36 réponses à ce sujet

[Dandler]

I've played through DA:O countless times at this point, and there's 1 decision that I can't seem to NOT make regardless of the character I'm playing; siding with the Mages in the Circle Tower. It seems like whenever I try and choose otherwise, it just feels wrong, even if the Warden is an evil bastard.

My recent run through the game is as a pragmatic, do-whatever-it-takes Dwarf Noble. Not evil, just cold. I want to finish a game for the first time having sided with the Templars and clearing the tower. Recruiting Wynne and the army choice at the end of the game are irrelevant in the decision. Someone please provide me with the will that I don't have.

[Mike3207]

Well, there was a sizable segment of the mages that turned to blood magic.In a lot of Circles, that would be sufficient to get the rest of them killed.

[TheMadHarridan]

I usually side with the Mages, but I recently played a pragmatic HNM who sided with the Templars. Even though it "appeared" that the abominations had been destroyed, there was no way to really know for sure. A demon could have been inside Irving and was putting on a performance to convince everyone it was safe. Without meta-gaming, we really have no way of knowing that the abominations are wiped out, so from an RP perspective, playing it safe and choosing to have the mages locked up until things are resolved is the most pragmatic thing to do. That was my character's perspective anyway.

 

That aside, you can still recruit Wynne if you side with the Templars, and she's actually less preachy than she is if you side with the Mages, which is odd. Perhaps she feels like it's not in her best interests to chastise a Warden who is pro-Templar. Also, the Templars are pretty durable and are good fighters in the final battle.

[Dandler]

The prospect of a  less preachy Wynne is certainly a good selling point, although a dead Wynne wouldn't bother me if it didn't leave me mage-less for the ending as I don't plan on having Morrigan with me. For some reason, killing her is far easier for me than a group of potential blood mages and abominations, which says a lot about her personality.

 

I suppose I'm just cursed with an inability to play without meta-gaming at this point. It's entirely possible that the Circle is completely corrupted in the situation, but we all know that the blindly trusting naive approach to solving problems rarely, if ever, bites you in the ass in BW games. 

[Pateu]

You can side with the Templars without killing the mages.

 

Just tell Gregoir that there might still be Blood mages among the mages. He won't kill the mages, but will investigate. You get the Templars but you can't ask Irving to help you with Connor.

[DarthGizka]

I usually side with the Mages, but I recently played a pragmatic HNM who sided with the Templars. Even though it "appeared" that the abominations had been destroyed, there was no way to really know for sure. A demon could have been inside Irving and was putting on a performance to convince everyone it was safe. Without meta-gaming, we really have no way of knowing that the abominations are wiped out, so from an RP perspective, playing it safe and choosing to have the mages locked up until things are resolved is the most pragmatic thing to do.

The situation after the removal of the obvious abominations is in no way different from the normal situation, so why the genocidal mood change? Moreover, abominations are generally harmless and I'd rather take on a dozen abos than one pissed-off mage. Last but not least, mages aren't the only ones who can be taken over by demons. Even the tranquil aren't immune, as we can see in the last room on the third floor. Then there's Kitty. And Sophia. And the templars can obviously be mind-controlled en masse by demons.

I do sometimes feel genocidal when I meet that moron Cullen and I realise that he is probably fairly typical for the templars.

[Jeffonl1]

That aside, you can still recruit Wynne if you side with the Templars, and she's actually less preachy than she is if you side with the Mages, which is odd. Perhaps she feels like it's not in her best interests to chastise a Warden who is pro-Templar. Also, the Templars are pretty durable and are good fighters in the final battle.

I had always assumed if you sided with the Templars you lost Wynne (i may be a minority but I actually like her - shes the only one who sympathizes with a Cousland warden's loss)... Interesting

[theskymoves]

My f!Cousland (points at avatar) annulled the Circle without a second thought. She was Chantry devout, suspicious of mages, and if the Knight Commander thought annulment was the best way to handle it, that was the way to handle it. IIRC, the only mages who walked away alive were Wynne and Irving. (And I threw up when it was all over. Moira's POV aside, the Chantry and their handling of mages is stomach churning and pushes a lot of my angry buttons. I have to replay the Cousland, since her saves got corrupted mid-game and she never got the splashy wedding that was her raison d'etre, but the knowledge that I'm going to have to both slaughter all the mages and kill wee Connor, again, is a real disincentive to getting 'round to it.  )

[gottaloveme]

I also find it difficult to side with the bucketheads. At some point tho' I'm gonna have to if only for the achievement thingy and to have a less preachy Wynne - that would be worth seeing.

 

TSM - I killed Connor by mistake the other day. I went upstairs to kill more zombies and tell Connor I'm going to help you. Sure and then think I wonder if there's any codexy stuff in Eamon's chambers, head in there and force the demon to emerge. The fight was on (couldn't help that) and Isolde ended up ending Connor (with a whopping great butcher's knife). I didn't mean to.

 

Actually - if you held up a Templar by his feet and rattled him, would his head clang inside his helmet like a bell?

[theskymoves]

 

TSM - I killed Connor by mistake the other day. I went upstairs to kill more zombies and tell Connor I'm going to help you. Sure and then think I wonder if there's any codexy stuff in Eamon's chambers, head in there and force the demon to emerge. The fight was on (couldn't help that) and Isolde ended up ending Connor (with a whopping great butcher's knife). I didn't mean to.

 

 

Oh no!   Damn the lure of the codex! (Is Eamon's bedroom where the one about the bees is found, or is that in Denerim?)

 

In my playthrough, killing Connor was very intentional, and siding with the templars before heading to Redcliffe was my way of railroading myself into a no-other-options situation. Because otherwise, I'd never be able to do it. (RIP, little demon boy.)

[DarthGizka]

One time Uldred managed to convert Irving when the Litany was on cooldown, and that had the same effect as agreeing to annul the Circle (without having to side with the bucketheads).

[Zjarcal]

The one time I did it I simply pretended my warden "forgot" to pick up the lithany of adralla, therefore she was unable to stop the remaining mages from turnining into abominations. With everyone dead you are stuck by default with the Templars.

Pretty simple solution to that dillema for me

[ShadowLordXII]

One playthrough that I did involved a warden who at first sided with the mages, but later agreed with Cullen's assessment. Which caused Wynne to go nuts and attack despite the warden's attempts to calm her and she died.

 

After defeating Uldred and saving Irving, my warden basically handed the remaining mages over to the mercy of the templars just to make sure that there weren't any other blood mages in hiding. As a result, the templars were recruited in place of the mages.

 

So there, that's how you side with the templars without being a cold-blooded violent mass murderer.

[TEWR]

From a realistic point of view, siding with the Templars is the safer course of action. Lore wise Abominations are a threat too great to risk letting loose in the world as they can easily raze villages and even Templar squads are taken down.

 

Gameplay wise Abominations are no more then drunken brutes, with Demons being just one minor notch above that yet still pathetic.

 

Given that the Circle is flooded with Abominations and there's no real way to assess how many Mages have survived, much less to know if they're corrupted (there are ways, but only a select few Mages know), razing the tower to the ground is the pragmatic choice. It comes with a sacrifice because kids are going to die as well, but it's a sensible choice under the circumstances. Regrettable though.

 

But... as it turns out, dozens of Mages survive. You see this with their march out of the Tower. If you look at the survivors in the tower, of which the game does not show many, you can find a few mages. Throw in the random encounter with three mages heading to Redcliffe and it tallies up to a dozen or so survivors in-game, but the cinematic clearly shows more (if someone could post a picture just so we can actually have one, that'd be great).

 

Factor in how siding with the Circle comes with no consequences when from a story standpoint it really should have (blood mages escaping after causing even more chaos in the Circle, abominations posing as normal people and going out on Circle business only to cause chaos, etc) and really siding with the Templars -- while sensible -- ultimately becomes pointless because Bioware screwed the pooch.

 

So I can't convince you to side with the Templars. The game couldn't even uphold that after the quest itself. I've always gone looking for survivors myself, though I roleplay different reasons for some of my Wardens.

[sylvanaerie]

The one time I got the templar achievement, I saved Irving then I think I took the "you can't be sure there aren't any blood mages still among them" option.  You still get Wynne, Irving quietly turns the Circle over for 'inspection' and you lose the Circle option to save Connor/Redcliffe.  In fact, I hadn't realized I didn't have the Circle as an option till the time came to decide what to do with him (I hit Redcliffe right after the Circle).

[Pateu]

Just use Blood Magic.

 

Connor's way less annoying than Isolde.

[DarthGizka]

From a realistic point of view, siding with the Templars is the safer course of action. Lore wise Abominations are a threat too great to risk letting loose in the world as they can easily raze villages and even Templar squads are taken down.

Are you referring to Greagoir's self-serving templar propaganda, per chance?

Greagoir's line is "An unprepared village or town would be devastated should even one abomination chance upon it. We cannot allow it". Directions for the voice actor: "Sounds as if he is trying to convince himself that this is the only way to help people."

The line about templar squads being taken down must be from the swirled crap in the codex. If it were true then you would have to have two templar squads standing behind every mage in the tower, making the whole concept even more nonsensical than it already is (although somewhat more realistic if you consider the power of a mage vs. the bucketheads).

Perhaps worthy of note is Wynne's statement that abominations can only be saved if they let the demon in willingly (like Connor) and that all others can only be killed. There is no other source of information, the bestiary of the codex being what it is.

Be that as it may, the Warden eliminates all demons and overt abominations from the Tower and after that the situation is back to normal.

There is a concentration camp with mages who may or may not be controlled by demons, and there are templars eyeing them suspiciously (and who may or may not be mind-controlled en masse by demons who crossed the weak Veil). Exactly as before.

There and elsewhere are also tranquil, children and Grey Wardens who might get taken over by demons any time without warning, exactly as before. Unless you stipulate that Amalia and Sophia happened to be closet mages, in which case you only have to kill all mages and all tranquil in all of Thedas.

[Mykel54]

I think it is a relatively straighforward decision, it depends mostly on your warden´s view on magic, specifically blood magic.

 

If you are like Alistair and think blood magic is evil and cannot be allowed, then it makes most sense to side with the templars, because letting bloodmages or abominations live is just a too high a risk. This would be the more reasonable choice for a warden mage who is pro-circle and hates bloodmagic, or a noble human that cares about ferelden and does not want to risk future problems with the circle.

 

However if you don´t mind bloodmages (you are one, or a dwarf so are mostly inmune), and did things like spare Avernus, help Kolgrim or accept Caladriu´s offer, then the reasonable thing to do is to: spare the bloodmage girl + side with the mages. This is mostly a warden who cares about ending the blight first and foremost, and not much about the after. So what if there are bloodmages and they later become a problem in the circle? The blight will have been defeated by then.

[DarthGizka]

Someone who thinks that bloodmagic is evil is certainly extremely dangerous, but purging all of them seems hardly an option. Starting with Alistair's plot armour.

[DeathNyx]

If you think Blood Magic is bad why not join them?

[luna1124]

I only sided with the Templar's once, for the achievement.

[DarthGizka]

Mhmm, not really. It's not even made explicit that all remaining mages will be murdered.

 

Getting to kill more things requires a bit more work. Uldred and the bossy abo on the third floor have to be kept alive until they are done with their conversion work. Shah Wyrd needs to be juggled until you've dealt with Petra, Keili and Kinnon, if you want to make it look like an accident. Otherwise they can be fried any time, independent of Yusaris. Although Morrigan can make Wynne go ballistic at the start of the Circle quest, you get to kill more things if you keep Wynne until after the two Vessel of the Spirit encounters (and then take her to the defiling of the Ashes).

 

You can use Flame Blast and Fireball to fish for characters that respond to 'friendly' fire; those who do will burn for a bit, the others won't. Some of the burners may be immortal, though.

 

My plan to of a Sith run through Origin sort of evaporated after played the Darkspawn Chronicles, but part of the research had been done already...

[Dandler]

A lot of the hate for the Templars seems to stem from the fact that they are akin to real-world religious zealots that serve and even kill for a higher power which may or may not be real. If there is indeed a Maker, then the actions of the Templars can arguably be considered 100% justified, where if there is no Maker, they are 100% unjustified. 

 

Because there is no way of knowing which is true is true, we are left with 2 options when it comes to the decision; blindly oppressing Mages or promoting their freedom. If you call it a 50/50 chance of the Maker being real/not real, then either decision can be the pragmatic one. Based on the information the game gives us, it is true that not all Mages are bad. It is also true, however, that it only takes one bad one to lead to disaster.