First, let me assert that I hate the Orlesian Chantry as much as I hate
the Orlesians in general. We've rarely met a good one in any of the
content and Orlais has little to recommend it from the Orlesians who
have left the Empire (the perfumer in the Denerim Market as prime
example). Unless this is ever shown as radically different I will treat
them as I treat most people from Tevinter and the Qunari in general--
with suspicion.
Secondly, I have no problem with blood-magic,
just congress with Spirits. Any spirits, good or evil. This should only
be undertaken with great precaution and hesitation.
Third,
championing the Templars does not make me pro-Chantry or anti-mage. I
actually would rather the Templars and mages join forces and raze the
Grand Cathedral in Orlais to the ground for what the White Divine has
done to them.
I have been embroiled in, for the last few days, a series of polite arguments in this thread- http://social.biowar...index/7764462/1 . While many many people are ready to jump on the bandwagon against the
obvious evils precipitated against the mages I hear barely a peep for
the Templars. In fact, some of the mage-only supporters seem threatened
by the very idea that the Templars are slaves. What will now follow is
something condensed from four pages of arguing politely with others and I
invite you to think deeply about what I'm saying.
Assertion:
The Templars are Slaves
Evidence:
They are drugged into compliance.
They are made to serve, under duress, for fear of reprisal.
They are unable to leave Chantry service without facing madness, bodily harm or death.
There is so much support for this in DAO it's not even funny so we'll deal with the main points first-
Almost
all of Alistair's Templar-specific dialogue makes reference to the
conditions in which Templars are kept ignorant of their true condition
and servile with Lyrium. He is in fact furious at this-- enough to
become angry at Godwin for manipulating them with it and the Warden for
supporting it. He's also very clear that the Chantry doesn't let their
Templars escape (which is echoed by Wynne, albeit in the story of her
friend the priest who was literally given no other option than to be
what she is because of poverty and being a chantry orphan--- the problem
with the Templars is that once they are 'caught' in their profession
they are held there by lyrium addiction. At least the priest could throw
up her hands and walk away into the wilderness if she wanted--- what
would a Templar face? Madness and death -see below- or coming back to
the preceptory on his knees begging for more lyrium-- if he wasn't
outright executed for the manner in which he disobeyed-- although this
is more evident in DA2).
Carroll's whole everything including the
involvement of Enchanter Godwin. Carroll is the same age as Cullen to
slightly younger and the Lyrium is destroying his mind. He not only sees
things but behaves in an entirely inappropriate manner.
The
Templars at Denerim's gates- here we are confronted with the
disposability of the Templars. Not just that but confirmation that
between manipulation of faith to justify the reward conditioning and
their obedience the Templars have little real idea of what's actually
being done to them, and real fear of being "retired" (from the sick
Templar who continues to take his lyrium to prevent being put away).
Locations for 'retirement' are given variously from Val Royeaux to
Aeonar depending on your source in game between codexes and NPCs. Given
that, I will say that there may indeed be a collection of retired
Templars in Val Royeaux that are presentable enough for show, but I
doubt very much they all get sent there-- and if they are, I doubt most
of them are shown to the public. Far as Aeonar-- I will remind you that
Lily was Chantry clergy and sent there-- so don't quote the codex that
says only malificar and apostates get sent there. As to the reason these
dying men wouldn't be aired to the public-- the misery of endstage
lyrium poisoning induces men to commit suicide (the brother mentioned by
the two priests at the gate in Denerim is just such an event- he
drowned himself in a vat of wine. Worse yet, the priest recounting his
tale is more amused at his death than sorrowful-- declaring that he
looked like a pickled egg and they had to dry him out over a period of
days before burning him).
The Templar held prisoner in Howe's
basement- We know from him that lyrium acts something like morphine
(euphoric) and lsd combined in that gradually breaks down the minds
ability to recognize the Fade from reality and that withdrawal usually
ends in death or madness. The Chantry claims the Lyrium is to reinforce
their mage hunting abilities, enhancing the ability to use inner sight
to navigate the Fade (Ser Otto is blind and uses this remaining training
to actually get around like a normal man-- he has enough fadesight to
actually not crash into walls and participate effectively in combat) but
we know from Alistair that it is totally unnecessary. In fact he
considers it a leash. We also know that this wretched prisoner would
rather die alone in that cell than go back to the chantry, get his
lyrium and be put back to work or even see his sister. There could be no
more dire evidence of a slave's desperation than him.
I
encourage you to play DAO again and listen to ambient conversation. Talk
to the Templars. Talk to people about them. Keep talking until you've
exhausted every dialogue option, read the codexes and ask yourself if
these men aren't treated like a kleenex (strong and disposable) army by
the Divine in Orlais. Overall the sense I got was that these men are the
abandoned, the poor, the unwanted bastards and thirds of noblemen, the
mundane children of mages that the chantry saw fit to repurpose. They
have no worth to the Chantry as people, only as bodies and the services
those bodies provide. They have built in obsolescence, controls if they
get uppity, no rights because the Divine has authority over them and not
any secular government-- meaning that no one including Alistair (as a
king) could help these men unless they were in active rebellion from the
Chantry (more about this in DA2)--- they are non-persons, much like the
mages that they guard.
In Dragon Age 2 we get a horrorshow of what it's like to be a Templar in the worst possible conditions-
Ser
Carver- Tobrias speaks of a time when the Order was different. Where
Templars like Ser Carver could quietly help mages like Malcom escape
under the radar (recalling men like Bryant, Otto, and many others whose
primary concern was the spirit of their duty not the letter of the law).
Now, as we see, these men are often put to death (see the Starkhaven
Mage Incidents).
The
Initiates are not supposed to speak or interact with the outside world.
(This is mentioned all over the place. If Cullen and some of the kindly
seniors didn't let them sneak off to the ****house, they'd have
practically zero interaction with other humans.) They are not allowed to
leave. One of them is murdered by Meredith between act 1 and act 2, and
it's hinted that this is not the first time this has happened, because
she disappears from the group entirely (the other woman- she should be
just to the right of the little knot of three that survive). The woman
that's left tries to justify Meredith's every action to the two men who
slowly go from being slightly disturbed to utterly miserable by act 3.
Samson-
Expelled for his kindness in delivering love letters between a mage and
his sweetheart outside the Gallows, Samson continues to aid the mage
children he sees as wrongfully imprisoned--albeit for coin to feed the
addiction the Order left him with. He continues to aid Thrask and others
in the Unified Circle movement until Grace turns on them all. It's only
the horror of watching Thrask be sacrificed that can change his mind
about helping the mages. If readmitted to the Order after that, he
freely acknowledges that Meredith is evil, but wants revenge. If we can
call Cullen's reaction after Broken Circle PTSD, I definitely think that
Samson's reaction is the same. He watched his friend die horribly at
the hands of people they were risking their lives for.
Keran-
Driven by faith and a need for money to support his sister, Keran joins
the Order only to find it is nothing like he imagined. Once there, the
only two ways he could leave are as an addict or swinging at the end of a
rope. Given that he and his sister are desperately poor, the primary
option is as much a death sentence as the latter. He will be unable to
provide for them and his addiction too-- and we know that withdrawal
from lyrium generally leads to two things, madness or death (and
unfortunately remaining on it eventually leads there anyway). It is only
on rare occasions with very strong souls that we get people like Samson
and even he feeds his addiction as he can (by spending all his coin on
it and sleeping in the gutter. He still shakes and mutters to himself
about needing that "dwarf dust"). Is it less obvious than if all these
men had Saarebas chains and collars? Yes. Is this still slavery? I say
yes. It's slavery whose primary target is the poor and the abandoned.
Thrask-
Leader of the Unified Circle movement, he would have been the best shot
for peace during the events of DA2. He recognizes aloud (along with
Cullen and others as time goes on) that the Templar Order is being made
to act in ways contrary to their given mission. The fact that he can do
nothing about this within in his own channels - This is not the city
guard. There is no recourse or review, no checks, no balances.
Complaints about Meredith go unheeded. Complaints about the treatment of
the mages bring suspicion. He is ignored and threatened at every turn-
without going rogue is pretty telling.
The Starkhaven Mage
Incidents- Oh wow. Where to begin. The best evidence is to play through
them. Through Acts1-3 the ongoing drama of the Starkhaven circle exposes
injustices done to the Templars who dare challenge Meredith,
culminating in the hanging of everyone even suspected of being involved
in the Unified Circle (mage and Templar)-- excluding the men whose lives
you can plead for at the conclusion of Best Served Cold.
Meredith
and her cronies Alrik and Karras- break the rules of the Order at whim
between murders, tranquiling and rape. There is nothing that the others
can do even if they verbally recognize this with all shame and sorrow
(which happens several times even if Cullen tries to handwave his own
guilt until the very end), and it comes down to those chemical chains
and the conditioning they're all bound with. That this would be compared
to being as conscious as a mere political choice (****isim) that
allowed injustice to flourish is very disturbing to me. For a slave--
crimes fall on the head of the person who ordered them. A slave has no
other option than being a slave and obeying. The Templars are given the
illusion of choice, but there is no real choice there as I've already
broken down.
And there is more, but what I want you to focus on
is that these men can't just leave. They are every bit as much slaves as
Fenris or the mages. They have been conditioned to obey with chemicals
that cause them to hallucinate- they are given choices on leaving that
makes leaving the Order practically a non-choice. Why do they follow
through with the Order of Annulment when they know it to be wrong (as
evidenced if you side with them)? It goes deeper than 'just following
Orders'. Think to Fenris. Obeying is almost their whole world. Just as
it took Fenris killing his friends out of reflex to Denarius' commands
to want freedom, it takes killing the Kirkwall circle to generate enough
horror in the Templars (who immediately will leap to Cullen's
suggestion to save the mages pleading for mercy) to strike back against
Meredith and give their fealty to the Champion. Since the Templars have
rebelled by the time of Varric and Cassandra, leaving the hunting of
mages to the Seekers (well not all of them, according to Cassandra. Some
of them want peace), I would say that the 'example that the Templars
could be defied' in the Templar support ending points that Cullen's men
become a rally point for not just the Templars, but the mages in that
they acknowledge the Champion as their leader and not the Chantry-
otherwise the statement makes no sense.
I stood with the Templars
for my own reasons. There's a lot more at play during DA2 than just the
horror suffered by the mages and while I will repeat my reasons again
if necessary, they aren't required to make my argument for the Templars
being enslaved.
Conclusion:
By evidence in both games the Templars are slaves and thus in every bit as much need of freedom as the mages.
I
will continue to reflect on this and my notes and might revise or add
things to this as time goes on, but as it stands I think I've more than
made my point.
Modifié par Marduksdragon, 08 juillet 2011 - 01:52 .
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