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[ShadowLordXII]

For DA3, please keep narrative themes in the background for us to discover and don't shove them in our face.

A good number of people agree that DA2's main problem wasn't so much that it's main conflict was the mages vs templars problem, but that it beat us over the head with picking one side or the other without room to come up with our own conclusions.

For instance, instead of being forced to choose between two equally flawed and untrustworthy sides because of what Anders did, there's no reason why Hawke and the player shouldn't have a choice to either choose one or the other, walk away from the conflict completely, attempt to actively force a settlement between the two sides or assert themselves as Champion of Kirkwall and protect Kirkwall from the fighting that would break out.

In fact, a lot of fans and players including myself have figured that the main problem isn't the templars or mages conflict, but the infrastructure created by the Chantry that they've imposed on Thedan Society.  

My point is that whatever themes DA3 has should be put on the table and left to the player.  Give us the central plot, but let us decide what to do with whatever themes or subplots occur.

Kind of like in Mass Effect's universe.  There were a lot of sub-plots and themes, but the main conflict centered on stopping the reapers from wiping everyone out...until the last ten minutes of ME3.

Remember that quest in Origins where Eamon's son was possessed?  That was very well done, had a lot of options for how to handle the situation and plenty of room to interpret whose at blame.  While a lot of players rightfully point their fingers at Isolde, others can make cases for Loghain, Connor, Jowan, Teagan, or even Eamon and how they were responsible for the Redcliffe incident and how it plays out.

Same thing with the Ferelden Civil War.  There were plenty of ways to resolve the succession crisis: Who to put on the throne, with whom, how did you assume power, what their attitude about it would be, and Loghain's fate.  Did you hook up hardened Alistair with Anora and spare Loghain causing him to abandon you just before the final battle?  Did you let unhardened Alistair gut Loghain like a fish and then placed Anora on the throne with you, the Human Noble, as her king-consort?

But in DA2, there's hardly ever a quest like this and most of them deal with the same conflict, Mages vs Templars. Which wasn't bad in itself, but the way DA2 comes across I feel like I'm being steered in one direction even though I see that the direction isn't any better than the alternate one.

I guess I'm supposed to sympathize with mages because of Meredith, the epically corrupt templar order in Kirkwall, Anders, that you or your sister (if she's alive) is a mage, Merrill's epic cuteness, and because prejudice against people based on things that they can't choose or control is bad (which it is, don't get me wrong).

But almost every mage in Kirkwall is either a serial murderer, insane, a blood mage, tevinter magister, slaver, possessed or all of the above.  There are a few exceptions like Merrill, Bethany and Fenryial, but they're far and between to have a balanced argument.  Some players probably joined the templars just because of how bat$%^& insane most mages in Kirkwall were.  It's not a great way to portray someone whose supposedly oppressed and undeserving of that oppression.

Even Orsino helped out a serial murderer who ends up killing and screwing up Hawke's mother in ways worse than death.  Why should I feel sorry for a spineless fool that sheltered the maniac that killed my mom?!  The templars weren't any better by any means.  But as far as the templars were concerned, I felt like they were just a symptom of the problem whether than the actual problem.

Back in Origins, I was actually more sympathetic towards the plight of city elves.  Sure the mages are regarded as devilspawn, but they a whole tower/castle to themselves with reasonable lodging, food, clothing and access to training to help them control their magical talents, including overlooked books into how to summon demons and use blood magic (How else did Jowan and Ulric learn it?).  

The elves?  They're looked away in the poorest district of their city and trapped in a cycle of poverty.  The only jobs that they can get are menial and low-paying servant and manial positions, they can't organize a militia, they can't do squat if humans mistreat or even kill/rape any of them, and the Chantry condones this.  Sure, the City Elf Warden can rise up and become a bann/arl/counselor in Denerem and help the lot of Denerem's elves increase, but what about elven alienages in the rest of Thedas?

Why wasn't there a quest in DA2 that would allow Hawke to somehow raise the conditions of the city elves in Kirkwall?  It's not like he doesn't become a noble or champion of the city?  Nope...the plight of the city elves is completely glanced over with mages and templars taking center stage.

How about the fact that the Chantry force feeds lyrium to templars as a means of controlling them since they really don't need lyrium for their templar talents/magic?  Or the notion that they do this willingly inspite of the addictive qualities of lyrium? Nope...mages vs templars is more important.  What about an opportunity to alter who controls the lyrium trade between the dwarves with their newly annointed king (Bhelen or Harrowmont) and the Chantry?  Not important enough...mages and templars.

In fact, what about the repercussions of killing a Qunari Arishok?  Wouldn't it have been much more exciting to see the qunari attack Kirkwall in revenge for the deaths of their brethren and their Arishok over a stupid book? (I know that the Tome was sacred to the Qunari, but outsiders mostl likely won't know that)  Nah...mages and templars.

Hey! Remember when we found one of the first magisters to enter the Golden City and bring the darkspawn upon Thedas?  Wouldn't it be really cool to follow up on that plotline and see where it takes us...wait...mages and templars?  Well...okay...

Speaking of darkspawn, what happened to the Architect?  How are his plans going to impact the role and goals of the Grey Wardens?  Will his plans make the wardens obsolete? Or will the wardens eventually divide themselves along the lines of the Architect's methods and their original mantra?  Are mages and templars involved? Then no need to worry about it.

What was the central plot of DA:O? Stop the darkspawn before they wipe out the world.  Every other subplot and theme was created around this central plot and never obscured it.  Even the Ferelden Civil War, which was the other prominant plot thread, was ultimately tied to the Blight because there would be no winner in that war unless the darkspawn could be stopped.

Again, it's not that the Mages vs Templars conflict was bad because it is a really good theme.  I just don't like that it was forced to the center stage where it doesn't belong and shoved in our face, obscuring the true central plot of DA2: Hawke's rise from a poor refugee to becoming Champion of Kirkwall.  I still mostly see this in Acts 1 and 2, but the plot falls apart in 3 because the MvT thread obscured everything else.