IanPolaris wrote...
Now you are quibbling. Sure psuchopathy is a serious and real mental condition, but the word has a large context and that context was clearly understood in that thread up to this point. At this point I think you are being obdurate because you don't want to aknowlege the point.
The point is that in DA2, you had Hawke (either the PC or Bethany), Merrill, and the Mage Girl (I forget her name) that is about to be victimized by Alrik. At that point you've pretty much exhausted your list of mages that were also decent human beings (and no I don't include Anders...someone that would massacre a cathedral full of people to make a political point is not a decent person IMO).
This makes for an extremely skews and unfair protrayal of mages presented to the players and iirc, the Devs admitted this some time ago (for DA2).
-Polaris
It does, though it's probably worth pointing out that the number of decent templars is fairly small as well. There's Keran that's the only one unambivalently decent, and then you might count Thrask, Cullen and Samson (and possibly Carver) as the only non-villainous defenders of the system. So the number of decent mages are about equal to the Templars.
But even so, while the mages need a more positive portrayal I do think that one should not be so quick to throw out all the villainous mages of DA2 (I'm not accusing you of this mind, merely building from your point).
Olivia, Thrask's daughter, for instance who turn into a abomination when she panics. She, I feel, is a good example of an abomination. Created by a lot of stress and fear and just lashing out. Like Connor anf Feynriel, this is a good way to portray the latent danger of magic.
Throw this example out, and we'd lose a interesting insight... namely that becoming an abomination is perhaps not always entirely volountary.
Another example, and I know plenty of people here will disagree with me, is Grace. Now, I'll readily admit her plot has a bunch of problems. But I do think Grace is a rather important villain and certainly not a stupid one (out of a storytelling perspective). Mostly because her motivation for being a villain is not that terrible. It's revenge. And she's willing to go to great lengths to pursue it.
It's unfair that she targets Hawke, yes. It's not very rational, no. Her plan is not all that great, no. But it's very human.
That's part of why I like Grace as a villain, and that she's nominally on the same side as most Hawkes makes it all the better. Throw villains like Grace out, and we'd lose a lot of nuance on the pro-mage side, namely that not everyone is in on it for freedom and a happy life.
Tahrone on the other hand, is a villainous mage I could live without.
Mages definantely needs a better portrayal than in DA2. There should be enough decent mages to not make us condemn them all or throw out hands in exasperation. But that does not mean that anyone should shy away from mages that are antagonists for various reasons, ranging from loss of control (Connor, Feynriel* and Olivia), to ruthless mages (Adrian, Janeka** and Caladrius) to the ones that has considerably more base reasons (Grace). All for a interesting and morally grey full picture.
*Okay... so he's not really the villain as much as the "damsel in distress"
**And arguably she's more Grey Warden villain than mage villain.
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