353 réponses à ce sujet

[Torax]

Mage is like a trait and not a Racial. Race = Human or Elves. Magic abilites is like a trait such as Blonde Hair. Just it's blonde hair that melts other people's faces off.

[EmperorSahlertz]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Eh let's just be done with it:

UN definition:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

* (a) Killing members of the group;
* ( Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

No where does it specify that it has to be an attempt on the entire group in the globe.
Under that definition, qualifying the Right as genocide has ground.

However one thing that could question that assessment is that after the Right, the Circle is reformed and rebuilt. A Right is not designed to permanently remove the mages from a specific area. That might make the situation a little more complicated.

It says so specifically in the parts I bolded. Genocide is for all intents and purposes meant as an extermination of a people. The annulment is not.

[sphinxess]

For genocide to happen, there must be certain preconditions. Foremost among them is a national culture that does not place a high value on human life. A totalitarian society, with its assumed superior ideology, is also a precondition for genocidal acts.In addition, members of the dominant society must perceive their potential victims as less than fully human: as “pagans,” “savages,” “uncouth barbarians,” “unbelievers,” “effete degenerates,” “ritual outlaws,” “racial inferiors,” “class antagonists,” “counterrevolutionaries,” and so on. In themselves, these conditions are not enough for the perpetrators to commit genocide. To do that—that is, to commit genocide—the perpetrators need a strong, centralized authority and bureaucratic organization as well as pathological individuals and criminals. Also required is a campaign of vilification and dehumanization of the victims by the perpetrators, who are usually new states or new regimes attempting to impose conformity to a new ideology and its model of society.

– M. Hassan Kakar

Modifié par sphinxess, 20 avril 2011 - 02:03 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
You forgot some key words.

IN OUR WORLD IT WOULD QUALIFY.

Thedas is a different world with different ideologies, beliefs, definitions, political structures, etc. Some stuff may be based off of real world items, but they operate differently.

If mages existed in our world, and we did the Right of Annulment on them, then it would be genocide. The fact of the matter is that it isn't so IN THEDAS.

Well apparently they know of the concept of holocaust

Yea I don't think in Thedas, they see it as a genocide. But from our own metagaming perspective, one could make the argument, with solid basis.

I personally do not like this kind of excercize however. I feel that the word lost much of its academic significance.

[TEWR]

IanPolaris wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
You forgot some key words.

IN OUR WORLD IT WOULD QUALIFY.

Thedas is a different world with different ideologies, beliefs, definitions, political structures, etc. Some stuff may be based off of real world items, but they operate differently.

If mages existed in our world, and we did the Right of Annulment on them, then it would be genocide. The fact of the matter is that it isn't so IN THEDAS.

The people in Thedas share our morality and moral compass (which is why it's a fantasy world and NOT a midaeval one).  Furthermore, the moral choices presented in the game (not just mage v templar but all of them) do so with our modern real world moral compass in mind.

So yes, appealing to the real world definition of genocide is proper and applicable.

-Polaris

so you're claiming to know the mindsets and morality of all the people in Thedas?

[LobselVith8]

hoorayforicecream wrote...
I don't think that word means what you think it does.  

Mages are part of a group. Even Bethany addresses the mages as her people when Hawke is given the choice to side with either the templars or the mages. Meredith ordering the execution of every mage in Kirkwall is what's being addressed given the Knight-Commander enacting the Right of Annulment.

[hoorayforicecream]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I never thought icecream would save the day*


*meant as a joke to mean the food saves the day, not as an attack on your person.

Clearly, you have never had a waffle cone on a swelteringly-hot day. 

[KnightofPhoenix]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...
It says so specifically in the parts I bolded. Genocide is for all intents and purposes meant as an extermination of a people. The annulment is not.

It said in whole or in part.

[IanPolaris]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Racial.  Magical ability runs in families.  That's been lore for a long time now.

-Polaris

I don't think that word means what you think it does. 

Sure it does.  If the Mayor of Podunkville decided to have his cops kill everyone with blue eyes, that would be considered genocide either on grounds of race and/or ethnicity (i.e. non-changeable inherited traits).  Magical ability is as much a phenotype as having brown skin or blue eyes and as such targeting mages for being mages qualifies as genocide (either as racial or ethnic but it does qualify).  Essentially mages are a recognized minority group within a larger society (which argues for the ethnic label as KoP suggests).

-Polaris

[Torax]

IanPolaris wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
You forgot some key words.

IN OUR WORLD IT WOULD QUALIFY.

Thedas is a different world with different ideologies, beliefs, definitions, political structures, etc. Some stuff may be based off of real world items, but they operate differently.

If mages existed in our world, and we did the Right of Annulment on them, then it would be genocide. The fact of the matter is that it isn't so IN THEDAS.

The people in Thedas share our morality and moral compass (which is why it's a fantasy world and NOT a midaeval one).  Furthermore, the moral choices presented in the game (not just mage v templar but all of them) do so with our modern real world moral compass in mind.

So yes, appealing to the real world definition of genocide is proper and applicable.

-Polaris

You've done this before. The constant disregard for the fact that npc's we can talk to rarely seem to apply this "modern real world moral compass" that you seem to apply a lot. They hate mages. They hate Qunari. They hate Elves. They hate Casteless. The list goes on. You have a Moral Compass. I don't think most in THEDAS. would agree with you. Not sure what game you've been playing.

[hoorayforicecream]

LobselVith8 wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...
I don't think that word means what you think it does.  

Mages are part of a group. Even Bethany addresses the mages as her people when Hawke is given the choice to side with either the templars or the mages. Meredith ordering the execution of every mage in Kirkwall is what's being addressed given the Knight-Commander enacting the Right of Annulment.

I must have missed the part of the "specific legal" definition of genocide that Polaris was talking about that said it applied to any "group". Can you help me out by linking it to me?

Modifié par hoorayforicecream, 20 avril 2011 - 02:03 .

[TEWR]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Well apparently they know of the concept of holocaust

Yea I don't think in Thedas, they see it as a genocide. But from our own metagaming perspective, one could make the argument, with solid basis.

I personally do not like this kind of excercize however. I feel that the word lost much of its academic significance.

A lot of words lose their academic significance and meaning.

Racism, sexism, genocide, etc.

It's a shame most of the world is populated by idiots

[TEWR]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I never thought icecream would save the day*


*meant as a joke to mean the food saves the day, not as an attack on your person.

Clearly, you have never had a waffle cone on a swelteringly-hot day. 

as a kid I hated waffle cones. I don't know why.

I should try them again.

EDIT: and for me, Italian Water Ice saved the day on swelteringly hot days.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 20 avril 2011 - 02:06 .

[The Baconer]

LobselVith8 wrote...
Mages are part of a group. Even Bethany addresses the mages as her people when Hawke is given the choice to side with either the templars or the mages.

Yes, but that still doesn't make it racial in context.

[IanPolaris]

sphinxess wrote...

For genocide to happen, there must be certain preconditions. Foremost among them is a national culture that does not place a high value on human life. A totalitarian society, with its assumed superior ideology, is also a precondition for genocidal acts.In addition, members of the dominant society must perceive their potential victims as less than fully human: as “pagans,” “savages,” “uncouth barbarians,” “unbelievers,” “effete degenerates,” “ritual outlaws,” “racial inferiors,” “class antagonists,” “counterrevolutionaries,” and so on. In themselves, these conditions are not enough for the perpetrators to commit genocide. To do that—that is, to commit genocide—the perpetrators need a strong, centralized authority and bureaucratic organization as well as pathological individuals and criminals. Also required is a campaign of vilification and dehumanization of the victims by the perpetrators, who are usually new states or new regimes attempting to impose conformity to a new ideology and its model of society.

– M. Hassan Kakar

It's eerie and distrubing to read this and apply it to mages and Templars in Dragon Age because I can mentally check off each thing with regard to mages and the Chantry/Templars look worse and worse.  The key ingredient is a lack of recognition that the minority group in question even qualifies as "people" and we have Cullen outright say that in Act I (mages are not people, they are weapons) and refuses to listen to any notion that mages are in fact people.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

hoorayforicecream wrote...
I don't think that word means what you think it does.  

Mages are part of a group. Even Bethany addresses the mages as her people when Hawke is given the choice to side with either the templars or the mages. Meredith ordering the execution of every mage in Kirkwall is what's being addressed given the Knight-Commander enacting the Right of Annulment.

I must have missed the part of the "specific legal" definition of genocide that Polaris was talking about that said it applied to any "group". Can you help me out by linking it to me?

Mages are a recognized minority group with different laws than everyone else.  So are elves (just to name another example).  That makes them an ethnic group as defined by the society(ies) they live in.  Mages can also be targeted by being mages since "magical ability" is a phenotype that can't be changed rather than a profession or affilation (which can).

Thus killing all mages for being mages IS genocide by the legal definition of the term...even if it's just in Kirkwall.

-Polaris

[EmperorSahlertz]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...
It says so specifically in the parts I bolded. Genocide is for all intents and purposes meant as an extermination of a people. The annulment is not.

It said in whole or in part.

You are focusing on the wrong part of what I bolded. The intention of the annulment is not to destroy. It is to purge. Yes, to the layman that may seem the same, but there is a world of a difference. If the annulment were to truely fit into the definition of genocide, an annulment would have the intention of burning the circle to the ground and NOT repopulate it with more mages. However, as it happens, the entire purpose of the annulment is to make sure that mages can live within the Circle again. Which dequalifies it for the definition of genocide.
As I have now been forced to repeat many times, it is NOT genocide. It is a purge.

[KnightofPhoenix]

IanPolaris wrote...
 Mages can also be targeted by being mages since "magical ability" is a phenotype that can't be changed rather than a profession or affilation (which can).

-Polaris

I think it's a genotype actually, if the Tevinter theory that magic is confined to specific lineages is true. 

But yea, besides the point.

[IanPolaris]

Torax wrote...
You've done this before. The constant disregard for the fact that npc's we can talk to rarely seem to apply this "modern real world moral compass" that you seem to apply a lot. They hate mages. They hate Qunari. They hate Elves. They hate Casteless. The list goes on. You have a Moral Compass. I don't think most in THEDAS. would agree with you. Not sure what game you've been playing.

The NPCs aren't making those choices. YOU ARE and the writers at bioware know perfectly well that you are (very likely) a modern human in a western or westerized society with the approrpiate moral code.  The entire game is written with that in mind.

To be sure, I don't mind having evil choices in a game....as long as the Devs and writers understand (and the players) that they ARE evil choices.  What bothers me is when you have people (including Devs) that try to tell me that a clear cut case of genocide is morally grey when it isn't.  There are plenty of morally grey choices.  Killing off [insert minority group here] to the last child for something they didn't do isn't one of them.

-Polaris

[Herr Uhl]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...
 Mages can also be targeted by being mages since "magical ability" is a phenotype that can't be changed rather than a profession or affilation (which can).

-Polaris

I think it's a genotype actually, if the Tevinter theory that magic is confined to specific lineages is true. 

But yea, besides the point.

Genotype and phenotype aren't mutually exclusive. A phenotype is just what is expressed and can be seen.

Edit: For example, a pink flower has the phenotype: Pink, but the genotype white/red.

Modifié par Herr Uhl, 20 avril 2011 - 02:13 .

[IanPolaris]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...
 Mages can also be targeted by being mages since "magical ability" is a phenotype that can't be changed rather than a profession or affilation (which can).

-Polaris

I think it's a genotype actually, if the Tevinter theory that magic is confined to specific lineages is true. 

But yea, besides the point.

I was always told that the phenotype is the expression of the underlying genotype.  So in the case of the Hawke Family, the whole family has (at least part) of the mage genotype, but Bethany has the phenotype (mage) while Carver does not (because magic seems to be recessive).

Edit:  [ninjaed]

-Polaris

Modifié par IanPolaris, 20 avril 2011 - 02:15 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...
You are focusing on the wrong part of what I bolded. The intention of the annulment is not to destroy. It is to purge. Yes, to the layman that may seem the same, but there is a world of a difference. If the annulment were to truely fit into the definition of genocide, an annulment would have the intention of burning the circle to the ground and NOT repopulate it with more mages. However, as it happens, the entire purpose of the annulment is to make sure that mages can live within the Circle again. Which dequalifies it for the definition of genocide.
As I have now been forced to repeat many times, it is NOT genocide. It is a purge.

Yea, as I have said before, that is the strongest argument against it being a genocide.
Though it could be countered with the argument that those "purges" are specifically designed to keep the mage population as low as possible. 17 annulments, one each generation, is a rather high number. That can fall onto the 3rd and 4rth characteristic. 

I personally think it's awfully close to being a genocide, with much of the ideological and systemic preconditions matching. But like I said earlier, I am not that interested in this excercize.

I am more interested in seeing the root causes of a problem and whether extreme actions were necessary or not. I do not think the Right was in this case.

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 20 avril 2011 - 02:17 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

Yea figures. I study a bit of Y-DNA and I think I am an expert on genotype

I stand corrected.

[LobselVith8]

The Baconer wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...
Mages are part of a group. Even Bethany addresses the mages as her people when Hawke is given the choice to side with either the templars or the mages.

Yes, but that still doesn't make it racial in context.

Actually, if you read the definition of racial:


[rey-shuhl]

–adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of one race or the races of humankind.

Given that Knight-Commander Meredith orders the execution of all mages in the Circle of Magi who all share the characteristic of magical ability...

Also, I did mention Sebastian earlier because I remembered the picture of KoP's Warden playing Alistair like a puppet and wondered if it might be similar to Hawke helping Sebastian gain the throne of Starkhaven...

[KnightofPhoenix]

LobselVith8 wrote...
Also, I did mention Sebastian earlier because I remembered the picture of KoP's Warden playing Alistair like a puppet and wondered if it might be similar to Hawke helping Sebastian gain the throne of Starkhaven...

Are you honestly, sincerily and soberly comparing the useless Hawke to my Dain Aeducan?? Huh?!