398 réponses à ce sujet

[legbamel]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Really? It seems to me the mesures proved efective enough - the abominations don't spread out of the tower. The danger is contained.  Both the mages and the populace protected from abominations.
I'd say that's mission accomplished.

All the templars did was die, get possesseed, and shut the door.  Wynne sealed the entrance to keep the abominations contained until the cavalry of Grey Wardens arrived.

Personally, the idea of being forced to live my entire life after the age of 6 or 7 in a stone tower in the middle of a beautiful lake and to be completely without windows makes me claustrophobic.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Creature 1 wrote...

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
@ Creature 1
If you own guns, you are subject to arrest in most countries, since owning guns is illegal.

If you live in one of these countries perhaps that is why you have such a lackadaisical attitude towards human rights.  I own guns. 

lol Yea I live in such an oppressive society, where I am not allowed to own a gun. I am very sad. Please invade Canada and give me my rights
And there is no human rights in a medieval context. Don't try to force your modern view on a medieval setting.

Creature 1 wrote...No, it's not.  They're locking up people who have shown no sign of being dangerous besides having the capacity to be dangerous.  Everyone has the capacity to be dangerous, most people are not.  Unless your'e paraplegic, you're a risk, and then even if you are you can cause trouble by manipulating people around you. 

But mages are potentially much more dangerous than everyone else. So yes, it's different.
All Mage fraternities, including Wynn, agree that the mages are more dangerous than everyone else. 

Creature 1 wrote...Dancing around the issue.  The "relocation camps" are by definition concentration camps.  Saying they're not as bad as Auschwitz doesn't make them not concentration camps.  The German concentration camps before they decided on the Final Solution were not primarily intended for mass murder, but they were still concentration camps. 

I just had a history course on WW2 and we talked about the issue. Internment camps and concentration camps were different in practise and in principle. While one was deisgned to superivse thsoe seen as threats (internment camps), the other was deisgned to put all the unwantables in a single place and flitter them out (concentration camps). We have not read one scholar who sees the internment camps as concentration camps. But let's assume that they are the same, the Circle does not compare with Soviet camps and other atrocities.
But it's all semantics. And it's irrelevent to the point.

Creature 1 wrote...So the few that get held down and lobotomized are excusable? 

Never said that. As a Sith fan I find the tranquils abhorent. But they are not like forced labor. 

Creature 1 wrote...
So if I get some homeless teenage girl and pimp her out, does it make it ok if I buy her a dress? 

Completely different. That little girl is not dangerous, does not possess magic, and you are using her solely for your own benefit. While the Circle as a whole benefits from the tranquils and we know this from one of the mage Fraternities (forgot the name) that in fact encourages this act and stresses that the Circle must accumulate money and wealth.  


EDIT: you seem to think I like the Templars and the system.
I don't. But I find the criticism addressed agaisnt them to be inpertinent.
Complaining about human rights in a setting where there is no such conception, is foolish.

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 16 janvier 2010 - 05:20 .

[Xandurpein]

Creature 1 wrote...

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
@ Creature 1
If you own guns, you are subject to arrest in most countries, since owning guns is illegal.

If you live in one of these countries perhaps that is why you have such a lackadaisical attitude towards human rights.  I own guns. 

I happen to live in Sweden. Sweden is considered to have one of better track records for human rights in the world. While people with licence own guns for hunting, guns are not allowed to be used for self defence here. It is simply ignorance to claim that there is any kind of objective connection between ownage of guns and attitudes towards human rights. You can disagree with KnightofPhoenix if you like, but it's a very sloppy argument to turn that diagreement into implying countries who do not allow guns are bad about human rights, not to mention totally untrue.

[ejoslin]

Doesn't Wynne mention that it's fairly standard for templars to rape apostate mages before killing them? I swear she said something about that to the city elf when the city elf told her how she joined the gray wardens.

[Lord Phoebus]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Creature 1 wrote...

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
@ Creature 1
If you own guns, you are subject to arrest in most countries, since owning guns is illegal.

If you live in one of these countries perhaps that is why you have such a lackadaisical attitude towards human rights.  I own guns. 

lol Yea I live in such an oppressive society, where I am not allowed to own a gun. I am very sad. Please invade Canada and give me my rights
And there is no human rights in a medieval context. Don't try to force your modern view on a medieval setting.

You can own a gun you just need to apply for a PAL.  We own more guns per capita than the US.  There are very few western countries that don't allow private citizens to own guns (though the stringency of licensing varies).

But mages are potentially much more dangerous than everyone else. So yes, it's different.
All Mage fraternities, including Wynn, agree that the mages are more dangerous than everyone else. 

You can look at scientists in our own society, we don't intern the ones with dangerous knowledge (at least not our own). 

Never said that. As a Sith fan I find the tranquils abhorent. But they are not like forced labor. 

They can't complain about it since they don't have emotions (not even sure to what degree they have free will), It's a bit like killing the mages, reanimating them and putting them to work as zombies.

However the mages themselves are expected to perform military service which makes them something akin to gladiators.  I suppose the Roman slave infantry they used as cannon fodder would be a better example. 

Their plight is partially the circle mages fault for assisting the chantry.  They should refuse to train new recruits or perform military service until they get better treatment.  The chantry could kill them, but they better hope they never have to fight an enemy that uses magic.

Though I do have to wonder why all the mages aren't dead from vitamin D deficiency due to the lack of sunlight in a windowless prison.

Modifié par Lord Phoebus, 16 janvier 2010 - 05:57 .

[InvaderErl]

Maybe they have organized field trips...

[mousestalker]

As for the chantry and mage restrictions, one thing that bothers me are the comparative fates of the Mage Wilhelm and the Mage Wynne.Wilhelm was able to live in a house he owned, get married and raise a family. He even went on trips to explore the Deep Roads. Wynne stayed locked in the tower for the most part and her son was taken away from her.

Modifié par mousestalker, 16 janvier 2010 - 06:11 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

Lord Phoebus wrote...
You can own a gun you just need to apply for a PAL.  We own more guns per capita than the US.  There are very few western countries that don't allow private citizens to own guns (though the stringency of licensing varies).

Eh, I didn't know that. Interesting.
Is it the same for Quebec?
I know firearms for hunting are allowed. But only for hunting.

Regardless, making the ownership of guns as illegal, or imposing strict regulation. is not an obstruction of human rights (so a person carrying an unlicenced gun is the same as a mage outside the circle, from this perspective). But this is completely irrlevent to this topic, since there is no such conception of human rights in a medieval setting.

You can look at scientists in our own society, we don't intern the ones with dangerous knowledge (at least not our own). 

Different. And our sceintists (the ones with dangerous and potentially military knowldge) are supervised by the government (and if he is involved in really dangerous projects and he attempts to esacpe, he is usually apprehended and maybe killed). But a scientist can't mind control someone, or eletrocute him by simply thinking it.

And mages are not expected to perform military service. Duncan had to fight for the right to employ only 7 mages at Ostagar. The Chantry doesn't like the idea of using mages in war, becuse they might be unleashed at that point.

And Tranquils seem to possess free will and are in fact insulted when you consider them not "persons".

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 16 janvier 2010 - 06:06 .

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

ejoslin wrote...

Doesn't Wynne mention that it's fairly standard for templars to rape apostate mages before killing them? I swear she said something about that to the city elf when the city elf told her how she joined the gray wardens.

Never got that far with a city elf, as I couldn't really get into playing an elf. But if true, that is quite interesting,  and gives further proof that the templars are quite unstable, and normal Chantry "ethics" regarding treatment of mankind can get overlooked in regards to a mage, whether they have done anything or not.

After all, an aopostate does not equal Malefacarum or abomination, it is simply any mage outside of the circle. The templars are supposed to kill apostates. To rape them is an act of brutality and contempt that goes well beyond and below any professional ethics, and is unecessary as it is appaling. One does not need to rape an apostate to neutralize or kill them.

Quite horrifying, if true. I will see if I can find it in the toolset.

[menasure]

Costin_Razvan wrote...

The Chantry is exactly like the Catholic Church and the Inquisition and the Crusades. I hate the Church not because of the Religion it represents but because of the crimes it has done, while also trying to come out as innocent.

the crusades were the opposite of the muslim invasion (a holy war for them) and the inquisition was something many believed in at the time, though humanity had other religions before which were eventually branded as 'evil' by the church but it's not the first time that different religions were clashing with eachother. anyway none of those guys from those times are even alive so why blame anyone today for the past?

if it's not because of some religious belief then any belief in a "just" cause and an absolute truth will do to satisfy the need to believe in something which a human apparently has and there will always be shady figures trying to manipulate visions for their own cause.
despite of what many think from a biological perspective humans have not really evolved since the first ****** sapiens, it's the "wrapping" society and the looks which changed but the violence-survival genes are still present in our genes today, just like our basic needs and the desire to shape the world we live in ... as long as these desires and needs conflict for various groups and individuals there will be wars and crimes.

Modifié par menasure, 16 janvier 2010 - 06:19 .

[Starcrunchy]

To be honest almost every Templar my mage met in the game treated me with respect and seemed reasonable. Aside from Cullen, and it's hardly fair to blame him when he's been tortured. I started out pretty chafed by their control of the circle, but as events unfold my mage gained a much different view of the Templars and the guilded cage of the circle. While at the beginning he strained to break free of his bonds, by the mid game it was impossible to look at it the same way.



One boy not yet ten years did more damage in Redcliffe than could possibly be imagined. That he did it out of love for his father and never meant it to be doesn't change that a lot of good people lost their lives. I don't hate Connor. It was an eye opening experience for my PC that made him finally understand why the things that were done to him when he was a done. Some things can't be explained properly in books and it wasn't until this moment that this character and me as the player "got it". He understood that what happened to Connor was something that could easily have happened to him. I don't know about others but when I was a boy Connor's age, I'd have made the deal Connor was offered in a heart beat were my father dying, and that ruin would have been mine... There is nobody in this game that I felt better about giving a second chance than Connor.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

I just checked the dialogue. Wynne states it is rumor, that some templars have been known to do really horrible things to their victims before they kill them, but she only knows this from rumor. And that it is some templars, not standard practice. Given that we see that there are templars who already are unstable, or go unstable from the effects of lyrium, it wouldn't surpise me.



But even Cullen states that some Templars he knows, during the mage origin, really enjoy killing mages and sometimes describe it with glee.



What is interesting is that it seems likely that the Chantry overlooks such vile behavior in templars, so long as they continue to serve and obey. We really see no evidence that the Chantry does anything to actually improve the mental health of the templars. if anything, ethics and morals are secondary traits, the primary being unswerving devotion and loyalty to the Chantry's orders.



Something they seem to enforce through lyrium addiction.

[Xandurpein]

menasure wrote...

[the crusades were the opposite of the muslim invasion (a holy war for them) and the inquisition was something many believed in at the time, though humanity had other religions before which were eventually branded as 'evil' by the church but it's not the first time that different religions were clashing with eachother. anyway none of those guys from those times are even alive so why blame anyone today for the past?

Actually the crusades against the holy land where only part of the whole crusading concept. There where crusades in Spain against the moors, in Poland and the baltic states by teutonic kinghts, Sweden called for crusades in Finland. Many crusades had nothing about the holy land or even fighting moslems at all to do. Many of these crusades where just thinly veiled land grabs against non-christians, sanctioned by the pope.

[menasure]

Xandurpein wrote...

menasure wrote...

[the crusades were the opposite of the muslim invasion (a holy war for them) and the inquisition was something many believed in at the time, though humanity had other religions before which were eventually branded as 'evil' by the church but it's not the first time that different religions were clashing with eachother. anyway none of those guys from those times are even alive so why blame anyone today for the past?

Actually the crusades against the holy land where only part of the whole crusading concept. There where crusades in Spain against the moors, in Poland and the baltic states by teutonic kinghts, Sweden called for crusades in Finland. Many crusades had nothing about the holy land or even fighting moslems at all to do. Many of these crusades where just thinly veiled land grabs against non-christians, sanctioned by the pope.

yup, eventually religious belief was misused in a struggle for power along the current 'politically correct' line of thinking but it all comes down to the same: opposing sides and probably any of those sides would have used anything at their disposal if it could give them a bigger army and more power, though we'll never know for sure what was going on in the head of historical figures concerning beliefs and justifications.

Modifié par menasure, 16 janvier 2010 - 06:48 .

[Lord Phoebus]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Lord Phoebus wrote...
You can own a gun you just need to apply for a PAL.  We own more guns per capita than the US.  There are very few western countries that don't allow private citizens to own guns (though the stringency of licensing varies).

Eh, I didn't know that. Interesting.
Is it the same for Quebec?
I know firearms for hunting are allowed. But only for hunting.

It should be the same, but the provincial government of Quebec might have some additional constraints.  You're allowed firearms for hunting, target shooting (as sport), and collecting.  Generally only hunting weapons (shotguns and rifles, only semi-auto at best), there are restricted licenses for pistols, mostly law enforcement and target shooting.  I don't think it's possible for private citizen to get a license for a working full-auto.

Different. And our sceintists (the ones with dangerous and potentially military knowldge) are supervised by the government (and if he is involved in really dangerous projects and he attempts to esacpe, he is usually apprehended and maybe killed).

But, while monitored, they have freedom of movement.  They could travel around town, go on vacation, etc.  They aren't held prisoner.

But a scientist can't mind control someone, or eletrocute him by simply thinking it.

That's what you think. 

Joking aside, they can manufacture explosives, weapons and poisons from household materials available at the grocery/hardware store.

And mages are not expected to perform military service. Duncan had to fight for the right to employ only 7 mages at Ostagar. The Chantry doesn't like the idea of using mages in war, becuse they might be unleashed at that point.

Yes, but they did let the army demand mages.  And if the circle mages refused the Templars probably would have forced them.  The circle mages fought against the Qunari as well.  So while the chantry doesn't like using mages, they realise they are a necessary weapon and really that's the only reason they don't make them all tranquil from birth.

And Tranquils seem to possess free will and are in fact insulted when you consider them not "persons".

Which is bad writing. If the tranquils really have no emotions they can't be hurt by your words and can't feel insulted.  They may intellectually recognise an insult, but they can't feel hurt or angry.  Similarly, without desire, they can't actually want anything, so I question whether they have will.  If they did have will you would probably see tranquils that left the circle (they aren't a danger anymore, so why can't they leave?).  They really aren't people.  Owain, for example, doesn't seem to have any survival instinct of which to speak.

[Lotion Soronarr]

legbamel wrote...
All the templars did was die, get possesseed, and shut the door.  Wynne sealed the entrance to keep the abominations contained until the cavalry of Grey Wardens arrived.

Personally, the idea of being forced to live my entire life after the age of 6 or 7 in a stone tower in the middle of a beautiful lake and to be completely without windows makes me claustrophobic.

That was a full-fledged uprising, the templars were caught by surprise. Not that it wpuld change much from Uldred, since reinforcemetn were on their way.

Note that mages don't live their whole life in the tower. They aren't allowed to leave the tower before they are made official mages (harrowing), but after that, they ARE sent on various errands around the country.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Lord Phoebus wrote...
Which is bad writing. If the tranquils really have no emotions they can't be hurt by your words and can't feel insulted.  They may intellectually recognise an insult, but they can't feel hurt or angry.  Similarly, without desire, they can't actually want anything, so I question whether they have will.  If they did have will you would probably see tranquils that left the circle (they aren't a danger anymore, so why can't they leave?).  They really aren't people.  Owain, for example, doesn't seem to have any survival instinct of which to speak.

No, ti's not bad writing. You have no idea how it would be to be Tranquil, since you aren't one. You can't really say that couldn't or shouldn't act like X.
They are alive, they think and are concious of themselves.

[Althernai]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

If you somehow think that without the Templars or the Circle there wouldn't be no abominations, then all I can do is laugh.

The argument is not that there would be no abominations, but that if mages were treated a little bit more like human beings, there would be fewer abominations and they'd do less harm. There is a bunch of mages living outside the Circle as it is (do the Mage's Collective quests) and they have a far lower in-game mage-to-abomination rate than Circle magi. In both of the critical path quests where you encounter abominations, their existence is the direct result of an attempt to avoid the Chantry-Circle system, one by a mage who is already part of this system and wants to loosen it and one by a mother who does not want to lose her son to it.

Furthermore, in both cases, the Templars do practically nothing. In the Tower, all they do is lock the children in -- the abominations are actually held in check by Wynne. At Redcliffe, there is not a single Templar to be found. The one and only Templar who actually tries to do something against the supernatural is the blind one in the Denerim Alienage, but he is badly outmatched and no reinforcements appear to be forthcoming.

[Antigone2283]

Starcrunchy wrote...

To be honest almost every Templar my mage met in the game treated me with respect and seemed reasonable. Aside from Cullen, and it's hardly fair to blame him when he's been tortured. I started out pretty chafed by their control of the circle, but as events unfold my mage gained a much different view of the Templars and the guilded cage of the circle. While at the beginning he strained to break free of his bonds, by the mid game it was impossible to look at it the same way.

One boy not yet ten years did more damage in Redcliffe than could possibly be imagined. That he did it out of love for his father and never meant it to be doesn't change that a lot of good people lost their lives. I don't hate Connor. It was an eye opening experience for my PC that made him finally understand why the things that were done to him when he was a done. Some things can't be explained properly in books and it wasn't until this moment that this character and me as the player "got it". He understood that what happened to Connor was something that could easily have happened to him. I don't know about others but when I was a boy Connor's age, I'd have made the deal Connor was offered in a heart beat were my father dying, and that ruin would have been mine... There is nobody in this game that I felt better about giving a second chance than Connor.

Isolde, a non-mage, really bears responsibility for a GREAT deal of the destruction at Redcliffe:  her fear of her boy being taken away from her (and probably made Tranquil or killed outright, having already proved his "weakness" and susceptibility for being possessed) kept her from telling anyone what was happening.  The demon went unchecked for days because of fear of the Chantry's system.  Connor's complete and utter lack of proper training no doubt also played a role in his susceptibility, and that lack of trraining was, AGAIN, the result of fear of the system set up for mages.

As for the Templars you met being "reasonable" and respectful, you interacted with them as a Grey Warden, and mage or no, everyone starts treating you differently once you're a Grey Warden.  In the mage origin, the templars you can talk to are cold and disdainful.  When you return later and complete the Circle quest, you can later overhear a couple of Templars in the hall wondering to each other why they have to take the dead mages across the lake and burn them...they'd rather just throw them in the lake. Yes, veeeeery respecful.  Cullen's writer, Sheryl Chee, just recently described the potential Cullen relationship (with FemPC mage, in Origin - he expresses some sort of crush on her) this way: "Yes, there's nothing romantic about the scenario in my mind. I imagine it would be very quick, very violent, and only undertaken as a way to get her out of his system." 

(Edited for formatting silliness.)

Modifié par Antigone2283, 16 janvier 2010 - 08:41 .

[Xandurpein]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

[Note that mages don't live their whole life in the tower. They aren't allowed to leave the tower before they are made official mages (harrowing), but after that, they ARE sent on various errands around the country.

Oh the joys of freedom, to actually be sent on errands now and then...

[Xandurpein]

This whole thread is quite fascinating, as I keep learn things here and there I didn't know about. I still think the system for keeping mages in check is far from ideal. Certainly the society has the right to protect itself from the inherant dangers in mages abilities. The possibilities of mind control and abominations, to name a few, are just too big to ignore. At the same time it's obvious that the system used is in many ways very crude and in some ways self-defeating. It appears to be fuelled more by fear than enlightenment, which is of course pretty much what you would expect from a quasi-medieval society. Nor is it really very remarkable that when a group of warriors with drug-enforced discipline set to guard and if needed execute mages, a lot of them go rotten and abuse their power. Historically any military force primarily used for policing duties among civilians, tend to have much worse track record when it comes to human rights abuses than combat units.



Kudos to Bioware for thinking beyond the Dungeons&Dragons stereotype to think what would actually happen in a world where dangerous magic existed.

[DanaScu]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

SusanStoHelit wrote...

Yes. So even if everything the Chantry teaches about mages was true (it isn't, but even if it was), it's evident from what happens in Ferelden that their measures are counter-productive.

In other words, the very measures they take to protect people and prevent abominations and so forth from happening - actually make them more likely to happen because the mages have been driven to desperate measures.

Really? It seems to me the mesures proved efective enough - the abominations don't spread out of the tower. The danger is contained.  Both the mages and the populace protected from abominations.
I'd say that's mission accomplished.

If you somehow think that without the Templars or the Circle there wouldn't be no abominations, then all I can do is laugh.

The non-possessed mages and the children locked in the tower *with* the abominations by the Templars who ran instead of fighting? They sure weren't protected. Irving and the other non-possessed mages imprisoned and tortured at the top of the tower while the righteous templars waited for reinforcements to slaughter everything in the tower weren't protected. When their reinforcements arrived, they would have gone in and killed everyone, including the children and the other non-possessed mages, which is the exact opposite of "protected", imo.

One of my playthroughs of the Mage's tower was way before I gave Alastair any super uber templar powers. Wynne, Alastair, and my rogue managed the abominations quite nicely. So the uber templars with their uber templar powers and enchanted armor couldn't do the same thing why? The templars didn't do anything against the abominations, and were, in fact, possessed by demons more frequently than the mages were, going by the number of possessed templars I ran across. So they are effective against the demons and abominations how?

There would be abominations with or without the templars. Judging by what happened in game, however, the general population is a lot safer waiting for random adventurers to deal with the problem than hoping the templars will fight instead of run. Templars seem to excel at killing sleeping apprentices who take too long to get through the Harrowing, and 14 year old abused city elves who try to run away. Not so much against the abominations.

The whole "rebellion" thing was triggered by mages wanting to get away from the constant surveillance and suspicion of the templars. Loghain may have encouraged them by saying he'd allow a Circle with no supervision, but Uldred and his supporters were desperate enough to believe him.

[KnightofPhoenix]

@ Lord Phoebus. Yes I agree that some measures taken are unnecessary or too restrictive. I never claimed that the system was ideal. And if I was a mage, I would most likely be a Libratarian.
I was just trying to put things into perspective and to show that the system, while not perfect, is not completely horrible either. And I find that resorting to very modern ideas of human rights to be anachronistic when dealing with an issue such as this.

And it seems people forget that the Circle is not a Chantry organisation. The Circle is rather supervised by the Chantry, via the Templar, but it is semi-independent and admnistered by mages, who themselves are influenced by whatever Fraternity they belong to. We see before the battle of Ostagar that the King can request assistance from the Circle, without consulting the Chantry (which is why they are angry before the battle). The Chantry then sends the Templars to effectively control the mages during the battle. But the Circle is not completely subject to the Chantry.

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 16 janvier 2010 - 09:05 .

[Antigone2283]

Xandurpein wrote...

Kudos to Bioware for thinking beyond the Dungeons&Dragons stereotype to think what would actually happen in a world where dangerous magic existed.

I agree! The Mage/Templar dynamic is probably my favorite part of the World they've built.  I think it's really telling that, especially given it's not even a major plot point of the game, we're all interested enough to be debating about it.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Xandurpein wrote...
Kudos to Bioware for thinking beyond the Dungeons&Dragons stereotype to think what would actually happen in a world where dangerous magic existed.

Indeed. The mage / templar issue is practically the only one that can make me side on opposite sides of spectrum, depending on what kind of character I am playing.
As a non-mage HN, I genuinely saw the Templars as a necessity and sided with them in purging the tower.
As a Libratarian mage, I saw them as tools of oppression.
As another, moderate, mage, I saw them as oppressed themselves who are just doing their jobs.

From out-universe, I believe they are all 3 at the same time.