Plaintiff wrote...
The Qunari have had that gunpowder for three hundred years, and are no more advanced than they were hen they first arrived. And the existence of gunpowder is not evidence for the possibility further advancement. For all we know, the Qunari have followed that path as far as it can possibly go in Thedas.
Seriously, that is nonsense. Unless we are specifically told a natural law of the real world doesn't work in a fictional one, then it does.
If magic already provides a perfectly viable, possibly better alternative, then why the hell is gunpowder required?
Because gunpowder can be used by anyone and magic only by a class of people who will take advantage of this fact.
So what? "Progress" is not automatically needed, nor is it automatically desirable. Ask any number of the ethnic minorities who had "progress" forced on them by invading Europeans.
Progress is always needed and always desirable. What is undesirable is the conflict between two different factions of people not the progress itself.
Such as in this case where magic is not undesirable, the conflict between mundanes and mages is.
Is that what we're calling facts now?
Please, you wouldn't know a fact if it hit you in the face.
No they aren't, there is no reason to assume that magic could not fulfill all the same functions as "technology"
Even if the fuctions fufilled are the same, since the innerworking of magic are quite different from technology; for instance, the fact that it's only available to a few or the fact it attracts demons; the effects on society will be different.
Except it's perfectly possible to create magical devices that do not require a mage to operate, just like one does not need to know the intricacies of a lightbulb in order to turn one on.
Spells can have long-lasting, even permanent effects, there's no reason to suppose that mages would be constantly needed to supervise or "refuel" magical devices.
Not only it is an huge assumption that any spell can last indefinitely; we have seen several weaken overtime and those where highly complex and powerfull spells meant to last, not day to day needs; any mage with half the intelligence the Maker granted to a sheep would realize that forcing the mundanes to rely on them for something as banal as illuminating a street works in their favor.
Mage supremacists might not care but we do.
And since, again, there's no evidence that fuel exists on Thedas anyway, mundanes might potentially be forced to rely on magic forever as it is.
As others have said, unless explicitally told otherwise, the rules of a fictional world work just like ours.
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Ah "blow up the Chantry" aka the Anders Solution. It elimates the need for an army alright because if the mages did that the survival time for mages would be measured in days as every single religious person - ie all of them in Thedas would go hostile. Also you can take the Templars out of the Chantry you can't take the Chantry out of the Templars they are still a primarily religious order.
