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[durasteel]

ShadowLordXII wrote...
...
You know...the more that I think about it and trace the dots, the more that this whole conflict seems to be yet another magnificent failure on the part of the Chantry. Or it's probably just me.

It seems to me that a lot of effort has gone into establishing that Andraste was real, the Golden/Black City is real, etc.... but what the Chantry teaches people is just wrong. Our first real insight into the Chantry is in Lothering, where Leliana--probably the most devout Andrastean we meet in Origins--challenges the Chantry's dogma from the moment she joins the party.

[Master Warder Z_]

durasteel wrote...

ShadowLordXII wrote...
...
You know...the more that I think about it and trace the dots, the more that this whole conflict seems to be yet another magnificent failure on the part of the Chantry. Or it's probably just me.

It seems to me that a lot of effort has gone into establishing that Andraste was real, the Golden/Black City is real, etc.... but what the Chantry teaches people is just wrong. Our first real insight into the Chantry is in Lothering, where Leliana--probably the most devout Andrastean we meet in Origins--challenges the Chantry's dogma from the moment she joins the party.

She said she found that the clergy among the Chantry to be prideful and of the mind that being among the choosen made them speical and therefore worthy of savalation. She disagreed on the point that the Maker created all things and thus all things were worthy of savalation.

She doesn't deny the Maker, State the Chantry to be wrong, She states she has disagreements with their beliefs regarding personal savalation. Much like differing branches of christainity, most don't dispute each other as being the correct path but they have differences.

And the Chantry is wrong? That seems like just a statement taken from personal bias considering the DA team has repeatedly stated that it will not confirm or deny the existance of the Maker and tis a matter of individual faith in the universe.  So basically when the People who write the storyboards for the game has stated that the Maker MAY exist, it isn't your place as a consumer to question it when there has been no evidence to prove the claim false.

.-. Also the Chantry history for the most part aligns correctly, And only if you buy into crazed darkspawn that were sealed away for more then a thousand years does it even vaguely get questioned. Personally i find it laughable that folks would take cory at his words, assuming he isn't lying, or having a fit of dementia so what? The Golden City wasn't gold when they were there, Thats an awfully large assumption to go from there and assume it was ALWAYS and for ALL time black.

[Nightdragon8]

Master Warder Z wrote...

durasteel wrote...

ShadowLordXII wrote...
...
You know...the more that I think about it and trace the dots, the more that this whole conflict seems to be yet another magnificent failure on the part of the Chantry. Or it's probably just me.

It seems to me that a lot of effort has gone into establishing that Andraste was real, the Golden/Black City is real, etc.... but what the Chantry teaches people is just wrong. Our first real insight into the Chantry is in Lothering, where Leliana--probably the most devout Andrastean we meet in Origins--challenges the Chantry's dogma from the moment she joins the party.

She said she found that the clergy among the Chantry to be prideful and of the mind that being among the choosen made them speical and therefore worthy of savalation. She disagreed on the point that the Maker created all things and thus all things were worthy of savalation.

She doesn't deny the Maker, State the Chantry to be wrong, She states she has disagreements with their beliefs regarding personal savalation. Much like differing branches of christainity, most don't dispute each other as being the correct path but they have differences.

And the Chantry is wrong? That seems like just a statement taken from personal bias considering the DA team has repeatedly stated that it will not confirm or deny the existance of the Maker and tis a matter of individual faith in the universe.  So basically when the People who write the storyboards for the game has stated that the Maker MAY exist, it isn't your place as a consumer to question it when there has been no evidence to prove the claim false.

.-. Also the Chantry history for the most part aligns correctly, And only if you buy into crazed darkspawn that were sealed away for more then a thousand years does it even vaguely get questioned. Personally i find it laughable that folks would take cory at his words, assuming he isn't lying, or having a fit of dementia so what? The Golden City wasn't gold when they were there, Thats an awfully large assumption to go from there and assume it was ALWAYS and for ALL time black.

um im going to agree with your first paragraph, but I'm seriously going to disagree with your second one, Sorry it is "My place" to question it. There has also been no evidence to prove the claim to be true.

If you say a peice of evidence is the ash's you also have the thoery that it was just magicly enchanted ash's from the cave full of lyrium. Maybe some mage came along and belavied in the church doctirne and his thoughts and what not created everything in there.

As for your last paragraph, you also can't assume it ever WAS golden at all. I mean seriously, Dumant lead the mages there, and when they got there the darkspawn was there. Sounds to me, its almost 100% pandora's box.

For all we know, what Cory was lead to belive was the golden city wasn't even the golden city, it was some other place, and the "true" golden city is someplace else.

Which btw would still screw up the Chantries doctorene with the whole "The sin of man going to the golden city" 

[Anvos]

Actually its very believable that the Golden City was black when the Magisters got there as there is the good argument that the corruption of the Golden City was caused by the corruption that caused the initial divide where the ancient fade beings were split into spirits and demons due to generations upon generations only having the golden city and other spirits that were imitating the Golden City to mirror (but a reflection is never 100% accurate so over time the errors accumulated).

Along with the Golden City, the primordial thaig suggesting darkspawn older than the visit to the fade, would mean Magisters are responsible not for creating taint/blight but the tainting of Dumat which gave the primordial darkspawn purpose when they heard his call.


As for the thread topic I wouldn't say the presentation is that bad and is at least better than ME where they spent most of the 2nd and 3rd game's Geth and Quarian time trying to convince you the Quarian's were the bad guys and Geth should be chosen over actual life.

Modifié par Anvos, 19 février 2014 - 04:18 .

[Hanako Ikezawa]

ShadowLordXII wrote...

Here, I get the impression that Asunder is retconning the origins of the Mage-Templar War after DAII explicitely stated that the Kirkwall Breakdown was the start of the conflict. Asunder essentially renders the struggles of Hawke as pointless in the overall picture since according to Asunder, all Hawke did was kick over a bucket of oil but someone else actually set it on fire.

A way I've come to look at it is comparing it to the two arat points of the American Cicil War. The Kirkwall Incident is akin to the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775, which was the first battle of the revolution. The abolishment of the Circle of Magi in Asunder is akin to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which made the war official.

[SgtSteel91]

"The explosion heard around White Thedas"

[The Elder King]

Which primordial thaig are you talking about? The one in Act 1 in DA2?

[durasteel]

Master Warder Z wrote...

She said she found that the clergy among the Chantry to be prideful and of the mind that being among the choosen made them speical and therefore worthy of savalation. She disagreed on the point that the Maker created all things and thus all things were worthy of savalation.

You're forgetting a fundamental disagreement she had with the Chantry dogma regarding the Maker. Leliana believed that the Maker had sent her a dream, which was the basis for her willingness to join the Warden in the first place. This was proof in her mind that the Maker remained involved in his creation, while the Chantry holds as a central tennet of faith that the Maker is gone, departed entirely from the world he created because the mortals killed his "bride" Andraste. Only when the Chant of Light is sung from every corner of Thedas will He return, blah blah blah.

If the Maker speaks to his faithful in dreams, then he hasn't left, and the Chantry is wrong. Mother What's-her-name in Lothering scolds Leliana for her belief that the Maker spoke to her, stating outright that it is completely contrary to Chantry doctrine.

[durasteel]

Nightdragon8 wrote...
...
Which btw would still screw up the Chantries doctorene with the whole "The sin of man going to the golden city" 

Yeah, the Chantry of course preaches that the magisters brought the taint to the Golden City, when it seems much more likely that Dumat sent them there to set the taint loose and bring it to Thedas.

The true nature and origin of the taint is one of those secure secret pages in the internal wiki Gaider was talking about that I would really love to read. Of course, as he pointed out, knowing about it would take the wind out of  the sails of my wild speculation.

I'd still totally read it if I had the chance.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Which makes sense, really, because a system that bans mages to everyone favors the biggest, most powerful nations, ie Orlais. Without an ability to monopolize mages, Orlais gets more advantage from other people not cultivating mages than it would in taking the costs of other people having fewer mages than it.

How exactly?

Bigger country = more mages born.
So I don't see how Orlais would get a bigger advantage.
Yes, the enemy doesn't get to use their 10 tanks against you. But Orlais doesn't get to use it's 15.

[Lotion Soronarr]

wcholcombe wrote...

So that is your definition of TOTAL CONTROL?
Seriously.

Dude. Mages have rights (for example, they cannot be made tranqul after the harrowing; apostates are to be brough in alive if possible, etc..) and they govern themselves.

It is nice to see that you can go away for 3 or 4 months and come back to the same exact arguments...

In response to this, this is Thedas, not 21st century earth.  Poor commoners in many of the nations have limited rights, dalish and city elves have limited or no rights, casteless dwarves have little or no rights.

Mages aren't guarunteed any rights, and they in no way govern themselves.

Not taking a side, just correcting a point of view.  The idea of Human rights doesn't really exist in Thedas, unless you have the power/influence/wealth to demand them.

In what sense? They are guaranteed some rights - I just mentioned them.
And they do govern themselves - they daily running of the circle and circle finances are their responsiblity -  but they don't police themselves.

Of course, you cannot really GUARANTEE rights, now can you?
Technicly, today you have basic human rights, but they still aren't absolute (given that someone may simply not give a frak about your rights) - nothing is absolute.

when we talk about having right, that means that it is generally accepted (by law) that you have rights. People breaking the law is another matter.

[Lotion Soronarr]

durasteel wrote...
Consider my original analogy to the "war on drugs." Heroin, cocaine, meth... these are incredibly dangerous drugs that ruin lives and devastate entire communities. Nevertheless, we can look back on the laws and policy that were created in the name of combating their threat and see decades of dishonesty designed to expand government authority while making sure the probelm remained visible and scary.

Mages are potentially dangerous. They can learn to control your mind, they can learn to summon demons, they are at risk of posession, and a demon's attitude towards a human host is most often "Drive it like you stole it," while their power makes the vehicle in question comparable to a tank. I don't think anyone would dispute these facts, but there is a disconnect between the problem (the potential danger of magic use) and the Chantry's proposed "solution" (the Circle of Magi controled by the Templars.) If anything, the Circle seems to be making the problem worse.

I disagree. You think the Chantry is blowing up the problem and the solution is too harsh.

And yet I say if anything that the danger of abominatiosn and mages is heavily downplayed - and the developers in fact, have confirmed that the dangers of magic have been underrepresented for player convenienc.

If mages could live and study magic in their home communities without being branded apostates and kidnapped or murdered, whose to say they wouldn't help their communities, identify young people with magical ability in time to prevent disasters like burning the house down, and be in a position to handle any of their fellow mages who lost control or decided to become tyrants? Tevinter is not the only model of a free-mage society, Rivain offers a dramatic contrast. If you want to see proof that the Chantry's religious fascism and pogrom against mages is a bigger problem than the threat it purports to address, you need look no farther than the The Annulment at Dairsmuid. (Read about it here.)

That is not a solution. Letting potential abominations run around in populated areas is a recepie for disaster. The notion of QUARANTENE exists for a reason. The mages halping the vilalge will be all nice and dandy untill oen of htem becomes an abomination and slaughters everyone. By-by village. What good was helaing a few poeple or helping with the crops now that everyones dead?

And no, I don't see Rivain as proof of anything. The Chantry gave them more autonomy and look what happened - every single female mage in the circle was possesed.
Thankfully they were in a Circle

The Circle isn't for the benefit of the people of Thedas, it is for the benefit of the Chantry. It is not justified by practical considerations, but rather by religious doctrine.

Opposite.
The Circle exists precisely for practical considerations in oversight and control of magic.
Your idea of letting the mages run around is the opposite of practicality.

I'm not necessarily pro-mage, nor am I necessarily anti-Templar. I am, however, anti-religion. Andraste seems to have been a true prophet, and perhaps the Maker is the true creator of Thedas, the Fade, and everything. That doesn't make the Chantry right, or the Chant of Light true. Like any religion, the Chantry exists to convert spiritual faith into mundane power, and the Circle is one of its main tools for accomplishing that objective.

And there we have it. Real-world bias seeps in hard.

This quote from Gaider doesnt' pop up nearly often enough:

David Gaider wrote...
I think there's a bit of a bias against  organized religion in these parts (bad organized religion! bad!) which
leads some to look on anything the Chantry does with suspicion. No doubt it doesn't help that the Chantry is a big organization with political  power, and thus given to corruption much like in our own Middle Ages.
The fact that it's mostly benevolent in its nature and sees what it does as necessary if unfortunate is compared to the fact that they are taking freedom away from those poor mages-- and anything that deprives freedom is also automatically bad (we're a comfy, democratic lot here on the internet, I suppose).

***

Yes, I make generalisations about religion. They're accurate. There may
be exceptions, but the cult that arose in Andraste's name is conforming
to the historical norm perfectly.

People who hate religion are idiots. That is a generalization. But it's an accurate one. There may be exceptions, but histoy proves me right.

Modifié par Lotion Soronnar, 19 février 2014 - 10:17 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

durasteel wrote...

If you re-read the quote from Mr. Gaider, you might find this bit: "No doubt it doesn't help that the Chantry is a big organization with political power, and thus given to corruption much like in our own Middle Ages." I don't doubt that the members of the Chantry are "mostly benevolent." No doubt most of them do see the Circle as an "unfortunate necessity." Just as with the Roman Church of the Middle Ages, though, there are enough power-mad sociopaths in positions of authority to turn the blind faith of adherents into fascist militancy.

I don't doubt that the most mages are "mostly benevolent."
No doubt most of them do see any course of action they take as justified and necessary.

But there are
enough power-mad sociopaths in positions of authority and giving into temptation to turn the life of normal people into living hell. That is addition to perfectly nice mages (like Connor) that still frak everything for everyone

With regard to using the Circle as a tool, you don't have to look far. Any Exhalted March will almost certainly have magical artillery. Control of the market for enchantments (at least on the surface) makes the wealthy and powerful clients of the Chantry, and Kings must come to the Chantry to ask for mages to join their armies, like Cailan at Ostagar. Finally, fear of the Chantry is maintained by the Templars, and the Circles are the only justification for the Chantry to keep a standing army of lyrium addicted zealots with advanced military training.

- The Circles run their own economy, so the money from selling magical items go to the Circle, not the Chantry.
- Exhalted Marches are rarely called, and only in dire situation, where the survival of the Chantry - and indeed, entire cultures and countries - is at stake. Or are you saying that the Chantry AND/OR the Andrasitan cultures don't have the right to defened themselves?

[Mistic]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Which makes sense, really, because a system that bans mages to everyone favors the biggest, most powerful nations, ie Orlais. Without an ability to monopolize mages, Orlais gets more advantage from other people not cultivating mages than it would in taking the costs of other people having fewer mages than it.

How exactly?

Bigger country = more mages born.
So I don't see how Orlais would get a bigger advantage.
Yes, the enemy doesn't get to use their 10 tanks against you. But Orlais doesn't get to use it's 15.

Mages level the field a lot, like weapons of mass destruction. "Oh, I'm so glad that they have fewer mages! We only have to suffer 100 fireballs instead of 120!". Even in large countries there are few mages, so "quality" would end up being more important than "quantity", since it takes years to train a combat-able mage.

Also, we know there are other variables. Elves have more magic in their blood, so they would have a bigger proportion of mages despite their numbers.

Modifié par Misticsan, 19 février 2014 - 10:36 .

[TEWR]

No doubt it doesn't help that the Chantry is a big organization with political power, and thus given to corruption much like in our own Middle Ages.

Eh, I haven't seen anything Middle Ages-esque in corruption from the Chantry. There is certainly some corruption (Petrice), but it's far and away from being anything close to high scale corruption.

The way Bioware actually tries to handle corruption is rather... bland. It's basically people being Genre Blind or just stupid. Dawn of the Seeker, for instance, had a female priest and templar make a deal with a blood mage criminal that had a vendetta against the Chantry, hoping he'd kill all the other priests, so that she could become Divine.

While that's certainly corrupt, it's also laughably stupid in who she went to trust with such a plan.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 19 février 2014 - 10:58 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Was Petrice even corrupt as much as merely criminal in her zealotry against the Qunari? Was she out to enrich herself, her favored constituencies, or gain power?

Her zealotry against the Qunari was criminal, no doubts about that, but given her opponent she has some grounds to view them as a social abomination and problem. She easily falls into the 'considers themselves acting for the greater good' sort of moral failure, but that's a different sort of corruption than the Middle Ages-esque 'Church seeks power for its own sake' corruption.

[Dean_the_Young]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Which makes sense, really, because a system that bans mages to everyone favors the biggest, most powerful nations, ie Orlais. Without an ability to monopolize mages, Orlais gets more advantage from other people not cultivating mages than it would in taking the costs of other people having fewer mages than it.

How exactly?

Bigger country = more mages born.
So I don't see how Orlais would get a bigger advantage.
Yes, the enemy doesn't get to use their 10 tanks against you. But Orlais doesn't get to use it's 15.

The same way other strategic weapons work in deterence: they cause disproportionate costs, and so numberical superiority is less important than the retaliation of the inferior number. To use the real-world nuclear analogy, it matters little how many nukes you can rain down on your enemy if they have the ability to hit you just a few times. If 'winning' a nuclear exchange at the cost of your New York City, D.C., and Los Angeles doesn't appeal to you, then even non-MAD levels of a strategic exchange in your favor are losing options. You don't even need nukes for this analogy: chemical warfare works as well.

While less catastrophic than our WMDs, Mages aren't tanks that big, obvious, and simple to be opposed by eachother. A conflict between mage powers isn't going to simply be 'my 15 mages neutralize your ten mages and I have 5 left over,' especially when conventional forces are already lopsided. It's going to be 'my 15 mages will run roughshod over your forces, but your 10 will be raising cain for the indefinate future.'

10 mages raising cain for an indefinite period may or may not be worth conquering a country, but if you are already a military hegemon who could conquer without the mages not having 10 mages raising cain can easily be worth a redundant 15 mages in your favor.

[dragonflight288]

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

ShadowLordXII wrote...

Here, I get the impression that Asunder is retconning the origins of the Mage-Templar War after DAII explicitely stated that the Kirkwall Breakdown was the start of the conflict. Asunder essentially renders the struggles of Hawke as pointless in the overall picture since according to Asunder, all Hawke did was kick over a bucket of oil but someone else actually set it on fire.

A way I've come to look at it is comparing it to the two arat points of the American Cicil War. The Kirkwall Incident is akin to the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775, which was the first battle of the revolution. The abolishment of the Circle of Magi in Asunder is akin to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which made the war official.

I'm being a bit nitpicky, but those battles were the American Revolutionary War. The American Civil war was in the 1800's with famous battles like Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and was led not by Washington or Charles Lee but by Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and a whole host of Northern generals. 

[durasteel]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
People who hate religion are idiots. That is a generalization. But it's an accurate one. There may be exceptions, but histoy proves me right.

You're funny.

You don't have to hate religion to see it for what it is. Faith, spirituality, and prayer are proven to have benefits for people, but when those aspects of life become codified and controlled by a central authority created by and comprised of mortal men (or women, theoretically,) it becomes a religion with a power structure and business model. That's when the faith upon which it was founded becomes twisted toward the service of very mundane objectives. You want the Inca's gold? Justify your conquistadores with missionaries, and talk about how your saving the souls of those savages as you build your cathedrals on the foundations of their temples.

Your "facts" are wrong. The Annulment at Dairsmuid in Rivain was "justified" because the mages were "mixing freely with [their] families and training female mages in the traditions of the Seers," so the Circle was all branded apostates and the Rite of Annulment invoked. None of the mages at the circle is described as being possessed. The Seers who "allow themselves to become possessed" are hedge mages who are not part of the Circle, and were not even subject to the Annulment.

Everything you said about "containment" was wrong. What you said about every female mage in the Circle being possessed? Wrong. What you said about Rivain, generally--wrong. The Circle didn't "give them autonomy." They had been "autonomous" since long before the Chantry and the Circle came to Rivain, and never stopped practicing their Rivaini traditions. They've had possessed Seers for "millennia" and it's not been a problem for them. Their biggest problem described in the The World of Thedas is, in fact, the Seekers of Truth and their campaign of mass murder in Dairsmuid, which is conveniently justified because the Chantry is bringing the Chant of Light to these savages. So, yeah... in Rivain you have a very clear example of the Chantry and the Circle not being the solution to a poroblem, because there wasn't a problem to begin with. Instead, the religious zealots trying to impose their religion over "millenia of local traditions" is the problem.

Before you go calling me an idiot, son, get your facts straight.

Modifié par durasteel, 19 février 2014 - 03:00 .

[durasteel]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Was Petrice even corrupt as much as merely criminal in her zealotry against the Qunari? Was she out to enrich herself, her favored constituencies, or gain power?

Her zealotry against the Qunari was criminal, no doubts about that, but given her opponent she has some grounds to view them as a social abomination and problem. She easily falls into the 'considers themselves acting for the greater good' sort of moral failure, but that's a different sort of corruption than the Middle Ages-esque 'Church seeks power for its own sake' corruption.

Her attitude about the Qunari mirrors what many Roman clergy were saying about the Saracens (and later the Byzantines) to justify the Crusades. I think the corruption (and criminality) of the Middle Ages Church came in a variety of flavors.

In fairness, though, it's not criminal if you make it legal.

[durasteel]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
Exhalted Marches are rarely called, and only in dire situation, where the survival of the Chantry - and indeed, entire cultures and countries - is at stake. Or are you saying that the Chantry AND/OR the Andrasitan cultures don't have the right to defened themselves?

No, you're totally right. The Chantry had to defend itself against the Dalish who were not allowing Chanters to convert the Dalish away from venerating the Elvish pantheon within the boundaries of the Elves' own territory. That was obviously perfectly reasonable, and the Elves needed to be butchered, scattered, and have their newly achieved homeland taken away in Andraste's Holy Name, praise the Maker.

I suppose, given the character of your arguments so far, I really should point out that the paragraph above is, in fact, sarcasm.

[durasteel]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
...To use the real-world nuclear analogy, it matters little how many nukes you can rain down on your enemy if they have the ability to hit you just a few times. If 'winning' a nuclear exchange at the cost of your New York City, D.C., and Los Angeles doesn't appeal to you, then even non-MAD levels of a strategic exchange in your favor are losing options. ...

Arlathan is a good example of how apt your analogy is.

[TheKomandorShepard]

durasteel wrote...

No, you're totally right. The Chantry had to defend itself against the Dalish who were not allowing Chanters to convert the Dalish away from venerating the Elvish pantheon within the boundaries of the Elves' own territory. That was obviously perfectly reasonable, and the Elves needed to be butchered, scattered, and have their newly achieved homeland taken away in Andraste's Holy Name, praise the Maker.

I suppose, given the character of your arguments so far, I really should point out that the paragraph above is, in fact, sarcasm.

Well now you told dalish version where they paint themselves as saints chantry have another i won't judge which is true because i know that chantry is pretty much power hungry and would do such thing but as long 1 of that version won't be confirmed this will be only empty accusations...

but thinking that one of sides was clean is rather naive...

[durasteel]

I wasn't aware that there were "versions" of the the history of the Dales, I'm just going by what it says in The World of Thedas. The Chantry had "ire" over the Elven rejection of the Maker, and so used an Elven raid on the human village of Red Crossing to justify wiping the Elven nation off of the map.

[MisterJB]

The Exalted March was only called after the elves had burned their way to the doors of Val-Royeaux which they eventually sacked. That is actually in The World of Thedas timeline, pages 73 and 74 where you can see that the elven march upon Val-Royeaux occurs before the call for the Exalted March.
So, yes, the Exalted March was very much an act of self-defense. Kindly gain a better grasp on the lore before attempting to debate.

Modifié par MisterJB, 19 février 2014 - 03:58 .