1194 réponses à ce sujet

[Silfren]

Sir Pounce-a-lot wrote...

There is no rational reason to support Meredith. Killing people for a crime that they did not commit has no legitimate excuse at all. A Chantry full of people would have created a much stronger emotional impact, and aside from emotion-based thinking, there is no reason to support Meredith at all. You didn't even know about Orsino's blood magic until he flips out on you well into the battle. Regardless, what about all the Circle mages that aren't into blood magic?

Regardless, Anders needs to be executed.

Dude, get over it.  The Chantry had PLENTY of emotional impact.  I can't believe you're trying to argue that it didn't when so many hundreds of people in these forums have made it abundantly clear it did.  Or, if you're not trying to argue that, why you keep going on and on and on about why it should have had more.  I've already pointed out the very good reason why we DON'T need to see more people in the Chantry.  This action, by itself, separate from what Meredith chooses to do afterward, needs to have enough moral ambiguity that some players can legitimately call it NOT an act of terrorism but an act of war.  You completely destroy that ambiguity by showing beyond any doubt that the Chantry was full of innocents.

I can't believe I've been maneuvered into the position of defending why people support Meredith.  

There ARE reasons to do it, that have nothing to do with emotion-based thinking as you put it.  If you roleplay a practical Hawke who believes it is NECESSARY, completely irrespective of whether it is GOOD or RIGHT or JUST, then there you go.  It is completely possible to believe that the Annulment is an abhorrent but necessary thing to do. 

Also, given that what happens to Hawke's mother, you can also have a Hawke who just ultimately decides that all mages everywhere need to be killed, especially if you roleplay a Hawke who supported Anders right up to the last only to see him betray you in such a spectacular way.  There are various roleplay options available for why a person would side with Meredith in destroying the Circle and it doesn't have to have anything at all to do with whether the Circle mages are innocent of Anders' crime or not.

Modifié par Silfren, 24 avril 2012 - 09:45 .

[Sir Pounce-a-lot]

Anders killed innocent people regardless, and still needed to die. The Circle mages are innocent and are people, regardless of what Quentin did. Persecuting and killing innocent people is wrong, and can't be rationally defended. Sure, Hawke could be anti-Mage, pro-templar, and be smooching Meredith's tyrannical tush the whole game, but it would be wrong. A Chantry full of people with dead babies being pulled from the rubble would have reminded people of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Regards,
Dude

[Cantina]

Sir Pounce-a-lot wrote...

Anders killed innocent people regardless, and still needed to die. The Circle mages are innocent and are people, regardless of what Quentin did. Persecuting and killing innocent people is wrong, and can't be rationally defended. Sure, Hawke could be anti-Mage, pro-templar, and be smooching Meredith's tyrannical tush the whole game, but it would be wrong. A Chantry full of people with dead babies being pulled from the rubble would have reminded people of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Regards,
Dude

Uh, not to be an ass here, but comparing a real life event to a fantasy event is just idiotic. No offense to you or anyone but it is. It is a game, there is no true right or wrong on the choices you made at the end of the game. I spare and Anders and runaway with him each time I play the game. To me it is the right choice and if people disagree with that, fine voice your opinion and I will voice mine. The interesting part is voicing your opinion, but when you try to make your point on that opinion by using real life events, well, to me your opinion no longer matters. I also have a hard time thinking those people who do such a thing cannot tell the difference between real life and fantasy. Plus to add they seem to be grasping at straws to try to make a point when they have none.

Modifié par Cantina, 25 avril 2012 - 01:01 .

[Sir Pounce-a-lot]

I know that it's a game. However, Dragon Age games raise ethical dilemmas of sorts, and those dilemmas can be logically and rationally analyzed. The characters in DA games are no more real than Pac Man or Frogger, but the ethics content is worth discussing.

What Anders did was terrorism. It was akin to what McVeigh did. So, why not call a spade a spade? If Bioware wants to portray terrorist acts, then why not show how ugly they really are? Then again, Bioware might have thought that that would be going too far, and I can't blame them. Still, I judged Anders the same way that I would have judged a real terrorist.

Don't worry Cantina.  I know you're not an ass, and if you are then you're the first donkey in the history of planet Earth that can write and speak.  ... Wait, do you know Shrek?  

Modifié par Sir Pounce-a-lot, 25 avril 2012 - 08:52 .

[TheRatPack55]

Sir Pounce-a-lot wrote...

Anders killed innocent people regardless, and still needed to die. The Circle mages are innocent and are people, regardless of what Quentin did. Persecuting and killing innocent people is wrong, and can't be rationally defended. Sure, Hawke could be anti-Mage, pro-templar, and be smooching Meredith's tyrannical tush the whole game, but it would be wrong. A Chantry full of people with dead babies being pulled from the rubble would have reminded people of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Regards,
Dude

This 'comparing DA2 events to real life'  works both ways - I personally could see the Chantry as akin to the catholic church/Vatican during WW2 - ignoring the Holocaust and in some ways actively supporting **** Germany (aka the Templars) and turning a blind eye to the issue of concentration camps (aka the Circle). Now I don't really feel as strongly about a game as I do about the Holocaust, of course, but in my eyes this works as a parallel of sorts (Tranquil Solution, anyone?). Either way, for me Anders is a hero, and to continue with the WW2 theme, his act was as necassary as atom bombing Japan - and nobody calls that terrorism.

Edit: Huh, apparently the political ideology prominent in Germany in the first half of the 20th century is a four-letter word, according to forum censorship rules...

Modifié par TheRatPack55, 25 avril 2012 - 10:20 .

[Pappi]

I did actullay, most of the way through DA2. I found the mages very hard to sympathise with, particulary as it it seemed like every other enemy I fought in DA2 were infected mages. It seemed like the city was overun with them!

I think being able to go inside the circle in DA2 would have prompted mpore sympathy. I had it for the mages on DA1, but in two most of them come off as whingy, willing to kill templars and go out of control...sigh

[Urzon]

TheRatPack55 wrote...

 Either way, for me Anders is a hero, and to continue with the WW2 theme, his act was as necassary as atom bombing Japan - and nobody calls that terrorism.

US using the atom bomb on Japan = An act of evil to stop a war.

Anders using a bomb to blow up the Chantry = An act of evil to cause a war.

[TheRatPack55]

Urzon wrote...


US using the atom bomb on Japan = An act of evil to stop a war.

Anders using a bomb to blow up the Chantry = An act of evil to cause a war.

My stance here would be: Anders using a bomb to blow up the Chantry = A necessary act of relative evil to stop a holocaust.

[Urzon]

TheRatPack55 wrote...

My stance here would be: Anders using a bomb to blow up the Chantry = A necessary act of relative evil to stop a holocaust.

Anders bombed the Chantry because he wanted Meredith to enact the RoA.

It wasn't to stop a holocaust.  He wanted Meredith to try and kill them all. He wanted to take the choice out of all the mages' hands, and he made them fight for their lives. Their thoughts and opinions didn't matter to him. All that mattered to him was to start a war between the templar and mages, so the mages could (were made) to fight for their freedom.

Modifié par Urzon, 25 avril 2012 - 11:58 .

[TheRatPack55]

^ The thoughts and opinions of mages were pretty clear throughout the game - the despairing comments in the Gallows, the stories of Malcolm Hawke and Anders himself, even all the crazed mages turning to demons to gain freedom were a pretty good indicator of what the wishes of most mages were. Sure, not many people's first choice would be to fight in a war to liberate themselves from oppression, but there were simply no other options left. Peaceful solutions failed - Elthina refused to see reason, Meredith was going insane, Anders' manifesto was ridiculed. The holocaust was already happening - mages were locked up, abused and turned tranquil en masse. And honestly, even if they weren't the entire system was rotten to the core and had to be overturned. Didn't the ending monologue say clearly that Hawke's name became a battle cry for Mages, and Circles everywhere were rebelling? They could have just refused to join the fight, you know - leave the whole war in Kirkwall.
Seriously, to me saying mages might not have wanted the same thing Anders did is like saying RL holocaust victims might not have wanted to be liberated from concentration camps - since they didn't all rebel on their own... Perhaps everyone should have just left Germany to their own devices and hope slow change would come eventually and they would start treating Jews better.
Anyway, I have not changed my mind about this issue for over a year, since the game came out, and I won't change it now - for me it has too many parallels with real life situations that hit a little too close to home.

Modifié par TheRatPack55, 25 avril 2012 - 12:56 .

[BigBad]

Really. Godwin's Law, anybody? Let's have a little self-awareness, huh?

Mages are an oppressed minority in Thedas, yes. Because virtually every single one of them ever has turned to blood magic the instant things start looking kinda tough. Ignoring that, they are still tolerated and even given a certain acclaim. They are basically the only advantage the kingdoms of Thedas have against the Qunari gaatlok. Many Circles are much more lax than Kirkwall, such as Ferelden where a repeat offender escapee is never harmed, where senior enchanters go wherever they want, where the Templars are gruff but basically reasonable and humane men doing a job, and where many of the mages clearly feel that the Tower is their home. Kirkwall is a very bad example to use as a standard Circle.

[5trangeCase]

The Gallows are not every Circle. They are a highly extreme example, one that BioWare chose to especially emphasize as very much against the norm by having the instigator of that extremism be maddened by magical influence.

The Gallows are the exception on par with the decadence and demon-worshipping of the Tevinter magisters. Neither is better than the other, one could argue that seeing as the Tevinters enslave people and create a vicious and soul-destroying hierarchy among mages, the Tevinter Circles are worse than the Gallows.

It's easy to see how someone could support the Templars, not only with mages being worse than the Templars in some cases, but also because the Templars in the Gallows are the extreme minority among all Templars

Personally, I think that Templars in general are nicer and more trustworthy than mages, from the evidence of both I've seen in both games. But I wouldn't ever side with them, nor the mages, it's just against my personal character. After the fall of Kirkwall, in which my Hawke sided with the mages, I think she would switch sides based on the actions of Orsino. My Warden doesn't care about anything, not even himself, so I'm not sure what he would do; he just might go to war against the mages if that was what the Qun commanded of him, but I prefer to think that he's a part of Arigena (the mind).

[TheRatPack55]

BigBad wrote...

Really. Godwin's Law, anybody? Let's have a little self-awareness, huh?

Mages are an oppressed minority in Thedas, yes. Because virtually every single one of them ever has turned to blood magic the instant things start looking kinda tough. Ignoring that, they are still tolerated and even given a certain acclaim. They are basically the only advantage the kingdoms of Thedas have against the Qunari gaatlok. Many Circles are much more lax than Kirkwall, such as Ferelden where a repeat offender escapee is never harmed, where senior enchanters go wherever they want, where the Templars are gruff but basically reasonable and humane men doing a job, and where many of the mages clearly feel that the Tower is their home. Kirkwall is a very bad example to use as a standard Circle.

Locking a person up preventively for a potential deed they may or may not commit is in itself a determinant of an inherently messed up system. The very fact that there is a repeat escapee indicates that there is something wrong with the place they're escaping from - for starters, how about the fact that it houses children forcefully torn away from their families, never to see them again? 'Never harmed'? Are you joking? You do realize solitary confinement is widely considered to be a form of torture? What about the obligatory Harrowing? Either you're strong enough to kill that demon, or we turn you into a vegetable... Reasonable? Really? I'm sorry, but to me the entire Circle system is a totalitarian nightmare.
Once again, if the Circles outside of Kirkwall were such nice places, why did their mages join the rebellion?

[5trangeCase]

TheRatPack55 wrote...

Locking a person up preventively for a potential deed they may or may not commit is in itself a determinant of an inherently messed up system. The very fact that there is a repeat escapee indicates that there is something wrong with the place they're escaping from - for starters, how about the fact that it houses children forcefully torn away from their families, never to see them again? 'Never harmed'? Are you joking? You do realize solitary confinement is widely considered to be a form of torture? What about the obligatory Harrowing? Either you're strong enough to kill that demon, or we turn you into a vegetable... Reasonable? Really? I'm sorry, but to me the entire Circle system is a totalitarian nightmare.
Once again, if the Circles outside of Kirkwall were such nice places, why did their mages join the rebellion?

Because mages want freedom and power. Quite simple. The other Circles could be the happiest places on earth, but because they are restricted in their movement and their studies, they'd leap to rebellion.

And no, happiness and lack of freedom and not mutually exclusive. I'd say that you'd find that the Qunari are some of the happiest people in the world.

Modifié par 5trangeCase, 25 avril 2012 - 02:00 .

[TheRatPack55]

5trangeCase wrote...

Because mages want freedom and power. Quite simple. The other Circles could be the happiest places on earth, but because they are restricted in their movement and their studies, they'd leap to rebellion.

And no, happiness and lack of freedom and not mutually exclusive. I'd say that you'd find that the Qunari are some of the happiest people in the world.

The mages have a right to freedom, just as every other person. Some mages want power, just like some warriors, rogues, princes, shoemakers and backwater peasants do.

As for the Qunari, I'm sure they're as happy as the next brainwashed, mindless zealot. More power to them, as long as they don't force their lifestyle on others, and let people leave if they decide they've had enough. Nevertheless, mages are quite obviously not happy with their status, and with good reasons.

[Silfren]

Sir Pounce-a-lot wrote...

Anders killed innocent people regardless, and still needed to die. The Circle mages are innocent and are people, regardless of what Quentin did. Persecuting and killing innocent people is wrong, and can't be rationally defended. Sure, Hawke could be anti-Mage, pro-templar, and be smooching Meredith's tyrannical tush the whole game, but it would be wrong. A Chantry full of people with dead babies being pulled from the rubble would have reminded people of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Regards,
Dude

Anders didn't kill innocent people.  He killed Chantry priests and templars, and the Grand Cleric.  The Chantry was a valid military target.  The people in it were contributors to the oppression of Anders' people. 

[Silfren]

Sir Pounce-a-lot wrote...

Anders killed innocent people regardless, and still needed to die. The Circle mages are innocent and are people, regardless of what Quentin did. Persecuting and killing innocent people is wrong, and can't be rationally defended. Sure, Hawke could be anti-Mage, pro-templar, and be smooching Meredith's tyrannical tush the whole game, but it would be wrong. A Chantry full of people with dead babies being pulled from the rubble would have reminded people of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Regards,
Dude

What exactly are you arguing for, here?  You've made it clear again and again what you think including more innocent people in the Chantry would result in, but you've yet to actually provide a good reason why this is necessary. 

If you already think it is wrong, and would still think it is wrong if more people were in the Chantry...what is the issue?  You say that it would make more people sympathetic to Meredith and her templars in the same breath that you say it would still be wrong to support her and them.  So...what exactly are you getting at? 

Many people are ALREADY sympathetic to the templars, so it isn't as though Bioware failed in that regard.  People write posts supporting the templars all the time.  So why do you think there needs to be MORE sympathy?  

I got news for you, the explosion as it happened already DID remind people of 9/11 and Oklahoma.  Just as I'm sure it reminded plenty of people outside of America of other major terrorist acts.  What's this got to do with anything, though?  Again, you're coming at it seemingly from the position that nobody supported Meredith at all, and this is simply not the case.  I've read dozens upon dozens of posts from people who talk about being disgusted with mages and deciding to support Annulment.

[Silfren]

Sir Pounce-a-lot wrote...



What Anders did was terrorism. It was akin to what McVeigh did. So, why not call a spade a spade? If Bioware wants to portray terrorist acts, then why not show how ugly they really are? Then again, Bioware might have thought that that would be going too far, and I can't blame them. Still, I judged Anders the same way that I would have judged a real terrorist.

Or maybe they wanted to portray an action just ambiguous enough that it can NOT be definitively classed as terrorism, what with the fact that the Chantry is a military, not a cilivian, target, one that represents vast political and military power, and we specifically see that the targets killed was a high-ranking Chantry official and a handful of her soldiers.  Maybe they wanted to avoid making it too obviously a senseless act of violence and leave it where it could justly be called a legitimate act of war against an oppressive regime, rather than just blowing up innocent people for shock value.

That is the part you're refusing to address.  It can be called an act of terrorism, but it can ALSO be labeled not terrorism at all, but the opening salvo in war.

[Silfren]

Urzon wrote...

TheRatPack55 wrote...

 Either way, for me Anders is a hero, and to continue with the WW2 theme, his act was as necassary as atom bombing Japan - and nobody calls that terrorism.

US using the atom bomb on Japan = An act of evil to stop a war.

Anders using a bomb to blow up the Chantry = An act of evil to cause a war.

I concur with the poster above me calling it an act of evil to stop a holocaust. 

It isn't as though mages just up and one day decided to cause a war for the sheer fun of it.  Sure, a mage started a war, and while war is always ugly, sometimes it IS necessary, just, and appropriate.  The purpose of Anders starting a war was to put a stop to the enslavement of his people.

[Silfren]

Urzon wrote...

TheRatPack55 wrote...

My stance here would be: Anders using a bomb to blow up the Chantry = A necessary act of relative evil to stop a holocaust.

Anders bombed the Chantry because he wanted Meredith to enact the RoA.

It wasn't to stop a holocaust.  He wanted Meredith to try and kill them all. He wanted to take the choice out of all the mages' hands, and he made them fight for their lives. Their thoughts and opinions didn't matter to him. All that mattered to him was to start a war between the templar and mages, so the mages could (were made) to fight for their freedom.

Yes, it was to stop a holocaust.  His vision went beyond Kirkwall.  He wasn't merely trying to provoke Meredith into the Right of Annulment, but wanted the invocation of that Right to trigger a mage uprising.  And his entire point in this all was that he wanted to ultimately bring an end to the Circle system. 

It simply isn't true that Anders' entire plan started and ended with Meredith.  Having her invoke the Right was only one step in his overall dream of mage freedom.

[Silfren]

BigBad wrote...

Really. Godwin's Law, anybody? Let's have a little self-awareness, huh?

Mages are an oppressed minority in Thedas, yes. Because virtually every single one of them ever has turned to blood magic the instant things start looking kinda tough. Ignoring that, they are still tolerated and even given a certain acclaim. They are basically the only advantage the kingdoms of Thedas have against the Qunari gaatlok. Many Circles are much more lax than Kirkwall, such as Ferelden where a repeat offender escapee is never harmed, where senior enchanters go wherever they want, where the Templars are gruff but basically reasonable and humane men doing a job, and where many of the mages clearly feel that the Tower is their home. Kirkwall is a very bad example to use as a standard Circle.

'

Re: Godwin's Law.  Sorry, but sometimes the comparison is valid, and given the specific nature of the Circles of Thedas, it's pretty clear the Devs intended for the comparison to be made.  There is simply no way, after all, that "The Tranquil Solution" was not deliberately intended to invoke thoughts of  Hitler's Final Solution.  Never minding that several aspects of the Circle fit the U.N.'s conditions for genocide, especially the rounding up of mages to be corralled away from society, having their children removed, and the implied eugenics.

[Sir Pounce-a-lot]

TheRatPack, it is true that the Pope may have overlooked the Holocaust, but bombing a church would solve nothing. Murdering a bunch of priests is pointless murder. Besides, in the game, the grand cleric would have halted the Rite of Annulment.

Urzan, the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not justified. Granted, they were done to end a war, and we even warned the people in those cities ahead of time. WMDs are unacceptable altogether, and they should all be eliminated.  If we don't get rid of them, then I can practically guarantee that humanity will one day cause it's own extinction.

The Chantry was not a military target.  Anders saw it as the exact opposite: a source of peace.  Granted, the Chantry is a source of oppression in a sense, but trying to remedy that problem with mass murder is not rational. If I decided that the Federal Government is doing bad things, would I be justified in bombing a Federal building, declaring it to be a "military target"?  No.

[Sir Pounce-a-lot]

I forgot to mention that while you the player knew who was in the Chantry, Hawke did not.

[Silfren]

Sir Pounce-a-lot wrote...

TheRatPack, it is true that the Pope may have overlooked the Holocaust, but bombing a church would solve nothing. Murdering a bunch of priests is pointless murder. Besides, in the game, the grand cleric would have halted the Rite of Annulment.

Urzan, the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not justified. Granted, they were done to end a war, and we even warned the people in those cities ahead of time. WMDs are unacceptable altogether, and they should all be eliminated.  If we don't get rid of them, then I can practically guarantee that humanity will one day cause it's own extinction.

The Chantry was not a military target.  Anders saw it as the exact opposite: a source of peace.  Granted, the Chantry is a source of oppression in a sense, but trying to remedy that problem with mass murder is not rational. If I decided that the Federal Government is doing bad things, would I be justified in bombing a Federal building, declaring it to be a "military target"?  No.

Given that the explosion of the Chantry was the incident that led to the mages freeing themselves from the Circles, I would hardly say that what Anders did was pointless.  It achieved exactly what he hoped for.

The Chantry most certainly was a military target.  It was NOT the little corner Baptist church down the block where people gather to fellowship, eat lunch, and gossip.  It represents an institution with considerable power, both political and military, with enough power and influence that monarchs have to take it into consideration.  Several of Thedas' "laws of the land" originate from the Chantry and are enforced through the secular governments.  You can't pretend that the Chantry organization is just a harmless spiritual organization, not when it comes with its own armies and has a history of calling for Crusades Exalted Marches to enforce its dominance.

You got a reference for Anders seeing the Chantry as a source of peace? Because I can think of quite a few references in both Awakening and DA2 where he refers to it as an institution of oppression, but not one where he calls it a sancutary of peace

Modifié par Silfren, 25 avril 2012 - 07:38 .

[Silfren]

Sir Pounce-a-lot wrote...

I forgot to mention that while you the player knew who was in the Chantry, Hawke did not.

My Hawke was inside the Chantry plenty of times, during the day and night, either appealing to the Grand Cleric or running errands for Sebastian's fool ass, that she was plenty reassured that Anders didn't kill anyone inside but the Grand Cleric and a few templars.  People who were supporting Meredith, in other words, and who therefore didn't get to be called innocent.