keesio74 wrote...
@The Ethereal Writer Redux - I know you support Merrill and go the friendship path but do you actually support her use of blood magic or do you know what she is doing is playing with fire and just don't want to come down on her because she needs support (basically you feel she will react badly to "tough love")?
I have not finished the game but I will romance Merrill. But it will be a rival romance. I have to be tough on her blood magic use because I feel it is just wrong. Everywhere in the Dragon Age universe where blood magic is discussed/shown, it is ALWAYS negative. No grey area, it always leads to disaster. Bioware has made it clear that going down that path is never good. Even Morrigan frowns on blood magic. She's too smart to know only fools make deals with demons.
I support her use of blood magic, as she's shown that she stays away from the darker aspects which leads to the repercussions. And in retrospect, maybe
some of what you said. Hearing about how he should do some "tough love" -- from my Hawkes' point of view -- may just cause the harm that he doesn't want to happen.
She only uses her blood to power her spells and no one else's. She thinks that using anyone else's blood -- willing or not -- is ghastly. She finds raising the dead to be ghastly as well.
She's shown herself to be a capable master of the arcane and she plays it safe against demons, trying to trick them before she's tricked herself. Rivalry, A.K.A "tough love" -- the equivalent of emotional abuse -- may cause her to become an Abomination.
I realize it doesn't happen, but from a roleplaying perspective it might and telling Merrill she doesn't know what she's doing -- when she shows a few times that she can outwit demons and proclaims her hatred of the horrific uses of blood magic -- and that everyone's hatred of her is justified will lead to emotional damage, which increases the odds of her becoming an Abomination.
But it's mostly supporting blood magic, rather then going "Being tough on her might just be worse for her, so let's friend her". The latter is merely a secondary aspect -- and a small one at that -- for why my Hawkes Friend her.
And not necessarily. Not every blood mage has had something negative happen to them. At least, not in relation to their use of blood magic.
Malcolm Hawke used blood magic to help bind Corypheus for another 30 years. Granted, he forswore ever doing it again so long as he lived, but nothing bad came of his use of it there.
Jowan has had ill fortune fall on him, but that's not due to his blood magic. Well, not entirely. What happened in Redcliffe had nothing to do with his being a mage, save for why he did what he did. But any non-mage could've poisoned Eamon just as easily as Jowan did, and the events would've been the same. Additionally, Jowan -- if set loose from Redcliffe's dungeons and told to never return -- becomes a guardian to refugees from the Blight, defending them.
Morrigan even used blood magic once. The Dark Ritual. She says that it can be called such. Whether it truly is is a matter of interpretation, but she was fine to do such a thing. So logically, if it was a form of blood magic she didn't mind doing it.
The Joining -- both the Warden one and the Reaver one -- is a form of blood magic. Blood magic has helped to defeat the Darkspawn several times over. Without blood magic, the Wardens wouldn't exist.
I don't even know if one can consider Merrill to be a true blood mage, given that she only uses it two times -- before she met Hawke to amplify her healing powers that she was taught by Marethari, and to open a barrier when Hawke meets her.
One can easily set her tactics to make her never perform any blood magic.
Of course, this is all because we're never told or shown that she uses blood magic in the interim years, so that's why I think of it as such.
Additionally, the demon Merrill was dealing with was trapped in a demonic Buddha statue for centuries and would continue to be trapped for more centuries unless it was freed by a powerful spell -- which Merrill makes clear to an aggressive Hawke she has no intention of doing.
I will never rival Merrill because it makes it so that she can't trust
anyone in the world, save for herself (her Rivalry bonus description). And that borders on emotional abuse, if it isn't such a thing. As I said, emotionally abusing her makes her trust no one and may lead to demons possessing her.
In the end, blood magic is merely a tool, same as any other type of magic. Is it prone to abuse? Yes. More so then other schools? Yea. But it all depends on the mage, not the magic itself. Merrill doesn't abuse the school of blood magic in her life, nor does she show any inclination to want to do so. She knows what she's doing, despite what people think.
So telling her she's wrong, that the people that hate her are justified in their hatred of her, and that she doesn't know what she's doing will do more harm then good in the long run, IMO.
I had another thing I wanted to say, but I forgot it Now I remember! I wanted to say that all of the bad things that happen to Merrill can be traced back to the stigma against blood magic and Marethari specifically, rather then blood magic itself.
Darkrider97 wrote...
Yes Pol overreacted. But I still believe that the clan was justified in treating Merrill bad. She has been told since birth what it means to be a Keeper and the dangers that come with it. Yet she lies to Anders about "spirits being people like us". What a crock of &%#!. Her people know how dangerous demons are. Working with a demon to make a mirror work is not productive for her people in the HERE AND NOW. I mean she wasn't even that aware of her other Eleves in the Alienage because she was working on that stupid mirror. Merrill is a stubborn prideful fool who should have ignored the demon the moment it talked to her. I really liked it when Anders told her off about how she doesn't know Spirits, she knows DEMONS. Innately evil creatures that should be ignored the moment they start talking to you 
Sorry, but you're wrong.
When she says that there's no such thing as a safe spirit, she classifies all denizens of the Fade as what they should be classified as: spirits. The lowercase 's' signifies all denizens, while a capital 'S' signifies the
safer denizens like Valor and Faith.
Safer, not safe. They are still dangerous.
Merrill uses the lowercase form of spirits when she talks about the Fade's denizens. She doesn't call Demons "Spirits". She calls them "spirits".
Gaider -- and an in-game codex author -- have said that all denizens of the Fade are spirits.
Typically, we misuse the term "spirit" to refer only to the benign, or at least less malevolent, creatures of the Fade, but in truth, all the denizens of the realm beyond the Veil are spirits.
--From Beyond the Veil: Spirits and Demons, by Enchanter Mirdromel. And Merrill's not wrong on the fact that the spirits of the Fade are like humanity. Humanity has its good eggs and its bad eggs. She even adds to her statement that it's a more-or-less type of scenario, and not a perfect comparison.
The difference -- and Merrill is aware of this -- is that the denizens of the Fade are not complex creatures. They focus on one facet of a person's persona and embody it fully, be it dark or light. But in the end, they're similar to humanity.
Similar, but not the same.
Again, good eggs and bad eggs. Of a different sort and on a different scale, but the comparison -- albeit not a perfect one, which again Merrill recognizes -- is valid.
Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 03 avril 2012 - 09:31 .
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