162 réponses à ce sujet

[Hellion Rex]

According to the same Wiki you're wrong.

 

"However, when a Soporati family produces a mage child—this is greatly desired in Tevinter, unlike within the rest of Thedas—it allows them entrance into the Laetans class and thus a higher social standing."

 

She was never Soporati to become Laetan, but Liberati aka freed slave.

Huh, interesting. Cool beans.

 

"Slaves and Liberati, particularly elves, who demonstrate magical ability are furthermore able to join the Circle of Magi and the lowest rungs of mage society."

[Alejandrawrr]

In all honesty, I'm not surprised at how they differ. Fenris saw the absolute worst of Tevinter, so he's heavily biased. But so is Dorian, who came from the top echelons of power. But Dorian is at least willing to admit that he never thought of slavery as an issue until he came South. And why should we necessarily expect him to have a problem with it? He grew up around it, it's all he really knows. He comes from a place where to have slaves is the norm, and to not own slaves would be an extreme oddity.

+ I do believe he knows it's wrong, deep down inside. It's just another thing (like the Corypheus thing) he'll have to confront about his homeland. His banter with Cole supports this, imo (Cole asks him what a slave is, and Dorian does everything he can to dodge the question and tells him to ask someone else). At the very least, he's got somewhat of a guilty conscience over it.

[Ashagar]

There is a big difference between the slavery practiced in the American south and roman/classical style slavery like Tevinter seems to practice but then there's a even a difference between early American slavery and later American slavery. That being said Dorian's and Fenris accounts don't counterdict each other really as they are colored by their own perspectives on the society they came from, the truth likely lies in the middle.

[BabyFratelli]

+ I do believe he knows it's wrong, deep down inside. It's just another thing (like the Corypheus thing) he'll have to confront about his homeland. His banter with Cole supports this, imo (Cole asks him what a slave is, and Dorian does everything he can to dodge the question and tells him to ask someone else). At the very least, he's got somewhat of a guilty conscience over it.

 

I think that's one of the things I love about Dorian's character. He's very much a product of his society and upbringing, despite rebelling against it. It's a nice conflict. 

[InstantNoodlez]

I am just sad that even if Dorian does manage to change his homeland (unlikely, he'll probably get murdered), he won't really live to see it truly get better. And Fenris can kill as many slavers as one man ever could, but he won't see his situation truly get better either.

 

After every big change, big revolution, turn over of social system, there would be years of upheaval. The change will be absolutely necessary in the long run, but meanwhile...

 

I can almost see in my mind's eyes the average wage of Thedas proper dropping, as all the freed slave now take slave wages to do manufacturing, agriculture, and service jobs, as well as floods of refugees and destitute immigrants from Tevinter. Then people will have something new to complain about on the matters of Tevinter and elves (taking all their jobs).

 

This will go on for at least a few generations before everything evens out. Then we can fight for the rights of Orlaisian serfs and alienage elves (many of whom probably descended ex-slaves) in the next game.

[Lulupab]

Wow too much to go through in 12 hours... but you all make interesting points.

 

Regarding the slaves in Tevinter, two groups of people cannot be made slaves. Surface dwarves and Tevinter citizens. A Tevinter citizen can lose his citizenship and become a slave, either willingly or otherwise. The citizen part is exactly like Rome.

 

Mundanes who have records of giving birth to mage children can also be Laetans, no? Also only the purest bloodlines have guaranteed chance of having mage offspring, in lesser pure ones (usually Laetans) sometimes the child is not a mage and thus this child will remain with Laetan class because even though the child is not a mage he has mage bloodline and capable of giving birth to mage children. Laetan and Altus combined contains majority of Tevinter population (with citizenship)

 

The Altus are known as purest so if an Altus couple don't have mage children that's like one of the biggest scandals because it means the blood was not pure enough.

[Lulupab]

I'm still not convinced the situation in south is any better than slaves in Tevinter. The fact that they can revolt indirectly implies they are fed enough and in condition to fight and revolt. The southern poor are walking corpses, incapable of anything least of all rebelling, swimming in disease.

 

Orlais is exact reflection of Tevinter albeit without mages in power.

[renfrees]

*snip* Laetan and Altus combined contains majority of Tevinter population (with citizenship)

I believe Soporati do, considering common ratio of mages to non-mages.

 

I'm still not convinced the situation in south is any better than slaves in Tevinter. The fact that they can revolt indirectly implies they are fed enough and in condition to fight and revolt. The southern poor are walking corpses, incapable of anything least of all rebelling, swimming in disease.

 

Orlais is exact reflection of Tevinter albeit without mages in power.

Maybe it's not, does that makes slavery any better? What's the point of constantly comparing one to another, does pointing out and screaming - You're no better!, makes you somehow better, if only in your own eyes? More justifiable, more acceptable? Well, maybe it does, since it's a common practice.

[herkles]

I believe Soporati do, considering common ratio of mages to non-mages.

Soporati from what I gather are the majority of people with citizens, comparing them to rome. They are the pleblians compared to the patricians of the Altus and Laeterns

[renfrees]

Soporati from what I gather are the majority of people with citizens, comparing them to rome. They are the pleblians compared to the patricians of the Altus and Laeterns

Correct. All citizens of the Imperium with no magical abilities, which should be majority of population, are classified as Soporati. After all, Imperial Legions aren't built from mages or slaves (althought they undoubtedly consist some). Liberati and slaves aren't citizens.

[InstantNoodlez]

Maybe it's not, does that makes slavery any better? What's the point of constantly comparing one to another, does pointing out and screaming - You're no better!, makes you somehow better, if only in your own eyes? More justifiable, more acceptable? Well, maybe it does, since it's a common practice.

 

I think the case is that the rest of Thedas have very little leg to stand on when condemning Tevinter on slavery, when they themselves are not much better. When you take yourself out of the shoes of the great hero, whose story is being told and whose songs are being sang, Thedas is a horrible place to live, no matter which country or town you flee to (As Hawke had discovered in DA2).

 

Horrible political systems. Horrible social systems. Horrible monsters and powerful lunatics lurking around every corner. All the burning, rotting, frozen corpses and bloodstained camping gears my Inquisitor has passed by. I can honestly get why Sera is so angry and scared.

[herkles]

Correct. All citizens of the Imperium with no magical abilities, which should be majority of population, are classified as Soporati. After all, Imperial Legions aren't built from mages or slaves (althought they undoubtedly consist some). Liberati and slaves aren't citizens.

Slaves and libertari are actually forbidden from serving in the imperium's military.

[renfrees]

Slaves and libertari are actually forbidden from serving in the imperium's military.

I meant mages, sorry if it came unclear.

[Willowhugger]

False, she's Laetens. The minute she manifested, she jumped to Laetens.

 

Except, she was a mage and Fenris had to free her.

 

We don't know if Liberati become Laetens.

Honestly, her status as a mage slave in Tevinter and then a free one begs a lot of questions about how Tevinter society works.
 

[TeraBat]

One thing I am surprised no one has brought up yet, and is making me wonder if perhaps I am misinterpreting something, is blood magic. 

 

Dorian tells you straight up that blood magic isn't looked down on in Tevinter, but once you start down that road, it's hard to get off it. And the implication, in other conversations and in things you find in the world, is that slaves are sometimes still used for their blood, if the magister doesn't have enough of his own to do whatever it is he needs to do. And I'm sure the slaves don't really get a vote on how much of their blood they want to devote to the cause. So slavery + blood magic = a pretty raw deal for slaves.

 

And one thing that Dorian would not think of, because he has only just begun to contemplate slavery and also because he's not super close to his own family, is how being enslaved affects family. Exhibit A is how Varania is made to turn against Leto; but there are a lot of other implications as well. What if a Tevinter slave master decides he can't support a whole family of slaves, and decides to sell off half a family but keep the other half? Or if the head of a Tevinter household dies, and part of the estate to be divided among the children includes slaves? What if a slave master is tinkering with bloodlines and decides he really needs a slave to father/birth a few children? Or just finds a slave particularly attractive? 

 

There's also a false dichotomy going on in this thread - is slavery better than abject poverty? Well, no. They're both wrong, and both signs of severe social problems. Only a corrupt society would hold out slavery as a way to escape poverty; and only a corrupt society would make poverty an inescapable trap (especially if tied to race). 

[myahele]

Krem's dialogue offers a nice insight to the lives of mundane soporati class. Slave labor makes it difficult for people to make a decent living on a given profession. If you fall on hard times you can sell yourself into slavery to *hopefully* make use of your talents for x years.

I am not sure if citizens who sign contracts to become "imperial owned slaves" have more rights than those who're kidnapped.

Then again, these slaves could easily have "occupational accidents" if a magister feels the need use blood magic.

According to WoT slaves are property so if the owner dies they get divided up based on the deceased will

[TeraBat]

One other thing to keep in mind is how Tevinter society likes to set up false choices. 

 

Yes, Krem's father ostensibly "chose" to sell himself into slavery. But he was living in a society which made that one of the only viable options for supporting his family.

 

And yes, Fenris "chose" to compete for the lyrium markings. But, as someone who is quite obviously a very talented warrior, that was his only option to get out of slavery or free his family? And of course the rest of his family wasn't even trained in a useful skill. Varania knew how to be a slave - how to clean and cook and be a personal attendant. But why would a Tevinter pay someone a wage to do those jobs when buying a slave is cheaper? Of course Varania got forced into a position where her options were limited - her entire society was constructed to make sure of that. 

[taranoire]

And Fenris paid a very heavy price for his "choice" regardless. 

[schulz100]

I feel like in some way there are almost two institutions running in tevinter. There's the system of pure slavery, which Fenris was a part of and which is a key part of the slave trade, and then there's a sort of psuedo-slavery that's more along the lines of servitude that Dorian talks about and Krem says his father was forced to join to keep money coming in. Admittedly, the second system isn't all that better, but a key part of that system is consent to the status itself, a time-limited contract of particular service, and the gaurantee of payment for said service. Slavery, on the other hand, is nonconsensual, usually permanent, and generally pays absolutely zero.

 

Now, it seems like the institutions of slavery and servitude are effectively conflated/conjoined in Tevinter, and which sort of state a person ends up in is largely dependent on who they work for and how they entered, but think about it. If the people captured and loaded into slaver ships were unabashedly bound for the same fate as the people like Krem's dad who throw their lot into the system because they have no other choice, no-one would voluntarily enter into the system, but there's clearly a difference in expectation of lifestyle at work. The person on the ship is likely going to get the Fenris treatment, but someone who voluntarily sells themselves is doing so in an attempt to earn a living and that attempt sounds like it, for better or worse, at least works on the front of earning enough money to live on. Slaves, by definition, can't really earn a living unless their master feels like paying them. The fact that the system apparently offers voluntary subjects positions in which they can expect to earn something approaching a living, especially if they land a decent, fairly prestigious family (bit of an oxymoron in Tevinter, I know, but look at House Pavus) suggests, to me anyway, that there's almost sort of a tiered system at work that is based around your citizenship to Tevinter itself and whether or not your entered into the system voluntarily. 

Citizens who voluntarily sell themselves seem to expect to end up in different situations, or at least marginally better conditions, than people forced into or born within the system proper. Many of them may not like it, but there's clearly a different expectation at work here.

[TeraBat]

However, we don't precisely know if the children of slaves are slaves themselves, or if they are considered free. 

 

From inference, I would suspect that Fenris was a slave because he was born to a slave, but Krem is not a slave because he was already around when his father chose to sell himself. 

 

So let's assume that Fenris' great-grandmother was a free Tevinter; perhaps a weaver or a blacksmith. She's good at what she does, but she can't compete with her neighbor's shop, which undercuts her by using slave labor. So she makes the very reasonable choice to sell herself into slavery. As someone with what we modern Americans would call a 'marketable skill,' she can be assured a comfortable, pleasant existence as the slave of a more prosperous weaver or blacksmith. 

 

But what about her children? And her grandchildren? And her great-grandchildren? Few slave masters in Tevinter are going to educate their slaves unless they absolutely must. And they're only going to teach their slaves the bare minimum to get by; because an educated slave has options. And the entire system of slavery, whether it's antebellum American or semi-benevolent Roman or medieval indentured servitude, is reliant on slaves not having options. Sure, maybe Great-Grandma Fenris can teach her children how to weave or make swords, but that's assuming she has the time and resources to do so, when her time, resources, labor and even her body belongs to someone else. 

 

"Benevolent slavery" is still slavery, and it still traps an entire class of people into a life where their only options are Bad and Worse; but Worse is disguised to look like Better. 

[nightscrawl]

Of course he contradicts him, he's a tevinter NOBLE MAGE XD. His views are influenced. Like he says, slavery never struck him as something that could be questionable until he left Tevinter. He's been living in the most privileged position he could be in Tevinter his entire life.

 
This exactly. Dorian would be the first to admit that he's looking at things from a privileged POV, but it's still all he has to go on. And as he said, he never gave it much thought until he came "down south."
 
So I guess I don't really understand the point of this thread. A human mage from a noble family of mages has a different perspective on Tevinter life than does a non-mage elven slave. Whoda thunk? I thought Dorian's comments about slavery in particular were interesting primarily because of the contrast they have to Fenris's comments. It is useful to have different perspectives on the issue and I generally had no problem with Dorian's remarks. The only thing that did irk me was his total gloss over the existence of Tevinter slavers who go into other lands, kidnap people, and force them into slavery. I do wish I could have mentioned that at least.
 
I also suggest to the OP to talk to Krem about his experiences.

"Benevolent slavery" is still slavery, and it still traps an entire class of people into a life where their only options are Bad and Worse; but Worse is disguised to look like Better.

I totally agree.

[Willowhugger]

In the "World of Ice and Fire" book by GRR there's a funny little bit about the Ironborn who are pretty much, in every way possible, horrible people. However, Ironborn consider slavery a detestable evil institution.

 

They do, however, practice thralldom.

 

Which is functionally identical to slavery but for a few basic rights like the fact Thrall's children are free and they are free to marry who they want (though only really marry other Thralls usually).

 

Historically, slavery has existed in many many many forms with different laws.

Biblical slavery from the Bible, for instance, allows people to own slaves but you have to free them after a time.

 

Also, people mention "Roman slavery" where slaves COULD rise up very high. Which is true. However, in Rome, you also had people working mines which was pretty much, "You work until you die."

[Deanna]

With Fenris your seeing Tevinter thru the eyes of a tortured slave. With Dorian your seeing Tevinter thru a magisters eyes. Of course they're going to be different. I still think all the mages who want freedom should go to Tevinter, I would.

#teamtevinter

[taranoire]

With Fenris your seeing Tevinter thru the eyes of a tortured slave. With Dorian your seeing Tevinter thru a magisters eyes. Of course they're going to be different. I still think all the mages who want freedom should go to Tevinter, I would.

#teamtevinter

 

Being a mage in Tevinter doesn't guarantee a good outcome, you know. 

[PrinceLionheart]

Using that logic, Vivienne is 100% correct about the Circle System and anyone who disagrees are just being whiny.