1570 réponses à ce sujet

[GoldenGail3]

Did a Blight start between the time you played Adamant and the time you finished off Cory? It didn't in my game, I'm just curious if you had a different outcome, because if you didn't, then this argument doesn't really hold a lot of water. It's been a day or two, but I don't recall telling them that they could never come back. I do recall that Cory was an imminent threat. Once that's removed, it's an open book for rather they stay exiled.

PS: Before we get to the "but there are darkspawn raids" argument, there have been darkspawn raids since there have been darkspawn, and that isn't always a precursor to a Blight, it's a raid to find suitable females for broodmothers, for example.

Your right; but it doesn't mean I can't be mad over it. Lol. I'll get over it; and don't brag about it.

(And I'm leaving this debate gracefully.)

[DDJ]

Very well thought out and interesting.  However, none of this will build a shred of loyalty to an Order for someone who did not want in in the first place.  Not that the Wardens care of course, but it seems that they open themselves up to a lot of problems by this secrecy.  

 

I fully agree. If it were not for the secrecy, bad political decisions wouldn't have endangered Ferelden they way they did. For instance, Loghain would never have left the Wardens to die in Ostagar and the civil war would've been avoided.

 

This is absolutely correct.  One of the many things that troubles me about the Wardens is how they cling to secrecy like a leech.  And yet they never seem to learn anything from it.  Wasn't it Einstein who said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  Yet they always seem surprised that characters react as they do.  Perhaps that is the second sign of insanity.

 

By the by, I seem to recall in one of the first two books the statement that the Wardens know where all the Old Gods are.  So they know what countries they are likely to surface in.  Given their "we live to stop the blight" philosophy, just what are they doing in these other countries where it is unlikely a blight will surface other than maintaining their own political power?  The more I study them the less I like this group necessary or not.  If Alastair is a fair example and he became king, within ten years he offers sanctuary to the mages knowing that the Mage - Templar War is going on then does absolutely nothing to protect either them or his people.  This is troubling to me.  And when you consider Fiona's admonition not to trust the Wardens, it appears that they are far less than they should be.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

By the by, I seem to recall in one of the first two books the statement that the Wardens know where all the Old Gods are.  So they know what countries they are likely to surface in.  Given their "we live to stop the blight" philosophy, just what are they doing in these other countries where it is unlikely a blight will surface other than maintaining their own political power?

Part of it is because the Deep Roads stretch from everywhere to everywhere, allowing the darkspawn to theoretically hit anywhere. They know where the Archdemon is likely to hit, but not where it's going to. And then there's the minor darkspawn raids, for which Grey Wardens are nonessential but useful. And of course having branches in every country means reserves in case of disaster. But yeah, yeah for all they say they're politically neutral I think that it's also partially maintaining their own political power. I'm not denying they're sketchy, merely that they're worse than not having Wardens and that there's any system that can be set up to replace them. (Yet.) Which I think we're agreed on anyway.

 

As for the secrecy: again, I see its value. Though I agree there should be someone who knows the secrets and is empowered to keep them honest; one major recurring theme in this series is that people with power and no oversight (or no effective oversight in some examples) tend to go off the deep end.

 

 

If Alastair is a fair example and he became king, within ten years he offers sanctuary to the mages knowing that the Mage - Templar War is going on then does absolutely nothing to protect either them or his people.  This is troubling to me.

In his defense, the fact that he arrives (apparently backed by an army) as you're forcing Alexius's surrender indicates that he was gathering armed men and women to protect his people with as you were solving the problem. As for protecting the mages, he did advise them to settle near what we're repeatedly told is less a castle and more The Castle. Eamon and Teagan take as read that it can hold against Ogres and Emissaries, and it's not facing anything like that scary this time. While I'm aware the mages thought they needed more protection than that, I'm not entirely sure they did.

[DDJ]

Part of it is because the Deep Roads stretch from everywhere to everywhere, allowing the darkspawn to theoretically hit anywhere. They know where the Archdemon is likely to hit, but not where it's going to. And then there's the minor darkspawn raids, for which Grey Wardens are nonessential but useful. And of course having branches in every country means reserves in case of disaster. But yeah, yeah for all they say they're politically neutral I think that it's also partially maintaining their own political power. I'm not denying they're sketchy, merely that they're worse than not having Wardens and that there's any system that can be set up to replace them. (Yet.) Which I think we're agreed on anyway.

 

As for the secrecy: again, I see its value. Though I agree there should be someone who knows the secrets and is empowered to keep them honest; one major recurring theme in this series is that people with power and no oversight (or no effective oversight in some examples) tend to go off the deep end.

 

 

 

In his defense, the fact that he arrives (apparently backed by an army) as you're forcing Alexius's surrender indicates that he was gathering armed men and women to protect his people with as you were solving the problem. As for protecting the mages, he did advise them to settle near what we're repeatedly told is less a castle and more The Castle. Eamon and Teagan take as read that it can hold against Ogres and Emissaries, and it's not facing anything like that scary this time. While I'm aware the mages thought they needed more protection than that, I'm not entirely sure they did.

 

i think that is quite fair.  Yet this war has been going on for a year and he has done very little.  He may be popular, but far more could have been done to protect the common folk of Ferelden.  We only see the one burned out little village.  How many more were there?  Yes he did show with an army, but this was after a lot of the unrest was put down by the very person he sends his Uncle Teagan to oust in the final DLC.  Gratitude apparently is not high on his list and, frankly, during DAO he was not the brightest bulb on the tree.  Still I cannot complain.  In all my play throughs of DAO I insure he is king so that when the Calling comes to him he won't really be able to bail to the Deep Roads what with my dark world view and all.

[ModernAcademic]

If Alistair had done most of the job against Alexius and the Venatori, then the Herald's work would be less impressive and maybe we wouldn't get the right to conscript or ally with the mages. But because we defeated the big baddy and saved the day, we can. *wink wink*

[DDJ]

True enough.  I keep forgetting about plot armor, but still having his army sitting idle in Denerim is less than a stellar idea.  Now I remember why I always choose to travel at the end of DAO.

[NaclynE]

Nope , i will just make someone competent go through joining and send him on archdemon, worked last time perfectly fine.     

 

To be honest this has still been bugging the tar out of me. I feel like Carel was made leader of a fake batch of grey Wardens which is one of the reasons why Alister/Logain/Stroud left. In order to undergo the joining you need to collect darkspawn blood and some other ingredients true wardens know of then mix it together, perform a ritual, then drink it. The concept of Carel's warden's seem to be like summon a demon, kill a ally and have someone bind your soul to a demon which was taught by the one magistrate guy. Now that I think about it maybe the Grey Warden's in DAI were just imposters.

 

Still I wouldn't banish them. If Alister/Stroud/Logain is kept alive they can turn the fake grey wardens into a batch of actual grey wardens since they can use their evil stuff for good. Remember what Duncan said in DAO? "The grey wardens do consist of muderers, cutpurses, theives, and blood magic users". If the warden ally got sacked hey no big deal, your Inquisitor knows of a expendeble army to use in a future title or something.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

To be honest this has still been bugging the tar out of me. I feel like Carel was made leader of a fake batch of grey Wardens which is one of the reasons why Alister/Logain/Stroud left. In order to undergo the joining you need to collect darkspawn blood and some other ingredients true wardens know of then mix it together, perform a ritual, then drink it. The concept of Carel's warden's seem to be like summon a demon, kill a ally and have someone bind your soul to a demon which was taught by the one magistrate guy. Now that I think about it maybe the Grey Warden's in DAI were just imposters.

Uh, no. Whichever Warden contact you get makes fairly clear these are actual Grey Wardens, and Cole would probably catch the deception even if the Warden in question didn't: his mind-reading was foiled once by someone powerful enough to have a place in elven mythology. Besides which the reasons they did this would make absolutely no sense otherwise since they were motivated by a Fake Calling.

[MissOuJ]

From a roleplaying perspective there are good reasons to do choose either option, although I personally favour letting them stay.

 

Sure, the Wardens messed up pretty big, and the mages in particular seem to be vulnerable to Cory's influences, so exiling them might be the safest course of action.

 

But there're still possible blights in the horizon, and as long as they're a problem, giving the Wardens the boot sounds like a bad idea. Ferelden banished the Wardens for a pretty legitimate reason and that didn't turn out too well for them in the long run. And, according to the epilogue, they seem to be pulling their collective act together, in the South at least. I know it's a bit metagame-y, but limiting the number of people who are involved with whatever is going on in Weisshaupt seems like a good idea.

[robertthebard]

I was saying it could in the future if you so choose to exile them. And possibly; they could never come back (if you so choose to exile them, like you said it's a open book).

And you'd pefer it if people turned into ghouls?

I would prefer to let the situation at hand dictate my actions, instead of fear mongering.  Fear mongering is exactly what caused the situation we face at Adamant, after all.  Yes, there are 2 ADs left, however there were centuries between blights.  We don't know where the next one is going to start, what if the AD emerges in the Anderfels?  Wouldn't that mean we did them a favor?  We did, after all, give them a chance to consolidate their forces.  But that's "What if".    The immediate threat is that Cory can, apparently, control them.  This has the potential to put even more enemies in our ranks.

 

There are compelling arguments for both sides of this debate, but there is no right answer.  The Inquisitor of the moment is free to choose which ever they prefer, based on whatever logic they prefer.  In 4 playthroughs, I have kept them twice and exiled them twice.

[DDJ]

Very well said on everyone's part.  I expect that our own experiences, thoughts etc. decide the issue in the end.  Still, there are a lot of questions left hanging that may not be answered until DA 4.  I propose an Exalted March on Bioware to insure that DA4 is moved promptly along and that DA5 is in the works.  

[Cute Nug]

Uh, no. Whichever Warden contact you get makes fairly clear these are actual Grey Wardens, and Cole would probably catch the deception even if the Warden in question didn't: his mind-reading was foiled once by someone powerful enough to have a place in elven mythology. Besides which the reasons they did this would make absolutely no sense otherwise since they were motivated by a Fake Calling.

 

They were oddly really really weak in the Adamant fortress fight. Maybe Orlesions just make really wimpy Grey Wardens.

 

They should make da bears go through the joining. Da bears in DAI were pretty though and maybe a little smarter. 

[DDJ]

They were oddly really really weak in the Adamant fortress fight. Maybe Orlesions just make really wimpy Grey Wardens.

 

They should make da bears go through the joining. Da bears in DAI were pretty though and maybe a little smarter. 

 

Only maybe?

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

They were oddly really really weak in the Adamant fortress fight. Maybe Orlesions just make really wimpy Grey Wardens.

Or maybe it's just that the current PC is not one this time. It can't just be that Orlesians make really wimpy Grey Wardens, since the Ferelden chapter was there too.

 

As for bears taking the Joining, I'm afraid that might mean no more bears. Last Flight and all that.

[OMTING52601]

LOL because they're Wardens. Srsly, I'm not exiling the only dudes that know how to stop a blight when it looks like the main baddie is rolling with an Archdemon (on an initial PT).

 

In future PT's, I don't exile them cause... Solas thinks tearing the veil down is a great plan. I think keeping Wardens around, because it chaps his hide, works for me.

 

Besides, what if the Taint is some sort of Fade induced sickness? I think it's as likely an explanation as any. So those magisters got tainted with the Fade, brought it back to the Thedas side of the Veil and it spreads like a plague. Wardens are the only ones that even have a stop-gap measure against succumbing to the Taint, so considering Solas is thinking to plunge Thedas straight into the Fade, maybe having some of those Wardens around might be a good call?

[Mistic]

From a roleplaying perspective there are good reasons to do choose either option, although I personally favour letting them stay.

 

True, roleplaying seems to be absent in some of these discussions. We, as players, know more about the Wardens than Hawke or the Inquisitor do... and we still know less that the in-game high-ranking Wardens about several things.

 

From a roleplaying perspective, most of my Inquisitors tend to be lenient. It's 10 or so years since the last Blight ended, not 100 years, and anyone in the Free Marches would know of the miraculous victory in Ferelden by a couple of Grey Wardens. Also, no matter the Blight, everyone knows that it's always Grey Wardens who manage to get a good enough army (a point that does beyond being able to kill an Archdemon) and defeat the enemy. That there could be another way is player speculation; the results in-universe have been in favor of the Wardens... as long as it is about fighting darkspawn.

[Jedi Comedian]

I wouldn't exile them because I don't want my Inquisitor to become another Loghain.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

From a roleplaying perspective, most of my Inquisitors tend to be lenient. It's 10 or so years since the last Blight ended, not 100 years, and anyone in the Free Marches would know of the miraculous victory in Ferelden by a couple of Grey Wardens. Also, no matter the Blight, everyone knows that it's always Grey Wardens who manage to get a good enough army (a point that does beyond being able to kill an Archdemon) and defeat the enemy. That there could be another way is player speculation; the results in-universe have been in favor of the Wardens... as long as it is about fighting darkspawn.

Our characters arguably have more reason to believe there could be another way than we do. We've played the endgame of Origins, and so we why you can't fight a Blight without Wardens. Our characters merely think they know that a Warden is necessary, we do know. Getting a good enough army, if we assume that's all that we need, is a task that can theoretically be accomplished by anyone, and in fact the Inquisitor manages to build an army that could probably have done the trick if an army was all that was needed.

[Mistic]

Our characters arguably have more reason to believe there could be another way than we do. We've played the endgame of Origins, and so we why you can't fight a Blight without Wardens. Our characters merely think they know that a Warden is necessary, we do know. Getting a good enough army, if we assume that's all that we need, is a task that can theoretically be accomplished by anyone, and in fact the Inquisitor manages to build an army that could probably have done the trick if an army was all that was needed.

 

That's a good point. For every Blackwall, there's also a Loghain. Both are point of views supported in-universe.

 

One of my Inquisition runs made me think of another issue rarely adressed: legality. If we are talking about law, the Grey Wardens are allowed to do anything necessary to stop a Blight. Those laws and rights predate every current country and civilization except Tevinter and Orzammar, and they signed them too. Rules that even bind the Chantry and the Circles. If the Inquisition starts violating the most universal laws that Thedas knows, they shouldn't be surprised when it's their turn... which is exactly what happened at Trespasser (hey, Josephine warned us since Haven).

 

The best scene to showcase every point of view seems to be the trial of Ser Ruth. Forgiveness by faith for very devout Inquisitors, exile, different kinds of punishment or proclaiming that the Inquisition has no jurisdiction over Wardens. I liked that judgement.

[diaspora2k5]

The only sensible judgement for Ser Ruth would have been deference to the Wardens tbh.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

The only sensible judgement for Ser Ruth would have been deference to the Wardens tbh.

I'd have gone with encloisterment, being forbidden to carry a weapon or handle rope, not being given her own quarters, and being forced to talk to a high-ranking priest about constructive repentance. Daily. Except that's not an option.

 

I suppose it's also on thin ice legally, as per your actual point, but the Wardens would probably object less to this than to making her go on an early Calling, for example.

[robertthebard]

Our characters arguably have more reason to believe there could be another way than we do. We've played the endgame of Origins, and so we why you can't fight a Blight without Wardens. Our characters merely think they know that a Warden is necessary, we do know. Getting a good enough army, if we assume that's all that we need, is a task that can theoretically be accomplished by anyone, and in fact the Inquisitor manages to build an army that could probably have done the trick if an army was all that was needed.

Except that they do, or can, know better, since they live in a world that has survived 5 of them.  The first Blight is historical fact, for them, and as I pointed out earlier in the thread, the Warden that killed the AD in that Blight wasn't the first one to do so, but was the last one to do so.  The why may be a mystery, but the fact that they are is common knowledge, barring Loghain's bout of paranoia in Origins.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

Except that they do, or can, know better, since they live in a world that has survived 5 of them.  The first Blight is historical fact, for them, and as I pointed out earlier in the thread, the Warden that killed the AD in that Blight wasn't the first one to do so, but was the last one to do so.  The why may be a mystery, but the fact that they are is common knowledge, barring Loghain's bout of paranoia in Origins.

That the why is a mystery means one can reasonably wonder. Five examples of Wardens ending the Blight isn't enough evidence on its own to justify saying "it works differently if you're a Warden." Knowing why a Warden killing the Archdemon works differently from someone else killing the Archdemon is a different matter.

 

What I'm trying to say is that, notwithstanding that it is both true and commonly accepted that only a Warden can kill an Archdemon, Loghain wasn't being unreasonably dense to think otherwise since the only evidence he (and most of Thedas) had was the Wardens word and four potential-coincidences.

[robertthebard]

That the why is a mystery means one can reasonably wonder. Five examples of Wardens ending the Blight isn't enough evidence on its own to justify saying "it works differently if you're a Warden." Knowing why a Warden killing the Archdemon works differently from someone else killing the Archdemon is a different matter.

 

What I'm trying to say is that, notwithstanding that it is both true and commonly accepted that only a Warden can kill an Archdemon, Loghain wasn't being unreasonably dense to think otherwise since the only evidence he (and most of Thedas) had was the Wardens word and four potential-coincidences.

It's the only evidence you need.  The first blight didn't end with the death of the AD until it was killed by a Warden.  The following four blights were ended the same way, barring the possibility of the DR, with the AD and the Warden that took the killing blow dead.  Loghain wasn't as much trying to prove they didn't need Wardens as much as he was trying to resist Orlesian Wardens coming into Ferelden to fight the Blight.  He makes this pretty clear when he asks how Orlais would take over this time at the Landsmeet.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

It's the only evidence you need.  The first blight didn't end with the death of the AD until it was killed by a Warden.  The following four blights were ended the same way, barring the possibility of the DR, with the AD and the Warden that took the killing blow dead.  Loghain wasn't as much trying to prove they didn't need Wardens as much as he was trying to resist Orlesian Wardens coming into Ferelden to fight the Blight.  He makes this pretty clear when he asks how Orlais would take over this time at the Landsmeet.

Well, if Loghain wasn't actually thinking along these lines I've lost some respect for his character, even if being worried about Orlais is also understandable.

 

Still the fact remains that no, this isn't logically the only evidence you need. For one thing, we don't know that Dumat dying and then reappearing (which does make the "literally has to be a Grey Warden" idea somewhat more plausible even if you don't know enough to be sure there's a link) is actually common knowledge or even common enough knowledge that a nobleman would be expected to know it. (Much less a nobleman who probably didn't start getting an actual education until he was at least an older teenager. If he ever got more than the bare minimum a teryn needs to do his job.) Which means that our characters (and Loghain) really might not know the one detail that should make you wonder.

 

For another thing, I can still think of two ways the AD could have come back from what appeared to be death: a body double of some sort, or merely a failure to land a killing blow. And that's assuming the history is accurate at all, which of course is not safe to do in this setting. It is, in this case, but it is not in all cases.