Fast Jimmy wrote...
The Qun is superior to any Real Life philosophy of collectivism and/or communal dictatorship, like the examples given of Iran, Cambodia and the like.
The reason it is superior is because it has survived.
Has survived in a Fantasy setting
Fast Jimmy wrote...
The problem with every Real Life hardline philosophy the requires a national devotion to the common good is that it fails. Eventually, those in power abuse the people the doctrine is designed to protect and they revolt. Its happened countless times throughout the past 150 years, when these types of philosophies first began to take form.
Depends on the type of abuse and how the people reacts to it and the external influences around them, which actually is something that in the actua lreal world you can't avoid to have.
Populations are able to suffer a huge ammount of abuse, for instance in the last years of the Roman Empire, if their first necessities are covered and they don't receive any influence from the outside world.
Obviously that is tightly related to economics, when economy goes boyant then people are getting money, meaning their primary needs are covered and they are happy.
In the Roman Empire the problem mainly started as society being stagnant, economy slowly collapsing and inflation getting bigger and bigger, people started to be unhappy, civil wars ensued, the barbarians came and the rest is history.
In soviet Russia not only they had started to have huge economic problems, but also the worst, influence from the western countries started to show them that there was another world out there.
How this stuff relates to the Qun? We don't know how Qunari economy works, so it might make the point moot, but keeping in mind that making them fully open to economics might allow outsiders to spoil the Qunari lands with their ideas about freedom and democracy, is it far fetched to believe they would close the borders and try for a more protectionist state?
Now problem with protectionist economics is that in real life, they have a huge inflation unless the Qunari starts to expand and make satellite countries around with their own economies that will buy their goods, they will get eventually stagnant, the state will stop providing for its citizens as resources start to go by and so, their only solution will be expansion.
And that's fine and cool for the Qun, problem is that in Thedas the alliance of all the nations there to stop the Qunari was seen as an strange element that kind of thing that happens once in an Era right? on earth while not the whole world goes to get medieval into somebody's ass, due to extremely complex alliance systems since the Babylonians decided that this hunting gathering stuff was bull**** and settled down, all the regional powers will start to band together and assaul the Qunari would they try to cross the borders. Think of Ottoman history, every single time they tried to take one single city, they had the most of Germany, parts of Italy, and Russia getting into the war regardless if the Ottomans were to attack them or not in the first place.
Depending on the era as well they would just attack them to change their religion or so, making the Qunari the defenders instead of the agressors, they might be more sucessful if they are in any era except for this one, but again, unless they manage to convert huge ammount of humans within their territory they are screwed.
Fast Jimmy wrote...
Meanwhile, the Qun has existed for centuries as the Kossith's main form of government. And while there have been dissenters and those who have left the Qun and their society, it still remains intact. In addition to that, they have advanced culturally (as Sten is a fine appreciator of art work created by other cultures, showing he understands basic concepts of form and stroke technique at the very least), scientifically (as they have developed cannons), militarily (as they were set to nearly conquer a large chunk of Tevinter prior to losing their Tome) and economically.
The Romans hated the Sassanids and the Sassanids hated the Romans. Still the Sassanids appreciated that Rome had built an amazing warmachine and the Romans that the Sassanids had a lot of cool cultural goodies they might use...appreciating other cultures is something that happens, not an entire culture will totally despise anything of another because well...there is no Mordor in the World (and even then, Mordor had an amazing industrial capability IMO so...)
Fast Jimmy wrote...
The Qun has survived transitions of power, it has survived defectors, it has survived outside influences and it has survived attacks by other religions, most notably the Chantry.
So had many muslim countries, China, many christian countries...the list goes on
Fast Jimmy wrote...
So if we are to say "if the Qun were real" we would have to take all this into consideration. That the tenets of the Qun, which are largely a mystery to us despite both games dealing with the Qunari, is successful at indoctrinating its followers into believing as is necessary, but also be adaptable enough to deal with constant new threats and situations, proving that its teachings and methods are sound. It shows us that it truly does conquer the baser natures of the individual and teaches them to serve the common good in a way that is not mindless, but mindful. It shows that the means at which a role is assigned at birth is exceptionally accurate, as centuries of under-utilized talent would cause its people to be backward and weak, not astute and strong. It shows that in all societies a level of personal freedom is surrendered (in the form of laws) but that the Qun is perhaps the perfect balance of this surrendering of freedom and personal choice.
Problem is that it is not adaptable enough. Let's say that the Qunari assault country x after a great battle destroying all of X's force. If they are still having a chance to put on a fight, X will raise all they can on Farmers and so and use them in the war. In the Qunari lands that won't happen because only a portion of the Qunari are deemed from birth to be warriors...so no draft, no conscription which is good because it makes more professional armies but has two problems.
The first related to economy so, until we see how this works, it will be an enigma, the second related to numbers, we can afford to have professional armies in the west because we are either going to face countries with also professional armies, or we are going to surpass them technologically and use other western allies.
The Qunari on their behalf, don't seem to be the "making alliances types", are very few, they have the technological prowess in Thedas but keeping as how cientific advancement in their society would just happen when a random guy with a wand decides that X will be a scientist, I don't see them actually having the edge in our world...as in at all.
Retour en haut
(related to a discussion refering qunari female involvement in qunari society we had in the past). And after slaughtering all the Qunari, in Chapter III there were still Qunari without armor so...we will have to assume that, despite Sten's dream having all of them clad in Platemail they are now naked as Aztecs for some reason. Actually if you see, the Arishok does wear an armor...well open to the chest but you get my saying.
