25 réponses à ce sujet

[JuGonzo]

 I wonder... wynne had a spirit within her, so she was an abomination. But if she was so I-agreed-with-all-the-chantre-rules she must kill herself, isnt she?

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

An abomination is someone with a demon inside them. Spirits and demons are technically the same species, and there's some grey area between the two to say the least, but Wynne's spirit was pretty much unambiguously good. (At least so far as has been shown so far.)

Modifié par Riverdaleswhiteflash, 31 décembre 2013 - 09:43 .

[Mike3207]

What about Anders? Is the changed spirit Justice to Vengeance a demon, thus making Anders a abomination?

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

Yes. By setting definition, Word Of Gaider, and the fluff description, Anders is an abomination.

[Angrywolves]

no. Next,,,

[Ferretinabun]

Technically, yes. For both Wynne and Anders.

But I'm not sure every Circle Mage is automatically duty-bound to kill every abomination they encounter though.

[sylvanaerie]

There is a conversation you have with Wynne where she asks about abominations and your opinion. I always take the option to tell her, if a person retains their humanity, someone so possessed isn't an abomination.

I think it's pretty subjective, but if you were going by purely definition of condition, both she and Anders are abominations. The difference being Wynne's spirit was of a benign type while Anders' possession was ultimately more sinister. Wynne's spirit was more a spirit 'skin riding' her, protecting her (and the people she traveled with), and very subtle. Justice was far more flashy, controlling and ultimately damaging to Anders. Though technically both weren't demons, they were two very different beings.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

It depends on your definition of the term.

The broadest definition is that anyone possessed by a spirit or demon is an abomination, regardless of what the spirit/demon has done. The point is that once a mage is hosting a denizen of the Fade, his or her powers are potentially accessible by the spirit/demon, and a mage in the thrall of a malevolent entity, at least, is a terrible threat.

The most common definition of abomination is that of a possessed mage where the demon/spirit is in enough control of the mage that the mage has practically no say in what's happening. The demon/spirit has taken over and the mage is either 'not home anymore' or at least powerless to prevent his/her guest from taking over whenever it wishes.

Since the literal definition of abomination is 'a thing that causes disgust or loathing', I would suggest that it is up to you which of those possessed mages are worthy of being deemed abominable.

[Fuggyt]

sylvanaerie wrote...

There is a conversation you have with Wynne where she asks about abominations and your opinion. I always take the option to tell her, if a person retains their humanity, someone so possessed isn't an abomination.

I think it's pretty subjective, but if you were going by purely definition of condition, both she and Anders are abominations. The difference being Wynne's spirit was of a benign type while Anders' possession was ultimately more sinister.

Oh, sure, they start out benign.  So did Justice, look how that turned out.  Ander's most vulnerable personality trait, his sense of outrage, turned Justice into something a little less cuddly.  And Wynne has her issues.  She's pretty smug, even the Guardian of the Gauntlet comments on her pride and sense of superiority, and her domineering approach to her pupil Aneirin damn near got him killed by the Templars.  Maybe those traits might warp her seemingly-harmless Spirit of Protection into a Spirit of Control.  Besides, although we know Justice was never technically a demon, how much do we know about Wynne's spirit?  She was pretty easily fooled when she was trapped in the Fade by the Sloth Demon.  How do we know her oh-so-helpful friendly ghost isn't really a Pride Demon luring her on to darker ends? 

[Corker]

For what it's worth:

Justice is probably not the best example for anything. He's a Fade spirit trapped outside the Fade. In all (?) other cases of possession, the spirit/demon still "resides" in the Fade, only partially crossing the Veil via the mage's connection to the Fade to manifest in/possess the mage. Justice is all-in.

(I'm not exactly sure what it means to "bind" a spirit, but it may be that Audacity, possessing Marethari in DA2, was also a demon trapped outside the Fade by that binding and so would be like Justice. Not really enough to say.)

There's also the case of the Rivaini seers, who (according to Br. Genitivi) allow themselves to be possessed by spirits for short amounts of time. The spirits help out and then depart. Are the seers abominations? Temporary ones? (Or should we wave our hands and shout, "Unreliable narrator!")

Probably there ought to be separate terms to describe the metaphysical fact of the matter, and also the intention of the situation - sort of science vs. law. Biology says, "You're dead," but law cares about how you got that way - various degrees of murder and manslaughter, all of which are context-dependent.

So "You're possessed" may be a fact, but "you're an abomination" could be predicated on the intention and nature of the possessing entity. But I think a templar is unlikely to see it that way...

[sylvanaerie]

Fuggyt wrote...

sylvanaerie wrote...

There is a conversation you have with Wynne where she asks about abominations and your opinion. I always take the option to tell her, if a person retains their humanity, someone so possessed isn't an abomination.

I think it's pretty subjective, but if you were going by purely definition of condition, both she and Anders are abominations. The difference being Wynne's spirit was of a benign type while Anders' possession was ultimately more sinister.

Oh, sure, they start out benign.  So did Justice, look how that turned out.  Ander's most vulnerable personality trait, his sense of outrage, turned Justice into something a little less cuddly.  And Wynne has her issues.  She's pretty smug, even the Guardian of the Gauntlet comments on her pride and sense of superiority, and her domineering approach to her pupil Aneirin damn near got him killed by the Templars.  Maybe those traits might warp her seemingly-harmless Spirit of Protection into a Spirit of Control.  Besides, although we know Justice was never technically a demon, how much do we know about Wynne's spirit?  She was pretty easily fooled when she was trapped in the Fade by the Sloth Demon.  How do we know her oh-so-helpful friendly ghost isn't really a Pride Demon luring her on to darker ends? 

As I pointed out, it's a subjective thing.  If someone retains their humanity, they aren't an abomination by my reckoning. Others may feel differently, and that's okay too.  By game definition they are abominations since they are possessed.  But Wynne is still Wynne, she's not all crazy killer, even when you see her in Awakenings.  I haven't read Asunder, but I assume she's still Wynne, and ultimately gives up the spirit for someone else to save their life (I think?).  She retains her humanity.  Of course she has flaws (she wouldn't be a believable character if she didn't have flaws), but that's human too.  

[Jedimaster88]

sylvanaerie wrote...

Fuggyt wrote...

sylvanaerie wrote...

There is a conversation you have with Wynne where she asks about abominations and your opinion. I always take the option to tell her, if a person retains their humanity, someone so possessed isn't an abomination.

I think it's pretty subjective, but if you were going by purely definition of condition, both she and Anders are abominations. The difference being Wynne's spirit was of a benign type while Anders' possession was ultimately more sinister.

Oh, sure, they start out benign.  So did Justice, look how that turned out.  Ander's most vulnerable personality trait, his sense of outrage, turned Justice into something a little less cuddly.  And Wynne has her issues.  She's pretty smug, even the Guardian of the Gauntlet comments on her pride and sense of superiority, and her domineering approach to her pupil Aneirin damn near got him killed by the Templars.  Maybe those traits might warp her seemingly-harmless Spirit of Protection into a Spirit of Control.  Besides, although we know Justice was never technically a demon, how much do we know about Wynne's spirit?  She was pretty easily fooled when she was trapped in the Fade by the Sloth Demon.  How do we know her oh-so-helpful friendly ghost isn't really a Pride Demon luring her on to darker ends? 

As I pointed out, it's a subjective thing.  If someone retains their humanity, they aren't an abomination by my reckoning. Others may feel differently, and that's okay too.  By game definition they are abominations since they are possessed.  But Wynne is still Wynne, she's not all crazy killer, even when you see her in Awakenings.  I haven't read Asunder, but I assume she's still Wynne, and ultimately gives up the spirit for someone else to save their life (I think?).  She retains her humanity.  Of course she has flaws (she wouldn't be a believable character if she didn't have flaws), but that's human too.  

I have read the asunder and you are right. Wynne is still the same. Nothing about her gave any sort of signs that she might be somehow corrupted, crazy or anything else we usually see when dealing with abominations. And yes she does give up the spirit in the end to save a certain person and dies herself after that (sorry about spoiler).

[Sifr]

Technically, I'd say that Wynne is an abomination, but a vastly different one from Anders.

Wynne is neither influenced nor controlled by the Spirit of Faith inside her, nor does the Spirit of Faith manifest fully in the Fade. She remains herself at all times. Justice meanwhile routinely influences and takes over Anders, as well as taking over fully whilst in the Fade.

Wynne is more of a passive-abomination, while Justice is more of a parasitical one.

[Fuggyt]

sylvanaerie wrote...

Fuggyt wrote...

sylvanaerie wrote...

There is a conversation you have with Wynne where she asks about abominations and your opinion. I always take the option to tell her, if a person retains their humanity, someone so possessed isn't an abomination.

I think it's pretty subjective, but if you were going by purely definition of condition, both she and Anders are abominations. The difference being Wynne's spirit was of a benign type while Anders' possession was ultimately more sinister.

Oh, sure, they start out benign.  So did Justice, look how that turned out.  Ander's most vulnerable personality trait, his sense of outrage, turned Justice into something a little less cuddly.  And Wynne has her issues.  She's pretty smug, even the Guardian of the Gauntlet comments on her pride and sense of superiority, and her domineering approach to her pupil Aneirin damn near got him killed by the Templars.  Maybe those traits might warp her seemingly-harmless Spirit of Protection into a Spirit of Control.  Besides, although we know Justice was never technically a demon, how much do we know about Wynne's spirit?  She was pretty easily fooled when she was trapped in the Fade by the Sloth Demon.  How do we know her oh-so-helpful friendly ghost isn't really a Pride Demon luring her on to darker ends? 

As I pointed out, it's a subjective thing.  If someone retains their humanity, they aren't an abomination by my reckoning. Others may feel differently, and that's okay too.  By game definition they are abominations since they are possessed.  But Wynne is still Wynne, she's not all crazy killer, even when you see her in Awakenings.  I haven't read Asunder, but I assume she's still Wynne, and ultimately gives up the spirit for someone else to save their life (I think?).  She retains her humanity.  Of course she has flaws (she wouldn't be a believable character if she didn't have flaws), but that's human too.  

I'm just playing the Templar's advocate here.  It's not subjective at all.  Either one is possessed by a Fate creature or one is not.  I agree it makes a technical difference whether it's a spirit or a bona fide demon but, as we see in the case of Justice, in practice neither is safe.  Anders must have retained his humanity for a period of time after agreeing to his unholy symbiosis, but then at some point he snapped.  We've seen him snap, and innocent people usually end up dead.  How can we know that Wynne won't be suddenly overcome, as we often see in Kirkwall, in a moment of stress, fear, or despair, as seems common?

Just because she doesn't when we know her doesn't mean she can't.  And just because she didn't before she died (spoiler from another poster) doesn't mean she couldn't have.  Yet Wynne, sweet little old lady that she is, gets the benefit of the doubt.  Why doesn't Anders?  Why don't any of the other abominations we've slaughtered by the bucketload when they finally flipped out?  Anders, Jowan, Merrill, Grace, they all said the same thing Wynne does:  "I'm not an abomination, I'm still in control."  Could the mere difference be that the others don't have their own fan clubs and character witnesses to their cuddliness everywhere except, tellingly, the Fade?

No, the law is the law.  We've seen, all too often, the horrific consequences of making exceptions.  The stakes are too high, the consequences too terrible.  Wynne is an undead mage unnaturally extending her life through possession by a Fade entity.  Into the flames with her.  You bring the kindling, I'll bring the marshmallows.

[sylvanaerie]

Fuggyt wrote...

sylvanaerie wrote...

Fuggyt wrote...

sylvanaerie wrote...

There is a conversation you have with Wynne where she asks about abominations and your opinion. I always take the option to tell her, if a person retains their humanity, someone so possessed isn't an abomination.

I think it's pretty subjective, but if you were going by purely definition of condition, both she and Anders are abominations. The difference being Wynne's spirit was of a benign type while Anders' possession was ultimately more sinister.

Oh, sure, they start out benign.  So did Justice, look how that turned out.  Ander's most vulnerable personality trait, his sense of outrage, turned Justice into something a little less cuddly.  And Wynne has her issues.  She's pretty smug, even the Guardian of the Gauntlet comments on her pride and sense of superiority, and her domineering approach to her pupil Aneirin damn near got him killed by the Templars.  Maybe those traits might warp her seemingly-harmless Spirit of Protection into a Spirit of Control.  Besides, although we know Justice was never technically a demon, how much do we know about Wynne's spirit?  She was pretty easily fooled when she was trapped in the Fade by the Sloth Demon.  How do we know her oh-so-helpful friendly ghost isn't really a Pride Demon luring her on to darker ends? 

As I pointed out, it's a subjective thing.  If someone retains their humanity, they aren't an abomination by my reckoning. Others may feel differently, and that's okay too.  By game definition they are abominations since they are possessed.  But Wynne is still Wynne, she's not all crazy killer, even when you see her in Awakenings.  I haven't read Asunder, but I assume she's still Wynne, and ultimately gives up the spirit for someone else to save their life (I think?).  She retains her humanity.  Of course she has flaws (she wouldn't be a believable character if she didn't have flaws), but that's human too.  

I'm just playing the Templar's advocate here.  It's not subjective at all.  Either one is possessed by a Fate creature or one is not.  I agree it makes a technical difference whether it's a spirit or a bona fide demon but, as we see in the case of Justice, in practice neither is safe.  Anders must have retained his humanity for a period of time after agreeing to his unholy symbiosis, but then at some point he snapped.  We've seen him snap, and innocent people usually end up dead.  How can we know that Wynne won't be suddenly overcome, as we often see in Kirkwall, in a moment of stress, fear, or despair, as seems common?

Just because she doesn't when we know her doesn't mean she can't.  And just because she didn't before she died (spoiler from another poster) doesn't mean she couldn't have.  Yet Wynne, sweet little old lady that she is, gets the benefit of the doubt.  Why doesn't Anders?  Why don't any of the other abominations we've slaughtered by the bucketload when they finally flipped out?  Anders, Jowan, Merrill, Grace, they all said the same thing Wynne does:  "I'm not an abomination, I'm still in control."  Could the mere difference be that the others don't have their own fan clubs and character witnesses to their cuddliness everywhere except, tellingly, the Fade?

No, the law is the law.  We've seen, all too often, the horrific consequences of making exceptions.  The stakes are too high, the consequences too terrible.  Wynne is an undead mage unnaturally extending her life through possession by a Fade entity.  Into the flames with her.  You bring the kindling, I'll bring the marshmallows.

I won't slay someone for a 'could have'.  If I did that, I'd never side with the Circle on any playthroughs, I'd just kill willy-nilly, which would make me an abomination since I've 'lost my humanity' and went all kill crazy on someone who hadn't done anything.  Much as I dislike Grace and wish there were an option to kill her in act 1, she is at that moment pretty much not a threat to the PC, so she gets the benefit of the doubt.  That she turns up like a bad penny later is not something my Hawke could predict.

Wynne gets the benefit of the doubt because she's NOT all kill-crazy like Anders.  That's my point.  

Also Jowan and Merrill never once said "I'm not an abomination, I'm in control" because in the case of Jowan and Merrill they were never possessed at all, just blood mages.  Jowan learned blood magic from the books that were (previously in the library and then removed to Irving's office and later in his possession in Redcliffe--that's how Connor learned about blood magic, by sneaking into Jowan's room after he'd been arrested and trying to go through the books looking for a cure for his dad).  Merrill learned hers from Audacity in the mirror, which possessed Marethari not Merrill.  And Grace I am unsure of.  Certainly she's possessed by the time you confront her in Act 3, but in Act 1, she still seems pretty sane.  Not saying she wasn't an abomination she just hadn't gone all nuclear mutant meltdown at that time.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Fuggyt wrote...

 How can we know that Wynne won't be suddenly overcome, as we often see in Kirkwall, in a moment of stress, fear, or despair, as seems common?

Just because she doesn't when we know her doesn't mean she can't.  

Just because a regular human doesn't go on a psychotic rampage doesn't mean they can't, like others have.

As we've only seen the effects of two spirits, both in different situations as Corker has pointed out, that's not enough data to judge a norm. 

[Fuggyt]

sylvanaerie wrote...

Fuggyt wrote...

sylvanaerie wrote...

Fuggyt wrote...

sylvanaerie wrote...

There is a conversation you have with Wynne where she asks about abominations and your opinion. I always take the option to tell her, if a person retains their humanity, someone so possessed isn't an abomination.

I think it's pretty subjective, but if you were going by purely definition of condition, both she and Anders are abominations. The difference being Wynne's spirit was of a benign type while Anders' possession was ultimately more sinister.

Oh, sure, they start out benign.  So did Justice, look how that turned out.  Ander's most vulnerable personality trait, his sense of outrage, turned Justice into something a little less cuddly.  And Wynne has her issues.  She's pretty smug, even the Guardian of the Gauntlet comments on her pride and sense of superiority, and her domineering approach to her pupil Aneirin damn near got him killed by the Templars.  Maybe those traits might warp her seemingly-harmless Spirit of Protection into a Spirit of Control.  Besides, although we know Justice was never technically a demon, how much do we know about Wynne's spirit?  She was pretty easily fooled when she was trapped in the Fade by the Sloth Demon.  How do we know her oh-so-helpful friendly ghost isn't really a Pride Demon luring her on to darker ends? 

As I pointed out, it's a subjective thing.  If someone retains their humanity, they aren't an abomination by my reckoning. Others may feel differently, and that's okay too.  By game definition they are abominations since they are possessed.  But Wynne is still Wynne, she's not all crazy killer, even when you see her in Awakenings.  I haven't read Asunder, but I assume she's still Wynne, and ultimately gives up the spirit for someone else to save their life (I think?).  She retains her humanity.  Of course she has flaws (she wouldn't be a believable character if she didn't have flaws), but that's human too.  

I'm just playing the Templar's advocate here.  It's not subjective at all.  Either one is possessed by a Fate creature or one is not.  I agree it makes a technical difference whether it's a spirit or a bona fide demon but, as we see in the case of Justice, in practice neither is safe.  Anders must have retained his humanity for a period of time after agreeing to his unholy symbiosis, but then at some point he snapped.  We've seen him snap, and innocent people usually end up dead.  How can we know that Wynne won't be suddenly overcome, as we often see in Kirkwall, in a moment of stress, fear, or despair, as seems common?

Just because she doesn't when we know her doesn't mean she can't.  And just because she didn't before she died (spoiler from another poster) doesn't mean she couldn't have.  Yet Wynne, sweet little old lady that she is, gets the benefit of the doubt.  Why doesn't Anders?  Why don't any of the other abominations we've slaughtered by the bucketload when they finally flipped out?  Anders, Jowan, Merrill, Grace, they all said the same thing Wynne does:  "I'm not an abomination, I'm still in control."  Could the mere difference be that the others don't have their own fan clubs and character witnesses to their cuddliness everywhere except, tellingly, the Fade?

No, the law is the law.  We've seen, all too often, the horrific consequences of making exceptions.  The stakes are too high, the consequences too terrible.  Wynne is an undead mage unnaturally extending her life through possession by a Fade entity.  Into the flames with her.  You bring the kindling, I'll bring the marshmallows.

I won't slay someone for a 'could have'.  If I did that, I'd never side with the Circle on any playthroughs, I'd just kill willy-nilly, which would make me an abomination since I've 'lost my humanity' and went all kill crazy on someone who hadn't done anything.  Much as I dislike Grace and wish there were an option to kill her in act 1, she is at that moment pretty much not a threat to the PC, so she gets the benefit of the doubt.  That she turns up like a bad penny later is not something my Hawke could predict.

Wynne gets the benefit of the doubt because she's NOT all kill-crazy like Anders.  That's my point.  

Also Jowan and Merrill never once said "I'm not an abomination, I'm in control" because in the case of Jowan and Merrill they were never possessed at all, just blood mages.  Jowan learned blood magic from the books that were (previously in the library and then removed to Irving's office and later in his possession in Redcliffe--that's how Connor learned about blood magic, by sneaking into Jowan's room after he'd been arrested and trying to go through the books looking for a cure for his dad).  Merrill learned hers from Audacity in the mirror, which possessed Marethari not Merrill.  And Grace I am unsure of.  Certainly she's possessed by the time you confront her in Act 3, but in Act 1, she still seems pretty sane.  Not saying she wasn't an abomination she just hadn't gone all nuclear mutant meltdown at that time.

You're making my case for me.  That's precisely my point about Wynne:  she just hadn't "gone all nuclear meltdown at that time."  The key phrase being "at that time."   We didn't slaughter Grace until she went "all nuclear meltdown," did we?  Turns out we probably should've killed her in the cave when we first laid eyes on her, but que sera sera.  Any possessed mage can potentially go "all nuclear meltdown" at any moment.  Can you or anyone guarantee it won't happen to Wynne, assuming you don't have 20/20 hindsight and the Word of Gaither to go by?  That's why we have Templars.  That's why we have Circles.  If tossing Wynne into the bonfire is too harsh for you, just lock her up in the Tower basement, give her some knitting to keep her busy, and detail a special guard to keep a very close eye on her until eventually the spirit fades away and she dies, as the Maker intended, remember.

By the way, Sylvan, since you brought it up, there's an option in the camp conversation you have with Wynne on the subject of abominations.  It's very revealing, especially after you find out about Wynne's little condition.  You can say, "We cannot let them be simply because they might get better."  You can say, "The only way to get rid of an abomination is to kill it."  It's pleasant that you are so understanding with Wynne in this dialogue.  Sometimes I'm nice to her myself.  But those lines are in the game for a reason.  Abominations are ticking time bombs, all of them, and just because one or another happens not to go off means nothing more than Wynne's good intentions.  Into the dungeon with her, into the lake with the key.

[sylvanaerie]

So you're okay with murdering someone "just because", or alternately, locking them away in solitary confinement "just in case". Where do you draw the line? If anyone can be killed at any moment "just because" why stop at locking them away? Why not drown any babies you think "might" be mages at birth? That would definitely stop them. And then, what criteria do you set for who decides this? The Empress? The Knight-Commander? Should all babies be brought before the Divine for 'inspection' to see if they measure up?

Visually, Wynne shows no sign of being anything other than an old lady. When she uses magic, you can add "Old lady with magic skills" to that descriptive, but certainly not "abomination", because she's a healer, still looks human. How do you know she's an 'abomination'? She tells you when you ask what happened on the road, otherwise there are no other clues there is anything other than an old lady who can cast healing magic in your camp.

Seems to me a demon with the ability to hide when it's possessed someone would rather lie about something like that, make up some story, but instead WYNNE tells you the truth. She's not being controlled.

And I'm not being 'pleasant' when I am speaking to Wynne, that's my personal view on the matter. If someone retains their humanity, is good and kind, they are not an abomination. If she went all nuclear meltdown on me and started killing willy nilly then yes, she would be an abomination. But she doesn't. I don't need 'word of Gaider' or metagaming or outside information, I just need the wisdom to see there are more shades of gray in the world and everything isn't all black and white, good and evil.

What you do in your game is up to you, it's your game, you paid for it, but I'm not going to kill someone (or condemn them to a life of isolation) just 'because she might go crazy and start killing people'.

Modifié par sylvanaerie, 05 janvier 2014 - 11:42 .

[dainbramage]

I just want to add that using DA2 logic is, well, about as sound as DA2 logic.

By DA2 logic, Broken Circle would've ended with Irving turning himself into a harvester for no apparent reason (even if you sided with the mages), and Wynne would be a blood mage by virtue of having left the circle tower for more than three seconds.

[Fuggyt]

sylvanaerie wrote...

So you're okay with murdering someone "just because", or alternately, locking them away in solitary confinement "just in case". Where do you draw the line? If anyone can be killed at any moment "just because" why stop at locking them away? Why not drown any babies you think "might" be mages at birth? That would definitely stop them. And then, what criteria do you set for who decides this? The Empress? The Knight-Commander? Should all babies be brought before the Divine for 'inspection' to see if they measure up?

Visually, Wynne shows no sign of being anything other than an old lady. When she uses magic, you can add "Old lady with magic skills" to that descriptive, but certainly not "abomination", because she's a healer, still looks human. How do you know she's an 'abomination'? She tells you when you ask what happened on the road, otherwise there are no other clues there is anything other than an old lady who can cast healing magic in your camp.

Seems to me a demon with the ability to hide when it's possessed someone would rather lie about something like that, make up some story, but instead WYNNE tells you the truth. She's not being controlled.

And I'm not being 'pleasant' when I am speaking to Wynne, that's my personal view on the matter. If someone retains their humanity, is good and kind, they are not an abomination. If she went all nuclear meltdown on me and started killing willy nilly then yes, she would be an abomination. But she doesn't. I don't need 'word of Gaider' or metagaming or outside information, I just need the wisdom to see there are more shades of gray in the world and everything isn't all black and white, good and evil.

What you do in your game is up to you, it's your game, you paid for it, but I'm not going to kill someone (or condemn them to a life of isolation) just 'because she might go crazy and start killing people'.

No, I'm not in favor of murdering someone "just because" or locking them up "just in case."  I'm in favor of locking up Wynne "just because" "in her case" she is a possessed mage.  That is a fact.  She should be in the strict custody of the Circle under the close scrutiny of the Templars.  That is the law.   Either you make an exception in Wynne's case for personal reasons, in which case you are on the slippery slope to Anders, or you do not, in which case you are on the high road to fascism.  Obviously you must favor mage freedom in order to defend Wynne so eloquently.  Remember how that turned out?  Tevinter?  Blood Magic?  The Black City?  Darkspawn?  Blights?  Archdemons?  Those who do not learn the lessons of the past are condemned to be massacred by an abomination just because of the affection we all feel for a sweet, kindly, harmless little old biddy.  

Modifié par Fuggyt, 05 janvier 2014 - 05:30 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

If there were more cases to call on than Anders' which backed up a call for excessive caution, you might have a point.

But you don't. Justice's position outside the Fade made his and Anders' case unique. Since how Wynne ends shows that spiritual possession can have enormously positive benefits, the 'lessons of the past' might well suggest we'll be condemned to resurrection after an untimely demise.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

We can't be sure it's Justice's position outside the Fade that did it. It might be that being a spirit of Justice made him more susceptible to losing his way. Or maybe all spirits who are not yet demons are walking a thin line and Wynne just got lucky. But none of this changes my answer to the original question: whether or not Faith could have turned into a demon, it didn't. And to the best of my knowledge it's necessary that the possessing force be a demon. Faith was not malevolent enough to make her count as an abomination, and whether or not that could have changed, it didn't.

Edit: Or apparently the term doesn't require it to be an actual demon doing the possessing, since according to the wiki the term abomination is specifically applied to Wynne in Asunder. Though I would like to know the context and who uses the term, if anyone knows.

Modifié par Riverdaleswhiteflash, 06 janvier 2014 - 10:24 .

[Corker]

I think Thedas's language and semantics have not caught up with its reality.

Finn: -aghast gasp at this heresy-

No, really. That's why Wynne asks you what it means to be an abomination. If this were a clear-cut matter in-world, she wouldn't have to ask.

The going wisdom, as espoused by the Chantry and the Circle of Magi, is that if you get possessed, BOOM abomination. Grr, argh, call the templars, Ma!

Wynne does not question this received wisdom until she is possessed, and she doesn't feel very monster-y. If she also acknowledges that she is an abomination, then she has been taught (and has bought into a power structure that reinforces this teaching, o Senior Enchanter) that she must present herself for execution post-haste. She doesn't want to do that, so she has a strong motivation to decide that she's something else that's *not* an abomination.

You can agree with that logic or not. Clearly, there have existed canonically "mages possessed by Fade entities who remain in control of their bodies" and "mages possessed by Fade entities who are turned into meat puppets by those entities." You can decide that "abomination" means "mage possessed by Fade entity," full stop, or you can decide that "abomination" only covers the latter, malevolent case. Most of Thedas doesn't know that the first option is even possible, so there's no separate word for it.

There's a problem, too, I think, with the games over-representing (or are they?) the frequency with which these strange spirit phenomena occur:

Abomination can only end with the death of the mage! ...unless you're Connor Guerrin.
Abominations are all snarling monsters! ...unless you're Wynne or Anders
Spirits cannot manifest in the mortal world without a host or vessel!  ...unless you're the Baroness
And I don't even know what's the thing with Cole.

Maybe Wynne and Anders are each a one in a million chance, but when they show up in two games out of two (plus expansion), it starts to feel like the magically-inclined people of Thedas have been kind of missing the obvious for the last thousand years.

Modifié par Corker, 06 janvier 2014 - 05:14 .

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

Corker wrote...


Abomination can only end with the death of the mage! ...unless you're Connor Guerrin.

Wynne notes there's other cases in which this was tried in banter with Shale. Those precedents are probably what inspires her to suggest such a thing in Connor's case. Though she also notes in that banter that it's almost never done.

Abominations are all snarling monsters! ...unless you're Wynne or Anders

Anders kind of is by the end.

Spirits cannot manifest in the mortal world without a host or vessel!  ...unless you're the Baroness

There's way too many Rage and Desire demons manifest in the Circle Tower for me to take that seriously anyway.

Maybe Wynne and Anders are each a one in a million chance, but when they show up in two games out of two (plus expansion), it starts to feel like the magically-inclined people of Thedas have been kind of missing the obvious for the last thousand years.

It doesn't help that all of the Cardinal Rules have been either bent or broken by this point.

[Corker]

Riverdaleswhiteflash wrote...

Corker wrote...
Abomination can only end with the death of the mage! ...unless you're Connor Guerrin.

Wynne notes there's other cases in which this was tried in banter with Shale. Those precedents are probably what inspires her to suggest such a thing in Connor's case. Though she also notes in that banter that it's almost never done.

Zounds! Dialogue I haven't seen before!  ...oh man, my loss.  They're hysterical.

At least that tallies with what I think Marethari says in DA2.  This one, I admit that I can kind of let slide.  There are good in-world reasons for the Chantry to not let it be widely known that there is an expensive, dangerous, but possible cure for abominations.

Abominations are all snarling monsters! ...unless you're Wynne or Anders

Anders kind of is by the end.

Yeah, but that's 7-8 years.  I think it deserves a nod.

The Anders thing isn't helped by the (intentional? unintentional?) inconsistency in the way he represents his relationship/existence with Justice/Vengeance.  He tells you from the get-go that they are one and the same being, maybe with a sort of Bruce Banner vibe (you wouldn't like him when he's angry), but things like the Feynriel Fade sequence sort of undermine that.  YMMV - I am far from an Anders expert.

Spirits cannot manifest in the mortal world without a host or vessel!  ...unless you're the Baroness

There's way too many Rage and Desire demons manifest in the Circle Tower for me to take that seriously anyway.

You know, I always assumed they were some kind of abomination, too.  I know the other abominations are all explicitly labeled as such, but I sort of figured that the abominations with "demonic" manifestations were... better at it?  Since when Uldred goes abomination, it's the same toon as a 'raw' pride demon and such...  But yeah, that's kind of a mess of game resources, game lore, and mechanics, there.

(FWIW, I recall the Warden being able to specifically lampshade the Baroness - you can ask Justice, "Hey, I thought spirits couldn't do that?" and he sort of shrugs and says something about the demon identifying with the mortal woman, IIRC.)

It doesn't help that all of the Cardinal Rules have been either bent or broken by this point.

True that.

Funny thing - I mentioned this to my husband last week (I seriously have no idea why I was even grumping about it, but I am apparently that big of a nerd) and he said, "But the rules of magic aren't in the game."

And I said, "They're a codex!"

He seemed to be of the opinion that, because he'd never seen them in the game (so... they weren't core content?), they weren't really in the game.

I deployed The Look but left it at that.