MisterJB wrote...
In this situation, Cullen has been killed like the rest of the templars.
So you mean to argue from a hypothetical "What is known" standpoint, where possibilities of all types exist for what transpires after Anders' little bomb test run? Fair enough.
Let's examine what we know:
1) Thrask and Tobrius both state that times were better in Kirkwall's Circle before Meredith under Knight-Commander Guylian. They don't actually give his name, but "before Meredith" is used and Guylian was her predecessor. Thrask even states that upon ascending to Knight-Commander, Meredith began instituting and rigidly enforcing a multitude of anti-mage policies, which if KC Guylian didn't do and Kirkwall was well off means that they were unnecessary.
2) Meredith makes it a point to promote extremists to high and influential ranks within the Order. Karras, Alrik, Mettin, Cullen, etc. This showcases that to her, the only good Templar is an extreme one and is not only blatant favoritism -- which indicates she's not fit for the position in terms of being fair to her charges and troops -- but also signifies that she's psychologically unstable if she's promoting the people who make no secret of their twisted desires.
3) Alrik was illegally making Mages Tranquil, when for it to be legally performed both the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter must sign off on it, wherein the entry is kept in the record books. As Tranquil Mages were popping up in such degree that people
outside of the Circle began to notice, we can deduce that Orsino no doubt noticed as well and brought it up loudly with Meredith (if she wasn't already aware). And yet the fact that she does not launch an investigation -- especially into the man who actually wants all Mages tranquil -- speaks to the fact that she either didn't care enough to do her damn job or she wanted Alrik to keep doing this with unofficial approval.
4) Also to Alrik, the fact that she doesn't fire his ass or send him on a dead-end job in the Free Marches like Gregoir was going to do to the perverted Templar -- thus making use of him while removing the problem -- for his proposals on neutering the minds of all the Mages, yet is willing to fire Samson simply for delivering a letter between Mages that were in love also speaks that she is unwilling to control and properly punish her own Templars. Which if she won't do that, how can we trust these same Templars to not abuse their position in the process of the RoA?
5) Aveline had requested Templar forces to aid the City Guard in protecting Kirkwall, specifically from forces that the City Guard is not fit to deal with (maleficarum and demons). Meredith outright refused to aid her, for no true reason. The duty of the Templars is to protect the people from the dangers of magic just as much as it is to protect the mages from the dangers of man. Then by Act 3, Meredith wants to consolidate power not from a desire to protect the city, but because she thinks Aveline's inept (which she is, but that's another matter entirely). She wants the City Guard -- one of the few Kirkwall organizations not beholden to the Order currently -- to be in her pocket so she's not faced with any resistance.
6) Similar to the above, in all three acts the Templars rarely, if ever, do their jobs. If they do, it's lone Templars doing it in secret. Cullen worked in secret, which is understandable because he needed to. Emeric, on the other hand, had to work in secret because his superiors didn't want to investigate. That he wanted to be certain speaks well of him. And when sufficient evidence is brought to the Templars that would warrant an investigation -- Shades, body parts, a witness fleeing the crime long before the Demons show up -- that when combined with what Emeric already knew (the phylactery of Mharen leading to and stopping at the abandoned foundry), the thing that happens is that Meredith dismisses it as not being worth their time and pawns it off to the City Guard.
Which, incidentally, is also damning of Aveline for her incompetence because she may have seen and heard all these things, yet also believes it not worth investigating.
7) Furthermore, in Act 3 the Templars fail to investigate two -- arguably three that they should've investigated -- criminal gangs that warrant their attention. The Bloodragers in Hightown are a group of blood mages trying to... well... take over Hightown and live there by force. The Templars have men garrisoned there, yet you never see any of them actually fighting.
8) It's worth noting that, as dragonflight288 has said in the past, Kirkwall's blood mage issue only became a major problem in DAII when Meredith usurped the Viscount's seat and began going fanatical on the populus and Mages. Driving Mages to blood magic because you persecute them does not make the Mage guilty. It makes the Templar guilty. Creating the monster you fear under your bed does not vindicate you, it just makes you look like an ass. They were present in the past, but really became present in the years between Act 2's end and Act 3.
9) Meredith authorized Ser Mettin to lead a group of her hand-picked extremist Templars to 'purge' any and all mage-sympathizers in Kirkwall. Killing people for assisting Mages is not condoned by Chantry law and it's actually illegal to do so. Aiding a Mage is illegal yes, but not punishable by death.
10) Some of Meredith's Templars will torture children for information on Mages, and won't even bat an eyelash about it. This is what one Templar did to a Dalish child hunter if Feynriel is sent to the clan, and she's even willing to kill the clan's other hunters to get her quarry.
11) Then we've got the Templars going to Sundermount alongside Chantry priests and making thinly veiled threats towards the Elves that they should convert or die.
12) Meredith has illegally usurped the Viscount's throne and has stonewalled any and all attempts at Kirkwall ruling itself, such that when reminded of her true job she rebukes people telling her such. When people say that she should step down, she says "I'll decide when that is!" which is problematic in and of itself. If we left it up to people to decide when they were unfit for a role, more often then not they'd never step down at all.
13) A case can be made that, since Kirkwall's Circle was used as an Ellis Island type of thing in the prologue, that it by default extends to the Kirkwall mainland as part of the Champion's duty to protect. In other words, while it's Chantry-controlled, it's also Kirkwall bound.
14) The Chantry blows up at nighttime, where it's closed to the public. This was established in Act 1, and the only people seen inside are Templars and priests. As even the priests note that they wish the children would accept their aid, it's safe to say there were no true innocents in that Chantry. So with the entire city well asleep, their first thought at seeing the smoldering ruin would not be "MAGES!!!". Indeed, as the thing that destroyed it was a bomb formed from mundane ingredients -- and augmented with magical reagents, no doubt, which does not require a Mage -- their first thought might be that the Qunari have struck again.
While the Mages are actively fighting back against the Templars, the majority of them are not fighting back against the Chantry itself. But the Qunari and Chantry have been diametrically opposed for a long time, and it was the Chantry itself that caused the Qunari to attack three years prior -- though the people of Kirkwall might just ignore that fact.
At any rate, the Qunari attacked Kirkwall three years ago, even saying that they'd return in the future. Taarbas, a Qunari agent, will show up in Kirkwall which might lead to him being suspected. And while it's true Maraas says that time has calmed the suspicion Tal-Vashoth face from the Kirkwallians, that does not mean the suspicion wouldn't arise again.
15) Coddling a mob and catering to their demands is a ******-poor method of ruling a city. It empowers them and makes them feel stronger down the line. As the Templars exist to guard Mages as well as mundanes, the Templars were duty-bound to protect the Mages from the mundanes as they weren't involved at all. They should have taken all the Mages to the Gallows and locked it down, with Aveline, the Guardsmen, and the Champion of Kirkwall (plus friends) locking down the Dockside district and keeping order should a mob form (which it never does).
So if the Templars are unwilling to do their job, Hawke should be to set forth an ideal and a standard by defending the Mages, something that's particularly poignant if he happens to have learned the Templar arts. That means that an outsider is a better Templar then the Templars themselves.
16) Meredith has been itching to call for an RoA for a long time now, such that she's gone over Elthina's head -- no doubt twisting facts to suit her desires -- and will even go so far as to cite Hawke as being a thrall of Orsino when the former says the latter wasn't involved in the BSC rebellion. Whereas Orsino is man enough to admit he was wrong about suspecting Meredith's involvement.
There are no doubt many other things I could bring up. But I think 16 is enough to start with
. Most of these deal with one point in particular: the Templars of Kirkwall, from various ranks, have failed to do their duty properly in the past. So why should I trust that they'll do it properly now or afterwards? The Order's presence in Kirkwall is more corrupt then good, and I cannot in good conscience trust these people to rebuild a Circle again after all this, knowing full well that the cycle will continue anew there and the common people will still suffer under the boot of the Templars.
Defending the Mages is only part of it. It's also about changing the future. Not the mindset Anders operates off of where he views himself as some sort of Messianic figure, but rather changing Kirkwall's future and making it safer down the line. By standing up to tyranny, I hope to enlighten the Templars of their own shortcomings and, should that fail, at least I'll have undermined their authority enough that the risk of Kirkwall 2.0 happening again is lessened.
Regardless, while there those in the city who harbored little love for Meredith, there were also those who supported her. And even those who disliked her are most certainly not going to just accept the mages killing both the Grand Cleric and the Knight Commander.
If your premise is "Here's what we know at this point in time" then siding with the Mages does not, in and of itself, mean the Knight-Commander will die. It may mean it's desired and sought after -- by Mages or Hawke -- It simply means that siding with the Mages is an act of defending them against the Templars unjustified, unethical, and unnecessary RoA.
That she inevitably does die does not make it a guarantee, so to argue that it's a foregone conclusion while similarly arguing that other things aren't foregone conclusions seems to be cherrypicking to me.
Hawke can try to explain but it will make little difference. Conflict between the unleashed Circle and the people of Kirkwall is inevitable.
As no mob ever forms -- the very basis of Meredith's argument -- I think it's safe to say that conflict wouldn't have happened at all.
If a mob had formed -- preferably visibly -- then Meredith's position would be stronger. And regardless, if we're using the "Anything can happen" viewpoint that you seem to be arguing from up above, then the conflict between Mage and mundane might not happen at all, given the aforementioned reasons pertaining to Anders' spectacle that I listed above.
Are the lives of the few mages who escape worth setting the city on fire over?
Well, Kirkwall was built by the Dwarves and the Tevinters and it's faced war in the past without crumbling to ashes, so I'd say the city would endure. Particularly since a great deal of it is made of stone, Hightown especially. And so long as the people stay indoors, the danger is lessened. Not nullified, as fighting does happen on the streets for a time, but lessened if they don't try and involve themselves.
And given that there were only a handful of Mages even in the city at the time hailing from the Circle, it's not as if fighting was happening there primarily. Before Hawke leaves to mediate the dispute, he's told that the First Enchanter went out to see the Grand Cleric, before Meredith gave chase. I doubt the First Enchanter would take the entire Circle out to meet the Grand Cleric.
And it should be noted that the fighting takes place in the Gallows primarily, an isolated area. Unless Demons can swim, they're stuck there.
But you mention the thin Veil. Why in the name of the Ancestors would anyone want to fight a group of people backed into a corner on the flimsiest of reasons, knowing full well that "desperate times call for desperate measures" and all that, when you're residing in a place with a thin Veil? Meredith's cuckoo for cocoa puffs at this point, so she's not going to think rationally at all, but the Templars of the Order don't have that same excuse.
Templars are capable of sensing disturbances in the Veil. Ser Otto is capable of doing this in the Alienage -- where the Veil was sundered by Howe's little Purging -- which, if it were just him, could be explained by heightened senses after he went (mostly) blind. But a Templar Warden and
only a Templar Warden is capable of saying they sense the disturbances as well.
Which means that the Veil is something Kirkwall's Templars should sense. True enough, the Enigma of Kirkwall entry cites the fact that Kirkwall's thin Veil is well known throughout the city. So any Templar with a brain stem should've tried to dissuade Meredith from calling for the RoA when it may sunder the Veil completely and, if that failed, refused to take part at all or assisted the Mages in defending themselves (though not with the purpose of seeing them escape, but just to keep them alive).
MisterJB wrote...
In case you've missed it, the common people are the ones being harmed because mages and templars are killing each other on the street.
Psh, the common people were being actively harmed by the Templars long before this battle. Ser Mettin was on a murdering spree of anyone helping Mage-sympathizers, such that entire families were butchered for having even the slightest of connections to a Mage (from the pro-Templar equivalent's codex). He's even willing to kill people that have surrendered.
Hell, IIRC Karras makes no secret of wanting to rape a female Hawke.
thats1evildude wrote...
But they loved Elthina more than they hated Meredith.
True, but it should also be noted that while they loved her they also viewed her as inept at her job these days after having allowed Meredith far too much leeway, to the point that they were silently petitioning Val Royeaux to do something about the situation.
I'm not saying they're going to be thrilled about the turn of events, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that some might at least understand why she was targeted by Anders, if some do come to the conclusion a Mage did this. They'll be upset, but I highly doubt that they'll do a complete 180 and call for the deaths of all the Mages when it was just one crazed madman doing it.
Though that crazed madman was shielded by the Templars and Chantry for helping heal the sick, so meh...
Meredith had indeed broken Chantry law by taking over the Viscount's seat and Kirkwall was suffering with her at the helm.
Mage or mundane, it didn't matter. The common factor was that they were all suffering. And Elthina didn't do anything that addressed these issues in appropriate ways.
Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 31 mars 2013 - 03:38 .
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