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[vortex216]

Before he went all venegful, Justice was a spirit of Justice. The spirit of Justice!  sypathized with the mages. I think this is almost proof the templars are wrong.

[mr_afk]

Well, some mages were obviously going through some huge injustices, with some templars obviously abusing their power/authority over mages (e.g. Ser Alrick's misuse of the Rite of Tranquility and his more than probable exploitation of tranquil mages).
So the system wasn't perfect - but nobody's arguing that the Chantry's use of Circles and various rites is completely just.

The main question is how to deal with a fragment of society that have special dangerous powers and a history of using their powers to gain supremacy over others - whether by infiltrating dreams with blood magic, waging wars/conquering the majority of the land, or just generally exploiting the lives of non-mages. Just look at the morally corrupt Tevinter society where mages have all the power. Their society is basically run on slaves, whose lives are sacrificed and exploited at the whim of the magisters.

An equivalent scenario would be a world with 'superheroes' (or 'X-men'). There's almost nothing to stop those with more powerful 'superpowers' from taking control over society besides other 'gifted' people - since mere mortals are almost completely at their mercy. There's no screening process into who gains superpowers, so relying on the peaceful benevolent nature of superheroes is always going to be a bit hit-and-miss, since without regulation there's a rather easy path down to exploitation and abuse of their power.

Add a method for those with superpowers to greatly increase their powers/health etc by sacrificing others (i.e. an equivalent to blood magic), and those who are 'morally corrupt' will have an obvious advantage over any other superhero. It's sort of similar to how vampires who feed on humans are stronger than animal-feeding vampires - not that I would know since it's not like I would watch/read that type of stuff haha

In the real world, the 'good guys' are probably not going to win in such a situation, and society will become ruled by those with the most power (since they can't be regulated), and the rest of society will be exploited. This is what happened in Tevinter, with their society spiralling down until what was going on was probably deemed a normal part of society and all tevinter mages would happily become part of the system.

In fact, if it weren't for the first blight, the slave rebellion/revolts, and the on-going war with the qunari, Thedas would probably still be completely under the dominion of the Tevinter mages, and if anything, your spirit of Justice! would be on the side of the non-mages (good luck possessing anyone though haha).


So, now that the Chantry has broken free of the control of mages, they need a solution to stop it happening again. While ideally they would just turn mages into productive members of society, contributing their special talents to make the world a happier place (healing, enchanting nice things), realistically - since a group of power-hungry mages or even one crazy mage could wreck massive amounts of havoc - mages need to be tightly regulated and controlled.

So the only real options are to execute or imprison all mages.

Bearing in mind that mages can pop up in any family, the summary execution of any mage isn't really going to be too popular. This leaves the option of confinement to 'Circles', with tight regulation of what they do, and the execution of any mage that goes rogue (using blood magic, running away and becoming an 'apostate'). I suppose 'exile' could be another option, but that probably has a high risk of coming back to bite them on the arse.

The Right of Annulment probably stems from the (rather paranoid) fear of large groups of mages trying to break free of the Chantry and disrupting the rather fragile balance they're trying to maintain. (Since it could rather ironically inspire a large-scale mage revolt like the rebellion that started the Chantry).


Besides the considerable danger mage's abilities pose by themselves (especially in the hands of a morally corrupt mage), they are also susceptible to the influence of demons/spirits and becoming possessed ('abominations'). The Harrowing and the rite of tranquility deal with this problem relatively well (I'm not sure how the non-circle mages would deal with it), working as a form of screening/damage control to prevent possessed mages from doing too much damage later on. It's a pity that it's so prone to misuse.


Anyway, what I was meaning to say was that you would be better off posting in one of the other subforums since this one tends to be more gameplay-oriented (and inactive).
But it seems I got carried away in my spiel haha.

Modifié par mr_afk, 30 octobre 2012 - 09:16 .

[vortex216]

Sorry, but I didn't read all of your post. It was too long. From what I did read, great. But that's not what I'm talking about. JUSTICE-the pure escense of what is just-sympathized and agreed with the mages' side. Just because it might be better for the common folk doesn't mean that it's right.

[mr_afk]

Haha I was in a spielly mood. Something about approaching exams makes me like to waste time.
The most important part of my spiel was probably the part where I recommended a different subforum.

Anyway, what I was meaning to say was that you would be better off posting in one of the other subforums since this one tends to be more gameplay-oriented (and inactive).

There's a relatively lively mage vs templar debate still going on in some of the other subforums (which I haven't actually looked at tbh).

But otherwise, the TLDR was that there's going to be injustice one way or the other - so the principle of justice doesn't really apply quite as much in regards to determining the ethically correct thing to do.


In simple terms, justice is the concept of fairness, that is, treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination. It's the ethical principle involved when there's one group exploiting another - i.e. the templar's treatment of mages.

My huge spiel was about how a situation with potentially dangerous people (with special powers) only really has one logical option if they want to prevent the exploitation of the non-mages. Namely, the confinement and heavy regulation of mages.

So while the system that is currently in place is unjust for the mages, removing that system will most likely lead to further injustice in the future - this time for non-mages (think Tevinter Imperium society). Thus it's impossible for such a situation to ever be truly just.

So while there might be a considerable amount of injustice going on, 'Justice' is not all-knowing and does not know what the future will entail. Thus, despite been the 'essence of justice', he is not the judge of what is ultimately going to be just for everyone (an almost impossible situation), and he is definitely not the judge of which 'side' is ethically right, but rather, just an individual acting out against obvious injustices.


On a more pedantic level, it's also inaccurate to say that the presence of injustice (as recognised by the spirit of Justice) means that 'the templars are [ethically] wrong', since right and wrong are rather abstract concepts with many ways to approach it (e.g consequentialism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics etc).

If you take the utilitarian approach of 'maximising happiness' along with the consequentialist 'ends justify the means', maximising the happiness of society may make keeping mages locked up in Circles the 'right choice'.

However, a more deontological approach would suggest that keeping mages locked up is inherently 'wrong', and the 'right choice' would be to let the mages live freely, even if it results in a bad consequence.

This conflict in the approach to what is 'right or wrong' means that the mage vs templar debate can never really be proved one way or the other.


Haha ended up spielling again.