294 réponses à ce sujet

[TEWR]

Xilizhra wrote...

 Moreover, this is all almost irrelevant because the true problem was with human conduct.

Regarding this, thinking on it I don't think you can say that the Elves are blameless in this situation given how Denerim has been seriously damaged by the Darkspawn and the Elves still went there knowing that. Denerim's walls are ****ed, the market district's destroyed utterly, and homes were burning all over the place.

So I think the Elves do bear that blame for seeing only one of their own as Bann while failing to take into account the other factors Denerim has to contend with. Reconstruction, an ease to allow the Elves to have more rights, and so on.

However, the humans are, as I said, the main problem with everything. But the Elves are not blameless either.

I've gone against one of my principles by butting into an argument between two other people, so I'll wait to continue this until Faerunner catches up with the discussion.

I'm not certain I'm going to continue a discussion with Faerunner on this topic, as she's shown in the past to ignore what I say regarding Elves in favor of what she wants to see -- which is that I'm accusing Elves of being at fault for everything and that Humans are blameless.

I try to be objective on these matters, to the best of my ability with what knowledge the games and other forms of media present.

[Xilizhra]

Regarding this, thinking on it I don't think you can say that the Elves are blameless in this situation given how Denerim has been seriously damaged by the Darkspawn and the Elves still went there knowing that. Denerim's walls are ****ed, the market district's destroyed utterly, and homes were burning all over the place.

That seems like a logical time to have a fresh start when having to build something up to me. Especially if the elves thought they could earn their place there by helping with the reconstruction.

[TEWR]

Perhaps. But the slide doesn't seem to imply that, as it states that the minor good the Warden had accomplished made the Elves want to go there out of desperation for a better life, rather then a drive for wanting to prove themselves in rebuilding the city.

[Xilizhra]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Perhaps. But the slide doesn't seem to imply that, as it states that the minor good the Warden had accomplished made the Elves want to go there out of desperation for a better life, rather then a drive for wanting to prove themselves in rebuilding the city.

You can get almost anything you want out of the slide, but the point is that there's not nearly enough evidence to accuse the elves of anything bad, whereas there clearly is for the humans. Trying to find some kind of fault in both sides is a false equivalency.

[mesmerizedish]

Anders treats elves badly.

[MisterJB]

Xilizhra wrote...
You can get almost anything you want out of the slide, but the point is that there's not nearly enough evidence to accuse the elves of anything bad, whereas there clearly is for the humans. Trying to find some kind of fault in both sides is a false equivalency.

Actions do not take place in vacuums. If we assume that the humans started the violence, it was still the sudden and masive influx of elves that caused tensions to flare up whereas a slow increase of both the Alienage population and its living conditions plus human gratitude due to the role the CE Warden had ending the Blight could have averted it entirely.
Were the elves doing something "bad" by seeking a better life under the first elven Bann? Not really but they still bear some of the blame.

[TEWR]

Xilizhra wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Perhaps. But the slide doesn't seem to imply that, as it states that the minor good the Warden had accomplished made the Elves want to go there out of desperation for a better life, rather then a drive for wanting to prove themselves in rebuilding the city.

You can get almost anything you want out of the slide, but the point is that there's not nearly enough evidence to accuse the elves of anything bad, whereas there clearly is for the humans. Trying to find some kind of fault in both sides is a false equivalency.

I'd only say that if the slide said "The Warden did good and the Elves in the Alienage rejoiced, but the humans rioted at the new rights Elves received." 

Then there'd be no hint as to the Elves having done something and it'd be entirely the humans' fault.

EDIT:

MisterJB wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
You can get almost anything you want out of the slide, but the point is that there's not nearly enough evidence to accuse the elves of anything bad, whereas there clearly is for the humans. Trying to find some kind of fault in both sides is a false equivalency.

Actions do not take place in vacuums. If we assume that the humans started the violence, it was still the sudden and masive influx of elves that caused tensions to flare up whereas a slow increase of both the Alienage population and its living conditions plus human gratitude due to the role the CE Warden had ending the Blight could have averted it entirely.
Were the elves doing something "bad" by seeking a better life under the first elven Bann? Not really but they still bear some of the blame.

Exactly. Even though the Humans started the violence, they do not bear all of the blame -- only most. That doesn't mean the Elves were doing anything bad for seeking out a better life, but that doesn't mean they're blameless.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 12 février 2013 - 07:50 .

[Xewaka]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...
Anders treats elves badly.

Elves, or blood mages? The second is patently obvious (poor Merrill) but do you have examples of the first? Honest question.

[TEWR]

Xewaka wrote...

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...
Anders treats elves badly.

Elves, or blood mages? The second is patently obvious (poor Merrill) but do you have examples of the first? Honest question.

IIRC, he talks about how the Alienage Elves should stand with the Mages as well in a very scornful tone. 

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 12 février 2013 - 09:41 .

[nightscrawl]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...
Anders treats elves badly.

Elves, or blood mages? The second is patently obvious (poor Merrill) but do you have examples of the first? Honest question.

IIRC, he talks about how the Alienage Elves should stand with the Mages as well in a very scornful tone. 

That's it? That one statement doesn't seem enough to build an assertion like "Anders treats elves badly" on. He says something similar to Fenris because Fenris was a slave. It has nothing to do with being an elf, it has to do with oppression. He feels mages are oppressed, and that that oppression is on the same level as slavery or city elves. I don't really see how it's referential to them being elves specifically.

You seem to think his "scornful tone" is because of the race, whereas I look at it as his bitterness that a group of people, admittedly oppressed themselves, won't stand with mages, probably because they are mages. Anders words during Last Straw (dependant on dialog choice) say everything on his views, "Was anyone ever with us?" To him, it's mages vs the world.

If you want to bring in his comments to Merrill about her Dalish beliefs, that is another matter, but it also does not pertain to all elves.

[TEWR]

I'm not saying I agree that he treats Elves badly, necessarily. Only that was the only thing I could recall him saying dealing with the topic of Elves. It was certainly scornfully said.

I can't say I picked up an "Anders is a racist dick to Elves" vibe, myself. But then, I might've missed a few things he might've said.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 12 février 2013 - 10:34 .

[Dave of Canada]

I'd like to bring up the discussion which Ashley has with Shepard in Mass Effect 1, the one which she compares humanity to a dog and the aliens as the owner which would let the dog die. Many people throughout the forums thought--and still do--it's a statement created out of ignorance and intolerance, despite Ashley inevitabely being proven right. 

Though the game never states that, she's white-washed by the writers in the second and third game with really inconsistent characterization (possibly due to the change of writers) and never creating any interesting character in the trilogy.

The fact that someone had a legitimate and ultimately correct fear of what aliens would do was irrelevant, she was ignorant and racist! She's also christian! Many condemned her to death on Virmire.

How is this relevant? Because players cannot distance themselves from the game, anyone who disagrees with the player's opinions / ethics / whatever must be condemned to death forever. It's an irrational hatred born out of the player's fear of someone opposing them.

This leaves companions in a similar position to Ashley in ME2/ME3, no real interesting characterization for fear that the community would reject them. This leaves companions in the uncomfortable position where they bend over backwards and allow you to violate everything they stand for without protesting provided you gave them the Dog Bone™ or forgot them back at home when you went to burn down their mother's cottage.

All we've really seen of racism towards elves is characterization to portray antagonists as irredeemable bastards, an immature way of dealing with uncomfortable topics to pretend they're slightly important to the universe when they're nothing but throwaway plots for the next villain. It's the Dragon Age equivalent of kicking dogs.

Introducing reasonable and sensible characters who have hatred/distrust for elves and you have the option of confronting them about it would be interesting, shame they'd probably be condemned to death forever by the fanbase.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 12 février 2013 - 10:54 .

[MisterJB]

Faerunner wrote...
You too. In one post they bear the blame of not pursuing a better life and in another they bear the blame for doing so.

Are you only capable of thinking of things in extremes?
Here's a suggestion, after the Blight, use the CE Warden's newfound influence and rebuild the Alienage with wood and stones rather than refuse; convice the Queen to lift some bans such as that on weapons; have some elves join the city guard; small but important things done over time. Gradually increase the Alienage's population through birth and controlled immigration.
Don't have elves from every corner of Ferelden you didn't even know existed move to the Denerim Alienage. That is only going to increase tensions.

[Reznore57]

I'm not sure it's the same thing with Ashley , humans have been in a war with Turians few decades ago ( if i remember correctly , ME lore isn't my strong point) .
She comes from a family tied to the army , probably not really alien friendly .
Then humans are in competition with aliens , even among aliens they 're not equal when it comes to the council etc...
So it's a bit "natural" in this kind of environment to not trust each other very much.
People don't really blink an eye when there's tons of racism between turian/salarian and krogan.

In da , elves are not a threat to humans , they lost the war ,the Imperium turned them into slaves , then when the imperium was defeated (with their help) , they got a plot of land that didn't last very long.
They can live among human society , but it's a really heavy price to pay for them.
They can't live like humans , they are stuck in ghetto and to certain jobs , they can't practise their ancient religion (though Andraste is a hero to both human and elves , Human pretty much erase Shartan from history.A human saved you , be grateful.End of the line )
The only way for them to have a nice life is to find a nice human noble who'd treat them well so they could enjoy a bit of luxury.

Besides their races was powerful because they had magic , forbidden in human land .They live less longer among human , and if they reproduce with human , they have a human baby.
It's really a great recipe for them to disappear as a race.

Again for me , it really makes sense for elves to be big racist.It's about self preservation at this point.
But for humans (who anyway are racist as a society ) to go "I hate elves!" , it's really over the top.
There's no reason to hate elves , most of them conform to human racism anyway , they live the way humans want them to live.
I mean they still got their tree , and no shoes , let's kill them all...?

The only rebel are the dalish , and they struggle to survive.
The few revolt in alienage seems to be tamed pretty quickly too.

IMHO , as long as elves do nothing , they're no point to have a character obviously racist.It will just make the character an obvious villain like the noble who raped elven woman.
For now it's fine having little touch like Leliana being a bit "stupid" about the issue , Loghain dealing with selling elves , or Aveline dealing with justice not being fair to them and how some city elf turns to the qun in desperation.

The sad truth is city elves are a bit of a joke , Fenris doesn't even respect them.
Slaves in the imperium do rebel all the freaking times .

[Aleya]

Yes, please! That would be really interesting. I love characters that are overall okay people but have extremely unreasonable opinions on specific subjects. I think we've had representatives from pretty much every angle on the Templar/Mage issue at this point so a new topic would be nice, and racism is an excellent candidate.

Justice/Anders and Fenris came close, but the origins of their respective fanaticisms left them incapable of rational thought. Any conversation on the subject of mages ended with "MY VIEWS ARE CORRECT BECAUSE <HORRIBLE THING> HAPPENED TO ME, END OF DISCUSSION." I much prefer characters like Sten: people whose outlook on life wasn't cemented by one or more tragic events. They were simply raised to see the world a particular way and never saw need to change that view.

So I would like to see:
-A dwarven noble. Because I get the impression they are the worst bunch of stuck-up arses to be found in Thedas. Even better if we also get a servant caste or casteless companion.
-A racist elf (who isn't a mass murderer so I can actually accept him/her as a companion). Would love a poor city elf since we've already had two Dalish companions and neither Zevran nor Fenris really count as city elves in my book.
-If we get another Dalish I'd like one who patronizes flat-ears to the extreme.
-A racist human who may or may not have a problem with mages too.
-Another Qunari. A convert would be lovely. Who isn't Tallis. Please not Tallis. Just give me a normal run-of-the-mill elf who thought the Qun sounded cool and came out brainwashed.
-A Tevinter Magister who sees other living beings as walking spell fuel.

But what I would *really* like is if the companion with less than sanitized views were somehow more powerful than everyone else. Be it politically, physically or magically. So that you as PC couldn't just order him/her to fall in line and the other companions can't scare him/her into behaving. It would raise the question of whether or not you risk standing up to this person and how you go about doing it.

[PnXMarcin1PL]

Oh well I've treated all species badly, Elves, Dwarfes, Darkspawn ;D. I have even killed Zevran!

[abnocte]

mickey111 wrote...

Bioware is anti-discrimination.

I don't understand why there needs to exist a correlation between Bioware's employees morals and ethics and the morals and ethics of a fictional character created by them.

Not only that, I don't understand why a human PC raised in a world where elves are looked down upon and mages are feared, wouldn't have the same prejudices.

As I see it, the problem is not whether Ashley was racist/specist but whether she mixed well, not with the rest of the party, but with your Shepard.

If I play a pro-human/anti-alien Shepard I sure has hell will have Ash with me all the time.
It never ocurred to me to play my blood-mage warden with Alistair and Wynne in the party, or my noble and religious  Warden with Morrigan in the party.

So yes please, we need more Ashleys, Morrigans, Stens, Keldorns, Viconias and Edwins.

[Xilizhra]

I'd like to bring up the discussion which Ashley has with Shepard in Mass Effect 1, the one which she compares humanity to a dog and the aliens as the owner which would let the dog die. Many people throughout the forums thought--and still do--it's a statement created out of ignorance and intolerance, despite Ashley inevitabely being proven right.

It's really not. It takes some time, but the galaxy eventually does pull completely together.

Introducing reasonable and sensible characters who have hatred/distrust for elves and you have the option of confronting them about it would be interesting, shame they'd probably be condemned to death forever by the fanbase.

Actually, the Couslands and their like probably fit this rather well, they just die too quickly to ever form dialogue about this.

Actions do not take place in vacuums. If we assume that the humans started the violence, it was still the sudden and masive influx of elves that caused tensions to flare up whereas a slow increase of both the Alienage population and its living conditions plus human gratitude due to the role the CE Warden had ending the Blight could have averted it entirely.
Were the elves doing something "bad" by seeking a better life under the first elven Bann? Not really but they still bear some of the blame.

It's not a matter of blame, because the elves are blameless in that they've not taken any immoral actions. What they did perhaps put in place altered circumstances that better accommodated human rioting than may have otherwise been the case, but it's not an issue of blame, any more than one woman's bad taste in men is a matter of blame for being date-raped.

However, I really fail to comprehend why we're even arguing about this, when the ending slides are not only noncanon, but are in fact contradicted in Awakening, when the CE Warden is now Arl of Amaranthine.

I'd only say that if the slide said "The Warden did good and the Elves in the Alienage rejoiced, but the humans rioted at the new rights Elves received."

Then there'd be no hint as to the Elves having done something and it'd be entirely the humans' fault.

It is entirely the humans' fault. All blame for an act of violence rests on the perpetrator, except in very special circumstances of deliberate provocation, which this was not, nor was their any indication of it.

Are you only capable of thinking of things in extremes?
Here's a suggestion, after the Blight, use the CE Warden's newfound influence and rebuild the Alienage with wood and stones rather than refuse; convice the Queen to lift some bans such as that on weapons; have some elves join the city guard; small but important things done over time. Gradually increase the Alienage's population through birth and controlled immigration.
Don't have elves from every corner of Ferelden you didn't even know existed move to the Denerim Alienage. That is only going to increase tensions.

No one was running everything. The elves are not a hive mind. You cannot control the actions of an entire diffuse race from Denerim. Your expectations are blatantly unrealistic.

But what I would *really* like is if the companion with less than sanitized views were somehow more powerful than everyone else. Be it politically, physically or magically. So that you as PC couldn't just order him/her to fall in line and the other companions can't scare him/her into behaving. It would raise the question of whether or not you risk standing up to this person and how you go about doing it.

What ho, immediate gameplay and story segregation problems. At least if they happen to be a companion; in any single situation, it'd be three against one, and the one could never get away with... whatever it is they'd want to get away with by not falling in line.

[Adanu]

Basically, stop treating us with kid gloves. This series is supposedly an M rating, but your competition, the Witcher 2, actually follows through with that.

You people just dance around it and call it 'well presented'.

It's jarring, contradictory, and insulting.

[Xilizhra]

Adanu wrote...

Basically, stop treating us with kid gloves. This series is supposedly an M rating, but your competition, the Witcher 2, actually follows through with that.

You people just dance around it and call it 'well presented'.

It's jarring, contradictory, and insulting.

I must admit, it takes something special to be offended by the lack of racism.

[Harle Cerulean]

Xilizhra wrote...

Adanu wrote...

Basically, stop treating us with kid gloves. This series is supposedly an M rating, but your competition, the Witcher 2, actually follows through with that.

You people just dance around it and call it 'well presented'.

It's jarring, contradictory, and insulting.

I must admit, it takes something special to be offended by the lack of racism.

This thread is pretty full of special, you have to admit.  We've got people arguing very hard that an oppressed people need to just stop being oppressed if they don't want to be oppressed!  It's like hearing my batty old uncle complaining about affirmative action all over again.

[Adanu]

Xilizhra wrote...

Adanu wrote...

Basically, stop treating us with kid gloves. This series is supposedly an M rating, but your competition, the Witcher 2, actually follows through with that.

You people just dance around it and call it 'well presented'.

It's jarring, contradictory, and insulting.

I must admit, it takes something special to be offended by the lack of racism.

It takes something average and inattentive to not care about your lore, so we're even.

[Reznore57]

Actually there's not a lack of racism in da .
I played a bit of witcher 2 , i don't remember anybody close to gerald being racist.
A lot hate the scoia'tael for their act of terrorism.
Elves in da gave up the fight , the dalish try to get away from humans , not fighting them.

But for the rest , elves living in ghetto: checked.
Elves being raped , murdered with nobody batting an eye :check.
Riot in alienage: check...

I don't want to get into a witcher /da thing , but mostly in the witcher 2 they do have better cinematics and you can't really miss information like this.
In Da it's just less in your face , and it's not part of the central plot like human/nohuman thing in the witcher.

[Xilizhra]

Adanu wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Adanu wrote...

Basically, stop treating us with kid gloves. This series is supposedly an M rating, but your competition, the Witcher 2, actually follows through with that.

You people just dance around it and call it 'well presented'.

It's jarring, contradictory, and insulting.

I must admit, it takes something special to be offended by the lack of racism.

It takes something average and inattentive to not care about your lore, so we're even.

It is not a lore failing to have racially tolerant companions.