[quote]leaguer of one wrote...
[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
[quote]leaguer of one wrote...
1. It's a given that I'm taking about normal situations.[/quote]There are no normal situations with people in the magi situation. Being a magi is itself being outside the norm.
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2. That solve easilly...Stop thinging and treating the circle as a closter. That's the main problem with the issues of the circle. How does a closter work if it's imposed. That's no different from a prison.[/quote]Actually, it's closer to a quarantine: prisons are where you send people for crimes they have comitted. Quarantines are where you keep people who, through no malice or intent of their own, can inadverdantly kill dozens.
The root of mages turning into abominations isn't the Circle system, and thus solved by its destruction and mage liberation. The root of mages turning into abominations is
stress, which drives people to fear losing something or someone, or hate something else, or think their correctness is unrecognized. Life is not stress free, and keeping a cloister where an outbreak is easier to respond and containis why a single mid-tier abomination of a child desperate to save a parent wiped out most of a major settlement before anyone was aware while dozens of abominations of powerful mages were locally contained for some time in a single area.
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And being with someone, even in marrage, is not a privalage it's a right.[/quote]In a western liberal society founded on principles such as all men being equal and in which people only gain disproportionate power as members of groups. Thedas is not such a society, and does not follow our values or understand our concept of rights. It is, however, a place where strong emotional relationships amongst a certain unequal parties are playing with wildfire and an excellent generator of stress.
But even we, however, have institutions in which marriage privilages are restricted. One such place is called 'the military', where enforced separation is not a question of if but a matter of how long and how far.
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And why do normal fock need to have phylacteries if they are married to a mage? The enitre point is to keep track of mages. With that they also don't have to work with chantry.[/quote]To track down the mage's family, in case they seek to escape and lay the groundworks for the mage to escape and rejoin them. In analyzing and trying to track persons of interest, the immediate family is generally considered among the first degree of relations, people to whom an escapee will turn to first.
There's also the point of sharing burdens and emphasizing that they, as a family, are all together in this and to keep the mundanes also committed to the Circle. The mundanes of a family, while not mages themselves, are also persons of interest in the health and actions of a mage. Spreading the practice of phylacteries outside of the mages themselves, even if rarely used, can help share and destigmitize the burden on the mages. (For the record, I also apply this to the Templar guards themselves: even aside from some minor practical uses, the point of sharing a burden with the mages has its own merits.)
Working to support the circle would be an option available to them, not necessarily a requirement. There would probably be social pressure inside the Circle to do so, especially if the Circle is responsible for feeding and supplying the spouses and so discourages freeloaders, but the only required points would be the education of rights and restrictions and the regular marriage check-ins. Considering what's at stake if a relationship turned sour (which it very easily could with the outsider having to adjust to the Circle), marriage stability would be a potential threat factor and marriage counseling would be a very important support system.
(For reference, I'm actually basing the counseling/check in off of a variant of the US military's various support system for the spouses of and soldiers on and returning from deployment. I've never seen it brought up, but it's actually a good model to consider for various aspects of dealing with marriage stress.)
[/quote]1. Ofcousre there is. Think that way only causes more problems. This issue here it that the templar are treating mages like monster need to be locked up. That'snot the case. These are just people with powers who like every person is open to both good and bad actions. It makes no sense to build a system that will always assume they are doing wrong.
[/quote]That's how most enduring systems are built, actually. You just compensate for how things could go wrong. Institutions that have survived are institutions that plan to cope for when things go wrong, not when they don't.
But no, mages are not just like every person: they have the element of magic in addition to being open to both good and bad actions, and that is what we plan around. Magic is the abnormality, and ignoring it or pretending it doesn't exist doesn't make them like everyone else.
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2.The Irony is that making things the way they are in the circle now makes it more stress full for the mage. And we all know how that turns out. That point is a laim excuse. Look at the dalish, they don't alienate their mages to that extent and they don't have abomination problems. The dalish prove that extreme supression is not the solution. It's really just making things worse. You don't thing a dalish mage don't go through stresses?[/quote]I do- I also don't think they are a model of a solution. Certainly not as you seem to pose: the Dalish haven't found a way to keep mages from turning into abominations, as Merrill concedes, and the bit about them becoming clan leaders is something of a relevant issue for a society that does not want mage superiority. The Dalish clan system only 'works' in so much Dalish mages are kept far away from major population centers and society in insular groups (like the Circles) and that the costs of containing an outbreak are borne by a group other than wider society (like the Templars). The Dalish are also communal, xenophobic, and conduct themselves to wider society in a way that can be politely be called 'bad neighbors.'
The appeal or improvement of the Dalish model to wider Andrastian society, which (a) doesn't want mages to secure a position of power over them, and (
wants an outbreak contained away from them rather than drafting everyone in the area to react to an abomination, isn't exactly clear. Dalish don't provide what the Andrastians want (protection from mage rulers and abomination outbreaks), nor does it provide what the Mages want (integration with settled societies).
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3."To track down the mage's family, in case they seek to escape and lay the groundworks for the mage to escape and rejoin them. In analyzing and trying to track persons of interest, the immediate family is generally considered among the first degree of relations, people to whom an escapee will turn to first."
I have to call this out. Sorry but that is not a point for this. If this were true, then every family memeber for a mage would already have phylacteries being that even with the system now they still help their family memebers in the circle escape. Family is not the cause for a mage wanting to escape, it's how bad the system is. And even if the mages in this current system escapes they still can't hide from the templers phylacteries... It would be the same with townships. Reguardless to how much their family will help them the mage having phylacteries bounded to them counters all of those issues.
[/quote]The reason that Templars don't already have phylacteries for the blood family in the current system is because they are breaking the nuclear family in the current system. The First Degree of separation applies when a family is engaged, but breaks when it is split: in the case of the Circles, denying contact between inside and outside family members and blocking such bonds from developing. Children who literally grow up without their parents frequently don't view them as family, and the Circles have largely reflected this. Without those bonds forming, and instead supplementing them with bonds inside the community, mages and their outside relations have been severed to the point that they're family in name only. Family in name only doesn't warrant observation and tracking: family in bond (such as an in-circle Family, or free family visits) is what provides a external support network.
There's a lot of social psychology behind this and its effects, if you're curious. It's a common point in cults, and authoritarian states, and one of the reasons that the breakdown of the family unit is one of the priorities of authoritarian indoctrination.
Well, that and that the Templars (or should I point a finger at the writers?) aren't running a particularly effective surveillance state. Some of it is that because they're making compromises, some of it is because of their own sense of decency over effectiveness, and some of it is that they're just not as good at it as we are. Aside from a lack of institutions, Thedas doesn't even have a meaningful field of psychology to look at: mental disorders are extremely poorly understood, and environmental factors on group psychology even less so.
(The person who said the Circles should be purpose-built structures with open spaces and high ceilings and courtyards hit the nail on the head. Thedas doesn't even seem to have a concept of interior design psychology.)
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My point is there is no point to doing that being that having it on mages is enough. They don't need to put it on their family. If they did the current system would already be doing it.
[/quote]Not to be too blunt about it, but that's poor reasoning based on the idea that the Templars know how to do things best. The Templars just aren't running a maximal security state- there area lot of things they could do to benefit them that they aren't.
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3. You do under stand thatsposes can make their own business with inthe town ship. The circle does have it's own economy. Heck the spouse and family can even mave a shipping biness to bring goods to the circle and ship good made by the cirle to other places. We can have extended magic shops that are in DAO and DA2 with the family members being the one running the shop instead of just the tranquil alone. [/quote]I don't believe I was addressing your townships at all in what you quoted, so this point confuses me.
But then, I will freely admit I may be confusing your idea of townships with some other people's proposals. Why don't you elaborate?
[quote]And in the case of relation ship going sour...That's already an issue they have to deal with in the circle. Mage can't marry but that does not stop them from being with one another. How do you think the circle deals with mages when those relation ships go sour?
[/quote]With mages trying to break them up gently and Templars doing so physically if things start to escalate. Mandatory transfers to other Circles is also likely to be used.
Ad hoc solutions that focus on silencing the noise rather than address the issue, in other words. Certainly not via tools such as professional counseling or family therapy.
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4."In a western liberal society founded on principles such as all men being equal and in which people only gain disproportionate power as members of groups. Thedas is not such a society, and does not follow our values or understand our concept of rights. It is, however, a place where strong emotional relationships amongst a certain unequal parties are playing with wildfire and an excellent generator of stress.
But even we, however, have institutions in which marriage privilages are restricted. One such place is called 'the military', where enforced separation is not a question of if but a matter of how long and how far.
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You're not getting what I mean. No one can stop someone form being with one another outside the use of force and they need to be amass to do so. It matter not what the sociaty feels but the indavisual. The only thing that the sociaty has power over in the acceptance of the marrage.
[/quote]That's nice, but naïve. Society and institutions have far more influence over relationships than accepting it or not. Love does not conquer all, and thousands of years of human history will woefully attest to that.
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Also, in the military marrage is not restricted. In fact if to soldiers are married the army makes sure to put them in the same squad. The only limitation is based on proximity with non-military but that's no different form a person who has to akes a trip to a city to do his job and their mate waiting at home.
[/quote]Which would still be restrictions, yes? And I believe I said marriage privileges, yes?
Just in the military, the army can bring you closer together or separate you as it sees fit: it will not put you in the same squad, and while it will make efforts to keep couples in proximity it is under no obligation to send you on the same deployments, or even station you in the same region. It can and does dictate what sort of housing you can and can not enjoy together, limits available positions relative to each other in the military, and even attempting to initiate a relationship can be grounds for a discharge.
The modern military will make concessions to couples when it can, but these are privileges, not rights. Military couples do face many different sorts of restrictions.
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