[quote]In Exile wrote...
[quote]dragonflight288 wrote...
Merrill wasn't there. Merethari was. We know from Merrill's short story that proximity to the demon increased influence of the mage. The closer Merrill and Merethari got as they climbed Sundermount, the louder the demon's voice was in their mind's. [/quote]
Merrill was part of the clan. She was there.
Let me give you a simple example. Let us say that our properties neighbour each other. I create a very
large pile of flammable kindling on my plot, just neighbouring yours. You don't take any action to protect from fire, but you watch the pile every day. I do nothing to protect from fire. The pile is filled with manuer among other things, and so it combusts. A fire starts. Your property burns.
Who is at fault?
The answer is both of us. I was negligent in setting up the pile. You were negligent in not protecting from it. Your negligence
does not cancel my own.[/quote]
This example makes no sense. Merrill left long before anything happened. She was gone for seven years. She lived in the city, well away from them. In Act 1, Merethari and Ilen the craftmaster make it clear that Merrill had left the clan, and wasn't really part of it anymore.
Your kindling mentioned, I assume, means the demon up in Sundermount, in which case, Merethari is the one ignoring the risks, while Merrill separated herself from the demon and left its range of influence.
We know from Witch Hunt, from Finn and the statue, that the eluvians were used by the Tevinter Imperium without any negative consequences, and had been able to use them as long-range communication devies. Even if Merrill only accomplished this much, she'd help out all Dalish significantly. If every clan had an eluvian, new discoveries could be shared almost instantaneously rather than once every ten years, or Merrill's clan could have contacted the closest clan about getting more halla and been out of there in less than a year.
If the risks you're referring to is the mirror itself, the fact that Merrill remains uncorrupted by it, and no one in the alienage gets corrupted by it, while Merethari's warnings revolve completely around Merrill bringing the darkspawn taint back, we can say from the evidence that Merrill is correct and Merethari is wrong about that aspect of it.
[quote]
[quote]Merrill's skill at dealing with demons notwithstanding, it was Merethari who remained on Sundermount, and remained in close proximity to the demon, and Merrill, who was in Kirkwall, was well outside the demon's influence. [/quote]
And it was Merrill who left her clan and provided Audacity the very clear path to exploit Marethari's love for her. Either Merrill is so socially inept that she can't even predict the most basic thing her mother figure does, in which case she has no business dealing with demons who operate almost exclusively through social manipulation, or she's so incapable of predicting their actions that she has no business dealing with them because they'll always catch her by surprise.[/quote]
You're blaming Merrill for Merethari's actions, and expecting her to act as a Keeper, which she was, and not as a mother, which she wasn't? You're seriously saying that Merrill is completely responsible for every single one of Merethari's actions, and the resulting manipulations of the demon, because she's socially inept?
To begin with, she's socially inept when she first meets Hawke as it's the first time (unless you play dalish origin, then the second) she's ever met a human. In Kirkwall, she's suffering from extreme culture shock and gets lost in a big city easily. But bring her to Sundermount in Act 1, and she gets on more than well enough, and shows a very sarcastic, dry sense of humor, which can easily be followed throughout the rest of the game once you recognize she's satirizing humans and makes sarcastic remarks left and right.
*sigh* Where does accountabilities for one's actions come into play? When does Merrill's actions begin and end, and where do Merethari's? Most Merrill haters put all blame on Merrill, and completely remove free choice, agency, and responsibility from her clan and from Merethari...who is also a fully trained mage and therefore should also know better, but apparently doesn't.
You telling me Merrill is responsible for Merethari's lack of knowledge?
[quote]
[quote]When talking about how fault works, is it Merrill's fault that Pol ran away at the sight of her, straight to the Varterral, is ti his own fault for not using critical thinking skills and rather fell back on his time as a city elf and the brain-washng Andrastianism gave him concerning blood magic and the blight, or is it Merethari's fault for telling the clan that Merrill would bring back the darkspawn taint and warning them that Merrill was dangerous (and then offered her a place back into the clan after Pol died.)? All Merrill did in that situation was show up, ask to use a tool, made a deal, and went to uphold it. No more than that. [/quote]
I give you a B+ for the prose, but a C- for relevance. Merrill is certainly at fault for how the tribe views her, given that she abandoned them all and did just about nothing to win a PR war in her favour. But even if I grant that
all of that is 100% Marethari's fault,
that all is still irrelevant on the Audacity point.
Because responsibility for Audacity flows from one decision: abandoning the clan and her mother figure, giving Audacity a weakness to exploit. And it did exploit that weakness. For years. [/quote]
She isn't the first person to leave a clan, and she won't be the last, but it is relevent to the Audacity point, for one simple reason.
Merrill had left the demons influence, and therefore was not being tempted by it. In Act 1, Ilen says her departure saddened many in the clan, and Merrill makes it clear that the clan is terrified of the eluvian.
So Merrill removed herself from the situation to keep it from getting worse, and instead, it got worse because Merethari couldn't let the matter be, and spread lies about her, and after making the clan hate her, tried persuading her to come back.
You keep claiming that Merrill is responsible for Audacity exploiting Merethari's weakness. I say that's inexplicably wrong for the simple fact that Merrill isn't the demon and she isn't Merethari. And besides, both Merrill AND Merethari thought the demon was trying to exploit Merrill. The demon taught her blood magic when Merethari refused to help her cleanse the shard of the taint, and since the Chantry controls the lyrium trade Merrill couldn't get lyrium. As far as anyone knew at that point, the only one who made a deal was Merrill, and so Merrill was the one in danger. Merrill removed herself from the situation, and Merethari was afraid of the consequenes of that deal.
Since Merrill isn't using blood magic to make the demon possess Merethari, and she isn't using it to make Merethari feel guilty or go join the demon as an abomination, and since she lives far away from both after making her choice, that means the choices and consequences of those choices, fall on those who remain behind, Audacity and Merethari.
Let me give you an example to match your opinion of Merrill. You say Merrill should've anticipated Audacity preying on Merethari's mother instincts. That's almost exactly like saying "living in a bad neighborhood, and you know there's someone extremely dangerous living there, and you want out, but your mother is saying 'don't, stay, don't worry and listen to me.' but you leave believing you are a target, and spend the rest of the time going out of your way to try and avoid this person, so you should be responsible if your mother makes bad choices and falls in with this dangerous being by the simple act of you leaving."
That kind of argument removes all responsibility of others, so blame can be layed soley on one person, regardless of their guilt.
[quote]
[quote]Or Merethari making a deal with a demon. Is it Merrill's fault that Merethari felt so threatened by the eluvian (to the point she never did any research on it) that Merethari acted on her fear of it without facts, or did Merrill truly drive another adult, fully trained mage, into the arms of a demon by not being there? [/quote]
It's Merril's fault. It's like negligently leaving a handgun out. If someone uses that weapon,
then you are liable, even if the person intervened. Merrill could have foreseen the entire situation. [/quote]
And so could've Merethari, as the supposedly more knoweldable and trained mage.
[quote]
[quote]The choice and the fault, lies with those who make the choice in the first place. After Merrill left the clan, anything the clan did or chose to do, is on the heads of the ones who made their choices, and any choice Merrill made, would be on her own.[/quote]
At least in western society, our basic principles sorrounding fault and negligence are pretty blatant that Merril shares in the blame. Intervening actors don't wash away your actions unless their actions weren't foreseeable.
[/quote][/quote]
But Merethari shares a greater portion of that blame, having been the one to enact her plans in the first place without backup or any knoweldge of the facts, despite having the training to know better.
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