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[Silfren]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Daive Gaider answered it

David Gaider wrote...

Dhiro wrote...
Dinosaur Gaider hates Desire Demons almost as much as he hates dwarves. Because I'm saying so. :<

Actually, I'd have nothing against having a Desire Demon as a party member. That could be quite cool. But they'd either need to be a manifest demon or be possessing a host-- they couldn't be melded a la Wynne. That's what a spirit does, and the two are very different things.

http://social.biowar...index/5677404/3

...

They are both spirit but demon is inherently malicious.
...

Spirits are neither benovelent or malicious. When they possesses a host they feed on their host emotion and turn into that form like Spirit of Valor, Spirit of Justice ( Kristoff ), Spirit of Vengence ( Anders ) and Spirit of Faith (Wynne )

Once again, Anders' spirit of Justice became a DEMON of Vengeance.  This is part of the narrative of DA2.  

Whatever Gaider has said, the actual lore within the game actually does suggest something quite different.  Not only do we have Merrill saying that spirits and demons are not all that different, but both groups are equally dangerous, but we also have lore that suggests spirits are capable of transforming into demons. 

Gaider said in that quote that the two are very different things, but he left it wide open beyond that, so it still leaves more questions than answers, among them just how his statement is to be interpreted within the game's existing lore.  I also know that it wouldn't be the first time that something a Dev said directly contradicted what the same Dev placed, or had a role in placing, in the game. 

Further, the lore actually does indicate that spirits are benevolent.  The game presents us with a polarity: spirits/benign, demons/malevolent.  Not spirits/neutral, demons/evil, but spirits/good, demons/evil.  

The spirit that possessed Wynne did not BECOME a spirit of faith based on her emotions.  It existed as a spirit of faith before it possessed her, and her emotional state is even-keeled enough that the spirit didn't morph into something like, I dunno, a Demon of Fanaticism.  With Kristoff, the same thing.  Kristoff wasn't possessed by a spirit that became a spirit of justice based on Kristoff's personality/emotional makeup.  He was already a spirit of Justice and wasn't altered in any way because well, Kristoff was dead, so his personality didn't get in the way of Justice's own.  When Justice melded with Anders, though, Anders' anger twisted him into the malevolent inverse of what true Justice is. 

I don't think Justice could have turned into a Spirit of Faith or a Demon of Fanaticism if Anders had been, say, more like Wynne in his personality.  Rather I believe that spirits have a given trait that is innate to them for whatever reason, but which has the potential to be expressed either as an exalted virtue or its baser form.  Hence Justice vs. Vengeance. 

Speculation on my part now, but I think that the denizens of the Fade realm were once all the same basic types of creatures, but that the ones that now roam the Fade as demons had something happen to them that made them change in a fundamental way.  That would explain, after all, it is that spirits are capable of turning into demons in the first place.  Considered in light of the Chantry myth about the Maker abandoning them, if one goes with that line of thought, it's certainly plausible: many of the spirits accepted the abandonment and have coped with it whereas many others let their anger and resentment change who they were fundamentally. 

It also begs the question of whether demons can be transformed into spirits, since the reverse is true. 

Y'know, it's akin in a way to the darkspawn taint, the way that spirits can be "tainted" into becoming demons...

Modifié par Silfren, 10 mai 2012 - 07:42 .

[Silfren]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

GavrielKay wrote...
Every mage who turns to blood magic to escape the Chantry is the fault of the Chantry.

No, not even close.
This is some weird circular logic going there.

Mages are put in circles because they are dangerous, and this is the only practical solution.
Because they are put in there some resort to blood magic.
So what? You root out the week, pathetic fools more easily .

No, that isn't circular logic.  Many mages will resent being placed into Circles--the reason for their being put there is irrelevant to whether mages will WANT to go--and will be willing to resort to blood magic in order to resist efforts to imprison them.  That's not circular logic, it's human nature.  People who are dead set against losing their freedom will often resort to any and all means at their disposal to maintain said freedom, including the forbidden.  

What's circular is putting mages into Circles on the grounds that they're dangerous, and claiming that their desperate attempts to free themselves from Circles proves the necessity of the Circle in the first place.  You can't make any claims about what mages will do in an environment where they are free and not oppressed when your evidence is based on how they behave when they are imprisoned.  And no, Tevinter is not a counter-point to this, because it is ONE example with a specific set of cultural conditions that are not true in the rest of Thedas. 

[Silfren]

GavrielKay wrote...

Silfren wrote...
You DO realize that part of the narrative of DA2 is that when the spirit of Justice joined with Anders, he became a demon of Vengeance?  Not a spirit, a demon. 

There's a big inconsistency in the lore here.  If Gaider has said demons are fundamentally different and cause meatbag abominations...  then either Justice never became Vengeance or neither of them is actually a demon.  Because, clearly, Anders retains himself in addition to Justice and never becomes the mindless abomination that demons supposedly create.

I think the sheer inconsistency is the underlying problem.  The question is whether the inconsistency is too many writers and NOT a clear, cohesive story, or just that they needed or wanted to change the story and failed big time in ironing out the contradictions it created.  

Or both. 

I also note that early in DA2, Anders says of Justice, "He's gone now," and "It's not as though we can have a conversation.  I feel his thoughts as my own." 

It's pretty clear that Anders is either in full-blown denial or simply doesn't understand the nature of what happened to him, but I do find it interesting that Justice's individual conscious mind might have vanished under the weight of Anders' own personality and overwhelming rage. 

Of course, even that is not clear, because if you take Anders with you into the Fade, Anders vanishes and Justice comes out, seeming very much to have his mind and personality intact. 

[Silfren]

GavrielKay wrote...

I think you have to really put some thought into what happens to a person who is either hunted their whole life (because they aren't in the circle) or raised by people who tell them they are cursed, dangerous and untrustworthy.  I don't have kids and I don't know who else on this board does, but even I know that a big part of successfully raising kids is to teach them faith in themselves and good values.  You do not take a 6 year old and drill into their heads that they can never be trusted, they are magnets for evil and nothing more than beasts with the faces of men AND expect them to turn out mentally healthy and ready to defend themselves against temptation.  You are basically teaching them that defending against temptation is futile, because 1) they can't succeed forever and 2) they can't ever actually earn your trust anyway.  The Chantry does this to CHILDREN who've been stolen from their families locked up with strangers who constantly watch them with suspicion and occasionally abuse them for sport.

Oh good Gods above, yes!  An ocean of ink has been spilled on the endemic problems within certain entire groups of people who have been systemically subjected to emotional abuse for generations.  Native cultures in the U.S. is the example that comes to my mind.  The concentrated, state-sponsored attempt to "civilize" Native peoples and going about the process by taking children from their families and forcing them into boarding school environments where those children's cultures were shamed, belittled, ridiculed, and generally pissed on, where they were literally beaten and maltreated in horrific ways just for speaking their ancestral language...just one generation of that was devastating on several levels.  It is directly responsible for the epidemic of social ills plaguing Native communities as a whole. 

You can't subject an entire class of people to endless rounds of denigration from early childhood and onward, and expect them to come out of the experience without being seriosly f*cked up individuals with deficiencies in all the areas that would make them capable, confident persons fully able to be productive members of society.

[Silfren]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

How do you know Justice is Justice in the Fade?  And How do you know Spirit of Valor hasn't inhibit anyone?

We know that Justice is Justice in the Fade because he CALLS himself Justice when we meet him.  He states, unequivocally, "I am a Spirit of Justice."  Honestly why is this point even being debated?  It isn't random speculation, but  things that are clearly spelled ou in ALL the DA games thus far. 

It's made explictly, abundantly clear.  In the Mage Origin we see a spirit of Valor who clearly names himself as such (using the male pronoun based on the male voice, just fyi).  Every spirit or demon we come across is clearly labeled as whatever vice or virtue they emulate, and several spirits and demons specifically name themselves as such, and then of course we have mulitple codices all addressing the same point.  We have codices on demons of desire, hunger, pride, etc, and codices that reference spirits of various virtues.
.  

Modifié par Silfren, 10 mai 2012 - 07:45 .

[Silfren]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Do you really think Irving wouldn't know anything about spirit of Faith that possessed Wynne? Do you honesly believe the chantry don't know anything about the Rivainis being possessed by spirits? 

Since nobody said anything about whether Irving knew about Wynne's piggyback guest at all, much less asserting that he didn't know about it, why are you bringing it up?  If you have a point to make about it, fine, but your phrasing suggests that you're countering a point we've made, and yet nobody mentioned it but youl. 

Likewise the Chantry.  Nobody here said the Chantry didn't know about Rivaini seers not being possessed, so why are you asking the question as if we did, when we didn't say anything about that at all? 

I WILL go on to say since you raised the point, that I don't doubt the Chantry is fully aware that Rivain's seers allow themselves to be possessed.  It's written about in a book published by a Chantry scholar, after all, so it's obvious tha the Chantry is WELL aware of that fact.  

[GavrielKay]

Silfren wrote...
I think the sheer inconsistency is the underlying problem.

I've gotten to where I think the devs play fast and loose with their own lore as it suits them.  Wynne never says she feels her Faith spirit's thoughts.  She's only even guessing that it is a spririt of faith.  So why should Anders hear Justice?  How many types of possession are there supposed to be?

Personally, I'm not even convinced that Justice changed.  Justice with no other tempering emotions like compassion or pragmatism really is that cold and heartless.  Once you give "Justice" a specifc goal like Anders has, you could easily get what appears to be a demon to the human mindset.  I don't really know, but it wouldn't HAVE to be true that Justice became a demon.

[Silfren]

GavrielKay wrote...

Silfren wrote...
I think the sheer inconsistency is the underlying problem.

I've gotten to where I think the devs play fast and loose with their own lore as it suits them.  Wynne never says she feels her Faith spirit's thoughts.  She's only even guessing that it is a spririt of faith.  So why should Anders hear Justice?  How many types of possession are there supposed to be?

Personally, I'm not even convinced that Justice changed.  Justice with no other tempering emotions like compassion or pragmatism really is that cold and heartless.  Once you give "Justice" a specifc goal like Anders has, you could easily get what appears to be a demon to the human mindset.  I don't really know, but it wouldn't HAVE to be true that Justice became a demon.

I was just thinking about that.  I think--well, I hope--that we'll get to explore the issue of possession more in the future.  We already know that there are some variations.  Irving states that whether possession happens willingly or by force makes the difference in whether the host's life can be saved.  And of course we have those "Fade only" possessions which is what Connor's case was supposed to be about: even though he's repeatedly referred to as being possessed, it's established that the demon was only controlling him from the Fade, not inside him physically.  Then of course Wynne and Anders--and Flemeth, supposedly--are all possessed without being turned into giant ugly lumps of flesh.  

Something else occurs to me.  The assertion that people only turn into abominations/meatbags when possessed by demons...it can't be fundamentally true that this happens specifically because the possessor is a demon.  Case in point:  the little girl in the village of Honnleath, who is can be possessed by a DEMON OF DESIRE.  I totally never let the demon have her, that would just be cruel and evil of me the thought never crosses my mind.

Hmm.  As I type that, it occurs to me that the girl was not a mage, so the obvious refutation will be that only mages get twisted into formless sacks of flesh.  One has to wonder why, though. 

I'm still not convinced that it wasn't meant to be what happens to any and all possessed mages that became a sticky point when the Devs faced having to have the same fate befall Connor, Wynne, and Anders, and chose to protect them with plot armor instead of being consistent.

Modifié par Silfren, 10 mai 2012 - 08:14 .

[GavrielKay]

Silfren wrote...
You can't subject an entire class of people to endless rounds of denigration from early childhood and onward, and expect them to come out of the experience without being seriosly f*cked up individuals with deficiencies in all the areas that would make them capable, confident persons fully able to be productive members of society.

And since this has been going on for 900 years in Thedas, it is no longer possible to consider the mages we see in Andrastian countries as displaying traits somehow inherent to mages.  Better to use Dalish mages or Rivaini seers as the basis for how mages behave when not subjected to mental abuse since childhood. 

Where mages do not have their psyches torn apart by zealots, they appear to be able to live just fine among normal people and the normals do not seem to live in fear.

[TEWR]

GavrielKay wrote...

An excerpt from the "Beyond the Veil: Spirits and Demons" codex:

Typically, we misuse the term "spirit" to refer only to the benign, or at least less malevolent, creatures of the Fade, but in truth, all the denizens of the realm beyond the Veil are spirits. As the Chant of Light notes, everything within the Fade is a mimicry of our world. (A poor imitation, for the spirits do not remotely understand what they are copying. It is no surprise that much of the Fade appears like a manuscript translated from Tevinter into Orlesian and back again by drunken initiates.)

So apparently Gaider is contradicting game lore.

Eh, not really. He's made various posts on the topic in the past.

David Gaider wrote...

Except that it is a demon. It's not a question of polite phrasing but of terminology-- a demon is any spirit that feeds off of/attempts to manipulate living beings through their baser emotions. The desire demons do so by definition.

David Gaider wrote...

Maria Caliban wrote...

Are they different because of what they feed off or do they feed off different emotions/concepts because they're different beings?

The former. Ultimately they're all spirits-- but the nature of a spirit can change. I believe Justice has quite a bit to say about this in Awakening.

bolded mine.

Merrill is actually one of the few mages to recognize how the denizens of the Fade are all spirits of varying danger. Any time she says "spirit", it's the all-encompassing lowercase usage as opposed to the capital usage which would denote the beneficial spirits.

Regarding Justice turning into Vengeance, I've never really bought into that. He still identifies himself as Justice, doesn't feed off of Anders' negative emotions, and is doing things to help humanity rather then to help himself like a demon would.

It's either one of two things for me: Either he's a Spirit and Demon intertwined as one new being or he's still Justice and Anders only thinks he's a Demon now.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 10 mai 2012 - 08:46 .

[TEWR]

Silfren wrote...

Something else occurs to me. The assertion that people only turn into abominations/meatbags when possessed by demons...it can't be fundamentally true that this happens specifically because the possessor is a demon. Case in point: the little girl in the village of Honnleath, who is can be possessed by a DEMON OF DESIRE. I totally never let the demon have her, that would just be cruel and evil of me the thought never crosses my mind.

I wrote a page or so ago that I think the meatball flesh suit form has to do with whether the merging is willingly done or not.

Not sure how valid it is, but I do think it's somewhat plausible.

Hmm. As I type that, it occurs to me that the girl was not a mage, so the obvious refutation will be that only mages get twisted into formless sacks of flesh. One has to wonder why, though.

Actually, we're never told if she's a mage or not IIRC. But given how Wilhelm was a Mage and his son was a Mage, there's a fair shot she too was a mage.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 10 mai 2012 - 09:23 .

[GavrielKay]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Actually, we're never told if she's a mage or not IIRC. But given how Wilhelm was a Mage and his son was a Mage, there's a fair shot she too was a mage.

She might be too young to know yet.

Which is an interesting question.  Are mage children too young to manifest their power still more attractive to demons?  Or does that not happen until the powers show up?

[Ivucci]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Ivucci wrote...
Although if they do, they will be making an example out of a very unfortunate, accidental, unique and in my eyes tragic situation. With the combination of a demon-spirit, an unstable and desperate mage host and the Taint, I’m surprised Anders hasn’t turned into a giant brood mother or something.

He can't change into giant brood mother because he is not possessed by demon.

I was joking.

Also, I meant to suggest that Anders’ condition seems to be so unique and unprecedented, with the Taint being an important part of it that might get overlooked since I imagine we don’t know all its potential implications, that I would be careful drawing any conclusions out of Anders' case alone.

GavrielKay wrote...
I think you have to really put some thought into what happens to a person who is either hunted their whole life (because they aren't in the circle) or raised by people who tell them they are cursed, dangerous and untrustworthy. I don't have kids and I don't know who else on this board does, but even I know that a big part of successfully raising kids is to teach them faith in themselves and good values. You do not take a 6 year old and drill into their heads that they can never be trusted, they are magnets for evil and nothing more than beasts with the faces of men AND expect them to turn out mentally healthy and ready to defend themselves against temptation. You are basically teaching them that defending against temptation is futile, because 1) they can't succeed forever and 2) they can't ever actually earn your trust anyway. The Chantry does this to CHILDREN who've been stolen from their families locked up with strangers who constantly watch them with suspicion and occasionally abuse them for sport.

This is an excellent point that I think lies at the very core of the whole problem.

A kid develops a healthy self-confidence and a healthy self image thanks to the mother (or a father) who keep repeating to them how awesome, beautiful, gorgeous and skillful they are.

Skip this part, add a portion of mental and emotional abuse patented by the Templars/Circle, and you’ll more often than not end up with a person who has issues. All kinds of issues. Obviously, if you hide them all in the Circle, no one might notice anything unusual. Until one day, they decide to sort out these issues.

[GavrielKay]

Ivucci wrote...
Skip this part, add a portion of mental and emotional abuse patented by the Templars/Circle, and you’ll more often than not end up with a person who has issues. All kinds of issues. Obviously, if you hide them all in the Circle, no one might notice anything unusual. Until one day, they decide to sort out these issues.

And that's why no matter how many blood mages and abominations I see in Kirkwall, I still think it's almost entirely the Chantry's fault.  Their far reaching fear and hatred colors everything for mages in countries where circles exist.  It is just too hard to separate how mages behave from how they are treated.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Silfren wrote...
I don't think Justice could have turned into a Spirit of Faith or a Demon of Fanaticism  if Anders had been, say, more like Wynne in his personality

Yet you claimed this :

Silfren wrote...

Once again, Anders' spirit of Justice became a DEMON of Vengeance..

Silfren wrote..

I also note that early in DA2, Anders says of Justice, "He's gone now," and "It's not as though we can have a conversation. I feel his thoughts as my own."

The Spirit is gone because it never become a demon. A demon don't simply vanish from a host. A demon need to be forced to leave either with ritual or something other mean 

Silfren wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Do you really think Irving wouldn't know anything about spirit of Faith that possessed Wynne? Do you honesly believe the chantry don't know anything about the Rivainis being possessed by spirits? 

Since nobody said anything about whether Irving knew about Wynne's piggyback guest at all, much less asserting that he didn't know about it, why are you bringing it up?  If you have a point to make about it, fine, but your phrasing suggests that you're countering a point we've made, and yet nobody mentioned it but youl. 

Likewise the Chantry.  Nobody here said the Chantry didn't know about Rivaini seers not being possessed, so why are you asking the question as if we did, when we didn't say anything about that at all? 

I WILL go on to say since you raised the point, that I don't doubt the Chantry is fully aware that Rivain's seers allow themselves to be possessed.  It's written about in a book published by a Chantry scholar, after all, so it's obvious tha the Chantry is WELL aware of that fact.  

Wow your denial is impressing. You can make "educated guess" about Chasind's shaman and Rivain's seer but cannot figure out what I try to point out?

The Chantry know The Rivain's being possessed. They leave them alone because they're not demonic possession. The Chantry only concern with abomination. 

Wynne has close relationship to Irving. Therefore it is most likely that she would have told Irving the same way she had told the Warden. Therefore it isn't an issue to Irving because it's not a demonic possession. Like Gaider said, demonic possession and spirit possession are two different things.  

Demon is twisted evil spirit. They cannot simply leave Anders. They cannot simply leave Connor They cannot simple leave Udred. They cannot and will not simply change into benign spirit. It's their nature. That's why we called them as pride demon or desire demon or sloth demon and not spirit of pride, spirit of desire or spirit of sloth. If they can change then what's the point of categorizing them as such?

Other spirit can change based on the host's emotion because it feeds on emotions. That doesn't mean Justice could turn into vengence demon - because there is no such thing as vengence demon. There're only pride, hunger, desire, slot etc..

Demon cannot be confused with just spirit. Demon turn mage into abomination, create more abomination, turn mage's corpse into revenant and Arcane Horor, create undeads army and almost destroy a village.

Demon always attracted to a mage because non-mage are boring passive dreamer when they sleep.

A mage turn into twisted abomination will always result the death of the mage and many other people.

That is why mage is at risk of demonic possession and a risk to society at large whether you accept it or not .

Quit living in denial.

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 11 mai 2012 - 01:03 .

[Reznore57]

About the nice spirit possession , i don't think the Chantry makes a difference about spirit and demon.
Wynne is clearly worried and doesn't know anything about what happens to her with the spirit.
And she's an old mage who likes the chantry , she thinks she's an abomination and you can tell her "no abomination are violent " and she says "oh you're right I might be something else."
And spirit posession isn't something really known ..In Asunder , Rhys , wynne "s son , is sensible to spirit and demon , it can summon really small spirit like some kind of "light fairy" to do some simple thing like distract a guard.Even that it'snt some thing well accepted.

And about Rivain , well this country isn't in a good relationship with the chantry.There are even some people who join the qun when Thedas was attacked by qunari.
Rivain sheer or chasind chaman are simply out of the chantry reach , they live in non chantry friendly territory

[Sacred_Fantasy]

GavrielKay wrote...
I wonder why you're so sure that the result would be more like the Imperium than the Dalish or Rivaini or Chasind, or even for that matter, the Qunari.

Even the Chantry didn't always believe that mages needed to be locked up.  It happened after the formation of the Chantry and their choice of Andrate as the primary sect.

Because it was the Imperium who dominate most of the world before Andraste choose to fight them. If Andraste doesn't exist, then world today is still under the Imperium. No Andraste, No Chantry thereforeTervinter Rules. 

The dalish don't care about the wars among humans. And the humans are not interested with the dalish culture and gods.The Qunary have not yet to conquer most part of the world. But even so, they cut their mage's tongue. Do you want the same treatment be done to every mage had the Qunary manage to conquer the world? 

[Vormaerin]

GavrielKay wrote...

For me it isn't a matter of denying that mages are dangerous, it's denying that they are so world-shatteringly dangerous that it becomes morally acceptible to deny them basic rights and treat them as criminals.

"Get thee to a nunnery" is not denying them basic rights and treating them as criminals, if the Circle/Monastery is managed properly. 

We've seen exactly two Circles.   In one, the Templars are pretty restrained.   Anders escapes multiple times and is brought back.  Greagoir goes out of his way to avoid using the Rite of Annulment.   And so on.

In the other, both sides are completely corrupted by the huge blood magic fueled crazy maker that the Tevinter built under Kirkwall.   There is way more blood mages and corrupted wizards there than normal.  The templars are harsh in response and several of them are way beyond that.

[Vormaerin]

Ivucci wrote...

I'm not applying any philosophy, the only "modern philosophy" part of my post is the "basic human rights" term which I admit sounds like something from a modern sociology textbook, but taking a child away from a mother is evil and tyrannic whether or not we have a sociological term for it.

You do realize that not all cultures have our western social system, right?  Or even our same concepts of kinship?

There are cultures where the men and women live in separate residences and boys are removed from their mothers once they are old enough to function without nursing.

There are cultures that don't distinguish between mother and maternal aunt.   There are cultures that don't consider the biological mother and biological father to be equally related to the child.  The child might not even be part of the mother's family.

It bugging you doesn't make it evil.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Reznore57 wrote...

About the nice spirit possession , i don't think the Chantry makes a difference about spirit and demon.
Wynne is clearly worried and doesn't know anything about what happens to her with the spirit.
And she's an old mage who likes the chantry , she thinks she's an abomination and you can tell her "no abomination are violent " and she says "oh you're right I might be something else."
And spirit posession isn't something really known ..In Asunder , Rhys , wynne "s son , is sensible to spirit and demon , it can summon really small spirit like some kind of "light fairy" to do some simple thing like distract a guard.Even that it'snt some thing well accepted.

And about Rivain , well this country isn't in a good relationship with the chantry.There are even some people who join the qun when Thedas was attacked by qunari.
Rivain sheer or chasind chaman are simply out of the chantry reach , they live in non chantry friendly territory

Hmmm.. I concur on the premise that the Chantry can't know the difference without further investigation. Since there's no follow up after the report, I guess the Chantry aren't insterested with The Rivain's Seer due to what you have said. Had they consider those possession to be a threat, they would have despatch their templars at once. 

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 11 mai 2012 - 02:31 .

[Ivucci]

Vormaerin wrote...

Ivucci wrote...

I'm not applying any philosophy, the only "modern philosophy" part of my post is the "basic human rights" term which I admit sounds like something from a modern sociology textbook, but taking a child away from a mother is evil and tyrannic whether or not we have a sociological term for it.

You do realize that not all cultures have our western social system, right?  Or even our same concepts of kinship?

There are cultures where the men and women live in separate residences and boys are removed from their mothers once they are old enough to function without nursing.

There are cultures that don't distinguish between mother and maternal aunt.   There are cultures that don't consider the biological mother and biological father to be equally related to the child.  The child might not even be part of the mother's family.

It bugging you doesn't make it evil.

I guess I do.

And even though "evil" might not have been a good choice of words, I'd respond with an argument similar to the one about understanding the concept of freedom:
For the characters in the game, it's not normal, Isolde is worried she might lose her son, Anders is talking about children being separated from their mothers and how he fights for a world where this doesn't happen, he himself keeps the pillow from her as a personal memory.
Plus it's not just the act of taking the kids away - but taking them away and marking them as freaks from the beginning.

Modifié par Ivucci, 11 mai 2012 - 07:21 .

[Silfren]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Silfren wrote...
I don't think Justice could have turned into a Spirit of Faith or a Demon of Fanaticism  if Anders had been, say, more like Wynne in his personality

Yet you claimed this :

Silfren wrote...

Once again, Anders' spirit of Justice became a DEMON of Vengeance..

Reading comprehension is your frend.  The thrust of my point dealt with the nature of the emotion.  I was saying that since the spirt in question started out as Justice, I didn't think it would have warped into a spirit of faith or a demon of fanaticism, or a spirit of compassion or honor or valor or a demon of desire, sloth, pride, etc.  I was stating that I thought the basic nature of the spirit would remain, and express itself as one of the two extremes of whatever vice or virtue it represented.  I.E., Justice would always be either Justice or Vengeance, and wouldn't turn into Compassion or Fanaticism or Pride or anything else.

Of course, I take it all back now, given Evil Writer Redux's cites from David Gaider on the subject.  It appears that indeed spirits are extremely mutable and can take on whatever dominant vice or virtue their host exhibits, even if it is something altogether different from what the spirit (or demon) originally was.

Modifié par Silfren, 11 mai 2012 - 03:55 .

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Silfren wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Silfren wrote...
I don't think Justice could have turned into a Spirit of Faith or a Demon of Fanaticism  if Anders had been, say, more like Wynne in his personality

Yet you claimed this :

Silfren wrote...

Once again, Anders' spirit of Justice became a DEMON of Vengeance..

Reading comprehension is your frend.  The thrust of my point dealt with the nature of the emotion.  I was saying that since the spirt in question started out as Justice, I didn't think it would have warped into a spirit of faith or a demon of fanaticism, or a spirit of compassion or honor or valor or a demon of desire, sloth, pride, etc.  I was stating that I thought the basic nature of the spirit would remain, and express itself as one of the two extremes of whatever vice or virtue it represented.  I.E., Justice would always be either Justice or Vengeance, and wouldn't turn into Compassion or Fanaticism or Pride or anything else.

Of course, I take it all back now, given Evil Writer Redux's cites from David Gaider on the subject.  It appears that indeed spirits are extremely mutable and can take on whatever dominant vice or virtue their host exhibits, even if it is something altogether different from what the spirit (or demon) originally was.

You make no effort to edit your response to me and blame my reading  comprehension
for your contradictory statement?

Twisting your words to suit  your agenda , is not going to help your case. 

Edit: Spelling Error. 

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 11 mai 2012 - 04:22 .

[Silfren]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Silfren wrote..

I also note that early in DA2, Anders says of Justice, "He's gone now," and "It's not as though we can have a conversation. I feel his thoughts as my own."

The Spirit is gone because it never become a demon. A demon don't simply vanish from a host. A demon need to be forced to leave either with ritual or something other mean

Yeah, uh, no. Spirits don't just vanish from people any more than demons do, but that's not the point.  The spirit isn't gone "because it never become a demon."  Whether Justice became a demon or not is beside the question of whether Justice's own personality continued to exist separately from Anders' own.  I didn't say that the spirit (or demon) just vanished from the host, but was discussing the problem with the inconsistent lore.  Anders states that Justice is gone, but he doesn't mean that the entity vanished into thin air--rather he means that Justice's mind--his consciousness--is gone, disappeared when the possession took place (or perhaps soon after).  Anders is basically stating that he and Justice have so thoroughly become one being that the distinct personality that each had prior to being melded, is gone.  Whether or not Anders is correct on that point is up for grabs, however.

Silfren wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Do you really think Irving wouldn't know anything about spirit of Faith that possessed Wynne? Do you honesly believe the chantry don't know anything about the Rivainis being possessed by spirits? 

Since nobody said anything about whether Irving knew about Wynne's piggyback guest at all, much less asserting that he didn't know about it, why are you bringing it up?  If you have a point to make about it, fine, but your phrasing suggests that you're countering a point we've made, and yet nobody mentioned it but youl. 

Likewise the Chantry.  Nobody here said the Chantry didn't know about Rivaini seers not being possessed, so why are you asking the question as if we did, when we didn't say anything about that at all? 

I WILL go on to say since you raised the point, that I don't doubt the Chantry is fully aware that Rivain's seers allow themselves to be possessed.  It's written about in a book published by a Chantry scholar, after all, so it's obvious tha the Chantry is WELL aware of that fact.  

Sacred Fantasy wrote...

Wow your denial is impressing. You can make "educated guess" about Chasind's shaman and Rivain's seer but cannot figure out what I try to point out?

The Chantry know The Rivain's being possessed. They leave them alone because they're not demonic possession. The Chantry only concern with abomination. 

Wynne has close relationship to Irving. Therefore it is most likely that she would have told Irving the same way she had told the Warden. Therefore it isn't an issue to Irving because it's not a demonic possession. Like Gaider said, demonic possession and spirit possession are two different things.  

Demon is twisted evil spirit. They cannot simply leave Anders. They cannot simply leave Connor They cannot simple leave Udred. They cannot and will not simply change into benign spirit. It's their nature. That's why we called them as pride demon or desire demon or sloth demon and not spirit of pride, spirit of desire or spirit of sloth. If they can change then what's the point of categorizing them as such?

Other spirit can change based on the host's emotion because it feeds on emotions. That doesn't mean Justice could turn into vengence demon - because there is no such thing as vengence demon. There're only pride, hunger, desire, slot etc..

Demon cannot be confused with just spirit. Demon turn mage into abomination, create more abomination, turn mage's corpse into revenant and Arcane Horor, create undeads army and almost destroy a village.

Demon always attracted to a mage because non-mage are boring passive dreamer when they sleep.

A mage turn into twisted abomination will always result the death of the mage and many other people.

That is why mage is at risk of demonic possession and a risk to society at large whether you accept it or not .

Quit living in denial.

Sorry, I don't believe for one second that the Chantry is unconcerned with Rivain's mages and ONLY cares about demonic possession.  You have to be completely ignoring the entirety of the lore surrounding Chantry doctrine toward mages to believe this.  Everything we have points toward extreme suspicion toward all mages, everywhere, on the grounds that all mages, everywhere, are at constant risk.  Either the mages cannot be trusted to never, ever, ever give into the temptation to use blood magic, or they are being constantly plagued by demons looking for a way in, or mages may just decide, one day, to go beserk and annihilate a village "in a fit of pique." 

There is so, soooooo much more to the Chantry's position than just worrying about mages being possessed by demons, and even if it were only possession that the Chantry was concerned about, we nevertheless have lore that the Chantry is equally suspicious of mages who have dealings with benign spirits.  It is NOT just a concern over demons, whatever you want to claim to the contrary.

As to the rest, maybe you should scroll up a few posts and read what TEWR quotes from Gaider about spirits being change-able beings whose nature stems from the emotion that they feed on.  I was not aware of that, and had assumed that spirits and demons only expressed some degree of a specific emotion, but it now appears that spirits (including demons) express whatever emotion they predominantly FEED ON.

Weren't you the one who just recently asserted that Anders' spirit became Justice because of Kristoff, and that Wynne's spirit became faith because of Wynne?  Now you're claiming that spirits cannot change? 

Again, I suggest you re-visit the posts TEWR quoted from Gaider.  Demons are TYPES OF spirits. The difference between the two comes from what they feed upon, if I'm interpreting Gaider correctly.  

We do not know that there are ONLY demons of sloth, pride, etc.  Those are the known demons.  At any rate, we also know that there are ranks within each of those categories: the demon, Torpor, is called by Justice a demon of sloth.  We see a desire demon who is called Allure.  And Merrill's Pride Demon is called...crap, I can't remember.  Vengeance could easily be classed as a rage demon or a pride demon, depending on one's view of vengeance, so you cannot claim that there is no such thing.  

Also, demons actually can leave a body.  The problem is that they tend not to want to.  But the fact is, they DO have the ABILITY to do so.  The desire demon who attached herself to Connor can be made to leave him through intimidation.  She may be going under duress, but the physical action of leaving is hers alone.  

At least I draw my my interpretations and conclusions from the lore, and I adjust them where new information requires it.  You just seem to be making sh*t up.

Edited because I really suck at this whole formatting thing.

Modifié par Silfren, 11 mai 2012 - 04:55 .

[GavrielKay]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...
The Chantry know The Rivain's being possessed. They leave them alone because they're not demonic possession. The Chantry only concern with abomination.

As Reznores said, the Chantry doesn't have enough clout to grab seers from Rivain.  As the Chantry cares about all apostates in countries that it holds sway in, I can't imagine that they wouldn't care that seers are possessed, they simply can't do anything about it.

Wynne has close relationship to Irving. Therefore it is most likely that she would have told Irving the same way she had told the Warden.

I got the impression that it had happened during the battle to protect the apprentices from Uldred's failed rebellion.  She may not have had time to tell Irving.  Though it may have made no difference either way.  I'm not sure what point you're driving at with this anyway.  The Chantry makes it clear that wherever they have influence, all mages are meant to be kept in circles except under special dispensation to travel.  Possession by a demon appears to be punsihable by death, possession by a benevolent spirit appears to be tolerated to some degree but not encouraged.  This has no bearing on the general treatment of mages.

Demon is twisted evil spirit. They cannot simply leave Anders.

I don't believe that statement meant that Justice/Vengeance had left, but rather merged so closely with Anders' own personality that they were no longer two separate entities. (As Silfren said while I was typing away )

They cannot simply leave Connor

Connor suffers from a different sort of possession.  More like his mind is under control of the desire demon even though she remains in the Fade and his body remains unharmed.  Once we kill her in the Fade (for those who chose to do so), Conner is free of any sign that it ever happened.  I believe it is even stated that he doesn't remember any of it.

Demon always attracted to a mage because non-mage are boring passive dreamer when they sleep.

Demons are drawn to mages but can possess other people and other things.

A mage turn into twisted abomination will always result the death of the mage and many other people.

You can say the mage is dead once his mind is wiped out by the demon, but whether anyone else dies depends on circumstances.  Several mages turned into abominations right in front of my Hawke, and I can assure you they killed no one before meeting the pointy end of her daggers.

That is why mage is at risk of demonic possession and a risk to society at large whether you accept it or not

.

Except even the Chantry didn't say so at first.  Please please please read the posts and codices that point out the mages went into seclusion for their own reasons, with the idea that the Chantry would protect them and allow them to study magic.  Sometime after this voluntary seclusion, it warped into the Chantry rounding up all mages and telling everyone that it was necessary.

It isn't necessary - we have several societies who function without it.  It wasn't necessary to the Chantry, just more convenient than dealing with grumpy mages who wanted to do more than dust rafters.  Read the history.  Mages were NOT rounded up into circles due to lots of them becoming abominations or mind controlling anyone.  They went peacefully into what they thought was protected seclusion to study magic.

Edit:  I just wanted to note that the codex on the history of the circle was written by Sister Petrine, a Chantry historian, so I would be quite sure that had the reason for Circle formation been uncontrolled rampaging mages, it would have said so.

Modifié par GavrielKay, 11 mai 2012 - 04:44 .