43 réponses à ce sujet

[Bad King]

There are plenty of horrible psychos that think exactly in that way. Blue and orange is different from just being a Mad Scientists ™ who engages in horrid experiments for the purpose of instigating what amounts to an ethnic purge. 

 

Psychopaths are a very different phenomenon to the Architect - we hold disdain for them due to their lack of empathy and inability to functionally engage within our own moral systems (that they themselves were raised in). The Architect meanwhile had to construct his own morality (which he continues to construct) in his own context (a context that consisted of a few disintegrating texts and hordes of mindless darkspawn). It's easy to understand why he values life less than others when he's spent his life surrounded by mindless darkspawn who are constantly being spawned and dying while undertaking their singular purpose to find the Old Gods.

[Palidane]

Two more pieces of evidence I think people often overlook:

 

The Architects amnesia is not necessarily evidence against him being a Magister. Maybe mortals that somehow become immortal just lose their memories over time, like what happened to Shale. We know from banter between Cole and Dorian that even Corypheus's memory is starting to fail him.

• Dorian: Did he actually walk into the Black City? Is that true?
• Cole: Betrayal. Blurred at the edges, like a faded painting. Too long ago, so much confusion.
• Dorian: I'll... take that as a "maybe.

He's been sleeping for hundreds of years, for him, the Black City was yesterday. It's perfectly reasonable to think that the Architects one thousand years underground have kind of started to blur together for him.

 

Also, the seven magisters involved in the attempt kept their names secret, addressing each other only by their role in the endeavor. Corypheus really means "The Conductor" in Tevene. The Architect's name seems to fit right in. One magister to build the ritual, another to perform it.

[Heimdall]

Psychopaths are a very different phenomenon to the Architect - we hold disdain for them due to their lack of empathy and inability to functionally engage within our own moral systems (that they themselves were raised in). The Architect meanwhile had to construct his own morality (which he continues to construct) in his own context (a context that consisted of a few disintegrating texts and hordes of mindless darkspawn). It's easy to understand why he values life less than others when he's spent his life surrounded by mindless darkspawn who are constantly being spawned and dying while undertaking their singular purpose to find the Old Gods.

I agree.

If he truly is a magister, and his memory has degraded as indicated by that one codex entry, then he's been wandering the depths for a thousand years all alone. The only encounters he's had are with dwarves, who attempt to kill him on sight, and darkspawn (who freely kill one another for dominance). Life is cheap in the Deep Roads. His other knowledge comes from fragmented books and tablets found in decrepit ruins.

When I see the Architect, I see a creature that's remarkably naive to the way people actually think and assign value, not moral bankruptcy.

[Heimdall]

 
Also, the seven magisters involved in the attempt kept their names secret, addressing each other only by their role in the endeavor. Corypheus really means "The Conductor" in Tevene. The Architect's name seems to fit right in. One magister to build the ritual, another to perform it.

My thinking as well, I think he may have been the one to actually design the ritual where Corypheus lead them in performing it.

[SwobyJ]

My Darkspawn/Mortal synthesis is inevitable. Bring on the Architect.

[King Cousland]

 

Also, the seven magisters involved in the attempt kept their names secret, addressing each other only by their role in the endeavor. Corypheus really means "The Conductor" in Tevene. The Architect's name seems to fit right in. One magister to build the ritual, another to perform it.

 

Do we have confirmation of this? I always assumed the same but I seem to remember one of the writers saying that The Conductor is not an actual title and was only used for an achievement as it translates as such from the classical Greek κορυφαῖος (koryphaîos) 

[In Exile]

Psychopaths are a very different phenomenon to the Architect - we hold disdain for them due to their lack of empathy and inability to functionally engage within our own moral systems (that they themselves were raised in). The Architect meanwhile had to construct his own morality (which he continues to construct) in his own context (a context that consisted of a few disintegrating texts and hordes of mindless darkspawn). It's easy to understand why he values life less than others when he's spent his life surrounded by mindless darkspawn who are constantly being spawned and dying while undertaking their singular purpose to find the Old Gods.

His morality isn't alien. All it amounts to is valuing his in-group at the expense of the outgroup. That's quintessentially human. Inventing moral theory - even if he did that - doesn't make his moral framework alien.

He's a mad scientist. That's his trope. He's a racist Doctor Doom.

[In Exile]

I agree.

If he truly is a magister, and his memory has degraded as indicated by that one codex entry, then he's been wandering the depths for a thousand years all alone. The only encounters he's had are with dwarves, who attempt to kill him on sight, and darkspawn (who freely kill one another for dominance). Life is cheap in the Deep Roads. His other knowledge comes from fragmented books and tablets found in decrepit ruins.

When I see the Architect, I see a creature that's remarkably naive to the way people actually think and assign value, not moral bankruptcy.

He's absolutely morally bankrupt. He's clearly capable of perceiving the basic facts that underpin our morals: life is finite, pain is a thing we experience, pain is radically unpleasant, etc.

He doesn't care. And he lies, in almost comically transparent ways.

[Heimdall]

He's absolutely morally bankrupt. He's clearly capable of perceiving the basic facts that underpin our morals: life is finite, pain is a thing we experience, pain is radically unpleasant, etc.

He doesn't care. And he lies, in almost comically transparent ways.

Acknowledging that life is finite doesn't mean he understands the way we value individual lives.  The darkspawn think nothing of losing a few hurlocks afterall.  Pain is unpleasant, but people put themselves through pain to survive willingly every day, especially in the deep roads where he's liable to encounter them.  His understanding is warped, but he's not morally bankrupt.

 

EDIT: And perhaps more importantly he doesn't see the darkspawn as anathema or the taint as abominable, it is after all a part of him.  That may be what you think is "racist" in his thinking.

[leaguer of one]

His morality isn't alien. All it amounts to is valuing his in-group at the expense of the outgroup. That's quintessentially human. Inventing moral theory - even if he did that - doesn't make his moral framework alien.

He's a mad scientist. That's his trope. He's a racist Doctor Doom.

 

 

He's absolutely morally bankrupt. He's clearly capable of perceiving the basic facts that underpin our morals: life is finite, pain is a thing we experience, pain is radically unpleasant, etc.

He doesn't care. And he lies, in almost comically transparent ways.

Do you not understand he's not human and he does not even start to understand human concepts? Human morality and morality is not objective not is it universal. Nothing in any of his interaction even start to show he understand human morality and what we see as right and wrong. That's why his morality is alien. He sees things at a foundation as a darkspawn.

[Palidane]

Do we have confirmation of this? I always assumed the same but I seem to remember one of the writers saying that The Conductor is not an actual title and was only used for an achievement as it translates as such from the classical Greek κορυφαῖος (koryphaîos) 

"Each assumed a title related to their role in casting the ritual. Some texts claim they had a leader: the High Priest of Dumat, called "Corypheus." He did not rule this group, but instead conducted it, coordinating their efforts to achieve a magical feat never since replicated. They breached the Fade, walked physically in dreams, and changed our world forever."

 

From his codex. Probably as close to confirmation as we're getting.

[In Exile]

Do you not understand he's not human and he does not even start to understand human concepts? Human morality and morality is not objective not is it universal. Nothing in any of his interaction even start to show he understand human morality and what we see as right and wrong. That's why his morality is alien. He sees things at a foundation as a darkspawn.

The Architect is very clearly human. He's as human as Corypheus, Sera or Sten. They're all "human" in the sense that they are anthropomorphic figures which are culturally and socially human.

Human morality has a great deal of common facets. There is a very big difference between the kind of finely tuned moral debates that revolve around postmodernist questions of moral relativism and the actual idea that anything could be a moral principle.

If you copy and paste out "darkspawn" and substitute, say, "Irish" you'd get what sounds like a xenophobic and racism rant coming out of a racial (or cultural) extremist. That's all the Architect amounts to in DA.

[In Exile]

Acknowledging that life is finite doesn't mean he understands the way we value individual lives. The darkspawn think nothing of losing a few hurlocks afterall. Pain is unpleasant, but people put themselves through pain to survive willingly every day, especially in the deep roads where he's liable to encounter them. His understanding is warped, but he's not morally bankrupt.

EDIT: And perhaps more importantly he doesn't see the darkspawn as anathema or the taint as abominable, it is after all a part of him. That may be what you think is "racist" in his thinking.

No, he's racist because he outright adopted a plan predicated on the genocide of all things that were unlike him for the purpose of the advancement of his race.

As to the individual value of lives, we blatantly see that in his own assessment of the darkspawn. To some extent he treats his lackeys like fodder but that doesn't set him apart from villainous historical figures like, say, Stalin.

Don't confuse the BS he peddles to justify his pillage and torture with an actual deficit.

We've yet to meet a being in DA that operates on Blue and Orange morality.

[Urzon]

The Architect is very clearly human. He's as human as Corypheus, Sera or Sten. They're all "human" in the sense that they are anthropomorphic figures which are culturally and socially human.

Human morality has a great deal of common facets. There is a very big difference between the kind of finely tuned moral debates that revolve around postmodernist questions of moral relativism and the actual idea that anything could be a moral principle.

Human morality in real life might have a great deal of common facets, but that's still based and built on the fact that everyone is actually human and have grown up in a human society. The Darkspawn, while having strong ties and resembling humans and the other mortal races, have no culture or social structure other than dog eat dog and the continuous search for Old Gods, and their neighbors (the humans, elves, dwarves, and Qun)influence them in no way on either aspect. They might look similar, and they may live in the same general area, but the Darkspawn on most regards should basically be labeled an alien race.

So unless he retained some memories of growing up and living in Tevinter, the Architect, culturally, socially, or morally, should be considered more Darkspawn now than he is human. The Darkspawn way of life is all he knows and all he remembers, and any sort of general all encompassing morals the outside races might have would be a foreign concept to him.

[littlebrightpanda]

The big difference between Corypheus and the Architect is how much time they were awake. Cory was captured during the First Blight, maybe right after he came back from the fade and has been sleeping ever since. For him, the Black City-incident happened like a week ago. We don't know how long the Architect has been awake. Might be ever since the first blight, which makes it entirely possible for him to forget his origins and adapt a new personality. 800 years is a pretty long time and if all he has seen were darkspawn, why not become more like a darkspawn? 

 

Additionally, the other Magisters mentioned in the codex entry. They met, fought about the Black City, one ate the other and the third one fled. Meaning there were definitely four of them, of which some are still confused. So there might be others like the Architect bumbling around in the deep roads, some that have been awake for a long time, others kind of like Cory. We don't know the entirety of their powers, they might be related to their skills back as humans, or to something they have achieved in the meantime.

 

Summary: Architect might be awake for 800 years, enough time to forget his origins and adopt a darkspawny-personality. Cory was awaked recently and remembers Black City-stuff very well, which leads to a more magister-like personality. More magisters are out there, totally unknown forces. Might be awake for long time, or awakened recently. Deep Roads are big enough for them to stay secret for a long time (see: Primeval thaig).  

[Bad King]

His morality isn't alien. All it amounts to is valuing his in-group at the expense of the outgroup. That's quintessentially human. Inventing moral theory - even if he did that - doesn't make his moral framework alien.

He's a mad scientist. That's his trope. He's a racist Doctor Doom.

 

No, rather than create darkspawn supremacy, he wanted to forge a peace between darkspawn and everyone else by turning surfacers into grey wardens. He saw it as being beneficial to both sides as it would prevent future blights. What makes his morality alien is that he doesn't understand why surfacers would be repulsed by the idea of becoming tainted and he's completely fine with killing thousands of people to achieve this peace - he doesn't value life the same way as most surfacers do and this is a direct consequence of his circumstances.

 

Regarding the phrase 'alien morality', one could argue that the very concept of morality is human and thus anyone with any sort of moral code isn't 'alien'. I use the term more liberally to describe a moral code that differs in a large number of ways to those that are familiar to us and as a result, it's difficult for us to comprehend the thinking behind them.

[leaguer of one]

The Architect is very clearly human. He's as human as Corypheus, Sera or Sten. They're all "human" in the sense that they are anthropomorphic figures which are culturally and socially human.

Human morality has a great deal of common facets. There is a very big difference between the kind of finely tuned moral debates that revolve around postmodernist questions of moral relativism and the actual idea that anything could be a moral principle.

If you copy and paste out "darkspawn" and substitute, say, "Irish" you'd get what sounds like a xenophobic and racism rant coming out of a racial (or cultural) extremist. That's all the Architect amounts to in DA.

Dude...So are human based darkspawn. And even then that does not matter if he has no memory of being human. Human morality is only common on the concept of group serviceability. Everything we have on morality is all about group order and survival. Even wolves and dogs have the same basic foundation of morality as human. Darkspawn don't have that. The are not about group survival nor are that about individual survival. It's about rage, dominance, and distraction. Sorry you can't even say the darkspawn even begin to have any sociological similarity to any of the races in thedus at all. With that it's impossible to say the Architect would have human morality. He can't being that his basis is a race with out it and he had very little human, dwarf or elf interaction.

 

Sorry but he is morality is simply alien.

[SwobyJ]

Architect is my homeboy as long as he keeps his icky chunks dripping off of him, off the couch.

[Andromelek]

It's quite upset see how Bioware is wasting cool characters: The Architect, The Rock Wraiths and Yavana, with the mess on Inquisition's events one should think that at least one of this dudes should show up and help to clean the mess or make it worse, but even if you import a world where the Warden Commander forgives the Architect, Hawke makes a deal with the hunger demon who took control over the profane and the Warden executes Alistair to prevent Yavana of being killed, they still without being mentioned on the whole game.