503 réponses à ce sujet

[Ryzaki]

As long as he stays dead idgaf

 

This.

 

And for his rivalry/friendship personas not to be identical would also be fantastic.

[Xilizhra]

Hey, this Pre-Merchantile Feudal society has also done away with sexism for the most part as well as racism amongst their own race for the most part, so Thedas doesn't really fit any Earth timetable. In some ways, it is feudal. In others, they are more tolerant than we ever were and in some cases are. 

Racism was actually not that gigantic of a problem in our own world's ancient times in the West; the Roman Empire, for instance, was quite cosmopolitan. It seriously sprang up during the colonial period when Europeans needed an excuse for the horrible exploitation they were visiting on others. And in Thedas, there's quite a lot of racism still in other directions, so I'm not impressed. It is somewhat less sexist than our own equivalent time period was, but I think that's almost wholly due to Andraste being female.

 

 

And what of hypocrites that willingly throw others into the fire to serve their own self-righteousness? It's as if he wanted the Knight-Commander to officially invoke the right of annulment just so the Circle can be dismantled. Never mind that this requires lots of innocent mages to be killed indiscriminately as a result. For all this talk about helping the less fortunate among his "kind", he sure tries hard to get them all killed. Hell, if Hawke did not intervene properly, he would've smitten Ella with Justice's falcon punch too. This is why he never leaves Kirkwall alive in my playthrough. Who knows what that daffy abomination will do next. Anders + Justice is like the magical Tommy from Goodfellas. Call him a demon and he'll wig out. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Basically every instance of this involves spirit-induced sanity fracturing, but if you spare him and side with the mages, he seems a lot more stable than before; he can recover, I think.

 

And for his rivalry/friendship personas not to be identical would also be fantastic.

His rivalry one should be dead.

[Lulupab]

Basically every instance of this involves spirit-induced sanity fracturing, but if you spare him and side with the mages, he seems a lot more stable than before; he can recover, I think.

This. Its like we are talking to awakening Anders when you spare him, side with mages and talk to him before confronting Meredith. Well almost anyway
 
 

His rivalry one should be dead.

Well he does hint he might commit suicide but we don't know.

Anders's romance is more realistic than others. He does not blindly love Hawke there are things more important than love for him as it should be. Like not making a deal with a demon (torpor) or freedom of mages. Not following any of them immediately ends romance. I wish all characters had such red lines so it would have made them more realistic. Hopefully DA:I follows up on this.

[Xilizhra]

Anders's romance is more realistic than others. He does not blindly love Hawke there are things more important than love for him as it should be. Like not making a deal with a demon (torpor) or freedom of mages. Not following any of them immediately ends romance. I wish all characters had such red lines so it would have made them more realistic. Hopefully DA:I follows up on this.

It helps that rivalry's been removed from the game.

[ManOfSteel]

He's dead in every singe one of my playthroughs, so as long as he remains as such, I don't care. 

 

Unless the Inquisitor has the option to gut him, I plan for him to be dead in every single one of the world states I create with the Keep.

[Dean_the_Young]

It helps that rivalry's been removed from the game.

Rivalry as a point system has been removed. Rivalry as an quasi-antagonistic character relationship with character friction has not.

 

The character system isn't going to be either the DAO affection system or the DA2 friendship system. You might as well say that Friendship has been removed from the game as well- what is going to be implemented will be different.

[renfrees]

Anders's romance is more realistic than others. He does not blindly love Hawke there are things more important than love for him as it should be. Like not making a deal with a demon (torpor) or freedom of mages. Not following any of them immediately ends romance. I wish all characters had such red lines so it would have made them more realistic. Hopefully DA:I follows up on this.

Oh yes, that part i liked the most about Anders' romance. It always freaked me out, that if you initially try to sell Fenris to Danarius and then reconsider, he later goes "we haven't talked about that night..." ****, the guy should be running for the hills from Hawke after that, not reconcile.

[The Elder King]

Rivalry as a point system has been removed. Rivalry as an quasi-antagonistic character relationship with character friction has not.
 
The character system isn't going to be either the DAO affection system or the DA2 friendship system. You might as well say that Friendship has been removed from the game as well- what is going to be implemented will be different.

Gaider actually stated that the system will be similar to DAO's approval syste', though it'll be 'nuanced'. I can't say how it'll be different, but approval in DAO was friendship in DA2.

[Dean_the_Young]

Gaider actually stated that the system will be similar to DAO's approval syste', though it'll be 'nuanced'. I can't say how it'll be different, but approval in DAO was friendship in DA2.

 

Approval in DAO was also Rivalry in DA2. Gaider has also pointed out that they intend to avoid the DAO problem of content being gated through approval.

 

The PAX demo already dropped, ahem, unsubtle hints that character friction would be a part of the character arcs: Varric and the slaughtered village. Xil is grasping that a system change also means the writers are abandoning a style of content (antagonistic relationships) when the devs have never indicated such.

[The Elder King]

Approval in DAO was also Rivalry in DA2. Gaider has also pointed out that they intend to avoid the DAO problem of content being gated through approval.
 
The PAX demo already dropped, ahem, unsubtle hints that character friction would be a part of the character arcs: Varric and the slaughtered village. Xil is grasping that a system change also means the writers are abandoning a style of content (antagonistic relationships) when the devs have never indicated such.

I don't understand how Approval in DAO was Rivarly in DA2.
I know about content not being locked based on approval (but instead the the content changing based on the approval level), which I fully support. Though it wasn't stated, for example, that romance content will be available regardless of the approval level.
I don't see how the PAX demo implied antagonist relationship. The way I see the village slaughtering event isn't that different from DAO companions disapproving on certain plot choices (I don't mean that there wilont be antagonist relationship, but that the demo didnt give me that vibe about that event).

[Dean_the_Young]

I don't understand how Approval in DAO was Rivarly in DA2.
I know about content not being locked based on approval (but instead the the content changing based on the approval level), which I fully support. Though it wasn't stated, for example, that romance content will be available regardless of the approval level.
I don't see how the PAX demo implied antagonist relationship. The way I see the village slaughtering event isn't that different from DAO companions disapproving on certain plot choices (I don't mean that there wilont be antagonist relationship, but that the demo didnt give me that vibe about that event).

 

Approval as a system was a tracker of how strongly the character felt about you, good and bad. Positive Approval was friendship, but Negative Approval was more akin to Rivalry: antagonistic, oppositional, or simply character incompatibility. The higher the number, the stronger the feeling. The system was the same in terms of tracking agreement vs. oppositional viewpoints, and works on the same binary scale.

 

The difference between the DAO and DA2 system isn't that you could have an antagonistic relationship: it was that the positive rewards of a strong relationship were no longer tied to positive approval. In DAO, content (stat bonuses, conversations, romances) were gated by positive approval. DA2 just allowed negative approval to have similar content: it didn't create the rival relationship, it just gave/allowed rewards to pursuing it.

 

Saying that they remove Rivalry doesn't mean they won't have antagonistic relationship content, it just means they're changing how they address the system which will also change how they address the Friendship as well. Either they remove the possibility to have an antagonistic relationship entirely (the ME companion model), which renders the Friendship-approval system moot as well, or they move past the binary bar (which was the common complaint of the Rival/Friendship meter) and pursue a different way of tracking character engagement.

 

 

The PAX demo makes a point that Varric's reaction to letting the village burn will lead to future effects. Considering we've already had mentions that companions can separate after the player recruits them, and antagonistic relationship development is strongly implied.

[EmissaryofLies]

And what of hypocrites that willingly throw others into the fire to serve their own self-righteousness? It's as if he wanted the Knight-Commander to officially invoke the right of annulment just so the Circle can be dismantled. Never mind that this requires lots of innocent mages to be killed indiscriminately as a result. For all this talk about helping the less fortunate among his "kind", he sure tries hard to get them all killed. Hell, if Hawke did not intervene properly, he would've smitten Ella with Justice's falcon punch too. This is why he never leaves Kirkwall alive in my playthrough. Who knows what that daffy abomination will do next. Ain't nobody got time for that.

 

This operates under the assumption that the KC was not already working around to calling the annulment in the first place. Remember she's got that red lyrium idol, she's extremely paranoid and is beginning to see blood magic everywhere she turns. Anders sped up the Annulment sure. But he was not wrong; there was no compromise to be had in Kirkwall.

 

Would the circle have preferred Meredith declare the annulment completey on her own terms and in her own control?

 

People also tend to completely overlook that all of the circles rose up following Kirkwall. It's as if people honestly believe that the overwhelming majority of mages are comfortable on their knees when both games have shown nothing to support such a ridiculous belief. Seekers mia, exalted march on the rise, meredith breathing heavier. Anders did the circle a favor.

[KaiserShep]

Basically every instance of this involves spirit-induced sanity fracturing, but if you spare him and side with the mages, he seems a lot more stable than before; he can recover, I think.

 

There's plenty of instances when he seemed perfectly stable throughout the story. After all, he's spent several years in Kirkwall without much incident outside of the business with Karl and Ser Alrik as far as I know, but at the moment of the Chantry's destruction, I felt it prudent for my Hawke to decide what to do with him right then and there. He's a possessed mage with some serious control and is now another crazy person that contributed to some major havoc to the city. I wasn't letting that walk out of there. After the Arishok's nonsense, my tolerance is at zero.

[Mistic]

This operates under the assumption that the KC was not already working around to calling the annulment in the first place. Remember she's got that red lyrium idol, she's extremely paranoid and is beginning to see blood magic everywhere she turns. Anders sped up the Annulment sure. But he was not wrong; there was no compromise to be had in Kirkwall.

 

Would the circle have preferred Meredith declare the annulment completey on her own terms and in her own control?

 

I'm pretty sure they would have preferred it that way. If only because if Meredith had done that, she would have broken Chantry's law (only if the Grand Cleric and her successor are dead can a Knight-Commander declare Annulment by themselves). More support for the mages from the establishment in that case.

 

People also tend to completely overlook that all of the circles rose up following Kirkwall. It's as if people honestly believe that the overwhelming majority of mages are comfortable on their knees when both games have shown nothing to support such a ridiculous belief. Seekers mia, exalted march on the rise, meredith breathing heavier. Anders did the circle a favor.

 

That's not true. All the Circles rose up after Asunder, not after Kirkwall. Ok, Kirkwall made all people involved very, very nervous and that wasn't a good base for a compromise, but the opportunity was still there. But then a mage tried to assassinate the Divine (mysterious mystery), the Lord Seeker decided that he had to butt in things outside his competency instead of investigating said assassination attempt, and the Grand Enchanter had the great idea of derailing the Conclave Wynne spent so much time and effort to get.

 

The only Circle punished between Kirkwall and Asunder was the Circle in Rivain, but it seems it had to do more with Rivain's "particular" conditions than Ander's doing.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

I thought the annulment in Dairsmuid happened after Asunder?

[Aimi]

Racism was actually not that gigantic of a problem in our own world's ancient times in the West; the Roman Empire, for instance, was quite cosmopolitan. It seriously sprang up during the colonial period when Europeans needed an excuse for the horrible exploitation they were visiting on others. And in Thedas, there's quite a lot of racism still in other directions, so I'm not impressed. It is somewhat less sexist than our own equivalent time period was, but I think that's almost wholly due to Andraste being female.

 

Racist is a funny word.

 

I would say that the way in which Roman imperial authorities and - insofar as we can actually know - the Roman general populace treated certain groups of people bore strong similarities to the manner in which many of our more modern racist bugbears treat their 'racial' enemies/inferiors.

 

The most glaring example is that of 'the barbarians'. Roman imperial ideology deployed them as an existential menace to the Roman state and Roman culture (they were not, much like the Jewish people were not an existential menace to European states and societies, but let that go), with clearly defined stereotypical racial characteristics, e.g. brute strength and military competence. Although many Romans believed that 'barbarian' was something that could be 'fixed' by cultural assimilation over time (it would be bizarre if it could not be, considering the ancestry of most of the Roman Empire's citizens), many of them also did not believe that, and the avowedly 'barbarian' ancestry of some of the Empire's political figures became a way to score propagandistic points in the later Empire.

 

Barbarians, as the racial enemies of the Roman state, were often subjected to treatment that would be outrageously inhumane by any standards. The Roman borders might have stopped at the Rhine and Danube, but in practice those lines were quite blurry. Roman cultural and economic penetration of the lands outside their borders was both deep and broad, and Roman leaders took care to make sure that 'barbarian' groups near Rome's borders were led by men sympathetic to Roman interests and subsidized by Roman coin. This meant that barbaricum was a field of political and military influence for the Romans, and in order to maintain their clients Roman armies crisscrossed 'barbarian' territory in regular expeditions, pillaging what they could, slaughtering whoever was in their way, and enslaving the rest. These depredations, needless to say, were not standard protocol on Rome's borders with more 'civilized' societies, such as the border in the East with the Partho-Sasanian confederacy. By the time of the later Empire, the Romans no longer conducted mass executions of barbarian prisoners for entertainment. Instead, they were often slaughtered en masse directly after a battle - if they were not enslaved.

 

Rome also persecuted individual cultural and religious groups at several points throughout its history. Jews were targets early in the Empire, and were subject to a variety of limitations and prejudices even after Hadrianus crushed the bar-Kochva revolt, the last major Jewish uprising. Celtic religion, especially the priestly orders, was subject to some fairly vicious military campaigns and purges in the first few centuries of Rome's rule. Under the Republic, there were pogroms against Qarthadastei people caught in Italy during the Punic Wars, and at moments of military extremity the Romans were prone to engage in human sacrifice of foreigners to propitiate the gods. (The most notorious examples of this occurred after the Battles of Cannae and Arausio, two grave military defeats at the hands of the Qarthadastim and the 'Cimbri' respectively.)

 

Several Roman emperors also engaged in attacks on Christians, rather famously, although such persecutions tended to be top-down (i.e. not really a sign of widespread cultural prejudice) and very intermittent (depending on the opinions of individual emperors). One can't say that there wasn't prejudice against the Christians at various points in Roman history among certain constituencies; Nero's accusations after the Great Fire of 64 apparently played well enough in Italy, and C. Plinius Caecilius' famous Letter to Traianus made reference to how popular anti-Christian sentiment made governing his province difficult.

 

Rome's persecutions of Christians also, obviously, changed a great deal after Christian emperors began to control the levers of power in the state in the fourth century. And the Romans couldn't match the Sasanian Empire for the brutality of attacks against Christian communities; Šāhpuhr II is recorded as having had sixteen thousand Christians killed during a single paroxysm of state-directed murder in the fourth century, and when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity it fought several wars with the Sasanians over Sasanian persecutions of Christians.

 

Prejudice in Roman society also manifested itself in less violent ways. As I mentioned before, propagandistically, being able to label one's opponent as 'barbarian' was a common tactic. Think of how many American politicians in the antebellum era (e.g. Stephen Douglas) employed race-baiting by referring to the 'Black Republican Party', and you'll get a vague approximation of how the opponents of men like Stilicho or Ricimerus played to the galleries. These politicians made these appeals because they knew at least some people would find them persuasive.

 

One can find similar amounts of prejudice earlier in Roman history. For example, Roman attitudes towards Greece were highly stereotyped; Greeks (at least, the men) were viewed as effete, effeminate, precious, militarily worthless, and possessed of the fantastic depravity that supposedly goes hand in hand with extreme wealth. One sees Greek-baiting on the very floor of the senate (the gibes hurled at C. Iulius Caesar, for instance, due to his supposed relationship with a Greek king), in the propaganda of Octavianus (who claimed that his opponent, Marcus Antonius, had been corrupted by bad Greek morals, Greek money, and that Greek woman Kleiopatra), and as late as the fifth century the Emperor Anthemius, an Eastern military commander put in charge of the Western Empire by his colleague Leōn I, was stereotyped as 'Greekling' (Graeculus) by his Italian subjects.

 

These stereotypes made Roman ethnography virtually worthless. The world, as far as the Romans were concerned, was divided into 'races' defined by stereotypes. Greeks and Easterners were rich effeminate philosophers who were worthless at fighting. Northern barbarians, like 'Germans' and 'Gauls', were more excitable and ferocious, but also more easily depressed and frightened; they were 'uncivilized' by definition and the further one got away from Rome's borders, the more outrageous and bizarre their cultural practices supposedly were. (The most ridiculous of these examples was the Fenni, who appear in Tacitus and Ammianus, and who had apparently not advanced out of the Stone Age, did not know how to make fire, and ate other humans raw.) Romans were prone to see all other races as exhibiting characteristics to ridiculous extremes; only Romans themselves possessed all qualities in useful moderation.

 

None of this is to say that Roman society was not cosmopolitan in any way. Of course it was. Romans often adopted cultural practices, even whole religions, from other groups. This is how, obviously, Christianity became a Thing, among others. Or take a look at Roman art, which mostly exists on a continuum closely connected with 'Greek' art. And the fact that people like Stilicho and Ricimerus were employed - hell, each was the most powerful man in the Empire during his time - is instructive as well. Even 'barbarians' could come to hold supreme authority in the state. It's just that this cosmopolitan approach went hand-in-hand with racism in many forms.

 

There was also, naturally, a negative side to Roman cosmopolitanism. Unlike societies in the colonial Americas, slavery in Rome was not a racial thing. Instead of enslaving only blacks (or, as in the colonies of Spanish America, blacks and aboriginal Americans), the Romans enslaved whomever they could get their hands on: military prisoners, civilians caught in a war zone, debtors, you name it. They were equal-opportunity blackguards. Fun stuff.

 

This mixture of cosmopolitanism and racism isn't unique to Rome. It's an aspect of human society throughout history. It's hard to think of any culture completely bereft of either prejudice or tolerance.

 

Thedosian society, for its own part (and, admittedly, we haven't seen that much of it), is also subject to racial prejudice in a lot of ways. For one thing, there are actual races, as opposed to entirely artificial constructs imposed on a continuum of human beings, and anyone who doesn't think that, say, elves and humans don't have a great deal of racial tension hasn't been paying attention at all. (Wow, a Dierdorf triple negative. I apologize.) Relations between the qunari and everybody else are a snarled-up mess of racial, national, and religious sentiment. You even get 'civilized'/'barbarian' prejudice, mostly apparent in Origins with respect to the Chasind and Avvars.

 

So yeah, Thedas fits well with most societies in real history. It's not universally tolerant by any stretch of the imagination. Tolerance and cosmopolitanism exist, sometimes in different ways than we might be used to in human history, but intolerance and prejudice are right there alongside them.

[Lulupab]

I thought the annulment in Dairsmuid happened after Asunder?

The surviving first enchanters, the Grand Enchanter among them, retreated to the fortress of Andoral's Reach. Most of the fifteen Circles rose against the templars, with thousands of mages gathering at Andoral's Reach in the following months. However, the Right of Annulment was invoked on the Circle of Dairmuid, slaying all mages inside. So it kinda happened during asunder.

[EmissaryofLies]

I'm pretty sure they would have preferred it that way. If only because if Meredith had done that, she would have broken Chantry's law (only if the Grand Cleric and her successor are dead can a Knight-Commander declare Annulment by themselves). More support for the mages from the establishment in that case.

The divine was considering an exalted march on Kirkwall to prevent it from falling to magic. Elthina was told to get out of town. Meredith operated with absolute impunity for damn near a decade, perhaps longer. Sympathy hardly matters when all the mages of Kirkwall are full scale slaughtered which was going to happen. Anders had simply awakened them to just how bad things were looking. But if people on the BSN are fine with Kirkwall becoming a martyr like Darismund, far be it from me to rain on their parade.
 
 

That's not true. All the Circles rose up after Asunder, not after Kirkwall. Ok, Kirkwall made all people involved very, very nervous and that wasn't a good base for a compromise, but the opportunity was still there. But then a mage tried to assassinate the Divine (mysterious mystery), the Lord Seeker decided that he had to butt in things outside his competency instead of investigating said assassination attempt, and the Grand Enchanter had the great idea of derailing the Conclave Wynne spent so much time and effort to get.

 
So Varric's statement at the end of the game about all the circles rising up was a lie? Compromise? Where? When? What has given you the belief that compromise was credibly on the table for mages during the events of Kirkwall? There was no opportunity, not with that old bat sticking her fingers in her ear. But my idea of compromise is likely radically different from yours either way. The mages were ulimately marching to the hangman's noose.

[Aimi]

So Varric's statement at the end of the game about all the circles rising up was a lie? Compromise? Where? When? What has given you the belief that compromise was credibly on the table for mages during the events of Kirkwall? There was no opportunity, not with that old bat sticking her fingers in her ear. But my idea of compromise is likely radically different from yours either way. The mages were ulimately marching to the hangman's noose.

 

Cassandra interviews Varric a few years after the conflict erupts in Kirkwall, and, I believe, some time after the events of Asunder. By the time Varric is telling the story, the war has started.

[The Elder King]

The surviving first enchanters, the Grand Enchanter among them, retreated to the fortress of Andoral's Reach. Most of the fifteen Circles rose against the templars, with thousands of mages gathering at Andoral's Reach in the following months. However, the Right of Annulment was invoked on the Circle of Dairmuid, slaying all mages inside. So it kinda happened during asunder.

I think Jedi might've meant after the event of the White Spore, though the book wasn't clear, as far as I recall.

[Lotion Soronarr]

The divine was considering an exalted march on Kirkwall to prevent it from falling to magic. Elthina was told to get out of town. Meredith operated with absolute impunity for damn near a decade, perhaps longer. Sympathy hardly matters when all the mages of Kirkwall are full scale slaughtered which was going to happen. Anders had simply awakened them to just how bad things were looking. But if people on the BSN are fine with Kirkwall becoming a martyr like Darismund, far be it from me to rain on their parade.

 

And you know that how?

You don't.

 

Spare me with the "this was going to happen". You're not a mind reader, nor can you control reality. WE don't know.

 

As long as Elthina was around, an Annulment wasn't likely. Heck, it is entirely possible that either Elthina or the Divine would have removed Meredith from her position. Would the Annulment have happened then?

We don't know. We speculate.

 

Anders was a fatalist. Things look grim? Why not paint ourselves black and throw ourselves off the cliff?

[Mistic]

So Varric's statement at the end of the game about all the circles rising up was a lie? Compromise? Where? When? What has given you the belief that compromise was credibly on the table for mages during the events of Kirkwall? There was no opportunity, not with that old bat sticking her fingers in her ear. But my idea of compromise is likely radically different from yours either way. The mages were ulimately marching to the hangman's noose.

 

The interrogation in DA2 happens after Asunder. In fact, Cassandra is one of the few loyalists left after Lord Seeker Lambert defected with the Templars. So, now, what Varric said wasn't a lie, but it was wrong to assume their rebellion was a direct response to Kirkwall.

 

Before the Fifth Blight, the Right of Anulment had been invoked 17 times. Sad, very sad, but it didn't cause a world wide war, so that makes me think that even after Kirkwall there was room for a compromise.

 

If compromise is good or not, that's another matter, but I wouldn't say things such as "It's as if people honestly believe that the overwhelming majority of mages are comfortable on their knees when both games have shown nothing to support such a ridiculous belief". Especially since it has been stated several times that Aequitarians and Loyalists are the majority in the Circle (although I got the feeling that the Libertarians had managed to get second place after the Aequitarians). Asunder also states that the smaller fraternities voted against fighting.

 

 

[EmissaryofLies]

And you know that how?
You don't.
 
Spare me with the "this was going to happen". You're not a mind reader, nor can you control reality. WE don't know.
 
As long as Elthina was around, an Annulment wasn't likely. Heck, it is entirely possible that either Elthina or the Divine would have removed Meredith from her position. Would the Annulment have happened then?
We don't know. We speculate.
 
Anders was a fatalist. Things look grim? Why not paint ourselves black and throw ourselves off the cliff?

YOU don't know.

I have Leliana telling Elthina to hit the bricks. I have an insane Meredith talking to her lyrium idol. The same Meredith desperate to pin something onto Orsino. The same Meredith who had already sent to Val Royeaux for the annulment. The same Meredith who hates and despises magic and mages. I have seekers who haven't done a damned thing to rein in their mad dog and the one representative from the Divine is only concerned with resolutionists and Kirkwall falling to magic.

While you have a lil old lady that is so completely incompetent and idiotic that it is a wonder how she dresses herself in the morning. Not to mention, that Meredith is not above removing others from power whom she deems as threats to templars and Kirkwall's security.

If you believe that she wasn't going to call that annulment regardless of Anders, I have a bridge to sell you.


tl;dr I completely disagree on the subject of pin the tail on the Anders.

[EmissaryofLies]

The interrogation in DA2 happens after Asunder. In fact, Cassandra is one of the few loyalists left after Lord Seeker Lambert defected with the Templars. So, now, what Varric said wasn't a lie, but it was wrong to assume their rebellion was a direct response to Kirkwall.
 
Before the Fifth Blight, the Right of Anulment had been invoked 17 times. Sad, very sad, but it didn't cause a world wide war, so that makes me think that even after Kirkwall there was room for a compromise.
 
If compromise is good or not, that's another matter, but I wouldn't say things such as "It's as if people honestly believe that the overwhelming majority of mages are comfortable on their knees when both games have shown nothing to support such a ridiculous belief". Especially since it has been stated several times that Aequitarians and Loyalists are the majority in the Circle (although I got the feeling that the Libertarians had managed to get second place after the Aequitarians). Asunder also states that the smaller fraternities voted against fighting.

Wait a minute. Doesn't compromise imply that both parties have a power in common? As in they are both equally powerful or at least close. Why would anyone compromise with the mages when the Chantry holds all the cards? Are the mages going to ask nicely? In a thousand years I've no reason to believe that such a tactic had not been tried. And lets say that they do reach a 'compromise', how long before someone like Meredith or Lambert stomps all over it and does what they please? The mages are not getting anything worthwhile without fighting for it. Freedom and equality are not won with strongly worded letters. Fiona understood this.

And of course some mages are going to be against fighting. Not every slave wants to be free, so should the others simply sit still and take what's given to them, no matter how bad it gets? Libertarians are a big fraternity as well, as you said. And judging from this very thread, I do believe that people think that the majority of mages are comfortable living on their knees asking for permission to play in the yard.

[AresKeith]

Cassandra interviews Varric a few years after the conflict erupts in Kirkwall, and, I believe, some time after the events of Asunder. By the time Varric is telling the story, the war has started.

Yep, three years after Kirkwall and 3 months after Asunder