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[Darkly Tranquil]

I don't like Cullen or agree with him, but I can understand him and appreciate him as an interesting and well written character.

Clearly he's a deeply troubled and conflicted man. He seems to be basically decent and compassionate by nature, but he has been trained and indoctrinated by the Chantry to hate and distrust mages. Then he was tortured by Uldred, which only served to reinforce what he was taught and has left him traumatised (and slightly unhinged). However, he also knows that there are good and decent mages (Mage Warden, Wynne, Irving) who are only trying to do their best to live with the gift/curse they have been given. Basically, I think he is struggling to reconcile the fact that mages are dangerous and can be a threat to those around them and the fact they are not all a threat and how to effectively tell the difference. He stands up to Meredith at the end because he knows that not all the mages are guilty, and that it is not right to simply kill them all and let the Maker sort them out, as Meredith would rather do.

[jamesp81]

Cullen is well written and interesting. However, he's lucky that there's not a "kill this templar bastard" button on the dialogue wheel when he comes and takes Bethany. Otherwise, his survival rate in my playthroughs would be zero.

Frankly, I think he suffers from pretty severe PTSD after the Ferelden Circle incident. He should've left active duty then.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

Generally, I like Cullen as an NPC, but I would not want him as a companion, nor would I want him as an romancable love interest. It would just not make much sense for his character, without some retconning and as a fan service, more than anything. I think making him an LI would ruin alot of his character "charms", including his awkward creepieness. Plus, I can't say I'm thrileld about the general direction of LI writing Bioware seems to take.

Overall though, Cullen despite his requisite dose of Kirkwall stupid (such as telling mage Hawke mages aren't human like they are, or being unable to track Anders down despite him living openly with Hawke) is still one of the less offensive people in Kirkwall. And he does provide interesting insight into a hardline templar who is not a raving sexual predator and sadistic monster.

I agree with Wulfram that it makes little sense for him to try and defend a pro-mage Hawke who just helped a bunch of mages and apostates escape. Especially if Anders is still alive, on top of it. Cullen might not have liked the annulment, but it makes little sense for him to defend an apostate that just helped a bunch of mages, some of whom might be dangerous, escape. Hell, when Meredith approaches you and decides to attack, he even says he thought they were just going to arrest Hawke.

Hell, another thing that made no sense was why he didn't act against Meredith sooner, especially as, at the beginning of Act 3, he was starting to compare her madness to Uldred, of all people. For Cullen to compare his Knight Commander, who he has generally supported even when he sometimes questioned her methods, to a blood mage abomination that slaughtered his commerades and tortured him for weeks, and NOT act or be part of the conspiracy to over throw her, makes little sense, especially given the mental trauma Uldred had inflicted on him.

But then again, nothing about Act 3 makes any sense.

[Monica21]

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Cullen, considering my general dislike for him in Origins. I think the writers managed to show some realistic character development. I'm not sure if he'll ever get away from the "mages aren't people" thing, because yes, he's a Templar and he's been indoctrinated in the Chantry for who knows how long. 

I don't think his faith in Andraste and the Maker will waver, but I do think his faith in the order will, and already has. He's questioning it in Act 3. There are a lot of things up in the air, too. The Templars are rebelling just like the mages and how the Chantry responds to it all seems to be an indicator of which side Cullen will fall on. I'm still wondering where Cullen is by the time Cassandra is interrogating Varric, since she seems surprised by his version of events at the Gallows. Cullen was there. Why wouldn't the Seekers have gotten the same story from him?

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him as a companion since he had plot armor during the battle in the Gallows, and I wouldn't be opposed to him as an LI. 

[esper]

Origin Cullen scared me, because of the fact that he was very close to stalking my character and I really felt like my poor Surana dogded a bullet with escaping the circle in time for him to act on his feelings.

da2 Cullen is a templar through and through. He said to my Hawke's face that mages are living weapons not persons, that he doesn't want to kill them on sight just shows that he is not a rapist in making or any other form of sadist - like some of the crazy 100 % pro-Meridith templars.

He is still a templar and thinks like a templar. The fact that he didn't stood up against Meridith when she called for the annulment says it all to me. He first turned against Meridith when she wanted to kill not arrest my Hawke and he had to be a bloody idiot for thinking that Meridith wouldn't kill my very vocal pro-mage Hawke who was a bloodmage. In short it was too little and too late.

As for why Cassandra didn't ask Cullen. The templars went rouge and Cullen is one of the people who think mages are dangerous. He is properly among those who are hunting the mages. Not the most violent group amongst those templars - mind you, but he is amongst them. He never question the order. He questioned if following Meridith really was the same as following the templars.

I agree that Cullen has a good chance to come back as companion and Li, but in that case I will just have to avoid the human male li, because his aiding Meridith in the annulement and then turning on her in the end is not something I can forgive him for.

[Monica21]

esper wrote...
He is still a templar and thinks like a templar. The fact that he didn't stood up against Meridith when she called for the annulment says it all to me. He first turned against Meridith when she wanted to kill not arrest my Hawke and he had to be a bloody idiot for thinking that Meridith wouldn't kill my very vocal pro-mage Hawke who was a bloodmage. In short it was too little and too late.

Playing through Enemies Among Us and talking to the recruits in the Gallows tells you pretty much all you need to know about the Templar command structure. One of the recruits says something like, "Clearly you're not a Templar. A Knight-Leiutenant gives you an order and you follow it." Same goes for a Knight-Commander and a Knight-Captain, though the Knight-Captain has quite a lot more to lose if he's wrong.

As for a mage Hawke, well, that's just bad storytelling. There's no way even Thrask should let you wander around Kirkwall, nobility or not. There should have been some effort in dialogue to hide that you're a mage, but it didn't happen.

As for why Cassandra didn't ask Cullen. The templars went rouge and Cullen is one of the people who think mages are dangerous. He is properly among those who are hunting the mages. Not the most violent group amongst those templars - mind you, but he is amongst them. He never question the order. He questioned if following Meridith really was the same as following the templars.

I think he does question the Order at some point in Act 3. He says something along the lines of not knowing if following the Order is the same as following Meredith. He's clearly uncomfortable with what's happening, but doesn't know if Meredith is acting on the Divine's authority or on her own. And Cassandra may not have asked Cullen, but someone had to have. And we have zero evidence of what Cullen is doing now and we don't really even know why the Templars have rebelled. A lot can happen in three years. Cullen might easily be hunted, if only because he aided Hawke. We don't really know how militant the Divine is right now.

Modifié par Monica21, 06 septembre 2011 - 06:44 .

[LadyVaJedi]

The only thing I wondering is that I thought that templers couldn't get married and (suppose) to be chaste? Since Aveiline's first hubby was a templer and the one that Hawke helped was a parent. Beacuse it would be a hoot if Cullen found true love in a mage.

[esper]

Monica21 wrote...

esper wrote...
He is still a templar and thinks like a templar. The fact that he didn't stood up against Meridith when she called for the annulment says it all to me. He first turned against Meridith when she wanted to kill not arrest my Hawke and he had to be a bloody idiot for thinking that Meridith wouldn't kill my very vocal pro-mage Hawke who was a bloodmage. In short it was too little and too late.

Playing through Enemies Among Us and talking to the recruits in the Gallows tells you pretty much all you need to know about the Templar command structure. One of the recruits says something like, "Clearly you're not a Templar. A Knight-Leiutenant gives you an order and you follow it." Same goes for a Knight-Commander and a Knight-Captain, though the Knight-Captain has quite a lot more to lose if he's wrong.

As for a mage Hawke, well, that's just bad storytelling. There's no way even Thrask should let you wander around Kirkwall, nobility or not. There should have been some effort in dialogue to hide that you're a mage, but it didn't happen.

As for why Cassandra didn't ask Cullen. The templars went rouge and Cullen is one of the people who think mages are dangerous. He is properly among those who are hunting the mages. Not the most violent group amongst those templars - mind you, but he is amongst them. He never question the order. He questioned if following Meridith really was the same as following the templars.

I think he does question the Order at some point in Act 3. He says something along the lines of not knowing if following the Order is the same as following Meredith. He's clearly uncomfortable with what's happening, but doesn't know if Meredith is acting on the Divine's authority or on her own. And Cassandra may not have asked Cullen, but someone had to have. And we have zero evidence of what Cullen is doing now and we don't really even know why the Templars have rebelled. A lot can happen in three years. Cullen might easily be hunted, if only because he aided Hawke. We don't really know how militant the Divine is right now.

Which is why he is questioning Meridith and not the order. If Meridith had come with the Divine's authority to do the annulment he would never have turned against her - in my opinion. In that apsect Cullen's betrayal is unforgiveable. He does not stand up against Meridth when she is killing all the normal mages. Even in a pro-templar walkthrough he does not prevent Meridith to kill the surredering mages even if he thinks it is wrong. He first turns on her when it is too late and on pro-mage walkthrough he has absolutely no reason to think that Meridith will only arrest Hawke.

Trask could allow you to walk away in Kirkwall because he had a mage daughter who he let run wild - wherever you blackmail him or not, he knows that Hawke knows and he could be smart enough to know that you would take him down with you if he turns you in. Trask can be explained.

Cullen thinks that mages are living weapons. He sees mages at the Gallows everyday and if he doesn't regonize them as human or elves that is that. The only difference in him saying so or not to mage Hawke is that if he only said it to non-mage Hawkes he would come of as being slightly more intelligent than he does right now. - We can agree that he properly should be characterized as being so intelligent, because he is Knight Captain.

Cullen could be a pariah among the templars for aiding Hawke - I agree that we don't know, but in that case Cassandra would treat Cullen as one of Hawke's companions and he would still have to flee the Kirkwall long before she arrives. With the way Cassandra talked and acted I can only think that the seekers first took interest when the templars rebelled and thus robbed the chantry of not just the mage's part of their army, but also the tempars part of their army. That means that the magical unit is gone, the meele unit is gone and the chantry only have the seekers which I think is the intelligence unit. Among the templars or not Cullen will have to be out of Kirkwall by the time Cassandra comes and she has properly simply not tracked him down to ask her.

[Monica21]

LadyVaJedi wrote...

The only thing I wondering is that I thought that templers couldn't get married and (suppose) to be chaste? Since Aveiline's first hubby was a templer and the one that Hawke helped was a parent. Beacuse it would be a hoot if Cullen found true love in a mage.

I think in Origins they were supposed to be, otherwise why all the drama with the Desire Demon who was playing house with the Templar? Plus, there are no married Templars (not that you really get a chance to talk about their personal lives though) in Origins and a few of Alistair's references make me think he was looking forward to life of chastity. I assume they retconned this so Aveline could have a Templar husband. Gaider did answer a question about this about six months before DA2's release and said that Templars had no vow of chastity.

[LadyVaJedi]

Then it must be personal preference then.

[Xilizhra]

Playing through Enemies Among Us and talking to the recruits in the Gallows tells you pretty much all you need to know about the Templar command structure. One of the recruits says something like, "Clearly you're not a Templar. A Knight-Leiutenant gives you an order and you follow it." Same goes for a Knight-Commander and a Knight-Captain, though the Knight-Captain has quite a lot more to lose if he's wrong.

This has been legally determined to be a crappy excuse.

As for Cullen personally, he reminds me of Fenris with less of an excuse. I don't see much there to like.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

To reconcile the Origins desire demon tormenting that Templar with the Templar's ability to marry isn't too hard if you read the things that have been written about Templars and the things that have been implied about the Chantry.

The Chantry itself seems to be like most traditional montheistic religions: not a big fan of sex outside of marriage. I mean they're not going to kick you out because of it, but they'll look at you sternly and be very disappointed in you. That's not enough to make your average templar stay away from the Blooming Rose, but it is enough to make someone especially devout like Cullen shy away from the idea. Both Cullen and Alistair have a decent dose of the good ol' religious shame about sex, and Alistair isn't even especially devout.

Templars can get married, but their marriages have to be approved by their superiors. Any potential spouse has to be someone capable of supporting themselves, and there has to be an understanding that they will probably have to live apart most of the time. There aren't many women who are capable of independent support and who wouldn't mind it if their husband spends almost all his time at "work," at a job that doesn't actually pay anything; a job that, if you quit it, has a high likelihood of causing you to spiral downward into a dangerous withdrawal that could destroy your mental function. Aveline was willing to do it because she had her own career, and didn't seem too eager to have a bunch of kids. How many non-mage, non-templar, non-Chantry women in Thedas fit THAT bill?

So the Templar in the tower with the desire demon in Origins knew that it was impossible to have a normal family life, even in the unlikely event that he happened to find a woman willing to enter into a marriage destined for either perpetual absence or eventual madness. Some templars are satisfied to hang around the Blooming Rose, and it seems like the Chantry doesn't care, but I think any Templar truly interested in something more is pretty much out of luck. And if you're a templar stationed somewhere where there aren't any decent seamstresses... well you're double out of luck then, eh?

[Monica21]

Xilizhra wrote...

Playing through Enemies Among Us and talking to the recruits in the Gallows tells you pretty much all you need to know about the Templar command structure. One of the recruits says something like, "Clearly you're not a Templar. A Knight-Leiutenant gives you an order and you follow it." Same goes for a Knight-Commander and a Knight-Captain, though the Knight-Captain has quite a lot more to lose if he's wrong.

This has been legally determined to be a crappy excuse.

Oh, good. You're back. 

No, it hasn't. Meredith is culpable, not Cullen. That is all.

Modifié par Monica21, 07 septembre 2011 - 03:10 .

[Xilizhra]

Oh, good. You're back.

No, it hasn't. Meredith is culpable, not Cullen. That is all.

So it's totally fine to respond to a genocide order with "Well, I don't really want to do this... oh well," and proceed with the head-chopping posthaste?

[dragonflight288]

When you have people saying he's awesome and leave him as he is and people saying he's horrid and cruel, and people saying he's everything in between....Bioware wrote his character just right because he appeals to all ends of the spectrum.

[Monica21]

Xilizhra wrote...
So it's totally fine to respond to a genocide order with "Well, I don't really want to do this... oh well," and proceed with the head-chopping posthaste?

Well, first, you're using "genocide" wrong. Meredith doesn't want to kill every mage everywhere. She's ordered a Right of Annulment on the Kirkwall Circle. Also, mages are not a national, racial, ethnic, or religious group.

Second, this is fantasy world without a United Nations law to define genocide and punish it, so even if it were genocide, it wouldn't be illegal.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Monica21 wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Playing through Enemies Among Us and talking to the recruits in the Gallows tells you pretty much all you need to know about the Templar command structure. One of the recruits says something like, "Clearly you're not a Templar. A Knight-Leiutenant gives you an order and you follow it." Same goes for a Knight-Commander and a Knight-Captain, though the Knight-Captain has quite a lot more to lose if he's wrong.

This has been legally determined to be a crappy excuse.

Oh, good. You're back. 

No, it hasn't. Meredith is culpable, not Cullen. That is all.

Can't it be both?

I mean, it can be legitimately a crappy excuse while still leaving the vast majority of culpability squarely on Meredith's shoulders.  That's how I see it.

Its like the end of that one movie: one guy thinks you should forgive the soldiers who just tried to murder you, because they were just following orders. The guy who survived an authoritarian genocide says "I've been screwed over enough by people just following orders." Who is to say which one of them is right? It's all a matter of perspective.

This is something I wouldn't understand without martial arts, without having lived in Japan. Sometimes you just have to do what the sensei says. Normally he's just commenting on the angle of your wrist or the bend of your knee, but even if you think he's wrong, that he's contradicting what you believe is correct, you do what he says. Because he's the sensei. The dojo wouldn't work if everyone stopped to argue every time they thought they knew better than the sensei. You can ask them about it later, after class, sure, but when you're in class you follow directions. (Not so grim as following orders, but you get the idea.) 

A military order is like that, but turned up to eleven. Mutiny, desertion, even insubordination, all of those things can get you in huge amounts of trouble, and it's like that for a reason: because to do the things a military has to do, it has to work like clockwork. You have to learn to trust that when your commanding officer says fire, it is a damned good time to fire. If you hesitate, especially if you don't have all the same information your CO has, you could die, or get someone else killed.

That's not to say that nobody should ever defy a military order. There have been some great stories about soldiers refusing to commit atrocities. and that's a very good thing. It's a thing that should probably be made significantly easier to do. But it's also easy to understand why people in a military order need to be able to simply follow orders when they are given, how that improves efficiency and makes doing their job possible, and how failing to do so could cost them everything. Every time you expect a templar to defy an order, you're asking them to go against the weight of all of that: the lives of their friends, the safety of their country, their own wellbeing.

That's why I have more sympathy for Cullen than I would for a non-templar who dislikes mages, or aids in their oppression. He's a soldier, and he obeys his commander. For an army to function, soldiers have to obey their commanders most of the time. It's up to history to decide whether that particular army was "good" or "evil," whether he'll be accused of "just following orders" or rewarded for "loyal service."

Now I've made myself angry at how the universe works. Again. Thanks a lot, bioware boards.

(Also, for those of you who have finished A Dance With Dragons. Near the end there you have an example of a military order defying orders they think are fundamentally wrong. In that particular case, it is utterly odious. In short: people are a problem.) 

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 07 septembre 2011 - 03:35 .

[Monica21]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
Can't it be both?

I mean, it can be legitimately a crappy excuse while still leaving the vast majority of culpability squarely on Meredith's shoulders.  That's how I see it.

Its like the end of that one movie: one guy thinks you should forgive the soldiers who just tried to murder you, because they were just following orders. The guy who survived an authoritarian genocide says "I've been screwed over enough by people just following orders." Who is to say which one of them is right? It's all a matter of perspective.

This is something I wouldn't understand without martial arts, without having lived in Japan. Sometimes you just have to do what the sensei says. Normally he's just commenting on the angle of your wrist or the bend of your knee, but even if you think he's wrong, that he's contradicting what you believe is correct, you do what he says. Because he's the sensei. The dojo wouldn't work if everyone stopped to argue every time they thought they knew better than the sensei. You can ask them about it later, after class, sure, but when you're in class you follow directions. (Not so grim as following orders, but you get the idea.) 

A military order is like that, but turned up to eleven. Mutiny, desertion, even insubordination, all of those things can get you in huge amounts of trouble, and it's like that for a reason: because to do the things a military has to do, it has to work like clockwork. You have to learn to trust that when your commanding officer says fire, it is a damned good time to fire. If you hesitate, especially if you don't have all the same information your CO has, you could die, or get someone else killed.

That's not to say that nobody should ever defy a military order. There have been some great stories about soldiers refusing to commit atrocities. and that's a very good thing. It's a thing that should probably be made significantly easier to do. But it's also easy to understand why people in a military order need to be able to simply follow orders when they are given, how that improves efficiency and makes doing their job possible, and how failing to do so could cost them everything. Every time you expect a templar to defy an order, you're asking them to go against the weight of all of that: the lives of their friends, the safety of their country, their own wellbeing.

Well, here's how I see it. Cullen is probably the only Templar alive who's seen two ordered Annulments. Granted, the first didn't go through, but Greagoir was within rights to order it. The second time he's in a situation that just doesn't seem as dire as the Ferelden Circle, but he was wrong the first time about wanting to kill the surviving mages, so he is very likely questioning himself about wanting to spare the mages in Kirkwall. 

Your example with the sensei is very much like the military. They say jump, you ask how high. Your job is not to question orders or to argue, it's to do as you're told. You have to trust that your superior officer is going to make the right decision. Elthina didn't help much by treating Orsino and Meredith like two kids who were fighting over toys and sending them off to their rooms. I mean, if the Grand Cleric trusts the Knight-Commander, then why shouldn't the Knight-Captain? Not to mention that Cullen knows what will happen if he is wrong. He's met Samson by this point and knows that he'll end up in worse shape, only instead of being free to beg for sovereigns to buy lyrium, he'll slowly go insane behind bars. There really isn't a lot of upside to him defying an RoA.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Yes, but there isn't much upside to a [Historically reviled army] soldier refusing to carry out [Historically reviled utterly evil act] either. They get nothing out of it, except for that years later someone might realize they did a thing and say "well, he certainly was brave" while shaking their head solemnly and forgetting about it five minutes later. This is why the defying of evil orders doesn't happen more often: because there isn't much of an upside for the individual, beyond eventually maybe not being counted among history's greatest monsters. Atrocities happen because we as a society prioritize correctly following orders over basic human compassion.

Sorry... sorry. I got angry about society again.

This is one of those situations where I feel like you're right (we can't scourge Cullen over what he did) for the wrong reasons. A lot of time the right thing to do isn't something that would benefit us! A lot of the time, it's something that would completely screw us over! Saying "Oh, it's ok if he was evil because being good wouldn't benefit him" is several kinds of madness.

The thing is, Cullen isn't making his decisions based on whether or not he thinks what he's doing will benefit him. That's actually part of why I like him so much. He's making this decision based purely and utterly on what he thinks is the right thing to do. Cullen is pretty much the dictionary definition of Lawful Good. Yes, not all characters fit into neat little checkboxes, but if I wanted to write up a description of what Lawful Good looks like, it would look a lot like Cullen. However, Cullen is also a great example as to why Lawful Good is FUNDAMENTALLY LESS GOOD than Neutral good. He is the perfect example of how Lawful Good can fail.

As someone who is lawful good, Cullen thinks that keeping order and following the rules is just as important as doing good. The problem that creates is this: when Cullen encounters a situation where he doesn't know for sure what good thing is, he defaults to following the rules. If he's 100% sure that the law says to follow Meredith, and only 60% sure that what he's doing is wrong, he'll follow Meredith. It's only when something becomes so wrong that it overrules the legal aspect of his reasoning that he will defy the rules.

A neutral good person just does what they believe to be good, regardless of whether it shores up the law or goes against it. Goodness is the only determining factor they use.

(And yes, Chaotic Good has the same drawbacks as Lawful Good, just in the other direction.)

Honestly, Cullen's actions are pretty reasonable when you consider the information he has access to. That's another thing that allows me to be forgiving: If someone is taught their entire life by their whole family that [GROUP] is evil, and they believe it, can you really blame them? If someone has access to all the best information and still makes the wrong call, I hold it against them much more strongly than if they were indoctrinated. Now, granted, all of this reasoning rests pretty firmly on the idea that Cullen was raised in the Chantry from a very young age, and his devotion to the Chantry and to the Order comes from that. It's why I view him differently than Sebastian. Seb has a noble's education. He has all the skills he needs to evaluate things rationally.

Cullen doesn't have the tools to ask the questions he needs to ask. He was never given them. What little ability he has to disobey orders comes from somewhere deep inside him... it's entirely unhoned, untaught, and completely and totally un-nurtured. That's why it's weak. His obedience reflex, that's been shored up with the strongest steel. His ability to think critically about the Order? That's been crushed repeatedly with a hammer his entire life. That he has any sense of right and wrong beyond obedience to the order is a bloody miracle.

And yet people keep tarnishing this miracle with arguments like "you only need to object to evil if objecting to evil won't hurt you!" or "It's not genocide if it's not racial!" or "well, the right of annulment was legal, so that's all right then." Welcome to missing-the-point-ville, population: You.

Cullen doesn't equivocate like that. He just does what he thinks is right, based on a moral center that miraculously exists despite years of heavy-duty brainwashing. That is completely amazing. Sure his moral center is a little bit off... but I can forgive him for it.

[esper]

The problem for me is I can't forgive for it. What I heard when he stood up to defend Hawke against Meridith was a man who stood up to defend the person who needed the defense the least. How Cullen in a pro-mage playthrough can get into his head that Meridith wants to arrest and not kill Hawke is beyond me. And in a pro-templar walkthrough, how can Cullen defend arresting the champion in the first place.
So what I see is a person whose moral center is not just a little off, but completely skewed and in the end he throws even the laws which up to that point has kept him in check away.
I cannot respect or like Cullen because of the way he turns on Meridith. He turns on her for the wrong reasons.

[Xilizhra]

The trouble is that Cullen seems to have nothing against mages until the whole Broken Circle incident; whatever is there wasn't put there by the Chantry itself, but by his convincing himself that mages needed harsher rules based on Uldred's insurgency. And even Greagoir, by no means particularly mage-sympathetic himself, was disturbed by Cullen's harshness on the matter.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Xilizhra wrote...

The trouble is that Cullen seems to have nothing against mages until the whole Broken Circle incident; whatever is there wasn't put there by the Chantry itself, but by his convincing himself that mages needed harsher rules based on Uldred's insurgency. And even Greagoir, by no means particularly mage-sympathetic himself, was disturbed by Cullen's harshness on the matter.

The thing is, Cullen was tortured. For weeks or months, depending on in what order you do those bits of story. Almost everyone he knew was killed by blood mages, right in front of his eyes. It was effin' brutal.

Yes, he does say that he previously thought that the Templars were being too hard on the mages. To me, that shows that this pattern of actually thinking about things is a fundamental part of him. The codex says that that kind of thing is heavily discouraged in Templars, so the fact that he was capable of entertaining those thoughts at any point was pretty extraordinary to begin with.

Now bear in mind that when I first encountered Cullen, I had none of this context. I just saw him there, tortured, and thought "Fen'hariel, that poor man." (I was Dalish, natch.) Even as a Dalish girl who disliked most humans and especially hated the Chantry, I couldn't just hate Cullen. I saw him as just another victim of this stupid human system. When the end cards said he went crazy, I pitied him (Luckily that ended up being just rumors and conjecture.)

I think that Cullen had a tendency towards leniency, but that being tortured and seeing all his friends die the most unspeakably horrible deaths possible nearly drove him insane. It drove him into PTSD and paranoia, but he was able to work through even that, while probably receiving absolutely no help of any kind (apart from that short stabilization vacation he took during Witch Hunt). That's amazing to me.

I don't see Cullen's sudden harshness after Broken Circle as him "convincing himself" that mages need more controls. I see it as a very human reaction to a prolonged period of torture and horror. I've talked about this before: I've spoken and worked with some people who fought in World War II, and some of them are quite prejudiced against people from the Axis countries, even today. I don't think "man, what jerks," rather I think "holy crap, they must have been through some truly terrible things, I'm sorry that happened to them," And that's how I see Cullen... only he actually managed to work through his trauma, likely with very little support. As I said above, that's downright miraculous.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 07 septembre 2011 - 07:24 .

[Xilizhra]

I think he was tortured by demons, not mages. His imprisonment seemed to take place after Uldred was possessed, and there were no normal mages on the tower's upper floors (anything past the sloth demon). I'm also having a hard time getting past the contrasting reaction of Keran, though I can accept that Keran seemed to have been in some kind of half-dreaming state while Cullen stayed awake.

Then again, I don't think Cullen ever made it past it either. He only turns on Meredith when she tries killing Hawke, who isn't part of the Circle and thus not legally subject to the Annulment. He seems to remain a fairly hardline templar through and through, and he doesn't ever seem to change his mind about mages, just realizes how crazy Meredith is.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

Cullen's personal hatred and distrust of mages is certainly understandable, after what was done to him for so long, and after what he had seen done to others. However, the extreme nature of the trauma should have had any responsible templar heierarchy send him off on assignment that did not involve being around Circle mages, or any mages for that matter. He should have been sent to guard a Chantry, or serve as security escorts for Chantry personnel.

Not sent to one of the most harshly and sadistically run Circles in Thedas, and put in a position of power within the templars there. But given Chantry incompetence in about everything they have influence in, it is not surprising that they would do something that stupid. Especially given that they allowed meredith to run amok like she did without doing anything about it.

[Giggles_Manically]

I thought that Meredith actually recruited him because she agreed with his views?
In fact I thought that Gregoir specifically was said to have shipped him way out to avoid him being around mages?