Morocco Mole wrote...
I can count the number of actual mage characters (and not background npcs that do nothing) that don't actually turn to blood magic at any point in the story on one hand and still have fingers left over.
Yeah, but nearly every blood mage we face is in Act 3. The total number of blood mages we face in Act 1 and 2, and I mean confirmed blood mages and not rogue mages, but mages we see use blood magic, is six or seven tops.
Six or seven blood mages over 5 years in a large trade city, rife with political tensions between templars getting involved with politics, mages complaining about how little rights they have, the Qunari sitting there and so on, it just feels like six or seven blood mages over five years is closer to what templars would normally expect to find in a large city over that same period of time, maybe even slightly less if you include that group of blood mages in Denerim in Origins that none of the templars save one were willing to investigate.
It's only when Meredith has been in charge for 2-3 years that we have blood mages all over the place.
Considering how little time has passed since Act's1 and 2 before we get to Act 3, it's just really hard for me to discount Meredith and her totalitarian leadership as a large factor in the number of blood mages, especially when we know she doesn't, or at least never see her investigate her own templars and hold them accountable for their own actions.