The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
EmperorSahlertz wrote...
The driving expert is not there to teach you, he is there to evaluate you. During your test, he will only ever intervene if you endagner yourself or others. Simply put, he is there to pass judgement, not to aid you. Now, your driving teacher, is there to teach you what you need to know about driving, but lo and behold, he is NOT present during your final test.
By expert I was referring to the teacher. I use the terms interchangeably, since a driving teacher is a driving expert.
Your teacher are not with you on the final test to get your license. You are, for all intents and purposes completely on your own. The expert next to you, is merely there to evaluate you, and to prevent you from bringing harm to others.
The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
A mage MUST learn to walk immediately. Otherwise they will fall prey to demons. They are taught what they need to know on a basic level before the Harrowing. But only through the Harrowing, and the unknowable element of it, can they truly learn to stand on their own. If they actually knew what the Harrowing enticed, and/or even worse, if tehy actually had help during it, it would severely hamper the most critical lesson a mage can learn. Only rely on yourself in the Fade. Sure they can read it in a book, but there is nothing like first-hand experience.
Which is why I said that after a while, they go in on their own and deal with it on their own. After a sufficient amount of time, they will be going in and relying on themselves.
And how much longer do you propse for the Circle education to take? The longer you wait with giving them their final test, an actual encounter with a demon, the greater risk you put them, and everyone around them, in.
The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Hell, the Dalish do a much better job of teaching that lesson then the Circle. That's exactly what Merrill tells Hawke when she's asked about how the Dalish deal with it.
And you have proof of this? And don't you dare give me that ONE line of Merrill dialogue as indisputable proof. She gives you ONE line about what a Dalish is taught about the Fade, nothing else. And you claim, based on ONE line, that Dalish magic doctrines are superior? We know NOTHING of how a Dalish Keeper(/First) is taught. For all we know, the Dalish have an exact copy of the harrowing ritual. All we know is that "They are taught to rely only on themselves" within the Fade, which iirc mirrors quite nice with what Irving tells the mage warden, just prior to him entering his Harrowing.
The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Addtionally...
The Chantry preaches that mages are constantly in contact with the denizens of the Fade. So obviously they've experienced it before if that's true and not just a crock of bull**** -- and on their own terms I might add. Which means they've probably also resisted it as well.
Assuming that bit of Chantry dogma is true and not just lies.
So if they've already been resisting demons, then there's no harm in my idea and it does more good then the Harrowing does in its current form.
Mages are not constantly in contact with demons. But they are constantly capable of contact with demons. I wouldn't be surprised if there have been mages, who have gone through their entire lives, without encountering a demon, not counting their Harrowing. Nor would I doubt, since we have proof of their existance, that there have been mages, who has been harrassed by demons every single day of their life.
The problem lies in the chance. The chance for a mage to encounter a demon, and the results thereof, are simply too high to ever let happen, in an uncontrolled enviroment.
The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
I mean, Bethany and Hawke were raised by an apostate and they were taught how to resist demons and everything the Harrowing supposedly teaches. They didn't fall prey to possession and they never will. So your assertion that "helping a mage know what to do is detrimental to what they need to be able to do on their own" doesn't really fly.
We have no idea how Bethany and Hawke were taught. For all we know they followed the Circle teaching to the letter. That is indeed most likely, since Bethany writes to Hawke about the Harrowing, fully expecting Hawke to understand what it is.
The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Both the corruption of faith and turning to the Old Gods due to their promises of power from beyond the veil (blood magic in the legends), and the gravest of any sin ever commited (according to an Andrastian) the corruption of the Golden City. Both had magic at their root.
Both had mages at their root, not magic. The Mages were the power at the time. If normal men were the power, the Old Gods might've communicated with them in some non-Fade related way -- if that's how they communicated with the Magisters. Could've just been through mental communication -- and turned man away from the Maker.
At any rate, there's no sense to punish the mages of today for the acts of what happened in the past.
Mages are nothing without magic.
If we are going to take the old legends for its word, the old Gods communed with mages from across the veil, and seduced them to corruption.
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