*snip*
Actually Leliana talks about Orlais at length, never got bad vibes from her.
The thing is, every other part of the game is written effectively at a very big grey area. You can absolutely despise Orlais and have cause, or you can love it and have cause. On the Templar vs. Mage case, you have far more reason to choose mages over Templars; even if you don't agree with the mages, you can't ignore the whole Time Travel shenanigans part of it. You really, really can't.
DA:O made a good case for both. On one hand the mages presented a very real danger to themselves and others, on the other the circle was oppressive and went overboard. A tough situation.
DA2 made me wish both sides would just shut up and go away. Everyone was a nutjob slitting their wrists and cobbling together frankensteins out of the women they murdered or was a lobotomy obsessed rapist, etc...I didn't feel sympathetic for any of those one dimensional weirdos.
DA:I Just didn't do enough either way to make me care about either faction at all.
Orsino was a victim of cutscene mechanics. It doesn't matter how many mages you keep alive during that fight, the story demanded that you fail to save most of them. Which is b.s. in my opinion. The times I've played that scene I'm always like: "Where did all those bodies come from? Did they teleport in like all the enemies in this game?!"
And Karras the Mage raper. And Alrich aka Hugo Strange. And every Templar that wasn't named Kieran or Cullen.
Thrask's heart was in the right place and Emeric tried to stop the murders, and nobody listened and he got killed for it. Had anyone in authority listened he might of lived and so might Leandra.
I have replayed this game a few times, and tried both sides, to me you see the templars portrayed in a more sympathetic way in your conversations with Cullen and Cassandra.
I have been disgusted with Fiona selling out the mages as slaves to tevinter, it's clear she just went behind their backs. I think she knew they were going to be used as slaves which is why she didn't put it to a vote with everyone else. You can see this when you have conversations with various mages in redcliffe, they are in disbelief she went behind their backs to tevinter and made a deal with them.
So a few times i sided with the mages because i felt sorry that they were forced into slavery without their knowledge or consent.
I mean she isn't stupid, she was a Grey Warden, thus had some freedom and has more worldly experience than anyone else, so i won't believe that she didn't have a clue.
Welcome to Dragon Age, I guess: Where everyone in power is either either an idiot, selfish, both, or a demon in disguise.
I have nothing against being human, but being human doesn't majorly consist of the above things.
DA2 was a **** game with **** writing. And this is all I care to remember from it at this point:
Orsino's connection to Quentin was utterly contrived and poorly developed. All we have a stupid letter without any proper context and frankly it feels so out of character for Orsino to be so involved with Quentin and apparently "supporting" his research and fugitive status. There was no real reason for Orsino at all be to "allied" with Quentin. All this does is to massively inflame the player's prejudice.
And it is bullshit how Bethany seems to honestly think the Kirkwall Circle is not so bad at all in her letters and makes no mention of any atrocities. My personal headcanon is that all letters from the Kirkwall Circle are filtered by the Templars.
But are any of the things Leliana says about Orlais in Origins considered positive things that make people care about Orlais? Because from where I was standing they strayed into the 'Orlesians are all a bunch of ponces who like fancy decorations, high fashion and political intrigue'. She was enthusing about it, but it never came across well at all IMO. It was 'Oh isn't she so sweet and girly, and she loves fashion and shoes and *everything!*' It still fed into that line which most Fereldens took about what Orlais and Orlesian were like - that they were effete and non 'real manly, down to earth, salt of the earth guys like us Fereldens'.
Leiiana's dialogue in Origins does nothing to dispel that image. She just happens to like that, whereas most Fereldens (and most players I would suggest) consider such traits to be undesirable or at the very least not something that interests them as rugged, adventuring types. I simply put it to you that Orlais as powerful nation, with at least some sensible people isn't represented until Inquisition. (And even then, there is still plenty of 'Hon hon hon! 'you know what these Frenchies are like...' stereotyping going on).
Gameplay-wise, I agree with you. It's very difficult to do a pro-templar nightmare playthrough, considering if you side with them in DA:O and DA:2, you lose your healers. At least in DA:O, you can spec Morrigan into a healer, but in DA:2, you have no means of having a healer without Anders (unless your character is one).
But storywise...
DA:O - I'll give you this one in the sense that the game gives you more reason to sympathize with and save the mages. Cullen sounds like such a raving lunatic with you meet him, so it's not really compelling to agree with him. Especially when you need the mages to save Connor, and the Knight Commander asks you to save the First Enchanter.
DA2 - Ehh, I'd say the game gives you plenty of reasons to hate mages. You see tons and tons of evil blood mages throughout the game, and one even kills your PC's mom and another attempts to kill your PC's love interest. You only see a handful of evil templars, with the more level-headed ones (Thrask and Cullen) being more prominent. Sure, Meredith is more crazy than Orsino, but there is still plenty of reason to dislike mages in this game.
DA:I - I disagree here too. The advisors and Cassandra really push you towards the templars, and the option to side with the templars becomes available before the option to side with the mages. Plus, Calpernia is a much more compelling villain than Samson.
I wouldn't say Calpernia is compelling. You throw a scroll at her she goes oh ****, burns it and leaves. Ugh.
Yes, but in DA2 regardless of how the sides were portrayed ( I thought it was pretty even handed for the most part - both sides have good and bad people), I think Hawke's situation requires some serious bending of plausibility to side with the Templars. Because either she is a Mage herself in a city where the Mages feel oppressed whilst she is free and living in a mansion in Hightown. Or her sister is in the Circle and will be purged at the end, if she doesn't do something.
Pretty much the only scenario where you could support the Templars (even if uou are pro Templar) at the end, is if Hawke is not a Mage herself and Bethany is either dead or a Grey Warden. Because in every other circumstance, it makes no sense for Hawke to support Meredith's decision to purge the Mages. It would be an outrageous act of hypocrisy for a Mage Hawke to go along with it (and would look very odd to most of the Templars, I would imagine), especially as the party has several mages and no Templars in it.
Even if you generally speaking support the Templars, the finale really ties your hands. Its just so far fetched that Hawke would support this action, because of her or her family's situation. She may agree with the Templars, and what they do in principle but the narrative has clearly established over the course of the game that this does not extend to wanting to be part of the Circle herself and submit to Templar jurisdiction or turning over her sister to the same.
As for Calypernia and Samson... their stories were rushed, unsatisfying and they barely said and did anything. Dragon Age: Inquisition in a nutshell, in other words.
Yes, but in DA2 regardless of how the sides were portrayed ( I thought it was pretty even handed for the most part - both sides have good and bad people), I think Hawke's situation requires some serious bending of plausibility to side with the Templars. Because either she is a Mage herself in a city where the Mages feel oppressed whilst she is free and living in a mansion in Hightown. Or her sister is in the Circle and will be purged at the end, if she doesn't do something.
Pretty much the only scenario where you could support the Templars (even if uou are pro Templar) at the end, is if Hawke is not a Mage herself and Bethany is either dead or a Grey Warden. Because in every other circumstance, it makes no sense for Hawke to support Meredith's decision to purge the Mages. It would be an outrageous act of hypocrisy for a Mage Hawke to go along with it (and would look very odd to most of the Templars, I would imagine), especially as the party has several mages and no Templars in it.
Even if you generally speaking support the Templars, the finale really ties your hands. Its just so far fetched that Hawke would support this action, because of her or her family's situation. She may agree with the Templars, and what they do in principle but the narrative has clearly established over the course of the game that this does not extend to wanting to be part of the Circle herself and submit to Templar jurisdiction or turning over her sister to the same.
In my head my Hawke sided with the Templars to undermine Meredith's sway over her Templars, to save as many innocent mages as possible, and because he knew if he sided with the mages he'd have to go on the run instead of helping Kirkwall rebuild and without Meredith's crazy he as Champion could lead Kirkwall in a better direction. Otherwise I couldn't Justify siding with the Templars.
It's been stated repeatedly in the various mages-or-templars threads that the setup for their missions in Inquisition is extremely uneven, and that is definitely a problem -- I, too, felt very irritated by the impression that the game was strongly trying to push me towards picking the mages. In my opinion, at least, the outcome of the templar mission is better so it evens out somewhat.
Welcome to Dragon Age, I guess: Where everyone in power is either either an idiot, selfish, both, or a demon in disguise.
I have nothing against being human, but being human doesn't majorly consist of the above things.
I do like the "power corrupts" theme, but they did go a little overboard with it, didn't they? There's a difference between setting up a theme, and hitting people over the head with it -- especially if, as usual in these games, it ends with the player-controlled faction as the only "good" and uncorrupted ones (if you play that way, at least). That "authority is bad, except of course when it's YOUR authority, o almighty player" trope gets on my case quite a bit for its hypocrisy, and I wish we could meet more truly competent, trustworthy and dedicated NPCs (from various factions) who work with us as allies but don't join us.
Also take into account that Mages represent what many gamers and readers want to be - someone with remarkable powers that help them go beyond the banality of the mundane world etc etc,Meanwhile Templars have the unfortunate position of being the people who restrain that freedom, which is never going to endear them to these aforementioned people.
Yes, I think that is a very good point. This sort of game tends to be written as a huge power-trip (see the above trope among many others), and being part of a small group with superpowers far beyond the unwashed masses is definitely the ultimate power-trip. Add any sort of restriction and you have an immediate recipe for hate, especially if the writers give in to the temptation to play the shallow "poor oppressed you versus evil, controlling, rapist jailer thug" spiel to the hilt for cheap fan approval instead of being more even-handed about it. That was excatly my fear for Inquisition -- but I'm glad that the game felt a lot less templar-bashy than I worried it would.
Of course, the game also drops the mage/templar war issue like a hot potato immediately after the recruitment mission, so the whole setup feels rather wasted anyway. 
DAO: it's about doing the 'right' thing, because why killing off a group of people (especially those one needs )when it\s possible to avoid the bloodshed.
DA2: it's about being the fing personal and subjective choice with plenty of motivations for both sides. Anders-mancing non-mage Hawke with Bethany at the Circle. Fenris-mancing non-mage Hawke with Bethany as a Warden. Anders-hating Isabella-mancer mage etc etc. Quentin is as much Orsino's responsibility as Meridith' (because really, that's what Templars are for - to kill the bloody maniacs, not to prevent mage girls from visiting their mommies).
DAI: meta-gaming aside, it;s a choice between the two 'wrongs'. A Tervinter magister vs suspiciously strangely acting (ex-)chantry (ex-)officer. After that little nice encounter in VR I was going to help the mages...and then I've got 'sorry, we're bound to serve that Tervinter guy who is bringing his support'. Which one is the Lesser Evil here - it's up to the player. A friend of mine keeps saying that my siding with Templars should be considered a 'renegade' action, and I'd never imagine my Travelyen having any sort of deals with the Tervinter maniacs.
. In my opinion, at least, the outcome of the templar mission is better so it evens out somewhat.
How is the outcome of the templar mission better ? To me the templar mission felt very very meh.... The only good outcome that came of it is that Calpernia seemed more interesting than Samson and that Cory showed up more through those holograms.
DAO: it's about doing the 'right' thing, because why killing off a group of people (especially those one needs )when it\s possible to avoid the bloodshed.
DA2: it's about being the fing personal and subjective choice with plenty of motivations for both sides. Anders-mancing non-mage Hawke with Bethany at the Circle. Fenris-mancing non-mage Hawke with Bethany as a Warden. Anders-hating Isabella-mancer mage etc etc. Quentin is as much Orsino's responsibility as Meridith' (because really, that's what Templars are for - to kill the bloody maniacs, not to prevent mage girls from visiting their mommies).
DAI: meta-gaming aside, it;s a choice between the two 'wrongs'. A Tervinter magister vs suspiciously strangely acting (ex-)chantry (ex-)officer. After that little nice encounter in VR I was going to help the mages...and then I've got 'sorry, we're bound to serve that Tervinter guy who is bringing his support'. Which one is the Lesser Evil here - it's up to the player. A friend of mine keeps saying that my siding with Templars should be considered a 'renegade' action, and I'd never imagine my Travelyen having any sort of deals with the Tervinter maniacs.
DAO: Except you have a lot of reason to put them down, considering what you find there? When you have obviously traumatized Cullen arguing to kill everybody and sane Irving saying everything is cool, you don't exactly have fair representation of both sides.
DA2: No it's not. You can be either a douche or not. Even if you agree with the Templars 100% and don't think the mages had any right to rebel, there isn't much room for argument that it's morally wrong to slaughter the mages, especially those who seriously don't want to die for some fuckwit's decision.
DA2 is just an expansion of DAO's Broken Circle quest line, honestly.
DAI:
Templars: We don't want you! You Suck! Like, REALLY SUCK. Punching an old lady here and retreating into a fort where we talk to no one at all kthxbye
Mages: Sure we'll talk to you! I mean it's not like the Grand Enchanter sold us to slavery or anything! Or started a war that we didn't want! Or that we have creepy **** going down where we kill tranquil for some creepy ass ritual! Or time travel shenanigans that's tearing the world apart! ogodhelpus
Basically, are you going to fall for some reverse psychology bullshit or you going to help the people who actually want your help?
Some lesser of two evils there.
Orsino doesn't even know Hawke until they first meet during the Qunari attack. Which is after the entire Quentin-plot is already finished.
Orsino doesn't know Hawke even if Bethany is in the Circle... Orsino either truly has no idea who Hawke is, or he's a very good liar. Considering Orsino is a Blood Mage First Enchanter, I'm going to go with the latter...
Actually Leliana talks about Orlais at length, never got bad vibes from her.
The thing is, every other part of the game is written effectively at a very big grey area. You can absolutely despise Orlais and have cause, or you can love it and have cause. On the Templar vs. Mage case, you have far more reason to choose mages over Templars; even if you don't agree with the mages, you can't ignore the whole Time Travel shenanigans part of it. You really, really can't.
One can't ignore time travel? Sure you can. You can believe that time travel isn't happening, and that Dorian is a Tevinter spy allied with Alexius and attempting to kill you. That the time travel aspect never comes up again shows how inconsequential it is... If it were important, if it would have affected the Inquisition in some way, and the Inquisitor wouldn't have had a choice to go after the Templars(and the Inquisitor likely could have used time travel to get to the Templars after saving the mages). That the choice exists shows that the time travel aspect isn't an important enough reason to go there if the Herald wishes not to...
Up until DA:I and during my first playthrough, I always knew I would side with the Mages. After speaking with Fiona (in DA:I), my entire view changed. Now I always side with the Templars.
DAO: Except you have a lot of reason to put them down, considering what you find there? When you have obviously traumatized Cullen arguing to kill everybody and sane Irving saying everything is cool, you don't exactly have fair representation of both sides.
DA2: No it's not. You can be either a douche or not. Even if you agree with the Templars 100% and don't think the mages had any right to rebel, there isn't much room for argument that it's morally wrong to slaughter the mages, especially those who seriously don't want to die for some fuckwit's decision.
DA2 is just an expansion of DAO's Broken Circle quest line, honestly.
DAI:
Templars: We don't want you! You Suck! Like, REALLY SUCK. Punching an old lady here and retreating into a fort where we talk to no one at all kthxbye
Mages: Sure we'll talk to you! I mean it's not like the Grand Enchanter sold us to slavery or anything! Or started a war that we didn't want! Or that we have creepy **** going down where we kill tranquil for some creepy ass ritual! Or time travel shenanigans that's tearing the world apart! ogodhelpus
Basically, are you going to fall for some reverse psychology bullshit or you going to help the people who actually want your help?
Some lesser of two evils there.
Pretty much this. Also the conversation you have at WT when choosing Templars never makes sense to me, especially if you immediately do this mission after VR.
(I still want to lock Fiona in some forgotten tower and lose the key, I have this weird feeling that whoever wrote her, doesn't likes her much)
OP, I disagree,
DAO and DA2 may have had a bias towards mages, but only because the pro-Templar solution was "Annulment" and that's just too extreme. Meanwhile, the pro-mage choice didn't involve killing all templars.
DAI, on the other hand, has a more balanced picture. If anything, there's a pro-Templar bias, with Fiona stupidly allying with Tevinter, which given the condition of this "alliance", nullifies her own agenda of freeing the mages of Southern Thedas from oppression. If I still side with the mages, it's more for thematic reasons: I dislike the idea of a paramilitary force of religious zealots and highly appreciate the idea of individual empowerment and autonomy represented by magic. The templars' behaviour in Val Royeaux didn't help but had insignificant weight for me.
Edit:
In my first game, I almost accidentally did the Templar mission because I wanted to continue the main plot and the mage mission hadn't come up yet.
Scum, eh? Anyway, no.
In DA:O, you're not choosing between the tyranny of the Templars or the victimization of the mages. In the Broken Circle quest, you're helping the Templars no matter what you do, and if you help the Mages Collective, you're also involving a sympathetic Templar as well, but this quest is a minor footnote in the story. It's not until Awakening that we start getting wind of a bigger issue brewing.
In DA2, I didn't side with all those crazy bloodmages in the streets; I sided with a population of mages within the Circle that were about to be executed because a Grey Warden mage decided to play revolutionary. Basically, they're being executed, because mages, and that's it. And that, to me, is unacceptable. Also, a big difference is that siding with the Templars presumably requires killing everyone. Hawke may be able to get some to be spared, namely Bethany if she's in the Circle, but any sensible person would not consider this to be a guarantee. And with the way characters just did with they want in DA2, I wouldn't have been surprised if Hawke could insist on sparing mages that surrendered, and Templars just went ahead and slit their throats anyway. With the Kirkwall Templar Order's bar being so low that skeezballs like Ser Kerras and Alrik can join the ranks, I would consider it pretty normal.
It's more balanced in DA:I, but after Lord Demon Lucius' little display in Val Royeaux, I had little reason to care. Ser Barris may be awesome and such, but he was easily shut down by the others and they all marched away anyhow, so all's I can say is toot-a-loo, suckers.
OP, I disagree,
DAO and DA2 may have had a bias towards mages, but only because the pro-Templar solution was "Annulment" and that's just too extreme. Meanwhile, the pro-mage choice didn't involve killing all templars.
DAI, on the other hand, has a more balanced picture. If anything, there's a pro-Templar bias, with Fiona stupidly allying with Tevinter, which given the condition of this "alliance", nullifies her own agenda of freeing the mages of Southern Thedas from oppression. If I still side with the mages, it's more for thematic reasons: I dislike the idea of a paramilitary force of religious zealots and highly appreciate the idea of individual empowerment and autonomy represented by magic. The templar's behaviour in Val Royeaux didn't help but had insignificant weight for me.
Edit:
In my first game, I almost accidentally did the Templar mission because I wanted to continue the main plot and the mage mission hadn't come up yet.
Except you didn't know about the Mage situation until after the Templars ****** on the Chantry at Val Royeux. The Mages came to you, spoke with you, and when you went to Redcliffe it's like "and by the way, we could really use your help after our leader sold our souls to Tevinter and the time travel **** that's happening that you ought to probably fix before another time-bumhole shows up."
On top of that, once you do learn about the mage situation, it's really, really hard to go "Welp! Lost cause, better go check on the templars who totally didn't want to talk to me or anything."
Except you didn't know about the Mage situation until after the Templars ****** on the Chantry at Val Royeux. The Mages came to you, spoke with you, and when you went to Redcliffe it's like "and by the way, we could really use your help after our leader sold our souls to Tevinter and the time travel **** that's happening that you ought to probably fix before another time-bumhole shows up."
On top of that, once you do learn about the mage situation, it's really, really hard to go "Welp! Lost cause, better go check on the templars who totally didn't want to talk to me or anything."
None of the mages ask for help. There are mages who claim that they don't want to join Tevinter, but they're too cowardly to leave the rebellion and join the Inquisition on their own(save for the lone Tranquil among them). If they truly wanted to help the Inquisition, they wouldn't have allowed themselves to be sold into slavery.
It's very easy to leave the mages to the consequences of their actions because none of them seem to truly care about said consequences. And If they don't care about their own futures in Thedas, why should the Inquisition?
The fact is, the leaders of both groups declined to help close the rift, and the Inquisition is trying to change the minds of one of them. The only real factor to the decision is the Herald's personal preference.
None of the mages ask for help. There are mages who claim that they don't want to join Tevinter, but they're too cowardly to leave the rebellion and join the Inquisition on their own(save for the lone Tranquil among them). If they truly wanted to help the Inquisition, they wouldn't have allowed themselves to be sold into slavery.
It's very easy to leave the mages to the consequences of their actions because none of them seem to truly care about said consequences. And If they don't care about their own futures in Thedas, why should the Inquisition?
The fact is, the leaders of both groups declined to help close the rift, and the Inquisition is trying to change the minds of one of them. The only real factor to the decision is the Herald's personal preference.
So we're going to pretend that stuff with Dorian didn't happen and that Alexius didn't invite us into his swag new castle that he totally stole? As opposed to Lucius basically being a dick and saying that we aren't wanted?
And none of them "Allowed" themselves to be sold to slavery. They agreed to whatever their Leader decided, because that's what leaders are for. I imagine that none of them are all too happy about the arrangement - And in fairness, we have deserters from both sides of the war.
Being scared for one's life does not mean that they don't care about the future of Thedas. I'm pretty sure "By the way, there's a hole in the sky, can you please abandon this war that all of your people fought in and are dying in to help us? No Templars! Or Traps." was a dialogue option. Pretty sure they don't even KNOW what the Inquisition wants from them, and the person that they trusted- and believed in- betrayed them.
They also have no idea what Tevinter even wants with them, either. They just want their circle back and for things to go back to the way they were.
Guest_TheDarkKnightReturns_*
None of the mages ask for help. There are mages who claim that they don't want to join Tevinter, but they're too cowardly to leave the rebellion and join the Inquisition on their own(save for the lone Tranquil among them). If they truly wanted to help the Inquisition, they wouldn't have allowed themselves to be sold into slavery.
It's very easy to leave the mages to the consequences of their actions because none of them seem to truly care about said consequences. And If they don't care about their own futures in Thedas, why should the Inquisition?
The fact is, the leaders of both groups declined to help close the rift, and the Inquisition is trying to change the minds of one of them. The only real factor to the decision is the Herald's personal preference.
The mages that want to leave but stay with the Rebellion despite Fiona's retardation do so out of a sense of self preservation. There's a Breach the size of Mariana's Trench in sky leading to Heaven/Hell. Everybody is blaming mages for it as well as the death of the Popess. Then there's a Rift outside the city gates controlled by a Magister that bends time and used it to usurp said city.
There aren't many choices.
I will say though that I wish the Templars came off as more sympathetic during VR.
All this being said it's still pretty easy to justify, even as a mage, leaving Redcliffe. You could leave to recruit the Templars to 'liberate' the Rebellion from Alexius and Fiona.
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