Addai67 wrote...
I think this would require a gradual reform movement within White Andrastianism itself. In its own teachings, it says "magic is to serve man." That's been interpreted negatively, but it can just as easily be interpreted positively.
Addai67 wrote...
I think this would require a gradual reform movement within White Andrastianism itself. In its own teachings, it says "magic is to serve man." That's been interpreted negatively, but it can just as easily be interpreted positively.
I simply don't accept this fatalistic thinking. Even apart from the fact that it's coming from a diseased mind, influenced by a spirit he himself calls Vengeance. There's nothing inevitable about it. He makes a choice. Saying that he had no other choice, that's just wrong. He did have a choice, and to my mind he made the worst possible one.CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
Anders did what he did because he felt he needed to act. There was literally no other action he could see as having a significant chance of causing change to occur. No one in this thread or any other thread has posited anything he might have done that would have caused all of his people to be free, that would have a significant chance of working.
It's not that different and it's not modern. Psychological warfare and terror have been around for eons. The ancient Assyrians were masters of terror, using highly visible acts of cruelty to demoralize and as propaganda of their power. They used it to convince peoples tempted to resist them that there was no use in fighting. You can call it a struggle for freedom if you like, but lighting up the sky in pink showers and blowing up central Kirkwall is meant to polarize, terrorize, and ultimately for Vengeance to assert his will on the entire world, whether they like it or not.In a world without democracy, without the press, without people's movements, the word terrorism isn't the same. It isn't the same in the story about the man and the magical baby killing, and it isn't the same in the tale of the Mages and the Chantry. We're applying modern ideas about working within a system to a world where such a system does not exist.
Wulfram wrote...
I'm not saying don't revolt. I'm saying don't start your revolt by blowing up a Chantry.
Anders "removed the chance of compromise", but the only chance of victory for mages, short of a Tevinter style dystopia, is compromise.
GavrielKay wrote...
My Hawkes and I don't think mages should continue to suffer however long it takes for everyone else to get off their hineys and get around to changing things.
Modifié par Ryzaki, 01 juin 2011 - 08:04 .
Wulfram wrote...
GavrielKay wrote...
My Hawkes and I don't think mages should continue to suffer however long it takes for everyone else to get off their hineys and get around to changing things.
You think they're better off dead?
IanPolaris wrote...
Wulfram wrote...
GavrielKay wrote...
My Hawkes and I don't think mages should continue to suffer however long it takes for everyone else to get off their hineys and get around to changing things.
You think they're better off dead?
Honestly, given what the Chantry has let Meredith get away with? Yes.
-Polaris
Modifié par Wulfram, 01 juin 2011 - 08:21 .
Ryzaki wrote...
...I really do wonder how the mages expect to win. And how they're gonna keep their freedom if they win it.
Guest_Queen-Of-Stuff_*
Addai67 wrote...
Are you talking about the Circle system in general or the ending of the game? I sided with the mages in what I consider my "one true Hawke" game. If you mean the Circle system in general, then I think it's wrong to look at it as punitive rather than as an attempt to protect innocent people from the undeniably terrible potential power of mages.
I think this would require a gradual reform movement within White Andrastianism itself. In its own teachings, it says "magic is to serve man." That's been interpreted negatively, but it can just as easily be interpreted positively.
Wulfram wrote...
Yet Anders feels the need to force the Mages of Kirkwall into a hopeless rebellion. He knows that if offered the prospect of a less unpleasant imprisonment, they would choose it over death and this is unacceptable to him.
Dieing for freedom may be a noble ideal, but is forcing others to do so?
Queen-Of-Stuff wrote...
It's been a thousand years already, and no reform movement has as much as begun to rear its head. If it can just as easily be interpreted positively, why hasn't it by now?
Yes and this is what I find so galling, despite the fact that I generally play mages and am generally critical of the Circle (or was, in Origins). And even though I said upthread that Anders made a choice, he really didn't- the devil made him do it. Whatever actual choice he had is gone by the time we meet him. So I come back to the fact that the story holds little appeal for me because it's a done deal and thus not moving. Part of this is that I find DA2 Anders so hard to like, and part because I severely dislike the plot contrivance with both him and Meredith. And then there's Merrill.Wulfram wrote...
Yet Anders feels the need to force the Mages of Kirkwall into a hopeless rebellion. He knows that if offered the prospect of a less unpleasant imprisonment, they would choose it over death and this is unacceptable to him.
Dieing for freedom may be a noble ideal, but is forcing others to do so?
Modifié par Addai67, 01 juin 2011 - 09:03 .
IanPolaris wrote...
The issue is moot.
-Polaris
Wulfram wrote...
IanPolaris wrote...
The issue is moot.
-Polaris
Maybe, but it is the subject of this thread.
Wulfram wrote...
Yet Anders feels the need to force the Mages of Kirkwall into a hopeless rebellion. He knows that if offered the prospect of a less unpleasant imprisonment, they would choose it over death and this is unacceptable to him.
Dieing for freedom may be a noble ideal, but is forcing others to do so?
Modifié par Ryzaki, 01 juin 2011 - 08:52 .
IanPolaris wrote...
Technically no. The issue is if we are happy about it, and I don't think many are. However, the action is a given so blaming all mages for something one mage did is shortsighted at best.
-Polaris
Wulfram wrote...
IanPolaris wrote...
Technically no. The issue is if we are happy about it, and I don't think many are. However, the action is a given so blaming all mages for something one mage did is shortsighted at best.
-Polaris
People are shortsighted at best. Mages as a whole shouldn't be blamed for the actions of one, but they almost certainly will be. Particularly when they conform so closely to their preconceptions.
And who is doing that?IanPolaris wrote...
Technically no. The issue is if we are happy about it, and I don't think many are. However, the action is a given so blaming all mages for something one mage did is shortsighted at best.
-Polaris
Addai67 wrote...
How mages could have gotten freedom- well, that begs the question that mages should be allowed total autonomy. How do you regulate a nuclear bomb when that bomb is a person?
Retour en haut