39 réponses à ce sujet

[Gervaise]

I get a bit annoyed when the words mage and magister are used interchangeably. Merrill is a mage. The Magisters are the ruling elite in Tevinter. There is a codex that explains this. All the various categories of mage found in the Circle from apprentice up to First Enchanter, were taken directly from the grading of mages in Tevinter. The only one that is missing from the Circle is the title Magister - for obvious reasons.

The arguements you use about are ridiculous - I was well aware that Tamlen was infected by accident, so was only guilty of stupidity in tinkering with something incautiously.

My Dalish warden was merely distrustful of humans, not aggressive. There is no way he would have considered Shartan a traitor, particularly when the spirit acknowledged an element of political expediency in what he did (the enemy of my enemy is my friend).

However, the Tevinter are a different thing entirely, particularly as they were never totally destroyed. There is nothing about Tevinter that I or my warden have heard/read that makes me think it any better now it claims to worship the Maker instead of the old gods, but anything to do with old Tevinter is best left alone. After seeing Corypheus and hearing what he has to say, it is clear that Maker or no Maker they overstepped the mark with their magic and paid for it, but so has the rest of Thedas ever since. It is the ultimate cautionary tale about the misuse of magic.

The whole point of why the Keepers are meant to remember is to recover the old elven culture. If blood magic was not part of that culture, then Merrill is not recovering her old culture but introducing something new and potentially very dangerous. Doing deals with demons as quick fix to a problem is also dangerous (as the experience shows) and irresponsible. Sometimes "the end does not justify the means".

[Myusha]

The ridiculousness of my arguments prove my point. Your view point on Merrill is as narrow as those statements were. Apparently, her writer knew Merrill would approve of endorse a Blood Magic Ritual involving Old Gods. Blood Magic alone isn't Merrill's goal. She intends to fix the god damn mirror through it and she believes, Blood Magic can recover more LORE. She doesn't like seeing history destroyed when it can offer so many paths to a better future. Her people LOST their past, and it's all that matters to them now. If she can bring any of it, she's a hero. Tevinters are connected to the Dalish. If their lore has been intertwined at some point, does mean Tevinter holds some of the Dalish's lore? Should they condemn the Magisters when they might lose their history?

NOT EVERYTHING is black and white.

[GreenClover]

Myusha wrote...

 Blood Magic alone isn't Merrill's goal. She intends to fix the god damn mirror through it and she believes, Blood Magic can recover more LORE. 
 

Can you please tell me then, what lore she's trying to recover, what are her reasons, when she gives you friendship points for selling Feynriel (gosh, I hope I wrote the name right since I never saw it's English spelling) to the demon and goes rival every time you reject Torpor's offer? What is it, if not  her passion towards making deals with demons and using BM? Because I really fail to understand this moment. I mean I always thought she is not reasonable when it's about blood magic, but at least her intentions are usually good. However, when I saw her supporting the idea of giving an innocent to a demon... I was surprised. VERY surprised. I know the topic isn't about that quest, but your words made me to remember the question I had.
And before anyone said anything like "No, she gives you rivalry points because you refuse to listen to Torpor, not because you give him the boy!" (I really saw such posts before). I tried this episode a few times, and Merrill reacts the following way:
- you decide to kill  the demon immediatly when you see it = 5 rivalry
- you say "OK, I'm listening", but attak the demon after his first phrase = 5 rivalry
- you listen till the very end of the offer, but refuse to make a deal = 5 rivalry (even though Merrill says it may be not a good idea, so situation is really strange)
- you agree to abandon the half-elf = 5 friendship.
There is no other kind of reaction, if you don't also bring Anders with you. Coming with Anders makes the thing go another way, I suppouse everybody knows the way he reacts in this quest. 

Modifié par GreenClover, 11 octobre 2011 - 10:15 .

[TEWR]

GreenClover wrote...

Myusha wrote...

 Blood Magic alone isn't Merrill's goal. She intends to fix the god damn mirror through it and she believes, Blood Magic can recover more LORE. 
 

Can you please tell me then, what lore she's trying to recover, what are her reasons, when she gives you friendship points for selling Feynriel (gosh, I hope I wrote the name right since I never saw it's English spelling) to the demon and goes rival every time you reject Torpor's offer?

 
She gives friendship for listening to what Torpor has to say and not outright saying "NO" in a Sten or Arishok voice.

Believe it or not, a person can in fact work with a demon and play the demon before the person gets played themselves. The Warden can do this to Sophia Dryden, Kitty, and I believe a few others. Hawke can do this to Torpor and the Hunger Demon in the Deep Roads.

She gives approval for you finding out necessary information on the demons plaguing Feynriel. She gives approval for saying "Sure I'll work with you!", but that doesn't mean you're actually going to follow through with it.

You're giving the demon a false sense of trust so that you can betray him, because you have now gained necessary information about Wryme and Caress from Torpor.

What is it, if not  her passion towards making deals with demons and using BM? Because I really fail to understand this moment. I mean I always thought she is not reasonable when it's about blood magic, but at least her intentions are usually good. However, when I saw her supporting the idea of giving an innocent to a demon... I was surprised. VERY surprised. I know the topic isn't about that quest, but your words made me to remember the question I had.
And before anyone said anything like "No, she gives you rivalry points because you refuse to listen to Torpor, not because you give him the boy!" (I really saw such posts before). I tried this episode a few times, and Merrill reacts the following way:
- you decide to kill  the demon immediatly when you see it = 5 rivalry
- you say "OK, I'm listening", but attak the demon after his first phrase = 5 rivalry
- you listen till the very end of the offer, but refuse to make a deal = 5 rivalry (even though Merrill says it may be not a good idea, so situation is really strange)
- you agree to abandon the half-elf = 5 friendship.
There is no other kind of reaction, if you don't also bring Anders with you. Coming with Anders makes the thing go another way, I suppouse everybody knows the way he reacts in this quest. 

Then you experienced something different from me, because I got friendship for just listening to Torpor saying I'll let him have Feynriel, but then betraying him at the end. The Warden did the exact same thing to Kitty.

[Gervaise]

The difference between Torpor and Kitty is that with Kitty you just listen, you don't agree to give her the child, though you might pretend the demon will have its freedom, because that is the only way to free the little girl from the situation. In fact it is the demon who goes back on the deal, because it says it will take the little girl anyway.

I don't often take Merrill with me into the Fade but Greenclover is right, Merrill has no way of knowing that you are agreeing to hand over Feynriel as a trick, so essentially she is approving of giving the demon what he wants, an innocent boy. Presumably, if you go through with the deal, she doesn't then back track and give you rival points? How can she possibly approve of such an action?

Why has Merrill got this blind spot about demons? I've got a good mind to replay the game again and this time take her with me everytime I know there is going to be the possibility of doing a deal with a demon (Deep Roads, Fade, Harriman Estate, etc) just to see her reaction. And if the writers hadn't gone back on their own law (in Origins) which requires you to do a deal with a demon in order to learn blood magic, it would be clear that her first step was to make a deal with a demon (Anders aludes to this but it is not as explicit as it should be), and so naturally she is not going to condemn anyone for making a deal with a demon because it would mean condemning her own original action, which was not done to save an innocent's life but as a short cut to mending an inanimate object. She admits that it could have been done with lyrium if she had it - in that case, the mirror isn't going anywhere, save up and trade for the lyrium to do it.

The other point about the mirror is that her own Keeper is against what she is doing. Whilst some elven code compells her to surrender that tool after you complete the quest for it, she specifically asks you not to give it to Merrill and the latter gets extremely shirty with you if you comply with the advice of the Keeper. The demon who was after her is a Pride Demon for very good reason. She is utterly convinced that she knows what is best, that she is capable of using blood magic safely and yet ignores a fundamental aspect of her culture - that you work in the best interests of the clan not just your own self interest and glory. In fact the clan even condemn their Keeper's actions in saving Merrill from the demon because she put her affection for the latter above the good of the clan.

My only gripe with the Keeper is that apparently it is okay to send Merrill away with a potentially dangerous artifact and when she knows she is in consultation with a demon who could end up posssessing her, because if Merrill becomes possessed then the only people who will suffer are potentially Hawke, Companions, the alienage elves and the wider population of Kirkwall. Between her and Merrill it is almost enough to put me off Dalish elves entirely - which is not easy since I'm an elf person. My only complaint with the writers is that I was not given the opportunity just to say "NO".

[GreenClover]

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
She gives friendship for listening to what Torpor has to say and not outright saying "NO" in a Sten or Arishok voice. 
She gives approval for you finding out necessary information on the demons plaguing Feynriel. She gives approval for saying "Sure I'll work with you!", but that doesn't mean you're actually going to follow through with it.

You're giving the demon a false sense of trust so that you can betray him, because you have now gained necessary information about Wryme and Caress from Torpor. [/quote]

.[/quote]
Oh, really? Then why the hell she gives me rivalry points even if I get all the information from Torpor, but still refuse to work with him? Again, she doesn't give you friendship for simply listening to him, only for giving him the boy.  For betraying the demon too, surely, but that happens next, she can't know for sure you are going to betray Torpor. There is no "Persuade: lie" line in this dialogue, this is the difference between Hawke and the Warden. And if the devs wanted us to see how she approves this cheating, it would be better not to give her approval right after the first dialogue. With rivalry points for ALL the other dialogue options, it looks confusing. I even thought it might be some sort of bug, because in such situation it does look like Merrill approves not simply listening, but giving people to demons, whicn I hope she can't truly aprrove. 
And I dare to say that it is you who got "something different", because I wasn't the only one who made this little test, the were also few other players, and we got the same result 
But I think, the test will be fair enough only if I go further and try to really hand Feynriel over. I mean, what if Merrill really can take her friendship points back? This would make the situation more cliar. 

Modifié par GreenClover, 11 octobre 2011 - 04:14 .

[TEWR]

GreenClover wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
She gives friendship for listening to what Torpor has to say and not outright saying "NO" in a Sten or Arishok voice. 
She gives approval for you finding out necessary information on the demons plaguing Feynriel. She gives approval for saying "Sure I'll work with you!", but that doesn't mean you're actually going to follow through with it.

You're giving the demon a false sense of trust so that you can betray him, because you have now gained necessary information about Wryme and Caress from Torpor. 

.
Oh, really? Then why the hell she gives me rivalry points even if I get all the information from Torpor, but still refuse to work with him? Again, she doesn't give you friendship for simply listening to him, only for giving him the boy.  For betraying the demon too, surely, but that happens next, she can't know for sure you are going to betray Torpor. There is no "Persuade: lie" line in this dialogue, this is the difference between Hawke and the Warden. And if the devs wanted us to see how she approves this cheating, it would be better not to give her approval right after the first dialogue. With rivalry points for ALL the other dialogue options, it looks confusing. I even thought it might be some sort of bug, because in such situation it does look like Merrill approves not simply listening, but giving people to demons, whicn I hope she can't truly aprrove. 
And I dare to say that it is you who got "something different", because I wasn't the only one who made this little test, the were also few other players, and we got the same result 
But I think, the test will be fair enough only if I go further and try to really hand Feynriel over. I mean, what if Merrill really can take her friendship points back? This would make the situation more cliar. 

*sigh*

If you actually read all of my post I acknowledged that yes you have to say "Sure I'll work with you!". But that doesn't mean you'll follow through with it when Torpor's trying to actually possess Feynriel. It's letting Torpor think he'll actually possess Feynriel that she approves of. Merrill thinks that Hawke is trying to play the demon before he plays you.

Hence why she gives approval then and not when Torpor actually possesses Feynriel.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 11 octobre 2011 - 04:49 .

[TEWR]

Gervaise wrote...

The difference between Torpor and Kitty is that with Kitty you just listen, you don't agree to give her the child, though you might pretend the demon will have its freedom, because that is the only way to free the little girl from the situation. In fact it is the demon who goes back on the deal, because it says it will take the little girl anyway.

I don't often take Merrill with me into the Fade but Greenclover is right, Merrill has no way of knowing that you are agreeing to hand over Feynriel as a trick, so essentially she is approving of giving the demon what he wants, an innocent boy. Presumably, if you go through with the deal, she doesn't then back track and give you rival points? How can she possibly approve of such an action?

Actually no you can agree to give her the child. You can also just lie to Kitty saying you'll hand over the child. Doesn't mean you'll actually do it. And I believe the Warden can in fact back out of the deal.

Yes Amalia is trapped with a demon. But Feynriel's trapped with 3 demons! Torpor, Wryme, and Caress. Lying to Torpor, even if there's no crossed fingers, is a great idea there. That's the reason why there are no crossed fingers actually. So the player can choose whether they lied or whether they were honest. All other instances where the lie icon was present were instances where there were no more interactions with the person lied to (see Athenril in Loose Ends as one example).

Torpor will be interacted with again later, which is why it doesn't force the player to lie. It's the player's choice whether he/she lied or was honest. Merrill is under the belief that Hawke is trying to trick the demon. That's what she talks about when you bring her to the Deep Roads at the end of Act 1! She says you can play a demon before they play you.

by your logic, you should also be taking issue with how Morrigan disapproves of the Warden immediately attacking Kitty when she makes it clear she doesn't deal with demons.

Why has Merrill got this blind spot about demons? I've got a good mind to replay the game again and this time take her with me everytime I know there is going to be the possibility of doing a deal with a demon (Deep Roads, Fade, Harriman Estate, etc) just to see her reaction. And if the writers hadn't gone back on their own law (in Origins) which requires you to do a deal with a demon in order to learn blood magic, it would be clear that her first step was to make a deal with a demon (Anders aludes to this but it is not as explicit as it should be), and so naturally she is not going to condemn anyone for making a deal with a demon because it would mean condemning her own original action, which was not done to save an innocent's life but as a short cut to mending an inanimate object. She admits that it could have been done with lyrium if she had it - in that case, the mirror isn't going anywhere, save up and trade for the lyrium to do it.

"gone back on their own law"? 

Okay, four things:

1) that's not a law. It's a commonly held belief. There's a big difference between the two
2) They didn't go back on anything
3) She did deal with a demon. She dealt with Audacity to learn it, something you talked about in your post. So
4) The only reason a person has to deal with a demon is because of the Chantry's ban on blood magic and subsequent burning of anything related. Because of that, anything that deals with blood magic has been forgotten to all but the denizens of the Fade. The arcane is eternal in the Fade.


Also, do you know how hard it is to find lyrium? The lyrium is controlled by the Chantry, and what the Chantry doesn't get is kept in Orzammar.

Add into that the Carta who try to get their hands on lyrium (very violently I might add) and it's next to impossible to get it unless you're a Dwarf or in the Circle, where you can get it safely and not have to worry about the dangerous effects, since handling raw lyrium is incredibly dangerous. The kind of danger that results in death.

What you're asking for is for her to travel miles and miles and miles alone from Sundermount to Kirkwall so she can get lyrium. Do you know how well that would go over? Assuming she made it there safely -- which she doubts as well as I -- she'd have to go straight to the Templars or the Carta.

Merrill: Hi there Mr. Templar. I need a lot of lyrium.
Templar: I can sense you're a mage! Get her!
*Merrill gets caught, possibly killed*

Merrill: Hi there Mr. Dwarf. I could use a lot of lyrium
Dwarf: It'll cost you 100 sovereigns
Merrill: I don't have that kind of money.
Dwarf: No money, no lyrium.
Merrill: But... please...
*who knows what would happen. Might get killed, might still be alive, might impress the Dwarf with her cuteness*

The other point about the mirror is that her own Keeper is against what she is doing. Whilst some elven code compells her to surrender that tool after you complete the quest for it, she specifically asks you not to give it to Merrill and the latter gets extremely shirty with you if you comply with the advice of the Keeper. The demon who was after her is a Pride Demon for very good reason. She is utterly convinced that she knows what is best, that she is capable of using blood magic safely and yet ignores a fundamental aspect of her culture - that you work in the best interests of the clan not just your own self interest and glory. In fact the clan even condemn their Keeper's actions in saving Merrill from the demon because she put her affection for the latter above the good of the clan.

Maybe because the deal was between Merrill and Marethari, not Marethari and Hawke? Hawke's a shemlen who has no knowledge of anything elven-related and was only a witness to a deal. He was not the actual person involved in the making of the deal.

Marethari is a selfish, self-righteous, arrogant, audacious woman who spread baseless lies about Merrill to the clan in an effort to poison Merrill's standing there. She started talking about how Merrill would bring back the Blight disease when Merrill made it clear many times that the Eluvian shard was cleansed of the corruption! What's worse is that Marethari had the gall to ask Merrill to return afterwards, like everything would just go back to normal!

No. Just plain no.

Were Merrill to return, she would be hated by the clan. If she did have the Blight disease (which she didn't and the games prove this), returning to the clan wouldn't stop it. It would spread throughout her body. Did it stop for Mahariel when he left the ruins? No. It was in his body.

But since she didn't have the disease, the clan would hate her. And if Marethari told the clan that she (Marethari) lied about Merrill bringing back anything, they would turn their hatred to the Keeper for lying to them.

Fear did more damage to the clan than anything else ever could. It caused them to act irrationally and blame Merrill for any misfortune that happened.

And don't you wonder why Marethari is so quick to believe what a demon said when she urged Merrill not to do the same? Hypocrisy at its finest.

What about how the demon wasn't responding to Marethari and Marethari still becomes possessed when the party doesn't speak to her? That means that she became possessed long before the party ever arrived at Sundermount, placing her own clan in danger (and this is true even if you do talk to her)

The Eluvians don't link to the Fade at all. Morrigan told us this. She says they link beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade. And Audacity was sundered from the Fade much like Justice was, so he was trapped in the mortal world. Blood magic does nothing to the Eluvians. The Tevinters used their magic on it when they got their hands on it and were only able to get fancy telephones.

Not to mention that Marethari said Audacity was trapped in that statue for centuries and would continue to be trapped unless as Merrill said someone freed it with a powerful spell (something Merrill made clear to an aggressive Hawke she had no intention of doing when she asked for help).

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 11 octobre 2011 - 08:02 .

[dragonflight288]

I personally find it VERY difficult, actually quite impossible to blame Merrill for the problems with the Dalish. She was separated from them for years. In the third act, several Dalish were planning on leaving without the clan because they were frustrated with staying in one place and having templars make threats against them if they don't convert to the Chant of Light...and torturing their young hunters because that hunter might know where an apostate is.

And when Hawke may take responsibility for Merrill, all the Dalish are talking about when he/she says that is that it's time to teach Merrill and lesson because she drove the Keeper to a Demon. I usually have Hawke go on and say Merethari was an abomination, we had no choice but to kill her. They won't listen to the shemlen (and not even a grey warden to give him respect) and thanks to Merethari, they have hated Merrill for years. The dalish are simply too arrogant to accept any views but their own, and their view was that Merrill was responsible for all their problems.

[Mr.House]

But the old gods did not teach blood magic, it was created by the forgotten ones.......

[TEWR]

Mr.House wrote...

But the old gods did not teach blood magic, it was created by the forgotten ones.......

the origins of blood magic are unknown really. People believe that it was learned from Dumat, the Forbidden Ones like Xebenkeck and the like, or the Elven Pantheon since some sources claim Elves knew blood magic long before Tevinter.

I'm leaning towards the Elves being the ones who knew it first, which is a good reason why Merrill approves of blood magic related stuff. It's a part of her lost culture, and the Tevinters are the ones who became associated with it primarily.

It could also help to explain how the elves were immortal. Perhaps they used some sort of blood magic spell that didn't rely on the blood of hundreds of people. Zathrian's ritual, while unique in its own right, lends credence to this.

Granted he summoned the Spirit of the Forest into the world and bound it to Witherfang, which the Lady says that such magic required his own blood and that's what kept him alive. But it is similar to the immortality of the Elves of Old. And if the Elves of Old all possessed magic like Merrill says the stories claim, it further supports my theory (somewhat. Not a lot, but a little)

[Jedi Master of Orion]

We know almost nothing about the Forgotten Ones. I don't think there was ever any mention of them being related to the existence of blood magic.

[Gervaise]

Tahrone mentions it in her book and claims they had first contact but then ties it to a date post formation of the Chantry, so probably misinformed. May be she was referring to the first contact made after the Chantry outlawed the practice.

Most codexes refer to humans learning blood magic from Dumat/old gods. The book on the Makers First Children that is on a bench in Fenris mansion suggests this was taught by Andraste but I am pretty sure that is what the Tevinter believed as well. According to threnodies the old gods are really powerful demons. One assumes that the Tevinter would know the origins of their magic - the blood magic was particularly feared because the old Magisters used blood magic to aid them in possessing people's minds and even killing them. Presumably they were able to do this even if they weren't dreamers. This would link well into it being taught by demons as they would be experts on the art of possession. The blood mage specialty also allows you to possess other people's minds, and that group of rogue mages in Hightown were doing this in Act 3.

Even if the contact with a demon in order to learn the blood mage specialty is no longer explicit (what I meant by a law/lore of the writers in DAO), the strong links to possession point in that direction.

Using blood magic increases the mage's own risk of possession because it allows them to draw far more power from the Fade than they would normally be capable of without assistance. Without blood magic they would need the help of fellow mages and this builds in certain safeguards to prevent abuse of the magic (though of course is not fool proof) However, the real fear about blood magic is the danger to other people because the demon will require a price in return for knowledge granted. So in Origins, Connor is the price, in DA2 Lady Harriman sacrifices her own families minds, Tahrone gives that of Templar recruits, Quentin would appear to give the souls of his victims.

If Merrill did not promise anything to the demon in return for the knowledge it gave about the mirror, it would seem that it was content with biding its time. May be it sensed Marathari's weakness that was revealled through her deception of her people and played Merrill along in the hope of snaring the Keeper instead, whilst letting Marathari believe that Merrill was its prey. Merrill certainly says they both heard the Demon in their dreams.

It may well be that the ancient elves used blood magic. The big question is, was this before or after they appeared to lose contact with their own "gods". If before, is this what broke contact? If after, was it an act of desparation? Were the elven gods spirits like those who work with Spirit Healers, which seem to have no desire to possess or receive "payment" for their aid, or were they demons? The chief elven gods were meant to embody Vengence and Justice. The Justice spirit in Anders is against blood magic and is pretty ruthless when angry - is it at all possible that a similar set of spirits comprised the chief elven "gods" and when elves started having dealing with demons through blood magic, responded by cutting off all contact. Just an idea that came to me but probably no more than a coincidence.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Tahrone's books mention the Forbidden Ones, which are a sect of very powerful demons. The Forgotten Ones are the enemies of the Creators. My guess is that it's a conflicting account of history.

[Morroian]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

Tahrone's books mention the Forbidden Ones, which are a sect of very powerful demons. The Forgotten Ones are the enemies of the Creators. My guess is that it's a conflicting account of history.

Yep and we have actually met 2 of the Forbidden ones, Gaxkang and Xebenkek.