[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
In principle, I would agree. In practice, what you consider enough and what I consider enough probably won't be compatible. The Harrowing, for example- it really isn't a stress test comparible or superior to the natural stressors of life. But then, few things other than life are, so you'd have a hard time selling that to me.
Given my view on teenagers and the passions of youth, you'd have an extremely hard sell for anyone below the age of 25, to start.
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I resent that. I'm 20 and I haven't had an emotional outburst worthy of the name in at least a year (
)! 25 is too late. I'd say 21. With yearly psych evals (or their equivalent) and if they fail they go back to the tower for either a time or permanently, depending. Besides you're not doing them any favours by limiting their exposure to the outside world for that long, they'd need the adaptability of youth.
As for your claim that the Harrowing is somehow not a decent representative of stress (ESPECIALLY in conjunction with the compacted stress of Circle living which is easily higher than something a normal person would experience) that I just have to straight up disagree with. Most of the mages we've seen turn into abominations have done so under conditions of acute stress, not prolonged stress, though I don't doubt the prolonged stress of Circle living didn't help ****. Did you know that if, as a child, you're exposed to a lot of stress you're more inclined to stress throughout your life? The kind of stress you'd experience in a ambiently hostile environment like the Circles for instance.
The Harrowing (because seriously what's more immediatly stressful than a threat to your life?) combined with some reasonable checks after mages are set free would cull the majority of risky cases I'd imagine.
[quote]This is a nice, pleasant, but ultimately entirely optimistic vision. It's not a sell for me, because I don't believe it's the Tevinter cultural bias that leads mages to abuse their powers. It's the fact that mages are human beings, and I tend towards the 'human nature naturally tends towards bastardom when empowered' school of thought. Especially when economic realities are considered- there's no such thing as a free lunch, and my faith that liberated mages will devote themselves to charity and good will endeavors and otherwise not seek or exercise power for their own benifit is nill.
As for the benefits of magical advancement, David Gaider has an excellent post on that. I wish I could find it, but it amounts to 'mages could certainly find better ways of transportation, medicine, communication, warfare, mind control, and tearing fade portals and incurring the rath of the heavens.'[/quote]
I'll say something about human nature later since it came up a lot.
As for DG's quote what I focus on is the first three (and maybe the fourth in some situations). These all stand a good chance of permanently increasing quality of life across the board, with decent checks and balances in place you limit the last three (or four) immensely. And this is usually where arguments break down because this is just different underlying morals. You ask potential benefits worth it if you risk so many mundane lives to get them? And I ask: is the occasional slaughter worth a millenia of enslavement and a massive bottleneck on progress?
Think about how different the world could have been if mages had been allowed to frolick in (relative) freedom without the "we are superior to you in every single way tiny human" -ness of the Tevinter magisters.
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I'm pretty far from a luddite or a believer in 'some things should never be known', but there isn't much in the Dragon Age setting that convinces me that the unfettering of the circles is a necessity for, well, the things I find important. It's a useful tool, but it's neither a necessity nor a panacea compared to other, mundane advancements or reforms. Guns, steel, and politics are capable of blocking the Qunari, and I don't see mages as a viable solution to the Darkspawn.
Rather than spreading knowledge for all and charity works, the third-wayh alternative to 'Circles' or 'mageocracy' I see would be the nationalization of mages. Not to be used for charity or education, but pretty simply for the purpose of warfare escalation. To me, the longer-sighted play would be to raise the mundanes up (by technology, or political/social advancement, or even magical distribution) rather than to radically reduce the checks on mages.[/quote]
Mundane advancement evidently takes too damn long. I dunno whether it's a fantasy setting thing or whether the inhabitants of Thedas are just ****ing thick but things don't seem to have advanced significantly from the Qunari invasion to now, if not before that. Mages stopped them that time, now Thedas might kinda, sorta have gunpowder if that dwarf ever gets his **** together and decides to be nice and share it whereas the Qunari have not been sitting still and already have cannons. Cannons. Not even mentioning their apparently vast network of informants covering all of Thedas. The Qunari have completely outplayed the rest of the world. Now you can shrug and say "the mundanes will get their eventually" and they probably will but the majority of Thedas will probably be serving the will of the Qun by that time.
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Can you restate your question? Lepper colonies did allow some lepers limited excusions out of the quarantines to handle benefits, but these were also temporary and generally supervised endeavors.[/quote]
I was basically just asking why the Chantry considers its mages to be stable enough to go to war for but not stable enough to live normal lives with. Because the want to maintain their power base ofc! But you don't seem to think proving that you can withstand immense accute stress measures up to everyday stress so... yeah.
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Quarantine is indefinite- leper colonies existed across generations of victims. We don't have long-standing quarantines now because diseases either burned out or were cured. Magic-as-an-analogy is more akin to the Leper colonies.[/quote]
Quarantines
aren't indefinite. And that isn't a cultural bias I'm carrying I can't believe I didn't object to that, no more than words are cultural constructs and are biased by definition but whatever. Every single definition of quarantine includes the word temporary, or some other mention of the concept of transciensy. The word it comes from literally means 40 days! Lepers were quarantined across generations with the eventual goal of them all dying and there not being any more lepers.
But you've mentioned the word "interim" in conjunction with the Circle system so you realize this.
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If the plague is largely contained to the colonies and outbreaks are both rare and contained, that would be EPIC SUCCESS. Since, you know, that's the goal of a quarantine- to limit outbreaks and spread.
Of course, the old time tradition for plague control when a quarantine was considered too expensive or ineffective was to put the carriers to the sword and torch the place. While the DA games don't dwell on it directly, according to the lore a lot of mages would still be lynched by mobs if it weren't for the templars and the circles giving them a place to be.
(Personally, I think this is a weakness of the franchise as it's a very relevant piece of the lore that isn't reflected in the gameplay experience.)[/quote]
Lets just ignore the idea that the Chantry and templars don't
have to be the place that provides a place for mages to go and then also lets ignore the fact that the Chantry's hatemongering is what's keeping fear of mages alive and well. Because all mages are bad. That's why they all belong to the Chantry. Nevermind the fact that the kindly old man on the edge of the village has been an apostate for decades and has never done anything particulary malevolent except that one time to the O'Leirry's cat but it kept pissing against his door.
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Plus a significant period of anarchy in which mages were unfettered but not part of Tevinter either. Don't forget, the Chantry didn't spring up until some time after Andraste's rebellion. The period of the Inquisition's formation was far more relevant.
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Actually the wiki mentions the time where the Inquisition was prevalent was after the Imperium fell and "blood mages and Old God worshippers" were prevalent. So yes, Tevinter not a mass abomination outbreak.
[quote]I'll caution you that we know very little about the Rivaini and Wilders... including how they run things or handle dissent. Authoritarian tendencies are quite compatible with what we've hard and seen (which isn't much).
And if you want to point at an example of peaceful integration for the Andrastian societies to look at, the Dalish are definitely not a case you want to look at. To put it rather unfavorably, the Dalish clans we've seen have been ruled by mages and shown consistent hostility and regular (even unprovoked) clashes with mundanes. The Ferelden Dalish from DAO in particular are not an example of a mage-led society coexisiting with the mundane humans.
(Of course, the Dalish context is so much more about culture than mundane-mages that not even the Templars view them as a priority.)
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You're right so lemme rephrase: why are the only instances of magical tyranny we hear of Tevinter in Origin? Not abuse of magic mind, since there will always be a malignant minority in every society and mages are no more or less prone to the foibles of humankind. But tyranny, grand schemes to reorganize the very foundations of existence or spread their magical influence to all four corners of the world? Culture is why. And poor choice of deities.
More on the Dalish later.
[quote]Actually, it's more like
'Mages can easily abuse their powers and are at constant temptation to do just that. They're dangerous, and shouldn't be simply trusted because of that.'[/quote]
And what it should be is: "Mages are people like you and I, they are no more or less inclined to maniacal cackling or plots to take over the world. The majority of them are emotionally stable individuals who should be judged by
who they are instead of
what they are."
Seriously though psychopathy is a rare thing amongst humans, I see no reason for people with more power to manifest it than others. There examples of psychopathy might be the most obvious
because they have power but power in and off itself does not corrupt. That's a lazy platitude. Though I realize this is another moral sticky point where mage and templar supporters just differ, templar supporters believe that because they're mages even that tiny minority warrants locking them all up whereas I, as a mage supporter (did you notice?) can't countenance the imprisonment of the majority based on the actions of a few. Especially since, in this case, you just have to be born to be considered a tyrannical monster just waiting for its opportunity.
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The fact that Tevinter was horrible a thousand years ago is far less
important than that Tevinter is horrible now and mages remain a
potential calamity now. The Andrastian view, with plenty of examples not too distant to draw from, is that mages remain a significant risk even now. Considering that one untrained boy nearly destroyed a major settlement without an ounce of malice in DAO, they'd be entirely correct.
Your arguments about the Dalish and Rivain have two problems. For the Dalish, the fact is that the Dalish mages
do have an bad reputation with the vast majority of mundanes of Thedas... because the Dalish as a whole have a bad reputation. That the Dalish mages aren't known for terrorizing Dalish mundanes doesn't challenge or change that the Dalish mages (and Dalish collectively) are a concern for the nations of Thedas.
The problem with arguing on the basis of the Rivain is that there is a lack of information about the Rivain to use. You're basically using an argument of 'I haven't heard bad things so they must not exist', which is not only flawed but could be reversed. We've never had solid lore saying Rivain shamans aren't feared in Rivain.[/quote]
The only reason that boy was untrained and so susceptible to demonic influence was because his mother was terrified of his future and its implications to the family if he went to a Circle. If the stigma of magedom was absent, or at least lessened, that entire tragedy might have been avoided.
As for the Dalish, you're right in that the Dalish as a whole have a bad rep in Thedas and the reasons for that are manifold. Firstly the Chantry won, and the victor gets to right the history books. I have no doubt that the commoners all believe that the Chantry was entirely justified in wiping the Dales from the face of the earth, because for them the Dalish would've been monstrous, devil worshiping, village slaughtering knife ears. It's a
stunningly bias POV. Secondly the Dalish really aren't very likeable. They're rude and standoffish. Combine this with the fact that some tribes kill humans on sight and that's all that's required for the majority of Thedas. People love a nice, easily swallowed stereotype.
Mind, though, that it is the
Dalish that are reviled and to a certain degree even feared. Not their mages. The mages are just another part of the Dalish. No more or less malignant than the culture they inhabit. Compare the state of mages here with the state of mages in Tevinter, who are seen as embodiments of their parent culture. A culture in which mages are almost deified.
As for that last point the point I made a few paragraphs back about all tales of magical tyranny stemming from Tevinter should've been here. My bad. I'm too lazy to fix it.
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That's like saying Italy is a success because it used to be the Roman Empire. It's not what it used to be, and it failed.
The Tevinter of the Dragon Age is a rump state in a historic low. It is not a success story in its current form.[/quote]
Nah it's more like saying the Byzantine empire was a success
even though it used to be part of the Roman empire. The Tevinter Imperium was the greatest empire ever, it has declined but even in this state it is second only to Orlais and
maybe Nevarra. Since Nevarra is apparently powerful enough to defy Orlais. So no it isn't a success story (which is why I didn't use the phrase) but managing an empire in decline disaster after disaster and coming out the other end still considered a major power implies a kind of stability and power that definitely would not be present if the majority of the ruling class often turned into slavering monsters.
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Why minus the tyranny? Feasibility is always about what the people who matter are willing to accept. For mages, Tevinter is very feasible.
The Chantry isn't a society, so unless you're exagerated societal collapse for organizational collapse... well, you're just exagerated one for the other.[/quote]
I don't think mages outside of Tevinter would be somehow more inclined to accept tyranny as an acceptable form of government. If the alternative is slavery/indefinite internment/unending quarantine then yes, freedom built on the backs of others is still freedom, but if mages were free? If they had the same opportunities? Tyranny suddenly doesn't seem all that interesting anymore. It would be exchanging the familiar with the alien and not even mentioning the moral qualms.
Uh... when an organization is so enmeshed with society that it's collapse precipitates global societal conflict then I'd say yeah, societal collapse. If the Roman Catholic Church faced a similar problem in 1198 would you have considered that strictly a organizational collapse? Yeah, no.
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Welcome ot life in Thedas.
Everyone (bar, possibly, a certain Witch of the Wilds) is living in circumstances beyond their control and subject to pressures and authorities that range from indifferent to outright hostile. Executions are also quite easy... such as refusing the demands of your government.
Personally, though, I have little faith that mages will be immune to mundane stresses of the every day life- of wanting love that isn't reciprocated, respect that isn't earned, wealth by means fair or foul, and safety that is in precious short supply anywhere.[/quote]
This is a fallacy. I don't know its name, you could probably help with that. It's when someone mentions a problem and then the other person goes yeah but it's a problem
everywhere. That doesn't make the problem any less of a problem.
And I never said mages would be immune to everyday stresses. They'd be exactly as susceptible as everyone else. A mundane spurned lover could murder the object of his affection, a spurned mage might use blood magic to force a facsimile of the desired affection. Both of these reactions would be the exception, not the rule. A mage who buckled under the stress of daily living and became an abomination would be exactly as common as the normal person whose mind snaps under such mundane stresses. What do you think the numbers are for that kinda thing? 1 in a 1000? 1 in 10 000? 1 in a 1 000 000?
If you consider that number high enough to justify the imprisonment of entire people... that's one of those moral sticky points I mentioned.
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The random farmer- he has less to lose, and doesn't face the prospect of being lynched for conduing a magical massacre.
Being rich and affluent doesn't mean you're free of stress. It doesn't even mean you have less stress, or more happiness.[/quote]
Actually studies have shown that while being rich and affluent doesn't necessarily make you happier (it might though, it depends on how you spend it) it does remove the kind of stress the poor farmer would have to deal with ie. food, financial security, failed harvests, is that pig pregnant and does that mean I can't eat her?
And once the stigma of magedom has been removed (or lessened) how many groups of muggers or even lynch mobs would be willing to face a well trained mage that could burn out their eyes with a thought? If you're gonna buckle because a bunch of farmers shake a pitchfork at you you should never have left the Circle.
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You're not being clear here. In your historic appeal, for example, you're making a claim without linking it to the situation at hand. No one is claiming the Mages shouldn't speak up and agitate for reform of the system, so that's something of a strawman argument.
If we wanted to make a historical point, though, I could easily bring up historical examples in which peaceful agitation for reform has been more successful than launching revolution. I can also point out cases in which the result of a revolution was worse for the intended recipients than the corruption they rebelled against.
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What kind of peaceful agitation do you mean here? Peaceful agitation that eventually resulted in an all out war for revolution or just bloodless revolution? Cuz depending on where you think the mage/templar war started the former might be true, if you think it started in Asunder for example. If however you're suggesting that the mages should have had a sit in or whatever...
here's a list of nonviolent revolutions.
Here's a list of the regular kind. Bloodless revolutions only happen when there is a massive percieved gap in the strength of one side or the other. This isn't the case here. Bloodless revolution was never gonna be an option. Not that I'm sure that was the point I was trying to make but I've already deleted my part of the quote so... eh.
Anyway on to human nature! I think this is one of the underlying issues since it's a moral/world view one which means you can never really prove it and the only way you can change someone's mind is if you can raise a point they haven't thought of and considered and discarded to reach whatever conclusion they've landed on, mage or templar. Somehow I don't think that's gonna happen here, we've both thought about this too much evidently. And whoever came up with this dilemma was an evil genius.
So instead of trying to make (another) moral point I'd like to make a logical one. If the mages do gain their freedom in the coming war the period after it will be extremely... fragile? Any kind of reactionary/retalitory action from the mages would be seen as justifying Chantry control. In a situation like that a reversal would still be easy enough to enact, especially if the majority of the populace fell behind the Chantry. The aftermath of this war is going to be absolutely crucial in that that is when Chantry authority will either be broken completely or reastablished for another thousand years. I refuse to believe that I am such a special snowflake that I'm the only one who sees this, mages will realize their actions are being watched, they will realize how precarious their newfound freedom is and they'll realize any acts of tyranny or misuse of magic needs to be dealt with severly.
Now you can argue that after this initial period, after things have settled and it wouldn't take just a few examples and a charismatic rabble rouser to reinstitute the Chantry's rule that mages will then start turning the rest of Thedas into Tevinter... but I don't see it. Like I said I don't see why they'd be more inclined towards that particular brand of "leadership." Not as a whole.
[quote]Angrywolves wrote...
more treatise writing.[/quote]
Yah know inflamedcanislupuslupus if you're feeling left out feel free to contribute your own thoughts to the treatise. I'd give you a star sticker for participation!
How many words has this discussion been up to this point anyway? I should check that sheet.
Guest_Faerunner_*
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so also said "the world of thedas" guide to dragon age.
