phaonica wrote...
berelinde wrote...
So yes, Vanaria probably does complain bitterly about her freedom. She is at liberty to do so, what, with being free and all. Mages do not have that luxury. Unless something radical and iconoclasmic happens, they're stuck where they are.
Tevinter slaves might not have that luxury, either. For all we know, Varania's having been set free might have been unprecedented.
by your own arguments, see below, we must base our assumptions on what we see. We cannot assume that the sample we are seeing is not representative of the whole. We see that Varania has been freed, therefore, if we're going to go by what the game shows us, it's something that happens.
Or it might be oppression. Hard to tell unless you actually talk to them... which you can't do because the mages in the Gallows don't talk to civilians. You can't blame them, really. Doing so will earn them 30 lashes from the templars. No, that isn't oppression.
The Tranquil are supposedly free to talk to you, and they were the main ones I was arguing that taking from them was not necessarily oppression.
I think I understand what you're saying, though, that because in one place we can arguably see oppression, therefore we might assume that that there is also oppression elsewhere that we cannot see, and that if the templars abuse one freedom, they probably abuse more.
I don't know if that's entirely a fair assumption however. That's like saying "The mages from Starkhaven that attacked us were blood mages, therefore we might assume that there are more blood mages among the remaining Starkhaven apostates. If they're willing to break Chantry law by fleeing, then they're probably willing to break the law by using forbidden magic, too."
Sorry, I am not about to acknowledge that people who have been deliberately brain damaged are shining examples of civil equality. Owain voluntarily submitted to the Rite of Tranquility, but we already know that in Kirkwall, at least, the Rite is forced upon unwilling victims. It is in Ferelden, too, if you remember Jowan, but in Kirkwall, refusing to allow rape by a templar is enough to warrant it.
Even if, and that's a
big if, the formari are allowed to keep a percentage of their earnings for their own use, that's inconsequential compared to the freedoms they give up. They are not even allowed control over their own bodies. Templars take what they want and the mages are powerless to resist. Sure, Decimus was a bit sick from the start, but Alain ran away becuse Karras was raping him every night and there was no other way to stop the abuse.
Bethany herself is protected by her relationship to Hawke, but even she acknowledges that mages are routinely subjected to abuse of all flavors. Even non-mages who try to help them are quietly executed while the Order superiors look on and do nothing.
The Chantry is a religion, not government. Everyone else in Kirkwall or the Free Marches is free to believe what they want. Unless they're a mage. In that case, nobody can force them to believe in the Maker, but by the Maker, they will live by the Chantry's laws. If they don't, death or Tranquility are the reward. And sometimes, obedience is not enough to protect them.
How many more freedoms can the templars take away? There are none left. The right to survive? Templars who murder or torture mages are not even slapped on the wrist. The right to liberty? Mages have none. They are locked in towers and denied access to legal protection. The right to marry, have children, or form friendships where they will? DG says that mages may petition for the right to get married, but you don't actally meet any married mages. You do meet mages who have had their romantic aspirations thwarted either by the involuntary relocation, the involuntary tranquilling, or by the outright murder or their partner. So perhaps it's one of those freedoms that theoretically exist but no one ever sees it in practice. And as for having children, Wynne tells you that her case was rare and that her child was taken from her as soon as he was born. We are never told what means the templars use to prevent unauthorized pregnancies, but reproductive freedom is not something mages enjoy. Even slavery does not force families to separate. Fenris is reminded that he used to play with his sister in the courtyard, so the family was not split up. Mages, on the other hand, are isolated from their families. Bethany is allowed special privileges because of her standing as Hawke's sibling, but Ella's parents never even knew why she disappeared. Hawke has two second cousins who were taken to the Circle, relations of his mother's cousin. A human mage Warden is one of them, but if you played the mage Origin, you are never told that you have siblings. You are told that you have no recollection of your family at all.
So let's look at this a different way. Rather than listing all the freedoms mages and slaves don't have, let's look for some freedoms that they do possess. We know that slaves have access to their families because Fenris played with his sister as a child. Also, Orana lived with her father. They were not separated. We covered the mage equivalent above. Slaves can be freed. Fenris wins freedom for his family and there is nothing to suggest that this is an isolated occurrence. There is nothing a mage can do to earn the same. So, is there any freedom I'm overlooking?
I can stay out of the whole debate about Fenris's virtues or perceived lack thereof. I don't really care what opinions others have of him. I don't have a problem with players siding with the templars and condoning genocide. It's a video game played in the privacy of one's own home. What folks get up to is none of my business. I do object to someone saying that one group has a right to oppress another group because of an accident of birth.
Edit: Good gracious, that's a huge wall of text! I often wish that the issue of mage rights was handled with greater subtlety. I wish there were more templars like Emeric who seemed to genuinely care about his carges. I would have preferred to have one as a companion and possibly a LI. A gentle, lenient templar with the ability to see shades of grey, yet whose core beliefs were still loyal to the Chantry. The inclusion of such a character would have really made "the other side" more appealing. I wish we met mages outside the context of "Die, blood mage!" or "I can't talk to you or the templars will beat me." If we saw more non-apostate mages strolling through Kirkwall, shopping for trinkets or chatting with friends over tea, it would have made the issue seem far less black and white. But then, without the oppression, the mages would never have rebelled and there would have been no need for DA3. So maybe I had better just be glad they don't *make* players side with one side or the other and let it go at that.
Modifié par berelinde, 29 août 2011 - 01:04 .
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