20 réponses à ce sujet

[TheButterflyEffect]

Absolutely not a commentary on people with disabilities IRL. This is only something I only wonder about in terms of DA lore.

 

For people that seem to be pretty much incapable of charity and compassion, since their philosophy strictly prohibits free thinking and all that, why are the qunari so uncharacteristically compassionate to people with disabilities? The tamassrans are tasked with taking care of people who are too mentally or physically disabled to function independently in society. Yet supposedly people are viewed as a resource like any other (water, stone, wood, etc), so why would they care for people who are unable to function as such?

 

Would they ever accept people with disabilities from other cultures as converts?

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

In before the Andramada!

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

I don't even know what this thread is about, and I know it isn't in the Andromeda section, but I'm still confident that Andramada was both intended and will occur...

[actionhero112]

They're probably tasked with another duty within the Qun that works around their restriction. 

 

The Qun sees purpose in all of its members. It has rigid ideas about what that purpose is, but I doubt receiving a disability immediately makes you worthless. 

[Captain Wiseass]

I'm not entirely sure your premise is correct. That the Qunari believe everyone should submit to their naturally ordained role doesn't preclude compassion or charity.

 

To say they think of people merely as resources doesn't jibe with what I've seen. Tallis and Sten certainly believe that people have value, and that they deserve to be happy. They just believe that happiness will come with finding and accepting their role.

 

The Qunari seem to strive for pragmatism, so pragmatically, a disabled person would simply be directed towards a role where their infirmity was irrelevant. The Qunari also abhor waste, and to simply let (for example) a paraplegic die of malnourishment would certainly be a waste of their mind. Imagine Stephen Hawking in the Qun; he might not be a physicist in Thedas, but he'd certainly make a wonderful theoretical engineer. Why throw away the things his mind might invent just because his body is decrepit?

 

In a way, the Qun sees mages as disabled, and they still take care of them. They're fed and clothed and sheltered, and given a purpose. Even their draconian methods of controlling them are seen as protecting them from demonic influences.

[straykat]

 

In a way, the Qun sees mages as disabled, and they still take care of them. They're fed and clothed and sheltered, and given a purpose. Even their draconian methods of controlling them are seen as protecting them from demonic influences.

 

Aww that's sweet. Stitching their lips together is done with care and love.

 

 

The only positive thing I see about the Qunari is that they're funny.

[Andreas Amell]

Have we seen disabled people in the games? I haven't seen the huge casualties at Skyhold whose limbs had to be amputated. I assumed their magical healers gave them an advantage in fixing most physical disabilities. The Tranquil might be considered mentally disabled but we haven't seen them in need of constant care like Minaeve claimed. 

 

Also, a society like the Qunari might have more advanced prosthetic limbs for their physically disabled. 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Have we seen disabled people in the games?

Ser Otto in Dragon Age: Origins was legally blind. He could just barely see shadows and shapes. 

[TheButterflyEffect]

It's not just amputated limbs I am talking about - it's anything, cerebral palsy, epilepsy (a debilitating problem before there were anti seizure medications, as the unpredictability of seizures made many occupations too dangerous), low functioning autism, bipolar disorder, etc (and yes these things all existed in pre modern times, people just didn't talk about them much, or understand them).

 

Of course, nobody with any of these things has ever appeared in the games, but they most probably do exist somewhere...

[DarkAmaranth1966]

I see the Qunari as believing there is a role for everyone and, the tamassarans job is to find that role. As examples a low functioning autistic Qunari might be a savant and thus a musician or math scholar, or whatever his/her skill was. One with epilepsy might still have a brilliant mind, just not be suited to the Antaam (military) so maybe they become a tamassaran or a re educator or baker or whatever.

 

The Qun might be strict but, it does seem to fins a place for everyone, sort of like taking an aptitude test all through early education then, being told what you have the best aptitude for and, being told you can do that or die, your choice (and the only one you get.)

[straykat]

I see the Qunari as believing there is a role for everyone and, the tamassarans job is to find that role. As examples a low functioning autistic Qunari might be a savant and thus a musician or math scholar, or whatever his/her skill was. One with epilepsy might still have a brilliant mind, just not be suited to the Antaam (military) so maybe they become a tamassaran or a re educator or baker or whatever.

 

The Qun might be strict but, it does seem to fins a place for everyone, sort of like taking an aptitude test all through early education then, being told what you have the best aptitude for and, being told you can do that or die, your choice (and the only one you get.)

 

[berelinde]

Ser Otto in Dragon Age: Origins was legally blind. He could just barely see shadows and shapes. 

Ser Otto in Dragon Age:Origins was totally badass.

[Medhia_Nox]

@TheButterflyEffect:  Truthfully?  I could see them devoting a LOT of resources to helping members of the Qun with psychosis.  They're obsessed with efficiency.

[straykat]

Truthfully.. I think the main reason I dislike the Qun so much is just because I'm a Westerner and American (and not just that.. but that I love it). Everything related to independence, ownership, dreaming, style, exploring your identity via experiences (rather than merely through writ or tradition), etc.. It's all ingrained in most of us.

 

The betterment of Society is not simply a question of ethics or what's useful. Which the Qunari might be capable of. What they lack is all the above. Which many people find unable to live without.

 

As for disabilities, I think it's just another move to place more positives on the Qunari, but in reality, clash with authoritarian or totalitarian history. Just like giving them superior transgender tolerance. Before they were cool villains, but now everything related to Qun discussion is just.... trying too hard. Just ****** give it up already.

[Arvaarad]

The Qunari waste nothing. Even a person with severe disabilities is capable of far more sophisticated tasks than their most advanced machines. From a purely pragmatic perspective, discarding a person, however challenging their situation, is destroying a complex machine that can still do work for them. Someone who's lost their legs can still do paperwork. Someone who's lost their mind can still do manual labor. And so on.

It doesn't necessarily imply compassion or any concern for the well-being of their charges. Ruthless practicality can come to the same conclusion.

[GoldenGail3]

Ser Otto in Dragon Age:Origins was totally badass.

Sir Otto was one of my most liked characters in all of DA. I also adore Sir Barris. I don't know why, but some Templars In my mind are da best ever. The Templar in Lothering with Hawke's voice is also epic too. Gosh, Bioware made DAO full of epic Templars. I mean, Knight Commander Gregior was alright, and he's old. *Canon has to do with this love of Templars. Alistair and Cullen...*

[Big I]

• Sten: I knew one of your countrymen once, elf.
• Zevran: Oh? Have you been to Antiva, then?
• Sten: No. Until I came to Ferelden, I had never left the islands. She came to Seheron twice a year with the traders who bought spices from the northern jungle. Only she among the traders would speak to the antaam. Questions about the rainforest, its depths, and the things to be seen there. We humored her. She was... an unfortunate soul.
• Zevran: Unfortunate in what way?
• Sten: She was a Crow, as you were. Sent to assassinate the kithshoks, leaders of the army of Seheron, for the Tevinter Imperium. We knew this, and pitied her.
• Zevran: I'm surprised you did not simply slay her.
• Sten: There was no need. Her questions were meant to show her the way through the jungle towards our fortifications. And so one day, she snuck into the jungle to find her target. We found the pieces of her body in a tree, where the spotted cats kept them for later. We had never told her that our kithshoks were the ones who negotiated all the trades at the port.
• Zevran: Then she was a fool. That's not very sympathetic, I'm afraid.
• Sten: It was her ignorance we pitied, not her mistake. She believe we hoarded things we cared for as her own people do. We were sorry for her, that she thought only some people were important.

 

• Shale: Honor is a curious thing. It is far better to be practical.
• Sten: What use is practicality when it leads to cowardice and emptiness? It is better to live well, than to live.
• Shale: An, uh... interesting theory.
• Sten: There is worth in your life, Shale. There is value, but only if it is used.

 

• Shale: I am told that the Qunari put mages on leashes. Leashes! What a delightful concept!
• Sten: It is not something that one should take pleasure in. It is done because it is necessary.
• Shale: Why not put them out of their misery? Crush their skulls and be done with it. Fast. Efficient. Fun.
• Sten: You have been offended by such men, so your bloodlust can be forgiven. But these ones you speak of are to be pitied. Even so, they must serve, just as any other must serve. All must find their place within the Qun.

 

• Sten: I didn't think it was a human practice, making a comrade of a defeated foe.
• Loghain: It isn't. These are... unusual circumstances.
• Sten: It is... encouraging to see.
• Loghain: Encouraging? How so?
• Sten: Perhaps your people are becoming more like Qunari. You could do worse.
• Loghain: Do you mean to say that Qunari do make comrades of their beaten opponent?
• Sten: Qunari do not waste resources. And few are more valuable than lives

[Medhia_Nox]

@straykat:  So, you're saying you want an overly simplified bad guy you consider evil simply because you value yourself over your community?

 

I think people invented in their heads what the Qun is (a very common thing Westerners do giving the importance they put on their own ego) - and then when things came to challenge that idea in DA2 and DAI, they did what all set ideologies do, reject the new information to keep the original opinion.   

As a Westerner - I can still see the value in the Qun even if I recognize, like all organizations (including any government ever), they've twisted some good concepts into a system of control.  

 

If you're an American Westerner... the controls deployed against you are largely illusory and working!   

 

I don't agree with the Qun - but it isn't because of their philosophy as a whole, but the notion of forcing their philosophy on everyone.  

[Ghost Gal]

Absolutely not a commentary on people with disabilities IRL. This is only something I only wonder about in terms of DA lore.

 

For people that seem to be pretty much incapable of charity and compassion, since their philosophy strictly prohibits free thinking and all that, why are the qunari so uncharacteristically compassionate to people with disabilities? The tamassrans are tasked with taking care of people who are too mentally or physically disabled to function independently in society. Yet supposedly people are viewed as a resource like any other (water, stone, wood, etc), so why would they care for people who are unable to function as such?

 

Would they ever accept people with disabilities from other cultures as converts?

 

The Qun waste nothing. Even people with one or more physical, mental, or even social disability have things they can physically, mentally, and/or socially do, so the Qun focuses on what they CAN do, and likely assign them a job they can do well, rather than focusing on what they CAN'T do and defining/dismissing their entire existence based that one thing (like you seem to be doing).

 

For example, deaf people might not be able to hear, but they can still use their eyes and hands just fine. Rather than just saying, "You're deaf, you can't do it" (an attitude which MOST deaf people live with every day of their lives in this society), the Qun would likely evaluate them, find out what they can do, maybe even discover that with proper aid they can do something really well (for example, a deaf person can work well with a group of hearing people if they have an interpreter to translate their visual language to spoken language and vice versa), then assign them that job and/or give them the aid they need to do that job well.

 

I work with deaf people every day, and I have a blind friend, and let me tell you, our Western society is NOT the pillar of "charity and compassion" you think it is. At least, we are notoriously ableist ("You can't do this because you're deaf") and paternalistic ("Oh no, you can't take care of yourself, you NEED ME to take care of you because you're a helpless child without me") toward people we deem having "disabilities," focusing more on what they can't do and restricting or shunning them for it, rather than focusing on what they can do and enabling their talents to the best of their abilities. 

 

I can actually see the Qunari culture being more accepting of people with "disabilities" because, as a culture, their whole shtick is finding out what people are good at and assigning them jobs they can perform well. If providing a physical caretaker to help someone who's not so great in one area (an "interpreter" of sorts for a deaf person, a seeing-eye person for a blind person, a caretaker for a mentally handicapped person, etc), helps them do well in an area they are good at, so be it.

[Phoenix_Also_Rises]

I think this is a very good documentary to watch in context of this conversation (also because science is awesome):

 

 

Tl;dw - people in the olden times were not only hardcore, but they also did not give a solitary flying blue f**k about whether you were disabled or not, so long as you pulled your weight. Soldiers, cooks - you name it. If there is anything you can do, you better roll up your sleeves and get to it. Otherwise you would probably end up dead in a ditch somewhere being gnawed on by a pack of a half-rabid hedgehogs. Seems like the Qun are like that too - so long as the individual in question contributes in some way, who cares?

[Heimdall]

I think this is a very good documentary to watch in context of this conversation (also because science is awesome):



Tl;dw - people in the olden times were not only hardcore, but they also did not give a solitary flying blue f**k about whether you were disabled or not, so long as you pulled your weight. Soldiers, cooks - you name it. If there is anything you can do, you better roll up your sleeves and get to it. Otherwise you would probably end up dead in a ditch somewhere being gnawed on by a pack of a half-rabid hedgehogs. Seems like the Qun are like that too - so long as the individual in question contributes in some way, who cares?

Thinking back, I don't recall the people of Thedas discriminating against disabled people either. Heck, the Templars continued to let Ser Otto serve despite being blind as a bat (And a total badass despite it).

So I guess they aren't that different.