My Dear Boy,
Your pious outrage might earn you some approval with your knight-lieutenant, but I beg you to join the rest of us in the real world, lad. Do you have any idea just how wealthy the Circles of Magi can be? The amount of gold
the nobility pays for enchanted goods would overflow a well. Many mages-particularly Lucrosians-are from good families, used to entertainments and the finer things in life...And Maker knows they can afford them. So why shouldn't they indulge a little?
Besides, a few musicians and dancers and an elaborate dinner is nothing. There are a dozen acting troupes in Val Royeaux who specialize in bringing plays and stories into Circle Towers. A little colapsible scenary, the right costumes, a sprinkle of artfully chosen scent, and they can transform a workshop into an enchanted forest, a cold courtyard into a war tent on the eve of battle, or a dining hall inot a darkspawn lair.
When mages entertain themselves, now that's a sight. I've seen ones who could juggle fire into ice or breathe a word into one hand and release a song from the other. I once saw a mage build a cathedral out of playing cards, upside down, yet it was impossible to knock it over! Even a game of battledore and shuttlecock takes on new dimension when the players can move objects with their minds.
It isn't all idle entertainment either; most mages I know are eager to put their hands to useful work. Those gorgeous wooden panels in the teyrn's castle at Ostwick? The ones that show the Qunari Wars on the Waking Sea? All carved by an enchanter at the city's Circle, over the ten years he spent there. More than a few palaces have benefited from the artistry of mages; tapestries, stained glasses, anything that takes time and patience.
In my day, some knight-captains frowned on mages spending their time and magical power for "frivolous ends".
Frivolous? Any mages with enough fine control to keep an audience enthralled, or to build a mosaic of Andraste, has better mastery of their magic than one who only uses it to destroy. Leave the moralizing to the revered mothers, my boy. It's not for us to say how a person should stay occupied in their own home.
World of Thedas, Volume 2, page 176.
Now, to the layman this may appear to be the life wealthy craftsmen; an higher class of society, especially when compared to the peasantry or those poor bastards in Darktown.
But I assure, this is the very heart of OPRESSION! And yes, it is worth it to endanger the lives of said peasantry so that a mage may enjoy wealth and entertainment from the comfort of their own homes.
Anyone who says otherwise is a collaborator and should be burnt at the stake!
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