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[kinderschlager]

 the amount of discussion this thread has created over the fact that bioware made mages bat**** crazy is highly amusing.

seeing how obvious the writers intent was to make people side with the templars, i never have as a result

[TK514]

IanPolaris wrote...

Do we?  Do we actually see Templars killing civilians (non-mage relatives of mages).

Yes.  Ser Mettin in "The Last Holdouts".  You track down runaway mages to a cave on Sundermount, and once you've dealt with them, Ser Mettin orders their families (directly identified as such by Ser Agatha in her objection) killed on the spot.

[berelinde]

TK514 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Do we?  Do we actually see Templars killing civilians (non-mage relatives of mages).

Yes.  Ser Mettin in "The Last Holdouts".  You track down runaway mages to a cave on Sundermount, and once you've dealt with them, Ser Mettin orders their families (directly identified as such by Ser Agatha in her objection) killed on the spot.

Yup. And if you're on the "A Noble Agenda" path instead, you have to prevent templars from killing a non-mage cousin because the latter gave the mage a meal. 

[Vortex13]

I agree that the Circle needs major policy changes but I do not agree with the opinion that it needs to be abolished completely. Let the Mage's family visit, let the Mage be allowed to leave the Circle; under supervision, and if they have proven to be trustworthy, but do not get rid of the Circle completely.

One unassuming child, (potentially) could wipe out all of Theads if the demon was powerful enough. Magic users need training and policing; they don't need to be punished for what they are, but they need to be made aware that they are different. It's not PC to say that I know, but its the truth of the setting, magic users are different, and have to be treated differently. 

WH 40K has the same thing with pyskers, and they, while treated horribly in most cases, are a serious threat if not dealt with quickly. The lore has a particular example of a twelve year old boy, being a latant psyker, who is the cause of an entire planet being destroyed through deamonic invasion.

If the Mages in DAI don't want to place any restrictions on themselves in the name of freedom, I am going to have to side with the Templars (wih major alterations to their treatment of Mages). One Templar cannot destroy a city singlehanded, a Mage can, and while you can say that not all Mages will do things like that I would point to the fact that they CAN. When dealing with guns, the logical thing to do is assume that ALL guns are loaded, even if not all of them are.

[Cainhurst Crow]

There should be a third party involved, one who looks at both mages and templars, and proclaims "You both need to calm your ****** the **** down and behave yourself".

I hope as the inquisitor, it will be our place to serve as this third party somehow.

[Vortex13]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

There should be a third party involved, one who looks at both mages and templars, and proclaims "You both need to calm your ****** the **** down and behave yourself".

I hope as the inquisitor, it will be our place to serve as this third party somehow.

^ This. 

[Naitaka]

kinderschlager wrote...

 the amount of discussion this thread has created over the fact that bioware made mages bat**** crazy is highly amusing.

seeing how obvious the writers intent was to make people side with the templars, i never have as a result

I think that's exactly the reason why people have issue with it. It seems there're at least quite a few people on the forum that feels that mages were shoehorn into that role to suit that very purpose instead of acting in a realistic and consistent manner. I certainly did feel that way a few time playing DA2 myself.

[IanPolaris]

TK514 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Do we?  Do we actually see Templars killing civilians (non-mage relatives of mages).

Yes.  Ser Mettin in "The Last Holdouts".  You track down runaway mages to a cave on Sundermount, and once you've dealt with them, Ser Mettin orders their families (directly identified as such by Ser Agatha in her objection) killed on the spot.

No, you don't actually see him carry out this order.  I've done that mission.  (Just like you don't actually kill children in the DAO Circle Tower Mission if you actually annul it.)

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

berelinde wrote...

TK514 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Do we?  Do we actually see Templars killing civilians (non-mage relatives of mages).

Yes.  Ser Mettin in "The Last Holdouts".  You track down runaway mages to a cave on Sundermount, and once you've dealt with them, Ser Mettin orders their families (directly identified as such by Ser Agatha in her objection) killed on the spot.

Yup. And if you're on the "A Noble Agenda" path instead, you have to prevent templars from killing a non-mage cousin because the latter gave the mage a meal. 

Again nope.  The scene happens, but you never actually see the Templars do it.  By contrast, the gameplay throws the mage-villian acts into your face constantly (Frankenmommy anyone?)

-Polaris

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

IanPolaris wrote...

TK514 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Do we?  Do we actually see Templars killing civilians (non-mage relatives of mages).

Yes.  Ser Mettin in "The Last Holdouts".  You track down runaway mages to a cave on Sundermount, and once you've dealt with them, Ser Mettin orders their families (directly identified as such by Ser Agatha in her objection) killed on the spot.

No, you don't actually see him carry out this order.  I've done that mission.  (Just like you don't actually kill children in the DAO Circle Tower Mission if you actually annul it.)

-Polaris

Do you hear him give this order? Is it implied to be carried out? I'd argue that unless you're arguing Bioware was trying to trick us, actually seeing the families killed isn't entirely necessary.

[IanPolaris]

Vortex13 wrote...

I agree that the Circle needs major policy changes but I do not agree with the opinion that it needs to be abolished completely. Let the Mage's family visit, let the Mage be allowed to leave the Circle; under supervision, and if they have proven to be trustworthy, but do not get rid of the Circle completely.

This is irrelevant now.  The Circle system is finished.   The mages will never agree to this system again and certainly not if the Chantry were to oversee it, and even if by some miracle the mages did agree, the Templars would never agree that such a system was sufficient.

There has been too much hate and bad blood on both sides for the system to survive.

One unassuming child, (potentially) could wipe out all of Theads if the demon was powerful enough. Magic users need training and policing; they don't need to be punished for what they are, but they need to be made aware that they are different. It's not PC to say that I know, but its the truth of the setting, magic users are different, and have to be treated differently. 

Yes we keep hearing that, but somehow humanity and civilization survived and even thrived just fine for all of history until 800 years ago.  Why aren't we told exactly how common it is for a mage to surcomb and under what conditions.  All the evidence we do have suggest that unless the mage is untrained and/or badly trained and under extreme duress, that such things are vanishingly RARE.  Futhermore the kill counts from abominations in the rare cases they do happen aren't all that (70 people in one year is not that impressive a number really).

Basically if mages really so dangerous that they had to be locked away for the public good, then civilization (or frankly humanity) should have never surivived long enough for this to be an issue.  This is a fundamental logic failure in the world setting.

WH 40K has the same thing with pyskers, and they, while treated horribly in most cases, are a serious threat if not dealt with quickly. The lore has a particular example of a twelve year old boy, being a latant psyker, who is the cause of an entire planet being destroyed through deamonic invasion.

WH 40K is a completely different setting and what applies in WH 40K does not apply in Thedas.  I note that humanity did not evolve with psychers in WH 40K.  It DID evolve with Magic in Thedas.  Big difference.  You can't simply plug and play WH 40K into this argument and expect me to take you seriously.

If the Mages in DAI don't want to place any restrictions on themselves in the name of freedom, I am going to have to side with the Templars (wih major alterations to their treatment of Mages). One Templar cannot destroy a city singlehanded, a Mage can, and while you can say that not all Mages will do things like that I would point to the fact that they CAN. When dealing with guns, the logical thing to do is assume that ALL guns are loaded, even if not all of them are.

That has not been the general position of either the mages in the game, or the mage supporters here.  This is a Templar strawman.  Sure you'll find a few loony Libertarians that want to do magic without restrictions whatsoever, but they are a tiny minority.  In fact the entire Aequartian fraternity is based on the idea that with Great Power comes Great Responsibility and that all mages should have and abide by a code of conduct.  Even Libertarians for the most part agree that a good and proper education of young mages is essential not just for themselves but everyone around them, and almost all pro-mage people here back the idea that magical training and other restrictions should be mandatory.

However, that doesn't mean you treat mages as non-people or lock them away like lepers.  Indeed doing so very likely increases the odds of having one or more become abominations.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...
Do you hear him give this order? Is it implied to be carried out? I'd argue that unless you're arguing Bioware was trying to trick us, actually seeing the families killed isn't entirely necessary.

Why is it necessary that we not only see but FIGHT Frankenmommy?  Same, same.

-Polaris

[Naitaka]

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

TK514 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Do we?  Do we actually see Templars killing civilians (non-mage relatives of mages).

Yes.  Ser Mettin in "The Last Holdouts".  You track down runaway mages to a cave on Sundermount, and once you've dealt with them, Ser Mettin orders their families (directly identified as such by Ser Agatha in her objection) killed on the spot.

No, you don't actually see him carry out this order.  I've done that mission.  (Just like you don't actually kill children in the DAO Circle Tower Mission if you actually annul it.)

-Polaris

Do you hear him give this order? Is it implied to be carried out? I'd argue that unless you're arguing Bioware was trying to trick us, actually seeing the families killed isn't entirely necessary.

Which goes to show all the more that Bioware goes out of their way to demonize mages by throwing all these unecessary mage brutality scenes in our face.

[Cainhurst Crow]

IanPolaris wrote...

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...
Do you hear him give this order? Is it implied to be carried out? I'd argue that unless you're arguing Bioware was trying to trick us, actually seeing the families killed isn't entirely necessary.

Why is it necessary that we not only see but FIGHT Frankenmommy?  Same, same.

-Polaris

You don't fight leandra.

[Hazegurl]

berelinde wrote...
It would be great if everybody was really interested in the lore and wanted to listen to exposition and explanation as in-game dialogue. It would be great if our characters could ask for elaboration every time they are presented with an unfamiliar topic. But the truth is that even if such a thing were economically possible - the cost for all that voicing would be staggering - it might not be desirable. Not everybody who enjoys the series appreciates the lore to the same degree. Some just want to play the game and blow up darkspawn/templars/mages without delving into the backstory, and their money is just as good as yours and mine. Plus, tell me honestly, do you really enjoy listening to Merrill tell Dog the story of the Dread Wolf on your 9th playthrough? I think the current system where the important parts are covered in dialogue but the exposition is handled by the Codex is a good compromise.

Your concern is that the current system is introducing a bias, that players who don't bother to read the Codex are missing vital information that will influence their opinions. They aren't. By the time people are playing Dragon Age, their beliefs and values are already formed. They may not know about magic, templars, the Veil, or the Fade, but they know about freedom, responsibility, and public safety, and they probably have opinions about them already. And it's human nature to remember facts and trivia that support opinions people already hold. Is it necessary to know all the facts to form an opinion? Certainly not. People do it all the time. It is necessary to form a well-informed opinion, and arguments are more persuasive when they have some meat to them, but if the player isn't interested in these things, "Because the devs said so" will do. You've been on BSN long enough to know that an informed debate is a lot more interesting and more entertaining than a few people throwing obscenities at each other, but it's pretty rare for people to actually change their minds over it.

I'm not saying that the details - the lore - shouldn't be there for people who are interested in that. The Codex makes great reading material for solitary meals or for times when you have ten minutes to spare but don't want to get involved in any big game plots at the moment. I do think that placing too heavy emphasis on lore at the expense of pacing would be harmful.

Edited for grammar.

Pretty much this. Heck there are some stuff I don't even care to hear on my first playthrough.   Besides, if a person is truly interested in the lore they will either find themselves here, read the codex entries online and so forth. Other than that, it's not difficult to follow the story and use your own judgment at the end. I just hate that the game doesn't allow me to stay neutral after showing me that both sides are the cause of their own problems. I so would have loved leaving Kirkwall with King Alistair. *sigh*

@Polaris: Lady Harimann was a mage. http://dragonage.wik...i/Lady_Harimann

[Cainhurst Crow]

Naitaka wrote...

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

TK514 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Do we?  Do we actually see Templars killing civilians (non-mage relatives of mages).

Yes.  Ser Mettin in "The Last Holdouts".  You track down runaway mages to a cave on Sundermount, and once you've dealt with them, Ser Mettin orders their families (directly identified as such by Ser Agatha in her objection) killed on the spot.

No, you don't actually see him carry out this order.  I've done that mission.  (Just like you don't actually kill children in the DAO Circle Tower Mission if you actually annul it.)

-Polaris

Do you hear him give this order? Is it implied to be carried out? I'd argue that unless you're arguing Bioware was trying to trick us, actually seeing the families killed isn't entirely necessary.

Which goes to show all the more that Bioware goes out of their way to demonize mages by throwing all these unecessary mage brutality scenes in our face.

Maybe I'm just not attentive, but I never noticed anything of the mages being thrown in our face. I do know that every other word about the templars was them either raping, killing, or tranquiling mages or anyone without magic who interfered with them, which made it hard for me to even consider doing anything to help the templars at all, even with the mages doing their deeds, because what the templars were doing were just slightly less bad, but with a much higher scale of regularity.

[Lotion Soronarr]

garrusfan1 wrote...
they should have mandatory training but they should not be torn out of their parents arms. I think they should have to go somewhere to get training and such but the family should be allowed to come as well and it should be more like school where they can leave at the end of the day. the they shouldn't be punished for being born

It's not punishment. It's containment.

A very, very big difference that so many mage suporters fail to grasp.

[Lotion Soronarr]

IanPolaris wrote...

This is irrelevant now.  The Circle system is finished.   The mages will never agree to this system again and certainly not if the Chantry were to oversee it, and even if by some miracle the mages did agree, the Templars would never agree that such a system was sufficient.

They won't?
I love it how you know exactly how thing in TheDas will pan out and what everyone will do.

I'm curios - can you actually see the future or are Bioware devs actually telling you all of their plans?

Because history is full of examples that prove you wrong.
The mages and templars WILL agree to the system with enough convincing.

Yes we keep hearing that, but somehow humanity and civilization survived and even thrived just fine for all of history until 800 years ago.
Basically if mages really so dangerous that they had to be locked away
for the public good, then civilization (or frankly humanity) should have
never surivived long enough for this to be an issue.  This is a
fundamental logic failure in the world setting.

Indeed it did survive. Just like humanity survived countless of floods, tsunamis, hurricans, erruptions and everything else. Humanity is ressilient. Humantiy breeds fast. Humanity is spread out.

It's not easy to stomp out - especially when abominatiosn themsleves have to foot slog it.

So no, nothing really incredible about humantiy surviving. The question you should be asking is how difficult did abominatiosn make humanities survival.

[IanPolaris]

Hazegurl wrote...
@Polaris: Lady Harimann was a mage. http://dragonage.wik...i/Lady_Harimann

No she was not.  Her daughter tells you flat out that magic NEVER ran in her bloodline and it was this fact that made Lady Harriman confident that she could deal with the demon.

In gameplay Lady Harriman was a mage, but that's because the demon granted her that power.

-Polaris

Edit PS:  The Dragon-Age Wiki itself is not an official source of lore (however the codex entries within it are).  This is not a codex entry.  Lady Harriman is flagged as a mage in terms of game play, but you learn afterwards that she was in fact not a mage.

Modifié par IanPolaris, 31 mai 2013 - 06:41 .

[Cainhurst Crow]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

garrusfan1 wrote...
they should have mandatory training but they should not be torn out of their parents arms. I think they should have to go somewhere to get training and such but the family should be allowed to come as well and it should be more like school where they can leave at the end of the day. the they shouldn't be punished for being born

It's not punishment. It's containment.

A very, very big difference that so many mage suporters fail to grasp.

Depends on how it's operated. It shouldn't be treated as a quarintine where no one is allowed to visit them ever under any circumstances. It also shouldn't be opperated like a third world prison, looking at you kirkwall.

The circle isn't the problem, it's the people pulling the strings and running the things that are the problem. You put people in charge who may be prone to abuses of power in charge of people with no legal rights to challenge said people and a culture which actively discriminates against them for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons, and it's basically garunteed to make **** hit the fan.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

IanPolaris wrote...

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...
Do you hear him give this order? Is it implied to be carried out? I'd argue that unless you're arguing Bioware was trying to trick us, actually seeing the families killed isn't entirely necessary.

Why is it necessary that we not only see but FIGHT Frankenmommy?  Same, same.

-Polaris

I don't follow.

[IanPolaris]

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...

I don't follow.

I will make it simple.  We see villianous mages do terrible things to both Hawke and his/her loved ones all the time as active antognists and we are forced to counter them in active game play.  We not only have their evil displayed but constantly thrown in our face.  Frankenmommy was a classic example, but Tahrone fit this bill as well.

By contrast you never actually see the Templars do anything bad.  It's strongly implied, sure, and the characterization of many is bad sure, but you never actually have it thrown in your face.

This is stacking the deck and I am calling 'foul'.

-Polaris

[Cainhurst Crow]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Indeed it did survive. Just like humanity survived countless of floods, tsunamis, hurricans, erruptions and everything else. Humanity is ressilient. Humantiy breeds fast. Humanity is spread out.

It's not easy to stomp out - especially when abominatiosn themsleves have to foot slog it.

So no, nothing really incredible about humantiy surviving. The question you should be asking is how difficult did abominatiosn make humanities survival.

The imperium, the dalish, and countless other societies probalby developed their own methods of training mages and methods of handleing them or dealing with abominations. They didn't just let mages wander around, doing as they pleased.

The circle hasn't always been there, and before the circle everything wasn't the end of the world 24/7 with the world filled with abominations. If that were the case, the imperium would have many, many, more abominations running around and many, many, less people in it's cities. There are alternatives that have developed, some more gresome, some more humane, all of them with their strengths and weaknesses. But what is doubtful is that the circle is the best method for all mages across all of thedas, in all circumstances.

[Hazegurl]

IanPolaris wrote...

Hazegurl wrote...
@Polaris: Lady Harimann was a mage. http://dragonage.wik...i/Lady_Harimann

No she was not.  Her daughter tells you flat out that magic NEVER ran in her bloodline and it was this fact that made Lady Harriman confident that she could deal with the demon.

In gameplay Lady Harriman was a mage, but that's because the demon granted her that power.

-Polaris

Edit PS:  The Dragon-Age Wiki itself is not an official source of lore (however the codex entries within it are).  This is not a codex entry.  Lady Harriman is flagged as a mage in terms of game play, but you learn afterwards that she was in fact not a mage.

So her daughter knows everything about her mother?