What I asked is how you intend to protect mages and mundanes from each other and themselves without locking up mages. I'm aware that you replied to my post, but I don't believe you actually answered that question.
I say embrace the magic. Do not outlaw any school of study.
Demonology is too dangerous. Even Spirit Magic increases your risk of going abomination. Explain to me how you expect magic to become less dangerous this way?
And if blood magic is made legal it should still be kept restricted. A mage whose moral character is not completely unbendable learning blood magic could mean controlled minds, blood sacrifices from unwilling donors, and possibly demonology. Do I need to explain why I seek to avoid those? Because if not, I think you need to explain how making them legal would help matters.
And how does opening the Circles to mundanes make magic less dangerous? Much of the point of the Circles is to keep mages away from civilians, because in the end all you can do is minimize the risk of a mage turning rather than eliminating it. Why then would you not want to also minimize the amount of contact that mages have with civilians? (Notice that I'm not arguing to eliminate such contact, since magic is needed for some things and very useful for other, and most mages we've seen are proof you can get to the point where you're almost certainly not going to turn.)
Have Circle towers be places of learning for anyone interested mages and mundanes alike who can come and go as they please.
Now, educating people on the real dangers of magic is wise, but will help less than you think. Especially as far as making mundanes more willing to be around mages. I can't stress enough that mundanes have already worked out a lot of why magic is dangerous, and that most of where they're wrong is in the details. Knowing how much of it they were right about will probably help a bit, partially because some of the accusations of magic the peasants Wynne encounters in Asunder seem to be coincidence rather than sorcery, and also partially because that encounter betrays more fear of trained mages than they deserve even if some nervousness around them is wise. But it won't make them safer from the mages who actually exist among them, nor will it necessarily make the actual mages safer from them; one thing about keeping mages away from mundanes is that it keeps them away from lynch mobs, and teaching mundanes a more accurate picture of the dangers of magic will help with that less than you seem to assume.
Allow mages to join the Templars.
Whoever is supervising the Templars should have (carefully vetted) mage advisors to keep them from losing track of the fact that every one of the Circle's questionable bits needs to serve a purpose. And the Templars should certainly have mages working alongside them... which, if you paid attention in the Mage Origin, and read the Pride Demon Codex you'd realize already happens. But integrating mages fully into the Templars runs the risk of the mages ultimately answering to a mage who sympathizes with their own over the mundanes, the way they do in Tevinter. I'm not saying the mages shouldn't have some ability to check the Templars, because the rest of Thedas demonstrates the risk of Templars not being somewhat answerable to the mages, but allowing mages full membership into the Templars still strikes me as dangerous if that's what you're arguing for.
Have lyrium consumption be done only after the individual is fully knowledgeable of the dangers. Have it be seen as completely voluntary and not a necessary part of being a Templar.
The first sentence of this is wise, and I'd throw in that they should be allowed to judge when they're nearing the point of no return (with the help of others) and try to break the habit.
The second sentence is unwise. Even with their anti-magic, mages are still dangerous to Templars. That danger isn't even limited to killing the Templars: we fight some Templars who Uldred's cabal had taken control of and weaponized in Broken Circle. Allowing people who don't have these powers to serve as Templars is a bad idea, and makes them not only less dangerous to the people they're supposed to fight against but more dangerous to those they're supposed to fight alongside. (Some of whom will be mages if the Templars have any sense at all.)
Give mages the same rights and freedoms as anyone else.
I like the idea of giving everyone equal rights and freedoms. Our world's recent history is essentially the history of everyone becoming more free and more equal, and realizing that fundamentally, we are all the same.
The difficulty is that that realization is at best dangerously oversimplified in any world where some people have dangerous, possibly lethal superpowers and some don't; that is a really big difference that makes the question of whether or not you should have the same freedoms really murky. And if there's legitimate reasons to question whether or not you can control your dangerous superpowers you really can't ask to be given the same freedoms as everyone else, because everyone has some freedoms restricted so that society is able to function and your dangerous superpowers mean that those lesser restrictions aren't safe.
I really have no idea how giving mages the same rights and freedoms as anyone else makes them less dangerous. I'll hear you out if you have an explanation, but I don't expect to buy it.
While this is a wide digression from exiling and not exiling wardens, the basic principle appears similar. So, playing devil's advocate for a moment, I will be afraid of mages. I do not want huge conclaves of them. Better for the world to simply kill them all due to an accident of birth yes?
I didn't mean to imply the way a peasant would deal with his fears is wise, just that he's wise to have those fears.
As for your actual suggestion, in addition to the moral reasons not to do that, they're needed to handle magical threats. Oh, and also this is going to be harder to enforce since no mages will cooperate with it.
But, I am also afraid of the Dalish. They have magic and do not follow the Chantry. Shouldn't we exterminate them too?
Between Zathrian and Velanna... Well, I wouldn't necessarily go that far, since if nothing else they're useful as Warden allies, but it's less clear that you're wrong to argue that I should than I think you were hoping.
And I am afraid of the Grey Wardens. Since I live anywhere but Ferelden, where their butts were already booted once, and since they murdered the Divine, shouldn't we exterminate them? I mean, a sixth blight might never come and likely won't in my lifetime, and if the people of the world got so complacent why hang on to someone who can steal my children and crops "legally." So what's the answer? Extermination of course. Of course, I am also afraid of nugs, and dwarves, and Tevinters and the Qun. So, carrying this to a logical conclusion what is the answer that will make me less afraid? Why extermination of course.
Apart from the Tevinter and Qunari (not to be confused with the Vashoth) that was a wonderful dance around my argument. My argument wasn't to think of everything a mundane could be afraid of and be afraid of that, it was to try and imagine yourself in a scary world with scary forces and think what you would rationally be unable to defend yourself against. A mage who hasn't been trained, and to some degree one who has, is legitimately scary. Being afraid of them is not paranoia, it's common sense.
As for the Wardens, that's not an accident of birth. That's people who Join a strictly regimented organization which needs to exist, and which peasants cannot be allowed to understand. Obviously you're not supposed to think from the point of view of a peasant when thinking of them.
(One thing I will give you is that between the fact that Warden mages can probably be assumed to be trained, and the fact that they are more often surrounded by powerful fighters than normal people, there's no reason the Warden mages should be restricted all that much. Happy?)
The point is this. Using the US as an example, internment camps, gulags, reservations or whatever you want to call them breed only resentment and hatred. During WW II FDR interned the Japanese because of the fear that they would not be loyal. We had no problem with using their young men to fight the war however. Native Americans were forced onto reservations and impoverished because we were afraid of them and wanted their lands. Eventually they were all forced onto some of the most desolate regions in the US. All of this was due to an accident of birth. Of course, the US did not have a chantry preaching hatred of mages and others, but we had similar folk. They were if not literally then figuratively enslaved due to an accident of birth. The list goes on and on across all nations of the world, but the result is always the same. Unjust treatment for an accident of birth breeds anger and resentment. There are far better ways, but frankly with the chantry plying its hate trade none of them will be used because it undermines chantry authority and power.
The thing that the internment camps, reservations, concentration camps, ethnic cleansings, Circles of Magi and all that* have in common is that they're fundamentally based on the premise that those trapped in them are innately different in a way that makes them dangerous. The problem with lumping the Circles in there is that when the Chantry says mages are different, they have a point. I'm not saying preaching actual hatred is a good thing, or that the Circles shouldn't be made comfortable (they especially should not be placed in an area so nasty that they don't see any problem dumping radioactive waste there for money since it's already a shithole, like at least one Native American group tried to do.) But I am arguing that you can't really compare the reservation to the Circle since there's no real reason for the Native Americans to be there at all.
I'm aware that some mages aren't going to like this. That's not news to me. But that's not enough reason not to do it given how many people it protects. And that the mages themselves are on the list given that, again, lynch mobs aren't allowed in. You say there are better ways, but I'm not sure you've offered one.
*Were gulags used for ethnic groups? I thought they were actual prisons. Nasty ones, but prisons nonetheless.
I have never sided with the templars at Kirkwall either.
Well, the Templars at Kirkwall are supposed to be the very worst of the Order, and try to get across that the Templars are not perfect to those who would argue that they are. The last decision in the game in particular is one that doesn't have a lot of moral nuance in it: Meredith is in the wrong. Even her superiors apparently would have called her on the carpet if she hadn't died. The difficulty is that it also shows the very worst of the mages, and provides a long list of good reasons to want mages sequestered and watched. In short, while those Templars are beyond the pale, it shows that the Templars as a whole are arguably justified.
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