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[ShadowLordXII]

While thinking over both sides of the mage-templar conflict (Which will likely play a heavy role in Inquisition and any related chaos), it just appears that all evidence that I've seen should support favoring mages over the templars.

Granted, templars and the Chantry have every right to be wary of mages considering blood magic, abominations, fade tears, and Tevinter. But the facts pretty much demonstrate that their solution to the potential of a mage abusing their power just ended up making everything worst in the long run. Templars either seclude/isolate mages from society in an environment where they constantly feel a sword hanging over their heads or they hunt down and kill any mage whose outside of the Chantry whether they share Chantry beliefs or not.

So this condition inspires mages to take drastic measures like blood magic, demons and etc because they feel as though there is no other way. Being a responsible and self-regulated mage won't stop the templars from secluding you or from making you tranquil. The Chantry and the templars will still continue to hold power over a mage's life from where they sleep down to who they can talk to. Mages with family outside of the circle would be lucky if their family ever visits them, assuming that their allowed to visit or that the family doesn't view the mage as either a monster, a curse or a ticking time-bomb.

Then when one mage uses blood magic, the templars impose more restrictions on the rest of the Circle which exasperates mage desperation and the cycle repeats to the boiling point of a revolt. Kirkwall is a great example and though I don't condone Ander's act of terrorism on thousands of innocent people, I can't see any justification for Meredith declaring the Right of annulment on the Kirkwall Circle when the actual culprit is standing right in front of her. Kirkwall is an extreme, yet valid example of how the Templar-Circle system was inherently broken and doomed to a conflict like the one that Thedas faces now.

Yes, the templars are partially justified in their vigilance, but there's no evidence that validates their efforts and more to suggest that the whole mage-templar conflict is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not to mention various situations where a templar was abusing their position with no real punishment in sight for them.

This uneven presentation actually reminded me of the Civil War in Skyrim. The game wants me to believe that both sides are valid and that should make the choice difficult, no? But objective and subjective evidence almost always led me to pick the Empire over the Stormcloaks. Evidence like how the Stormcloaks are indirectly pawns of the Third indisputedly evil party the Thalmor or how virtually all stormcloaks are racists against anyone who isn't a nord (humans native to skyrim) or how breaking away Skyrim from the Empire will make it more vulnerable to the Thalmor in the long run.

Of course, ending this conflict will result in concessions from both sides. But since most evidence leads to this conflict being directly/indirectly started by the templars, they'd have to make the lion's share of concessions or else this whole crisis will repeat itself in the future.

Unless Inquisition manages to even out both sides by showing some unexpected dangers of a mage population without anyone to keep them in check. Stuff like: oppressive cults controlled by a small group of mages who are abusing their power; elemental mages manipulating the weather and causing a negative effect for everyone else in that area; small groups of mages who raid muggles for fun or horrific stuff like that. Things that bring a different light to why an order like the templars would be needed in some capacity if not the extreme capacity that started the conflict.

[OdanUrr]

Read Asunder. To my mind, it's far more balanced in its presentation of mages and templars, both the good and the bad, than, say, DA2.

[NoForgiveness]

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

MR_PN wrote...

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

One blood mage the use of the Right of Annulment does not warrant. That's like saying there is a murderer hiding in a town, so let's kill the entire town.

Modifié par LDS Darth Revan, 15 février 2014 - 12:11 .

[Iakus]

OdanUrr wrote...

Read Asunder. To my mind, it's far more balanced in its presentation of mages and templars, both the good and the bad, than, say, DA2.

Agreed.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

iakus wrote...

OdanUrr wrote...

Read Asunder. To my mind, it's far more balanced in its presentation of mages and templars, both the good and the bad, than, say, DA2.

Agreed.

Yeah. Even Bioware said DA2 was designed to show the worst of both sides of the Mage/Templar situation.

[Wothen]

OdanUrr wrote...

Read Asunder. To my mind, it's far more balanced in its presentation of mages and templars, both the good and the bad, than, say, DA2.

What?
No!

Asunder story can be summed up in

Mages are opressed by templars
Mages goes on a quest while being opressed AND death threatened by templars
Mages try to break free and big bad templars kill some of them, capture the rest AGAINST THE CHANTRY WILL
Mages rebel , templars says F.U to the chantry and goes after the mages to kill them all

Yeah
very balanced representation
Theres like 1 reasonable templar in the whole story

However if you want to put the Chantry (Not the templars) in a good light thats the book

Modifié par Wothen, 15 février 2014 - 12:23 .

[First Degree Mordor]

Wothen wrote...

Asunder story can be summed up in

Mages are opressed by templars
Mages goes on a quest while being opressed AND death threatened by templars
Mages try to break free and big bad templars kill some of them, capture the rest AGAINST THE CHANTRY WILL
Mages rebel , templars says F.U to the chantry and goes after the mages to kill them all

Yeah
very balanced representation
Theres like 1 reasonable templar in the whole story

Exactly. :innocent:

Modifié par ShallowChasm, 15 février 2014 - 12:26 .

[KaiserShep]

MR_PN wrote...

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

If the Right of Annulment was to be invoked on account of the presence of blood mages in Kirkwall, then she would have done this long before the chantry's destruction. Plenty of blood mage apostates were found in or around the city during the years before Anders' attack that she knew of, one of which being a crazy necromancer. Anders' actions may have been the tipping point, but the fact remains that calling for the Right was a very clear case of abuse of authority. The Circle had no connection to the attack, and Meredith had no proof of Orsino's connection. She and Hawke can be suspicious, but you don't get to wipe out an entire group of people on the sole basis of bad feelings.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 15 février 2014 - 12:40 .

[OdanUrr]

Wothen wrote...

OdanUrr wrote...

Read Asunder. To my mind, it's far more balanced in its presentation of mages and templars, both the good and the bad, than, say, DA2.

What?
No!

Asunder story can be summed up in

Mages are opressed by templars
Mages goes on a quest while being opressed AND death threatened by templars
Mages try to break free and big bad templars kill some of them, capture the rest AGAINST THE CHANTRY WILL
Mages rebel , templars says F.U to the chantry and goes after the mages to kill them all

Yeah
very balanced representation
Theres like 1 reasonable templar in the whole story

However if you want to put the Chantry (Not the templars) in a good light thats the book

Some spoilers may follow. Read at your own peril.

There's a bit more to the book than that. Is it true that the templars have tightened their hold on the mages? Yes. Is this unwarranted? Not entirely, they're just reacting to the events of Kirkwall and event X in Asunder.

A party of mages do go on a quest escorted by a templar but they weren't openly death-threatened.

The mages try to break free com the Circle, it's true, but that isn't all there is to it. This event, and the templar response, was largely orchestrated by at least one of the mages.

The mages do rebel and the templars and seekers do split from the Chantry. This is pretty much cause and effect.

As for your argument that there's like 1 reasonable templar in the whole story, well, the same could be said for the mages. I don't take it as a representation that they're few and far between but rather that the author simply can't focus on every single templar and mage in Orlais. Like I said in my review, you have Adrian/Lambert as the more fanatic types and then Evangeline/Rhys as the more reasonable ones. Asunder succeeds, where DA2 failed, in that I can understand where all these characters are coming from, even if I don't particularly agree with their views or methods.

[Writ3Wing3r]

Taking into account only the events of DA2 I would agree with your assessment but taking in DA:O and various codex entries I have to disagree.

First you have to remember that the circle itself is a compromise that has worked for over seven centuries, before its implementation performing any magic except for lighting the eternal flames of the chantry was strictly forbidden.

Second the circle of Kirkwall is an anomaly and therefore should not be taken as an example of the greater system of circles of magi. Meredith is harsh in the extreme from the beginning and that could be used as an example, but she doesn't go completely off the deep end until the lyrium idol addles her mind. Her decision to enact the right of annulment is opposed by many of her own templars even though they go along with it. This event is then seized upon by extremists on both sides neither of which has a clear understanding of what actually transpired there.

The events of the Ferelden circle support my position. Greagoir invokes the right of annulment for textbook reasons, but will spare any mages found to be uncorrupted once the tower is cleared even though they may be possessed and it would be safer to kill them all. This may be an extreme in the circle system as well but at least as far as we know Greagoir's judgment has not been impaired.

While I personally don't hold that mages need to be segregated and supervised, I can see reason in the arguments for it and that the circle system could work.

[Veex]

You get one pseudo Templar as a party member in DA:O, and we've had a plethora of mages throughout the series. I don't think its unreasonable to think that people are going to be naturally sympathetic toward Mages. Add on to that the complete lack of consequence for you and your party members actually being mages. Difficult to illustrate that blood magic is bad when you can play it free of reprimand in each game.

[KaiserShep]

Isn't it possible to be attacked by Wynne and the other templars at the Circle if you're a blood mage in DA:O? I guess it's hard to really put any heavy consequence on the choice though, since that would mean that players that go this route would have greater difficulty as it means potentially losing more companions as well as having to fight more mooks along the way.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 15 février 2014 - 01:39 .

[NoForgiveness]

KaiserShep wrote...

Isn't it possible to be attacked by Wynne and the other templars at the Circle if you're a blood mage in DA:O?

no, that was supposed to happen but ended up being removed I believe.

[KaiserShep]

Thanks. I guess I won't bother trying it then. Not much point if it doesn't spice things up enough.

[leaguer of one]

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

MR_PN wrote...

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

One blood mage the use of the Right of Annulment does not warrant. That's like saying there is a murderer hiding in a town, so let's kill the entire town.

It was not just one blood mage.

[leaguer of one]

Wothen wrote...

OdanUrr wrote...

Read Asunder. To my mind, it's far more balanced in its presentation of mages and templars, both the good and the bad, than, say, DA2.

What?
No!

Asunder story can be summed up in

Mages are opressed by templars
Mages goes on a quest while being opressed AND death threatened by templars
Mages try to break free and big bad templars kill some of them, capture the rest AGAINST THE CHANTRY WILL
Mages rebel , templars says F.U to the chantry and goes after the mages to kill them all

Yeah
very balanced representation
Theres like 1 reasonable templar in the whole story

However if you want to put the Chantry (Not the templars) in a good light thats the book

What happened to the part where  a few mage manipulated the templars into attacking the mages to push the mages to fight the templars?

[Hanako Ikezawa]

leaguer of one wrote...

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

MR_PN wrote...

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

One blood mage the use of the Right of Annulment does not warrant. That's like saying there is a murderer hiding in a town, so let's kill the entire town.

It was not just one blood mage.

A few then. And I don't count those resorting to it when the Templars are about to kill them. That's self-preservation mixed with desperation.

[leaguer of one]

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

leaguer of one wrote...

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

MR_PN wrote...

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

One blood mage the use of the Right of Annulment does not warrant. That's like saying there is a murderer hiding in a town, so let's kill the entire town.

It was not just one blood mage.

A few then. And I don't count those resorting to it when the Templars are about to kill them. That's self-preservation mixed with desperation.

A few from act one. The irony is that if they just did their job and worked together none of the thing in da2 would of happened.

Orseno hide blood mages because he felt Meredith would annual the tower over it and Meredith suspected blood mages in the tower because she felt that Orseno was hiding something and put pressure on the mages.
 
The more Orseno hide the more Meredith imposed. The more Meredith imposed the more Orseno hide.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

leaguer of one wrote...

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

leaguer of one wrote...

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

MR_PN wrote...

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

One blood mage the use of the Right of Annulment does not warrant. That's like saying there is a murderer hiding in a town, so let's kill the entire town.

It was not just one blood mage.

A few then. And I don't count those resorting to it when the Templars are about to kill them. That's self-preservation mixed with desperation.

A few from act one. The irony is that if they just did their job and worked together none of the thing in da2 would of happened.

Orseno hide blood mages because he felt Meredith would annual the tower over it and Meredith suspected blood mages in the tower because she felt that Orseno was hiding something and put pressure on the mages.
 
The more Orseno hide the more Meredith imposed. The more Meredith imposed the more Orseno hide.

Basically, yeah. Great to see a 900 year old institution failing in every sense of it's existance.

[leaguer of one]

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

leaguer of one wrote...

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

leaguer of one wrote...

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

MR_PN wrote...

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

One blood mage the use of the Right of Annulment does not warrant. That's like saying there is a murderer hiding in a town, so let's kill the entire town.

It was not just one blood mage.

A few then. And I don't count those resorting to it when the Templars are about to kill them. That's self-preservation mixed with desperation.

A few from act one. The irony is that if they just did their job and worked together none of the thing in da2 would of happened.

Orseno hide blood mages because he felt Meredith would annual the tower over it and Meredith suspected blood mages in the tower because she felt that Orseno was hiding something and put pressure on the mages.
 
The more Orseno hide the more Meredith imposed. The more Meredith imposed the more Orseno hide.

Basically, yeah. Great to see a 900 year old institution failing in every sense of it's existance.

Let make a club dedicated to purging all those fools.

[Vandicus]

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

leaguer of one wrote...

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

MR_PN wrote...

It pains me to say it but Meredith was right. There was blood magic in the circle or at the very least just Orsino. And Orsino learned it from some complete nutjob who happened to be a mage. She didn't call the right of annulment because of Anders, it was the blood magic. The only thing Anders did was get rid of the one that was holding her leash.

One blood mage the use of the Right of Annulment does not warrant. That's like saying there is a murderer hiding in a town, so let's kill the entire town.

It was not just one blood mage.

A few then. And I don't count those resorting to it when the Templars are about to kill them. That's self-preservation mixed with desperation.

A mage who resorts to blood magic out of desperation is possessed. A mage who's educated in blood magic summons demons. Going by the number of demon summoning mages at the end of DA2, Orsino'd been doing a lot of private tutoring.

[NoForgiveness]

Vandicus wrote...

A mage who resorts to blood magic out of desperation is possessed. A mage who's educated in blood magic summons demons. Going by the number of demon summoning mages at the end of DA2, Orsino'd been doing a lot of private tutoring.

I don't think all of those are summoned. A lot of them probably got through the veil because of all the fighting and demon summoning plus Kirkwall is supposed to have a thin veil as it is. just a thought.

[Natashina]

I can see where MR_PN is coming from. By Act 3, one of the bandit gangs has a desire demon for a leader. Not a pack of mages, just ordinary folk called "Followers of She." I don't recall any blood mages among them. I think demons were starting to leak out of the Veil due to the sheer amount of chaos and bloodshed.

[Realmzmaster]

If your Hawke found the notes left by the Band of Three the player knows that Tevinter conducted blood sacrifice on a massive scale to weaken the veil in and around Kirkwall. The whole city was constructed according to magical symbols. The magisters may have been trying to call the Forbidden Ones like Xebenkeck and Gaxkang the Unbound