646 réponses à ce sujet

[TheRevanchist]

she was also retcon... it´s just about pushin further and further, BioWare had a chance to realize a failures in their path yet failed to do that.

 

I do remember Sarkeesian was judging DA:O based upon the one scene of alienage, despite that it was more about racism and not about misogyny at all, there is lot of SJW´s calling some games sexists, yet failing to realize that there are estabilished lore elements. It´s like to start rewriting a book of history just because you don´t like unequal treatment which happened in the past.

 

Like parts of the Japanese trying to re-write their History books to act like they were the innocent victims of WW2? That they never butchered millions of Chinese during the war?

[NedPepper]

There are no individual Tamassrans, there is no identity within the Qun. EVERYTHING, every aspect of their existence is uniform, done the most logical way. logic implies they believe they have the best way. You do not deviate from the optimal path of doing something.  

And the entire point of Bioware giving us four different characters (Bull, Tallis, Arishok, and Sten) all giving us their own unique interpretation of the Qun is showing us that the lofty uniformed society that eliminates individuality is inherently flawed.  I refuse to believe that Bioware is "retconning".  We just played an entire game where the theme was how many different people interpret faith.  If anything, this makes the Qun more interesting and nuanced.  The POINT is that not every Qunari has the same experience as Sten.  If they did, they probably wouldn't have much use for re-educators to begin with.

[Rifneno]

Like parts of the Japanese trying to re-write their History books to act like they were the innocent victims of WW2? That they never butchered millions of Chinese during the war?

Don't forget the rapes! Japan sure isn't going to remember, so someone has to! Nanking? What's that, some kind of new flavor at Starbucks?!

[MPSai]

I was pretty disappointed with Bull to begin with. I like my Qunari as baffling, insurmountable walls of cultural differences. Bull didn't have to be as densely alien as Sten or the Tal-Vastoth in DA2, but come on. Take out any reference to the Qun and change his model to a human with a horned helmet and his character wouldn't really change at all. 

[KaiserShep]

Well, I did say he was James Vega mixed with a Minotaur.

[Arisugawa]

All this is assuming we are meant to see Sten as a 100% factual narrator on topics of the Qun. I see a lot of people saying "Bioware changed the Qun because Sten said this!" but the problem with that is we're never told that Sten is 100% correct. The problem with taking what Sten says as law is that we just don't know enough about the Qun (even with the WoT book) to make a judgement. Perhaps Sten's role in the Qun is exactly how he said it in Origins: very black and white. We don't know enough about them to say that other roles in the Qun aren't less black and white.

 

I'm not saying one way or another that Bioware changed the Qun, but we can't really say that Sten is the be-all-end-all on the Qun.

 

This is very true, and I think as fans people tend to obsess on a single line of dialogue and take it as 100% immutable fact. Sometimes it is the limitations of the medium, but video game fans tend to

 

• a ) take the first spoken instance of something as canon and anything that contradicts it to be a retcon
• b ) assume that all characters are reliable narrators until proven otherwise.

In the game Tomb Raider Underworld, there's a line of dialogue spoken by Jacqueline Natla to Lara Croft in which Natla declares she killed Richard Croft herself. Several months after release, someone questioned writer Eric Lindstrom about how factual this was. His response was essentially, "That's what Natla said. Is it true or a lie? I cannot answer that as it may become something relevant at a later time."

 

Sten, regardless of how beloved he may be, cannot speak on behalf of the entire Qunari people. In his words, he cautions the Warden not to ask him about the Qun because, "People are not simple. They cannot be summarized for easy reference in the manner of: 'The elves are a lithe, pointy eared people who excel at poverty." And yet, everything Sten says is taken as the foremost authority, as though he is the mouthpiece for every member of the Qun.

 

So when Sten says that women are priests, shopkeepers and farmers, is this his own prejudice speaking? Has he encountered an Aqun-Athlok before? Is it common enough that every Qunari is aware of the practice? Is there unspoken disbelief on the part of the Qunari, where Aqun-Athlok are accepted in their role publicly but resented privately by some? What about those who veer the other direction, men who become shopkeepers or farmers because that is what they are good and they are fine with being treated as women within the Qun? Do they share the same acceptance, or possible quiet resentment?

 

There is no way for Sten to speak to all of this, and his confrontation with the Warden should not be held up as the authority on how all Qunari would have reacted in the same situation. As many others have already said, the Warden never presented herself as a man, and if Bull's take on the Aqun-Athlok is correct, this would have confused Sten if he was expecting a different behavior or if he had never encountered an Aqun-Athlok before and this was literally his first experience with someone born female carrying weapons into battle instead of serving as part of the Ben-Hassrath.

 

It's fascinating to watch the reaction to this (and to a lesser degree, Tallis' involvement as a Ben-Hassrath assassin in Dragon Age II). Rather than considering all of this material as means to learning more about the Qunari, fans seem to want to rage and declare "Retcon!" and "Contradiction!" instead of accepting that the truth is seldom a bold line that is never smudged or blurred into the various spectrum of colors around it.

[Iakus]

So....what about Tallis then?

 

Just a thought, but she is a member of the Qun, and is a woman who fights.

But fighting is not her main purpose.  She can do so if she has to, but it is not seen as her "role".  She is not a professional fighter.  In fact, she preferred taking nonviolent approaches in MOTA

 

And WOT also tells us that Qunari will perform taks outside their roles if need be.  A woman will fight or a man will farm.  But only if it's absolutely necessary, and it is commonly believed that they will never be as effective in that role.

 

Not necessarily.

"Wishing to be a man" is pointless if one still identifies as a woman, as Sten observes of the Warden and Wynne. Their problem according the Qun is that they are women trying to fill a man's role as women. That's futility in Sten's eyes. They are women wishing to be men. By contrast, Krem is a man acting and living as a man, having discarded his original gender.

Except that's exactly what Sten is talking about, discarding an original gender (or "role" I suppose) and taking up another  Not just "being one thing and doing another" but becoming something else.

 

He likened it to jobs in Thedas:  the farmer who wished to become a merchant, the merchant who wants to become a noble, the noble who wants to be a warrior.  To Sten, the Qun doesn't allow for such changes:  you are who you are meant to be.  Trying to be anything else means not achieving your potential, which only leads to frustration.  It is the "certainty" of the Qun. 

 

Under the Qun, you can' t change what you were born to be.  There'd be a lot less saarabas otherwise.

[Rifneno]

If only Sten were just a character being written by authors who knew he was the only source of information on the Qun, and knew how players would take his information... if only... but sadly, Sten is a real person so the flaw of him not being able to speak on anyone's behalf but his own is an excellent point.

[myahele]

I remember someone saying the Qun is like MEs Justicar. With so muchmuch complex rules that haven't even been reveiled yet it's easy for the writers to add whatever convoluted rule they want in futures installments

[Iakus]

I was pretty disappointed with Bull to begin with. I like my Qunari as baffling, insurmountable walls of cultural differences. Bull didn't have to be as densely alien as Sten or the Tal-Vastoth in DA2, but come on. Take out any reference to the Qun and change his model to a human with a horned helmet and his character wouldn't really change at all. 

I do like that the Qunari are not this monolothic hive-mind and there are those who may have doubts about the Qun, or differing interpretations of it, or simply live ordinary lives under it. 

 

But the impression I always got about the Qun was that it had so much certainty.  It was full of absolutes with no allowing for change.  The ultimate Rule of Law.  There is complexity, but no chaos. 

[Eterna]

This is not how it came across from Sten.

 

No it works because the Warden considers herself female thus it makes zero sense to Sten. 

[kyles3]

I do like that the Qunari are not this monolothic hive-mind and there are those who may have doubts about the Qun, or differing interpretations of it, or simply lie ordinary lives under it. 

 

But the impression I always got about the Qun was that it had so much certainty.  It was full of absolutes with no allowing for change.  The ultimate Rule of Law.  There is complexity, but no chaos. 

 

I think Bull's meant to illustrate that the Qun doesn't make people any more infallible than the Chantry. Qunari are every bit as likely to fail to live up to the ideals of their religion as humans. Wherever you have people, you have chaos.

[Lady Mutare]

Seekers are a secret police for the Chantry arent they? I mean you break down exactly what their purpose is. No different than Ben-Has.

[Heimdall]

But fighting is not her main purpose.  She can do so if she has to, but it is not seen as her "role".  She is not a professional fighter.  In fact, she preferred taking nonviolent approaches in MOTA
 
And WOT also tells us that Qunari will perform taks outside their roles if need be.  A woman will fight or a man will farm.  But only if it's absolutely necessary, and it is commonly believed that they will never be as effective in that role.
 

Except that's exactly what Sten is talking about, discarding an original gender (or "role" I suppose) and taking up another  Not just "being one thing and doing another" but becoming something else.
 
He likened it to jobs in Thedas:  the farmer who wished to become a merchant, the merchant who wants to become a noble, the noble who wants to be a warrior.  To Sten, the Qun doesn't allow for such changes:  you are who you are meant to be.  Trying to be anything else means not achieving your potential, which only leads to frustration.  It is the "certainty" of the Qun. 
 
Under the Qun, you can' t change what you were born to be.  There'd be a lot less saarabas otherwise.

Unless Krem was born to be a man, plumbing not withstanding. My use of "original gender" was out of place. Krem IS a man under the Qun, not a woman acting as a man. Sten is talking about women, trying to act as men. Krem doesn't fit that definition.

Role and gender aren't the same thing. Sten talks about being unable to change roles.

[Rifneno]

I do like that the Qunari are not this monolothic hive-mind and there are those who may have doubts about the Qun, or differing interpretations of it, or simply lie ordinary lives under it. 
 
But the impression I always got about the Qun was that it had so much certainty.  It was full of absolutes with no allowing for change.  The ultimate Rule of Law.  There is complexity, but no chaos.

Yes, they kind of are a monolothic hive-mind. Because as soon as you start to think even a tiny bit outside of the accepted way, it's off to brainwashing camp with you. Ben-Hassrath are less effected by this because they live outside Qunari lands, must fit in with other cultures, and can't feasibly be sent off to brainwashing camp when they stray like a normal Qunari does.

[Bladenite1481]

This is very true, and I think as fans people tend to obsess on a single line of dialogue and take it as 100% immutable fact. Sometimes it is the limitations of the medium, but video game fans tend to

 

• a ) take the first spoken instance of something as canon and anything that contradicts it to be a retcon
• b ) assume that all characters are reliable narrators until proven otherwise.

In the game Tomb Raider Underworld, there's a line of dialogue spoken by Jacqueline Natla to Lara Croft in which Natla declares she killed Richard Croft herself. Several months after release, someone questioned writer Eric Lindstrom about how factual this was. His response was essentially, "That's what Natla said. Is it true or a lie? I cannot answer that as it may become something relevant at a later time."

 

Sten, regardless of how beloved he may be, cannot speak on behalf of the entire Qunari people. In his words, he cautions the Warden not to ask him about the Qun because, "People are not simple. They cannot be summarized for easy reference in the manner of: 'The elves are a lithe, pointy eared people who excel at poverty." And yet, everything Sten says is taken as the foremost authority, as though he is the mouthpiece for every member of the Qun.

 

So when Sten says that women are priests, shopkeepers and farmers, is this his own prejudice speaking? Has he encountered an Aqun-Athlok before? Is it common enough that every Qunari is aware of the practice? Is there unspoken disbelief on the part of the Qunari, where Aqun-Athlok are accepted in their role publicly but resented privately by some? What about those who veer the other direction, men who become shopkeepers or farmers because that is what they are good and they are fine with being treated as women within the Qun? Do they share the same acceptance, or possible quiet resentment?

 

There is no way for Sten to speak to all of this, and his confrontation with the Warden should not be held up as the authority on how all Qunari would have reacted in the same situation. As many others have already said, the Warden never presented herself as a man, and if Bull's take on the Aqun-Athlok is correct, this would have confused Sten if he was expecting a different behavior or if he had never encountered an Aqun-Athlok before and this was literally his first experience with someone born female carrying weapons into battle instead of serving as part of the Ben-Hassrath.

 

It's fascinating to watch the reaction to this (and to a lesser degree, Tallis' involvement as a Ben-Hassrath assassin in Dragon Age II). Rather than considering all of this material as means to learning more about the Qunari, fans seem to want to rage and declare "Retcon!" and "Contradiction!" instead of accepting that the truth is seldom a bold line that is never smudged or blurred into the various spectrum of colors around it.

My issue with this is Sten is now an Arishok, a commander of his people, the body of the Qun. Bull is a spy, someone trained to say the right things and get on your good graces. Not to mention his own former friends call him soft and say they are worried about him because of the company he keeps and the life he lives. If I had to select one of them only to believe , it would be Sten. 

 

And if we say that Sten doesn't know everything then neither does Bull and that further paints what he says with a bit of skepticism. Being a good liar and a spy, what is to say he did not invent it all up? 

 

What Sten had said, stood up with what he learned in DA2 with the Arishok and the Qunari there. What Bull says only he can back up so far. So the only thing we could say if we question both Bull and Sten is that none of it is truly correct and it is all suspect to interpretation. 

[Iakus]

Yes, they kind of are a monolothic hive-mind. Because as soon as you start to think even a tiny bit outside of the accepted way, it's off to brainwashing camp with you. Ben-Hassrath are less effected by this because they live outside Qunari lands, must fit in with other cultures, and can't feasibly be sent off to brainwashing camp when they stray like a normal Qunari does.

If they were a monolithic hive-mind, then only the viddithari would require "re-education"

 

And Iron Bull was Ben Hassrath, and did submit himself to re educaton

[Arisugawa]

My issue with this is Sten is now an Arishok, a commander of his people, the body of the Qun. Bull is a spy, someone trained to say the right things and get on your good graces. Not to mention his own former friends call him soft and say they are worried about him because of the company he keeps and the life he lives. If I had to select one of them only to believe , it would be Sten. 

 

And if we say that Sten doesn't know everything then neither does Bull and that further paints what he says with a bit of skepticism. Being a good liar and a spy, what is to say he did not invent it all up? 

 

What Sten had said, stood up with what he learned in DA2 with the Arishok and the Qunari there. What Bull says only he can back up so far. So the only thing we could say if we question both Bull and Sten is that none of it is truly correct and it is all suspect to interpretation. 

 

1) Sten was not the Arishok when he said it. Even if he is the Arishok now, the Arishok is one part of the Qunari leadership, not the entirety of it. And even then, in matters of placing someone within their role, I believe the Ariqun will trump the Arishok in matters of where an Aqun-Athlok fits. If the Ariqun determine that an Aqun-Athlok should be a warrior, the Arishok would abide by that decision.

 

2) Exactly EVERYTHING is suspect. That's my point. You should not take any statement made by any character with 100% accuracy or certainty. Can Bull be off in his description, or in his interpretation of how Qunari view the Aqun-Athlok. Absolutely. Is he lying? I see no reason for him to do that, but it's always possible.

 

Regardless, there is no reason to consider Sten the authority on this, particularly at the time it was said. You seem to be approaching this from the perspective that he knew everything then, and not only is there no possbility that he didn't know everything, but there is no possiblity that his own perspectives might be changed.

[DuskWanderer]

I think it's a huge retcon, plus a desperate attempt to make the Qun look good. 

[Bladenite1481]

1) Sten was not the Arishok when he said it. Even if he is the Arishok now, the Arishok is one part of the Qunari leadership, not the entirety of it. And even then, in matters of placing someone within their role, I believe the Ariqun will trump the Arishok in matters of where an Aqun-Athlok fits. If the Ariqun determine that an Aqun-Athlok should be a warrior, the Arishok would abide by that decision.

 

2) Exactly EVERYTHING is suspect. That's my point. You should not take any statement made by any character with 100% accuracy or certainty. Can Bull be off in his description, or in his interpretation of how Qunari view the Aqun-Athlok. Absolutely. Is he lying? I see no reason for him to do that, but it's always possible.

 

Regardless, there is no reason to consider Sten the authority on this, particularly at the time it was said. You seem to be approaching this from the perspective that he knew everything then, and not only is there no possbility that he didn't know everything, but there is no possiblity that his own perspectives might be changed

No, he is not the entire leadership but the Arishok is the commander, highest ranking general and leader of the entire military branch of the Qunari. He is also part of their Triumverate, which is their entire governing body. He governs all of their military might including soldiers, so it seems like he would know who could and could not be a soldier. I am not interested in that line of thought, however.  

 

So if we say that their greatest military leader is not the authority, then there is no reason to consider Bull the authority either. Basically if we question either, we question both. That is where I am coming at this from. So basically, if it's not a retconning then the Qun is a much softer and less rigid philosophy than was originally stated. If there are certain rules in one body and not the other then that means there is dissension and separate disciplines or types of Qun. If that is true then who makes the new rules and why? Different Tamasran maybe?

[Bladenite1481]

Sten is talking about women who fight. Iron Bull is talking about Krem, a transexual, a woman who identifies as a man.. They are considered to be two different things.
 
 
Outside of Tallis, because TALLIS and FELICIA DAY and QUIRKY.

I would buy that if there were options to say otherwise. There are no options like that and I seriously doubt DAO had software to make a guess about such things. Basically, BW may have always had this idea for the Qun but didn't write it in to their original Dragon Age game. I suspect its less of a retconning lore thing and more of a "DAO was already a risk and they didn't want to tip the boat" kind of thing.  Now they are less apprehensive about what they do. Which is a good thing imo, they aren't afraid to step outside of the box anymore and I hope the trend continues to include more. 

[rigron]

Okay, this is a long stretch, but maybe it has something to do with Krem acting completely like a guy?

 

In one of the Skyhold conversations with the Iron Bull and his Chargers, he teases Krem with something like ". . .this is why the Qun doesn't let women fight". So what I gather is, the Qun doesn't want women, who act/live like women, to fight. However, it's okay if it's for a woman who acts and lives completely like a man to fight.

 

Nop, he actually teases Cassandra and it is in the first cutscene you have when speaking with Bull after the Here lies the Abyss quest.

[Giantdeathrobot]

And the entire point of Bioware giving us four different characters (Bull, Tallis, Arishok, and Sten) all giving us their own unique interpretation of the Qun is showing us that the lofty uniformed society that eliminates individuality is inherently flawed.  I refuse to believe that Bioware is "retconning".  We just played an entire game where the theme was how many different people interpret faith.  If anything, this makes the Qun more interesting and nuanced.  The POINT is that not every Qunari has the same experience as Sten.  If they did, they probably wouldn't have much use for re-educators to begin with.

 

Yeah, I feel that people took everything Sten said at face value, and anything that strays from it is heresy

 

The Qun is a rigid philosohy, but by no means a monolithic bloc made of robots. They wouldn't actually need re-educators if that was the case. Tallis is a Ben-Hassarath who fights. The Arishok directly contradicted the Qun by launching his assault despite being one of their three leaders. They are as faillible as anyone else.

 

Iron Bull has gone native in all but names, half the Ben-Hassarath think he's Tal-Vashoth already, and he frankly is. I'd take almost everything he says about the Qun with a grain of salt. He is explicitely the best liar they ever had, and now he's been offf in the rest of Thedas for years. One thing's for sure, there is absolutely no way in hell the actual Qunari would accept Dalish's ''bow'', and thus IB's statement that Krem would fit right in the Qun could be seen as wishful thinking at best, lying to others and himself at worst. Bull is not reliable because, hell, no character is 100% reliable about anything.

 

Sten was instructed in ''his place in the world''- this does not mean he knows the Qun inside and out, just the parts than a Sten is supposed to know. I don't undertand this notion that everything he says is 100 immutable, infaillible truth. He says himself that other Qunari could be very different from him. Guess what, both Tallis and IB are, and so are their perspective on the Qun. I have no idea how this is a retcon.