886 réponses à ce sujet

[iheartbob]

I hope you don't mind me chiming in on the debate a little late ...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...
You may not think so. But however you put it, the usage and workings of blood magic is inherently sinister.

The only argument against blood magic being evil that might have any merit is the fact that you have to consort with some sort of demon to access it.  Beyond that, I don't think the usage or workings is inherently sinister.  The decision to use your own blood to power and maintain your magic is not evil if you are only using your own blood to do so.  You are simply giving yourself an advantage of a higher mana pool, but it also counterbalances itself as you are bringing yourself closer to death by using your own health to power your magic. 

Using a spell like hemorage and draining a target's blood is not inherently evil either.  It's simply a different tactic from, say, freezing your target or raining fire upon them from the skies.  Your goal is the same goal as any other class of fighter, be it a warrior or rogue.  You are trying to kill your enemy before they kill you, and blood magic is your most effective means of doing so.

I can see an argument of controling a target's blood to make them act as your ally as going one way or the other.  The only spell I might consider "evil" within the school of blood magic is the spell that uses your ally's blood to heal yourself, which is why any blood mage character I've played has never used it.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote... 

Andraste being a blood mage rumor could also be attributed to the effect her emre presence actually had on the people around her. If she truly was a divinity, her presence could possible have been "intoxicating" for mortals, akin to how a blood mage dominates the minds of others. You also need to remember that Tevinter have a very real interrest in spreading propaganda that Andraste was a mage, since if it takes hold, then they will have divine verdict that mages are superior to commoners.

Where was that last bit ever mentioned? I don't think that was ever mentioned anywhere in the games.

 

It isn't. It is however a logical political goal for a nation ruled by mages. Which is why I assume that the Tevinters would have a vested interrest in spreading the rumor, that Andraste was a mage.

As for the debate over whether Andraste was a mage and the political liscence Tevinter might take over this, that same argument can be flipped around on the Chantry.  If Andraste was in fact a mage, and a blood mage at that, it was very much in the best interest of Orlais and the Chantry to completely deny that fact and effectively erase any evidence of the fact.  The only difference would be that one country/religious institution was more succesful than the other. 

The point is that there is not any evidence to support one or the other at this junction in time.  Except for perhaps the book you find that you can gift to Wynne.

Modifié par iheartbob, 07 février 2012 - 04:06 .

[Carmen_Willow]

Blood magic leads to blood sacrifices....you know how it begins...a little finger ****** to make a brief little electric jolt and then soon you are sacrificing hundreds of elves to create the mother of all thunderstorms. Other sentinent beings simply become a fueling station for your desires. Who cares if they have to die to make your fireball more powerful? After all, it's YOUR fireball and there are people to impress.

Furthering your own goals at the expense of another is pretty standard fare for ****** sapiens (and, it appears other sentinent beings in the DA world), so what's a little blood sacrifice among friends and enemies. It's just another way to get ahead.

Blood magic reminds me of meth. It's oh so fun to get so wound up for so long.....but then there's the crash and then you need more just to get even, until you are draining a slave a day just to get up in the morning and to keep your spells alive. Meanwhile it's scrubbing away at your neurons and turning your brain and your humanity into goo, until you end up with no teeth and a whole lot of dead people in your past. Yep, blood magic is DA meth...or maybe cocaine.

I guess you could say that I never use it because it's just soooooo tempting.

[Rifneno]

Andraste wasn't a blood mage, she was the Dumat OGB.

[dragonflight288]

I see nothing wrong with blood magic so long as it's not used against anyone unless they volunteer. Isolde volunteered to save her son's life and that's one thing. Sacrificing your teammembers health to heal yourself or sacrificing slaves to power spells or using blood magic to control others-

That is something I do not tolerate. Blood mages who do that deserve death. But if they use their own blood. If they don't have the power otherwise, use lyium. If they don't have enough blood in their own body or enough lyrium, then whatever it is they're working on just isn't worth it.

[Rifneno]

dragonflight288 wrote...

I see nothing wrong with blood magic so long as it's not used against anyone unless they volunteer. Isolde volunteered to save her son's life and that's one thing. Sacrificing your teammembers health to heal yourself or sacrificing slaves to power spells or using blood magic to control others-

That is something I do not tolerate. Blood mages who do that deserve death. But if they use their own blood. If they don't have the power otherwise, use lyium. If they don't have enough blood in their own body or enough lyrium, then whatever it is they're working on just isn't worth it.

A bit of a contradiction there.  You condone them using someone else's blood if they consent but not their own teammates for healing... what if the teammate pre-consented?  "If you're ever in dire straits, don't hesitate to use me for healing."  This is an especially likely scenario if they're lovers or family with the blood mage in question.  It could mean saving the mage's life while the other person will just need a glass of orange juice and a nap.
Also, using blood magic to control others.  In most games and fantasy writing, this is refered to as a charm spell and isn't inherently good or bad.  It's only considered such in DA because BLUD MAGIK!, not because charm spells are evil.  There's plenty of good applications for them.  What if someone found out about Howe's plan to take over Highever, blood controlled him and made him call off the attack at the last minute?  Or used it to force kidnappers to hand over their victims with much less risk than traditional methods of rescue?  Charm has some terrifying uses, but so do many things that are powerful.  It's like that saying, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."  Charm spells, blood control included, are just tools.

[Icinix]

I see magic as magic.

Magic however it is, is not inherently evil or good - its merely a tool. How it is created and what it is created for determines its morality.

[TEWR]

Andraste wasn't a blood mage, she was the Dumat OGB.

no reason she couldn't have been a Somniari blood mage OGB.

Whether she was Dumat's or Razikel's is a mystery. =)

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 08 février 2012 - 02:02 .

[EmperorSahlertz]

Magic is not a tool. A tool would imply that anyone could learn how to operate and use it, that is not the case of magic. Magic is magic. It is a unique power within a few individuals, that needs to be harnessed and used with care.

[Xilizhra]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Magic is not a tool. A tool would imply that anyone could learn how to operate and use it, that is not the case of magic. Magic is magic. It is a unique power within a few individuals, that needs to be harnessed and used with care.

A semantic distinction. The point is that there's no inherent morality to any spell.

[InfinitePaths]

Blood magic is evil and it corrputs you,no good in it

[Xilizhra]

This despite Merrill being the least evil party member and a blood mage Hawke having no effects?

[EmperorSahlertz]

Malcolm Hawke was a blood mage and didn't let it corrupt him, granted, he didn't use it ever again after being held captive by the Wardens, but at least he knew its workings. He just had the strength of character not to let it corrupt him. So if all mages was just as strong as Malcolm, tehre would not even be a mage problem. Sadly, so far, no mage we have ever met even got close to Malcolm.

[Xilizhra]

I'd say Hawke herself counts, and, truth be told, I'd count Merrill there as well. Anders is more muddled because he's part spirit.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Hawke as a playable character hardly counts, since he can be both the most despicable piece of trash to ever walk the face of Thedas, or the very paragon of virtue. While it is true that Hawke CAN aspire to be like his dad, he might also aspire to be everything his dad wasn't (not to mention Hawke may not be a mage at all). And without any solid canon, we can't really use him as an example.

And Merrill is a perfect example of the dangers of blood magic. She was a good girl, twisted by her own desire to help her people, and only ended up bringing them more harm (especially since she apparently never really fixes the Eluvian).

Anders is most certainly not an example of a good mage.

Modifié par EmperorSahlertz, 08 février 2012 - 05:50 .

[Forst1999]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

And Merrill is a perfect example of the dangers of blood magic. She was a good girl, twisted by her own desire to help her people, and only ended up bringing them more harm (especially since she apparently never really fixes the Eluvian).

I'd say none of the problems in Merrill's story stem from Blood Magic itself. It was just a tool to repair the Eluvian. If she had access to large amounts of Lyrium, she could have used it, and the story would have unfold pretty much the same way.
The rift between Merrill and her clan comes from her own messiah complex, poor communication by the Keeper and some jerkasses' vindictiveness. Only Pol's flight right into the Vatarel can be directly connected to Blood magic (if we assume his Andrastian upbringing can be made responsible for his panic). But Merrill's personality was never corrupted by blood magic. So, whatever you think of Merrill, she is no example of the dangers of blood magic. Her story is only an example of the dangers of fear of blood magic.

[EmperorSahlertz]

If she had had acces to lyrium she wouldn't have had to contact a demon and learn blood magic to begin with. The entire tragedy of Merrill stems from the fact that she turned to blood magic, and nothing else. The clan shunned her because of the blood magic, and the horrors she would bring to the clan if she succeded (which is possibly true, given that Audacity's plan was to posses whoever freed him in the first place).

[Forst1999]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

If she had had acces to lyrium she wouldn't have had to contact a demon and learn blood magic to begin with. The entire tragedy of Merrill stems from the fact that she turned to blood magic, and nothing else. The clan shunned her because of the blood magic, and the horrors she would bring to the clan if she succeded (which is possibly true, given that Audacity's plan was to posses whoever freed him in the first place).

The demon had information on the mirror itself, not only on blood magic. She still would have needed to contact it. As you said, the clan shunned her for fear of the mirror itself as well as for blood magic (i'd say more for the mirror), a fear that turned out to be justified (although Marethari wasn't willing to tell why exactly until it was to late, that's what i meant with poor communication). But the blood magic itself isn't the problem, only the clan's reaction to it. 

[TEWR]

If she had had acces to lyrium she wouldn't have had to contact a demon and learn blood magic to begin with. The entire tragedy of Merrill stems from the fact that she turned to blood magic, and nothing else. The clan shunned her because of the blood magic, and the horrors she would bring to the clan if she succeded (which is possibly true, given that Audacity's plan was to posses whoever freed him in the first place).

The blood magic is only part of why she was shunned. The other part is that she was working on the Eluvian shard that was once part of what killed Tamlen and tainted and possibly/subsequently killed Mahariel. But she used the blood magic to amplify the healing magic Marethari had taught her -- which in its unamplified form was able to combat the taint in Mahariel, but not defeat it -- to cleanse it.

Then she was shunned even more when Marethari spread baseless lies about Merrill bringing back the taint from a cleansed shard. This drove the clan to act... well... idiotic.

And what Marethari said when she was possessed -- that you're trusting the word of an Abomination is a bit mind-boggling -- is what she speculated to be the case.

The only thing lyrium would've changed would be how she cleansed the shard and peoples' perception of her. Marethari would've still spread baseless lies about Merrill to the clan, been influenced by Audacity, and she possibly would've thought that Audacity led Merrill to finding lyrium for the shard so that she'd work on it and release the demon.

In her mind. I do not subscribe to her speculation that Audacity was planning on possessing Merrill. I believe Marethari was always Audacity's true target, and he just used Merrill to help further his plans under the guise of actually helping her with her Eluvian.

Sort of a "I've helped you, but you have helped me without knowing it" type of thing.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 08 février 2012 - 09:24 .

[lobi]

Elves have always used blood magic it was the first way to draw extra mana. I would think that there were groups of elves with strong constitutions that 'Keepers' would use for mana batterys during battles.
Andrastian politics painted the practice as evil to restrict the use of powerful magics outside of Chantry control. The actions of magisters that had little regard for the lives of others added to the myth that using blood magic was evil.
It is only as evil as the person weilding it.
Learning it from demons is like learning Arcane warrior from a spirit or Shape-shifting from Flemith. The secrets were lost to time in Chantry controled areas. One could just as easily learn it from a Tevinter.
Walking bomb is a blood magic spell as it releases the targets mana in the blood and restricts the targets ability to expell it. Walking bomb is classed as spirit to allow it's use under Chantry law in Circles. Animate dead puts mana back into a body to control it.
Entropy class also has a different name but uses techniques that could be classed as blood magic.
It's all about the mana.

Modifié par lobi, 08 février 2012 - 10:11 .

[EmperorSahlertz]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

If she had had acces to lyrium she wouldn't have had to contact a demon and learn blood magic to begin with. The entire tragedy of Merrill stems from the fact that she turned to blood magic, and nothing else. The clan shunned her because of the blood magic, and the horrors she would bring to the clan if she succeded (which is possibly true, given that Audacity's plan was to posses whoever freed him in the first place).

The blood magic is only part of why she was shunned. The other part is that she was working on the Eluvian shard that was once part of what killed Tamlen and tainted and possibly/subsequently killed Mahariel. But she used the blood magic to amplify the healing magic Marethari had taught her -- which in its unamplified form was able to combat the taint in Mahariel, but not defeat it -- to cleanse it.

Then she was shunned even more when Marethari spread baseless lies about Merrill bringing back the taint from a cleansed shard. This drove the clan to act... well... idiotic.

And what Marethari said when she was possessed -- that you're trusting the word of an Abomination is a bit mind-boggling -- is what she speculated to be the case.

The only thing lyrium would've changed would be how she cleansed the shard and peoples' perception of her. Marethari would've still spread baseless lies about Merrill to the clan, been influenced by Audacity, and she possibly would've thought that Audacity led Merrill to finding lyrium for the shard so that she'd work on it and release the demon.

In her mind. I do not subscribe to her speculation that Audacity was planning on possessing Merrill. I believe Marethari was always Audacity's true target, and he just used Merrill to help further his plans under the guise of actually helping her with her Eluvian.

Sort of a "I've helped you, but you have helped me without knowing it" type of thing.

First of all. Whenever someone experiments with the Taint, it isn't baseless to claim that they risk bringing it back with them. So warning the clan about her doing her research was not a dumb thing to do, since it was a real risk.
Second of all, lyrium would've changed everything, since as you said yourself, Merrill already knew the healing magic, and only contacted Audacity to learn of blood magic. No Audacity, no blood magic. No blood magic, no tragedy.
Third of all: I don't trust an Abomination, I trust Marethari's judgement from before. Also, I trust that a trapped demon will always seek freedom.
Fourth of all: I believe that Audacity's plan, from the start, was to posses WHOEVER freed him first. he simply played Merrill like a perfect tool, into a situation where he could only win. If it weren't for Hawke that is.

[TEWR]

First of all. Whenever someone experiments with the Taint, it isn't baseless to claim that they risk bringing it back with them. So warning the clan about her doing her research was not a dumb thing to do, since it was a real risk.

It is when Merrill tells Marethari that they've been over it before and that the shard was cleansed.

That shows that Marethari clearly doesn't trust Merrill.

It's also idiotic when you spread those claims and ask the person you believe is tainted to return to the clan that now hates her and fears her. If Merrill was tainted -- which she wasn't -- she would either attract the Darkspawn, go off to find them, or become an Elven broodmother on Sundermount.

Not to mention she wouldn't be trusted or liked amongst the clan anymore because of what Marethari spread.

Second of all, lyrium would've changed everything, since as you said yourself, Merrill already knew the healing magic, and only contacted Audacity to learn of blood magic. No Audacity, no blood magic. No blood magic, no tragedy.

No it wouldn't. You are deliberately ignoring how Marethari didn't want Merrill working on the Eluvian because of what it did to Tamlen and Mahariel and begged her to dispose of it and return to the clan.

The lyrium wouldn't have changed those things.

Third of all: I don't trust an Abomination, I trust Marethari's judgement from before. Also, I trust that a trapped demon will always seek freedom.

And you're assuming -- with no evidence to back it up -- that Marethari knew this before she became possessed.

In which case, ask yourself this: Why the hell didn't she go and see Merrill before she got possessed and tell her this?

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 08 février 2012 - 10:20 .

[InfinitePaths]

Blood magic means consulting with deamons and that is bad,i agree with you saying how some mages(5%) can sometimes resist the temptaion of demons,but,look at Orsino,grace and almost all the mages in DA2 have turened to blood magic and became crazy.Becouse of blood magic users who almost destroyed kirkwall(its their fault as much as templars,they are both crazy) normal and innocent mages like Bethany have to suffer by discrimitaion.I am not talking about the blood magic elfes used a long time a ago,that is a different story entirely,we have not much information about it,but waht we know that 95% of people who used blood magic in DA ended up dead or as an abomination or a villan,only Malcom,Morrigan,Hawke and few other have delt with blood magic with no conciquence, they and the old elfes may know how to use blood magic safely,but most of the mages who use blood magic end up becoming an abomination or other tragic events like with merill and marethari.Blood magic is dangeurus,if there was no blood magic the whole dragon age 2 wlod have ended differently,mages and templars wlod not start a war.Blood magic only made things worse.

[lobi]

Orsino only studied theory of blood magic, possibly combining study of it's use with demonology because of Chantry indocrination saying that the one cannot exist without the other.
Orsino went insane and then tried to use blood magic unleashing it's full force without having attempted it before.
The demonology misinterpretation combined with a weakened psych allowed Orsino to become a harvester.

Modifié par lobi, 08 février 2012 - 10:47 .

[PrinceLionheart]

^ Thing about Malcolm to keep in mind too is he only ever used blood magic once, and that was after being forced to by the Wardens. I think it's even stated that after that he never used it again.