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[Rifneno]

River5 wrote...

So yes, Anders could very well have been bipolar, and going through these massive mood swings before his joining with Justice.

And the time we spent with him in Awakening was during a more "manic" stage, and/or simply a period of stability.

I think it's worth noting that DAA Anders and DA2 Anders had different writers.  David Gaider wrote him in Awakening, and Jennifer Hepler wrote him in DA2.  As far as I've ever seen, only Hepler has she wrote Anders with bipolar disorder in mind.  Likewise, a great many fans felt he was a totally different character in DA2 and a lot of Anders original fans felt the new one "ruined" one of their favorite characters from Awakening.  So I don't really see any reason to presume Anders was "bipolar" in DAA.

HopeVessel wrote...

Yeah he was, except when it comes to the chantry part, i assume there were a lot more people in the chantry than just elthina, they didnt deserve to die.

There's a reason they say war is hell. Because war is hell. It's not a matter of only punishing the wicked. That simply is not an option. No matter what conflict you look at, even many soldiers fighting for the 'bad guys' were often not bad themselves. In fact a great deal of them were forced into fighting. No, in war there's only the lesser evil. The lesser evil is killing a hundred people so that a thousand may live. That's what Anders did. If his actions prevent another millennium of brutal oppression then the loss of life in the war for freedom is an acceptable price, and the loss of life in that one Chantry bombing is a drop in the bucket.

Areksu wrote...

As for the chantry, their apparent indifference to Meredith's repression is nothing more than silent support for the templars. The grand cleric's dialogue with Sebastian suggests this, and even if I were wrong, her inaction in the face of such oppression when she clearly has the power to stop it marks her as negligent. The prior makes sense considering the templar are the knights of the chantry.

Truer words...

Killing the grand cleric would initiate the same conflict, since Meredith is just looking for an excuse for the right of annulment. I still don't understand why he didn't just do that instead. Most of the people in the city are Andrastians, and will support the reconstruction of a chantry without any hesitation, so the destruction of the chantry does not work in the mage's favor. Considering all the humanitarian aid being given by the chantry, it only makes them look more like monsters for killing those people. He is only feeding the very fears that caused the oppression of mages to begin with.

This requires knowledge that we as the players have, but Anders as a character does not. We know that Meredith was totally out of her mind because of the lyrium idol and that she was already desperately trying to get the RoA. Anders knows she's not playing with a full deck but I doubt he has any idea how crazy she is. Especially since the story can't depend on him hearing things like Orsino telling Hawke "then she'd have the evidence she wants for the Right of Annulment" because it's possible for the player not to bring Anders along for that encounter. So I can see why he'd go the extra mile and just destroy the Chantry rather than assassinate Elthina. I also disagree that he's only feeding the fears that cause the oppression. He was one man. People that are willing to blame all mages for the crime of one borderline abomination generally aren't people that would have supported the mages regardless. It's the type of person that refuses to judge the whole by the few that would support the mages, and one crime wouldn't change their stance.

[River5]

Areksu wrote...

Blood magic isn't the issue, but abominations certainly are. Blood magic is seen as bad because of a taboo the chantry has on mages cutting themselves for magical power (I kid you not). Yes, there is the whole mind control thing, but if you look at the lore in the game, its really banned because they cut themselves.
As for the chantry, their apparent indifference to Meredith's repression is nothing more than silent support for the templars. The grand cleric's dialogue with Sebastian suggests this, and even if I were wrong, her inaction in the face of such oppression when she clearly has the power to stop it marks her as negligent. The prior makes sense considering the templar are the knights of the chantry.
Killing the grand cleric would initiate the same conflict, since Meredith is just looking for an excuse for the right of annulment. I still don't understand why he didn't just do that instead. Most of the people in the city are Andrastians, and will support the reconstruction of a chantry without any hesitation, so the destruction of the chantry does not work in the mage's favor. Considering all the humanitarian aid being given by the chantry, it only makes them look more like monsters for killing those people. He is only feeding the very fears that caused the oppression of mages to begin with.

Destroying the Chantry was just a way to enable Meredith to invoke the Right of Annullement on the Circle unhindered.  Nothing more.

If Anders had poisoned Elthina's drink, for example, then one of her subordinates could have assumed the role of Grand Cleric until the Divine would officially have appointed a new one.  And if Meredith had tried to oppose Elthina's temporary replacement, she could have been seen as going against the will of the Chantry and the Divine.  It is thus possible that many Templars would have refused to follow her orders without hearing about it from a Chantry representative first.

You must remember that only the Divine or her representatives (a.k.a. the Grand Clerics) have the power to grant the Knight-Commanders the RoA.

By plunging Kirkwall into a state of panic and chaos, and removing the possibility of having another sister spontaneously replace Elthina; Meredith was free to declare the RoA on the Circle as an emergency measure without anyone being able to oppose her authority.  And such a measure would appear "justified" to the Templars following her orders as well.

As for Chantry sisters being humanitarian aid workers...

I remember hearing some Darktown refugees complaining that the Chantry never came down there to help them...

The sisters you meet in Lowtown are either harrassing prostitutes for donations ("The only wealth I have is between my legs sister...  But you're welcome to that if you wish!"), or spreading the Chant of Light.

And when Evelina tried to go to the Circle to tell them about the orphans that were under her care, and ask for help...  She was locked up in the Gallows and the Chantry never investigated her claims (probably because the Templars didn't bother to warn them...  But even so, I don't know if they would have done anything about it).

Anders, on the other hand, has been treating patients and refugees at his clinic for a decade for free...  And collaborating with Lirene, who is trying to provide them with clothings, jobs, food, resources, etc.

I'm not saying that the Chantry never helps the poor, the orphans and the destitutes.  And yes, that is the general perception that the public (in Kirkwall, I would venture "Hightown") has of them.

But I think that the people of Darktown and Lowtown may not feel that saddened about its loss.

Now that Anders' mages rebellion is well under way, even if the Chantry was rebuilt, it wouldn't really matter.

The Chantry itself as a place of worship, and community service center wouldn't be a threat.

Even Anders seems to be a pretty devout Andrastrian.  You can believe in Andraste and the Maker, yet still disagree with the way that the chant has been interpreted (or perverted) by the Chantry when it comes to mages.

I don't think that the Chantry will ever cease to exist, nor do I believe it is necessary.  It just shouldn't be allowed such social and political control and power.

[River5]

Rifneno wrote...

I think it's worth noting that DAA Anders and DA2 Anders had different
writers.  David Gaider wrote him in Awakening, and Jennifer Hepler wrote
him in DA2.  As far as I've ever seen, only Hepler has she wrote Anders
with bipolar disorder in mind.  Likewise, a great many fans felt he was
a totally different character in DA2 and a lot of Anders original fans
felt the new one "ruined" one of their favorite characters from
Awakening.  So I don't really see any reason to presume Anders was
"bipolar" in DAA.

DreamerM wrote...

River5 wrote...

So yes, Anders could very well have been bipolar, and going through these massive mood swings before his joining with Justice.

I admit it's very possible. But looking at this from a pure Storytelling perspective, if Anders was bipolar and in a mildly manic, or a normal, phase for Awakenings, then....why make him bipolar at all? It's basic storytelling that if something is Going To Be Important Later, then it should be introduced as early as possible, not sprung on the viewer at the 11th hour to explain some developments that wouldn't make sense otherwise.

Because they never truly gave it that much thought in Awakening?  Lol!  Or that wasn't the initial plan.  

I don't think that David Gaider made Anders as a bipolar character in Awakening.  Unless there had been plans for him to be in DA2 and play that role in the story already.

Anders COULD have been bipolar in DAA (because the way he behaves in DAA is not at odds with the behavior of someone suffering from bipolarity), but I seriously doubt that it was intended for him to be.

My comment was more to make the point that it's not his "bipolarity" that would have made him act like he did by the end of Act III.

Using the joining of Anders + Justice as a bipolarity disorder metaphore was a bit of a clumsy move from the writer.

Unless they considered Anders to be a pure positive, optimistic, nothing can get him down, everything is possible character.

And Justice a completely pessimistic, hopeless, nothing about me is worth saving character.

And that mixing the both of them would have him alternate between one side, and the other...

But even there, it doesn't quite work because I don't think that Justice was that negative to begin with.  Yes, he is hard, inflexible most of the time, and righteous.

But he could see the beauty in the world and its people, and believe it's something worth fighting for.

So I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out why they chose to make the Anders + Justice combo act like a bipolar.

For Anders to show signs of dissociative identity disorder (and he only does if you rival him) would have been much likelier than having his joining with Justice induce major mood swings.

But hey!  Perhaps having a spirit share your body and mind creates some chemical imbalance in your brain than induces mood disorders.  It's plausible.

Modifié par River5, 29 juin 2011 - 02:53 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Giving Hepler the benefit of the doubt, I'd take her whole "using bipolar as an inspiration" post as indicating that that's where she gathered a lot of the details she used to create a depiction of an interior mental struggle that rings true.

We were talking about this a few hours ago on the Anders thread. Anders' need to constantly write and rewrite his manifesto reminds me horrifyingly enough of my need to argue with people when they are WRONG on the INTERNET, which is a symptom of my ADD (which shares symptoms with mild bipolar, and so the cycle is complete). Another Anders thread poster who actually has experience with bipolar seconded this notion: the fact that they reproduced real-life symptoms actually gave us more reason to empathize with the character. Now this is coming from the Anders thread, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.

As for why Justice+Anders would make Anders act like someone who has bipolar... to me it's a pretty cool reversal of cause and effect. If you actually have bipolar, your brain chemistry is bucking you back and forth between periods of complete despair where you'll often think you're a horrible person who has made all the wrong choices, and periods of intense frantic energy when you feel like you can do anything and all your ideas are genius and you must write them down now.

For Anders, instead of being triggered randomly by brain chemistry, these shifts are triggered by his thought processes and emotional reactions to events in his life. When he manages to convince himself that real change is possible, he becomes manic. When he manages to convince himself he's made horrible mistakes, he becomes depressed. This reminds me of a case study I read regarding someone who had an incredibly severe case of ADHD that was misdiagnosed as bipolar. Eventually they realized that his mood swings were actually a result of his brain over-processing the triumphs and disappointments in his life, and veering back and forth between them. (I may be explaining this badly, it's been years since I did any real reading on the subject.)

There is a heck of a lot of diagnostic confusion between ADD, ADHD, and Bipolar. Generally, if your mood swings are based on your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to life events, its probably ADHD rather than Bipolar... but the symptoms when swings are caused by ADHD are usually markedly less long-lasting and severe than symptoms from Bipolar. So the causes of Anders' mental issue (unfocused, obsessive thoughts and amplified emotional reactions to stimuli) are more similar to ADHD, while the severity of those symptoms are more similar to actual bipolar.

So sayeth this armchair analyst, at any rate. I'm not doctor, etc etc.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 29 juin 2011 - 03:35 .

[DreamerM]

River5 wrote...

But hey!  Perhaps having a spirit share your body and mind creates some chemical imbalance in your brain than induces mood disorders.  It's plausible.

Hey, it's as good an explaination as any. And a better explaination then some others I've heard.

I understand what Jennifer Halper was going for by using references to real-life, non-magical mental illness to inform Anders's magical "condition" but I think it was, on the whole, executed kind of clumsily. Personally I think if his situation was a bit more subtle, Justice's manifestations more seperate, and Anders's own mental state a bit more in flux. As it is, some of the "real world" comparisons are a bit ham-handed. Especially since there are ways to treat those Real World conditions, whereas the game would have us believe Anders is untreatable. Or that at least Hawke thinks so.

And there are the millions of real-world people with real-world mental illnesses who are not, and never will be, murderers.

[In Exile]

sphinxess wrote...
Any noble is going to ensure he had the forces on hand to enforce the laws. I really don't see your point - it seems a mage that has property or a family is a lot less likely to risk them by playing with blood magic or extorting the neighbors.

Again: things like family and property haven't ever stopped actual criminals from being criminals. In that period, they haven't stopped individuals from gathering armies to conquer other people with families. And these are regular people, more or less, not essentially ubermensch super gods that can melt people and control their minds.

If mages organize and want to rule, what's neccesarily stopping them from doing so? Not to say that a mage would - but community bonds like these maybe work for a community, but certainly not communities vs. communities.

Currently the system removes children that show any sign of magic and breaks all contact with the family. Most of course want this thanks to the Chantry teachings that a magic user is cursed - the familys that don't can even be killed if they fight to defend their child from the Templars. Without the chantry choices can include the rich hiring private teachers and  I would think few poor ones would turn down free schooling for a child <the ones that don't believe the chantry teachings can even see their child again>

So let's say you don't remove children - how exactly will they be taught? They get to go home to till the fields? Where does the money for their "free" education come from? Other mages? Why should those mages donate? Taxes? Why should the people be taxed so that mages can have a free ride? If mages are dangerous, and the tax is as a way to teach them to control their powers, then why should non-mages bear a burden without a return?

Some families might love to give up on another mouth to feed. Some might not.

We would now have a university where actual research can be done on magic. Who knows what can be learned - i.e. force mages casting spells to drill wells etc- I see nothing to show that any research has been done in the circles for the entire 700 years they have been in control of the chantry

The same things that are learned now, because the DA:O codex makes it very clear magic is being researched by Circle mages.

Whats to stop a mage from casting a fireball for fun and frolic? Town guards consisting of warriors and mages. Whats to stop anyone from killing a noble and taking his estate? Remember the DA:O human noble origin? If the king had lived do you think he would have gotten away with that?

What if the new educated mages don't want to be town guards, and especially the really talented ones? What if a weak-minded and incompetent town guard mage is angry for being passed over for promotion, and makes a deal with a demon and becomes an abomination? What if a particularly zealous guardsman wants to stop a criminal, so she uses blood magic to rip the information from the minds of others?

More importantly: what makes you think that people will suddenly want to trust and live and work with mages?

If the changes don't work you adjust. The chantry has had its chance - 700 years of control and still doing things the same way - look at the Harrowing a huge number fail and yet the survivers still aren't trusted - why the heck is it even being done then?

Actually, via the codex, few fail the Harrowing: the people afraid can avoid it (tranquility) and the mages & templars only reccomend those who they think will pass it. Not that you're wrong per se re: the reaction to a Harrowed mage - just that the fail rate isn't significant.

The Chantry can go right around and say that 700 years later, they've had no mageocracy except where there have been changes (Tevinter). Obviously this is 100% unsatisfying if you're not into oppressing mages, but simply saying "changes don't work => adjust" ignores the complicated situation, i.e. that people wouldn't (for example) stop being prejudiced overnight.

[In Exile]

[quote]River5 wrote...
I'm really not sure I am following you here...  You seem to be saying exactly what I'm already saying.  That, to protect both people from extortion and mind control, the best alternative is to make both approaches illegal. [/quote]

Well, no. What I'm saying is that "making it illegal" isn't practically different from saying "making it immoral" because the strength of it being illegal is actually that there is force behind the claim.

So saying that "we make blood magic illegal" actually means saying "we will have a police force that can find, arrest and prosecute blood mages". And if we have that, then we have to ask, how exactly can it be done in a way that is humane?

Because mages have special powers vs. regular humans, law enforcement needs more work than just a handwave that there will be laws and they will be enforced.

[quote]Wait?  What?  No.  You DON'T take mages away from their parents.  They leave their home in the morning, go study with their masters, and then come back home in the evening to their families.[/quote]


And how do you think this works? Why does a mage want to work in uneducated hickville? Why do you think there are enough mages to live in uneducated hickville? What guarantee is that the hickville mage is qualified to teach
others?

The circle has teachers now because all mages are forced to be teachers - when you've suddenly opened up your career opportunities, what makes you think every village can get their mage?

[quote]Or, if they live in big cities, they go to the Circles for study, and come back at the end of the day.[/quote]


Why would Circles want to teach every child? What's in it for them, now that they're a regular academic society?

[quote]You could even have a "boarding school" model where friends and family are allowed to visit too, and they return to their homes every once in a while (think Hogwarts...  Lol!).[/quote]

Who pays for the school? How do illiterate farmers travel there, and using what funds?

[quote]Making magical training mandatory is simply saying that young mages must enlist with an accredited enchanter in order to learn to use their powers, receive guidance from more experienced enchanters, and learn how to protect themselves from demons..  Not be taken away from their families![/quote]


Who enforces this? Where does the money come from? Who accredits the enchanter? What does someone to do become an echanter, and why would anyone talented want to be one?

[quote]And, I come from a country where you need training and a license to own a gun.  So I see no problem with having to register yourself as being a mage in order to make sure that, should you suddenly go on a power trip and start killing and/or mind controlling people, there would be a way to track you down and stop you.[/quote]


How does the registration work? What if you don't? How do they discover it? How is it enforced?

[quote]Mages DO represent a certain risk because of the power they inherently have.  I've never been denying it, or saying that the general population shouldn't be protected from the potential abuses of these powers.

Just that it's unecessary to lock these people up to do so, and deny them the right to have a normal life and/or start a family.[/quote]


The issue isn't the inhumanity of the treatment - I don't think anyone is pro-abuse. And I'm, personally, a major supporter of freedom for mages. But what I am saying is that even if we assume a blank slate (which we wouldn't have right now) the system you propose has a lot of practical problems.

[quote]Not at all.  You don't keep them there until they are adults.  You don't track them if they leave (since they can leave whenever they wish to).  Philacteries would be used only in order to track down dangerous mage criminals if all other ways to do so have failed.[/quote]


So you don't know where the mages are... which means that you actually have to discover if they are criminals in the first place, which means you need an entire well-developed court system. You need to have a well developed court system to prevent abuses and to actually carry out trials for these individuals.

Alll in all, it sounds impossible for any society we have seen in Thedas, vis a vis their jurisprudence.

[quote]Not at all.  There's no Chantry oversight.  It's a place where knowledge about magic and its history is kept and taught, pure and simple.[/quote]


It's not the Chantry that makes the Circle a Circle. It's the power balance between mages and non-mages.

[quote]If that was the only mission of the Circle, than yes.  But it's not.  Circles also serve as prisons for mages where they are under constant watch by the Templars.[/quote]


The Circles in Tevinter don't work differently.

[quote]Say, isn't there a king that rules the country?  Or some other figure of authority?  Who enforces the laws for the common people?[/quote]


Depends on what period of time you're talking about. In Ferelden, for example, the local Bann enforces justice, which is theoretically drawn from the King. Or they could have elementary court systems.

[quote]Mages are people too, it should only be fair that they should fall under the same jurisdiction.[/quote]


Mages can melt faces. If an angry mob shows up, a talented and angry mage can murder them all. So you need mages. But where would a village get these mages?

[quote]In Kirkwall, I suppose it would be the City Guards.  And, since mages could be allowed to become members of the Guards themselves, they could very well teach others how to protect themselves from magical assaults.[/quote]


Magic doesn't work that way in DA:O. You can't use mana if you're not a mage. You need a templar order (a non-religious one, but still) to act as anti-mages beside the mages themselves.

[quote]There's also the issue of the Templar Order to consider...  If Templars are no longer required to hunt down mages by the Chantry (because the state refuses to allow a religious organization to regulate the use of magic on their lands)...  I'm wondering what purpose they would have.[/quote]


Templars are like Grey Wardens. They have a mission, but they're also physically altered & trained. A templar is an anti-mage warrior, and their role would be the same - the authority would change.

[quote]Using Templars to enforce the law when it comes to magic would be very tricky, especially in the beginning, since mages would be prone to associate them with the opression they have suffered.[/quote]


Wait, you're being realistic? Then your whole idea is silly.

Why would the common folk that are ignorant and taught to hate magic suddenly welcome mages with open arms? Who is preventing lynch mobs? Why do you think town guards will work with mages? Why do you think Kings won't forcibly conscript mages as soldiers?

[quote]
Nope, it would be illegal to use philacteries to track down a mage that hasn't committed any life-threatening crime.[/quote]


And who enforces this? Who prevents abuses?

[quote]You do know that your fingerprints were taken at some point in your life and could be used to identify you on the scene of a crime, right?[/quote]


Not in Canada. You only have your prints on file if you previously committed a crime and were arrested.

[quote]I have a similar vision when I think about those philacteries.[/quote]


That a 12-15th century society has 21st century jurisprudence?
[quote]

See, that's even worse...  Lol![/quote]


Absolutely. I'm just saying, the Chantry doesn't take these things lightly.

I will reply to the rest later.

[Areksu]

Actually, I wasn't thinking about Anders poisoning the grand cleric. More like making her explode into gibblets right in front of Meredith. I assumed that the church hierarchy was similar to real life, where there are procedures and rituals that must be followed before a new grand cleric can be ordained. I'd find it shocking if the chantry could change leaders fast enough to keep Meredith on her leash. Lyrium idol or no, Meredith has clear ambitions for controlling the city and systematically killing the mages. With the grand cleric dead, that puts the Knight-Commander in direct control, and Meredith did not rise to power waiting for the approval of the chantry.
I'm sure Anders knows how Meredith came to power, as that is public knowledge. Her current actions have turned the circle into a **** concentration camp for mages, and she refuses to allow another Viscount to be elected. She wants control of the city, so it would be very uncharacteristic of her to wait for a new Grand Cleric to be ordained.
I can see how blowing up the chantry might be considered "being on the safe side," just in case Meredith does do something unpredictable like wait for a new grand cleric's approval. Maybe Anders was just following the grey warden idea of doing everything possible to achieve victory. In this case, victory being a war between the templars and mages.

[River5]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Giving Hepler the benefit of the doubt, I'd take her whole "using bipolar as an inspiration" post as indicating that that's where she gathered a lot of the details she used to create a depiction of an interior mental struggle that rings true.

We were talking about this a few hours ago on the Anders thread. Anders' need to constantly write and rewrite his manifesto reminds me horrifyingly enough of my need to argue with people when they are WRONG on the INTERNET, which is a symptom of my ADD (which shares symptoms with mild bipolar, and so the cycle is complete). Another Anders thread poster who actually has experience with bipolar seconded this notion: the fact that they reproduced real-life symptoms actually gave us more reason to empathize with the character. Now this is coming from the Anders thread, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.

As for why Justice+Anders would make Anders act like someone who has bipolar... to me it's a pretty cool reversal of cause and effect. If you actually have bipolar, your brain chemistry is bucking you back and forth between periods of complete despair where you'll often think you're a horrible person who has made all the wrong choices, and periods of intense frantic energy when you feel like you can do anything and all your ideas are genius and you must write them down now.

For Anders, instead of being triggered randomly by brain chemistry, these shifts are triggered by his thought processes and emotional reactions to events in his life. When he manages to convince himself that real change is possible, he becomes manic. When he manages to convince himself he's made horrible mistakes, he becomes depressed. This reminds me of a case study I read regarding someone who had an incredibly severe case of ADHD that was misdiagnosed as bipolar. Eventually they realized that his mood swings were actually a result of his brain over-processing the triumphs and disappointments in his life, and veering back and forth between them. (I may be explaining this badly, it's been years since I did any real reading on the subject.)

There is a heck of a lot of diagnostic confusion between ADD, ADHD, and Bipolar. Generally, if your mood swings are based on your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to life events, its probably ADHD rather than Bipolar... but the symptoms when swings are caused by ADHD are usually markedly less long-lasting and severe than symptoms from Bipolar. So the causes of Anders' mental issue (unfocused, obsessive thoughts and amplified emotional reactions to stimuli) are more similar to ADHD, while the severity of those symptoms are more similar to actual bipolar.

So sayeth this armchair analyst, at any rate. I'm not doctor, etc etc.

You're no doctor, but your description of these disorders, as well as your analysis of Anders' behavior seems pretty accurate as far as I'm concerned.

There's also a lot of diagnostic confusion between bipolarity, and other health problems as well. 

For example, I was almost diagnosed with "atypical type 2 bipolar disorder" (a version where the person only experiences hypomanic episodes...) or cyclothymia (a milder form of bipolarity that normally doesn't interfere with the person's ability to function on a day to day basis, and where the cycles can alternate themselves within a single day.  For example, you can be hypomanic at the beginning of the day, then midly depressed in the evening).

And this was based on the fact that I experienced moments of severe, crippling fatigue (with a bunch of other symptoms like nausea, photophobia, palpitations, shaking, confusion) where I wasn't able to be physically or mentally active at all.

Alternated with periods of higher energy levels where I frantically tried to catch up for everything that I hadn't been able to do during the accute fatigue episodes.

The thing was that these variations in energy levels never affected my mood, or the way I perceived myself (no feelings of grandiosity, elation, urge to make impulsive decisions...  Or, on the other end, feelings of sadness, guilt, self-reproach, loss of self-esteem, etc.).  Other than the fact that being unable to function at all during periods that went from a few hours to a few days was becoming increasingly frustrating, I was perfectly fine.

Turns out I have myalgic encephalomyelitis.

I don't believe that Jennifer Hepler necessarily made a mistake by drawing inspiration from an existing mental illness in order to shape Anders' behavior.  It does give the character a higher level of realism, in a way; and might make us empathise with him more.

In a romance, you might even get a little taste of the helplessness a significant other may feel when they see a loved one go through these phases.  Being in love with someone suffering from bipolarity may be both difficult, and very rewarding as despite their struggles, they have a lot to offer.

Especially in the real world where there are treatments available, and it is possible to get appropriate help.

The clumsyness comes from the fact that Anders turned out to be one of the (if not THE) most controversial characters of DA2, and has a spirit (a.k.a. a different entity) in his head.

By having the writer publicly state that she draw inspiration from bipolar disorders when writing Anders, it might cast a certain level of confusion regarding what bipolarity is, and what are its implications.

Especially since many will refer to Anders as being crazy or "deranged", both derogatory terms to refer to mental illnesses.

There's a lot more than that "eating" Anders right now.  Considering the experiences he's had, and the level of stress he's been subjected to, the guy is actually surprisingly strong and well balanced.

Yes, you heard me...  And I'm not saying that because I'm a fan.

From a strictly clinical point of view...
1. Taken away from his parents at a young age (after having witnessed his own father's rejection, calling him a curse and a punishment for his sins);
2. Since then living with the constant fear of what some heavily armored men could do to you;
3. Being hated and feared by others just for "existing";
4. Solitary confinement for one year;
5. Having had your life threatened on countless occasions;
6. Suffering from Archdemon induced nightmares;
7. Living with the knowledge that demons are constantly out there, just at the edge of the Fade, preying on you;
8. Having a single-minded spirit of Justice with no understanding of time and patience, or the human condition for that matter, constantly giving you urges to commit some actions that wouldn't normally be your own...  And vying for control of your body and mind if you refuse to collaborate;
9. Having been unable to save one of your dearest friends and once lover from being made Tranquil, and having been the one to end his life...

And the list goes on...

Hello wonderful opportunities for repeated post-traumatic stress syndromes, severe anxiety disorders, identity disturbances, personality and behavioral troubles of all kinds, impaired affect, substance abuses, psychological dependances, psychosis, and so forth!

I can't believe he's not rocking himself in the corner of some dark room, or gone completely catatonic already!

Modifié par River5, 29 juin 2011 - 03:43 .

[Addai]

Thanks for those who answered my question. Good stuff. I still have problems with the story, but I'm processing.

[Huntress]

LOL, mages have free education? really?
I can finally say have read it all in this forum rofl.

The Chantry wins alot by having mages trap/imprisioned/jailed in a circle, Tranquils, they can work with Lyrium, make enchantements, and they do not consume it as templars do.
Without mages, there is no tranquils and the others who could work with lyrium are dwarves, making war with the dwarves is stupid, dwarves mine and sells the lyrium to the chantry, if they start to force dwarves into learning how to fold lyrium is not a good idea, for so many reason.

Chantry need mages to make coins their way, 90% of the population believe the mages are guilty for been born mages, doing whatever they fit to the mages it won't change anything because the large part of the population is "ok" with that, and about the free education.. it comes with lossing freedom.

[Vit246]

Huntress wrote...
The Chantry wins alot by having mages trap/imprisioned/jailed in a circle, Tranquils, they can work with Lyrium, make enchantements, and they do not consume it as templars do.
Without mages, there is no tranquils and the others who could work with lyrium are dwarves, making war with the dwarves is stupid, dwarves mine and sells the lyrium to the chantry, if they start to force dwarves into learning how to fold lyrium is not a good idea, for so many reason.

Has it been said anywhere at all that only non-mages can work with lyrium? I see no reason why mages themselves cannot work with lyrium (the processed type).

Modifié par Vit246, 29 juin 2011 - 05:02 .

[Addai]

There is risk to working with lyrium. People who've already had their brains melted by it (I don't think it's been confirmed, but that's my theory on how Tranquility is accomplished) or who have some natural, built-up resistance (dwarves) are the logical ones to do enchanting.

Modifié par Addai67, 29 juin 2011 - 05:10 .

[Huntress]

Lyrium is a poison by itself, dwarves been under ground all the time have become somewhat inmune to it, a normal person could probably work on it, but that is 1 into 1000's if no more, is like making wardens, the warden's need to recruit more than 1 and see who survives, the dwarves can learn and work with lyrium in a faster speed that humans or elves, they live with it day and night, and some work on it for many years, point to the merchant in Ozamar, his family have worked with lyrium for a long time.

I think when mages lose the ability to use magic is when they can be able to fold lyrium, not before.

Maybe Tranquils mages gain soemthing from losing the ability of casting spells like an inmunity of soemsort.. hmm that'll be interesting, of course not one likes to be next to a tranquils, talk to them or watch over them for a  long time, thats probably why not one knows what did the tranquils gain when they lose the connection to magic.

Modifié par Huntress, 29 juin 2011 - 05:20 .

[Addai]

Huntress wrote...
I think when mages lose the ability to use magic is when they can be able to fold lyrium, not before.

The Awakening enchanter appeared to be a Circle mage, not tranquil.

[Huntress]

Addai67 wrote...

Huntress wrote...
I think when mages lose the ability to use magic is when they can be able to fold lyrium, not before.

The Awakening enchanter appeared to be a Circle mage, not tranquil.

Yes but this mage could have been carring already folded lyrium, she didn't actually made it or you saw her made anything?, she sold stuff, not make. She probably was called enchanter because thats what she sold, enchantements.

A Smith need merchants/traders to sell their product, a smith making an armor and then going around trying to sell it is not profitable. Maybe am wrong of course, after seen sandal anything is possible.

[River5]

[quote]In Exile wrote...

[quote]River5 wrote...
I'm really not sure I am following you here...  You seem to be saying exactly what I'm already saying.  That, to protect both people from extortion and mind control, the best alternative is to make both approaches illegal. [/quote]

Well, no. What I'm saying is that "making it illegal" isn't practically different from saying "making it immoral" because the strength of it being illegal is actually that there is force behind the claim.

So saying that "we make blood magic illegal" actually means saying "we will have a police force that can find, arrest and prosecute blood mages". And if we have that, then we have to ask, how exactly can it be done in a way that is humane?

Because mages have special powers vs. regular humans, law enforcement needs more work than just a handwave that there will be laws and they will be enforced.
[/quote]

Hence the appeal of allowing mages to enlist into law enforcing groups. 

[quote]

[quote]Wait?  What?  No.  You DON'T take mages away from their parents.  They leave their home in the morning, go study with their masters, and then come back home in the evening to their families.[/quote]


And how do you think this works? Why does a mage want to work in uneducated hickville? Why do you think there are enough mages to live in uneducated hickville? What guarantee is that the hickville mage is qualified to teach
others?

The circle has teachers now because all mages are forced to be teachers - when you've suddenly opened up your career opportunities, what makes you think every village can get their mage?

[/quote]

Why do teachers want to work in remote villages?  Or nurses work in isolated nordic regions?  Usually, you find ways to make the job more appealing by offering a higher salary, or better vacations, or allowing them other kinds of benefits.

Some will also enjoy the challenge for the sake of challenge itself, or find satisfaction in the help they provide to the community.

[quote]
[quote]Or, if they live in big cities, they go to the Circles for study, and come back at the end of the day.[/quote]


Why would Circles want to teach every child? What's in it for them, now that they're a regular academic society?
[/quote]

I was rather under the impression that many enchanters take great pride in their skills, and enjoy teaching others. 

I have no problem believing that many mages would be scholars and teachers by choice, not by obligation.

Why does our society still have historians, researchers, and teachers, when no one is forced to take on these jobs?

[quote]

[quote]You could even have a "boarding school" model where friends and family are allowed to visit too, and they return to their homes every once in a while (think Hogwarts...  Lol!).[/quote]

Who pays for the school? How do illiterate farmers travel there, and using what funds?

[quote]Making magical training mandatory is simply saying that young mages must enlist with an accredited enchanter in order to learn to use their powers, receive guidance from more experienced enchanters, and learn how to protect themselves from demons..  Not be taken away from their families![/quote]


Who enforces this? Where does the money come from? Who accredits the enchanter? What does someone to do become an echanter, and why would anyone talented want to be one? [/quote]

Where does the money to maintain the Circles, give them the resources to train young mages, house, clothe, and feed all the mages living there, and pay the salary of the Templars to watch over them come from?

The Chantrys?

If that is the case, I seriously doubt that they can achieve all of this through "donations".

My guess is that part of the taxes that are collected by the landlords on their lands must be going to the Chantrys already.

Take the proportion of what you would normally pay the Chantrys in exchange for them to "watch over the mages, train them, and protect the general population from them", back to the Circles, and law enforcing groups.

Since many mages won't require to be housed by the Circles anymore, the overall costs may even be going down.

As for the "who accredits Enchanters and so forth"...  You build committees, create education programs, etc.  The Circles already have a College of Magi that meet together in Cumberland to discuss policies, elect the Grand Enchanter, and such.   They already have some form of standardized system for all Circles in Thedas.  Let's take advantage of it!

[quote]
[quote]And, I come from a country where you need training and a license to own a gun.  So I see no problem with having to register yourself as being a mage in order to make sure that, should you suddenly go on a power trip and start killing and/or mind controlling people, there would be a way to track you down and stop you.[/quote]


How does the registration work? What if you don't? How do they discover it? How is it enforced?[/quote]

Perhaps asking landlords to perform population census every 5 years or so...  As for how do they discover it.  Well, first of all, I can imagine that a parent suddenly discovering that his son just set fire to the barn by accident might be happy to offer his child the opportunity to receive education in order to better control his gifts.

If they try to hide it, someone else is bound to notice some day.  Or the child will become an abomination and, sadly, it will be the end of it.

As for how is it enforced, the same way any other law is enforced.

[quote]
[quote]Mages DO represent a certain risk because of the power they inherently have.  I've never been denying it, or saying that the general population shouldn't be protected from the potential abuses of these powers.

Just that it's unecessary to lock these people up to do so, and deny them the right to have a normal life and/or start a family.[/quote]


The issue isn't the inhumanity of the treatment - I don't think anyone is pro-abuse. And I'm, personally, a major supporter of freedom for mages. But what I am saying is that even if we assume a blank slate (which we wouldn't have right now) the system you propose has a lot of practical problems.[/quote]

Obviously, it's not just the Circles and the Chantry / Templars that will need to change follwing the rebellion, but other social structures in Thedas as well in order to accommodate the new realities they will be faced with.

If mages and non-mages suddenly find themselves having to share the same "space", so to speak, their respective leaders will have to sit together, and say "Okay, now what do we do with this, this, and/or that particular issue?  Just how much  control and freedom is realistic for both parties to have?...  What do we do with the remaining of the Templar Order?...  Do they still serve a purpose in this new proposed system?...  How can we maximize public safety on both sides? Etc."

The outcome of the rebellion is likely to affect the whole world, one way or the other.

Unless the Chantry manages to regain control and bring back all mages in their gilded cages so fast that the rest of Thedas' society won't be affected at all.

[quote]
[quote]Not at all.  You don't keep them there until they are adults.  You don't track them if they leave (since they can leave whenever they wish to).  Philacteries would be used only in order to track down dangerous mage criminals if all other ways to do so have failed.[/quote]


So you don't know where the mages are... which means that you actually have to discover if they are criminals in the first place, which means you need an entire well-developed court system. You need to have a well developed court system to prevent abuses and to actually carry out trials for these individuals.

All in all, it sounds impossible for any society we have seen in Thedas, vis a vis their jurisprudence. [/quote]

Exactly, and such a system won't develop unless there is a need for it.

The actual way Thedas' society is built is ill-equiped to deal with free mages living among them.  Why?  Because since no free mages are allowed to live among them, it would have been ludicrous to instaure systems and policies that allows for peaceful co-existance and safety.

If the mages free themselves, the rest of society will have no other choice than to adapt, or face problems, after problems, after problems, until they finally do.

[quote]
[quote]Not at all.  There's no Chantry oversight.  It's a place where knowledge about magic and its history is kept and taught, pure and simple.[/quote]


It's not the Chantry that makes the Circle a Circle. It's the power balance between mages and non-mages.[/quote]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that statement.  The Circle wasn't created because non-mages suddenly felt that mages should be kept among themselve in a locked up place, and the Chantry should decide who goes out, and who stays in...  I don't get it.

[quote]
[quote]If that was the only mission of the Circle, than yes.  But it's not.  Circles also serve as prisons for mages where they are under constant watch by the Templars.[/quote]


The Circles in Tevinter don't work differently.[/quote]

I was under the impression that the Circle of Magi ruled the Imperium, and that their Archon was at the head of the Chantry...

Also, I do not consider the Imperium as an example of fair regulation of magic, or a model that Thedas should embrace.

[quote]
[quote]Say, isn't there a king that rules the country?  Or some other figure of authority?  Who enforces the laws for the common people?[/quote]


Depends on what period of time you're talking about. In Ferelden, for example, the local Bann enforces justice, which is theoretically drawn from the King. Or they could have elementary court systems. [/quote]

Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.
What happened to then?
We passed then.
When?
Just now. We're at now now. 


[quote]
[quote]Mages are people too, it should only be fair that they should fall under the same jurisdiction.[/quote]
Mages can melt faces. If an angry mob shows up, a talented and angry mage can murder them all. So you need mages. But where would a village get these mages?

[quote]In Kirkwall, I suppose it would be the City Guards.  And, since mages could be allowed to become members of the Guards themselves, they could very well teach others how to protect themselves from magical assaults.[/quote]
Magic doesn't work that way in DA:O. You can't use mana if you're not a mage. You need a templar order (a non-religious one, but still) to act as anti-mages beside the mages themselves. [/quote]

See, I consider that the lyrium addiction that Templars are subjected to is a form of disgusting abuse.  So I'm very opposed to the idea of imposing "artificial mage powers" on regular human beings in order to fight against mages.

However, regular humans and elves could have enchanted armors and weapons (or carry runes) granting them certain levels of protection...  ("BOOM"!  Lol!  Gotta love Sandal...  )

And I'm thinking that mages specialising into the arcane warrior and battle mage arts would find a career in the guards, where they would be allowed to put their talents to good use, pretty appealing.  So having "tenplar-like soldiers" on top of it might not even be necessary to begin with.

Only if the ratio "criminal mages" v.s. "crime fighting mages" becomes insufficiant than should we conside it.

[quote]

[quote]There's also the issue of the Templar Order to consider...  If Templars are no longer required to hunt down mages by the Chantry (because the state refuses to allow a religious organization to regulate the use of magic on their lands)...  I'm wondering what purpose they would have.[/quote]


Templars are like Grey Wardens. They have a mission, but they're also physically altered & trained. A templar is an anti-mage warrior, and their role would be the same - the authority would change.

[quote]Using Templars to enforce the law when it comes to magic would be very tricky, especially in the beginning, since mages would be prone to associate them with the opression they have suffered.[/quote]


Wait, you're being realistic? Then your whole idea is silly. [/quote]

Let's send all the Templars after the Imperium, then!  Lol!  If it was up to me I'd just disband them...  Poor guys pay a heavy price for becoming mage hunters.  And if the mage hunting season closes permanently, they no longer are required, unless they find a new purpose for their Order.

Or the remaining ones could all join the Grey Wardens...  Now there's an idea!  They would be kick-arse against emissaries!

Joking aside, it's really hard to find what purpose Templars would have in this new system.

[quote]
Why would the common folk that are ignorant and taught to hate magic suddenly welcome mages with open arms? Who is preventing lynch mobs? Why do you think town guards will work with mages? Why do you think Kings won't forcibly conscript mages as soldiers?[/quote]

I never said that it would be achieved from one day to the next without any resistance, oppositions, revolt from the population, abuses of mages from leaders and nobles, etc.

Like Anders said, it will take years of open warfare for mages to acquire their freedom...  And then, probably years of smaller revolts and violent confrontations here and there before people slowly learn to accept each other.

At first, there will be lynch mobs (when you said that, I immediately thought of the Ku Klux Klan), there will be horrors committed against mages and against the population in general.

Change rarely comes without opposition, and there are pretty dark times ahead indeed.

But if history is any indicator, things will eventually settle down.  The more people are given opportunities to learn to know each other, work together, the more their initial fears slowly vanish, or, at the very least, become tolerable.  And from one generation to the next, people become more and more tolerant, to the point where you finally have reached a fairly good level of acceptance and inclusion.

My mother was scared of homosexuals when she was a kid (she was taught that they were all pedophiles)...  Became a bit more tolerant of them (they are okay, as long as they were not playing in her backyard) when she became a young adult...

Then, one day, I brought my openly bisexual boyfriend home at age 17, and also introduced her to some of our gay friends.  She told me that this was the day where any residual fear / dislike she may have felt towards homosexuality disappeared.

And, in my case, different sexual orientations have never frightened me, nor do I find anything abnormal about it.  My children are likely to adopt a similar viewpoint.

[quote]
[quote]
Nope, it would be illegal to use philacteries to track down a mage that hasn't committed any life-threatening crime.[/quote]


And who enforces this? Who prevents abuses?

[quote]You do know that your fingerprints were taken at some point in your life and could be used to identify you on the scene of a crime, right?[/quote]


Not in Canada. You only have your prints on file if you previously committed a crime and were arrested.

[quote]I have a similar vision when I think about those philacteries.[/quote]


That a 12-15th century society has 21st century jurisprudence?
[quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]

Okay, completely screw the philacteries idea then!  Lol!  To tell the truth, I don't see them as necessary.  I said that I wasn't against keeping philacteries in order to make the general public feel safer, and ease the transition.  But ideally, I'd rather they were just destroyed.

[quote]
[quote]

See, that's even worse...  Lol![/quote]


Absolutely. I'm just saying, the Chantry doesn't take these things lightly.

I will reply to the rest later.

[/quote][/quote]

See you later!  

Modifié par River5, 29 juin 2011 - 06:34 .

[River5]

Areksu wrote...

Actually, I wasn't thinking about Anders poisoning the grand cleric. More like making her explode into gibblets right in front of Meredith. I assumed that the church hierarchy was similar to real life, where there are procedures and rituals that must be followed before a new grand cleric can be ordained. I'd find it shocking if the chantry could change leaders fast enough to keep Meredith on her leash. Lyrium idol or no, Meredith has clear ambitions for controlling the city and systematically killing the mages. With the grand cleric dead, that puts the Knight-Commander in direct control, and Meredith did not rise to power waiting for the approval of the chantry.
I'm sure Anders knows how Meredith came to power, as that is public knowledge. Her current actions have turned the circle into a **** concentration camp for mages, and she refuses to allow another Viscount to be elected. She wants control of the city, so it would be very uncharacteristic of her to wait for a new Grand Cleric to be ordained.
I can see how blowing up the chantry might be considered "being on the safe side," just in case Meredith does do something unpredictable like wait for a new grand cleric's approval. Maybe Anders was just following the grey warden idea of doing everything possible to achieve victory. In this case, victory being a war between the templars and mages.

Except your local community Church doesn't happen to be in charge of a military order.  And/or have the power to give said military order the permission to wipe out an entire group of people in your city.

I'd be REALLY surprised if the Knight-Commander would be allowed to invoke the Right of Annullement without the authorization of a Chantry representative of any kind.

And I didn't say that a sister would be able to declare "That's it!  I'm GRAND CLERIC"...  Lol!  More that she would fill in FOR the Grand Cleric by assuming her responsibilites as the Chantry of Kirkwall's leader until a new Grand Cleric has been sent to Kirkwall to replace Elthina; and/or a new sister from Kirkwall is officially ordained Grand Cleric.

I can't believe that, given the power they wield over both the Circles and the Templars, Grand Clerics wouldn't have any form of second in command should the unthinkable occur.

Meredith going against the Circle without Chantry approval (especially if no one else seems to be in any kind of immediate danger) might make some Templars refuse to follow her lead.

If Meredith had Anders and Elthina standing right in front of her; and suddenly, Anders made Elthina explode into bits.  Shocking, sure.  But then what?  Anders isn't part of the Circle, the city is still under control.  The mages in the Gallows are still in the Gallows...

Perhaps start a raid on the remaining apostates in the City but...  The Right of Annullement?  Wait?  What?  Aren't we supposed to ask the Chantry for that first?  Okay, Elthina is dead but...  Everything is still under control and the one responsible for her murder is standing right here.

At best, she would seem justified redoubling her efforts against city apostates and showing even less mercy to anyone harbouring them.

But with the whole Chantry exploding, there's a state of panic and chaos in the city, mages might take advantage of that in order to attempt to flee...  We must act NOW, it can't wait!  So Meredith, make the call! 

Modifié par River5, 29 juin 2011 - 07:01 .

[sphinxess]

River5 wrote...

Areksu wrote...

Actually, I wasn't thinking about Anders poisoning the grand cleric. More like making her explode into gibblets right in front of Meredith. I assumed that the church hierarchy was similar to real life, where there are procedures and rituals that must be followed before a new grand cleric can be ordained. I'd find it shocking if the chantry could change leaders fast enough to keep Meredith on her leash. Lyrium idol or no, Meredith has clear ambitions for controlling the city and systematically killing the mages. With the grand cleric dead, that puts the Knight-Commander in direct control, and Meredith did not rise to power waiting for the approval of the chantry.
I'm sure Anders knows how Meredith came to power, as that is public knowledge. Her current actions have turned the circle into a **** concentration camp for mages, and she refuses to allow another Viscount to be elected. She wants control of the city, so it would be very uncharacteristic of her to wait for a new Grand Cleric to be ordained.
I can see how blowing up the chantry might be considered "being on the safe side," just in case Meredith does do something unpredictable like wait for a new grand cleric's approval. Maybe Anders was just following the grey warden idea of doing everything possible to achieve victory. In this case, victory being a war between the templars and mages.

Except your local community Church doesn't happen to be in charge of a military order.  And/or have the power to give said military order the permission to wipe out an entire group of people in your city.

I'd be REALLY surprised if the Knight-Commander would be allowed to invoke the Right of Annullement without the authorization of a Chantry representative of any kind.

And I didn't say that a sister would be able to declare "That's it!  I'm GRAND CLERIC"...  Lol!  More that she would fill in FOR the Grand Cleric by assuming her responsibilites as the Chantry of Kirkwall's leader until a new Grand Cleric has been sent to Kirkwall to replace Elthina; and/or a new sister from Kirkwall is officially ordained Grand Cleric.

I can't believe that, given the power they wield over both the Circles and the Templars, Grand Clerics wouldn't have any form of second in command should the unthinkable occur.

Meredith going against the Circle without Chantry approval (especially if no one else seems to be in any kind of immediate danger) might make some Templars refuse to follow her lead.

If Meredith had Anders and Elthina standing right in front of her; and suddenly, Anders made Elthina explode into bits.  Shocking, sure.  But then what?  Anders isn't part of the Circle, the city is still under control.  The mages in the Gallows are still in the Gallows...

Perhaps start a raid on the remaining apostates in the City but...  The Right of Annullement?  Wait?  What?  Aren't we supposed to ask the Chantry for that first?  Okay, Elthina is dead but...  Everything is still under control and the one responsible for her murder is standing right here.

At best, she would seem justified redoubling her efforts against city apostates and showing even less mercy to anyone harbouring them.

But with the whole Chantry exploding, there's a state of panic and chaos in the city, mages might take advantage of that in order to attempt to flee...  We must act NOW, it can't wait!  So Meredith, make the call! 

Your making sense except DG stated in a thread that in the event of the grand clerics death the knight-commander is in charge and can call for the a annulment. If another high ranking sister started arguing with her things might get confusing enough the rest of the templars wouldn't go along with the call but I rather doubt that...

What makes the whole thing even more stupid is if the grand cleric died of a heart attack or something not even involving Anders. Meredith having been turned down on her calls for a annulment by both the divine and the grand cleric would suddenly gain the power to call for a right of annulment and bypass the chantry. It really points out that the church thinks of mages as worth nothing if they don't even bother with a system of checks and balances.

Modifié par sphinxess, 29 juin 2011 - 07:26 .

[LobselVith8]

DreamerM wrote...

Queen-Of-Stuff wrote...

I was given the impression that he was always like this, even before Justice.

I think that may be going a bit far. Pre-Justice Anders didn't believe in sacrificing innocent people for any cause, no matter how noble.

Grand Cleric Elthina wasn't innocent.

DreamerM wrote...

Queen-Of-Stuff wrote...

He could not have been entirely there, anyway. No one goes through a year in solitary confinement and stays so cheery.

If there was one thing Pre-Justice Anders had, it was survival instinct. He kept himself sane bonding with Mr. Wiggums, telling jokes to the walls, and sheer willpower, he somehow kept himself from turning into the miserable, mentally-unstable wreak that he eventually became anyway.

It's funny. He surrendered his survival instinct to become a crusader, and that's what actually turned him into the monster the Templars could never force him to become.

Anders walked the path of mage freedom after he was forced to kill Karl, who was made tranquil by Ser Alrik. It was likely Karl's letters that caused Anders to make a deal with Justice in the first place. It was only after Karl's death that he became part of the mage underground and sought to free mages across Thedas with the death of Elthina and the destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry. Anders is a result of the Chantry controlled Circles pushing the mages, and one mage pushing back.

[DreamerM]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Grand Cleric Elthina wasn't innocent.

That doesn't really matter. He killed her to make a point, not because he wanted her dead. He didn't "murder" her, he "sacrificed" her to his cause. Pre-Justice Anders wouldn't use people like that.

LobselVith8 wrote...
Anders walked the path of mage freedom after he was forced to kill Karl, who was made tranquil by Ser Alrik. It was likely Karl's letters that caused Anders to make a deal with Justice in the first place. It was only after Karl's death that he became part of the mage underground and sought to free mages across Thedas with the death of Elthina and the destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry. Anders is a result of the Chantry controlled Circles pushing the mages, and one mage pushing back.

Is there evidence that he only got into the Mage Underground AFTER Karl? He seemed pretty passionate about it already. Although since the timeline is wonky, maybe he'd only just arrived in the city by that point and was still settling into his Weather Mage Undergound digs...

For what it's worth, there do seem to be a lot of restrictions put on Mages of dubious worth, at least from a security standpoint. How does forbidding family from asking about them make them safer? And how is flogging a good idea?

[LobselVith8]

DreamerM wrote...

Someone who supports abolishing circles entirely please tell me....

What do you do with an Abomination?

You do the same thing  the Chasind Wilders, the Avvar tribes, and the Dalish clans do with an abomination that is a danger to the people: you kill the abomination. Even though these societies don't live under the Chantry or its templars, they can still kill abominations. Merrill reveals this is how the clans deal with abominations to Hawke when he brings up possessed mages.

DreamerM wrote...

You have to be improbably, unreasonably pro-Templar for this to come up, but Meredith had a sister who was an apostate, and the family worked to hide her. She became possessed and killed 60 people before the Templar finally put her down.

If you've got a mage, you've got to have some sort of system in place to protect the citizenry from abominations and blood magic. How would a post-Circle world handle this?

With people capable of dealing with abominations, instead of an institution that tortures mages and this toxic enviornment results in insane mages, like Circle mages Decimus, Grace, Quentin, and Huon.

[Rifneno]

In Exile wrote...

Again: things like family and property haven't ever stopped actual criminals from being criminals. In that period, they haven't stopped individuals from gathering armies to conquer other people with families. And these are regular people, more or less, not essentially ubermensch super gods that can melt people and control their minds.

Things like family and property haven't ever stopped crime? ... Holy crap. I don't--I don't even know how to respond to something that absurd. No one has ever turned to crime because their childhood sucked or their financial situation sucked? I... I think I'm bleeding from the ears. I have to go to the hospital. AFK.

If mages organize and want to rule, what's neccesarily stopping them from doing so? Not to say that a mage would - but community bonds like these maybe work for a community, but certainly not communities vs. communities.

Considering how horrifically the current rulers fail at ruling, you'd have to make the case not just that mages will likely end up ruling, but that they'd end up ruling like Tevinter. And if we don't ignore second grade social sciences in order to basically just feed prejudice, there's not a whole lot of basis for that assumption.

So let's say you don't remove children - how exactly will they be taught? They get to go home to till the fields? Where does the money for their "free" education come from? Other mages? Why should those mages donate? Taxes? Why should the people be taxed so that mages can have a free ride? If mages are dangerous, and the tax is as a way to teach them to control their powers, then why should non-mages bear a burden without a return?

First of all, I agree some training to deal with the gift would have to be mandatory. Likewise, they'd have to take some measures to deal with blithering retards who think it's a good idea to deal with demons (see: Merrill).
However I find the financial aspect of the situation a complete non-factor. Taxes are never dispersed equally in any society. It's not just impossible, it's silly. At the risk of turning this into a borderline real life political thing (which is NOT my intention, mods or any potential repliers), think about how that would work. For instance you'd have to charge the poorest people some of the highest taxes because their neighborhoods require more police protection due to the higher crime rates. The elderly would have to pay higher taxes too, because they're more likely to need emergency services.
More importantly, the return for their investment would be incredible. As you say, mages possess great power. So it's definitely in society's best interest to have them sane and well cared for, acting as healers, enchanters, and all sorts of other jobs. The possibilities for how magic could help everyday life is endless. Even blood magic has some awesome applications! Seriously, imagine if parents just kept a phylactery for their children. Kidnappers and perverts would be completely screwed. I'm not saying rampant blood magic should be allowed, I'm just saying there's countless ways mages could pay back society if you put a little thought into it.

What if the new educated mages don't want to be town guards, and especially the really talented ones? What if a weak-minded and incompetent town guard mage is angry for being passed over for promotion, and makes a deal with a demon and becomes an abomination? What if a particularly zealous guardsman wants to stop a criminal, so she uses blood magic to rip the information from the minds of others?

If you're looking for a system without flaws, you're going to be waiting a very long time. The current system is just plain evil. Any new system only has to beat "just plain evil." Not a high bar, really.

More importantly: what makes you think that people will suddenly want to trust and live and work with mages?

I don't give a rat's ass what they want. There are a lot of poor justifications for imprisoning an entire minority, but "because there's prejudice out there" is about the worst one around.

[DPSSOC]

River5 wrote...
See, I consider that the lyrium addiction that Templars are subjected to is a form of disgusting abuse.  So I'm very opposed to the idea of imposing "artificial mage powers" on regular human beings in order to fight against mages.

Remember Alistair points out that you don't need Lyrium to be a Templar, it's just a means of Chantry control.  You could still maintain the Templar Order as a specialized branch of the City Guard or national military structure.  This provides you with both a means of enforcing laws and protecting citizens from the less morally bound mages, and gives those same citizens peace of mind knowing they are protected from mages by something other than more mages. 

The problem is finding said mages.  Say what you will about the Circle at least you always know where most of the mages are.

LobselVith8 wrote...

DreamerM wrote...
Someone who supports abolishing circles entirely please tell me.... 

What do you do with an Abomination?

You do the same thing  the Chasind Wilders, the Avvar tribes, and the Dalish clans do with an abomination that is a danger to the people: you kill the abomination. Even though these societies don't live under the Chantry or its templars, they can still kill abominations. Merrill reveals this is how the clans deal with abominations to Hawke when he brings up possessed mages.

The problem is you know what those groups you mention all have?  Other mages handy.  We learn from Zathrian's First in DA:O that a Keeper has many apprentices (every one a mage) with the First simply being to one who will succeed him/her, and I'm guessing the Chasind and Avvar have similar constructs (mentor/pupil organization).  The societal constructs of these cultures ensure that they have other mages handy to deal with one of them becoming an abomination.  However there is no guarantee that any random village/town will have a mage (or mages) handy should one of their own become an abomination.

[HopeVessel]

Ive been thinking and i just want to say a couple of things. When it comes to many of the other groups that have mages free like dalish clans, i dont think their situation can really compare to a place like ferelden or the free marches. The dalish and the rest of those places seem to be smaller communities where mages being free wouldnt be much of a problem, the less people there are the easier it is to control things, you wouldnt need as strict of laws or as many. I admit im not very knowledgeable when it comes to all those other places, but what i said would be my counter argument.

Also what if the chantry teachings are mostly correct. I know in the real world the idea of a creator isnt very plausible or relevant to anything (at least for me, i dont want an argument about that), but in the dragon age universe it may be true. Would anders still be justified? What would be right then?