Yeah, so that makes me wonder why Bull says that Cassandra would do okay under the Qun. Unless he thinks that she'd be cool with being considered a man? Or maybe he was just referring to her rigidity and orderly ways?
I'm intrigued by this.
@daveliam Yes, that was basically my point, and I did bring that up about Cassandra. My point there was why didn't The Iron Bull question Cassandra's role (not to her face necessarily, but to the Inquisitor), since she sees herself as female. As for how a female warrior would be labeled, I doubt they would be labeled as males. If anything, they would be called Aqun-Athlok and under that term they would be allowed to be warriors. But I doubt even this is the case. I'm going with reeducation.
@ThreeF That's if The Sten would accept Krem's answer of being male. Even according to The Iron Bull, Krem would be considered Aqun-Athlok. Like I wrote above, the question is what the Qunari do with Aqun-Athlok. Let them continue to live as another gender, or reeducate them?
Yeah, so that makes me wonder why Bull says that Cassandra would do okay under the Qun.
What he means to say is that someone who likes structure and rules would do well under the Qun. He is not talking about her being a warrior.
Of course he is ignoring the fact that Cassandra started a freaking Inquisition because she thought that some rules are wrong, but that's another issue. He is also ignoring the fact that Cullen is done with "follow rules blindly" too. This however fits Bulls character. When it comes to things related to Qun Bull doesn't think things through.
You're missing the point. The point was that as a species with sexual dimorphism we will always make distinctions based on different roles in reproduction, and the fact that such distinctions exist - rather than their specifics - is independent from culture, no matter what else is superimposed on it by culture. Without the physical, all the cultural distinctions mean nothing because all cultural aspects are defined in relation to it, regardless of whether they are in opposition or in support of it. That's why I say gender denotes primarily the physical. Culture is certainly important, but it provides interpretations, nothing more.Read Ian Haking. The fact that we have "defined" male and female to turn on gamete size is not necessarily some immutable reflection of absolute reality but a reflection of what we see as a logical taxonomy based on our governing theories of biology. This is no more an absolute truth about biologicy than phlogiston was an absolute truth about chemistry.
You're also mischaracterising evolution by speaking of it in purposive terms. Evolution is really a statistical phenomenon that captures the distribution of traits over time with the environment acting as the selection mechanism across generations. There's no will to it, and our assumption about what precisely is being selected is in part speculative; we rely on statistical groupings of features we deem to co-vary that we organise in logical ways based on our governing theories. All of this is the best possible knowledge that we can have about objective reality because there are fundamental limits to our ability to model it. The important thing to keep in mind is that our categories - while the best we can have - do not necessarily correspond to metaphysical objective truth.
The foot analogy is hyperbolic by design. It's not meant to be persuasive or descriptive of a real culture - it's mean to illustrate the method of reasoning and the problems underlying the metaphysical force of truth people seem to want to assign to our current conception of gender.
Again, it is like phlogiston chemistry. That was a phenomenal aspect of human insight that greatly advanced our knowledge of reality. But it was not metaphysically true.
When we start ascribing agency or metaphysical worth to these ideas behind their utility as scientific investigative tools or as our best guesses about reality we engage in a really serious category mistake.
I could be wrong, and I'm also too lazy to search, but the Bull is not part of clerical arm of the qun?if it is, it can not just be lying or deluding hinself, but also he could be doing false advertising on the qun.
He indeed don't know the full letter of the Qun, but he lives under it and to that extend he knows it.
He indeed don't know the full letter of the Qun, but he lives under it and to that extend he knows it.
in fact, if the description of the Ben-Hassrath is correct, the bull should be an expert in Qunari laws.
The only experts in Qunari Laws are the Qun supervisors, whatever they are called. Bull understand it to the extend he can understand it. I'm not sure I'm buying this "attracting members" thing, then again I don't see this whole male/female thing as something confusing or implausible.
Yeah, so that makes me wonder why Bull says that Cassandra would do okay under the Qun. Unless he thinks that she'd be cool with being considered a man? Or maybe he was just referring to her rigidity and orderly ways?
I'm intrigued by this.
Perhaps Cassandra would become an Ashkaari: one who seeks. Sten thinks the Warden, regardless of gender, could be this after finding his sword for him, meaning it is probably a role for both men and women.
@Hanako I don't think Gaider confirmed that The Iron Bull was correct. Even if he did, I think everyone in the Dragon Age community has learned to take his word with a grain of salt after all the other lore contradictions he's made.
He confirms it in this very thread.
Here's a theory for everyone...
The Iron Bull was being misleading with the truth.
My Inquisitor is one who believes "the truth in all things". That's his personal creed. He doesn't lie, but in cases where he has to, like at the ball, he tells truths that lead people to conclude other things, or he withholds the truth by telling another truth. Maybe The Iron Bull was doing the same thing with Krem.
There do exist Aqun-Athlok; Those who live as the other gender as the Qunari see it. He never said what happens to them, and he never said the Qun recognized them as the opposite gender. He merely confirmed their existence, not whether they were accepted or given a place or not.
Also when Krem says the Qunari aren't all bad, The Iron Bull withholds the truth that the Qunari would brand her Aqun-Athlok and then reeducate her to be female. Instead he tells the truth that they would come down hard on Krem's backtalk. This way he makes it seem as if Krem's self-identification would be tolerated while her attitude would not be. So Krem feels more comfortable while also knowing that the Qun would not accept her for other reasons.
After this, The Iron Bull will refer to Krem as being a man, but this is The Iron Bull's opinion of Krem, not the Qun's classification of her.
Yeah, so that makes me wonder why Bull says that Cassandra would do okay under the Qun. Unless he thinks that she'd be cool with being considered a man? Or maybe he was just referring to her rigidity and orderly ways?
I'm intrigued by this.
I would have had more respect for you if you would have said we make it up as we go along and as far as I'm concerned your like Gorge Lukas you had a lot of talent in your youth but Now your writing has become stale and predictable at best please let someone else take over Dragon age or just make a new ip with new ideas if Biowear is still capableThe Qunari are very fond of categorization, and look upon those categories as absolute and defining -- but they are not without their own degree of fluidity by Qunari standards, which are very different from our own.
You say you're female? Then you do not fight -- "fighting" being when someone serves as a warrior. Some folks looked on Tallis as a contradiction to this as well, rather than accepting that someone like Sten would not look upon what she does as fighting. Being able to pick up a weapon and use it, even to use it well, does not make one a warrior if that is not their purpose (which it would not be, for a Ben-Hassrath, but certainly would be for a Grey Warden whose stated purpose is to combat the darkspawn).
You say you're male? Then fighting is acceptable. Even if your biology might say otherwise, the Qunari have a term for what this means and clearly the Tamassrans take it into account -- though you might note Iron Bull did not indicate how easily that might occur. We have a term for "transgender" in our real-world society as well -- that does not automatically translate into it being looked upon exactly the same by every person.
You can take what Sten said in DAO as the last and final word on every aspect of Qunari society, and thus everything following it as contradictory, or you can take into account these different viewpoints as new information and consider how they fit into the whole. It's really up to you, though that's hardly going to stop us from further developing the Qunari culture...regardless of the reasons one might ascribe to us for doing so.
Slightly tangential topic:
I would love for us to eventually go to Rivain and get a chance to see Kont-aar. It's a fortified qunari settlement that's the sole peaceful one on the continent. Apparently the Qunari are commonly found throughout Rivain and many Rivaini have converted because of the Kont-aar Qunari. I would love to eventually meet a Qunari from there. Maybe a tamassran, who is able to speak to us about her role? That would be very cool.
From that line, I got the impression that he was referring to her tendency towards rigidity.
Though this could also be Bull talking out of his ass.
Most likely, given the scene where Cassandra's smacking him with a board after "Here Lies the Abyss" he's grumbling "This is why the Qun doesn't like women fighting". I guess it could also be a comment on how she could fit into the Ben Hassrath, but even in areas like that with both men and women, they have different specialties. I mean, IB and Talis both do very different things.
I wonder how Cassandra would look ingreen leather? 
@Hanako I don't think Gaider confirmed that The Iron Bull was correct. Even if he did, I think everyone in the Dragon Age community has learned to take his word with a grain of salt after all the other lore contradictions he's made.
So wonderfully put. 
Well, his parents deemed him mature and adult enough to play the witcher and have an iphone.
That doesn't mean much my niece has one too. 
You're missing the point. The point was that as a species with sexual dimorphism we will always make distinctions based on different roles in reproduction, and the fact that such distinctions exist - rather than their specifics - is independent from culture, no matter what else is superimposed on it by culture. Without the physical, all the cultural distinctions mean nothing because all cultural aspects are defined in relation to it, regardless of whether they are in opposition or in support of it. That's why I say gender denotes primarily the physical. Culture is certainly important, but it provides interpretations, nothing more.
Just heard this between Sten and Wynne, I don't know... Qunari culture seems to have moved away from the original vision.
Just heard this between Sten and Wynne, I don't know... Qunari culture seems to have moved away from the original vision.
- Sten: Why are you here?
- Wynne: I beg your pardon?
- Sten: Women are artisans, or merchants. Or farmers, though you don't seem particularly... earthy. They have no place in war.
- Wynne: I can't even begin to tell you what's wrong with that idea.
- Sten: It is not done. There is no more to it.
- Wynne: I do not understand. Do the Qunari have no female mages? No female warriors?
- Sten: Of course not. Why would our women wish to be men?
- Wynne: Do you believe I wish to be a man?
- Sten: You cannot wish to be a man. It will lead you only to frustration.
- Wynne: Hmm. I believe this discussion does the same. Let us speak no more of it, Sten.
- Sten: As you wish.
Bull does mention however that the Antaam/Beresaad tends to be very literal minded in their way of thinking so I fail to see a contradiction here.
Bull does mention however that the Antaam/Beresaad tends to be very literal minded in their way of thinking so I fail to see a contradiction here.
Plus, he also states that there are no women mages and we know that this is not true too.
Slightly tangential topic:
I would love for us to eventually go to Rivain and get a chance to see Kont-aar. It's a fortified qunari settlement that's the sole peaceful one on the continent. Apparently the Qunari are commonly found throughout Rivain and many Rivaini have converted because of the Kont-aar Qunari. I would love to eventually meet a Qunari from there. Maybe a tamassran, who is able to speak to us about her role? That would be very cool.
That would be interesting. The Tamassrans are another part of Qunari culture that was "expanded" so I'd like some questions answered.
However more than that I'd like to meet someone under the Arigena. We've met people under the body branch(Sten, Arishok) and the soul branch(Tallis, The Iron Bull) but have yet to meet someone under the mind branch of the Triumvirate.
Guest_StreetMagic_*
Sten was comically and ridiculously hypocritical in DAO. The Arishok took hypocrys to new and almost comical heights in DA2. He says he lost no "Qunari" to the Tal-Vasoth. That's idiotic nonsense. It only works if you use a No True Scotsman fallacy. And that's the very essence of the Qun: troll logic when it comes to categories.
The most quintessential feature of the Qun is this sort of wordplay based on categories that requires effectively absurd distinctions between categories that, while sharing a label that we use IRL or that in-setting is used in the same way as IRL, the Qun uses in a totally different way.
Sten explains at comical length how someone is defined by their role for all time and without exception. Which is true... until someone gets promoted, in which case they are and always were meant to be a role that they never had until that moment in time.
Sten doesn't comprehend that someone identifies as "female" and "warrior", because that's nonsense in the view of the Qun. To understand the Qun, you can't use coherent IRL terms. As DG explains, the logical operation is IF "Warrior" THEN NOT "Female" or, alternatively, IF "Female", THEN NOT "Warrior". It's all labels and wordplay.
Wordplay is boring. To me anyways. The Qunari were more interesting at face value. As brutish, closeminded (and kind of patriarchal) jerks. Not that I liked that, but it was an enemy I loved to hate. Now they're trying to make it slightly more redeemable by basically saying "Oh we didn't mean that."
It isn't absurd. It feels like a rewrite. But if it was meant to be absurd, then it's too late for me. The damage is done, as far as this fan is concerned. This series has been out 5 years or so... and they wait now to say it was a joke? That's not cool with me either. I like punchlines delivered quickly. Not years later.
Wordplay is boring. To me anyways. The Qunari were more interesting at face value. As brutish, closeminded (and kind of patriarchal) jerks. Not that I liked that, but it was an enemy I loved to hate. Now they're trying to make it slightly more redeemable by basically saying "Oh we didn't mean that."
It isn't absurd. It feels like a rewrite. But if it was meant to be absurd, then it's too late for me. The damage is done, as far as this fan is concerned. This series has been out 5 years or so... and they wait now to say it was a joke? That's not cool with me either. I like punchlines delivered quickly. Not years later.
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