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[Korva]

Leliana's the only one who has her head on straight, because the Maker as presented by the Chant of Light literally is ****** evil. Abandoning the world twice, unleashing the darkspawn on the world, hurling the souls of the disobedient into some kind of void... Corypheus would have been kinder as a god.

 

*shrug* I don't agree on Corypheus, but none of that matters anyway. The only thing that matters is the truth. If the Chant of Light is the truth -- or more precisely, if whatever bits remain uncorrupted from Andraste's original song are the truth -- then those who want to call themselves believers in the Maker or followers of Andraste can't just play Three Monkeys with the tenets that happen to get in the way of their shiny-happy-lovey-dovey-feelings. Don't like the fact that your god has abandoned the world and you're suffering for someone else's crimes? Tough sh*t, no about of whinging and pleading will make it any less true unless your name is Andraste, in which case you might have had a shot at changing your god's mind before mortal vices killed you horribly and made him even more ticked off with everyone else than he was before you came along.

 

If on the other hand the Chant isn't true, it does you no favors to prop up a false and potentially harmful religion.

 

So if Leliana is at odds with central aspects of the Chant yet still calls herself a believer and aims to be Divine, I'd expect significantly more thought and significantly better explanations from her than just those shiny-happy-lovey-dovey-feelings ... no matter how much I'd rather live in a world shaped by her beliefs than by the belief that I've been abandoned for sins committed ages before I was even born. It's simply a matter of intellectual honesty, which is why I have more respect for believers like Cassanda or Giselle because they appear more willing and able to critically examine their faith instead of assuming that what makes them feel good must be true.

[TheKomandorShepard]

Yeah, cause the templars had no corruption in their ranks   Also, blood mages (i will entertain you and accept that blood magic is inherently evil) and abomination always have and always will exist, and other mages can deal with it, just like templars did before, they just do it with different powers. Much like in real life: just because police exists, doesn't mean that criminals are all gone

The chantry may not have blown up the world, but has annihilated any culture that disagree with it, has a stated goal of enforcing its view on the entire world and keeps belittling anyone who isn't a human. At least the wardens have stopped blights until now (I may not be a warden-fangirl, but I can see they have their use for now)

That is your argument point on another group that have corruption in their ranks? Reminds me merril argument that she can't handle demons "but other companions couldn't as well" 

Yes same for crimes but there is police to deal with it and reduce that it was role of the templars and circles and mages aren't average citizen by any way and shouldn't be treated as one as knife isn't treated the same as nuclear bomb without that corruption and disasters can only go up.

 

And so does every nation in first place chantry never was after annihilation at worst expansion in fact they have never killed elves so no and expansion don't equal world destruction not mention that chantry is whole society unlike mages that can be individually threat even on world scale.

 

That why society tolerates their crap but their luck can end in dai as well did many times before when they were kicked out country because of their crap.

[Xilizhra]

*shrug* I don't agree on Corypheus, but none of that matters anyway. The only thing that matters is the truth. If the Chant of Light is the truth -- or more precisely, if whatever bits remain uncorrupted from Andraste's original song are the truth -- then those who want to call themselves believers in the Maker or followers of Andraste can't just play Three Monkeys with the tenets that happen to get in the way of their shiny-happy-lovey-dovey-feelings. Don't like the fact that your god has abandoned the world and you're suffering for someone else's crimes? Tough sh*t, no about of whinging and pleading will make it any less true unless your name is Andraste, in which case you might have had a shot at changing your god's mind before mortal vices killed you horribly and made him even more ticked off with everyone else than he was before you came along.

 

If on the other hand the Chant isn't true, it does you no favors to prop up a false and potentially harmful religion.

 

So if Leliana is at odds with central aspects of the Chant yet still calls herself a believer and aims to be Divine, I'd expect significantly more thought and significantly better explanations from her than just those shiny-happy-lovey-dovey-feelings ... no matter how much I'd rather live in a world shaped by her beliefs than by the belief that I've been abandoned for sins committed ages before I was even born. It's simply a matter of intellectual honesty, which is why I have more respect for believers like Cassanda or Giselle because they appear more willing and able to critically examine their faith instead of assuming that what makes them feel good must be true.

Did you see the part early on, where Leliana is bitterly criticizing the Maker? I don't think Leliana is intellectually dishonest.

[Eliastion]

(...)

I have my share of doubts concerning mages suddenly accepted everywhere, but most of your points are detached from the setting to much greater degree than the too-good-to-be-true nugs-and-rainbows Leliana ending.
The towers effectively belonged to Circle of Magi, not to the Chantry - breaking off the latter doesn't change it, so if the College (or new Circles or whatever) has enough of a position to be seen as successor to the Circles, all the possessions that managed to survive the war are theirs, especially if they move in there. Thedas has a very strong element of "you own what you can keep" - notice that you don't exactly buy Inquisition's strongholds either. You get them from people nobody will miss, you make them your own and you expect everyone to accept the new status quo. You think mages would have any problem with claiming a place where they lived for centuries as theirs?
As for not being citizens of any country, there hardly is something like "citizenship" at all. Without Chantry as intermediary the mages would just talk directly to rulers of any given area. It would really take little time for them to strike some deal because rulers would want to have benefits of magic at their disposal and wouldn't want untrained mages their branch of Circle/College/Whatever couldn't reach roaming the streets.
Also, you seem to overestimate centralization of Chantry. As I said in another post - every single nation in Thedas has its own approach to the Chant. Circles responded to Grand Clerics and national Chantries are quite national - Circles, by extension, weren't completely detached from their national roots to begin with. Perhaps the most obvious example is Nevarra where Chantry has a whole different - and heavily intertwined with magic - approach to burial rites with that whole mortalitasi order... to lesser extent, this works for different Circles too. They're not suspended in political vacuum of international Chantry because international Chantry is a fictional entity in the first place - the fact that all Chantries but the Tevinter one accept Divine's authority doesn't mean it's all one coherent organism.

[Winterfly]

Lately, I've seen posts where people say Leliana will never be divine as she is crazy or her rule is doomed to failure, but her good endings show that not only does her rule not fail but her rule results in Mage freedom and acceptance.

Why do people not like this? I honestly want to know why people seriously isn't like this.

 

Maybe cause she is ****** dead?

[Korva]

Did you see the part early on, where Leliana is bitterly criticizing the Maker? I don't think Leliana is intellectually dishonest.

 

Not intellectually dishonest per se, but in matters of faith she does strike me as intellectually lazy and ruled by emotion. She almost appears to have a kind of special-snowflake-syndrome, especially during Origins. She knew the Maker's will better than the stuffy old Chant does, the Maker sent her a sign, the Maker had a purpose for her, she was the Maker's "cherished child" before he "abandoned" her the moment the Warden died (if you go with that world state). I have the impression that she wants, needs, that feeling of having, knowing and fulfilling a special purpose for him and has chased after it ever since. Justinia made her feel that way again, but her death shattered it a second time and she's really reeling from it.

 

So yes, she's angry in that early talk and struggles for answers, but it's all a matter of emotion, not of sitting down and thinking hard about what she actually believes in and why. In this situation, so shortly after the horror of the Conclave and with the Breach churning right overhead, that is admittedly understandable -- but there's no other situation in which we see a more intellectual, inquisitive aspect of her faith. Meanwhile, Cassandra for example is on record several times as knowing she's not the arbiter of what is right or true but has to search and work for it and question herself, in matters of faith or otherwise.

 

Well your last point there about the central belief about the Maker - she had never accepted that. That's part of what makes Inquisition so interesting - it certainly ties in more with the belief that the Maker has abandoned the world, rather than Leliana's own convictions.

 

It's just such a bloody shame that these and other faith-issues weren't explored more. I mean, as someone who played a devout if open-minded believer, the first first thing that struck me about the whole "Herald of Andraste" label is that it's basically blasphemy of the highest order, yet it is treated more like a political statement than a challenge of faith ... both for our supporters or our detractors.

 

I don't think the concept of "hardening" Leliana in either game was a problem so much in and of itself, rather than the way it was executed. [...] However the dialogue options were pretty awful - basically "sure you loved the fun of killing people! Now change your personality completely so we can go bang that pirate after I commit sacrilege on our holiest relic." :/

 

Ugh. Very good point, I wanted to point out that my quibble was partly with the ham-fisted way the game gives the player character-defining powers over her, but I couldn't find a good way to express it, so thank you for doing that for me.

 

Inquisition was even more extreme. She sounds terrifying post-Valence. Hardened Leliana in Inquisition is not what the Warden or Justinia would have wanted. It's almost a complete relapse to her Marjolaine days. I can only imagine what Lady Cousland will make of her!

 

Even before Valence, the baseline-Inquisition-Leliana is a woman whom my Warden would barely recognize (though she's probably partly to blame for it, seeing as how she kamikazed the Archdemon right in front of Leliana's eyes). Hardened? It's nightmarish.

 

I get what people have said about her being dependent on her relationships, and it's true to an extent. Leliana has always had many faces - bard, believer, spymaster, Left Hand etc. The extreme changes with hardening or softening her are too much and not perfectly written. A bit more subtlety was definitely needed. I think her softened dialogue says it best - there's a Leliana behind all of that, who is essentially compassionate, faithful and a good person. It's a constant struggle to make sure she doesn't get lost behind the other masks she wears. It was a good premise for the character, but not always brilliantly executed on screen.

 

Exactly! In my book, Leliana is a perfect example of why giving the player so much power over a follower's outlook and personality can backfire very badly and make the whole character look like a hot, unstable mess -- and a player like me wonder how much of that is actually an intended part of the character, and how much boils down to shallow yet over the top writing.

[Xilizhra]

Not intellectually dishonest per se, but in matters of faith she does strike me as intellectually lazy and ruled by emotion. She almost appears to have a kind of special-snowflake-syndrome, especially during Origins. She knew the Maker's will better than the stuffy old Chant does, the Maker sent her a sign, the Maker had a purpose for her, she was the Maker's "cherished child" before he "abandoned" her the moment the Warden died (if you go with that world state). I have the impression that she wants, needs, that feeling of having, knowing and fulfilling a special purpose for him and has chased after it ever since. Justinia made her feel that way again, but her death shattered it a second time and she's really reeling from it.

 

So yes, she's angry in that early talk and struggles for answers, but it's all a matter of emotion, not of sitting down and thinking hard about what she actually believes in and why. In this situation, so shortly after the horror of the Conclave and with the Breach churning right overhead, that is admittedly understandable -- but there's no other situation in which we see a more intellectual, inquisitive aspect of her faith. Meanwhile, Cassandra for example is on record several times as knowing she's not the arbiter of what is right or true but has to search and work for it and question herself, in matters of faith or otherwise.

I suspect that Leliana's faith is heavily experiential and believing oneself to have a personal relationship with one's god, and not so much based on attachment to doctrine (something that I will say is hardly a sign of being more intellectual). Beyond that first conversation, Leliana doesn't really talk about her faith, so I don't think that one can say that she's somehow sub-intellectual about it.

 

 

It's just such a bloody shame that these and other faith-issues weren't explored more. I mean, as someone who played a devout if open-minded believer, the first first thing that struck me about the whole "Herald of Andraste" label is that it's basically blasphemy of the highest order, yet it is treated more like a political statement than a challenge of faith ... both for our supporters or our detractors.

I'd call it heresy more than blasphemy; it's certainly not saying anything disrespectful to the Maker or Andraste, only challenging the Chantry (and in that, it's something more of a political statement, for how many people will really have their faith roused by the Maker ignoring them?).

[Sports72Xtrm]

Not intellectually dishonest per se, but in matters of faith she does strike me as intellectually lazy and ruled by emotion. She almost appears to have a kind of special-snowflake-syndrome, especially during Origins. She knew the Maker's will better than the stuffy old Chant does, the Maker sent her a sign, the Maker had a purpose for her, she was the Maker's "cherished child" before he "abandoned" her the moment the Warden died (if you go with that world state). I have the impression that she wants, needs, that feeling of having, knowing and fulfilling a special purpose for him and has chased after it ever since. Justinia made her feel that way again, but her death shattered it a second time and she's really reeling from it.

 

So yes, she's angry in that early talk and struggles for answers, but it's all a matter of emotion, not of sitting down and thinking hard about what she actually believes in and why. In this situation, so shortly after the horror of the Conclave and with the Breach churning right overhead, that is admittedly understandable -- but there's no other situation in which we see a more intellectual, inquisitive aspect of her faith. Meanwhile, Cassandra for example is on record several times as knowing she's not the arbiter of what is right or true but has to search and work for it and question herself, in matters of faith or otherwise.

I don't know why people project this condescending notion that Leliana is this confused little girl that needs to be infantilized. She knows what she believes in, she just hasn't figured out what means she wants to use to achieve her goals.

 

 

The Chantry dictated where it should have inspired. It spoke of judgement instead of acceptance. It should encourage the good in everyone, rather than rebuke us for our sins. No one should be turned away from our doors. No one is without worth. Whoever you are, whatever your mistakes, you are loved. Unconditionally. 'In your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame

This is the Chantry she believes in and the one she wants to come to pass.The one she wants to make. It's her dream, it's what inspires and drives her, even the warden says her faith in this chantry is her biggest strength. The altrenative is going back to a life of this

 

As a bard, you are welcome anywhere in Orlais. Doors are opened to you with generous smiles, their wearers confident that no one would falsely pretend to such a title for fear of retribution. Your slightest request is immediately seen to. Your services are expensive and yet actively sought, and those who cannot afford them beg only to not have your displeasure turn their way.

One day, however, you will awaken. You will realize the smiles are false, and behind them lies revenge. At the first moment of weakness, your brother and sister bards will be unleashed upon you like a pack of hounds, and you will realize they are not your brothers and sisters at all. For all your fancy intrigue, you have spent your life creating nothing of worth. You have been swallowed by the web of your own deceits, and the Game of which you believed yourself master? It moves on without you, uncaring.

— From a letter signed "Sister Nightingale"

Yes she wants to create something good and of worth. The Chantry offers that chance as Divine. Leaving behind a world that isn't so divisive is something she wants to create. And I don't know if there is a Maker but yes, she does seem to have a lot of miraculous occurrences that encourages her dream and hopes, spirits knowing her by name, her being associated to big events like the Inquisition and Warden. Like the Spirit Justinia said in the Fade, whether she was sent on that path by divine providence or not, does it matter? It's her dream. Why hold her back from it with doubt or try to suppress it? It seems wrong to do so. The Chant of Light promotes "creating" things from the inspiration and divine spark of mortals, not suppressing oneself.

[Sports72Xtrm]

I never saw her as a strong Chantry type. She was a strong believer in the Maker, but that's it. You can even challenge her in DAO about how different she is from the Chantry, by telling her "You must earn the Maker's blessing!". The Chantry is deistic. Leliana is theistic. Major difference. She believes in unconditional, divine intervention. Very similar to real world Christian beliefs. The Chantry says the Maker left, and only intervened once with Andraste.. and we must earn his attention by spreading the Chant. Only then will he intervene again. 

 

One big challenge is after the sacred ashes quest.. when you ask "Why should we believe in Andraste if the Maker speaks to you?" Or something to effect. She just surrounds herself with the Chantry, instead of outright making another religion.

One cannot generalize the Chantry as it is open to interpretation. Leliana believes that the Chantry is a place of hope, Andrastians believe the same thing. Why should she start a new religion when everyone believes the same thing, the only problem is that the Chantry in the past uses the Chantry's purpose to influence people as a pretext to consolidate power instead of providing hope. Why throw away the Chantry when it can be reformed? That would be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater".

 

As for Leliana, I do not see her as entitled to divine intervention but she does seem the sort to attribute her success or inspiration to a higher power. Like football players who attribute their touchdowns to a god, some people just like to think someone is looking out for them. As Dorian says, "the alternative would be frightening." Anyways, I don't necessarily consider that a fault.

[Kinsz]

It seems that many here don't know this but like the other Divines there is a bad ending for Leliana, you only get it if the Inquisitor doesn't do Her personal quest, not that it is too relevant but some people seem to think that she succeeds as Divine no matter what.
PS - Cassandra FTW.

[Eliastion]

It's not generalizing. It's central Dogma to the Chantry, that the Maker left after Andraste died. And that he merely came because of her. And not just the Chantry. The Chant of Light, which predates the Chantry and is just general Andrastian teaching.
 
Once you take that away, it's another religion.
 
There's nothing wrong with giving hope. I just don't see why one needs to use the trappings and environment of the Chantry for that.

I would be careful with that Chant of Light bit. First of all, Chant as we know it emerged only together with Chantry, it's hard to say how much of it is either distorted or even came to being as deliberate fabrication. And the idea that Maker turned his back on humanity again because Andraste was betrayed and killed is obviously an assumption somebody came up with after Andraste's death.
And we must remember that things as fundamental as Andraste being "bride of the maker" is Andrastian Chantry idea, Imperial Chantry (in fact older than its southern counterpart) doesn't accept this particular piece of dogma (and likely finds it sacrilegious as it's pretty much making Andraste to be a godess in her own right - and in fact that's exactly how she is treated in the South, people pray to her and Quizzy is the Herald of Andraste, not Maker...)

[Eliastion]

How much deconstruction will you proceed with then, and still call it the Chantry?
 
I say just create a new religion if you take it to this length.. Go crazy. Have a party. Etc.

I don't care about deconstruction, I just wanted to point out that what you mentioned as core beliefs of Andrastianism (understood as post-Andraste cult of the Maker) may be in fact specific for the Chantry. And even there they could've been reinterpreted and changed along the way - after all initially even Andrastian Chantry and Imperial Chantry were close enough to be considered a single religion and for a time they even had one common Divine And look at them now...

[Eliastion]

Why even believe in Andraste, when the Chant of Light was supposedly from her? I can understand questioning the Chantry, don't get me wrong. It was centuries later, after many Andrastian movements sprouted. It happened to be the one to come out on top.
 
But the Chant of Light was first popping up like 30 years after her death, by her disciples. This was when direct disciples like Havard was still alive (I think).
 
I understand there's probably more truth to things, but it gets a little ridiculous to question some of the history. This is just video game lore. Not like trying to verify the Gospels of Jesus. I think the writers don't want things taken so seriously like that. They have a world they're trying to build here.. some things have to be reliable. Just for the sake of having a coherent setting.

It's not existence of Andraste that is questioned. It's her divinity as bride of the Maker.
And Chant of Light is explicitly inconsistent at times, comes from many unreliable sources rather than straight from Andraste and then was subject to alterations for political purposes by various Divines.

[Boost32]

As for Viv, I honestly can't see how she was even an option. And the status quo prior to the conclave was a disaster. Reinstating that would do Thedas no good IMO. I'd actually be interested to hear the views of the pro-Viv camp, just to see the reasoning behind it. Genuinely - not looking for massive arguments or to bash anyone!! I just honestly don't get it myself.

Thats because for some of us doesnt consider the status quo was a desastre, it world very well. It needed only a few changes in my view.

[Lumix19]

I have my share of doubts concerning mages suddenly accepted everywhere, but most of your points are detached from the setting to much greater degree than the too-good-to-be-true nugs-and-rainbows Leliana ending.
The towers effectively belonged to Circle of Magi, not to the Chantry - breaking off the latter doesn't change it, so if the College (or new Circles or whatever) has enough of a position to be seen as successor to the Circles, all the possessions that managed to survive the war are theirs, especially if they move in there. Thedas has a very strong element of "you own what you can keep" - notice that you don't exactly buy Inquisition's strongholds either. You get them from people nobody will miss, you make them your own and you expect everyone to accept the new status quo. You think mages would have any problem with claiming a place where they lived for centuries as theirs?
As for not being citizens of any country, there hardly is something like "citizenship" at all. Without Chantry as intermediary the mages would just talk directly to rulers of any given area. It would really take little time for them to strike some deal because rulers would want to have benefits of magic at their disposal and wouldn't want untrained mages their branch of Circle/College/Whatever couldn't reach roaming the streets.
Also, you seem to overestimate centralization of Chantry. As I said in another post - every single nation in Thedas has its own approach to the Chant. Circles responded to Grand Clerics and national Chantries are quite national - Circles, by extension, weren't completely detached from their national roots to begin with. Perhaps the most obvious example is Nevarra where Chantry has a whole different - and heavily intertwined with magic - approach to burial rites with that whole mortalitasi order... to lesser extent, this works for different Circles too. They're not suspended in political vacuum of international Chantry because international Chantry is a fictional entity in the first place - the fact that all Chantries but the Tevinter one accept Divine's authority doesn't mean it's all one coherent organism.

Rivain is another example where the mages were allowed to mingle with their families and women were trained as Rivain Seers. Until of course the Chantry found out and purged them. Yet before that it was functional.

To address you earlier point MisterJB about the common people: I think what Sera shows us is that most of the common people don't really care about the intricacies of mage-Templar politics. But at the end of the day they're not making the decision. The Chantry is. So of course most of the people aren't particularly happy about it but if the Chantry is allowing it and in light of the mages aid in the fight against Corypheus then they may grudgingly accept it. I don't think the implication is that everyone is hugging mages in the streets. But at least they're not lynching them anymore. It's a bit like the blacksmith who at first spits at Dorian the first day they met and goes on to (begrudgingly) accept him. The point I was making about history is that the educated people who actually have the power to change anything will be aware of this history and perhaps more willing to accept Leliana's changes. The common people will likely go with it because they don't actually have the power to change it. Now they will probably still be groups who hate mages and may even be violent against them, but at least it's no longer systematic. And perhaps in some areas, like Rivain, the common consensus seems to be that seers are widely accepted.

[FadelessRipley]

Thats because for some of us doesnt consider the status quo was a desastre, it world very well. It needed only a few changes in my view.

OK, fair enough. I probably should have expanded a bit. I don't claim to have fully made up my mind about what's best, because it's so complex. However, the status quo of the Circle system with Mages under complete Templar control was clearly not going to last. It wasn't fair, and there was too much scope for abuses. Tranquility was brutal - anyone deserves death over that IMO. The fact it was reversible and was used to weild terror over Mages was worse.

OTOH, I do actually agree with Viv regarding Anders actions and labeling them as "terrorist". My Hawke spared him, but she was bloody furious. All along she she understood his plight, but what he did was make things worse, not to mention committing mass murder. However, arguably it often takes extreme actions like that to bring things to a head. The subsequent decision of the Mages to leave wasn't ideal, either. Neither side is innocent during the events of the Mage-Templar war.

Cutting a long story short - while I love Leliana's idea of complete emancipation for Mages, I feel Cassandra's "let them rule themselves" ideas are probably more practical, at least as a stepping stone to full freedom. You can't undo 1000 years of history, even if you believe the Chantry was always misinterpreting the Maker's words and the Circles never should have existed in the first place. The Templar order needn't necessarily be completely gotten rid of, but it needs a lot of reform and a slightly different purpose.

[Boost32]

OK, fair enough. I probably should have expanded a bit. I don't claim to have fully made up my mind about what's best, because it's so complex. However, the status quo of the Circle system with Mages under complete Templar control was clearly not going to last. It wasn't fair, and there was too much scope for abuses. Tranquility was brutal - anyone deserves death over that IMO. The fact it was reversible and was used to weild terror over Mages was worse.
OTOH, I do actually agree with Viv regarding Anders actions and labeling them as "terrorist". My Hawke spared him, but she was bloody furious. All along she she understood his plight, but what he did was make things worse, not to mention committing mass murder. However, arguably it often takes extreme actions like that to bring things to a head. The subsequent decision of the Mages to leave wasn't ideal, either. Neither side is innocent during the events of the Mage-Templar war.
Cutting a long story short - while I love Leliana's idea of complete emancipation for Mages, I feel Cassandra's "let them rule themselves" ideas are probably more practical, at least as a stepping stone to full freedom. You can't undo 1000 years of history, even if you believe the Chantry was always misinterpreting the Maker's words and the Circles never should have existed in the first place. The Templar order needn't necessarily be completely gotten rid of, but it needs a lot of reform and a slightly different purpose.

It worked for more than 900 years, what was needed is a better oversight over the templars to prevent abuses.
And I dont agree to let the mages lead themselves, they proved (to me) that they cant.

[Jaison1986]

It worked for more than 900 years, what was need is a better oversight over the templars to prevent abuses.
And I dont agree to let the mages lead themselves, they proved (to me) that they cant.

 

And if future sequels prove you otherwise?