by a wall or a bookshelf mock the convention of privacy.  Only the senior mages get DOORS.

They are given no autonomy.  As Emile says, he’s never had a drink, never cooked something for himself.  They are treated like overgrown children all their lives and then punished for not being adult enough to resist temptation.  And if they are brash enough to want more, to hope for more, if, like Anders, they come to the Circle at an age where they remember what it’s like to run free, to have family, friends, crushes on the pretty girl next door, pets, work, freedom, they are branded rebellious troublemakers.  If they run away from their stone prison they are hunted like animals (using what is, hypocritically enough, pretty much blood magic, as confirmed in Asunder) and dragged back.  If it happens often enough the punishments become severe, like being put in solitary confinement for a year.

Plenty’s been written on the extraordinarily traumatic nature of solitary confinement and the long-term consequences it brings- I won’t reiterate that here.  But it’s torture, pure and simple.

And when a mage can’t take it anymore, he’ll either fall apart internally or externally.  Anders says the most common way for a mage to die is by his own hand, and just imagine that for a moment- Anders has seen mages, multiple, kill themselves- has found their bodies, perhaps, or had friends that simply gave up the fight and didn’t come to breakfast the next morning.  If they fall apart externally the demons are there, taking them over and puppeting them in a grotesque parody of power before they’re cut down.  Either way they’re dead.

*********

Now put yourself in his shoes.  Remember what you were like at 5, or 7, or 12?  Remember your parents, your family, your world?  Now imagine that it’s been discovered that you have a trait totally out of your control- something dangerous and feared, yes, but no more so than a sword in the hands of a child.

Imagine your parents cursing your name, beating you, locking you up, handing you over to armed strangers.  Imagine your mother tearfully pressing a pillow into your hands and knowing that in all likelihood you will never, ever see any of your family again.

Imagine these strange armed men then drag you across the countryside, screaming, crying, afraid, lonely, and bring you into a prison.  You are thrown into a large room full of strangers, people you’ve been told to fear all your life until you realized you were one of them.  Maybe they make fun of you, the new kid, the one who can’t read, who doesn’t know a fireball from a sleep spell.  Imagine the first time you have to take a crap in front of dozens of strangers.

Imagine being thrown into a boarding school where you never get to go outside, where your days of working in the fields with your parents or playing with your dog or cat or sibling are replaced by lessons, lessons, and more lessons.  Where you are taught to harness the power inside of you and simultaneously condemned for having it in the first place.  Where you are taught to heal, to help others, but never allowed to actually do so.  Maybe you remember when Aunt Bernice was sick, or the cow sprained a leg, and you wish you could just go home and help, where you could fireball the damn wolf that keeps eating your family’s sheep.  But you can’t go home, ever, and so you’re reduced to setting up sock blinds and performing ridiculous arcane exercises that may or may not have practical value, ever.  You’re cursed, useless, and in the eyes of your jailers, a punishment inflicted upon the world.  You’re less than human and you will be watched, always, in case you slip, and if you do, the templars will be there to cut you down.

**********

This is Anders’ reality.  And when he fights back, does he immediately go blow up the Chantry?  No.  The first thing he does when he stops running is set up a clinic to heal people, to help, and to hide.  He only gets involved in the mage underground because he came to help Karl, his first lover.

Imagine finding the first person you ever cared about lobotomized.

So he blows up the Chantry then, right?

No.  He sits down and writes out well-thought out arguments, and goes around begging people to read it.  He tries to send it to Orsino, Meredith, anyone who will listen and make changes.  He tries the peaceful route.

But no one is interested in logic, in how mages, properly trained and cared-for are no more dangerous than a trained soldier.  How they could help.  No one is interested in the fact that mages are the Maker’s children, too, and as his creations don’t deserve to be punished for something completely out of their control.

And this is Anders with Justice riding sidesaddle in his head.  Awakenings Anders would just have cut and run- he has a history of it, and after Dissent he tries to run, before he hurts anyone.

But Justice won’t let him leave, won’t let him abandon his people and the fight they both sacrificed so much for.  You can tell him to leave, and cut him out of your party.  Justice finds a way to make it happen.

At the beginning of Act III, in your house, Anders reveals that the mage cause is all but lost.  Most of the people he worked with have been killed by Meredith.  No one is reading his manifesto- no one is even considering his viewpoint, because the system as it is has endured for a thousand years.

How do you change something a thousand years in the making?

How do you incite your fellow mages to rise up, at last, to see the slow death for what it is, how do you fight for the freedom simply to live as a human being?

You do it by forcing the hand of your common enemy.  Anders didn’t blow up the Chantry to kill the Grand Cleric, or to kill anyone, for that matter.  He did it because it was the one thing that would guarantee that Meredith would order the Rite of Annulment on a Circle full of innocent mages.

He exposed, to all of the mages, once and for all, that their guilt or innocence doesn’t matter.  The Templars have the power of life and death over them, and will exercise it at their whim.  There is no one to protect them, no one to save them when the Rite is ordered.

Meredith would have ordered it anyway (had already sent to Val Royeaux for permission, as is revealed if you go and talk to the Templars in the Gallows at the end of Act III) but that particular execution of the Rite would have been cloaked under the guise of “They’re all blood mages and they deserve it.”    They all would have died without a murmur, the Circle wiped clean, and no one left to argue their guilt or innocence.

Anders’ actions make it crystal-clear that he is the one to blame for the Chantry, the Circle was in no way responsible.  But Meredith takes it out on them anyway, because the people will demand blood, and after all, they’re just mages, it’s not like they’re human, right?  Keep in mind that the Circle is full of innocents, men, women, children, Bethany.

Anders reveals to all of the mages beyond a shadow of a doubt that they exist at the Templar’s sufferance, to be executed regardless of guilt or innocence.  The Circle is a death sentence.  Change and revolution won’t come from the outside- so he creates it on the inside, and pushes the Templars to reveal who they really, truly are- executioners.

There are fourteen Circles of Magi in Thedas, each with dozens, or even hundreds of mages.  For a thousand years, untold generations of mages have come and gone, been imprisoned, tortured, killed.  Unless someone does something, untold future generations will continue in the same vicious cycle.

Anders steps up, with Justice’s help.  He takes on the mantle and burden of being the savior of his people.  The compassionate healer kills a building full of innocent people (and it nearly destroys him to do it) in order to save thousands upon thousands of innocents in the present and future.  He knows that he deserves to die for what he’s done and begs you to put him to the sword.  As long as the revolution occurs, his own life is unimportant.

*****

Anders is an epic figure, a tragic hero, a cursed and blessed man.  He refuses to accept that he, or any mage deserve their treatment, and he fights, unceasingly, for all of them.  He sacrifices his life so that justice may be done.I know exactly who Anders is, and I love the hell out of him.  Vive la ****ing revolution, baby.  

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas

—————————

“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
”-Patrick Henry

Send this to Gaider. He wrote some disgusting analogies related to cats. That man wants fans in some cases to have simplifed attitudes to make his plot appear more grey. Your post right here destroys any notion of it being a grey issue

[katiebour]

Darkrider296 wrote...

*******my previous post snipped*********

Send this to Gaider. He wrote some disgusting analogies related to cats. That man wants fans in some cases to have simplifed attitudes to make his plot appear more grey. Your post right here destroys any notion of it being a grey issue

That's not to say that I'm not sympathetic to the Templars as well, in some lights.  The DA:O Templar in the Circle Tower, the one who was resentful of his vows and who was given the illusion of a home and family by the desire demon is a very sympathetic character.  Alistair represents all that is good about the people in the Templar Order.  There seem to be a great many individuals dedicated or given to the Order as children who are raised there, kept there, and once the lyrium addiction is formed, trapped there as surely as any mage.

And that is the very clear distinction I make- there's a difference between the role the Templars play and the people who (often reluctantly) fill it.  Look no further than Emeric, Thrask, Alistair, Keran, even Cullen has his moments, and Meredith pre-idol for all of her power hunger believes she's doing the right thing.

The sadists, such as Alrik, are in the minority.

The problem is that the system is broken beyond redemption, that good people are forced to do terrible things in the name of religion and of justice.  And that is why no matter how much the Templars as individuals can be viewed as good people, in my opinion the Order must be abolished.  The Chantry has set up a system where good people become the very worst that they can be, where abuse is inevitable, where Templar and mage alike are trapped.  Go and read up on this for what putting ordinary people in positions of power can do to the human psyche:

http://en.wikipedia....ison_experiment 

Make a man a jailer, and you almost inevitably make him a torturer; make a man a prisoner, and you make of him a rebel.  This is the nature of the human mind, of the ranked social structure that we form instinctually.  The alpha is driven to subdue those beneath him and maintain order, using whatever tools are at his disposal, doing whatever he deems neccessary, and the subordinate members are driven to rebel, to seek his position, or to escape and seek freedom, to branch off and create their own tribe, their own pack.

And so I say, for both Templars and mages, down with the Circle!  

As for sending my posts to Gaider- he's around the message boards.  If he sees it, great, if not, that's fine too.  He's an intelligent guy and the lead writer, and I have no doubt that he's pondered these issues with fiendish delight many times himself.  

[esper]

katiebour wrote...

 Oooh, lookit the undead thread!

I've written extensively on this before, but let me sum up and add some goodies, and reiterate my Tumblr post on the subject.

Just played through the Origins Circle Tower again yesterday- if you talk to the blood mage on the second floor, she says (my paraphrasing):

"The templars were always, always watching.  We just wanted to be free.  The magic was a means to an end."

and this:

“You don’t really believe that, do you Wynne?  Change rarely comes peacefully.  Andraste waged war on the Imperium; she didn’t write them a strongly worded letter.  She reshaped civilization, freed the slaves, and gave us the Chantry.  But people died for it…”

“We thought…  someone always has to take the first step…  force a change, no matter the cost.”

Mages have been subjugated/denigrated/de-humanized/tortured/murdered for ten centuries.  For a thousand years.  In real life, if any group of people had had a similar experience for that amount of time based on a characteristic beyond their control (skin color, perhaps, or sexual orientation) would we be as angry if they took drastic measures against their oppressors to be free?

Most Templars (including Cullen) come out and say that mages "aren't really people."

Mages can't form emotional attachments, lest the person in question become emotional collateral.  Their children are taken away at birth and only in extreme circumstances do they ever find out what becomes of them (Wynne is an exception, and only because she was the companion of the Hero of Ferelden.)

Mages are ripped away from their families as soon as their magic manifests, and in the cases of families like Jowan's and Anders', they are reviled by their family members as evil, cursed, a sin made flesh.  Jowan was physically abused by his parents once they realized he was a mage.

Oftentimes they are convinced that they are, in fact, evil simply by being (remember mage Kelli in the chapel and with Wynne in DA:O?  She actually says that the Templars should kill her simply for existing, to 'cleanse her of her evil.'  Her crime?  Being born a mage.)

They are put through a ritual designed to test their willpower and ability when they are little more than children, pushed into the Fade where the magical equivalent of a dinnerbell has been rung, and a demon waiting to possess them.  If they fail they will be killed.  If they take too long they will be killed.  There are men with swords standing by and waiting to kill them.

And all of that at the ripe old age of 17-18. 

They are subject to the whims of their often sadistic jailers, who will beat them, rape them, and try to provoke them into becoming possessed simply to have an excuse to cut them down.They are rarely allowed outside- no sunshine, no fresh air, no running in the fields or playing ball games (Finn was so pleased that after Anders' abortive swim across the lake that they were no longer allowed outside.  But the rest of the apprentices probably felt differently...)  

No frolicking in the snow, or ice skating, or even standing in the rain.  They are kept inside, under guard, where their existence is regulated from sunup to sunset- classes, meals, and sleep, all under the watchful eyes of the guards who are there to kill you if you screw up.  Some of the mages are five or six years old.

They are forced into crowded quarters with 20-30 people (remember all the bunkbeds?) and no privacy.  No doors on the bathrooms, no closed areas for bathing or other bodily functions, no privacy for dressing or sleeping or kissing your girlfriend or boyfriend or other intimate acts.  

Even the Harrowed mages are crowded into rooms without doors, where three beds, separated by a wall or a bookshelf mock the convention of privacy.  Only the senior mages get DOORS.

They are given no autonomy.  As Emile says, he’s never had a drink, never cooked something for himself.  They are treated like overgrown children all their lives and then punished for not being adult enough to resist temptation.  And if they are brash enough to want more, to hope for more, if, like Anders, they come to the Circle at an age where they remember what it’s like to run free, to have family, friends, crushes on the pretty girl next door, pets, work, freedom, they are branded rebellious troublemakers.  If they run away from their stone prison they are hunted like animals (using what is, hypocritically enough, pretty much blood magic, as confirmed in Asunder) and dragged back.  If it happens often enough the punishments become severe, like being put in solitary confinement for a year.

Plenty’s been written on the extraordinarily traumatic nature of solitary confinement and the long-term consequences it brings- I won’t reiterate that here.  But it’s torture, pure and simple.

And when a mage can’t take it anymore, he’ll either fall apart internally or externally.  Anders says the most common way for a mage to die is by his own hand, and just imagine that for a moment- Anders has seen mages, multiple, kill themselves- has found their bodies, perhaps, or had friends that simply gave up the fight and didn’t come to breakfast the next morning.  If they fall apart externally the demons are there, taking them over and puppeting them in a grotesque parody of power before they’re cut down.  Either way they’re dead.

*********

Now put yourself in his shoes.  Remember what you were like at 5, or 7, or 12?  Remember your parents, your family, your world?  Now imagine that it’s been discovered that you have a trait totally out of your control- something dangerous and feared, yes, but no more so than a sword in the hands of a child.

Imagine your parents cursing your name, beating you, locking you up, handing you over to armed strangers.  Imagine your mother tearfully pressing a pillow into your hands and knowing that in all likelihood you will never, ever see any of your family again.

Imagine these strange armed men then drag you across the countryside, screaming, crying, afraid, lonely, and bring you into a prison.  You are thrown into a large room full of strangers, people you’ve been told to fear all your life until you realized you were one of them.  Maybe they make fun of you, the new kid, the one who can’t read, who doesn’t know a fireball from a sleep spell.  Imagine the first time you have to take a crap in front of dozens of strangers.

Imagine being thrown into a boarding school where you never get to go outside, where your days of working in the fields with your parents or playing with your dog or cat or sibling are replaced by lessons, lessons, and more lessons.  Where you are taught to harness the power inside of you and simultaneously condemned for having it in the first place.  Where you are taught to heal, to help others, but never allowed to actually do so.  Maybe you remember when Aunt Bernice was sick, or the cow sprained a leg, and you wish you could just go home and help, where you could fireball the damn wolf that keeps eating your family’s sheep.  But you can’t go home, ever, and so you’re reduced to setting up sock blinds and performing ridiculous arcane exercises that may or may not have practical value, ever.  You’re cursed, useless, and in the eyes of your jailers, a punishment inflicted upon the world.  You’re less than human and you will be watched, always, in case you slip, and if you do, the templars will be there to cut you down.

**********

This is Anders’ reality.  And when he fights back, does he immediately go blow up the Chantry?  No.  The first thing he does when he stops running is set up a clinic to heal people, to help, and to hide.  He only gets involved in the mage underground because he came to help Karl, his first lover.

Imagine finding the first person you ever cared about lobotomized.

So he blows up the Chantry then, right?

No.  He sits down and writes out well-thought out arguments, and goes around begging people to read it.  He tries to send it to Orsino, Meredith, anyone who will listen and make changes.  He tries the peaceful route.

But no one is interested in logic, in how mages, properly trained and cared-for are no more dangerous than a trained soldier.  How they could help.  No one is interested in the fact that mages are the Maker’s children, too, and as his creations don’t deserve to be punished for something completely out of their control.

And this is Anders with Justice riding sidesaddle in his head.  Awakenings Anders would just have cut and run- he has a history of it, and after Dissent he tries to run, before he hurts anyone.

But Justice won’t let him leave, won’t let him abandon his people and the fight they both sacrificed so much for.  You can tell him to leave, and cut him out of your party.  Justice finds a way to make it happen.

At the beginning of Act III, in your house, Anders reveals that the mage cause is all but lost.  Most of the people he worked with have been killed by Meredith.  No one is reading his manifesto- no one is even considering his viewpoint, because the system as it is has endured for a thousand years.

How do you change something a thousand years in the making?

How do you incite your fellow mages to rise up, at last, to see the slow death for what it is, how do you fight for the freedom simply to live as a human being?

You do it by forcing the hand of your common enemy.  Anders didn’t blow up the Chantry to kill the Grand Cleric, or to kill anyone, for that matter.  He did it because it was the one thing that would guarantee that Meredith would order the Rite of Annulment on a Circle full of innocent mages.

He exposed, to all of the mages, once and for all, that their guilt or innocence doesn’t matter.  The Templars have the power of life and death over them, and will exercise it at their whim.  There is no one to protect them, no one to save them when the Rite is ordered.

Meredith would have ordered it anyway (had already sent to Val Royeaux for permission, as is revealed if you go and talk to the Templars in the Gallows at the end of Act III) but that particular execution of the Rite would have been cloaked under the guise of “They’re all blood mages and they deserve it.”    They all would have died without a murmur, the Circle wiped clean, and no one left to argue their guilt or innocence.

Anders’ actions make it crystal-clear that he is the one to blame for the Chantry, the Circle was in no way responsible.  But Meredith takes it out on them anyway, because the people will demand blood, and after all, they’re just mages, it’s not like they’re human, right?  Keep in mind that the Circle is full of innocents, men, women, children, Bethany.

Anders reveals to all of the mages beyond a shadow of a doubt that they exist at the Templar’s sufferance, to be executed regardless of guilt or innocence.  The Circle is a death sentence.  Change and revolution won’t come from the outside- so he creates it on the inside, and pushes the Templars to reveal who they really, truly are- executioners.

There are fourteen Circles of Magi in Thedas, each with dozens, or even hundreds of mages.  For a thousand years, untold generations of mages have come and gone, been imprisoned, tortured, killed.  Unless someone does something, untold future generations will continue in the same vicious cycle.

Anders steps up, with Justice’s help.  He takes on the mantle and burden of being the savior of his people.  The compassionate healer kills a building full of innocent people (and it nearly destroys him to do it) in order to save thousands upon thousands of innocents in the present and future.  He knows that he deserves to die for what he’s done and begs you to put him to the sword.  As long as the revolution occurs, his own life is unimportant.

*****

Anders is an epic figure, a tragic hero, a cursed and blessed man.  He refuses to accept that he, or any mage deserve their treatment, and he fights, unceasingly, for all of them.  He sacrifices his life so that justice may be done.I know exactly who Anders is, and I love the hell out of him.  Vive la ****ing revolution, baby.  

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas

—————————

“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
”-Patrick Henry

Well put and very right.

[jb1983]

Here's a very simple question (well, simple to ask, not simple to answer) that will answer whether or not Anders was justified:

Is it ever right to intentionally kill an innocent person in order to achieve a good thing?

[VoodooDrackus]

Anders was losing it and so was Meredith. Meredith more so, with the effects of the lyrium idol in her sword. She was becoming increasingly paranoid. We already saw what the idol did to Bartrand.

She would have eventually found any reason to invoke the Right of Annulment. She was looking for any excuse, it didn't matter. Her actions are what brought about the rebellions against the templars throughout Thedas, not Anders.
What Anders did was not justified at all, which made that decision all the more gripping after he did it.
I understand where he is coming from, but he was also losing it more and more and wasn't actually thinking straight.
Whether he blew up the Chantry or not doesn't really matter, it didn't start the revolution. It may have speeded it up, but it wasn't necessary since it would have happened anyway.

There is only one party member who thinks he should live after that, Merril, but she is also a blood mage and a little off as well from using the blood magic. Even the one person who seemingly has no moral compass, Isabela, thinks he should die.

But I couldn't bring myself to do it. He was so pathetic after that. I did let him go into the final fight though, It's going to take time, I just can't look at him right now.

[Alessa]

katiebour wrote...

 Oooh, lookit the undead thread!

I've written extensively on this before, but let me sum up and add some goodies, and reiterate my Tumblr post on the subject.

Just played through the Origins Circle Tower again yesterday- if you talk to the blood mage on the second floor, she says (my paraphrasing):

"The templars were always, always watching.  We just wanted to be free.  The magic was a means to an end."

and this:

“You don’t really believe that, do you Wynne?  Change rarely comes peacefully.  Andraste waged war on the Imperium; she didn’t write them a strongly worded letter.  She reshaped civilization, freed the slaves, and gave us the Chantry.  But people died for it…”

“We thought…  someone always has to take the first step…  force a change, no matter the cost.”

Mages have been subjugated/denigrated/de-humanized/tortured/murdered for ten centuries.  For a thousand years.  In real life, if any group of people had had a similar experience for that amount of time based on a characteristic beyond their control (skin color, perhaps, or sexual orientation) would we be as angry if they took drastic measures against their oppressors to be free?

Most Templars (including Cullen) come out and say that mages "aren't really people."

Mages can't form emotional attachments, lest the person in question become emotional collateral.  Their children are taken away at birth and only in extreme circumstances do they ever find out what becomes of them (Wynne is an exception, and only because she was the companion of the Hero of Ferelden.)

Mages are ripped away from their families as soon as their magic manifests, and in the cases of families like Jowan's and Anders', they are reviled by their family members as evil, cursed, a sin made flesh.  Jowan was physically abused by his parents once they realized he was a mage.

Oftentimes they are convinced that they are, in fact, evil simply by being (remember mage Kelli in the chapel and with Wynne in DA:O?  She actually says that the Templars should kill her simply for existing, to 'cleanse her of her evil.'  Her crime?  Being born a mage.)

They are put through a ritual designed to test their willpower and ability when they are little more than children, pushed into the Fade where the magical equivalent of a dinnerbell has been rung, and a demon waiting to possess them.  If they fail they will be killed.  If they take too long they will be killed.  There are men with swords standing by and waiting to kill them.

And all of that at the ripe old age of 17-18. 

They are subject to the whims of their often sadistic jailers, who will beat them, rape them, and try to provoke them into becoming possessed simply to have an excuse to cut them down.They are rarely allowed outside- no sunshine, no fresh air, no running in the fields or playing ball games (Finn was so pleased that after Anders' abortive swim across the lake that they were no longer allowed outside.  But the rest of the apprentices probably felt differently...)  

No frolicking in the snow, or ice skating, or even standing in the rain.  They are kept inside, under guard, where their existence is regulated from sunup to sunset- classes, meals, and sleep, all under the watchful eyes of the guards who are there to kill you if you screw up.  Some of the mages are five or six years old.

They are forced into crowded quarters with 20-30 people (remember all the bunkbeds?) and no privacy.  No doors on the bathrooms, no closed areas for bathing or other bodily functions, no privacy for dressing or sleeping or kissing your girlfriend or boyfriend or other intimate acts.  

Even the Harrowed mages are crowded into rooms without doors, where three beds, separated by a wall or a bookshelf mock the convention of privacy.  Only the senior mages get DOORS.

They are given no autonomy.  As Emile says, he’s never had a drink, never cooked something for himself.  They are treated like overgrown children all their lives and then punished for not being adult enough to resist temptation.  And if they are brash enough to want more, to hope for more, if, like Anders, they come to the Circle at an age where they remember what it’s like to run free, to have family, friends, crushes on the pretty girl next door, pets, work, freedom, they are branded rebellious troublemakers.  If they run away from their stone prison they are hunted like animals (using what is, hypocritically enough, pretty much blood magic, as confirmed in Asunder) and dragged back.  If it happens often enough the punishments become severe, like being put in solitary confinement for a year.

Plenty’s been written on the extraordinarily traumatic nature of solitary confinement and the long-term consequences it brings- I won’t reiterate that here.  But it’s torture, pure and simple.

And when a mage can’t take it anymore, he’ll either fall apart internally or externally.  Anders says the most common way for a mage to die is by his own hand, and just imagine that for a moment- Anders has seen mages, multiple, kill themselves- has found their bodies, perhaps, or had friends that simply gave up the fight and didn’t come to breakfast the next morning.  If they fall apart externally the demons are there, taking them over and puppeting them in a grotesque parody of power before they’re cut down.  Either way they’re dead.

*********

Now put yourself in his shoes.  Remember what you were like at 5, or 7, or 12?  Remember your parents, your family, your world?  Now imagine that it’s been discovered that you have a trait totally out of your control- something dangerous and feared, yes, but no more so than a sword in the hands of a child.

Imagine your parents cursing your name, beating you, locking you up, handing you over to armed strangers.  Imagine your mother tearfully pressing a pillow into your hands and knowing that in all likelihood you will never, ever see any of your family again.

Imagine these strange armed men then drag you across the countryside, screaming, crying, afraid, lonely, and bring you into a prison.  You are thrown into a large room full of strangers, people you’ve been told to fear all your life until you realized you were one of them.  Maybe they make fun of you, the new kid, the one who can’t read, who doesn’t know a fireball from a sleep spell.  Imagine the first time you have to take a crap in front of dozens of strangers.

Imagine being thrown into a boarding school where you never get to go outside, where your days of working in the fields with your parents or playing with your dog or cat or sibling are replaced by lessons, lessons, and more lessons.  Where you are taught to harness the power inside of you and simultaneously condemned for having it in the first place.  Where you are taught to heal, to help others, but never allowed to actually do so.  Maybe you remember when Aunt Bernice was sick, or the cow sprained a leg, and you wish you could just go home and help, where you could fireball the damn wolf that keeps eating your family’s sheep.  But you can’t go home, ever, and so you’re reduced to setting up sock blinds and performing ridiculous arcane exercises that may or may not have practical value, ever.  You’re cursed, useless, and in the eyes of your jailers, a punishment inflicted upon the world.  You’re less than human and you will be watched, always, in case you slip, and if you do, the templars will be there to cut you down.

**********

This is Anders’ reality.  And when he fights back, does he immediately go blow up the Chantry?  No.  The first thing he does when he stops running is set up a clinic to heal people, to help, and to hide.  He only gets involved in the mage underground because he came to help Karl, his first lover.

Imagine finding the first person you ever cared about lobotomized.

So he blows up the Chantry then, right?

No.  He sits down and writes out well-thought out arguments, and goes around begging people to read it.  He tries to send it to Orsino, Meredith, anyone who will listen and make changes.  He tries the peaceful route.

But no one is interested in logic, in how mages, properly trained and cared-for are no more dangerous than a trained soldier.  How they could help.  No one is interested in the fact that mages are the Maker’s children, too, and as his creations don’t deserve to be punished for something completely out of their control.

And this is Anders with Justice riding sidesaddle in his head.  Awakenings Anders would just have cut and run- he has a history of it, and after Dissent he tries to run, before he hurts anyone.

But Justice won’t let him leave, won’t let him abandon his people and the fight they both sacrificed so much for.  You can tell him to leave, and cut him out of your party.  Justice finds a way to make it happen.

At the beginning of Act III, in your house, Anders reveals that the mage cause is all but lost.  Most of the people he worked with have been killed by Meredith.  No one is reading his manifesto- no one is even considering his viewpoint, because the system as it is has endured for a thousand years.

How do you change something a thousand years in the making?

How do you incite your fellow mages to rise up, at last, to see the slow death for what it is, how do you fight for the freedom simply to live as a human being?

You do it by forcing the hand of your common enemy.  Anders didn’t blow up the Chantry to kill the Grand Cleric, or to kill anyone, for that matter.  He did it because it was the one thing that would guarantee that Meredith would order the Rite of Annulment on a Circle full of innocent mages.

He exposed, to all of the mages, once and for all, that their guilt or innocence doesn’t matter.  The Templars have the power of life and death over them, and will exercise it at their whim.  There is no one to protect them, no one to save them when the Rite is ordered.

Meredith would have ordered it anyway (had already sent to Val Royeaux for permission, as is revealed if you go and talk to the Templars in the Gallows at the end of Act III) but that particular execution of the Rite would have been cloaked under the guise of “They’re all blood mages and they deserve it.”    They all would have died without a murmur, the Circle wiped clean, and no one left to argue their guilt or innocence.

Anders’ actions make it crystal-clear that he is the one to blame for the Chantry, the Circle was in no way responsible.  But Meredith takes it out on them anyway, because the people will demand blood, and after all, they’re just mages, it’s not like they’re human, right?  Keep in mind that the Circle is full of innocents, men, women, children, Bethany.

Anders reveals to all of the mages beyond a shadow of a doubt that they exist at the Templar’s sufferance, to be executed regardless of guilt or innocence.  The Circle is a death sentence.  Change and revolution won’t come from the outside- so he creates it on the inside, and pushes the Templars to reveal who they really, truly are- executioners.

There are fourteen Circles of Magi in Thedas, each with dozens, or even hundreds of mages.  For a thousand years, untold generations of mages have come and gone, been imprisoned, tortured, killed.  Unless someone does something, untold future generations will continue in the same vicious cycle.

Anders steps up, with Justice’s help.  He takes on the mantle and burden of being the savior of his people.  The compassionate healer kills a building full of innocent people (and it nearly destroys him to do it) in order to save thousands upon thousands of innocents in the present and future.  He knows that he deserves to die for what he’s done and begs you to put him to the sword.  As long as the revolution occurs, his own life is unimportant.

*****

Anders is an epic figure, a tragic hero, a cursed and blessed man.  He refuses to accept that he, or any mage deserve their treatment, and he fights, unceasingly, for all of them.  He sacrifices his life so that justice may be done.I know exactly who Anders is, and I love the hell out of him.  Vive la ****ing revolution, baby.  

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas

—————————

“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
”-Patrick Henry

Thumbs up!!!

This is great!  Hope Bioware takes notice and brings our mage hero back again with DA3 to give him the chance to finish what he started.

Modifié par Alessa-00, 24 mars 2012 - 03:33 .

[Ingu]

Aw, this topic reminds me of my own.

[Adanu]

I'm totally looking forward to blowing up Templars in DA3. IF Anders is in it, I'd shake his hand for doing what was long overdue.

The powderkeg had to explode.

[Darkrider296]

jb1983 wrote...

Here's a very simple question (well, simple to ask, not simple to answer) that will answer whether or not Anders was justified:

Is it ever right to intentionally kill an innocent person in order to achieve a good thing?

None of those Chantry mothers where innocent in my eyes. I view the orgnaization as inhearntly evil

[Lazy Jer]

Darkrider296 wrote...

Send this to Gaider. He wrote some disgusting analogies related to cats. That man wants fans in some cases to have simplifed attitudes to make his plot appear more grey. Your post right here destroys any notion of it being a grey issue

I disagree. 

Only until someone posts a similar sob story about how life was like in Tevinter back in the day.  The anaology about cats was a basic response to a basic post, and I have no doubt that Mr. Gaider could have, if he wanted write an eight page essay on the subject if he wanted.

But the fact is that it IS a grey issue.  The mages under the current system do get the short end of a very pointy stick, but let's look at Knight-Commander Meredeth's experience.  She tried to save a mage from the circle only to see an entire village die as the result.

Let's take a look at Knight-Captain Cullen's experiences in the Circle of Magi in Ferelden.  How many people did he watch slaughtered before his very eyes while he was trapped and unable to lift a finger to help.  Men he'd trained with killed or made the thrall of demons and ambominations.

Maybe we should ask Hawke's maid if it's a grey issue.  You know, the one that was a slave to the apprentice of Fenris' old master.  The one who saw her father and others die to fuel her mistress's blood magic, because let's face it they were just slaves anyway.

It is a grey issue.  The current Circle/Templar system offers too much opportunity for abuse.  Just ask those who were illegally made tranquil, ask those who were made prisoners at the Circle at Kirkwall and accused of blood magic unjustly. 

On the flip side, however, they are born with the capability of destruction on a massive scale.  Not so different then someone with a barrel full of gatlock, maybe, but the difference is that a mage IS a barrel full of gatlock.  Untrained and/or without the proper respect for sentient life, the person can cause destruction and misery on a scale twice as much as on that which is visted upon the mage apprehended by the circle.

Seeing the Circle/Templar debate as a black and white issue means choosing between the Kirkwall Circle and Tevinter.

[Darkrider296]

I fully believe that mage cannot live free if they aren't getting an education. But that does not justify the removal of their rights. I would not allow MY INALIENABLE rights to be stepped on by religious bullies in real life. Because that's what it comes down to in many cases. I don't have the stomach to help those SS like Templars that get their authority from some god in the sky. The moment we show respect to people like that, the more harm and abuse will follow. We need to stand together against bullies and evil people in general, no more scape goats. Mages can be dangerous but so can a man who chooses to pick up a knife and go on a stabbing spree. Heres one more question you Templar supporters can be all high mighty but how would you feel if you were a mage or part of a mage family and you saw ur self and/or parents/siblings being dragged away to never be seen again. Keep that image in hear head. Imagine the screams.

[Always Alice]

I don't know if he was justified, but I do know what he did was wrong. Maybe necessary, but morally wrong. Harming innocents is never ok, and he seems to know this judging by his conversation with Isaebela. And yes, I consider the Chantry sisters to be innocent. The only one I would argue could be considered a valid target would be Elthina. The average sister has no power over the templars, and the Chantry isn't some mustache-twirling evil that many here seem to paint it out to be. They help the community, and we know from the first game that they take in orphans. And if you are so inststant that the sisters are just as guilty as Alrik then remember the non-Chantry personnel who will be affected by the explosion. In the cutscene, we clearly see fire catching onto other buildings. And do you really think the debris will fall into one neat pile?

Darkrider296 wrote...

Heres one more question you Templar supporters can be all high mighty but how would you feel if you were a mage or part of a mage family and you saw ur self and/or parents/siblings being dragged away to never be seen again. Keep that image in hear head. Imagine the screams.

And here's a question for you: How would you feel if you returned to your village after a month-long trip to the city, only to see the entire town enveloped in flames. Family, friends, and farmland all go up in smoke. Keep that image in your head. Image their screams, and the smell of burning flesh. Imagine cradling the burnt body of your son, barely recognizable. Everything you have was in that village, and now you're left with nothing. All because a six-year old accidentally lit a fire in the barn.

And for the record, I have issues with the current way mages are treated in Thedas and believe Chantry reform needs to happen ASAP. But this idea that after the war is over mages will be allowed to come and go as they please and everything will be rainbows-and-sunshine is naive at best. Mages absolutely need to be trained and educated.

Modifié par Always Alice, 25 mars 2012 - 01:35 .

[HiroVoid]

David Gaider is the lead writer. He sees it as a gray issue. Obviously, the poster above is correct in that if all mages were free, it wouldn't be all rainbows-and-sunshine otherwise this wouldn't be an issue.

Meh. I say let em' free. If they screw up, and a bunch of villages and other places end up torched as a result, lock 'em up again.

[Hurbster]

Koire wrote...

Great, now we have five (five!) active threads about Anders at once... Really, Bioware, bring him back for DA3 for those who did not kill him, and you may rest assured there will be something worth discussing on the forums for the next year 

Yes bring him back so I can kill the murdering bastard again !

[Lazy Jer]

Darkrider296 wrote...

I fully believe that mage cannot live free if they aren't getting an education. But that does not justify the removal of their rights. I would not allow MY INALIENABLE rights to be stepped on by religious bullies in real life. Because that's what it comes down to in many cases. I don't have the stomach to help those SS like Templars that get their authority from some god in the sky. The moment we show respect to people like that, the more harm and abuse will follow. We need to stand together against bullies and evil people in general, no more scape goats. Mages can be dangerous but so can a man who chooses to pick up a knife and go on a stabbing spree.

But you would step on the inalienable right of Andrasteans to believe in their god and read the words of the prophet they venerate?  Because your stance that the Chantry be done away with would be doing exactly that. 
 

Heres one more question you Templar supporters can be all high mighty but how would you feel if you were a mage or part of a mage family and you saw ur self and/or parents/siblings being dragged away to never be seen again. Keep that image in hear head. Imagine the screams.

I never said I support the Templars, and anyone who has played DA2 and didn't take Bethany with them on the Deep Roads expedition has seen what it's like to have their sibling taken away.  I was deep enough into the game to have felt anger and resentment and sorrow (which is why I thought it was a good game).  What I said is that it's not a black and white issue.  You said it was a grey issue, and that's the comment I was disagreeing with you on.  It's a very grey issue.

If you still can't see that then ask yourself how you would feel if you saw your parents or siblings killed to fuel the magic of some blood mage.  Keep that image in your head.

[Always Alice]

Koire wrote...

Great, now we have five (five!) active threads about Anders at once... Really, Bioware, bring him back for DA3 for those who did not kill him, and you may rest assured there will be something worth discussing on the forums for the next year 

Well, Bioware certainly succeeded in this regard. The sheer amount of passion and tld;dr these Anders posts inspire shows that the writers are doing something right.

I hope that if he comes back for DA3 we can have the option to punch him in the face, at least.

[Darkrider296]

Always Alice wrote...

I don't know if he was justified, but I do know what he did was wrong. Maybe necessary, but morally wrong. Harming innocents is never ok, and he seems to know this judging by his conversation with Isaebela. And yes, I consider the Chantry sisters to be innocent. The only one I would argue could be considered a valid target would be Elthina. The average sister has no power over the templars, and the Chantry isn't some mustache-twirling evil that many here seem to paint it out to be. They help the community, and we know from the first game that they take in orphans. And if you are so inststant that the sisters are just as guilty as Alrik then remember the non-Chantry personnel who will be affected by the explosion. In the cutscene, we clearly see fire catching onto other buildings. And do you really think the debris will fall into one neat pile?

Darkrider296 wrote...

Heres one more question you Templar supporters can be all high mighty but how would you feel if you were a mage or part of a mage family and you saw ur self and/or parents/siblings being dragged away to never be seen again. Keep that image in hear head. Imagine the screams.

And here's a question for you: How would you feel if you returned to your village after a month-long trip to the city, only to see the entire town enveloped in flames. Family, friends, and farmland all go up in smoke. Keep that image in your head. Image their screams, and the smell of burning flesh. Imagine cradling the burnt body of your son, barely recognizable. Everything you have was in that village, and now you're left with nothing. All because a six-year old accidentally lit a fire in the barn.

And for the record, I have issues with the current way mages are treated in Thedas and believe Chantry reform needs to happen ASAP. But this idea that after the war is over mages will be allowed to come and go as they please and everything will be rainbows-and-sunshine is naive at best. Mages absolutely need to be trained and educated.

Mages of course need to be educated thats common sense. But it shouldn't mean losing their freedom and diginity. Secondly if a evil mage did what you said he would be hunted and killed by a united police force of people will varying skills and no judgment would be made against the group he came from. Their are good mages to be found who i can imagine would use their powers to help society regulate other mages. I've also made posts about practial methods goverments could take in regulating free mages. Every month a mage inspector hired by the goverment similar to a tax collector will come to the home of every registered mage house hold and will provide a few sceond long test to see if any demons are present.  An inspection of the house will be done and they'll go on their way. If a mage shows him self to be a blood mage he/she will be approached and asked to surrender and you can guess what happens next. Mages can be powerful but they can go down easily like any mortal as the ending of DA II shows. Look at how easily many of those mages are going down. Its not a huge scale of advantage as people make it out.

Work for a better future folks. It'll be difficult and messy but it'll be worth it in the end. I can imagine Anders doing an amazing brave heart inspired speech in Justices voice before some kind of major battle against the Chantry fanatics with a force made up of Dwarfs, Elfs, sympathetic humans, and Mages standing behind him. That would be beyond awesome if somthing like that appeared in DA III