283 réponses à ce sujet

[Estelindis]

Memengwa wrote...

That's what I'm trying to point out.

You're trying to point out that your theory, if true, would have no implications whatsoever?  Well, I agree.

[MisanthropePrime]

Estelindis wrote...

MisanthropePrime wrote...

What right do the meek have to dictate the will of the mighty?

If the highest normative value that you acknowledge is strength, then it is meaningless to discuss rights.

What raises monuments? What creates art? What brings man from beyond the base level of beasts?


Is it morality, or is it will? And is magic not the truest expression of will, the pure force of the psyche grabbing reality by the throat and forcing it into submission?

[Estelindis]

MisanthropePrime wrote...

What raises monuments? What creates art? What brings man from beyond the base level of beasts?

Is it morality, or is it will? And is magic not the truest expression of will, the pure force of the psyche grabbing reality by the throat and forcing it into submission?

If it is will (or strength/force/might/what-have-you), and if will trumps morality in every way, then, as I said, discussion of rights continues to be pointless.  Accordingly, I don't know why you ask the question of rights at all.  It's inconsistent with the view that you're putting forward.

Modifié par Estelindis, 05 novembre 2013 - 03:21 .

[Memengwa]

Estelindis wrote...

Memengwa wrote...

That's what I'm trying to point out.

You're trying to point out that your theory, if true, would have no implications whatsoever?  Well, I agree.

if by "no implications" you say in a snippity kind of way that it fits so well it's hard to find arguments against it, and it doesn't change the status quo of the world and what is going on in the game, then you are right.

Any other type of theory would be a bad one. Wouldn't you agree?

[Estelindis]

Memengwa wrote...

if by "no implications" you say in a snippity kind of way that it fits so well it's hard to find arguments against it, and it doesn't change the status quo of the world and what is going on in the game, then you are right.

Any other type of theory would be a bad one. Wouldn't you agree?

Really, your theory is nothing more or less than a transposition, whereby one word or phrase, which used to signify a particular thing, is replaced by another.  Where people might have said "The universe" before, they'd instead say "The Fade."  But the two phrases would mean exactly the same thing if your idea was correct, i.e., all there is.  No meaning is added or taken away.  It is literally a nothing wrapped up in words, the most pointless kind of theory that I can imagine.  So no, I disagree completely that any other type of theory would be a bad one.  Any other type of theory would at least mean something.

Please understand, however, that the opposition that I express towards the idea of your theory being in any way interesting or revelant is nothing against you.  My vehemence is intellectual, not personal.

[Memengwa]

Estelindis wrote...

Memengwa wrote...

if by "no implications" you say in a snippity kind of way that it fits so well it's hard to find arguments against it, and it doesn't change the status quo of the world and what is going on in the game, then you are right.

Any other type of theory would be a bad one. Wouldn't you agree?

Really, your theory is nothing more or less than a transposition, whereby one word or phrase, which used to signify a particular thing, is replaced by another.  Where people might have said "The universe" before, they'd instead say "The Fade."  But the two phrases would mean exactly the same thing if your idea was correct, i.e., all there is.  No meaning is added or taken away.  It is literally a nothing wrapped up in words, the most pointless kind of theory that I can imagine.  So no, I disagree completely that any other type of theory would be a bad one.  Any other type of theory would at least mean something.

Please understand, however, that the opposition that I express towards the idea of your theory being in any way interesting or revelant is nothing against you.  My vehemence is intellectual, not personal.

Where do I say that any other kind of theroy is a bad one? I'm saying that a theory that is easily argued against is a bad one. Which is the only transposition I present.

I don't see how saying that Thedas and Fade are one and the same is a bad idea.  People in Thedas live their lives believing in the illusion that the two are separate.

If your vehemence is intellectual, please provide me with an intellectual argument, instead of using comments like "nothing wrapped in words". Which, quite frankly, is a personal one, and not intellectual.

Fade and Thedas ARE the same thing, and the Maker is just a powerful spirit, not a god. That is what I am pointing out. How is it a "nothing"?

It doesn't change the status quo of the game, but it comes with a lot of rammifications for the beliefs of the chantry, who the races of Thedas are, and the distinction between them and the rest of the things (spirits and demons) that live in the Fade. Completelly different answers to the questions of what is a soul and what is the body, then you might have gotten by Extrapolating the Chantry's idea of the Maker towards the Western Christian God.

How is this for a "nothing"?

Pretend I'm a simpleton, and explain it a little more. Instead of just refuting my idea out of hand (*gasp* I can use big words too, and English is my 3rd language).

[Vulpe]

Memengwa wrote...

I threw out a "crazy" theory sometime ago in some thread (don't remember which one) that the Maker is just another spirit/demon in the Fade, albeit a very powerful one.

Different demons/spirits, based on how powerful they are can bend the "reality" of the Fade to their will, creating things there and making them seem real. Items, rooms, etc.

So, Thedas could actually be part of the Fade, and the Veil is just a boundary between Maker's creation and the rest of the Fade.

After reading the comics, I've comed to a personal conclusion that the Fade and the physical world were, at a point in the worlds unrecorded history, connected into a single one. After the creation of the Veil that world was separated in two and took the form we currently know.

It's that what are you trying to say or am I missing the point ? The Fadeception is a little confusing .

[Silfren]

The Xand wrote...

I can see why people would draw some parallels between the Maker and the real world Abrahamic god, but I want this made clear; the two are *not* one and the same and should not be treated as such. The two have very different identities.

On the one hand, if the Christians are to be believed you have a forgiving all benevolent entity that has a greater plan for all of us and a vested interest in humanity. On the other, you have an utterly indifferent god that has turned it's back on humanity completely, and if the Chantry is to be believed feels humans should collectively earn it's trust again and even punished humans with the Blights.

The Maker didn't even bother creating a proper afterlife for humans, since there is no heaven or hell in the DA universe, the best they offer is letting people "stand by the Maker's side", which we're not even sure where that is. The Black City? Yeah that's a cheery paradise.

Then there's the power levels of those respective gods. The Christians have progressively increased the power of theirs as a response to science pushing back the boundaries of the unknown until the modern Christian god is omnipotent and invisible, but the Chantry hasn't specified just how powerful it is or what it's limitations are. For all we know it's most powerful ability is churning out primeval creation matter like a Burger King.

That said we shouldn't feel that Bioware have to treat the Maker with the same degree of sanctity and apologism as the Christian god. Maybe infuse a little more personality into it. Even the Christian god had it's exciting Old Testament years, full of smiting and wrathful intervention.

I'm pretty sure that not a single person playing DA has ever believed that the Maker was the real world deity; nobody here needs you to enlighten them of that fact. 

I would agree that many people do bring their real world perspectives to the game: the Andrastian religion is analagous enough to Catholicism that that's a natural reaction, and it applies to people on both sides of the issue, for and against.  Nevertheless, I think the vast majority of players have a solid enough grip on reality to realize that the fictitious religion within a fictitious setting is NOT the same thing.  No need for any well-meaning players to educate them on the obvious.

My only real question is why you keep insisting on this particular topic.  You do realize that insisting over and over again for this kind of discussion--as contentious as it is off-topic--is probably a bannable offense?

Modifié par Silfren, 05 novembre 2013 - 04:21 .

[Silfren]

The Xand wrote...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...
And the entire point of the Maker is for him to remain ambigious, so that there will never be an "ultimate truth" revealed.

Yes and that proved uncreative, stale and uninteresting, which is why they're gearing up for a big reveal.

My guess is he's probably dead or evil.

Who says it proved uncreative, stale, and uninteresting?  Also, who says that they're gearing up for a big reveal that specifically pertains to the Maker?

I haven't heard anyone suggest that the backdrop of the religious institution as part of the setting ws boring or stale or any such thing.  I'm sure some people might, but this is an opinion, not an observable fact, and not, from what I've seen, a pervasive one.  It's not meant to be the story, just part of the milieu, and it's actually quite well written.

[Estelindis]

Memengwa wrote...

If your vehemence is intellectual, please provide me with an intellectual argument

I did already explain my perspective twice.  Possibly I wasn't sufficiently clear.  Maybe I'm just going to end up repeating myself again.  For all my inadequacies, in the past and the future, I apologise.

Memengwa wrote...
Thedas could actually be part of the Fade, and the Veil is just a boundary between Maker's creation and the rest of the Fade.

As it stands, people would view Thedas as being on one side of the Veil and the Fade as being on the other side.  If your theory is correct, then the Fade is on both sides of the Veil.  However, what would be on each side would still be exactly the same as what people already experience it to be.  It would just be called something different.  That is my objection.  I feel that your theory is merely semiotic, that it comes down to saying "What if boots were really socks?"  People could call boots socks and they'd still be and do the same things.

If you are right, Demons and Spirits can still only come into "our" side of the Fade in the ways already known.  If Thedas is just the creation of the Maker - and if something else, not created by the Maker, exists on the other side -that doesn't change anything at a practical level either, given that no being with the capacity for greater creation has made itself known to Thedas.  My understanding is that there isn't an internal consensus on whether the elven gods, old gods, etc., were made by the Maker or have their own, independent existences, so that would be similarly untouched.  There are some entities that aren't decisively thought to be created by the Maker, whether your theory is correct or not.

However, I notice now that I missed an element of your argument when responding initially, so I have to acknowledge that an element, at least, is not a "nothing."  I couldn't remember if the Chantry teaches that the Fade was created by the Maker or it was just pre-existing primordial matter that the Maker used, so I looked it up while writing this post, and the wikia says that the Chantry does teach that the Maker created the Fade.  Mind you, it does list the source of this as the lore book, which I'm not getting until Christmas, so I can't give an exact quote.  Anyway, if the Fade wasn't created by the Maker, it would have some implications for the Chant of Light.  While I think that most of us strongly suspect that at least some of the Chantry's beliefs are not accurate, I think that the point of your post was to focus on a particular possible inaccuracy, so you achieved that.

Memengwa wrote...
It doesn't change the status quo of the game

Agreed - and that is all I care about in this context.

[Kallimachus]

Just wanted to make one comment - in the Biblical-Israelite religion there are no heaven and hell either. And if you read the Hebrew Bible (what Christians refer to as "The Old Testament"), you will find no genuine reference to them. The concept of afterlife in the Hebrew Bible is that of "Sheol", which is a dark place, to which every dead soul goes, regardless of righteousness, and which is cut off completely from God and his presence.
The spirits of the Sheol are known as "Refaim" (refa - signular) and are entities without personality or physical strength. Contacting the dead can be done through withcraft (or necromancy), as is done by the Witch of Endor (Ein-Dor in Hebrew), but that the bible considers evil.
The description is remarkably similar to the Greek and Roman afterlife - Hades, and indeed the Septuagint (the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) translated Sheol as Hades.
In this point it is interesting to note that those traveling in the Graeco-Roman Hades, and who wish to converse with the shades within must give blood to those entities, which temporarily restores their personality and memories. Blood Magic, anyone?

The idea of Sheol has developed in time, and in the second temple period the idea has had several developments, including a concept according to which two separate communities exist within the Sheol - one for good people and one for evil. But the place itself was still considered cut off from God.

While concepts of Hell and Heaven in the Christian sense exist in later Judaism, after a fashion, they are not universally accepted, and sometimes heaven (or Eden) is reserved to a period of time after the arrival of the Messiah.

Hell, on the other hand (or, more accurately, Gehenna) is not a permanent state of being, and normally souls spend only one year there, after which they are considered pure enough to proceed to Eden.

So saying that the Abrahamic is inextricably connected to the notion of heaven and hell is inaccurate. It is more correct to say that the Christian interpretation of him is so.

As a final note - all this is not meant to proselytize any religion, I am indeed Jewish by ethnicity and culture, but I'm an atheist by faith, so please take the above only as a source of information.

Modifié par Kallimachus, 05 novembre 2013 - 06:55 .

[aries1001]

Getting back to the topic at hand:

I'm playing a elven mage on my second playthrough of DA: Origins. And colour me surprised when I found that if I out three points (I think?) in coercion, I got an option to tell the old lady in the Lothering Chantry off! e.g. I could say:
I don't believe in the maker or I could also say something along the lines of  this: do you mean doing the same as you've done to the elves - enslaving them etc.

In other conversations e.g. with Wynne - or with Sten - I think? - I could also choose to say that I don't believe in the Maker.And in conversations with Brother Genitivi, I could tell, too, that I don't believe in the Maker at all, that I consider religion/the chantry's teachings to be superstition. And in many more conversations, at least in DA:O, I could express doubts about the nature of the Maker and also doubt if he/she really existed at all. People, like the Revered Mother in Lothering, got mad, when I said such things.....but then isn't this to be expected...

As for who the Maker is and what he does and doesn't do? What if he just a mind trick, a great and not so powerfull wizard hiding behind a - ehm - Veil - and he created this Veil a long time to protect someone from something, thus making magic very rare and scarce.....

Or what if it all hinges on our perception of the Maker? Wasn't it Arthur C. Clarke who once said: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  source:  http://en.wikipedia....ke's_three_laws

I'm reminded of that because recently I watched Star Trek: Into Darkness (on DVD) and the opening scenes of this movie show some people clearly worshipping advanced technology.  The maker could thus be a powerfull mage, or demon, or spirit, maybe even a shapeshifter who could shapeshift into -- tada -- a dragon! And maybe even one the Elven Gods of old could do this.....

The point being that in my mind, Bioware should not reveal to much information on how or what the Maker really is - or isn't - as this would take some of the mystery, if not all, away from the game. As for the discussion about Thedas and the Fade, I'm thinking that yes, maybe this could be the case. Thedas and the Fade were once the same; then something happened, someone or something placed a carpet, ehm, I mean, Veil, over it all. And the magic went away, just like the dragons; the magic of course didn't go away entirely since children which has the ability do magic are born today (in the game's universe, I mean). So we would have a kind of like a Maxtrix thing going on, like others have mentioned, I find.

edited:
quotes and spelling

Modifié par aries1001, 05 novembre 2013 - 07:13 .

[Dayze]

Estelindis wrote...

Memengwa wrote...

If your vehemence is intellectual, please provide me with an intellectual argument

I did already explain my perspective twice.  Possibly I wasn't sufficiently clear.  Maybe I'm just going to end up repeating myself again.  For all my inadequacies, in the past and the future, I apologise.

Memengwa wrote...
Thedas could actually be part of the Fade, and the Veil is just a boundary between Maker's creation and the rest of the Fade.

As it stands, people would view Thedas as being on one side of the Veil and the Fade as being on the other side.  If your theory is correct, then the Fade is on both sides of the Veil.  However, what would be on each side would still be exactly the same as what people already experience it to be.  It would just be called something different.  That is my objection.  I feel that your theory is merely semiotic, that it comes down to saying "What if boots were really socks?"  People could call boots socks and they'd still be and do the same things.

If you are right, Demons and Spirits can still only come into "our" side of the Fade in the ways already known.  If Thedas is just the creation of the Maker - and if something else, not created by the Maker, exists on the other side -that doesn't change anything at a practical level either, given that no being with the capacity for greater creation has made itself known to Thedas.  My understanding is that there isn't an internal consensus on whether the elven gods, old gods, etc., were made by the Maker or have their own, independent existences, so that would be similarly untouched.  There are some entities that aren't decisively thought to be created by the Maker, whether your theory is correct or not.

However, I notice now that I missed an element of your argument when responding initially, so I have to acknowledge that an element, at least, is not a "nothing."  I couldn't remember if the Chantry teaches that the Fade was created by the Maker or it was just pre-existing primordial matter that the Maker used, so I looked it up while writing this post, and the wikia says that the Chantry does teach that the Maker created the Fade.  Mind you, it does list the source of this as the lore book, which I'm not getting until Christmas, so I can't give an exact quote.  Anyway, if the Fade wasn't created by the Maker, it would have some implications for the Chant of Light.  While I think that most of us strongly suspect that at least some of the Chantry's beliefs are not accurate, I think that the point of your post was to focus on a particular possible inaccuracy, so you achieved that.

Memengwa wrote...
It doesn't change the status quo of the game

Agreed - and that is all I care about in this context.

Actually if I'm remembering right the Chantry says the The Maker created "The Fade" first and then created the world.

So if it turns out the world existed "before" the fade; that would actually be a pretty big thing.

[Estelindis]

Dayze said...

Actually if I'm remembering right the Chantry says the The Maker created "The Fade" first and then created the world.

Yes, as I acknowledged.

Dayze said...

So if it turns out the world existed "before" the fade; that would actually be a pretty big thing.

Not following you here, though. According to the theory being discussed, it's "all" the Fade. Also, even then, I didn't get the impression that Memengwa was arguing that the part of the Fade created by the Maker had existed before the rest of the Fade. It's all getting a bit confusing, from my point of view.

[Angrywolves]

The Maker is God in the DA universe.
Doesn't matter who thinks otherwise .
shrugs.

[Silfren]

Angrywolves wrote...

The Maker is God in the DA universe.
Doesn't matter who thinks otherwise .
shrugs.

Not quite.  The Maker is the supreme God of orthodox Andrastianism.

[Dayze]

[quote]Estelindis wrote...

[quote]Dayze said...

Actually if I'm remembering right the Chantry says the The Maker created "The Fade" first and then created the world.[/quote]
Yes, as I acknowledged.

[quote]Dayze said...

So if it turns out the world existed "before" the fade; that would actually be a pretty big thing.[/quote]
Not following you here, though. According to the theory being discussed, it's "all" the Fade. Also, even then, I didn't get the impression that Memengwa was arguing that the part of the Fade created by the Maker had existed before the rest of the Fade. It's all getting a bit confusing, from my point of view.[/quote

Yeah but the Chantry believes the fade/world are effectively two different things and the part tended to be thought of as "The Fade" as being first.

But if "The World" was first......that would pretty much annhilate the Andrastian/Chantry power structure.

Maybe I'm misremembering but didn't it get implied that the Fade as we know it was not always around?  If so; and its more recent and not the originator that throws an intense amount of doubt on all the the Andrastian/Maker related mythology.

I mean thats a bit more than being a little off about the motivations of people doing something but being basically right about what happened more or less ala the Tevinters and the Golden City or even the spirits/demons not knowing if there is an after life or not.

[Dayze]

Angrywolves wrote...

The Maker is God in the DA universe.
Doesn't matter who thinks otherwise .
shrugs.

What if Bioware thinks otherwise?

I mean look at how they handle Gods/Supernatural entities?

Archdemons; powerful but killable, the statue associated with tevinter worship in DA2 was full of demons.

Cultists who worship High Dragons; just worship a powerful animal.

Elves aren't immortal guardians of the forest; they are feeble mortals living in squalor and filth getting knocked around by humans.

In the DAverse Bioware seems to be taking Gods and other supernatural creatures; beating them  to their knees and kicking their teeth out as a general course of action.

[Dabrikishaw]

Ravensword wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

Also, when did this become the forum's new favorite topic? Tired of romance and MxT, are we?

Consider it an improvement simply by virtues of being different than those topics you mentioned.

[Estelindis]

Dayze wrote...

Yeah but the Chantry believes the fade/world are effectively two different things and the part tended to be thought of as "The Fade" as being first.

But if "The World" was first......that would pretty much annhilate the Andrastian/Chantry power structure.

Maybe I'm misremembering but didn't it get implied that the Fade as we know it was not always around?  If so; and its more recent and not the originator that throws an intense amount of doubt on all the the Andrastian/Maker related mythology.

I mean thats a bit more than being a little off about the motivations of people doing something but being basically right about what happened more or less ala the Tevinters and the Golden City or even the spirits/demons not knowing if there is an after life or not.

While not quite the same as the theory originally being discussed, this is actually fascinating.  If the world was created before the Fade, it could have serious implications.  In both cases, the Maker could still be disappointed in his creations - but, in this modified understanding, the people of Thedas would be his first creations and the spirits of the Fade would be improvements, having something that people lack - or, possibly, lacking something that the Maker subsequently decided should not have been in his creation after all.  

According to the original Chant, demons are spirits that envy the "better" creations in Thedas...  But, if what you said was actually correct, then people going to the Fade during dreams would actually be like demons, casting their thoughts to a better world that they envy.  To take that even further, the Magisters, who went physically into the Fade, would be as horrid as demons manifesting physically in Thedas.

I await someone who has thought about this at greater length to puncture the theory, but for now I can happily say: mind = blown.

While I'm at it, though the subject is different, I might as well respond to something you posted last week as well.  

Dayze wrote...

Its still a fear that religious types can hold and a not unfounded one; to some extent its just a matter of cut and paste.

Make an argument against a religious organization based on faith that is based on attacking the nature of faith or some other basic aspect of religious or mythologies and it could come back to them.

I disagree.  While I cannot speak for all "religious types," I consider the fear to be utterly unfounded.  The Chant of Light, while put together by some great writers and better than the average fantasy religion, is extremely shallow compared to the real religions followed by most people.  In my opinion, anyone who would feel threatened by the kind of argument that could disprove the Chant is on shaky ground to begin with.  A faith that could be undermined by a Thedosian argument could be undermined even better by a million real-world arguments.  Just as real religions are much deeper and more interesting than fantasy ones, so the best arguments for and against them are better than the best arguments concerning fantasy faiths.  

Dayze wrote...

Though thinking about it; we don't really know much about The Chantry or the Canticles of Light or the general myths of Thedas......by comparision we have the entirety of the bible to read, a pretty strong history of many countries and incidents, philosphical writings of people from many religions in the real world.

We actually have a "much" better, indepth and easily gotten sources of information for most religions in existance as to any of the religions in Thedas.

"We" as a species have a better knowledge of real religions than we do of the Chant, if one just means that there is far more knowledge to be had.  Of course, in terms of percentages, we as a species know a higher percentage of what is to be known about the Chant (i.e. what has currently been invented about it by writers, rather than what may be assumed to exist in-world) than we do about real religions.  The Chant is new.  Little, if any, information about it can have been lost to the mists of time.

However, even when speaking of a total amount of information, "we" does not refer to the average person, because most people only know a small amount of all there is to know concerning religion (or, for that matter, most topics).  "We" clearly does not refer to you or any of the other participants in this thread, including me.

Modifié par Estelindis, 12 novembre 2013 - 12:58 .

[The Xand]

Dayze wrote...

Angrywolves wrote...

The Maker is God in the DA universe.
Doesn't matter who thinks otherwise .
shrugs.

What if Bioware thinks otherwise?

I mean look at how they handle Gods/Supernatural entities?

Archdemons; powerful but killable, the statue associated with tevinter worship in DA2 was full of demons.

Cultists who worship High Dragons; just worship a powerful animal.

Elves aren't immortal guardians of the forest; they are feeble mortals living in squalor and filth getting knocked around by humans.

In the DAverse Bioware seems to be taking Gods and other supernatural creatures; beating them  to their knees and kicking their teeth out as a general course of action.

That's kind of why I'm very interested in how they portray the Maker. Instead of some aloof nigh non-existent entity giving it a more human, Old Testament aspect from back before the religious shifted the goalposts and changed their god.

Have you ever read American Gods or theHellblazer/Sandman comics? Or seen Supernatural? I'd like something like that, where the gods are fuelled by faith and actually, you know, sentient and marginally active. Something down and dirty to fit into the DAverse.

Besides I want to see what happened to the Tevinter Imperium and their religion happen with the Chantry. To see it all tumble down in a new age of dragons. The irony would be sweet.

Modifié par The Xand, 12 novembre 2013 - 01:03 .

[The Flying Grey Warden]

This is a blatant use of necromancy. Report to the circle for your tranquiling immediately.

[The Xand]

The Flying Grey Warden wrote...

This is a blatant use of necromancy. Report to the circle for your tranquiling immediately.

You know I've often wondered what it would be like to be without emotions. It would be so...tranquil. My psychiatrist says I have BPD.

[EricaShepard]

Who's to say? Maybe the Maker is god to all? Wouldn't that be something!!

[Mike3207]

Don't tell Him/Her that.