174 réponses à ce sujet

[Mirrman70]

I think it's possible for everyone to get along in peace and harmony. the elves and humans will settle their differences, the mages and templars will compromise and the Qunari are going to just let everyone be. Heck even the Tevinter will see how much everyone else dislikes blood magic and will turn into peaceful monks who only use magic to heal and not destroy. Thedas wide peace is totally possible will happen soon....

Am I doing this right?

[Iron Fist]

Dwarves are obviously the worst race in DA.

[TheKomandorShepard]

LDS Darth Revan wrote...


The point of this thread is simply to have fun by arguing the opposite position you usually have. 

So just pointless babble without sense? or something more like dragon said?

durasteel wrote...

I always enjoy reading posts by
TheKomandorShepard. Their logic is unassailable, they are always
articulate and demonstrate a unique wisdom and a perspective on the game
that I find very insightful.

I'm getting the hang of this.

I know im just that great you always write truth without single sign of naivety;) 

[dragonflight288]

MevenSelas wrote...

Dwarves are obviously the worst race in DA.

Indeed. Dwarves have no sense of honor despite all that they pretend to. Dwarves assasinate, steal, bribe and pretty much destroy each other in an effort to one-up each other in the nobility. And the caste system keeps them from advancing as a race as it limits their creative prowess and destroys any concept of free will or choice.

[dragonflight288]

Mirrman70 wrote...

I think it's possible for everyone to get along in peace and harmony. the elves and humans will settle their differences, the mages and templars will compromise and the Qunari are going to just let everyone be. Heck even the Tevinter will see how much everyone else dislikes blood magic and will turn into peaceful monks who only use magic to heal and not destroy. Thedas wide peace is totally possible will happen soon....

Am I doing this right?

Sure. We can make this a bit of a discussion and try expand on our thoughts, and thereby expand our perspectives a bit in this mental excersise. 

It's not the easiest challenge in the world. I feel very weird when I'm criticizing mages and trying to give logical reasons for it when I've spent three years defending them, or villifying dwarves (my favorite race so far if you can't tell by my avatar), or , criticizing Merrill, But I'm having fun

I'm actually kind of interested if Loghain will make an appearance, and would be intersted in watching people who villify him for his actions at Ostagar and throughout Origins make cases to defend him.

[Reznore57]

Sister Petrice wasn't all that bad (that's somewhat painful to write).
Some BSN posters actualy like her...so let's find something nice to say.

She's most likely right about fearing the Qunari.They want to conquer and I doubt they will allow people to worship the Maker.
The qun also has an appeal for low class citizen in Thedas , such as city elves.They could have converted a number of those citizen and it could have helped if the Qunari wanted to invade later.
She knows the qunari peace treaties are an illusion , and won't bother pretending there isn't some sort of cold war going on.

MMmmh that's all I can find.(I hate her)

[dragonflight288]

Master Warder Z wrote...

dragonflight288 wrote...

So your assumption is that base tempation will overide expreince, common sense and templar vilgalence?

The temptation for greater power is within all mages not merely healers, the drive for domination is simply an instrinstic human trait. My point is the scant risk offered from possession in the case of spirit healers is a rarity already and the school it self isn't a heavily taught nor tolerated one.

The risk of tempation of it is minor in my eye, blood magic however is a still present threat and it will likely to continue to be a plague to both mages and non mages. The mages resorting blood mage are consorting with their own doom in doing so, They are lost.

There is a saying. Even the most upright person, if put in a situation where temptation is prevalent, even if they have no desire to give in, if they are in that position of temptation long enough, they will eventually give in.

(Hah, this is a rather unique reversal of our usual debates. It's fun.)

If Spirit Healers were more common then they were then this certainly would likely become more of a topic for debate so far there have been three confirmed spirit healers in the entirity of DA and two of those are out of commision.

The very description of Spirit Healers specifically say that they are working in tandem with spirits of the Fade, They can be very useful in their utility as they are more effective than even the rare master of the creation school, but the dangers of working with spirits in the Fade are astronomical. The danger necessitates they be watched. Because they are so useful, like magic itself, they may be kept around if they are confirmed Spirit Healers and not possessed by any other spirit than Faith, and it's been confirmed that the spirit has no interest in things that demons are interested in. 

Just like magic itself, the usefulness only barely outweighs its risks, so it must be closely watched and regulated.

(Umm.....I cannot believe I just wrote that argument.)

[dragonflight288]

Reznore57 wrote...

Sister Petrice wasn't all that bad (that's somewhat painful to write).
Some BSN posters actualy like her...so let's find something nice to say.

She's most likely right about fearing the Qunari.They want to conquer and I doubt they will allow people to worship the Maker.
The qun also has an appeal for low class citizen in Thedas , such as city elves.They could have converted a number of those citizen and it could have helped if the Qunari wanted to invade later.
She knows the qunari peace treaties are an illusion , and won't bother pretending there isn't some sort of cold war going on.

MMmmh that's all I can find.(I hate her)

(I hate her as well, so I'm going to try and add on to this...without barfing.)

She is a passionate individual who has shown herself to be very cunning. She can deconstruct a threat better than most, and hasn't yet failed to recognize when there's a threat to the Chantry, which stands as one of greatest peacekeepers in Thedas.

(ugh.....)

[TheKomandorShepard]

Reznore57 wrote...

Sister Petrice wasn't all that bad (that's somewhat painful to write).
Some BSN posters actualy like her...so let's find something nice to say.

She's most likely right about fearing the Qunari.They want to conquer and I doubt they will allow people to worship the Maker.
The qun also has an appeal for low class citizen in Thedas , such as city elves.They could have converted a number of those citizen and it could have helped if the Qunari wanted to invade later.
She knows the qunari peace treaties are an illusion , and won't bother pretending there isn't some sort of cold war going on.

MMmmh that's all I can find.(I hate her)

Well weren't qunari sometimes rather indifferent when it comes about faith in god as long person follow qun?

I can be wrong however.

Modifié par TheKomandorShepard, 23 février 2014 - 06:15 .

[Reznore57]

I don't think the qun would allow people to have any freedom about faith.
But it's the same for the Chantry.
They do not like to share .

[blod007]

 Ok Loghain....I can do this...
This man has been there from the beginning, he knows what really happened and how much it cost. His exploits with Maric defined him as a reliable friend and formidable ememy.  River Dane was but one of his achievements.  The rebellion would have been died on it's feet had it not been for him .  He left his father to die in battle to follow the rightful King of Ferelden and help restore the Therin Dynasty.   Cailan's death was a heavy price to pay, but faith in Anora's capabilites was never in question.  The throne was safe with the knowledge of the whereabouts of a remaining Therin heir.  Who's to say whether or not  he had an idea of a Mac Tir/ Therin alliance and was never allowed for that plan to be implemented.  His execution was a travesty of Justice.

His suspicions of the Wardens have always been justfied.  They are a bunch of untrustworthy mifits and their continued presence in Ferelden will in the end prove disasterous for all of Thedas.

 Orlais has to not only be contained but beaten back, otherwise history will repeat itself again.

[Iron Fist]

blod007 wrote...

His suspicions of the Wardens have always been justfied.  They are a bunch of untrustworthy mifits and their continued presence in Ferelden will in the end prove disasterous for all of Thedas..

I disagree. The Wardens are the paragons of justice in Thedas.

All those known criminals, terrorists, and political schemers amongst their ranks are actually good people just trying to make the world a better place for everyone.

None of the Wardens have personal agendas. None of them.

[blod007]

They recruit thieves and lowlives with a secret rite? Paragons! I think not.

[TEWR]

BlueMagitek wrote...

^ You could mention how Dwarf Mabari cavalry is a terrible idea and gorillas are awful creatures.

Are you trying to kill me, ser?

I suppose I could try and argue from a traditionalist's perspective however. There are valid reasons why someone might want to choose traditionalism over progressivism.

People fear change. People fear the unknown. When you cast your lot in with someone who's motives are unclear, whose promises defy what has been the norm for centuries, you inevitably support a means for chaos to take root. Stability leads to the people being happy.

....man I just sound like some sort of Assassin's Creed Templar douchebag.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sure, why not? And I'll even put an actual argument forth, rather than a 'not really argument because I'm always right and can't even seriously try to accept alternative views, now let's pretend I feel sick and the idea of mental flexibility causes me physical discomfort aren't I witty, hee hee' that some have.


The Circle system is flawed because mundanes aren't accepting enough risk themselves. Societies making compromises accept risks, and the mundane societies of the Andrastian nations would rather try to isolate and suppress reality (the existence of mages and powers greater than their own) than adapt to it in a compromise. The mundanes have a skewed since of risks, exaggerating the costs and ignoring their own.

And yes, tolerance and freedoms means costs. Even in lives.

The Circle system is about shifting costs, not preventing them entirely. Specifically, it shifts them away from normal mundanes and onto mages, with the intent of a small enforcer group of volunteers (the Templars) keeping it that way. Mages endure it every day, while mundanes almost never have to worry about it compared once a mage is sent away, and when the pressure builds up the explosion is distant and far away and not suffered by the mundanes but borne mostly by the Mages (and some Templars).

This might be effective (1000 years of history is a lot), and it's even sustainable (in the way that regular forest fires mean sustainable forests), but it's a allocation of costs that is not inclined to rebalance itself. Mages aren't given a choice, and mundanes are never forced to deal with it, and the isolation of the two groups means that the mundanes are still stuck in the history of the exaggerated past (when all mundanes must have been miserably oppressed and victimized). The past was bad, but it wasn't that bad: just because every mage can be a threat doesn't mean everyone one was, or would be.

But the sense of risks is schewed, and the isolation is to blame for it. Mundanes won't hear about the mages unless something is going wrong, which plays into the mental fallacy of associating what you hear with what is. This plays with the mages as well, such as Anders implications that Templars are constantly tranquilizing mages for any infraction at a rate of... twelve in a year. This is a misunderstanding of the risks, and misunderstandings lead to bad compromises.

This isn't just a matter of Chantry propoganda: Chantry propoganda is eerilie based on true facts and history, and there are things to be feared. Tevinter is a bad place: Elves aren't necessarily nice: Mages are potentially dangerous: Abominations are a threat during any lifetime. Risks should be feared.

But the risks should be feared proportionally, not excessively. Tevinter is a bad place, but you can keep your head down and stay out of the way. Elves aren't necessarily nice, but they aren't necessarily mean either. Mages are potentially dangerous, but potentially not. Abominations are a threat, but not a guarantee.

Mundane society doesn't appreciate these, because mundane society doesn't interact with mages enough to get to understand them and appreciate the actual risks. The Circle's social isolationism is perpetrating this disconnect by simple fact of the isolation, and so is perpetuating the excessive burden on the mages by not letting mundanes understand and strike a fairer compromise. Insisting on total safety from mages is not one, for the same reason that total safety doesn't come from any other dangers (bandits, nobles, armies). A fair compromise will accept risks, and even deaths, of the mundanes just as the mages accept risks and deaths of their own.

What is that compromise? That's a different question, and ultimately one the mundane societies will have to reach on their own. Forcing it onto the mundanes wouldn't be a compromise: mageocracy that dominates by fear and slavery, or even just forces a resigned acceptance of natural disasters, is not the model a proponent of western liberalism should champion.

Ultimately a fair compromise will be between the ones who will ultimately live with it... even if some of them die in the process, on both sides.

[Dean_the_Young]

Reznore57 wrote...

Sister Petrice wasn't all that bad (that's somewhat painful to write).
Some BSN posters actualy like her...so let's find something nice to say.

She's most likely right about fearing the Qunari.They want to conquer and I doubt they will allow people to worship the Maker.
The qun also has an appeal for low class citizen in Thedas , such as city elves.They could have converted a number of those citizen and it could have helped if the Qunari wanted to invade later.
She knows the qunari peace treaties are an illusion , and won't bother pretending there isn't some sort of cold war going on.

MMmmh that's all I can find.(I hate her)

There's also the point that she was apolitical about the whole mage vs templar issue. Hardly an anti-mage person herself.

[Dean_the_Young]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

BlueMagitek wrote...

^ You could mention how Dwarf Mabari cavalry is a terrible idea and gorillas are awful creatures.

Are you trying to kill me, ser?

I suppose I could try and argue from a traditionalist's perspective however. There are valid reasons why someone might want to choose traditionalism over progressivism.

People fear change. People fear the unknown. When you cast your lot in with someone who's motives are unclear, whose promises defy what has been the norm for centuries, you inevitably support a means for chaos to take root. Stability leads to the people being happy.

....man I just sound like some sort of Assassin's Creed Templar douchebag.

Here's one for you, then:

The myth of Progressivism is the myth of people who don't remember their own history, failures, and embarassments.

The narrative of Progressivism is one of constant progress and advancement. There are progressives, who strive for improvement, and conservatives who resist change until it happens and then they defend it while the progressives seek the next advancement. Because change and progress is always advancement and good, and if it's not good it's not progress. 'Change' is normally good thing, unless it's bad in which case it's conservative retrenchment instead of progress. Since the history of progress has been constant, progress and progressivism is morally and logically inevitable and resisting it is foolishness at best and malevolence at worst.

What you don't hear about with Progressive ideology is the failures, or the downright wrong proposals. Failures like the silver standard never happened: they didn't occur, and so weren't progress and are unimportant in regards to the steady history of inevitable success and advancement. Things that were completely abhorrent in retrospect, which are clearly not good anymore, are also not progressive or important: pesky things like Eugenics, or White Man's Burden, or Salvation Theology and various utopian engineering projects that turned into failed cults. No matter who advocated them on what grounds or with what themes in the past, these are bad things and so are expunged from the history of Progress. Past progressives who fall out of failure are no longer progressives, and labeled conservatives or reactionaries and deviants no matter their context at the time. The Heroes of progressivism are almost inevitably those with no widely known major deviances from current social norms and acceptability, whether by being of the recent enough past to be familiar and comfortable in their respects (the 60's and 70's social figures) or having their moral failures successfully ignored and covered by history (the American so-called Cult of the Founding Fathers).


Progressivism, in other words, is a mythology of constant improvement and forward advancement towards an inevitable and better future.It claims to be both enlightened and unopposable, because all the failures and errors of the past are constantly expunged from the myth and denied. But once you do remember the failures, and don't buy into the myth... then Progressivism is just another self-justifying movement of people who think they know best, whether they do or do not.

It's much harder to hand over power and authority to well meaning people who have increasing disinclination to not only concede that they are fallible, but that they have failed, and who cast opposition to them in terms of ignorance and fear, a mark of personal weakness and failure on the part of the opponents.

[Hellion Rex]

Reznore57 wrote...

Sister Petrice wasn't all that bad (that's somewhat painful to write).
Some BSN posters actualy like her...so let's find something nice to say.

She's most likely right about fearing the Qunari.They want to conquer and I doubt they will allow people to worship the Maker.
The qun also has an appeal for low class citizen in Thedas , such as city elves.They could have converted a number of those citizen and it could have helped if the Qunari wanted to invade later.
She knows the qunari peace treaties are an illusion , and won't bother pretending there isn't some sort of cold war going on.

MMmmh that's all I can find.(I hate her)

My god, how did you not spontaneously combust after writing all of that?

[Mistic]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Progressivism, in other words, is a mythology of constant improvement and forward advancement towards an inevitable and better future.It claims to be both enlightened and unopposable, because all the failures and errors of the past are constantly expunged from the myth and denied. But once you do remember the failures, and don't buy into the myth... then Progressivism is just another self-justifying movement of people who think they know best, whether they do or do not.

It's much harder to hand over power and authority to well meaning people who have increasing disinclination to not only concede that they are fallible, but that they have failed, and who cast opposition to them in terms of ignorance and fear, a mark of personal weakness and failure on the part of the opponents.

Although Progressivism tends to forget the failures of the past to make a better story of itself, the underlaying principles behind it are still correct and human history proves it right in the end.

Progress requires a constant supply of changes, be them big or small, and that means a constant supply of failures too, that's right. Conservatism in that regard tries to keep the negative changes to a minimum, and that's good. But it also perpetuates the bad situations that are already in effect, instead of looking for new solutions to solve old problems. Progressivism means more problems, but also more solutions. Conservatism means less problems, but less solutions too.

In the end, it's a matter of human nature. Despite blatant cases of self-destructing stupidity, we can say that for the most part humans are not an "always chaotic evil" species. So if you present them a constant stream of possible solutions, in the end (and after many, many mistakes) they will keep the most favorable ones. However, by defending a conservative way of thinking, they will keep making the same mistakes because they can see no other way of solving their current problems.

That's in the end what the Mage-Templar War is about, and the reason why Anders was right in doing what he did.

Modifié par Misticsan, 23 février 2014 - 01:56 .

[Hellion Rex]

Mages are weak fools. They're dumb creatures who wish to rule over the mundane, common people of Thedas. The Templar Order is all that stops southern Thedas from becoming another Tevinter.

[General TSAR]

Political correctness is the path toward a better fut....sorry I can't finish this nonsense.

[Hellion Rex]

General TSAR wrote...

Political correctness is the path toward a better fut....sorry I can't finish this nonsense.

Finish it!!!!!!! JOIN US!!!

[KaiserShep]

Ser Varnell is a hero, and his haircut wasn't so bad.

[Master Warder Z_]

Siradix wrote...

Mages are like...umm exotic creatures? They need to be protected and raised in an environment that is both healthy and safe for them. Placing pauldrons is similar to placing a shock collar on an animal. Training a mage in an enclosed facility to use their magic properly is more humane. Umm...I think I messed up somewhere.

No as a normal templar supporter i'd say that fits an effective agrument.

Some over Zealous supporters don't even view them as humans so most wouldn't bat an eye at the comparision between them and animals.

[Master Warder Z_]

KaiserShep wrote...

Ser Varnell is a hero, and his haircut wasn't so bad.

...I liked his hair cut and the man really was *nods*

Put the final nails into the coffin of the underground.