First, on topic, I usually kill Anders because I think he's miserable and losing his mind (Justice already having lost his). I just wish the option existed to hug him as you stab him-- something more personal and warm than stabbing him in the back, so he knows that he doesn't go out of the world because he's hated, but because he's being given his dignity back-- so that Vengeance can never again make a puppet of him.
I don't blame Sebastian at all for the reaction he has. Mine would have been even more violent had he killed my foster-mother and a whole load of innocent people instead of the people I already acknowledged were guilty of the stuff he'd been raging over. (Sebastian hates Meredith and what she's doing-- that's through banter and conversation.)
Far as the rest of the party-- I don't blame them for not really having reactions given what's going on. Most of them don't like Anders because of Vengeance.
Now onto other things:
Rifneno wrote...
Melca36 wrote...
You know the moment I stopped taking the Chantry seriously in this game is when I saw that random sister NPC wandering around Lowtown asking for donations from the poor.
That showed me how out of touch the Chantry was.
Isn't it awesome? The Chantry leaves its grand cathedral full of ginormous statues and goes to get money from the poor. Seriously, I'm suspicious about some of the statues that look a bit golden. It's not as ridiculous as you might think.
Still, the best example is what we've only heard about. The Chantry's main HQ in Orlais is world famous for its splendor. Oh yeah, and the same city has a bit of an eyesore about its alienage, which is described as horrific even by alienage standards and has "about ten thousand elves living in a space roughly the size of the Denerim Marketplace." But yeah, the Chantry should totally get away with the genocide stuff because they do charity work or something.
Ryzaki wrote...
@Riferno: Okay then Seb's a hypocrite. That said Seb might've been talking out his ass. Saying you'd do something =/= doing it.
Okay let's sit down and make a list of times people in a video game swore elaborate revenge at the PC and then cooled down and didn't try to enact it later.
... Man. It's like trying to find a virgin at Caligula's Palace.
And there were innocent chantry sisters in that church. Yes it was a church. Military symbol or not. There were innocents in there as surely as there were innocents in the circle. Thinking that there's not innocents on both sides is a childish attitude.
Like I said. Until Elthina stops getting a free pass because of poor dialogue structure, I do not acknowledge anyone killed in the bombing beyond Elthina and a handful of templars.
No, it's not a church. "Church" is exclusive to Christianity. Unless your name is Count Dracula, it's not likely you recall a time when the Roman-Catholic Church was leading crusades against anyone who looked at them funny, which is the only time Christianity could be rightly compared to the Chantry. Hopefully they end the same way too, because I'd pay $200 for DA3 if I got to see King Alistair chopping off the Chantry's dangling parts.
But I digress... This is exactly the problem. We're English speakers. English speaking countries are very heavily Christian. Christians haven't pulled a stunt like what the Chantry is doing since the dark ages (and that was actually why it's called the dark ages). We're accustomed to religious organizations that, even if we don't like or agree with them for whatever reason, quite peaceful. The Chantry is the complete opposite of that. Aside from both worshiping a martyr as their deity's chosen one, there is little in common between what we modern day westerners associate with religion and the Chantry. There is NO moral similarity. Not a shred. This is why I said that if anything, they're closer to the taliban. It's not because the analogy is a good one, it's because the one to modern Christianity is just completely false. I cannot stress that strongly enough: there is no moral similarity between the Chantry and what we know as churches.
Wulfram wrote...
SurelyForth wrote...
And Anders does care about them, but they were already doomed
Sorry, no. He destroys the chantry so that there "can be no turning back". He "removed the chance of compromise because there is no compromise", because for him "There can be no peace"
He blew up the Chantry because he was afraid Elthina might stop the Circle's destruction - might find a compromise which would allow the system he detests to continue functioning - and because he considers living under the Chantry's control worse than death, and holds Orsino in contempt for thinking otherwise.
Sorry, no. He does say specifically what you quoted from SurelyForth. "We were already doomed. A quick death now or a slow one later, what's the difference?" I can't swear to it, but I think he added something about prefering to go down fighting. For your second paragraph... yeah, so what? He was right. I suppose a torturous existence might be preferable to death to some so I suppose it's a matter of opinion. I just can't see the reasoning behind that though. Either way, Anders' way is better in the long run because at least there's a chance of a brighter future even if most won't get to see it. The Elthina way of prolonging the status quo, no one gets a chance at a decent future.
Collider wrote...
Killing innocents like that was not in any way justified.
It's really amazing our armies get anything done when a good portion of us think war is fair and it's possible to only do justice to the wicked or something.
War is hell.
Wulfram wrote...
I'm sure Hawke and friends create no end of orphans to keep the Chantry busy.
And Ser Alrik will be keeping the orphans busy.
... You know, maybe it's better that the Chantry didn't help out.
R0vena wrote...
Oh, come on.
Sebastian is not demanding Anders' death for blowing up the Chantry. He demands it because of Elthina - who was like a second mother to him. Honestly, if you mother would die in the explosion some guy set up would you care that he did it for the greater good? Or would you rather take out the gun and shoot the bastard on spot (or at least seriously think about it)?
I don't know what I'd do. Assuming the second mother in question always preached against revenge and would hate me doing it, of course. I do know what I wouldn't do though. I wouldn't leave the murderer to go free so I could get help to kill a bunch of people who had nothing to do with. Because unlike Sebastian, I'm not a damn coward.
First-- there are Chantry people wandering around all levels of the city asking for donations. The Sister in the Hightown gets rebuffed by every noble, guard and servant she asks. I don't find this odd as most of us pass the plate or somesuch at faith gatherings among the rich and poor and charities solicit money from the rich and poor equally. Why this is some horror inducing circumstance I'm quite confused at.
The golden statues are likely repurposed like most of the statues and artwork in the city, from the time of the Tevinters. If you look, the Kirkwall statue of Andraste doesn't even look like any other representation of her we've seen. She's in heavy armor, holding the sword that killed her. Fereldan's Andraste (even in Andraste's shrine, arguably the oldest representation of her then) is a slim woman in a robe with a flame dancing on her forehead (and often a live one in her hands). I would venture to guess it's much like the phenomenon of "Black Madonnas"-- where you have statues of Isis and other goddesses around that were repurposed into icons of Mary because it was cheap and the people who already believed in them could easily call the icon by another name and be content during worship. Given what "Andraste" is wearing the statue in Kirkwall was probably of an Archon.
Far as the each individual Chantry-- they aren't as united as one might think (and this is said as much in dialogue by Petrice). Much more like the medieval system where each is a fiefdom ostensibly ruled by the pope-- in this case, the Divine in Orlais. The Divine's Chantry though... and the control it exerts, and the fact the Templars and mages are it's slaves, and the elves are still subjugated under it's boot, that is definitely an Evil Empire. It just traded one for the other. It's rather telling, I think, that the Guardian didn't know what the Warden was talking about when the Chantry was mentioned (it not having existed in that form then) and also his skepticism over the fall of the Empire. The Tevinter Imperium never left, it just changed who was doing the abusing and threw the mages under the bus along with the newly minted drug-slaves (and the Templars are slaves) and eventually the elves and many many more joined them. The Orlesian Chantry expresses the very worst of everything that disturbs people about the Medieval church, in hindsight. I just hope these Templars avoid their Friday the 13th (if you ever have wondered why the day lives in infamy, now you know, Friday, October 13, 1307 is the day when almost every last Templar was captured and tortured-- most died within days from torture or burning at the stake). What happened to the actual Templars was bad enough (considering they were slaughtered due in large part because the French King owed them a lot of money, and rather than pay them, he decided to manufacture a lot of crazy hearsay to justify slaughtering the Order to the pope... who also owed them money. It's sad that the pseudomystical BS and depravity the French cooked up is all that people remember about them, too--- sort of like Catherine the Great or Mama Cass. People would rather believe tripe because it's amusing.).
You're wrong on the time period of the Crusades. They lasted well beyond the "Dark Ages". The "Dark Ages" is another term for the beginning of the "Middle Ages" running from about AD300 to about AD1001. Since the last Crusade didn't end until 1291 with the fall of Acre... you've got almost 300 years left of crusading to go there. --- It's also called the "Dark Ages" because of the lack of scientific development as compared to the advancements man was making before that time (other than a few things like gunpowder and the rudiments of genetics studied by monks growing peas)--- and having nothing to do with the Crusades. We're discovering more and more that the churches and monastaries that were supposed to be so repressive was where the majority of discoveries were taking place because the people there had access to salvaged books from the fall of the Empire and time to think about them.
I disagree about your statement regarding the Chantry because the Chantry in the game is hardly a united concept. I've seen echoes of modern Christianty, as well as Islam and other faiths active in kind of a conglomerate. Overall though, I'd say the Chantry is a reflection of the medieval Church. Modern Christianity is a reflection of the medieval church--- with all the same infighting that entails. There's just less honesty and faith involved now. Before, if a man of the cloth believed you were leading souls astray it was his obligation to deal with you as necessary because there was more at stake than a 'could be' afterlife and personal choice. Not only would this hypothetical ''you'' be in danger, but everyone he/she swayed would be. It was all real, and worth dying for. Now it's cheap and plastic, like most things. It can be traded and ignored. ---- however the core morals are the same in the Church and the Chantry. Obedience. Charity. Faith. Good works. Piety... etc. it's just the modern real-world expressions of them that are so watered down as to be unrecognizable at times. Example: Used to be that people would die before recanting their faith--- now people would recant, then hope to go to church and apologize to their god for denouncing him. We're less honest, even if that honesty at times was brutal.
Far as Elthina-- she's in a terrible position, trying to stop the Divine from marching on Kirkwall and deal with the needs of the mages. If she gives in, then the entire city will be destroyed (likely, from her conversation with Sebastian). Cullen knows this too, and thinks it cruel of her to try and find a balance because it just gives the mages false hope (and says as much). Thrask tries to fix it himself. If not for Grace's involvement he might have done some good.--- coming back to Sebastian's outburst later though... it's not just Anders who betrayed him at that point--- it's potentially the entire party, some of whom are his very good friends and others who are not just friends but representatives of authority in Kirkwall--- namely Varric, Hawke and Aveline. Not only are his friends turning against him in favor of a man who just killed loads of innocent people and Sebastian's foster mother, but the city -in microcosm through it's "office-holders"- is. So yes, Sebastian has every reason to rage the way he does in the manner that he does, because for him it must seem like a sudden reveal of deep-seeded evil that runs all the way to the core of the city. It's not cowardly at all, to wish to erase Kirkwall from the map at that point.
What Vengence did was evil (given the discussion with rivaled Anders, he didn't want to do it at all and was 'blacked out' for a lot of it). Pure and simple. It was premeditated mass murder as no war had begun until he set off that bomb-- and he'd planned to, anyway. Everyone talks about Meredith looking for an excuse, but so was Vengeance. He did the equivalent of slaughter the people carrying the white flag because he'd rather fight than even entertain parlay. What he could have done with that fancy bomb, if he hated the Templars so much, was blow up Meredith. If he was willing to kill anyone in his path to see Mages free in general, taking out the Gallows would have made more sense-- if he wanted a clean sweep he could have arranged for Elthina to go there somehow. Hawke went in there off and on for Meredith--- he could have come in with the party, wandered off placed his charges and been done with it.---- but he can't even manage that much rational thought. I will say this though, Ghandi never needed atomic bombs or concentration camps to throw off British oppression. He was a passionate rebel, but he was comitted to peace and suffered as he had to so what he witnessed in Africa during the struggle for Civil Rights there wouldn't be repeated. Vengeance by comparison is a dangerously clever sort of insane-- if a mage even questions his plan when he's in the wrong mood (like that poor little girl during Dissent) he kills them (or tries to) and his plan is mostly "I'll kill you all (by arranging this war)! Then you'll be free in death because you'll never be free in Thedas!". That's pride, hopelessness, rage... it's not genuine concern for the mages. If it were genuine he would have to acknowledge that the Templars are also slaves, (notice, they rebel at the end, too) but he's too busy hating them all on sight for trying to perform the function allowed them. Justice, prior to union with Anders, understood and appreciated not only mercy but attonement and forgiveness according to banter. Further proof that Vengeance is absolutely off his rocker when he screams in Hawke's face about how "hard" Justice is.
Funny thing is-- there might have been a moderately peaceful revolution in the works but for Grace and the Champion. Had Thrask's idea gone forward with a unified Circle, it might have done a whole lot of good for a lot of people. A unified army of unhappy mages and Templars could easily make the Orlesians sweat and try and avoid an exaulted march. Hard to have a crusade when your slave army and the slaves you've had them watching look at each other and realize they're in the same boat, then look at you and realize you're the cause.
End ramble-- and apologies for any spelling mistakes-- what have you.
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