Celene is too weak to change anything gaspard may not be progressive but if you are looking for savior you won't find that here he is at least competent and strong enough to push his goals.
Wrong. Celena just does not want to change anything by force and understand forced change to a county by a minority has no merit. Gaspard just want's to turn Orlais into a war machine. Not a lot of saving in that.
Wrong. Celena just does not want to change anything by force and understand forced change to a county by a minority has no merit. Gaspard just want's to turn Orlais into a war machine. Not a lot of saving in that.
Yep you are wrong i agree 
Celene can't change anything because she is weak she already proved that she is no behlen... Yep it doesn't mean it is bad we for other nations well sure but not for orlais...
So to shift this on topic, I think Gaspard's military outlook and hawkish attitude are positives, not negatives. And everyone bashing him as a man who is out to get Ferelden are missing a key part of Gaspard's outlook, in my opinion. That part is that he thinks Celene has led Orlais down such a weakening path that war is the best way to unite everyone and make Orlais strong again. It's not about Ferelden(though I'm sure that Gaspard wants Orlais' old territory back), it's about Orlais. Gaspard loves his country, and doesn't want to see it fall because a weak monarch let the country stagnate and wither. And regardless the fact that the Civil War has occurred means that Ferelden is safe from Orlais for quite some time. As much as Gaspard favors invasion, he's not a fool when it comes to military strategy. And any decent general would know that Orlais' weakened forces would stand little chance of success.
True, but he might not have a choice but to invade if the nobles demand him to do so.
After all if the nobles don't support him then he isn't going to be Emperor for very long.
I think both Gaspar and Celene are veil and vile and need to meet the executioner's ax.
Not sure if you forgot but there is a war going on with mages and templar, there is also a breach in the sky with demons. I say Morrigan knowledge is highly valuable at this point of time. Maybe she was not the best at social parties in DA:O but with time she would learn what she needed, Morrigan excel at surviving.
Which would make Morrigan's value... based on her exclusive knowledge, and not her skill sets. Never mind that there's no clear relevance of Morrigan's (well, Flemeth's) knowledge and resolving the mage-templar crisis (which Celene is indifferent to and considers a lesser priority).
And no, 'excel at surviving' does not mean 'excellent advisor material.'
The book only covers part of Celene reign, maybe people should not forget that. A reform is suppose to be a gradual thing, you do not see big changes like a radical movement. IRL how much time to you think it takes to change a culture mentally, 20 years?
Less, depending on the circumstances. Nations have fallen, ideologies have risen into prominence, and genocidal maniacs have enforced their views in far lesser periods of time.
Of course, before a reform changes a culture mentally in twenty years it generally has to change something else now to enforce new social mores in the present. What has Celene done that will actually change social values? Where's her equivalent to the Civil Rights Act, land reform, and so on?
Celene's approach to reforms is based on incrementalism, but is also undercut by her inclination to rollback her own promises and initiatives or counter them outright when inconvenient. This isn't a case of 'give two, take back one,' this is 'let's have a few smart elves in university, but raze the alienage to show them who's boss.' Which, pray tell, is the one more likely to influence standards and treatment of elves in the lifetimes of all involved?
Also there are even evidences of her support of Justinia V in favor of the mages. There is also a talk with Celene and Leliana about rumors of her elven favoritism. About her minor polices to help elves and others, I really do not see where did you got that. Can you source in the book what were her polices during her reign? The only thing there, is this.
That's rather the point, actually. All we have is 'this', and that 'this' is that we (in and out of universe) have no major policies, reforms, or successes of Celene's to point to. Claims that Celene is an accomplished leader and reformer will naturally need to support their own arguments with (a) accomplishments and (
reforms. As much as the writers tailored Celene's preferences to appeal to the cultural norms of liberalism, appeals to western sensibilities are not a substitute for results.
Thanks to The Masked Empire we know that Celene's elven favoritism was not only an indulgence reflecting Celene's relationship with Briala, but we also know it was half-hearted and lacking anything approaching conviction. We also know that her position on the mage-templar conflict was not on the basis of 'pro-mage' but rather a difference with Gaspard on how to manage the crisis. Celene wished to let the Chantry handle it even as it brewed on Orlesian lands, and Gaspard believed that the monarch should have intervened in a dispute on Orlesian soil. Neither were particularly 'pro' or 'anti' either side, reflecting a deliberate de-coupling of the Orlesian civil war plot from the mage-templar conflict.
I really doubt that is all of it, If Celene and Briala were doing nothing major to help the elven people over the years, why would that even affect the stability of Orlais. All of this things are in the book but reforms can fail too of course.
Hate to break it to you, but easing admissions standards is neither a major reform or a major success for national policy. Or rather, if admissions reforms constitutes a major success, that's more of a condemnation than merit.
Moreover, you're conflating effectiveness of reforms with political impact- always a bad assumption. Celene and Briala's results for the elves are irrelevant to how many people they offend or aggrevate in the process. A failed reform effort can quite conceivably help no one and aggravate a good many, while a successful one can help some and make no enemies.
And even all that is ignoring that 'elven reforms' isn't the rallying cry or primary cause for the civil war. Gaspard's real grievance isn't what Celene is doing for the elves or university, but what she is not doing: being assertive, particularly in foreign affairs, and in doing so perpetuating a sense of Orlesian decline. Celene's claims to soft-power and discretion might have weight if they actually produced visible successes, such as if she had regained Ferelden by marriage to Cailan... but she didn't. You can disagree with Gaspard's metrics for 'good' leadership all you want, but you also need to produce results to satisfy people who aren't western liberals in sensibility.
If you read my other posts in this topic, I said that I believe that the elven people future is not with the humans, Celene intentions to help them ended in Halamshiral and my vote goes to Briala.
Briala isn't a secessionist, but your opinion is nice as well.
The problem with that is that Gaspard stated in the book that he wants to invade other countries to unit Orlais and not to illuminated others with his country ideals. Actually Gaspard could be a lot better than Celene if it was not for his damn chevalier honor. He was trained by the same people in the Game and was good at it. The situation in Halamshiral, the way he used a bard to do his dirty work and lure Michel way during the hunt.
Gaspard let his honor get in the way of doing what is needed, that is why Celene is still alive. Actually I changed my mind Celene and Gaspard are both incompetent assholes.
That's nice, but irrelevant to the point of what you quoted.
Calling a Celene an incompetent ******* at the end does undercut your argument that she was an effective ruler, though.
I personally am not of the opinion that great war leaders make lousy diplomats, rulers, or leaders during peace time, so long as they are able to govern without the constant need to use force, and use war as a LAST resort to solving problems rather than the first.
So to shift this on topic, I think Gaspard's military outlook and hawkish attitude are positives, not negatives. And everyone bashing him as a man who is out to get Ferelden are missing a key part of Gaspard's outlook, in my opinion. That part is that he thinks Celene has led Orlais down such a weakening path that war is the best way to unite everyone and make Orlais strong again. It's not about Ferelden(though I'm sure that Gaspard wants Orlais' old territory back), it's about Orlais. Gaspard loves his country, and doesn't want to see it fall because a weak monarch let the country stagnate and wither. And regardless the fact that the Civil War has occurred means that Ferelden is safe from Orlais for quite some time. As much as Gaspard favors invasion, he's not a fool when it comes to military strategy. And any decent general would know that Orlais' weakened forces would stand little chance of success.
Celene chose her lover over her country.
Then she chose her power over her lover.
Her lover was easily her superior in nearly every aspect of The Game.
She insulted her lover and didn't kill her immediately (though arguably she DOES try in the Varterral fight). Then she's all shocked that her lover screws her over.
She tosses aside her only other advocate for maintaining his honor right after telling him his honor is the thing that makes him special.
The girl is a pampered idiot playing at ruling. Things got serious and now she's failing across the board.
Inquisition is her last chance to show she's got what it takes to rule her kingdom or I'll be chosing Gaspard.
Which would make Morrigan's value... based on her exclusive knowledge, and not her skill sets. Never mind that there's no clear relevance of Morrigan's (well, Flemeth's) knowledge and resolving the mage-templar crisis (which Celene is indifferent to and considers a lesser priority).
And no, 'excel at surviving' does not mean 'excellent advisor material.'
Less, depending on the circumstances. Nations have fallen, ideologies have risen into prominence, and genocidal maniacs have enforced their views in far lesser periods of time.
Of course, before a reform changes a culture mentally in twenty years it generally has to change something else now to enforce new social mores in the present. What has Celene done that will actually change social values? Where's her equivalent to the Civil Rights Act, land reform, and so on?
Celene's approach to reforms is based on incrementalism, but is also undercut by her inclination to rollback her own promises and initiatives or counter them outright when inconvenient. This isn't a case of 'give two, take back one,' this is 'let's have a few smart elves in university, but raze the alienage to show them who's boss.' Which, pray tell, is the one more likely to influence standards and treatment of elves in the lifetimes of all involved?
That's rather the point, actually. All we have is 'this', and that 'this' is that we (in and out of universe) have no major policies, reforms, or successes of Celene's to point to. Claims that Celene is an accomplished leader and reformer will naturally need to support their own arguments with (a) accomplishments and (
Thanks to The Masked Empire we know that Celene's elven favoritism was not only an indulgence reflecting Celene's relationship with Briala, but we also know it was half-hearted and lacking anything approaching conviction. We also know that her position on the mage-templar conflict was not on the basis of 'pro-mage' but rather a difference with Gaspard on how to manage the crisis. Celene wished to let the Chantry handle it even as it brewed on Orlesian lands, and Gaspard believed that the monarch should have intervened in a dispute on Orlesian soil. Neither were particularly 'pro' or 'anti' either side, reflecting a deliberate de-coupling of the Orlesian civil war plot from the mage-templar conflict.
Hate to break it to you, but easing admissions standards is neither a major reform or a major success for national policy. Or rather, if admissions reforms constitutes a major success, that's more of a condemnation than merit.
Moreover, you're conflating effectiveness of reforms with political impact- always a bad assumption. Celene and Briala's results for the elves are irrelevant to how many people they offend or aggrevate in the process. A failed reform effort can quite conceivably help no one and aggravate a good many, while a successful one can help some and make no enemies.
And even all that is ignoring that 'elven reforms' isn't the rallying cry or primary cause for the civil war. Gaspard's real grievance isn't what Celene is doing for the elves or university, but what she is not doing: being assertive, particularly in foreign affairs, and in doing so perpetuating a sense of Orlesian decline. Celene's claims to soft-power and discretion might have weight if they actually produced visible successes, such as if she had regained Ferelden by marriage to Cailan... but she didn't. You can disagree with Gaspard's metrics for 'good' leadership all you want, but you also need to produce results to satisfy people who aren't western liberals in sensibility.
Briala isn't a secessionist, but your opinion is nice as well.
That's nice, but irrelevant to the point of what you quoted.
Calling a Celene an incompetent ******* at the end does undercut your argument that she was an effective ruler, though.
Morrigan is a excellent adviser if the problem is about magic. Which it is at the moment in the game.
Celene did tried to do it and her Civil Rights Act is starting to gain form when she pushed the university to accept people without a social rank, maybe if that worked she could expand the idea to other locals but yes I agree that she fail after Halamshiral.
Sure but reforms and political impacts are connect, I am not saying that the reform worked because of course it did not but it is evident that both were doing something, maybe it is indeed ineffective now but the base work for a reform was there.
Actually IRL people that were oppressed did things even before any civil rights act being in place, most of the time that comes after.
About Briala, well she could turn into a secessionist after what happen in the end, she sure not helping Orlais at the moment, divide and conquer anyone?
As for the rest overall I never said she is the most competent person to rule Orlais, I think Celene is competent to a degree, the same goes for Gaspard. Evidences of that is she gaining and staying on throne since sixteen, without an army to backing her up, nobody find about Briala in a country like Orlais and surviving and rebuild after the war with Gaspard.
I quote your progressive imperialism, like liberal interventionism in regards to Gaspard, which he does not support.
I dislike Celene and Gaspard and both made mistakes but saying one is better that the other is just misguided, yes people have preferences and that is fine and dandy but both had their incompetent moments and disgrace behavior in the book.
Well, I guess that's what I get for the effort. I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything more.
Well, I guess that's what I get for the effort. I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything more.
If this is directed to me, it is not like I made you do it.
If this is directed to me, it is not like I made you do it.
And no one was suggesting you did.
And no one was suggesting you did.
That remark was quite pointless than but sure whatever you say.
That remark was quite pointless than but sure whatever you say.
There was a point, and your response just vindicated it in retrospect. Thanks, I suppose.
Ja.
The agreement at the end of TME if you recall.
The duel of champions.
Gaspard rightfully should be Emperor by this point.
Celene was the mook who tried to renege on the agreement and knife him after Gaspard won and got back handed for her trouble.
I laughed while reading that part. She thinks she's such a clever, subtle badass all this time and Gaspard, a man with a sword through him moments before, easily disarms her and knocks her down. Embarrassing. Apparently all her skills were in her magic rings. Just like Sauron.
There's a saying about stopped clocks...
Churchill was regarded as an unstable warmonger for most of his career. Nobody wanted to hear what he had to say about Nazi Germany because he had said that about basically every other country. He was one of the gung-ho imperialist Cabinet members that helped push for an aggressive policy in Europe before the First World War, a policy that by the 1930s was seen by many Britons as having precipitated an unnecessary conflict that caused the deaths of millions. He helped spark a civil war in Ireland with similar results. His time in the wilderness was marked by further apocalyptic claims, none of which came to fruition. And his postwar career was marked by embarrassing foreign-policy missteps, especially on decolonization, in which he insisted on viewing basically all the autonomy/independence movements as implacable enemies of Anglo-Saxon Civilization.
Churchill was right about Nazi Germany, yes. And that correct diagnosis does him some credit...but only some.
Also, it'd be a farce to refer to Churchill as a military leader whose warnings were ill heeded by the civilian cohort. Churchill's military service was basically at the subaltern level: he had no experience making strategy. When he ascended to the Cabinet and became First Lord of the Admiralty, he showed just how horrifically bad his strategic judgment actually was. He abandoned his Cabinet post to play at soldiers with the Royal Marines during the siege of Antwerp in the fall of 1914, an utterly pointless posting for British troops that was compounded by his personal presence on the ground instead of in London directing the activities of the Royal Navy worldwide. (At the time, German U-boats were wiping out big chunks of the Grand Fleet's battle line.) He then implemented a blockade against the neutral Ottoman Empire that helped drive that country into war with Britain, and followed it up with the bizarre, foolish, and costly Straits project that culminated in the bloodletting of Gallipoli and the end of his Admiralty career.
This was not a military resume that would inspire confidence, much less give Churchill any real authority on military matters as a political leader. Churchill was not right about Hitler because of his career in the Sudan and his colossal screwups at the Admiralty: he was right about Hitler because he was a war hawk who denounced basically everybody in the same fashion, and was therefore bound to be right about somebody. (Churchill, interestingly, thought Mussolini was a great Italian leader, and praised Fascism quite a lot...before Mussolini showed himself to be Hitler's ally in the late 1930s.)
EDIT: To be clear, I don't think that military experience and political/diplomatic skill are mutually exclusive. Many soldiers can do quite well as political leaders or diplomats. For example, the American presidents Grant and Eisenhower, both former generals, are highly regarded. Historically, most kings also fall into this category. Military-leaders-as-diplomats also have long pedigrees: the American Marshall, the Prussians Alvensleben and Manteuffel, the Frenchman Caulaincourt, the Austrian Schwarzenberg. I simply consider Churchill to be a startlingly poor example of the type...actually, I don't consider him to qualify for the type at all.
I just want to add, I'm very impressed by your historical knowledge and perspective.
I'm likely not alone in the fact that I dislike "Pick Jackass A or Jackass B" choices in Dragon Age games that seem to be a recurring theme in some aspects. For once I'd like to take a neutral option and say "neither". I get that they are supposed to be compelling and the whole 'consequences' shtick, but surely there has to be someone in all of the country better qualified than either of them, especially if the choice or major influence in the matter will undoubtedly come down to the Inquisitor's judgement.
And I highly doubt a third option would consist of siding with the Elves/Commoners and establishing something new altogether, as something as that caliber would ultimately hinder the additional troops required for fighting the demon hordes, which is likely the Inquisitor's only reason for being involved in the first place.
But then we'd have a messy French Revolution on our hands, which is both ironic and incredibly accurate.
I'm likely not alone in the fact that I dislike "Pick Jackass A or Jackass B" choices in Dragon Age games that seem to be a recurring theme in some aspects. For once I'd like to take a neutral option and say "neither". I get that they are supposed to be compelling and the whole 'consequences' shtick, but surely there has to be someone in all of the country better qualified than either of them, especially if the choice or major influence in the matter will undoubtedly come down to the Inquisitor's judgement.
And I highly doubt a third option would consist of siding with the Elves/Commoners and establishing something new altogether, as something as that caliber would ultimately hinder the additional troops required for fighting the demon hordes, which is likely the Inquisitor's only reason for being involved in the first place.
But then we'd have a messy French Revolution on our hands, which is both ironic and incredibly accurate.
I was hoping we could pick up deserters from both sides as they abandon this insignificant spat in droves, but going by the various footage of gameplay in the Emerald Graves it seems the primary "deserter faction" has gone full Cerberus.
For me, Celene is win-win. If she's competent, Orlais will be less likely to attack the rest of Thedas when it becomes strong again. If she's not, Orlais will hopefully remain weak and divided, thus greatly hampering its ability to attack the rest of Thedas.
For me, Celene is win-win. If she's competent, Orlais will be less likely to attack the rest of Thedas when it becomes strong again. If she's not, Orlais will hopefully remain weak and divided, thus greatly hampering its ability to attack the rest of Thedas.
I thought when it comes to choosing the next ruler for Orlais people should worry about who is competent enough to lend aid to the Inquisition and the fate of this nation, not the fate of other nations once Orlais regain its strength.
I find it funny and understandable why a lot of people are not too fond of Orlais. However beside Orlais there are other greater threats that threaten every human nation of Thedas.
Guest_StreetMagic_*
For me, Celene is win-win. If she's competent, Orlais will be less likely to attack the rest of Thedas when it becomes strong again. If she's not, Orlais will hopefully remain weak and divided, thus greatly hampering its ability to attack the rest of Thedas.
Kind of how I see it.
I don't really care about Orlais so much as I do everybody else.
Yep you are wrong i agree
Celene can't change anything because she is weak she already proved that she is no behlen... Yep it doesn't mean it is bad we for other nations well sure but not for orlais...
Forcing change by a minority cause bloody wars. How would it help if she forced these changes?
Kind of how I see it.
I don't really care about Orlais so much as I do everybody else.
But won't this weakness pave the way for Tevinter and Par Volen?
Guest_StreetMagic_*
But won't this weakness pave the way for Tevinter and Par Volen?
They'll kill each other for awhile longer. Hopefully.
But won't this weakness pave the way for Tevinter and Par Volen?
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