durasteel wrote...
Returning to the issue raised in the OP, I've noticed that a great many Codex entries are written from the perspective of Brother Genitivi, who is understandably a Chantry apologist, sympathetic to the Templar Order and the Circle system.
I think this is more than offset by the fact that the player character always has an apostate companion, sometimes more than one. They are vigorous critics of the circle and advocates of mage freedom. By contrast, companions who are in a position to defend the Circle, like Wynn, tend to give a more balanced perspective instead of a full-bore defense of the system.
The companions who do advocate in favor of the Chantry's mage pogrom, like Sebastian and Fenris, tend to be annoying for other reasons. Of course the big revelation in the Fenris story is that he actually volunteered for the lyrium tattoos that he's been whining about, and that before his memory loss he wasn't nearly so anti-mage.
I don't think there is much question, at least in my mind, as to whether the presentation of the conflict is even. There are, however, interesting questions on the other side of that inquiry. Can the presentation be even? Should it be?
You will presumably always have perspectives of those who were abducted from their prior lives and interred in a Circle of Magi concentration camp, subjected to Templar control, knew people lobotomised into Tranquility, and threatened with death if they stepped out of line or even tried to see their families. How do you balance that?
You can make logical arguments about safety all you want to, but that is a poor counter to a personal sob story. The worst case scenario that a player character will hear regarding mage badness anywhere outside of Tevinter is a situation that has either already been resolved or one that the PC will personally resolve in fairly short order, while the Templars' pogrom against the mages is ongoing with no end in sight.
Not everything can be even.
Maybe it isn't supposed to be even, that is a good point.
I'm fairly an anti-chantry player myself considering all of the shady or outright evil stuff that the Chantry does:
On one hand, they preach that blood magic is evil, but they use it to track mages through phylacteries.
They say that magic is not meant to dominate others, but the templars are honestly a personal army of lyrium-addled magic knights who do exactly that.
The Chantry knowingly addicts it's templars to lyrium in order to control them. It more or less turns a blind eye to elven oppression and outright encourages it.
They've been shown to have a heavy slant towards Orlais in the past and may still do in the present.
Mass Murders of Rivani Qun Converters after the Qunari War in direct violation of the Llomerryn Accords.
Provoked the Qunari in Kirkwall and lots of people needlessly died.
It also does next to nothing against templar/seeker abuse of power because it either can't or it won't...either is bad.
No system of faith is perfect, I'm not naive. But the above are all actions that the Chantry was actively or passively involved in throughout the two main games. They're almost more responsible for the mage-templar conflict than either side. Why should I be suprised that templars are so paranoid when most of them are religiously indoctrinated drug-addicts (which can impair judgement and rational thought)? As I said in my OP, no wonder mages become desperate enough to use blood magic considering the oppression and violence inherent in the system?
Retour en haut
But no, actually I think we'll see Evangeline and Rhys as NPCs, nothing more (and only in the case they appear).
