201 réponses à ce sujet

[Elvis_Mazur]

We already have a very good example: the Tevinter Imperium.

Besides that, who knows? It may be better, or it may be worse.

[TEWR]

GavrielKay wrote...

As for number 2, I've never really been able to ferret out whether demons get more power because a mage knows more, or simply because a mage has more inner strength. Is there lore on this subject?

I'm certain there is. The lore states that the more powerful a Demon is, the more powerful the Abomination is. Then there's a post by John Epler where he said that Connor's status as the son of an Arl attracted the Demon -- and this extends to any mage with potential influence over people.

Finally, how experienced the Mage is with their magic also has an effect on how powerful the Abomination is. The more power the mage has, the more powerful a Demon he/she attracts, and thus the more powerful the Abomination is.

GavrielKay wrote...

except Arl Eamon would have died and perhaps made the politics of the situation different.

Well, David Gaider said that Loghain's intention was never for Eamon to die. He was just supposed to be incapacitated and Berwick was supposed to keep an eye on the situation, where if Eamon's condition grew worse to the point of near-death a cure could be administered -- after the Blight was dealt with IIRC.

Eamon could've died -- Gaider said that was a possibility -- but it was never a certainty.

[Lotion Soronarr]

ReggarBlane wrote...
It still stands that people who view reality with fear will continue to make unreasonable accusations against the innocent as justification for unjust segregation instead of even attempting to understand.

Only if the fear is unreasonable. And in the case of mages, it isn't.
Fear is good and necessary for our survival.

The segregations isn't unecessary.
Mages are dangerous. And what is there that isn't understood here?

[Lotion Soronarr]

GavrielKay wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
Cling to that single, incomplete source like a dying man for all I care.
Mages are dangerous period.

Keepeing them locked up Circles is safer for everyone.

Keeping them locked up has lead to a massive rebellion which puts several countries at risk of being conquered by the Qun.  Doesn't sound safer to me.

Rebellion? So what?
You talk as if a prison uprising invalidates prisons.

Mager runing around unchecked is exceptionally dangerous.

In game, I don't see evidence that mages are any more dangerous than anyone else.  I'll bet Teyrn Loghain is responsible for far more deaths than Conner.

That's because you are blind.
A mage has inherent power. A mage, even a well-menaing one, can turn into an abomination and destroy your vilalge in an instant - EVEN IF HE DOESN'T WANT TO. A mage is unpredictable. A denger to himself and others.

Men like Loghain - their power comes from others. He only has power as long as poeple follow orders. That power isn't inherent. It can be taken away. And if those people don't want to kill someone - they won't.
Not to mention that their positions force them to behave and act more catiously.

The game itself does a ******-poor job of showing how powerfull abomniations are, given that Hawke slices trough them like butter. Then again, he sliced trough endless hordes of bandits. But fluff-wise, they should be FAR more intimidating.

How much better off would Redcliffe have been if mages were free and Isolde hadn't wanted to hide Connor's abilities?  Or if other free mages had been living nearby and could rush to help save the village?

Or if several abominations reduced everything to rubble before any help could come?
Or if a Blood Mage got the whole town under his rule?
That's of course, assuming that in your hypothetical TheDas were mages roam free, there even IS a Redcliffe anymore.

[Lotion Soronarr]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

There is one example of a society where free mages existed and they didn't begin another Imperium nor fall to Abominations/Demons.

Haven.

For all the insanity that place has -- I'd give it a 9 or 10 on the weird ****-o-meter -- they had like.... thirty to forty free mages all living in their village, and the village didn't suffer from any of the usual things that pro-Templar people argue about -- Imperium 2.0/Abominations.

I mean, they had a lot of free mages. Almost every encounter you have with the Cultists -- from the village hillside to the temple itself -- had at least one mage in it.

And in DA2, hunderds of bandits are raining from the sky and Hawke kills them all. Realistic? Notat all.

Gameplay.
"Good" (and I use that term loosely) gamplay dictates that the player should fight mages constantly.
That is why there so many mages everywhere. From Haven to Kirkwall.

Taking both games togehter, the player probably killed more mages than there are in both Circles.

In other words, those numbers are not to be taken seriously.

[Lotion Soronarr]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
I'm certain there is. The lore states that the more powerful a Demon is, the more powerful the Abomination is. Then there's a post by John Epler where he said that Connor's status as the son of an Arl attracted the Demon -- and this extends to any mage with potential influence over people.

Finally, how experienced the Mage is with their magic also has an effect on how powerful the Abomination is. The more power the mage has, the more powerful a Demon he/she attracts, and thus the more powerful the Abomination is.

Both actually.

It's isn't only that more powerfull mages attract powerfull demons - the mages power adds to the demons power IIRC.


Very powerfull mage + very powerfull abomination = OHCRAP!

[Zkyire]

caradoc2000 wrote...

It works just fine in Tevinter where mages rule.

..for the mages.

[LobselVith8]

Zkyire wrote...

...for the mages.

For the Magisters, who enslave mages and non-mages alike. There are other societies with free mages that disprove the idea that free mages automatically mean another Imperium. As Ethereal pointed out, Haven has mages co-existing with non-mages (as we see with Father Eirik), and the society presumably existed for over 900 years. It's morally bankrupt now under Kolgrim, but it still stands as an example of a society where mages are living alongside non-mages.

[MisterJB]

Magisters are mages and all mages in Tevinter dream of being magisters.

[dragonflight288]

German are white people, England also white people, both European, doesn't mean German is the same with England.

Iraq is Middle Eastern, Iran also Middle Eastern, both are Muslims, but they are not the same.

My country have Chinese, China is Chinese country, but Chinese of my country is not of China.

My country is Muslim country, but we are not Arabs, not Middle Eastern, we are Asians. We are not the same with Arabs and Middle Eastern, but we are Muslims. We have nothing to do with Al Qaeda, Taliban, Osama ben Laden and all those stuff.

To generalize people is stupid.

To generalize all Mages as the same as Tevinter Mages is stupid.

There is a case about a USA soldier who become wild in Iraq, killing a whole family, rape a child then burn her alive....that person is an unpredictable too...

There is also many similar cases around the world where normal people going nut and doing something harmful to others and they have no criminal record or even medical record. But they do what they did.

A person can become a monster out of any reason. Any person can become dangerous unpredictably.

Mages becomes abomination who cause death to many people is the same danger of someone who have a sword/weapon going insane and someone who have power causes death to many people

What is the difference between a criminal with a gun and a corrupt police officer who also have a gun?

Well said.

Or in other words, the difference between a bandit and a corrupt templar?

[Dave of Canada]

I love the sword argument, it's funny. Because somebody who can burn down entire cities, raise the dead, mind control people to their will, summon demons and much more possibly against their will is comparable.

[TEWR]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

And in DA2, hunderds of bandits are raining from the sky and Hawke kills them all. Realistic? Notat all.

In other words, those numbers are not to be taken seriously.

I'm inclined to disagree. How they appear in battle is irrelevant to whether they exist at all.

Bandits don't just drop from the sky, yes that much is true. That doesn't mean Kirkwall didn't have crime problems, considering you got paid to kill off the gangs.

They exist, by virtue of the Friends of Red Jenny acknowledging their existence and some of the notes you receive telling you who their leader is.

And some are led by apostates, that much is true. If they're led by apostates, they must also have apostates in their group. Perhaps some could use that as an argument for the Circles themselves, but I'd shudder at the thought of people using that as an argument for siding with the Templars at the endgame.

Anyway... tangent aside... 

The same holds true for Haven. You went there and encountered a cult, where a Mage was the Revered Father of the Chantry and in Kolgrim's group there were other mages. The Reaver Joining consists of ritually prepared Dragon's blood -- which is not only a form of blood magic, but is virtually identical to the Warden Joining making the latter blood magic as well. 

As a result, there would be plenty of mages within the group I feel. The Guard even says that their ways are not the ways of the rest of Thedas.
 
The game made it a point to label everyone there as Cultists, not Mook Mage.

The cult is very much real and so are the Mages within it. The gameplay reflected the lore. It doesn't equal the lore here. There's a difference.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 10 juillet 2012 - 08:16 .

[Dave of Canada]

Putting aside your ridiculous original comparison, you're now comparing a mage to an army.

And the army can't even do what the mages do.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 10 juillet 2012 - 08:33 .

[dragonflight288]

Putting aside your ridiculous original comparison, you're now comparing a mage to an army.

And the army can't even do what the mages do.

Of course not. Otherwise the Right of Annulment would never work with an army assaulting the Circle. After all, a single mage can be so much more dangerous than an army. (sarcasm)

[Dave of Canada]

An abomination running rampant across the countryside devastating people and burning down villages is different than being isolated in a tower filled with anti-mages.

When a lone abomination (which possessed a young child) can kill upwards to 70 people alone, you'd have to wonder how much a powerful mage or a powerful abomination could do--especially with much darker magics like raising the dead or controlling the minds of others.

Hell, imagine an abomination manipulating the head of an army.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 10 juillet 2012 - 09:03 .

[dragonflight288]

An abomination running rampant across the countryside devastating people and burning down villages is different than being isolated in a tower filled with anti-mages.

When a lone abomination (which possessed a young child) can kill upwards to 70 people alone, you'd have to wonder how much a powerful mage or a powerful abomination could do--especially with much darker magics like raising the dead or controlling the minds of others.

Hell, imagine an abomination manipulating the head of an army.

Yet the rampaging abomination isn't that different from an army of templars who rape and pillage across the countryside since they have rebelled against the Chantry and have lost their 'fix' of lyrium dust. An army of drug addicts can be just as dangerous. And that's what we've got.

[MisterJB]

Extreme circunstances created this army of drug addicts and it is the first time it ever happened to the templar order.
An untrained little girl beind hidden by her loving family; who don't know the first thing about magic; and turning into an abomination is much more likely to occur.

Modifié par MisterJB, 10 juillet 2012 - 09:17 .

[dragonflight288]

Extreme circunstances created this army of drug addicts and it is the first time it ever happened to the templar order.
An untrained little girl beind hidden by her loving family; who don't know the first thing about magic; and turning into an abomination is much more likely to occur.

Only if she summons a spirit or sundrs the veil between our world and the Fade. It can be done accidentally if driven to desperation, but she can't do it willingly on her own.

[LobselVith8]

MisterJB wrote...

Magisters are mages and all mages in Tevinter dream of being magisters.

Really? You know the personalities and ideals of every single mage in Tevinter? Please enlighten me as to how you came across this wealth of knowledge and information about every single mage in Tevinter. I ask because Feynriel went to Tevinter to master himself and not to become one of the Magisters, so your comment seems to be factually inaccurate. There's also the account of the Magister who tried to end slavery, so not every Magister is like Danarius.

[TEWR]

I wanted to transcribe what Lanaya will state about the Dalish clans we know of today in regards to their historical significance:

We Dalish have old traditions. The clans come from the ranks of the nobility that once ruled the Dales, you see. The keepers of those clans have the strongest and purest blood that reaches back to the days of Arlathan. -- Lanaya

Now, if they're able to remember that the Dales were ruled by the Elven Mages -- and that the clans are led by people whose blood is the purest and contains magic -- then I see no reason to believe that they don't know how the Dales were ruled. The clans' leaders tend to be descended from the nobility as I said, so they would know what their ancestors did there. Because when the Dales fell, not every Elf was subjugated to live in squalor like Tevinter did long ago

I'm willing to believe that the Dales were ruled by the Mages and that it wasn't a repeat of Tevinter.

LobselVith8 wrote...
Really? You know the personalities and ideals of every single mage in Tevinter? Please enlighten me as to how you came across this wealth of knowledge and information about every single mage in Tevinter. I ask because Feynriel went to Tevinter to master himself and not to become one of the Magisters, so your comment seems to be factually inaccurate. There's also the account of the Magister who tried to end slavery, so not every Magister is like Danarius.

That's true on both fronts. The Magister that did outlaw slavery was an Archon. He was assassinated, but that doesn't mean that the Mages there are all douchebags intent on grabbing power. Perhaps that's the majority, but I'd say that most only develop that mindset because of the very structure of Tevinter society.

A society based on survival of the fittest will inevitably breed people that believe such a thing. Not always, but I'd say that it is bound to happen more often then not.

So it's definitely not a fact that all Mages will want to be douchebag Magisters in Tevinter. Fenris himself believes that not all Magisters practice blood magic in Tevinter, though due to the belief that "might makes right" as it were in Tevinter, those same Magisters tend to be the weakest.

But even the weakest Mage can surprise the Imperial Court. The Lifedrinker codex tells us this.

[dragonflight288]

Also add in that Adralla who created the Litany to combat blood magic possession was a magister.

[TEWR]

That's true as well. I had forgotten about her. It seems the good Magisters are either killed, hunted, or weak.

Perhaps Feynriel will change that, being a Somniari capable of using his magic from across Thedas. I'm willing to bet that he'll be critical for DA3. As a Tranquil, his mind will probably be restored -- with the unfortunate revelation that his mother killed herself.

As an Abomination, maybe we'll be able to cure him in DA3 and he heads off to Tevinter. And as a Magister's apprentice, well... he's already in Tevinter.

Maybe. I doubt it though.