314 réponses à ce sujet

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Templars are objectively the worst choice. Here's why -

 

1) The mages approached the Inquisition for help in Val Royeaux but the Templars did not.

 

2) Redcliffe is closer to Haven than Therinfal Redoubt, so it makes sense to solve the problems there first.

 

3) Time magic & time travel. The moment you manipulate time, you end up creating an alternate reality with different but similar people. Leliana is the classic example of this where the Leliana in the Dark Future and the Leliana we know in Inquisition are two different people. That is because they are different people from different timelines as a result of time magic.

 

The game itself confirms it when Leliana says "I am not her", which means that logically the Fiona we meet in Val Royeaux and the Fiona we meet in Redcliffe are two different people from different timelines as a result of time magic. Hence their widely divergent behavior. As such, holding Fiona accountable for this is preposterous.This is also true of your other companions trapped in the Dark Future. They are not the same people you know, they are people from a different reality, a different timeline.

 

The fact that many of the Inquisition members are somehow unable to understand this fact shows that the Inquisition team is full of buffoons and fools who are incapable of understanding the complexities of time magic. Though to be fair you cannot expect a Chantry thug, an Orlesian peacock, a Qunari spy and an Elven Chav to understand these things. Its like expecting the religious, the nobility and the uneducated to understand advanced physics.

 

4) Templars on the other hand were not manipulated by reality altering time magic but a demon. An envy demon but Templars supposed to be experts at combating the creatures of the Fade and they failed at that job. On the other hand, mages are not expected to comprehend the nuances of time magic, time travel, alternate reality and alternate timeline so they should not be blamed for this.

[fhs33721]

My point was more that Corypheus doing that was really silly, since he seems to have lost the time-travel magic when he did so.

He lost it anyway, since it does no longer work after the breach is closed. I'm just presuming that he killed Alexius after it was closed but before marching on Haven.

[Ashagar]

Templars are objectively the worst choice. Here's why -

 

1) The mages approached the Inquisition for help in Val Royeaux but the Templars did not.

 

2) Redcliffe is closer to Haven than Therinfal Redoubt, so it makes sense to solve the problems there first.

 

3) Time magic & time travel. The moment you manipulate time, you end up creating an alternate reality with different but similar people. Leliana is the classic example of this where the Leliana in the Dark Future and the Leliana we know in Inquisition are two different people. That is because they are different people from different timelines as a result of time magic.

 

The game itself confirms it when Leliana says "I am not her", which means that logically the Fiona we meet in Val Royeaux and the Fiona we meet in Redcliffe are two different people from different timelines as a result of time magic. Hence their widely divergent behavior. As such, holding Fiona accountable for this is preposterous.This is also true of your other companions trapped in the Dark Future. They are not the same people you know, they are people from a different reality, a different timeline.

 

The fact that many of the Inquisition members are somehow unable to understand this fact shows that the Inquisition team is full of buffoons and fools who are incapable of understanding the complexities of time magic. Though to be fair you cannot expect a Chantry thug, an Orlesian peacock, a Qunari spy and an Elven Chav to understand these things. Its like expecting the religious, the nobility and the uneducated to understand advanced physics.

 

4) Templars on the other hand were not manipulated by reality altering time magic but a demon. An envy demon but Templars supposed to be experts at combating the creatures of the Fade and they failed at that job. On the other hand, mages are not expected to comprehend the nuances of time magic, time travel, alternate reality and alternate timeline so they should not be blamed for this.

 

There is no objectively better choice, it comes down to what sort of character you are roleplaying and how they measure the risks involved. As for time travel if we really wanted to bring logic into it, its worse than useless because of the paradoxes involved that would negalate anything that happened though the vulgeries of why time travel is impossible or at the very least pointless could fill books

 

As for the religious and physics both today and in the past there are priests and monks who are scientists. The big bang theory was put forth by a scientist who was a priest and was opposed by some of his atheist collogues because it sounded too religious in nature in spite of the sound math and other evidence he had to back it up and the earliest work on genetic traits was done by a monk who's work was dismissed because he didn't have a advanced education. Relgion and science are not things have to conflict though some people do seem to obess over the idea that they do.

[AlanC9]

He lost it anyway, since it does no longer work after the breach is closed. I'm just presuming that he killed Alexius after it was closed but before marching on Haven.

Good point, though I still wonder where Alexius was and what he was up to when we're on the other path.

[Blood Mage Reaver]

There is no objectively better choice, it comes down to what sort of character you are roleplaying and how they measure the risks involved. As for time travel if we really wanted to bring logic into it, its worse than useless because of the paradoxes involved that would negalate anything that happened though the vulgeries of why time travel is impossible or at the very least pointless could fill books

 

As for the religious and physics both today and in the past there are priests and monks who are scientists. The big bang theory was put forth by a scientist who was a priest and was opposed by some of his atheist collogues because it sounded too religious in nature in spite of the sound math and other evidence he had to back it up and the earliest work on genetic traits was done by a monk who's work was dismissed because he didn't have a advanced education. Relgion and science are not things have to conflict though some people do seem to obess over the idea that they do.

 

Science is a methodology by which knowledge is build on the foundation of empirical evidence regardless of background or adverse beliefs, it's completely independent and unrelated to world views which cannot be subjected to empirical tests.

 

God or the lack of thereoff is not something which can be formulated on any credible hypothesis since it doesn't concern any observable phenomena or the predicted effects of such.

 

What Science actually does is prove by rigorous and repeatable experiments that observable evidence discredits absurd beliefs such as that mutilating young girls's genitalia improves her religious morals or that homosexuality causes phedofilia.

[Almostfaceman]

Science is a methodology by which knowledge is build on the foundation of empirical evidence regardless of background or adverse beliefs, it's completely independent and unrelated to world views which cannot be subjected to empirical tests.

 

 

Science is a human endeavor, thus it's afflicted with all things human. Politics. Money. Fame. Group-think.

 

Also...

 

Science and religion can co-habitat quite nicely. 

 

https://en.wikipedia..._and_technology

[KaiserShep]

Science is a human endeavor, thus it's afflicted with all things human. Politics. Money. Fame. Group-think.

Yeah, but if you wiped the slate clean, one is more likely to resurface while the other disappears entirely, since, well, coming up with new myths is fairly unpredictable.

[vbibbi]

Dude, I enjoyed the Templar path 300% more than In Hushed Whipers (Because We're Ashamed) but I'm not claiming its objectively better. That type of declaration just weakens the argument and attracts critics to nitpick your argument.

[In Exile]

I don't think Champions of the Just is anywhere near the quality others believe (I found the Fade to be a letdown). And narratively, I think it makes DA:I a great deal worse by essentially neutering Corypheus. In the In Hushed Whispers path, we see a broken and apocalyptic world led to ruin because the Elder One won. We don't need to see Corypheus - we see all of the horror and death he wrought on the world. It's a hokey concept, but at least it makes the Elder One seem to be threatening. And most of all, it features red lyrium - an ever encroaching blight that is devouring the world. 

 

None of that pays off in the quest - but it sure as hell pays off in In Your Heart Shall Burn (one of, IMO, the best sequences Bioware has ever done). After you see a broken world, twisted into an abominable state because the Elder One won, you have the twisted form of Corypheus and his monstrous Red Templars attack you - and they represent the same death and devastation for the world that you saw in the bad future. Without you and the Inquisition, you know that Corypheus wins. Corypheus losing in this case is a reprieve from the build up he's already had.

 

Contrast that with just a bunch of mundane mages. Instead of Corypheus being threatening, his first introduction is his defeat in In Your Heart Shall Burn. He looks like a chump, because he essential loses with the templars, and then loses once again with the Venatori. You never see the ruin he brings, so there's nowhere near the same desperation to the mid-game quests. 

[In Exile]

He lost it anyway, since it does no longer work after the breach is closed. I'm just presuming that he killed Alexius after it was closed but before marching on Haven.

 

But you don't exactly close the Breach until the end of the game. So it's not clear it would have gone. 

[Ashagar]

I don't think Champions of the Just is anywhere near the quality others believe (I found the Fade to be a letdown). And narratively, I think it makes DA:I a great deal worse by essentially neutering Corypheus. In the In Hushed Whispers path, we see a broken and apocalyptic world led to ruin because the Elder One won. We don't need to see Corypheus - we see all of the horror and death he wrought on the world. It's a hokey concept, but at least it makes the Elder One seem to be threatening. And most of all, it features red lyrium - an ever encroaching blight that is devouring the world. 

 

None of that pays off in the quest - but it sure as hell pays off in In Your Heart Shall Burn (one of, IMO, the best sequences Bioware has ever done). After you see a broken world, twisted into an abominable state because the Elder One won, you have the twisted form of Corypheus and his monstrous Red Templars attack you - and they represent the same death and devastation for the world that you saw in the bad future. Without you and the Inquisition, you know that Corypheus wins. Corypheus losing in this case is a reprieve from the build up he's already had.

 

Contrast that with just a bunch of mundane mages. Instead of Corypheus being threatening, his first introduction is his defeat in In Your Heart Shall Burn. He looks like a chump, because he essential loses with the templars, and then loses once again with the Venatori. You never see the ruin he brings, so there's nowhere near the same desperation to the mid-game quests. 

 

If anything champions of the just and its follow up fleshes out Corypheus afterwords when you invesgate his dragon so he is not more cartoony than Snidely Whiplash and the hooded claw, it shows so similar in a number of ways he is to Solas, especially with later revelations and how he was capable of regret even if it was limited.

 

In general I enjoyed the fade scene far more than did the bad future where the veil is ripped apart because the inquisitor never closed it but that is personal taste as I enjoyed the psychological aspects of it and how it played on fears and I of course found envy to be the perhaps the single most disturbing thing the series ever threw at the player other than nightmare because of the concepts behind them and what they do. If I had any criticism about champions of the just is that there should have been lingering effects on the Inquisitor's mind after envy's assault on them instead of demon tried to mind rape the main character but everything is fine now.

 

Hushed whispers on the other hand felt like it was trying too hard to be grim and dark and backfired instead ending up like a bad melodrama that was at times almost cartoonish but that's likely personal tastes.

[robertthebard]

But you don't exactly close the Breach until the end of the game. So it's not clear it would have gone. 

Actually, you close the Breach just before In Your Heart Shall Burn.  You close it again at the end of the game.  That's what the big party in Haven is all about when you are attacked.

[fhs33721]

But you don't exactly close the Breach until the end of the game. So it's not clear it would have gone. 

  You close it in the very first minute of In your heart it Shall burn.

Oh

[Blood Mage Reaver]

Science is a human endeavor, thus it's afflicted with all things human. Politics. Money. Fame. Group-think.

 

Also...

 

Science and religion can co-habitat quite nicely. 

 

https://en.wikipedia..._and_technology

 

You didn't understand, I never said that Science and religion cannot coexist. I said that Science, regards of the beliefs of any human being, it's a methodology by which knowledge is build on empirical evidence and it only concerns things which can be tested through rigorous empirical methods.

 

A scientist can be religious or not, what matters is that his or her theory has underwent rigorous scrutiny from empirical evidence, review and confirmation by other scholars utilizing the same methods by which the theorist used to prove his or her hypothesis.

 

Science has sustained the theory that our World and our Universe are billions of years old based on empirical evidence from centuries of radiological, geological, arqueological and mathematical research versus the belief without proof that it was made in seven days like the recipe from a book of unknown and dubious authorship.

 

With that said, someone who believes the world was made in seven days can use the scientific method to prove that a bacteria is the cause behind a certain disease or that a certain mathematical equation reaches a specific solution.

 

Some scientists, who happened to be devout Christians, conciliated that since the Bible doesn't tell how many hours a day in God's life has then the Universe can be 14 billion years by human standards. There is nothing which can be put through empirical tests to refute or confirm such claim.

 

The problem is when human ignorance aligns itself with fundamentalism and tries to force people into accepting absurds by force and jutifying discrimination.

 

The Scientific method has sustained that homosexuality is just another facet of natural biology with no inherently dangerous behaviors or diseases caused by it, all serious statistic reseach have sustained that the number of sexual abusers amongst homosexuals is not proportionally different than those amongst heterosexuals and that HIV is transmitted through any contact between contaminated body fluids regardless of sexual preference or practice.

 

However, because some Jewish ruler that lived around 3000 years said homosexuality was blasphemy and his words got recorded into the Bible, today we have people killing homosexuals in the name of YHWH because their existence doesn't conform to their religious world view.

 

Science exists regardless of religion, however, when religious views are used to harm other human beings or the environment against all scientifical evidence discrediting them you must draw the red line and stop things that are just plain wrong.

[In Exile]

Actually, you close the Breach just before In Your Heart Shall Burn. You close it again at the end of the game. That's what the big party in Haven is all about when you are attacked.

No. You plug it after in Your Heart Shall Burn. Just compare the way the sky holds at the end of the game and after In Your Heart Shall Burn. The Fade stops leaking out of the Breach, but you still see the hole, and you see the clouds swirl and circle around it. Just like how you don't seal the Breach at the start of the game - you stop it from growing.

[In Exile]

If anything champions of the just and its follow up fleshes out Corypheus afterwords when you invesgate his dragon so he is not more cartoony than Snidely Whiplash and the hooded claw, it shows so similar in a number of ways he is to Solas, especially with later revelations and how he was capable of regret even if it was limited.

In general I enjoyed the fade scene far more than did the bad future where the veil is ripped apart because the inquisitor never closed it but that is personal taste as I enjoyed the psychological aspects of it and how it played on fears and I of course found envy to be the perhaps the single most disturbing thing the series ever threw at the player other than nightmare because of the concepts behind them and what they do. If I had any criticism about champions of the just is that there should have been lingering effects on the Inquisitor's mind after envy's assault on them instead of demon tried to mind rape the main character but everything is fine now.

Hushed whispers on the other hand felt like it was trying too hard to be grim and dark and backfired instead ending up like a bad melodrama that was at times almost cartoonish but that's likely personal tastes.

Corypheus doesn't need fleshing out. There's nothing to flesh out - he's pure and insane evil. Even ignoring the fact he's actually a monstrous abomination of life, his plot involves the mutation of his servants into shambling monsters and - as we see in In Hushed Whispers and in Emprise du Lion - the spread of the poisonous and horrific red lyrium across the land.

The fact that he's super into Tevinter doesn't give insight or depth to his character. The fact that he isn't a force of nature that kills and tortures solely because doing so gives him a stiffy doesn't mean there's any depth to his character.

[MisterJB]

How were we "unauthorized" to be a Redcliffe? We were invited.

Invited by the alternate reality version of a guest in Redcliff who promptly vanishes from reality and whose new version is now the personal slave of the occupying force.

 

Not much of an invitation, really.

 

 

You do not learn FACTS from Champions of the Just. Only that the enemy WANTS to kill Celene and summon a Demon army.

So...FACTS

 

Fiona and everyone in Redcliffe were being fed false information and being manipulated with Time Magic. Before the Mages moved to Redcliffe they had been fighting the Templars for over a year on their own and had not in any way been "crushed".

Yes, they had.

 

 

There are dozens of examples in-game and in lore that depict Templars falling to Mages and other Magical forces.

Indeed there are.

And the mages were still crushed in the war.

 

 

 It is also in the very premise of the game that BOTH sides agreed to the Conclave because NEITHER saw an end. People on both side throughout the game stated this. There was no "crushing" going on anywhere.

People didn't see an end to the war because Ferelden was protecting the mages and the Templars were unwilling to attack the nation.

However, shall we analyse what the game really says about the state of the war?

 

The Templars still had multiple fortresses including but not limited to Therinfall Redoubt while the mages were all concentrated in one city they can only stay in under the sufferance of a non-mage king or queen.

Popular opinion is clearly on the side of the Templar with, before the Inquisition's intervention, both the Chantry and Nobles in Val Royeaux all but begging for the Templars to return while the mages had every city in Thedas close their doors to them (see Connor's dialogue).

Fiona herself says that they are losing the war.

And, above everything else, there is the fact the mage leadership was so terrified of the Templars and convinced they were all going to die that they preferred to enter indentured servitude to the number one enemy of Southern Thedas rather than face the Templars again.

 

I repeat. Between slavery and fighting the Templars, the mages chose slavery. That is not just crushing your enemy physically but its spirit as well.

 

 

It is also stated by one of the quest people there helping the refugees that the Mages were pushing the Templars back. It was also easy to note the many Templar corpses lying around.

1-That was not a mage-Templar war theatre. Those were two splinter groups fighting one another.

2-Even if there is a greater number of Templar corpses lying on the ground, that does not necessarily means they are losing because there is just that many more of them than there are of mages.

 

 

 

Tevinter does have armies of non Magical fighters but their main strength has always been in their Magic. Various convos and codex entries point to Tevinter Mages fighting on the front lines and those who have been trained in combat during the four Exalted Marches have undoubtedly encountered Templars and as I pointed out the Templars have yet to strike a victory.

World of Thedas volume 1 page 13 states that the Chantry-backed forces made it well into Tevinter lands but fell short of conquering Minrathous when they had to turn their armies South to deal with the Fourth Blight.

 

So yes, the Templars had many victories. They just didn't capture the capital probably due to the four giant golems guarding it. And who knows, if not for the Fourth Blight, they might have conquered it.

[ArcaneEsper]

Corypheus doesn't need fleshing out. There's nothing to flesh out - he's pure and insane evil. Even ignoring the fact he's actually a monstrous abomination of life, his plot involves the mutation of his servants into shambling monsters and - as we see in In Hushed Whispers and in Emprise du Lion - the spread of the poisonous and horrific red lyrium across the land.

The fact that he's super into Tevinter doesn't give insight or depth to his character. The fact that he isn't a force of nature that kills and tortures solely because doing so gives him a stiffy doesn't mean there's any depth to his character.

Sure Cory wasn't written well but imo he could have been a great villain had the story actually made the effort to explore his character.

[thesuperdarkone2]

 

Invited by the alternate reality version of a guest in Redcliff who promptly vanishes from reality and whose new version is now the personal slave of the occupying force.

 

Not much of an invitation, really.

 

What is it with people getting stuck on having permission? I highly doubt Teagan or anyone in Ferelden would have a problem with you kicking out a tevinter magister who ousted Teagan.

 

 

Also, I don't recall you getting an invitation for Therinfal. You forced yourself there and in case you forgot, the original means of getting the aid of the templars was to THREATEN them! That's why you brought all those nobles with you in the first place

 

 

 

 

 

So...FACTS

 

 

The only thing you could know is a fact is the assassination plot. the whole demon army was only learned by envy gloating. That is not a fact.

 

 

 

World of Thedas volume 1 page 13 states that the Chantry-backed forces made it well into Tevinter lands but fell short of conquering Minrathous when they had to turn their armies South to deal with the Fourth Blight.

 

So yes, the Templars had many victories. They just didn't capture the capital probably due to the four giant golems guarding it. And who knows, if not for the Fourth Blight, they might have conquered it.

 

That doesn't account for the other three exalted marches. 

[robertthebard]

No. You plug it after in Your Heart Shall Burn. Just compare the way the sky holds at the end of the game and after In Your Heart Shall Burn. The Fade stops leaking out of the Breach, but you still see the hole, and you see the clouds swirl and circle around it. Just like how you don't seal the Breach at the start of the game - you stop it from growing.

No, you close it.  That's what everyone is celebrating when Cory attacks.  He reopens it at the end of the game, trying to suck the whole world in.

[JWvonGoethe]

In Hushed Whispers has greater continuity with the series as whole. You get to revisit Redcliffe Castle, meet Alistair/Anora, encounter Connor (if he survived unpossessed by the desire demon), gain Fiona as a permanent fixture in Skyhold (and she'll talk about Alistair if he is King, as well as discuss her history with the Wardens after you finish Here Lies The Abyss) and you get a nemesis quest that features Samson from Dragon Age 2 (who, by the way, is not as the OP states a "new character"!)

And the OP is looking at this with a lot of hindsight - the Inquisitor doesn't know everything the player knows. My Trevelyan had a Templar background and he saw the mages as the greater threat. He didn't know whether or not an alliance was possible with either side, so he went to Redcliffe to take down what he saw was the more dangerous group first.

[AlanC9]

Invited by the alternate reality version of a guest in Redcliff who promptly vanishes from reality and whose new version is now the personal slave of the occupying force.

And once they know we were there to destroy that occupying force, what's the problem?

[KaiserShep]

 

Invited by the alternate reality version of a guest in Redcliff who promptly vanishes from reality and whose new version is now the personal slave of the occupying force.

 

Not much of an invitation, really.

 

At the point of getting the invitation, the Inquisitor doesn't know that Redcliffe's arl was booted from his own castle, which was then overrun by a Tevinter cult. As far as anyone knows, the Inquisitor would just be meeting the leader of the rebel mages, who were invited to stay in Redcliffe by its rightful ruler in the first place. 

[BansheeOwnage]

I don't think Champions of the Just is anywhere near the quality others believe (I found the Fade to be a letdown). And narratively, I think it makes DA:I a great deal worse by essentially neutering Corypheus. In the In Hushed Whispers path, we see a broken and apocalyptic world led to ruin because the Elder One won. We don't need to see Corypheus - we see all of the horror and death he wrought on the world. It's a hokey concept, but at least it makes the Elder One seem to be threatening. And most of all, it features red lyrium - an ever encroaching blight that is devouring the world. 

 

None of that pays off in the quest - but it sure as hell pays off in In Your Heart Shall Burn (one of, IMO, the best sequences Bioware has ever done). After you see a broken world, twisted into an abominable state because the Elder One won, you have the twisted form of Corypheus and his monstrous Red Templars attack you - and they represent the same death and devastation for the world that you saw in the bad future. Without you and the Inquisition, you know that Corypheus wins. Corypheus losing in this case is a reprieve from the build up he's already had.

 

Contrast that with just a bunch of mundane mages. Instead of Corypheus being threatening, his first introduction is his defeat in In Your Heart Shall Burn. He looks like a chump, because he essential loses with the templars, and then loses once again with the Venatori. You never see the ruin he brings, so there's nowhere near the same desperation to the mid-game quests. 

Some good points there, but one I wanted to highlight was the fact that you fight Red Templars in Haven if you choose IHW. It might not seem like much, but I'm sure glad I picked IHW on my first run, because of just how ominous and creepy the mission was in contrast to facing some normal people in the form of the Venatori. Some as-of-yet-unseen monstrosities massing just outside your small settlement, the darkness and the torches, the mood-whiplash, combined with that music... it was great, and definitely didn't have the same feel with the Venatori.

[In Exile]

Some good points there, but one I wanted to highlight was the fact that you fight Red Templars in Haven if you choose IHW. It might not seem like much, but I'm sure glad I picked IHW on my first run, because of just how ominous and creepy the mission was in contrast to facing some normal people in the form of the Venatori. Some as-of-yet-unseen monstrosities massing just outside your small settlement, the darkness and the torches, the mood-whiplash, combined with that music... it was great, and definitely didn't have the same feel with the Venatori.

 

I feel compelled to post:

 

 

And:

 

 

And, of course, the ambient music that works phenomenally well with Red Templars:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D_Y8Ty79CQ

 

One thing Trevor Morris did very well in DA:I is remix his tracks for the scene. You really see his music shine in that regard in In Your Heart Shall Burn and Trespasser.