Bare with me, this is going to be a somewhat wordy post.
But I'll try to present my points as cohesively as possible.
Like many fans, the Third Act of DAII is where I have the most problems with the game and much like the plot itself, this sense of dissatisfaction only escalated when Anders blew up a church and provoked all out war in Kirkwall.
For the longest time, I was certain that I didn't like the finale of the game and wasn't sure why. At first, I thought that I didn't like it because I felt like I was being rail-roaded in one direction or another. Perhaps I didn't like it because I didn't feel like a hero who actually saved anything. I still have these opinions, but they've been lessened a bit. Especially when I've sat back and really analyzed two key figures in that last mission.
After this analysis, I concluded that my problem with the Third Act wasn't necessarily due to it's inherent subjective base-breaking aspects. It was because I observed several objective problems with the structure of the last mission and the choices within them as well as the lack of a single choice. With this in mind, I could enjoy the last mission while still keeping in mind how it could have been much better.
So let's go over these key figures, shall we?
1) Anders
I'll admit, Anders isn't one of my favorite characters in DAII and that's even admitting that he is a decent character.
That said, I will acknowledge that Anders is a driven character. His personal experiences with the Circle of Magi and his merging with Justice caused his personality to be completely overwhelmed by years of suppressed anger and sorrow. Now he is driven to free his own people and bring justice to the templars and to the Chantry that controls it. As a player who has his own problems with the Chantry, I could relate to Anders' goal.
At least until he blew up the church.
Not only was the execution of Anders' plan very jarring and out-of-place, but his motive and endgame for the act are inherently detrimental to his plan. Let's start with the plan itself.
With ingredients that one can find in sewers and caves, Anders was capable of creating a bomb that's small to be concealed under his robes and powerful enough to destroy a large building by magically deconstructing it, compressing the pieces together and then blasting them away with a powerful shock wave. Where did Anders learn to make such a device? How did he set it off? Was it timed or did he use magic to detonate the charges? How did Anders sneak past guards, sisters, and any of the hundreds/thousands of refugees taking shelter in the Chantry? Between tagging along with Hawke and evading Templar pursuers, where did Anders have the time to become an explosives master? How did he know that the bomb would blow up the Chantry and not blow up the whole district?
Not to say that we haven't seen explosives in the DA series before such as lyrium/elemental Grenades in Origins/Awakening and the Qunari Gaatlok cannon), but we had details about how they worked. Not to mention that neither were shown to possess the magnitude of structural destruction that Anders' bomb possessed. In a series like Dragon Age, details matter and make a situation more believable and therefore, more involving. By having a major event in the game become set on something that was never seen or explained before, the event loses inherent merit which makes it less dramatic because it appears to have been contrived.
His motive and endgame are also subject because of moral and objective failings. Anders is so fed up with the system that he decides to force a change. Fine. But the way that he acts is completely detrimental to his plans because he's presenting a bad image for mages. The public already fears magic due to Chantry indoctrination and by committing an act of violence based on magic, Anders is affirming those fears. So now that mages are forced into conflict with the templars, they'll also be facing a public that's much more heavily convinced of the evils of magic. Now Anders has forced his fellow mages into a conflict which they'll likely lose or at best, earn a pyrrhic victory that will make their overall situation worse.
Let's not also forget that the direct target of Anders' attack was an old woman who was sympathetic to the mages and was trying to create peace in Kirkwall. Elthina even went as far as to decline Meredith's request for the RoA. Some will argue that she didn't do enough in the situation, but considering her own comments to Hawke, "You have quite the estimation of my abilities." It's very likely that she could only do so much to curb Meredith's intentions and they do have effect. So Anders decides that the best way to incite a conflict and show the world the inherent flaws of the Circle System is to kill the one person who didn't mistreat mages and was trying to create peace between mages and templars.
By blowing her up with a magical bomb...and killing hundreds of other people in the process...and causing significant damage to the surrounding district of the city. Kind of hard to see how mages are the victims when a mage just committed an unprovoked and premeditated act of mass murder.
Supposedly, Anders knew that Meredith would be paranoid enough to call the RoA on the Circle even though Anders was acting alone. But how did he know this for certain? How did he know that Meredith wouldn't just kill him right there and that would be the end of it? In a non-contrived world, Anders would be seen as proof and justification of Chantry propaganda which would only serve to harm the overall mage situation.
But onto our next key figure.
2) Meredith
Now I actually like Meredith and she serves as a good antagonist with a bit of sympathy. Having experienced just how crazy and power hungry mages could be, I could see why templar vigilance is necessary. I also like that Meredith seems to be trying to convince herself of her rightness as much as she is the character with her mixed appeals to emotion and reason. She even admits to having a personal motivation to her anti-mage drive due to her experiences with a mage sister that didn't work out well at all.
But this quote still fits the character, "Stupid is what stupid does." Just as a Hawke who directly worked with her is starting to see her point of view, Anders blows up the Chantry and Meredith takes a level in stupid. Even though the perpetrator of the act is standing right next to her, she calls the RoA on the Circle even though they had nothing to do with Anders' actions. The problem with this scenario is that the templar point of view is supposed to be just as valid as the mage point of view and now Meredith is dipping the scale towards the circle.
Why would Hawke want to side with Meredith when she's clearly in the wrong for moral and practical reasons? When someone trashes your car and says that they trashed your car, you don't track down their friends and burn down their houses. You make the perpetrator take responsibility for their actions.
That's not to say that Orsino is off the hook either. But Meredith doesn't know about his actions. Her calling the RoA is completely based on Anders' act of terrorism and she's scapegoating the rest of the Circle out of personal paranoia. Even Cullen and other templars have started to doubt Meredith's capacity for good and reasonable leadership. Let's also not forget that Meredith is blocking votes towards electing a new Viscount and turning Kirkwall into a police state run personally by her. Now she's just committed mass genocide on the city's mages for an act that they didn't commit and she'll also cut down anyone who opposes her.
Yeah, the templar side doesn't seem too reasonable anymore. There's vigilance against an inherent and real danger and then there's mass genocide as vengeance for a crime that your victims aren't guilty of.
Then she pulled out the red lyrium sword and instantly all respect for the character evaporated. For all of her flaws, she served as a paranoid antagonist who takes sympathetic reasoning and twists it as justification for wrongful acts like Loghain. But the idea that she was corrupted and manipulated by a red lyrium sword just seems dumb and almost like a last minute cop-out. As if the writers didn't want Meredith to be fully responsible for what she did, so they write in that the idol Hawke found was bought and reforged for her. Why? Why would Meredith want a red lyrium idol? Why would she go through the trouble of reforging it into a sword?
3) Conclusion
So what can we learn about these two figures and their actions in DAII? More specifically what will DA: Inquisition hopefully learn? Allow me to list them out in a reasonable manner:
a) If you want a choice between two sides to be difficult, make sure that it's actually difficult. Don't tell us to choose a side and present the situation in a manner where one side is heavily unbalanced vs the other. Or even worst, when both sides suck which can lead to a Black vs Black complex which can also lead to Darkness Induced Apathy
Don't make characters do clearly self-harmful and stupid actions just for the sake of advancing the plot. Even if the motive is sympathetic, "Stupid is remains what stupid does." Even if they do something desperate, make sure that the action's mechanics inherently make sense and actually accomplish what they wanted to have happen. Keep things natural and non-contrived.
c) Have antagonists remain self-responsible and fully aware of their actions and they'll be more respected for it even if they're still hated. Loghain didn't need a magical item to fuel his paranoia of Orlais, he had his own experiences and probable PTSD to do that for him.
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