256 réponses à ce sujet

[nos_astra]

Sepewrath wrote...
There are lots of mages with integrity, hell even using blood magic doesn't make someone immoral, anyone with a sword can choose to be immoral, just look at all the immoral people with swords in this game as example.

The immoral thing about blood magic is that it comes at a cost. It's a dangerous thing to play with. Mages know that they increase their chances to end their life possessed by a demon ... and do it anyway (because they are that special, so much smarter than everyone else and their reasons are totally justified).

As far as I can see the risk of becoming an abomination is nothing you can educate away. You can minimize the risk by raising your self awareness in the fade ... or increase it again by practising blood magic.

Sepewrath wrote...
Look at DuPuis, he was using blood magic to try and save some woman and stop a killer, what a horrible person he is.

No, he was using blood magic to find Quentin, so Quentin would take him back as an apprentice.

Modifié par klarabella, 22 juillet 2011 - 04:22 .

[Harid]

Wow, Gascard DuPuis as an example of a good Blood Mage.

And Merill kills her keeper though her selfishness and learns nothing from the ordeal, so. . .yeah.  Not to mention her general approval of bargaining with demons.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, only the people you control, well, minus Merill and Velanna, can possibly be good Blood Mages, But as far as other npcs we've run into, we have yet to run into one good Blood Mage in either game.

Modifié par Harid, 22 juillet 2011 - 04:18 .

[CrimsonZephyr]

FieryDove wrote...

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

A better example would be Merrill. DuPuis wanted to learn the secrets of necromancy. While his body count prior to meeting Hawke is, as far as we know, zero, he wasn't chasing Quentin out of altruism. Still, though, the guy does help you if you let him live, instead of attacking you on sight.

If you magical fist him or have Aveline pummel him after all that remains you can learn more. He was not a nice man by any means.

Yeah, but he wasn't straight up Chaotic Evil, like most of the people that seem to populate Kirkwall.

And Merrill's use of blood magic was never about increasing her personal power. It was always about helping her fellow elves. Was it a misguided endeavor? Totally. But it wasn't selfish. She was prepared to sacrifice herself if it meant they would benefit. She just failed to understand that other people, like Marethari, would shield her out of love, or that the consequences would not stop at her corpse. Altruistic intentions are not always well-thought out. Notice, also, that after that quest, she never again talks about blood magic like it's a toy, and in the rivalry romance, she smashes the Eluvian. I'd say she learned her lesson.

Modifié par CrimsonZephyr, 22 juillet 2011 - 04:23 .

[DPSSOC]

Harid wrote...
But as far as other npcs we've run into, we have yet to run into one good Blood Mage in either game.

Does Finn count? He kinda, sorta uses Blood Magic.

Modifié par DPSSOC, 22 juillet 2011 - 04:21 .

[nos_astra]

Rifneno wrote...
I don't need to imagine anything, I watched the video of the explosion. The great majority of the Chantry was thrown far out of Kirkwall. The debris went in an outwardly-expanding ring, not a globe. What Kirkwall itself was hit with could only be described as a swift gust of wing with a lot of dust. If you're really allergic I guess it might be harmful.

You are free to overinterpret engine limitations to fit your point of view. If you like to think one mage hanging out in Lowtown can exert that much control on a magical bomb going off in Hightown ... well, I suppose, mages are even more dangerous than we thought.

[Harid]

DPSSOC wrote...

Harid wrote...
But as far as other npcs we've run into, we have yet to run into one good Blood Mage in either game.

Does Finn count? He kinda, sorta uses Blood Magic.

You can control him. . .he doesn't really count.

[TEWR]

Harid wrote...

Wow, Gascard DuPuis as an example of a good Blood Mage.

And Merill kills her keeper though her selfishness and learns nothing from the ordeal, so. . .yeah.

Merrill kills Marethari because Marethari chose to become an Abomination. Merrill was then forced to perform the clan's duty and defend herself from the attack. Marethari said in the short story that the demon was trapped for centuries, and Merrill said that only a powerful magic spell could've freed it.

The definition of selfish:

[sel-fish]

–adjective
1.
devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.
2.
characterized by or manifesting concern or care only for oneself: selfish motives.


Merrill makes it explicitly clear many times over that she cares more for the clan than she does for herself. What she's doing is for them, to save them. She most likely began working on the Eluvian fervently when the clan's halla died and they were stranded.

And yes, she may not care about her life and how it would affect people. But that changes if you romance her. When Varric comes by to her house in the Alienage, she admits that she should get some air and decides to walk around with Hawke.

If she's kidnapped, the thing she says she couldn't bear to live without was Hawke. Not the clan. Not the mirror. Hawke.

Hawke romancing her (and on the friendship path for me) is what effectively causes her to change from being obsessed with the mirror to just making it a project. A project she's devoted to, but it's no longer an obsession.

As for the Eluvian, before the claim that blood magic could've freed the demon comes up, that is false. The Tevinters used blood magic on the Eluvians and got fancy telephones. And as we know, the Eluvian links to a place beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade (source: Morrigan). The demon was trapped in Thedas, sundered from the Fade. So there was no threat.

The fact that the Eluvians link to somewhere else hints at there being an Eluvian on the other side of where Morrigan went, meaning the elves of Arlathan may have a city on the other side.

Also, Merrill refrains from using any blood that isn't hers, when other blood mages use other peoples' blood (Danarius, Caladrius, Huon, etc.). That to me doesn't signify being selfish.

And blood magic isn't inherently evil. It is just a tool (something I've believed since DAO). It can be used medicinally to control the blood flow of a man whose artery was severed and his blood is pouring out. He can keep the blood flowing safely until a Spirit Healer comes along to mend the wounds. If anything, the combination of those two magics would lead to medical breakthroughs for Thedas, but the Chantry uses the fear of mages to make sure they rarely, if ever, get to use the Spirit Healer magic to help people. How many instances do we know of where a Mage has helped the injured with the approval of the Chantry? Zero. Apostates? At least one. Anders.

It's somewhat ironic that an Abomination is helping more people than the Chantry is.

[ReiSilver]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Harid wrote...

Wow, Gascard DuPuis as an example of a good Blood Mage.

And Merill kills her keeper though her selfishness and learns nothing from the ordeal, so. . .yeah.

Merrill kills Marethari because Marethari chose to become an Abomination. Merrill was then forced to perform the clan's duty and defend herself from the attack. Marethari said in the short story that the demon was trapped for centuries, and Merrill said that only a powerful magic spell could've freed it.

The definition of selfish:

[sel-fish]

–adjective
1.
devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.
2.
characterized by or manifesting concern or care only for oneself: selfish motives.


Merrill makes it explicitly clear many times over that she cares more for the clan than she does for herself. What she's doing is for them, to save them. She most likely began working on the Eluvian fervently when the clan's halla died and they were stranded.

And yes, she may not care about her life and how it would affect people. But that changes if you romance her. When Varric comes by to her house in the Alienage, she admits that she should get some air and decides to walk around with Hawke.

If she's kidnapped, the thing she says she couldn't bear to live without was Hawke. Not the clan. Not the mirror. Hawke.

Hawke romancing her (and on the friendship path for me) is what effectively causes her to change from being obsessed with the mirror to just making it a project. A project she's devoted to, but it's no longer an obsession.

As for the Eluvian, before the claim that blood magic could've freed the demon comes up, that is false. The Tevinters used blood magic on the Eluvians and got fancy telephones. And as we know, the Eluvian links to a place beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade (source: Morrigan). The demon was trapped in Thedas, sundered from the Fade. So there was no threat.

I have to disagree on some points because Merrills eternal cries of "I'm doing all this for my people!" ring false to me. If it were simply about doing whatever she can to help her people Merrill would have listened to her Keeper and put the mirror project on hold or abandonned it in favor of staying with her clan and helping them by doing her job. "You belong to more then just yourself" as is the admonishment given to a Mahariel from one of the Dalish elders in the origin for exploring ruins with elven artifacts without telling the clan and getting permission. A member of a clan is far more important to them then poking around dangerous artifacts.
There are other artifacts and ruins she could discover by staying with the clan and working with them to become mobile and travel again. All she admits to knowing about the mirror is it was used for communication. She suspects there's more to it but she doesn't know. So how is activating an old phone that has no counterpart, or if it does is likely in the hands of Tevinters, going to help the elvhenan?
Even worse is that she's willing to die to get it working.
So then we would have had a powerful communication artifact and the only one who knows how to use it is dead? Brilliant. And that's the best scenario in the case of her sacrifice, ignoring that the source of most of her information is from a demon who is trapped and desperately wants to be free and also wants to help Merrill fix the mirror.
Merrill doesn't know how the mirror works but the demon does. The mirror acts as a doorway and not only has it been used to transport Morrigan but it has also shown Tamlen a city underground and a presence that he senses: "I think something moved inside the mirror." "Can you feel that? I think it knows we're here." "It saw me!"
It is possible that what Tamlen saw was actually the same demon that Merrill ends up speaking with. Speaking from a storytelling point of view the demon makes sense; the mirrors allowed communication from one mirror in thedas to the next, there's nothing to say they couldn't link to whatever pocket dimension the demon is trapped in in that statue, watching a potential portal for a chance to escape. Merathari said the demon wanted to use the mirror to escape, there's nothing that suggests this is untrue. Which would have resulted in a demon crossing over from wherever it was in its true form, rather then just as an abomination; it's first task to kill Merrill, as the one who knows the most about how it used the mirror to escape.
I think Merrill is obsessed with the mirror because of the trauma of losing her clan mates and may even have been influenced by the demon to focus her energy on the mirror as a way to ease that pain but also allows the demon to isolate her. By fixing the mirror and making it into something to help her people Merrill is taking something that hurt her and caused her pain and loss and taking control of it completely, given her actions it makes far more sense that she's lying to herself when she insists it's all about her people.
It's not an evil or bad motivation but it is selfish

[Sepewrath]

klarabella wrote...
The immoral thing about blood magic is that it comes at a cost. It's a dangerous thing to play with. Mages know that they increase their chances to end their life possessed by a demon ... and do it anyway (because they are that special, so much smarter than everyone else and their reasons are totally justified).

As far as I can see the risk of becoming an abomination is nothing you can educate away. You can minimize the risk by raising your self awareness in the fade ... or increase it again by practising blood magic.

You increase your chances of going on a murderous rampage when you own a sword too, does that mean that no one should own a sword? Things happen, things go wrong and at any point, anyone can become a danger to themselves and those around them. Yeah I know the whole "But they cant throw fireballs" argument, but I look at it this way, if someone stabs me in the back, I'm not going to be saying "well at least it wasn't a fireball" You can look at a ton of examples from this series, take Sten ripping that family apart, none of them were thinking "At least its not a mage" and he wasn't even armed.

At any point, you can be staring at the most dangerous person in the world for you at that given moment, doesn't matter if they can call lightning from the sky or not. The point is, it doesn't take blood magic and a demon to make someone a monster and having blood magic wont necessarily make a person any more of a monster in waiting, than the non mage next door.

And when does that happen with DuPuis? I never saw that. Do you have to meet him in Darktown when trying to save your mother?

[TEWR]

ReiSilver wrote...


I have to disagree on some points because Merrills eternal cries of "I'm doing all this for my people!" ring false to me. If it were simply about doing whatever she can to help her people Merrill would have listened to her Keeper and put the mirror project on hold or abandonned it in favor of staying with her clan and helping them by doing her job. "You belong to more then just yourself" as is the admonishment given to a Mahariel from one of the Dalish elders in the origin for exploring ruins with elven artifacts without telling the clan and getting permission. A member of a clan is far more important to them then poking around dangerous artifacts.

Except this artifact wasn't a danger anymore. She cleansed it with blood magic (and considering blood magic holds power over the taint, as per Avernus, then she had to have been right). She makes it clear to the clan numerous times that the shard was cleansed! But they didn't have any faith in her, despite the fact she had been doing the research on it and no one else.

Instead, Marethari poisons her standing with the clan by using needless fear, and then had the audacity to ask her to return. If the shard was still tainted, which it wasn't, then ceasing contact with the mirror would not have prevented it from spreading in her body and subsequently towards the rest of the clan. Mahariel suffered this. No magic, aside from the Joining, could cure the taint in his body.

There are other artifacts and ruins she could discover by staying with the clan and working with them to become mobile and travel again. All she admits to knowing about the mirror is it was used for communication. She suspects there's more to it but she doesn't know. So how is activating an old phone that has no counterpart, or if it does is likely in the hands of Tevinters, going to help the elvhenan?

Yes, there are other artifacts. Guarded by a crazed Varterral that's killed 4 hunters. Some people seem to think Marethari wanted to place Merrill in danger when she asked her to kill it. I'm unsure of that one, but I do know that if 4 hunters couldn't kill it, Marethari thought Merrill could? But she didn't think she could handle a trapped demon? Something's wrong there.

As for counterparts, the Arlathan empire spread throughout Thedas. There were at least 2 in Ferelden. Who knows how many more there are in Ferelden. Maybe there's another one. Maybe a clan is near another one. The point is that if she had succeeded, she could work to recreate these and distribute them to each Keeper at the next Arlathvenn, and then each clan could keep in touch with each other a lot easier.

Say for instance if a clan loses their halla. Boy, wouldn't that be handy being able to contact a clan as soon as it happens and not having to wait 6 years for word to get to you.

Even worse is that she's willing to die to get it working.

Many people are willing to die for a greater goal. Christianity proclaims that Jesus died for us, soldiers are willing to die for us to protect us, etc.

Is it foolish for her to disregard her life so easily? Yes, don't get me wrong. I'd cry if she died . But she has her reasons for wanting to see it through.

So then we would have had a powerful communication artifact and the only one who knows how to use it is dead? Brilliant. And that's the best scenario in the case of her sacrifice, ignoring that the source of most of her information is from a demon who is trapped and desperately wants to be free and also wants to help Merrill fix the mirror.

Wrong, she isn't the only one. There are Tevinter records of it being used, so Merrill wouldn't be the only one. Considering Kirkwall is a former Tevinter city-state (which prior to them was a barbarian city-state I believe), I find it likely she found old Tevinter records. If Kirkwall had records of the countless blood magic rituals that thinned the Veil, they might just have records of an Eluvian. Gaider has stated that she used the shard and whatever scraps of lore and notes she could find

Merrill doesn't know how the mirror works but the demon does. The mirror acts as a doorway and not only has it been used to transport Morrigan but it has also shown Tamlen a city underground and a presence that he senses: "I think something moved inside the mirror." "Can you feel that? I think it knows we're here." "It saw me!"

So there's a city. That's hardly a threat. The reason Tamlen got sick wasn't due to the mirror itself. It was due to the taint, which in turn was due to the presence of Darkspawn that corrupted the mirror. Remember the bereskarn? That's a corrupted bear. They spread the taint. Remember the genlocks? Those are Darkspawn, which spread the taint.

It is possible that what Tamlen saw was actually the same demon that Merrill ends up speaking with. Speaking from a storytelling point of view the demon makes sense; the mirrors allowed communication from one mirror in thedas to the next, there's nothing to say they couldn't link to whatever pocket dimension the demon is trapped in in that statue, watching a potential portal for a chance to escape. Merathari said the demon wanted to use the mirror to escape, there's nothing that suggests this is untrue. Which would have resulted in a demon crossing over from wherever it was in its true form, rather then just as an abomination; it's first task to kill Merrill, as the one who knows the most about how it used the mirror to escape.

Doubtful. They're hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from Audacity. If he could contact people willy-nilly from that far away, he could just contact a mage in the Gallows. And Audacity didn't contact Merrill through the mirror (because she only had a shard). He contacted her because she went to see him. They met in the short-story.

The demon isn't trapped in any other dimension other than the one Thedas exists in. He was sundered from the Veil much like Justice was. The only difference being Justice wasn't trapped by ancient powerful magic spells.

And there's more than enough information to suggest Marethari is lying. She has done no research, and we don't know where she pulled that information. Did the demon tell her? Oh yes, because demons don't lie. They're honest!

I think Merrill is obsessed with the mirror because of the trauma of losing her clan mates and may even have been influenced by the demon to focus her energy on the mirror as a way to ease that pain but also allows the demon to isolate her. By fixing the mirror and making it into something to help her people Merrill is taking something that hurt her and caused her pain and loss and taking control of it completely, given her actions it makes far more sense that she's lying to herself when she insists it's all about her people.
It's not an evil or bad motivation but it is selfish

I find it more likely that Audacity played Marethari and not Merrill. And this is why I enjoy romancing her on the Friendship path. She no longer becomes obsessed with it on a fanatic level. She just makes it a project that she wants to complete, but is willing to not let it rule over her life.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 22 juillet 2011 - 07:02 .

[ThePhoenixKing]

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

FieryDove wrote...

CrimsonZephyr wrote...

A better example would be Merrill. DuPuis wanted to learn the secrets of necromancy. While his body count prior to meeting Hawke is, as far as we know, zero, he wasn't chasing Quentin out of altruism. Still, though, the guy does help you if you let him live, instead of attacking you on sight.

If you magical fist him or have Aveline pummel him after all that remains you can learn more. He was not a nice man by any means.

Yeah, but he wasn't straight up Chaotic Evil, like most of the people that seem to populate Kirkwall.

And Merrill's use of blood magic was never about increasing her personal power. It was always about helping her fellow elves. Was it a misguided endeavor? Totally. But it wasn't selfish. She was prepared to sacrifice herself if it meant they would benefit. She just failed to understand that other people, like Marethari, would shield her out of love, or that the consequences would not stop at her corpse. Altruistic intentions are not always well-thought out. Notice, also, that after that quest, she never again talks about blood magic like it's a toy, and in the rivalry romance, she smashes the Eluvian. I'd say she learned her lesson.

Agreed. That's one of the things that makes Merrill's character arc (both through Friendship and Rivalry) so interesting and tragic. Everything she does is for the benefit of people who curse her name and who would otherwise be constantly ****ing about how the nasty shems stole all their history, even when she's trying to find a way to recover some of it. She's compassionate and driven and reasonable and willing to pay all the prices for her actions herself...and is considered a monster by those she's trying to save. I think, if nothing else, that's why I love Merrill and think she's the best of the romancible companions (and on the flip side of the coin, why the Dalish just completely suck).

[TEWR]

one of my favorite things to do to the Dalish is in Act 3. You talk to this guy with his hair hanging over his eye, and he goes "You don't belong here shemlen!"

Hawke's response: Well what about my... dear Maker, where did my pointy ears and self-righteousness go?

Dalish: You.... you..... shemlen!

It's great how that was all he could come up with after my Hawke's sarcastic response.


But that's off topic.

[nos_astra]

Sepewrath wrote...
You increase your chances of going on a murderous rampage when you own a sword too, does that mean that no one should own a sword?

Not unless possession of a sword includes an increased risk of suffering bouts of insanity that make you go on a killing spree.

[Gervaise]

According to the histories we have been given, originally there was only blood magic.  People are unclear about where it originated, with the old gods or with the elves, but it is definitively stated to be the case.  (Unless a download that I do not have says differently).  At some point someone came up with an alternative based on lyrium.  According to Chantry teaching it required both vast amounts of lyrium and blood magic for the Magisters to physically enter the fade.   If they are telling the truth then the alternative form of magic existed before this occured.  If not, then may be it was developed by mages following this or even by Andraste, if she was a mage.  Certainly following the majority of Thedas adopting the Chant of Light, blood magic was outlawed but was this originally the decision of the Chantry or mages themselves?  In other words, the ones who developed an alternative means of magic. 

I repeat an earlier post.  There is a definite link between  the raising of demons and undead and blood magic.  For really powerful blood magic you need blood sacrifices.  Where large amounts of death occur, it seems to have a effect on the veil between the material world and the fade - according to the tree in Origins anyway.    When the veil is weakened there is a greater risk of spirits and demons leaking into the physical realm.  Mages in the past who studied this evidently concluded this was why blood mages seemed to run greater risk of possession.  Given mages are at greater risk than other people because demons in particular are drawn to powerful beings, I would suggest it was a group of mages who originally decided blood magic was a bad thing, because of the risk to other mages as much as the populace as a whole.   The Chantry then adopted this view and made it law.  Currently even in Tevinter blood magic is meant to be illegal in theory but is found in practice, which is hardly surprising given that mages are in charge.  Codexes maintain blood magic is meant to be very rare in the rest of Thedas.  Again, if this is the truth and not propaganda, then the situation in Kirkwall is highly unusual in the blood mages seem to be cropping up all the time.   Of course, one advantage of blood magic is that its source of supply is much more easily and cheaply available than lyrium.  The one thing I am not clear on is whether the reason you have to learn it from a demon is because it is outlawed, most mages will not use it and therefore could not teach it to you, or because you have to do a deal with a demon for it to work at least at its higher level.   If you do require a demon, then possibly the reason for the greater concentration in and around Kirkwall is that it was originally a slave city and a greater deal of misery and death are associated with the location.  Thus the veil will be weaker here and demons find it easier to contact mages and persuade them into some sort of deal.  Doing deals with demons is a bad idea because some form a sacrifice of an unwilling/unknowing participant usually has to be made, or surrendering one's own freedom of thought.

It might be argued that blood magic in its simplest form is not inherantly evil but it does seem that to achieve greater levels of power in the discipline, the mage has to be prepared to undertaken blood sacrifice, do deals with demons, etc.  The point that the Chantry itself uses a form of blood magic to track mages and the Grey Wardens ritual does the same, is just proof that in the Bioware universe the terms good and evil are not absolutes, except in the minds of certain individuals.  Which is why you can either refuse Morrigan's offer or take it, kill the Architect or spare him and side with either the Templars or the Mages and still feel you can justify your decision either way without feeling you have followed the "evil" path.

[Apophis2412]

Gervaise wrote...

I repeat an earlier post.  There is a definite link between  the raising of demons and undead and blood magic.  For really powerful blood magic you need blood sacrifices.  Where large amounts of death occur, it seems to have a effect on the veil between the material world and the fade - according to the tree in Origins anyway.    When the veil is weakened there is a greater risk of spirits and demons leaking into the physical realm.  Mages in the past who studied this evidently concluded this was why blood mages seemed to run greater risk of possession. 

1. Blood magic doesn't automatically lead to "large amounts of death"
2. A Mage killing people on masse with primal spells will also cause "large amounts of death"


Blood Magic was proably outlawed by the Chantry because it makes mages to powerful, the Tevinter Imperium being a prime example of this. Especially the mind control.

Another danger of blood magic is demon summoning. Demons can never be trusted and the mage runs a greater risk of profession.

Those two things are the main reasons Blood Magic is forbidden.

[Macropodmum]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

ReiSilver wrote...

So then we would have had a powerful communication artifact and the only one who knows how to use it is dead? Brilliant. And that's the best scenario in the case of her sacrifice, ignoring that the source of most of her information is from a demon who is trapped and desperately wants to be free and also wants to help Merrill fix the mirror.

Wrong, she isn't the only one. There are Tevinter records of it being used, so Merrill wouldn't be the only one. Considering Kirkwall is a former Tevinter city-state (which prior to them was a barbarian city-state I believe), I find it likely she found old Tevinter records. If Kirkwall had records of the countless blood magic rituals that thinned the Veil, they might just have records of an Eluvian. Gaider has stated that she used the shard and whatever scraps of lore and notes she could find.

Correct and during Witch hunt Morrigan got close to the Dalish so that she could take their book (which is now back in the possesion of the Dalish) in order to work out how the Eluvian worked, so count in Morrigan as knowing how they worked.  I'm pretty sure the Dalish that was with me on that quest (forget her name) possibly would have been interested in finding out more about the mirror too (from the book she recovered)

Modifié par Macropodmum, 22 juillet 2011 - 01:12 .

[TEWR]

indeed. Morrigan has always been a staple for my pro-Merrill arguments. Morrigan had an entire book on the Eluvians, which helped her considerably. She also had an untainted, unbroken, functional (for one last time) Eluvian. Wherever Morrigan went had to be safe, or else she wouldn't have gone there in the first place (I'm thinking it's Arlathan)

But people expect Merrill to know just as much as Morrigan did (and Morrigan probably knew about the Eluvians through Flemeth, as Flemeth is known as Asha'Bellanar to the Dalish). Merrill had a shard of an Eluvian and a few bits of lore, yet she got really close to finishing it. And my Hawkes encourage her to keep going, as she may just finish it yet.

I'd say Merrill got really far when she built a brand new Eluvian from scratch.

and the Dalish elf you're thinking of is Ariane.

[Macropodmum]

Thankyou for the name I also don't believe Morrigan would have walked through that Eluvian, knowing that it was probably its last use, if she didn't know there were other working ones out there...

[GavrielKay]

klarabella wrote...

You are free to overinterpret engine limitations to fit your point of view. If you like to think one mage hanging out in Lowtown can exert that much control on a magical bomb going off in Hightown ... well, I suppose, mages are even more dangerous than we thought.

It doesn't take game mechanics to believe that a magical bomb could be made that would toss the debris out to a much further distance than a normal bomb.  That's why it's magical rather than just enormous.

Whether you think Anders was written such that his character would bother with that is debatable, but that a magical bomb could be made to do so...  well, why not?

[GavrielKay]

Sepewrath wrote...

You increase your chances of going on a murderous rampage when you own a sword too, does that mean that no one should own a sword? Things happen, things go wrong and at any point, anyone can become a danger to themselves and those around them. Yeah I know the whole "But they cant throw fireballs" argument, but I look at it this way, if someone stabs me in the back, I'm not going to be saying "well at least it wasn't a fireball" You can look at a ton of examples from this series, take Sten ripping that family apart, none of them were thinking "At least its not a mage" and he wasn't even armed.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one on the forum trying to make that point.

Yes, mages are potentially dangerous.  So is the rest of the world.

[GavrielKay]

Gervaise wrote...
I repeat an earlier post.  There is a definite link between  the raising of demons and undead and blood magic.

Yes.  The question is what is the link?  Is it really that demons are more attracted to it?  Or is it that someone who is willing to break Chantry law and risk being executed for blool magic might feel they might as well go further and really tempt fate?  It is at least possible that the link is in the mentality of the mage who chooses to use it.

[Rifneno]

klarabella wrote...

Rifneno wrote...
I don't need to imagine anything, I watched the video of the explosion. The great majority of the Chantry was thrown far out of Kirkwall. The debris went in an outwardly-expanding ring, not a globe. What Kirkwall itself was hit with could only be described as a swift gust of wing with a lot of dust. If you're really allergic I guess it might be harmful.

You are free to overinterpret engine limitations to fit your point of view. If you like to think one mage hanging out in Lowtown can exert that much control on a magical bomb going off in Hightown ... well, I suppose, mages are even more dangerous than we thought.

Impressive.  I never thought I'd see the day someone was so wrapped in their own propaganda that they'd mock people for believing what's actually shown rather than whatever twisted fantasy you've concocted to fit your theory.  Careful BTW, I'm sure it's long distance for you to contact the real world.

[DPSSOC]

GavrielKay wrote...

Sepewrath wrote...
You increase your chances of going on a murderous rampage when you own a sword too, does that mean that no one should own a sword? Things happen, things go wrong and at any point, anyone can become a danger to themselves and those around them. Yeah I know the whole "But they cant throw fireballs" argument, but I look at it this way, if someone stabs me in the back, I'm not going to be saying "well at least it wasn't a fireball" You can look at a ton of examples from this series, take Sten ripping that family apart, none of them were thinking "At least its not a mage" and he wasn't even armed.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one on the forum trying to make that point.

Yes, mages are potentially dangerous.  So is the rest of the world.

Sepe is correct it doesn't matter to the victim but the victim doesn't matter, they're dead.  The restrictions and regulations on mages exist not just because they're potentially dangerous but the degree of danger they represent.  Perfect example; I am allowed, by law, to walk around openly carrying a broadsword, but I cannot walk around with even a pistol.  Why?  My potential to cause harm hasn't increased from broadsword to pistol; I'm no more likely to start killing people, so why can't I carry both?  The reason is because if I decide to start killing people with a broadsword I'll probably kill or injure 1-3 before I'm taken down; with a pistol I can kill or injure 9-12 before I'm stopped.  A man with a gun is no more likely to commit murder than a man with a broadsword, but the man with the gun can do 3-4x the damage; that makes him more dangerous and warrants restriction.

Same with mages; a mage may not be any more likely to do harm than a normal person, but it's the degree of harm that can be done that demands restriction, and since you can't confiscate magic...

It's not fair, it's not right, but it is understandable.

[GavrielKay]

DPSSOC wrote...
Perfect example; I am allowed, by law, to walk around openly carrying a broadsword, but I cannot walk around with even a pistol.

It isn't a perfect example because the gun isn't a natural extension of your arm.  We don't forbid martial artists from walking down the street, despite being able to cause far more harm than an untrained person.  We don't forbid people being who they are, we just deal with it.

[Harid]

GavrielKay wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...
Perfect example; I am allowed, by law, to walk around openly carrying a broadsword, but I cannot walk around with even a pistol.

It isn't a perfect example because the gun isn't a natural extension of your arm.  We don't forbid martial artists from walking down the street, despite being able to cause far more harm than an untrained person.  We don't forbid people being who they are, we just deal with it.

There is no perfect, real world analogy.  There is nothing like a mage in these times.

Regardless of which, you are comparing small potatoes to gigantic ones.

You can taze a martial artist on a rampage in real life, he'll go down.

Outside of Templars, (and our main characters), no one can really stop a mage on a rampage.  Worse so if they are an abomination like Anders, did you read the short story?  What could stop him?  That's why mages can't be treated like normal people.  They aren't normal people.

Modifié par Harid, 23 juillet 2011 - 12:02 .