166 réponses à ce sujet

[Laughing_Man]

eluvianix wrote...
I agree with the majority of this, except for the tactics portion that is bolded. The mages were barely given any warning it would seem to Meredith's proclamation of Annulment. Orsino would probably have barely enough time to warn everyone what was going on, never mind have time to set up defenses or have them strategically defend the Circle. Add in the fact that most were probably scared to death and/or in disbelief, and that might better explain why any other possible contingency plans went to hell.

Maybe, or maybe not.
Personally I think Orsino had enough time to orgenise deffense plan, It's not like the mages were out shopping, they were all at their prison to begin with. And he seems like a sensible type, someone who will know where is best to position mages in a fight.

Again, I sense here an intervention by a "higher power"...

[Laughing_Man]

Filament wrote...

TheRedVipress wrote...

But the truth is, that the story as it was written, pulls the rug from under the chantry's justifications for it's magic policy. Because if despite all the blood-magic and reaperised abominations canon claims that the mages are fighting a losing battle, then maybe magic is not as dangerous as it was portrayed.

You can't have it both ways.

Maybe the templars just aren't so bad at their one job of slaughtering mages. They could have showed nullification waves or barriers protecting the templar advance if they really wanted to drive that point home, but alas.

The reasons are irrelevant. If templars are strong enough that mages are not that much of a threat even after pulling all stops, it means that Magophobia was blown way out of proportions.

That's what I said, you can't have it both ways.

Modifié par TheRedVipress, 24 novembre 2013 - 07:37 .

[Hellion Rex]

TheRedVipress wrote...

eluvianix wrote...
I agree with the majority of this, except for the tactics portion that is bolded. The mages were barely given any warning it would seem to Meredith's proclamation of Annulment. Orsino would probably have barely enough time to warn everyone what was going on, never mind have time to set up defenses or have them strategically defend the Circle. Add in the fact that most were probably scared to death and/or in disbelief, and that might better explain why any other possible contingency plans went to hell.

Maybe, or maybe not.
Personally I think Orsino had enough time to orgenise deffense plan, It's not like the mages were out shopping, they were all at their prison to begin with. And he seems like a sensible type, someone who will know where is best to position mages in a fight.

Again, I sense here an intervention by a "higher power"...

Fair enough.

[Laughing_Man]

Filament wrote...

...Templars were created as a direct response to that "magophobia." If it weren't for mages being a threat, templars wouldn't be needed to exist. And that templars are good at their specialized job of nullifying magic doesn't justify your leap that mages must not be a threat.

If mages couldn't fight their way past a conventional fighting force, you might have a point.

Again, irrelevant. Templars exist *now*. And if anything, magophobia became even worse.
A suspicious person might think that it has something to do with keeping the people on the street dependent on the Chantry and afraid of it.

[Wulfram]

"Magophobia" makes sense so long as the Chantry limits the availability of anti-mage skills.

But if people were more widely trained in templar abilities it would seem like it would lose a lot of its bite. Maybe lyrium supplies makes having more templar-skilled people about, though lyrium never really seems like it's in that short supply.

Modifié par Wulfram, 24 novembre 2013 - 08:03 .

[MisterJB]

Due to lyrium, Templar abilities are not something that can be easily taught like our world's own self defence classes.
It's rare, it's expensive and, worst of all, you don't want a large part of your population addicted to a drug that can only be provided by a foreign nation and, without which, your people will lose all their mental faculties.

[Laughing_Man]

Filament wrote...

It's not irrelevant at all, since you said this somehow undermines the notion that mages are a threat. But they are a threat in most circumstances, except where magophobia has inspired the creation of soldiers trained specifically to deal with that threat. This only really buttresses the case for continuing magophobia.

Let's forget for a moment the words "Mages" and "Templars".

Instead let's talk about risks.
It can be a crime, a type of criminal, or a sickness.
At first, no one knows how to deal with it, but then someone invents a vaccine to stop the sickness, a new technology to stop the crime, a new police force to counter the criminals.

At this point, usually people shift their attention to other things, like seeking more ways to improve life, or seeking ways to create better conditions that will hopefully create more reasonable, just, and sane people instead of bloodthirsty criminals.

Why? Because when the inevitable crime finally occures, you have the technology and manpower to contain it.
There is no need for panic, or for glassy-eyed, drooling, religious fanaticizm. 

Modifié par TheRedVipress, 24 novembre 2013 - 08:15 .

[Laughing_Man]

MisterJB wrote...

Due to lyrium, Templar abilities are not something that can be easily taught like our world's own self defence classes.
It's rare, it's expensive and, worst of all, you don't want a large part of your population addicted to a drug that can only be provided by a foreign nation and, without which, your people will lose all their mental faculties.

Well, that's why the chantry raised a horde of Templars and took control of all the Lyrium.
Also, I'm pretty certain that Alistair said in game that you don't need Lyrium in order to use templar magic.

Modifié par TheRedVipress, 24 novembre 2013 - 08:13 .

[MisterJB]

TheRedVipress wrote...
Let's forget for a moment the words "Mages" and "Templars".

Instead let's talk about risks.
It can be a crime, a type of criminal, or a sickness.
At first, no one knows how to deal with it, but than someone invents a vaccine to stop the sickness, a new technology to stop the crime, a new police force to counter the criminals.

At this point, usually people shift their attention to other things, like seeking more ways to improve life, or seeking ways to create better conditions that will hopefully create more reasonable, just, and sane people instead of bloodthirsty criminals.

Why? Because when the inevitable crime finally occures, you have the technology and manpower to contain it.
There is no need for panic, or for glassy-eyed, drooling, religious fanaticizm. 

There is no "fanaticism" involved. First,  Thedas is not centered around magic; certainly, it's part of that world but; unlike the BSN; Thedosians do other things beyond arguing about magic and mages all day long.
Second, just because you have the vaccine for a sickness, that doesn't mean you should not stll take precautions to avoid an outbreak of the disease in the first place; because, by the time you manage to mass produce and distribute the vaccine, some people will already be dead.
That is what the Circle is; prevention. Because, regardless of how capable the Templars are, if a mage attacks an isolated village, it will have killed people long before the Templars arrive. Thus, you place the mages all in one place, where there are Templars five second away and where ther aren't innocent people for them to kill.

[Sidney]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

Varric's epilogue does say that many innocents were saved so many mages managed to escape. Again, I think the problem was that the gameplay made it seem like the mages were winning even if they weren't. They should have included more templars waves and more mage casualties so Orisino's descent into despair felt like it would have been more obvious. He already felt like the Champion and co were the only hope he had of surviving. If we saw some of his charges perish anyway, I think his abandoning of that hope would have felt less abrupt.

I guess I didn't have this issue since whatever localized "winning" I was doing the Templars are built to annull the tower. They should have numbers and ability to do just that. Orsino had years to contemplate what would happen if the annullment happened - and in the environment of Kirkwall it couod never have been too far from his mind. He knew his charges were doomed at that point once the anullment happened.

[The Elder King]

TheRedVipress wrote...

MisterJB wrote...

Due to lyrium, Templar abilities are not something that can be easily taught like our world's own self defence classes.
It's rare, it's expensive and, worst of all, you don't want a large part of your population addicted to a drug that can only be provided by a foreign nation and, without which, your people will lose all their mental faculties.

Well, that's why the chantry raised a horde of Templars and took control of all the Lyrium.
Also, I'm pretty certain that Alistair said in game that you don't need Lyrium in order to use templar magic.

Gaider stated already that Alistair's line was a mistake, and made Alistair state in the comics he wrote that he needed lyrium to use templar abilities. 

Modifié par hhh89, 24 novembre 2013 - 08:27 .

[Laughing_Man]

hhh89 wrote...

Gaider stated already that Alistiar's line was a mistake, and make Alistair state in the comics he wrote that he needed lyrium to use templar abilities. 

A mistake? Hard to imagine how it happend.
Seems to me that writing lines for a character is a very deliberate act.
One does not simply write the exact opposite and then hand-waves it away.
Gaider is of course free to change his mind and retcon anything about what he wrote, but let's not pretend that it is something less crude than a retcon.

[MisterJB]

The devs always intended for lyrium to be needed but when they failed to find a way to incorporate that into gameplay, they decided to just go "maybe Lyrium isn't really needed after all. Maybe it's all a conspiracy" and shrugged.
But, when the game became a sucess, sequels were approved and they decided to make the mage issue a fulcrum point, then it became important whether lyrium was needed or not. And they decided that lyrium was needed, period.

[The Elder King]

TheRedVipress wrote...

A mistake? Hard to imagine how it happend.
Seems to me that writing lines for a character is a very deliberate act.
One does not simply write the exact opposite and then hand-waves it away.
Gaider is of course free to change his mind and retcon anything about what he wrote, but let's not pretend that it is something less crude than a retcon.

I'm not sure how he called it. His point was that a person needs lyrium to have access to templar abilities. The comics confirmed that. 
I don't really care how templar abilities work, one way or another. I just wanted to clarify how the devs intend them to work, since they clarified the issue.

Modifié par hhh89, 24 novembre 2013 - 08:45 .

[Laughing_Man]

MisterJB wrote...
There is no "fanaticism" involved. First,  Thedas is not centered around magic; certainly, it's part of that world but; unlike the BSN; Thedosians do other things beyond arguing about magic and mages all day long.
Second, just because you have the vaccine for a sickness, that doesn't mean you should not stll take precautions to avoid an outbreak of the disease in the first place; because, by the time you manage to mass produce and distribute the vaccine, some people will already be dead.
That is what the Circle is; prevention. Because, regardless of how capable the Templars are, if a mage attacks an isolated village, it will have killed people long before the Templars arrive. Thus, you place the mages all in one place, where there are Templars five second away and where ther aren't innocent people for them to kill.

That's great, I'm all for caution and the ability to enforce the law.

But when "caution" dictates that you shold take newborns from their mothers even without any evidence of wrong-doing on their part, when caution causes you to destroy most of what makes a person unique just to be safe, and when caution causes you to kill entire crouds of people just "to be safe" there is something very wrong with you.

The fact that an all-out rebelion of mages is apparently failing, just underlines the unnecesery  cruelty in the chantry's policy.

And it's not like a better solution is impossible, you just have to actually look for it.
(as they say, the truth is usually in the middle)

Some people will die no matter what you do, the only question is, at the end of the day, will you keep your humanity intact? Or will you be a monster yourself?

[Laughing_Man]

MisterJB wrote...

The devs always intended for lyrium to be needed but when they failed to find a way to incorporate that into gameplay, they decided to just go "maybe Lyrium isn't really needed after all. Maybe it's all a conspiracy" and shrugged.
But, when the game became a sucess, sequels were approved and they decided to make the mage issue a fulcrum point, then it became important whether lyrium was needed or not. And they decided that lyrium was needed, period.

I read maybe one DA book, usually I don't bother with things outside the game.

I don't really care about those explanations, I know what I saw in game.
Saying "it was a mistake" is simply a bad joke. You don't like something you previously inserted into the story? Work around it. Find a way to contain and include it within tour story.
Meh. Whatever.

[SgtSteel91]

Do people here side with the Templars in DA2 because they believe the Circle in Kirkwall has failed and needed to be Annulled or because they play for the winning side and the Templars have an advantage over the Mages? Because to me the Right of Annulment was called in retaliation to Anders blowing up the Chantry. The Gallows Mages had nothing to do with that so they are going to be executed for a crime they didn't commit.

[Laughing_Man]

SgtSteel91 wrote...

Do people here side with the Templars in DA2 because they believe the Circle in Kirkwall has failed and needed to be Annulled or because they play for the winning side and the Templars have an advantage over the Mages? Because to me the Right of Annulment was called in retaliation to Anders blowing up the Chantry. The Gallows Mages had nothing to do with that so they are going to be executed for a crime they didn't commit.

Indeed.
Also, DA2 reads like a frame job against mages. Orsino was a "typical" Mage, but you can't blame Meredith for her actions because the voices in her head told her to do it.

[SgtSteel91]

Morocco Mole wrote...

To be fair, the circle was infested with blood mages, including the first enchanter who was hiding a serial killer.

That may be true, but my Hawke, and by extension myself, was never going to allow his sister be wrongfully executed or made Tranquil. I think it's becoming clear to me that Bethany in the Cricle is the only reason I side with the Mages.

Morocco Mole wrote...

Well, voices told Anders to blow up the chantry and I blame him for that.

So do I. And ironically, I killed him and sided with the Mages.

Modifié par SgtSteel91, 25 novembre 2013 - 06:39 .