@DeantheYoung; I'm going to try to hit the highlights here.
The Chantry and the poor-- If we're being real, a very important part of the Chantry's responsibilities for historical and religious reasons has been to act as magi steward. That role has shaped its history and its power, the Circle comes back under Vivienne and can under Cassandra, and some changes like opening up the priesthood to mages again reshape the Chantry. Inevitably a lot of resources-- physical, emotional, spiritual-- are put into reconstituting it. To say that the Chantry is focusing only on the poor or that mages are not part of its agenda-- I don't agree with that. Especially if it sets about undermining the College. Mages are absolutely part of its agenda then. And neither Cass nor Leliana act as though helping the poor or dealing with mages are in direct conflict. The Chantry has never acted that way as far as I can tell.
The most important part of this IMO is the College is prevented from becoming a privately run institution like it seems to be in many of the endings. I break with Xil there. I don't think it should be run only by mages. I think its better politics to go public, and I think it can better fulfill its goals as a public institution.
The mages and the public charity weren't in conflict before because the Chantry wasn't taking money from the poor to pay the mages. It was paying the Templars, who served public goods and services in addition to managing the Circles, but it didn't even tax for that. Seriously supporting the mages according to Xil's outline, however, requires that level of money.
But- since it's clear now that you don't support effective Mage self-governance- we're still begging the question of why create a parallel Chantry institution rather than modify the existing one.
About Chantry control of the Circle-- I don't think the Chantry is as handsoff as you say. The Chantry's dogma, rules, and templar oversight-- that's very significant. Those things prevent important topics like a Libertarian split, blood magic use, or intervention in the Ferelden/Orlais war from ever being seriously taken up by the mages. The Chantry is in the driver's seat. And the books go into this more than the games but in the Stolen Throne its said that there are always a lot of chantry sisters present in a circle-- they even outnumber the apprentices IIRC. So the Chantry may not use all of its power all the time, but it can exert significant power if it wants to, and in subordinating the Circle on the grounds it does, it already hems in the mages to a significant degree.
"Arm" is not the appropriate word. I didn't mean in a military sense. More like a subsidiary. Or branch.
Then you think wrong.
What you call Chantry's dogma and rules are in most respects the mages own- and if the Chantry is willing to tolerate them in a subsidiary, it can tolerate them in the Circles as well. And if it won't tolerate it in a Circle, it's far less likely to subsidize it.
Nor do you establish how the College can be free in a way that the Circle can't.
About control of the College-- The Chantry will likely draw the line on some things. Like blood magic, and even if its not something as serious as blood magic, there is room for discussion on what's funded by the public and what isn't. In any case, the College always gets up and running and it wouldn't have rely on the Chantry as a bank forever.
This has got to be clear to the Chantry-- for ideological reasons the College will be run more like a public enterprise and less/not at all run like a subsidiary of the Chantry. The US gov. has run its GSEs more like private companies and less like gov. agencies for historical, philosophical, and political reasons. So it can be done. Depends on Chantry leadership. I could see Cass and Leliana try it to keep the peace.
Whose ideology is this? Who's making this clear to the Chantry- and how are they enforcing it?
That's not a rhetorical question, by the way- this is the same sort of question I'd ask if you framed this in terms of 'Human Rights', or 'all people are created equal' or 'democratic legitimacy.' Plenty of things that exist in our modern world can't exist in Thedas- because they lack the technology, legal system, and cultural norms to support it. As the last decade hopefully made clear, the US can't even export it's systems of governance to countries on the same planet.
What's good for the Chantry-- I don't think its in the best interests to fight w/ the College. The College has strengths the Circle doesn't and its better they work together where they can. The politics are otherwise nastier, social tensions are higher, mages are again at risk. Cass' epilogue says there may eventually be war between the College and the Circle. Overall, there are fewer problems w/ steeled Divine Leliana. She supports the College and squashes resistance against it thoroughly enough that the Circle won't be a problem it has to deal with at all it seems and the worst outcomes are entirely avoided.
Vying for patrons-- The College could be favored in a lot of ways. It likely won't have the same rules about mages in war as the Chantry, for example. The Chantry could rein that in initially w/ its funding and push for conventions and regulations w/ its influence there.
What strengths are there that the Circle can't do? You have yet to give any that are unique to the College, rather than unique to the willingness of the Chantry's support. The merits of public financing draw from the Chantry. The merits of magical experimentation draw from the Chantry's tolerance.
The Chantry doesn't need to have a fight with the College- the Circle already does all on its own, by virtue of them both competing for the same relevant roles. Saying 'it's better they work together where they can' doesn't remove the zero-sum nature of the many areas that they can't.
Moreover, you're already establishing an institutional competition between the Chantry and the College- the Chantry's ideology of how the mages should interface with countries on terms of war and other things. When you counter your own 'hands off' insistence of how the Chantry will deal with the College, by expecting it to deal with the College from a position of influence and superiority, you have an instititutional contradiction.
And what's the argument against the College? it always gets up and running in any case, doing better or worse depending on Divine.
At this time, the argument isn't against the College- it's against the College and Circle existing at the same time.
Regardless of which one you favor the two are primed for conflict because they're in direct competition- for mages, for supporters and patrons, and for relevance. That they are both up and running in any case is the problem, not the solution- and promises conflict in the foreseeable future as well.
And that's the argument against having both: unnecessary conflict for the forseeable future. Unless there's a compelling benefit from it- and a paradoxical expectation that the Chantry will throw money at a Circle-in-all-but-name to do whatever they want, even if it disagrees with the Chantry, while providing public services for the Chantry, is not a compelling reason-then there's no reason to support both.
And it doesn't have to be dependent on nobles. It'd just have to weigh the advantages of taking that sort of money. If its publicly funded it won't have to rely on that, and there are ways of supporting it outside both public funding and contributions from elites. Also, if the Chantry is worried about College interference in its politics, keeping them away from nobles with public funding is one way to do it.
And here we come back to the reasonableness of expecting College autonomy when the Chantry has the power of the purse. Unless you are self-funding, someone always has the power of the purse over you.
We should also point out that if you're concerned about the nobles having too much influence in the Colleges, you shouldn't plan on having the Colleges influenced and governed by the local community. The nobles are the local community as far as political will and relevance go. You're competing against your own intent.
A waste of time and resources-- I think a lot more goes into it than a calculation about templars, or even any calculation about only the Chantry. Especially if there's another war. Its a general waste of time and community resources. The local college and the circle can focus on different research, different projects, different products and services for the community. And mobilizing to destroy the College as Vivienne seems to want to do in some endings or as others in the Chantry may want, for example, sucks up politics, disrupts communities where these tense splits or battles will take place, uses up resources and destroys human/elven capital (and very precious capital since they're mages) that would be spent on other things. Its a monumental waste. Undermining the College doesn't serve the Chantry's mission (which you say is helping the poor) and this path stokes corruption.
You aren't saving resources by duplicating organizations. You're expending them.
If the Chantry invests in Templars (even if they are not called Templars), they will exist regardless of the College. They may even exist regardless of the Circle. Creating the College does not defer or lessen Templar costs.
In terms of money, your College is a far greater money drain than the Circle. The Circle is self-funded. You want the College not to be. That is a great deal of resources that can't be spent on other causes.
The College and Circles will not coordinate to specialize in different fields. For one thing, they are not centrally managed to manage such coordination. The Chantry doesn't tell the Circles what to research, or even make them work. The Chantry can't tell the College what to research, or else the entire point of having a college rather than the Circle- autonomy- is non-existent. Then there is the fact that the two mage groups will be in competition for the same patrons and suppliers.
The costs of managing the feuds between the Circle and the College isn't solved by allowing the College: the coexistence of the two overlapping institutions is the cause. The costs of constant mediating between the Circle and the College is prevented by not allow both to exist at the same time.
And if your College's are expensively redundant Circles, whose policies with host nations and research topics and funding stream are all controlled or highly influenced by the Chantry, then there's no point in creating the College.
About College corruption-- I need you to explain that some more. Something is not connecting in my brain when I read it. I don't know if its because we're getting at two different things or what.
About Vivienne-- I don't think her reforms will matter all that much in the long run because the same flawed structure is in place as before. It doesn't really matter if mages have more power in the circle or take positions in the Chantry IMO. There will always be things the Circle can't do for dogmatic/arbitrary reasons the Chantry has dictated and when the will of the Circle comes up against the will of the Chantry the same problems crop up as before.
First, the matter of history: The Mage Rebellion wasn't a matter of the Will of the Circle coming against the Will of the Chantry. It was a matter of the mages coming up against the Templars- and the Templars not reflecting the will of the Chantry. Templar abuses and excess oppression were not the will of the Chantry.
Next, your argument-
If the Chantry will dictate to the Circle and enforce its will upon it, then it's going to do the same with the College. It's not a matter of being free of dogmatism- it becomes a matter of 'does the Chantry have the will and the means to do so?'
If the Chantry would do it to the Circles despite the very real autonomy the Circles have demonstrated even in the face of the Templars, it's demonstrating that it has the will to enforce its views on the mages. If the Chantry has the power of the purse, it has the means to do so to the College- in addition to all the other assets the Circle can manage.
Corruption in the College will occur by simple fact that the College is made and composed by corruptible (if not already corrupt) people and will have systemic interests and self-interests to pursue over the common good. If there's money to be gained from Tranquility, the College of free and independent mages will have the same motive as the Circle. If there's a risk of the Chantry pressing its views in the Circles, there's a risk of the Chantry pressings its views on the College.
It's not a matter of 'why would it be as corrupt'- it's a question of 'why would it NOT be as corrupt.'
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