225 réponses à ce sujet

[hobbit of the shire]

I don't know why people are freaking out about this post.  It's the OP's opinion.  I actually enjoyed reading it.  There's a lot in the post that I suppose I didn't realize while playing.  If all of the factual stuff is true, yeah the mages in Thedas are in a huge predicament.  We all now talk about freedom in RL.  Mages basically have no freedom and have bull's-eye on their head for being born a certain way.  If I lived in Thedas and was a mage, who knows how I would react, if at all.  Would I be strong enough to be part of an underground movement?  Would I have succumbed to blood magic and leveled an entire village?  Would I have beome a First Enchanter?

 

Anders and his Chantry explosion disturbed me.  I was shocked, and I was at odds at how to deal with him.  Metagaming a bit, I wanted to do the Anders romance on my 1st playthrough so I really wanted to keep him alive.  I actually don't remember if I killed him ... I think I did.  Because at that moment, I was like, he killed so many innocents.  Killing innocents bad.  Love ya but this is not forgivable.  Forward in time and the more I learn about the mage/templar conflict, mages are really trapped between a rock and a hard place.  I commend the underground and the work that Anders does for Darktown and the underground.  He's putting himself out there when he could just run away.  The merge with Justice I'm still fuzzy on, as I don't see that act really in character, but anyway...  deep down Anders is a good guy and wants to help people.  What he does to effect those changes .... well, is up for discussion.  Do I see another way to get the two sides "talking"?  Not really.  Do I condone Anders blowing up innocents?  No.  It's a lose/lose situation.  It's basically a question of whether the ends justify the means.  Now I don't know about the mage/templar conflict after DA2 so dunno what the "ends" ended up being.  But yeah, one person's martyr/freedomfighter is another person's terrorist and vice-versa.  Like RL, I'm conflicted at what to think of actions I see happening and what to do.  RL world and the Thedusian(?) are equally messed up and confusing. (can I just run away and hide ?)  The more I think I about it, the more my Hawke would have been troubled at what to do about Anders.

 

In terms of killing a ton of innocents and causing others to take negative action due to your actions, well, I'm equally as conflicted at being a mercenary.  I mean, as soon as you arrive in Kirkwall, you're basically paying off a debt to some shady mercenaries.  I mean, who do I kill?  Who do I scare?  Who do I mess up?  All those actions to me are basically thuggery, unless somehow the targets are all "bad".  I have a hunch that they weren't all bad.  Some were probably just competition that the mercenaries wanted to get rid of.  What if Elthina had been a target?  Does that make me any better than a crook, murderer or terrorist?  Sure, I HAD to do it to keep my family in Kirkwall, or at least that's what we're railroaded into believing.  In terms of numbers, I don't know how many people were in the Chantry compared to the number of innocents Hawke had dealt with.  In terms of Meredith going crazy and calling for annulment due to Anders' actions...... well, Anders knew something big was going to happen due to his actions.  Certainly one has to consider their own actions and how it might affect others.  But ultimately, how much blame can you put on yourself if someone else decides to do something?  Again, murky area.

 

At the moment, I'm playing DA2 again and at the point where I can tell Hubert's workers to go back to work because all is hunky-dory in the mines when it really is still dangerous.  I'm leaving that quest uncompleted because I don't want to send my fellow Ferelden countrymen to a dangerous mine that's infested with baddies of all sorts.  How many workers would that be?  How does that number compare to how many were in the Chantry?  Which is a morally "better" action?

 

Yeah, so I'm not here to argue.  Just wanted to say thanks for the OP's opinion, and add my two cents about how a lot of that rings true, but is still really a complex issue.  Although this topic should really be in the DA2 forum and not DAI I think???

[fchopin]

For a moment i thought this was a memorial for Shepard.

[Cobra's_back]

Lane,

 

Hoping you have a nice day.

[spirosz]

Two thousand words is hardly a novel.  I've written as much as 8,000 in a single post on BSN or the BioBoards.

 

Do you understand jokes? 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Do you understand jokes?

In what way was that a joke?

[JCFR]

I'm not paid enough to read this much. 

Thumbs up. Exactly my thoughts.

[ShadowLordXII]

So Anders should be applauded by forcing his fellow mages to fight a war where they're already disadvantaged. A war where if they lose, they'll be worst off and if they win, what then? Everyone will remember that a mage started this war, so Anders' actions won't do anything to endear muggles to the idea of mage freedom. In fact, this action may harden the public's opinion of mages even more.

 

Great job Anders, you've forced every mage to deal with a lose-lose conflict where they'll be worst off regardless of if they win or lose the mage-templar war. Congrats.

 

This is also a man whose happy to seen Fenris sold back into slavery and constantly bashes Merrill for consorting with demons despite being an abomination and barely being able to control himself.

[SmilesJA]

War between the Mages and the Templars was inevitable. Even if Anders didn't act, war was going to erupt sooner or later.

[aTigerslunch]

OP, I agree that Anders is well made to either love or hate him.  He gets an emotional response means he was made well enough to get any response.

 

Circle of Mages would work if the Templars didn't treat mages as prisoners, and that is what they are doing. Supposed to be protecting, not imprisoning. I am against Templars in this fact, that they abuse their power, few don't and I will side with those. Meaning, Templars are still necessary but not the way they are going about it right now.  Things need fixed or changed, Mages shouldn't be kept from families, loving and other things.  The test however, I am neither for or against, it seems viable, and possibly worth doing.

 

 

EDIT:  As much as he was interesting there is one thought to think about.....  Anders is a mage, so Templars could catch him, BUT, even if they did, He is also a Grey Warden, laugh at the Templars as he can actually just walk away if he wanted. Its nice he helped mages that cant normally leave.

[Nefla]

I liked Anders in DAA, I did not like him in DA2.

 

I agree the treatment of mages in Kirkwall was awful, Anders however made everything worse. He had a secret way into the gallows, but did he use it to sneak mages out underground railroad style? No. There was a little group of people by the docks that set up a board of things to do that would help mages, was he assisting them? No. He had expertise on being an apostate and hiding from the Templars, did he share that with any mages that needed help? No. Did he shelter any apostates or mage children? No. Did he work to improve the lot of the mages in the circle? No. Not even after he has immunity from the Templars and access to Meredith through Hawke (who prior to getting the magical crazypants idol was quite reasonable and actually cared about mages but didn't know about the abusive Templars and didn't have ideas on how to improve the circle).  Did he work in any way to get the common people on the side of mages? Did he try warn any of the circle mages or try to get them out before killing all the innocent people in and around the Chantry which he knew would result in the Templars slaughtering all the mages? Nope.

 

He could have done so much good for mages (and the common people) but he does nothing. His selfish passions cause the pointless deaths of many innocents both in the chantry and in the circle and ensured the common non mage citizens would see mages as dangerous murderers rather than victims. He dies in all my playthroughs. I just wish killing him was more satisfying than the slightly surprised look then him falling over. If we could have made him tranquil I would have. 

[Ryzaki]

Just an FYI, but it wasn't DG who wrote Anders. It was Jennifer Helper.

 

And regardless of his abuse and the general abuse, Anders gameplan was still to goad Meredith into committing genocide, with the hope that a genocide on a significant enough scale would star a civil war. When your gameplan is "trigger genocide", you're the bad guy. 

 

Yep.

 

Anders was a trainwreck in action.

 

Sympathetic to a point but he went completely overboard and his gameplan wasn't a gameplan anymore than angrily throwing crap around. Sad but ultimately I put him out of his misery.

[aTigerslunch]

I only saved Anders one time, the rest of the time, he dies. I cant see letting him live after blowing up the Chantry.

[SmilesJA]

I liked Anders in DAA, I did not like him in DA2.

 

I agree the treatment of mages in Kirkwall was awful, Anders however made everything worse. He had a secret way into the gallows, but did he use it to sneak mages out underground railroad style? No. There was a little group of people by the docks that set up a board of things to do that would help mages, was he assisting them? No. He had expertise on being an apostate and hiding from the Templars, did he share that with any mages that needed help? No. Did he shelter any apostates or mage children? No. Did he work to improve the lot of the mages in the circle? No. Not even after he has immunity from the Templars and access to Meredith through Hawke (who prior to getting the magical crazypants idol was quite reasonable and actually cared about mages but didn't know about the abusive Templars and didn't have ideas on how to improve the circle).  Did he work in any way to get the common people on the side of mages? Did he try warn any of the circle mages or try to get them out before killing all the innocent people in and around the Chantry which he knew would result in the Templars slaughtering all the mages? Nope.

 

He could have done so much good for mages (and the common people) but he does nothing. His selfish passions cause the pointless deaths of many innocents both in the chantry and in the circle and ensured the common non mage citizens would see mages as dangerous murderers rather than victims. He dies in all my playthroughs. I just wish killing him was more satisfying than the slightly surprised look then him falling over. If we could have made him tranquil I would have. 

 

He did use the Mage underground to help mages escape. Didn't you see him write a letter to the chantry about how the interpretation about magic should be made to serve man. He did his best to make mages lives better and tried not to resort to violence. It's just that Merideth's going deeper into insanity and clamping down on mages and Vengence slowly eating away at Anders mentality which caused him to resort blowing up the chantry.

[Nefla]

He did use the Mage underground to help mages escape. Didn't you see him write a letter to the chantry about how the interpretation about magic should be made to serve man. He did his best to make mages lives better and tried not to resort to violence. It's just that Merideth's going deeper into insanity and clamping down on mages and Vengence slowly eating away at Anders mentality which caused him to resort blowing up the chantry.

My mistake, him writing a vague letter totally makes up for all the other stuff

[SmilesJA]

My mistake, him writing a vague letter totally makes up for all the other stuff

 

The point is he tried, to do what you said. But factors drove him over the edge. 

[Gileadan]

Anders' presence in the game lowered my enjoyment of it, which wasn't high to begin with.

 

He's a whiny hypocrite. He wails about mage freedom and oppression, but abominations like him are the very reason that templars even exist. "I'll let this creature from the Fade possess me, what could possibly go wrong?" It's like intentionally catching a deadly contagion, then acting surprised and howling "oppression!" when someone says "Quarantine!".  How many dead Ellas per time unit is mage freedom worth to him, I wonder.

 

His numerous despicable character flaws aside, to me he's the symbol of everything I disliked in DA2's writing. All subtlety thrown out of the window, everything presented in-your-face with all the grace of a six pound sledgehammer. Templars are fascists! Mages are crazy! Get it!? No?? Here's another one! IN YOUR PARTY! See if you can do anything about it, hee hee hee.

[Ray561]

The only thing that matters is in the end Anders is and will always be a monster and an Abomination.

[AlexiaRevan]

 

but abominations like him are the very reason that templars even exist. "I'll let this creature from the Fade possess me, what could possibly go wrong?" It's like intentionally catching a deadly contagion, then acting surprised and howling "oppression!" when someone says "Quarantine!". How many dead Ellas per time unit is mage freedom worth to him, I wonder.

Err...did he ever kill peoples cose he was a mindless abomination ? plz...name the time he killed as being an abomination . 

[Gileadan]

Err...did he ever kill peoples cose he was a mindless abomination ? plz...name the time he killed as being an abomination . 

He kills Ella if you don't stop him... which kinda proves he needs supervision, no?

[AlexiaRevan]

Not really . Cose if he was always bonker maybe...but see what the wiki say : 

 

for 1) a Justice-possessed Anders will also want to kill Ella, believing her to be collaborating with the Templars. 

and 2) Hawke can either intervene to save her or ignore the situation (inadvertently leading to Ella's death).

 

So A) He doesn't kill her cose he is insane and going on a rampage . Hawk can just stand there and pick his nose . But hey....he can go home and sleep like a baby with no guilt . 

[Gileadan]

Er, look for yourself. Sure, the templar guy is a monster, but so is Anders.

[AlexiaRevan]

Again , thats out of context . See , you are making that he kill that mage girl as canon when in the game it may or may not happen . While what the templar do ALWAYS happen no matter what . I was always able to stop Anders...therefor..in my game he is a loving fluffy abomination that never lost his control  and the Templar are always evil since there is no action to change that templar view or anything 

 

=edit: And Anders has remorse..Abomination DO NOT . 

[Gileadan]

Yes, of course you can save Ella, and I never claimed her death was canon.  What I said was that he obviously needs supervision to be stopped from killing people.

Had Hawke not been there at all, Ella would be dead. That's the very point of mage circles - to provide the supervision that is obviously necessary. Doesn't matter if he feels remorse afterwards - or tries to explain it away as an accident all too eagerly - that doesn't make Ella any less dead if he is not being stopped.

 

What will you do when he wakes up one night, remembers that you didn't mutter an insult last time you walked past a templar, and concludes that you are on their side, too?  

[AlexiaRevan]

 

That's the very point of mage circles - to provide the supervision that is obviously necessary. Doesn't matter if he feels remorse afterwards - or tries to explain it away as an accident all too eagerly - that doesn't make Ella any less dead if he is not being stopped.

But the circle and the Templar would have killed him on sight for letting a spirt take over no matter if that spirit (in the beginning) was gentle . And that make the whole templar circle stuff...a no no . 

 

Anyway , I will not turn this thread about the Templar/Mage issue Suffice to say , I think Anders was written in purpose like that . Now liking him or hating is a matter of taste , and it apply to everything in game not just him . 

[SmilesJA]

Anders lost control of Justice, if he killed Ella he felt very guilty about it. It was really more of Justice killing Ella, than Anders.