2497 réponses à ce sujet

[TEWR]

Arcane Warrior Mage Hawke wrote...
True It's just odd Meredith let's Magisters strut about Kirkwall.

Whether the Chantry likes it or not, they're also Imperial nobility and the political situation requires them to be allowed to strut around.

Plus, Meredith never paid attention to the goings-on of the city itself and focused more on monsters under her bed in the Circle, inevitably creating them.

Case in point, Hawke's the one cleaning up blood mages and Demon infestations despite a Templar presence in Hightown in Act 3.

Bionuts wrote...

Morrigan can sense how powerful a mage is.

I'm sure mages like Irving and Wynne can.

Morrigan was trained by Flemeth, so it's not really fair to use her as an example for Mages everywhere.

That's always been the pro-templar peoples' viewpoint in regards to why Mages can't live outside the Circle in the past. Just because Morrigan is smart enough to not go abomination can't be applied to other Mages, because she was trained by Flemeth. So I'm applying it here.

Since Wynne never displayed that ability in Origins, along with Velanna, Anders, and Merrill (and Marethari, and Hawke, and the Warden, and others) it doesn't seem that Mages in the Circle are trained in this sort of thing.

Mages can sense weakened Veils (as can Templars) but that's all we've ever been told they can sense.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 04 octobre 2013 - 09:41 .

[Bionuts]

Zathrian can sense magic.

[TEWR]

He can sense magic in a Mage? I don't recall that.

[DPSSOC]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

We already know the Chantry lets the weak mages go. We have been using taht point for a huge part of this thread now. There is nothing to debate about it. The Chantry doesn't see the weakest mages as a big enough security risk to warrant their containment in Circles. They do still however watch them, since the risk is always present.

Except you can't know if a Mage is weak or strong until they go to the Circle, where they either fail (and prove they're weak), are made Tranquil (possibly because they're weak) or pass the Harrowing (and prove they're strong). There's absolutely no logic to it.

Except there's probably at least 10 years of training between arriving at the Circle and determining what to do with regards to the Harrowing, during which time a mages abilities can be gauged.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Especially since Mages would pretend to be weak if they can live outside the Circle as a result. More and more would probably do it.

Assuming mages at large are aware of this have you ever seen someone convincingly pretend they couldn't do something?  Like say someone tries to pretend something's too heavy for them to lift.  Keep in mind that some mages are pulled off for the Harrowing and just never come back, who's to say all of them are killed/made Tranquil.

[Ieldra]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Bionuts wrote...

Morrigan can sense how powerful a mage is.

I'm sure mages like Irving and Wynne can.

Morrigan was trained by Flemeth, so it's not really fair to use her as an example for Mages everywhere.

That's always been the pro-templar peoples' viewpoint in regards to why Mages can't live outside the Circle in the past. Just because Morrigan is smart enough to not go abomination can't be applied to other Mages, because she was trained by Flemeth.

Have people really brought that up as a pro-Templar argument? Because it is actually a pro-mage argument, accepting that it's possible to acquire knowledge. skills and judgment so that you don't get possessed. Then there's the Litany of Adralla to help those about to be possessed. This raises the question why such knowledge is not sought out and researched systematically by the Chantry.

To me this sounds increasingly as if the Chantry keeps that knowledge from the mages in order to retain the justification for keeping them under its thumbs.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 04 octobre 2013 - 10:09 .

[KiwiQuiche]

Ieldra2 wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Bionuts wrote...

Morrigan can sense how powerful a mage is.

I'm sure mages like Irving and Wynne can.

Morrigan was trained by Flemeth, so it's not really fair to use her as an example for Mages everywhere.

That's always been the pro-templar peoples' viewpoint in regards to why Mages can't live outside the Circle in the past. Just because Morrigan is smart enough to not go abomination can't be applied to other Mages, because she was trained by Flemeth.

Have people really brought that up as a pro-Templar argument? Because it is actually a pro-mage argument, accepting that it's possible to acquire knowledge. skills and judgment so that you don't get possessed. Then there's the Litany of Adralla to help those about to be possessed. This raises the question why such knowledge is not sought out and researched systematically by the Chantry.

To me this sounds increasingly as if the Chantry keeps that knowledge from the mages in order to retain the justification for keeping them under its thumbs.

I really wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Ieldra2 wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Bionuts wrote...

Morrigan can sense how powerful a mage is.

I'm sure mages like Irving and Wynne can.

Morrigan was trained by Flemeth, so it's not really fair to use her as an example for Mages everywhere.

That's always been the pro-templar peoples' viewpoint in regards to why Mages can't live outside the Circle in the past. Just because Morrigan is smart enough to not go abomination can't be applied to other Mages, because she was trained by Flemeth.

Have people really brought that up as a pro-Templar argument? Because it is actually a pro-mage argument, accepting that it's possible to acquire knowledge. skills and judgment so that you don't get possessed. Then there's the Litany of Adralla to help those about to be possessed. This raises the question why such knowledge is not sought out and researched systematically by the Chantry.

To me this sounds increasingly as if the Chantry keeps that knowledge from the mages in order to retain the justification for keeping them under its thumbs.

There is no denying that the Chantry is greatly interested in keeping the Circles under their rule, for political and economical reasons. But that is only as an organization. The actually rank and file, probably feel the need for the safety the Circles provide.
But the Chantry has no interrest in a world where the Circles aren't needed. At least not without another cash cow on hand. The Circles are simply too big of a political influence to let go of them, and they make a ton of money for the Chantry aswell.
However, the current Divine has made attempts at improving the lot of mages, so perhaps change is comming in the general sentiment of Thedas.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
First of all, I dismiss authorial intent.  I don't think it matters at all what Rand thought of her industrialists, just as I don't think it matters what BioWare thinks of the mages.

I think dismissing authorial intent is an act of arrogance and blindness.

Does that mean one has to agree? Certanly not.
But it shouldn't be dismissed as irrelevant either.

[Lotion Soronarr]

leaguer of one wrote...
1. There still a chance for the weak mage to be an abomination.
2. Even as w eak abombination  that it will kill a lot of people when it turns inot one.

You really thing the chantry will take that risk?

Yes.
Because it already does.

The response is proprtionate to the threat.

Anyone who knows anything about the Chantry will know beyond a shadow of a doubt
that the Chantry wouldn't. Some individual templars who are sympathetic
might, some sympathetic priests might, but the institution as a whole
would not.

And yet it does.
Itneresting how you want to argue agaisnt established lore.

[TEWR]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Have people really brought that up as a pro-Templar argument?

They have. Some Pro-mages have said (IIRC, bear in mind the threads this occurred in are now long buried in the DAII section) that Morrigan is proof positive that a Mage need not be corralled for fear of Abomination-hood, but pro-templars say "Morrigan's a special mage because Flemeth raised her, she can't apply to other mages".

Because it is actually a pro-mage argument, accepting that it's possible to acquire knowledge. skills and judgment so that you don't get possessed. Then there's the Litany of Adralla to help those about to be possessed. This raises the question why such knowledge is not sought out and researched systematically by the Chantry.

I agree, though (I may not have been too clear) what I meant was that when people try to say Morrigan's abilities as a Mage indicate something about other mages, if we were to take the similar counterargument made by pro-Templars to pro-mages on Morrigan's abilities (that counterpoint being "Morrigan's special, she can't count") it applies to arguments made by Pro-Templars about the capabilities of Mages to sense the strength of other mages.

We can't know. It cannot be had both ways. But I may be the one misunderstanding. I've been up since... 2 pm yesterday. So... 19 hours?

But to really address this snippet, I agree that the potential for such things should be widespread. At the very least, the Litany should be widespread amongst the Templars (and maybe Mages, but I'm not thinking logistically at this moment on the potential pros and cons of having it widespread amongst Mages).

But Templars, yes.

And the Chantry should educate the Mages on the fact that Adralla was a Tevinter fugitive. Instead, by negating to inform them, they continue to prioritize religion and politics -- demonizing Tevinter, making it seem as if no good mage lives there.

To me this sounds increasingly as if the Chantry keeps that knowledge from the mages in order to retain the justification for keeping them under its thumbs.

Indeed.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 04 octobre 2013 - 02:10 .

[dragonflight288]

[quote]EmperorSahlertz wrote...

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

[quote]Bionuts wrote...

Morrigan can sense how powerful a mage is.

I'm sure mages like Irving and Wynne can.

[/quote]

Morrigan was trained by Flemeth, so it's not really fair to use her as an example for Mages everywhere.

That's always been the pro-templar peoples' viewpoint in regards to why Mages can't live outside the Circle in the past. Just because Morrigan is smart enough to not go abomination can't be applied to other Mages, because she was trained by Flemeth.[/quote]
Have people really brought that up as a pro-Templar argument? Because it is actually a pro-mage argument, accepting that it's possible to acquire knowledge. skills and judgment so that you don't get possessed. Then there's the Litany of Adralla to help those about to be possessed. This raises the question why such knowledge is not sought out and researched systematically by the Chantry.

To me this sounds increasingly as if the Chantry keeps that knowledge from the mages in order to retain the justification for keeping them under its thumbs.

[/quote]
There is no denying that the Chantry is greatly interested in keeping the Circles under their rule, for political and economical reasons. But that is only as an organization. The actually rank and file, probably feel the need for the safety the Circles provide.[/quote]

Then the rank and file should also be equally invested in keeping mages safe, as is part of their duty.

[quote]But the Chantry has no interrest in a world where the Circles aren't needed. At least not without another cash cow on hand. The Circles are simply too big of a political influence to let go of them, and they make a ton of money for the Chantry aswell.
However, the current Divine has made attempts at improving the lot of mages, so perhaps change is comming in the general sentiment of Thedas.[/quote][/quote]

Hopefully change is coming. But the seekers and many templars decided to leave the chantry because the Divine was trying to improve the lot of mages, and the Lord-High Seeker came from Tevinter so all he saw was danger, and decided to ignore his subordinates abuses...and gave illegal orders. Such as ordering Evangeline to murder any mage who may have had evidence that tranquility was now curable to keep the fact from getting out.

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
First of all, I dismiss authorial intent.  I don't think it matters at all what Rand thought of her industrialists, just as I don't think it matters what BioWare thinks of the mages.

That is absolutely ridiculous at it's most base level, though.  Author intent doesn't matter?

Okay then - here are two pieces of writing, with different "intents", and you tell me that the intent doesn't matter.

---

President Jameson didn't want to go to war.  He considered precious the treasure of his nation, as he also considered the safety and well-being of his people sacred.  Yes, it was true, the enemy had tried to buy nuclear weapons on the black market.  Those in the opposition party, always looking to discredit his presidency, were calling him weak on national defense.  But the truth was that his intelligence agency had tracked the enemy's attempts to find and purchase said weapons, and there had never been any credible threat of them succeeding as a result.  Spending the resources wastefully to cause unnecessary deaths just to solve a minor political problem with the opposition party  was not worth it to him, even if his decision, to him the right decision, cost him some points in the next poll on the job he was doing.

---

What was my intent in that piece?  You think it doesn't matter?  Here, I'll change my intent ...

---

President Jameson broke into a cold sweat.  He was in a no-win situation, and his re-election was on the line.  The rogue nation had only just failed to get it's deadly hands on a weapon of mass destruction.  He hadn't authorized a military strike on the nation, afraid of how the public would react to his use of force and of his opponents in the other political party claiming he was the tail wagging the dog.  He couldn't bring himself to think of military action, he didn't have the constitution to order the deaths of anyone.  But he was still being hammered by his opposition in Congress and his poll numbers were sagging.  Part of him, deep down inside, a more honest man than he ever let himself be in public, knew that he was a coward, and that his cowardice could cost his nation dearly.

---

I describe the same event - a President not using military force to stop another nation from acquiring nuclear weapons, even though the sale failed.  But my intent on how I want the President's decision to be seen alters how I write the motives for the President, and, since it is my fictional world, my intent shapes the characters and the events.

If my intent is that Space Captain Smith is a womanizer, then in the story I write his thoughts and actions will be that of a womanizer.  If my intent is that he is a puritancial, zealously religious and self-hating homosexual virgin, I will write him in a completely different way with different thoughts and actions.

Saying that author intent doesn't matter is missing an incredbily simple but absolutely essential point - the author of a fictional piece is creating everything as they want it to be - their intent is maybe not EVERYTHING, as others can misinterpret and/or disregard what a story is meant to say, but that's the same as saying that science and fact don't matter because some people would rather believe a 2000 year old book.

[Taleroth]

A good piece of writing is like an argument. You have your position, you use your evidence.

If your evidence leads people to a different conclusion than you intended, that's just the way it is. The facts and details are the important bit.

[Nerdage]

Bleachrude wrote...

nerdage wrote...

I don't expect a revolution would have an "obviously good" resolution, but I'd still support it entirely.

I expect the first thing which would happen once it succeeded - soon after if not immediately - would be another war, between the mages who want to live relatively normal lives and those who want to subjugate non-mages. But a war which the former would win because of popular support, and the outcome of which would be a system in which moderate mages police and train one-other and those who abuse their power are treated as the criminals they are.

.

*LOL*

Except that this occured TWICE in the history of Thedas.

The irst time was when the magisters killed the royal family of Tevinter and secondly when the magisters broke away from the White Divine.

Each time, the normal mages did not stop them so what makes you think that the THIRD time, normal mages would stand up to them?

Especially given that to win the war in the 1st place, many of the pro-chantry mages (who would most likely be against oppression of the normal populace) would've been killed by the rebelling mages?

The mage who took control of Tevinter originally was a king in his own right, that had nothing to do with mages as far as I know, he was just expanding his own kingdom; and by the time the magisters broke from the white divine they were already the power in Tevinter and had been for some time, once they freed themselves they simply went back to what they had always done, it's not like gaining their freedom suddenly turned them all bad.

Whereas alot of the mages who will be dragged into this uprising (I would think the vast majority) are just normal people who want to go back home, and running around Kirkwall (although that may have been a special case) symapthy for mages among the general populace seemed pretty high anyway. I would think that, when a group of mages after the rebellion inevitably try and take advantage of the lack of regulation and take control, there would be enough strength between both groups to defeat them, and some system of reglation would result.

MerinTB wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
First of all, I dismiss authorial intent.  I don't think it matters at all what Rand thought of her industrialists, just as I don't think it matters what BioWare thinks of the mages.

[...]


I describe the same event - a President not using military force to stop another nation from acquiring nuclear weapons, even though the sale failed.  But my intent on how I want the President's decision to be seen alters how I write the motives for the President, and, since it is my fictional world, my intent shapes the characters and the events.

If my intent is that Space Captain Smith is a womanizer, then in the story I write his thoughts and actions will be that of a womanizer.  If my intent is that he is a puritancial, zealously religious and self-hating homosexual virgin, I will write him in a completely different way with different thoughts and actions.

What you wrote shaped the characters and events and is open to interpretations besides your own, what you intended is something we don't know until you come out and say it as the author, outside of the story.

Say you intended Space Captain Smith to be a bit of a ladies' man, but what you actually wrote for him came across to someone as misogynistic, does it matter that that wasn't what you intended? If you told that person "That's not how I intented that character to be", would that change the actual character or even that reader's opinion of them? Probably not; it wouldn't to me anyway, not on its own. Of course your intent matters to you as the author when you're writing, but to anybody else all that really matters is what they see, which could be completely different.

So Bioware intended for the mage debate to be a real puzzler for the player, but just because someone sees it as a relatively simple choice it doesn't necessarily mean that they just haven't fully understood it, it's just that not everyone shares the writers' ideas on why it should be difficult; what Bioware intended doesn't change that.

Modifié par nerdage, 04 octobre 2013 - 07:13 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

MerinTB wrote...

That is absolutely ridiculous at it's most base level, though.  Author intent doesn't matter?

Okay then - here are two pieces of writing, with different "intents", and you tell me that the intent doesn't matter.

---

President Jameson didn't want to go to war.  He considered precious the treasure of his nation, as he also considered the safety and well-being of his people sacred.  Yes, it was true, the enemy had tried to buy nuclear weapons on the black market.  Those in the opposition party, always looking to discredit his presidency, were calling him weak on national defense.  But the truth was that his intelligence agency had tracked the enemy's attempts to find and purchase said weapons, and there had never been any credible threat of them succeeding as a result.  Spending the resources wastefully to cause unnecessary deaths just to solve a minor political problem with the opposition party  was not worth it to him, even if his decision, to him the right decision, cost him some points in the next poll on the job he was doing.

---

What was my intent in that piece?  You think it doesn't matter?  Here, I'll change my intent ...

---

President Jameson broke into a cold sweat.  He was in a no-win situation, and his re-election was on the line.  The rogue nation had only just failed to get it's deadly hands on a weapon of mass destruction.  He hadn't authorized a military strike on the nation, afraid of how the public would react to his use of force and of his opponents in the other political party claiming he was the tail wagging the dog.  He couldn't bring himself to think of military action, he didn't have the constitution to order the deaths of anyone.  But he was still being hammered by his opposition in Congress and his poll numbers were sagging.  Part of him, deep down inside, a more honest man than he ever let himself be in public, knew that he was a coward, and that his cowardice could cost his nation dearly.

---

I describe the same event - a President not using military force to stop another nation from acquiring nuclear weapons, even though the sale failed.  But my intent on how I want the President's decision to be seen alters how I write the motives for the President, and, since it is my fictional world, my intent shapes the characters and the events.

But what matters here is how you wrote it.  You changed what words you used.

The words matter.  The intent behind them does not.

If you present the same text with different intent, that neatly shows the intent to be irrelevant.  The only things that matter are the things that have some material effect.  Changing the words does that.  Changing the intent (on its own) does not.

If my intent is that Space Captain Smith is a womanizer, then in the story I write his thoughts and actions will be that of a womanizer.  If my intent is that he is a puritancial, zealously religious and self-hating homosexual virgin, I will write him in a completely different way with different thoughts and actions.

Saying that author intent doesn't matter is missing an incredbily simple but absolutely essential point - the author of a fictional piece is creating everything as they want it to be - their intent is maybe not EVERYTHING, as others can misinterpret and/or disregard what a story is meant to say, but that's the same as saying that science and fact don't matter because some people would rather believe a 2000 year old book.

That's not the same thing at all.  That's an issue of belief and reasoning that has very little to do with literary theory.

I'm saying (to use a narrow example) that it doesn't matter what F. Scott Fitzgerald thought was the central message of The Great Gatsby, or what the purpose of the entirely fictional epigraph at the beginning was.  What matters is how you think about what those things might mean, or could mean, from different perspectives.

[leaguer of one]

Taleroth wrote...

A good piece of writing is like an argument. You have your position, you use your evidence.

If your evidence leads people to a different conclusion than you intended, that's just the way it is. The facts and details are the important bit.

That's a point but you also have to consider that people ignore points in an arguement . The persons understand and bias has to be considered.

[Adanu]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Adanu wrote...

David, I love yuu, but you simply don't get it with this.

The issue isn't mage freedom, it's mage rights.

Tearing mages from their families, and effectively enslaving them is NOT a solution, it's a bandage on a gaping wound never allowed to heal.

And, yet, the Mages who are rebelling don't have a suitable solution to replace this bandaid. It has just been ripped off and now risks the wound getting infected and septic. 

THAT'S what he is trying to say they are going for in their story (from what I can gather, at least). Templars aren't innocent, but Mages are now being reckless. You assume because Mages are being treated badly that freeing them from that abuse is the best course of action. When, in reality, it may not be. At all. 

Schools and less extremist Templars with less power.

Templars should be containment squads, not jailors.

Mages are dangerous, but that doesn't mean you treat every single mage as lucky to be still breathing. If you want to constantly remind mages how they're lucky to be alive, just drown them as infants/kill them when they manifest and stop trying to pretend like you give a **** about not murdering them.

[EmperorSahlertz]

[quote]dragonflight288 wrote...

[quote]EmperorSahlertz wrote...

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

[quote]Bionuts wrote...

Morrigan can sense how powerful a mage is.

I'm sure mages like Irving and Wynne can.

[/quote]

Morrigan was trained by Flemeth, so it's not really fair to use her as an example for Mages everywhere.

That's always been the pro-templar peoples' viewpoint in regards to why Mages can't live outside the Circle in the past. Just because Morrigan is smart enough to not go abomination can't be applied to other Mages, because she was trained by Flemeth.[/quote]
Have people really brought that up as a pro-Templar argument? Because it is actually a pro-mage argument, accepting that it's possible to acquire knowledge. skills and judgment so that you don't get possessed. Then there's the Litany of Adralla to help those about to be possessed. This raises the question why such knowledge is not sought out and researched systematically by the Chantry.

To me this sounds increasingly as if the Chantry keeps that knowledge from the mages in order to retain the justification for keeping them under its thumbs.

[/quote]
There is no denying that the Chantry is greatly interested in keeping the Circles under their rule, for political and economical reasons. But that is only as an organization. The actually rank and file, probably feel the need for the safety the Circles provide.[/quote]

Then the rank and file should also be equally invested in keeping mages safe, as is part of their duty. [/quote]
Which they generally are....

[quote]dragonflight288 wrote...
[quote]But the Chantry has no interrest in a world where the Circles aren't needed. At least not without another cash cow on hand. The Circles are simply too big of a political influence to let go of them, and they make a ton of money for the Chantry aswell.
However, the current Divine has made attempts at improving the lot of mages, so perhaps change is comming in the general sentiment of Thedas.[/quote][/quote]

Hopefully change is coming. But the seekers and many templars decided to leave the chantry because the Divine was trying to improve the lot of mages, and the Lord-High Seeker came from Tevinter so all he saw was danger, and decided to ignore his subordinates abuses...and gave illegal orders. Such as ordering Evangeline to murder any mage who may have had evidence that tranquility was now curable to keep the fact from getting out. [/quote]
It wasn't so much because she tried to improve the living conditions of mages, as it was becasue she betrayed the Templars. Nice try at spinning it though.
And I have no knowledge of what orders are legal or illegal, and neither do you. However, there were obvious political reasons for why Lambert would want the knowledge hidden for the time being. The entire political situation in the Circle was extremely fragile at that point, and releasing this knowledge would be like lighting a cigarette in a gunpowder storage.

[MerinTB]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
But what matters here is how you wrote it.  You changed what words you used.

The words matter.  The intent behind them does not.

The words don't exist sans intent.   You cannot divorce the two, no matter how much you want so desperately to prove your point of "only the interpretation matters."

My intent decides what words I use.  Leaving aside other variables, like my skill at writing or communicating, what my intent to portrary will decide what words I use.

If I want Wolverine to be the hero, I write him in a positive light, with showing regret for his past actions and all his attempts regain his honor.

If I want Wolverine to be the anti-hero, I write him in a darker light, showing his beserker nature and willingness to do what others won't - ends justifying the means and all that.

My intent, as a writer, shapes what I am showing and what words I am using.

The FAILURE of my skill at writing to portray that attempt, let alone the INEPTITUDE of the reader at grasping the message in the writing, does not negate intent.  It points at OTHER THINGS - the quality of the writing not being up to snuff, or the reader have poor reading comphrension skills.  Reading comprehension IS a skill, it IS something that they test (it is the bulk of the AP Literature test (to brag just a tad, I got a 5 and the only one of two 5 in my graduating class) - learn more here if the concept is foreign to you - http://en.wikipedia....g_comprehension )

A reader failing to grasp intent does not mean it isn't there, and does not remove the fact that intent shaped the piece of writing fundamentally.

Because one person fails to write out the correct proof that the cube root of 1728 is 12, and another person solving the problem gets 13, doesn't change the fact that 12 is the cube root of 1728.

---

BioWare's writers have, on more than one occasion, explained the purpose behind their stories are not "mages good / templars bad" nor the reverse.  They are focused on more complex, more nuanced situations.

Because some gamers sympathize with mages and hate templars, or vice-versa, doesn't change the reality of what the authors created the story to be.  If they explicitly did not set out to, as the thread title suggests they DID, "present the mage revolution as the best answer with an obviously good resolution", then all the hand-wringing and complaining about the writers trying to make people think this is the best way is for naught.  Because they misinterpret the world doesn't change the world.  It may color their perception of the world...

but just because there are people who believe the Earth is flat or that the moon landing was a hoax doesn't mean we suddenly have to throw out facts and proof and cater, to the lowest common denominator.

Modifié par MerinTB, 04 octobre 2013 - 08:52 .

[In Exile]

Ieldra2 wrote...
Have people really brought that up as a pro-Templar argument? Because it is actually a pro-mage argument, accepting that it's possible to acquire knowledge. skills and judgment so that you don't get possessed. Then there's the Litany of Adralla to help those about to be possessed. This raises the question why such knowledge is not sought out and researched systematically by the Chantry.

To me this sounds increasingly as if the Chantry keeps that knowledge from the mages in order to retain the justification for keeping them under its thumbs.

I'm pretty sure the Litany is about preventing blood magic mind control.

[Wulfram]

That the author intends that 1+1=3 doesn't make it so.  Better to stick to the facts as presented in the actual piece, and conclude that the answer is two.

Authorial intent is interesting, and potentially useful.  But just because the writer intended this guy to be romantic, doesn't stop the facts as presented in the book showing him as disturbingly creepy.

edit:  Though of course in an ongoing series there's not much point in fighting too hard against authorial intent, since subsequent stuff is likely to reflect reality as they imagine it.  If not be changed to hammer in the point especially hard, if the writers pay too much attention to the reaction in the wider world.

Modifié par Wulfram, 04 octobre 2013 - 09:12 .

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
But what matters here is how you wrote it.  You changed what words you used.

The words matter.  The intent behind them does not.

The intent matters tremendously. Putting aside that "meaning" is nothing more than a function of that intent, often writting is ambiguous and can only be understood with reference to intent. Particularly if you are using that piece of writing predictively or inferentially, i.e., to draw some conclusion from it. 

If you present the same text with different intent, that neatly shows the intent to be irrelevant.

That's not possible except in very simplified and short cases, because again, "meaning" just flows from intent. There's a difference between "perceived" meaning and "intended" meaning, in that I might want to convey some information but because of imperfects in the method of communication you perceive it differently... but that just illustrates that (i) the communication itself is irrelevant in isolation, because it is only a portion of the story and (ii) communication is fundamentally contextual, in that the words have to be understood in the context (including the subjective contexts of the person stating and receiving).

The only things that matter are the things that have some material effect.  Changing the words does that.  Changing the intent (on its own) does not.

Changing the intent very much does. All that you need is a sufficiently ambiguous sentence, because meaning is also carried in the general context that the statmemt is made (e.g. the cultural context). I've shown you an example before: the sentence "That was a good idea."

Before getting to cultural context, let's use a simple example: tone and body language. 

Tone: "That was a good" idea is not the same as "That was a good idea" or "That was a good idea". This is the idea of pragmatics in grammar. A brief description is available here (http://www.tau.ac.il...sAndGrammar.htm). Body langauge is just a specific case of pragmatics, so I'll go there next. 

Body language: If the intent is: "That was a good idea. :)" a different meaning is carried than "That was a good idea. <_<" and "That was a good idea. :huh:". 

Combining the Two: "That was a good idea.:huh:" is not the same as "That was a good idea. :huh:" or "That was a good idea.".  convey very different things. 

Culture is embodied in the pragmatics that sorround the text. You can change all of that to change the meaning, without ever bothering to change the text. 

Bas Van Frassen was a great example using red applies. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

MerinTB wrote...

The words don't exist sans intent.

Once they're written down, absolutely the do.  The words persist in perpetuity, long after the intent is forgotten.

The point of interpretation is not to determine what the writer meant, but what the writer actually said.  Furthermore, since what the writer meant is never knowable, how useful could that intent ever be?

You cannot divorce the two, no matter how much you want so desperately to prove your point of "only the interpretation matters."

The words are all we have.  That's the sum total of the meaning available to us.

My intent decides what words I use.  Leaving aside other variables, like my skill at writing or communicating, what my intent to portrary will decide what words I use.

And, inside your head while you make those decisions, you intent matters.  Your intent has relevance, to you, inside your own head.

Outside your head, your intent makes no difference at all.

The FAILURE of my skill at writing to portray that attempt, let alone the INEPTITUDE of the reader at grasping the message in the writing, does not negate intent.  It points at OTHER THINGS - the quality of the writing not being up to snuff, or the reader have poor reading comphrension skills.  Reading comprehension IS a skill, it IS something that they test (it is the bulk of the AP Literature test (to brag just a tad, I got a 5 and the only one of two 5 in my graduating class) - learn more here if the concept is foreign to you - http://en.wikipedia....g_comprehension )

A reader failing to grasp intent does not mean it isn't there, and does not remove the fact that intent shaped the piece of writing fundamentally.

That the meaning isn't there - you cannot point to it - means that it isn't there.

That the intent shaped the writing (and it did - of course it did) is irrelevant once the writing is done.

Because one person fails to write out the correct proof that the cube root of 1728 is 12, and another person solving the problem gets 13, doesn't change the fact that 12 is the cube root of 1728.

I don't see the connection you're trying to make, here.

If you write something with a given intent, and then you write exactly the same thing (word for word) with a different intent, the reader will not perceive those things differently.  The reader will perceive them differently if you use different words (as you have in every example you've given), but then the reader is reacting to the words, not to the intent.  As long as you keep changing the words along with the meaning, you're not making an apples to apples comparison.

BioWare's writers have, on more than one occasion, explained the purpose behind their stories are not "mages good / templars bad" nor the reverse.  They are focused on more complex, more nuanced situations.

Yes, they have, and yes, they are.  But that doesn't stop a player from interpreting the in-game situation differently.  In what way is BioWare's intent is relevant?

Because some gamers sympathizes with mages and hate templars, or vice-versa, doesn't change the reality of what the authors created the story to be.

Correct.

Similarly, that BioWare created the story to be a specific thing doesn't make that intent relevant to interpretation of the story.

If they explicitly did not set out to, as the thread title suggests they DID, "present the mage revolution as the best answer with an obviously good resolution", then all the hand-wringing and complaining about the writers trying to make people think this is the best way is for naught.

I don't think the hand-wringing is ever for naught.  It's a way for us to investigate different ways to interpret the writing.  That's a good thing.

Because they misinterpret the world doesn't change the world.  It may color their perception of the world...

Again, I don't disagree.  And I don't understand the relevance of this point (which is undoubtedly correct).

but just because there are people who believe the Earth is flat or that the moon landing was a hoax doesn't mean we suddenly have to throw out facts and proof and cater to the lowest common denominator.

Again, I completely agree.  But we should be willing to address their questions, just as they should be willing to investigate the source of their opinions.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The point of interpretation is not to determine what the writer meant, but what the writer actually said.  Furthermore, since what the writer meant is never knowable, how useful could that intent ever be?

Just in case you are speaking categorically (not sure if you are), the entire field of law is an exercise in determining what a person meant (sometimes objectively, sometimes not) and very rarely what was actually said. 

The entire field of legislative interpretation is nothing but guessing the intent of legislative sessions long gone through videos of debates, transcripts, policy papers read, etc. 

[Wulfram]

If it turned out that the Archdemon was intended by Bioware to be the good guy, would that make it so? Would I be wrong to say that actually everyone being eaten by Darkspawn would be a bad thing?