Arguably that's what the Inquisitor in DAI is. Except that, instead of really playing it straight, it was done as a sort of deconstruction.
It's interesting, in the sense that it shows what some people see as random "chance," others see as "fate," and how myths get started, etc.
But I think the biggest thing is that even though Andrastianism is similar to modern Christianity, and the Chantry is a lot like a medieval Catholic Church, there are a lot differences. So the idea of a "savior" hero is different to start with.
We've seen spirits of faith, wisdom, and compassion, which are similar, but so far no spirit of love or mercy or forgiveness or peace or anything along those lines. There's no major religion or prophet or philosophy teaching pacifism or non violence. There are no anti war hereos or movement of conscientious objectors who would preach such a thing. And no Gandhi or MLK like figures that people would model themselves after. So I'd say these ideas just haven't taken root in Thedas yet.
You could try to RP it, but like with RPing an atheist character, it's difficult to do completely because there's no such worldview popular in Thedas.
I wasn't really thinking of anti-war or pacifism per se, as I said it's not hard to find conflict given the current world state. I was just thinking of someone who agrees that it's a good goal, or the goal, not that they won't fight.
I wasn't really thinking of anti-war or pacifism per se, as I said it's not hard to find conflict given the current world state. I was just thinking of someone who agrees that it's a good goal, or the goal, not that they won't fight.
I kind of RP'd my Inquisitor that way. Choosing a lot of diplomatic dialogue options, taking the more merciful options when judging people when possible, softening Leliana, using Josie a lot on the war table missions, disbanding at the end, etc. It's a lot more possible than in past games. The Inquisitor is trying to bring some peace and stability back to Thedas, and stopping Corypheus is a justifiable mission. But of course you are still the leader of this huge military organization and you have to engage in combat too, so it's not perfect, but doable.
I kind of RP'd my Inquisitor that way. Choosing a lot of diplomatic dialogue options, taking the more merciful options when judging people when possible, softening Leliana, using Josie a lot on the war table missions, disbanding at the end, etc. It's a lot more possible than in past games. The Inquisitor is trying to bring some peace and stability back to Thedas, and stopping Corypheus is a justifiable mission. But of course you are still the leader of this huge military organization and you have to engage in combat too, so it's not perfect, but doable.
I was kind of thinking of Joan of Arc in many ways.
My Inquisitor doesn't kill for sport he/she kills those that are considered enemies.
Examples of mercy: My Inquisitor doesn't kill Alexius but, orders him to be made tranquil. Ser Ruth is handed to the Greys-I sent her to the Deep Roads in my first few games.
My Inquisitor softens Leliana starting at Haven.
My current game I am using Holly a red headed ill-tempered human rogue . She is not a happy camper. I plan on softening her up as the game progresses.
This is possible by disagreeing with everything including thinking its a bad idea to go to Val Royeaux.
DAI lets you becomes de facto head of a religion and someone who has enough influence to decide who *actually* becomes the head of that religion, despite never showing you demonstrate any piety or belief whatsoever and allowing you to completely trash and denigrate that religion to the faces of believers.Its pure wish fulfillment to have religion changed by someone raised to this level in extraordinary circumstance and then using that to try and change what the faith is and what it stands for, what its values and practices are.
Please let's not pretend the storyline in DA:I is anything like believable. Its allowing to enforce and encourage reform on a radical scale because you have magic powers that can save the world. Religious reform is a necessary and complex beast - it isn't as easy as waving a wand and changing things. You can't just say 'Oh, well I know we've believed *this* for centuries, but I think what Jesus was *trying* to say and *probably* meant was...'
Bioware need to stop with these overly simplified solutions to complex problems. For people who are ascribed such liberal views, their games sure do like to have a single, Nietzche esque Super Man come along and cut through all the bereaucratic (and democratic) red tape and determine what Morality is acceptable. Have some savior figure come and save us from our inaction and then be showered with accolades for their Might and Wisdom.
DAI lets you becomes de facto head of a religion and someone who has enough influence to decide who *actually* becomes the head of that religion, despite never showing you demonstrate any piety or belief whatsoever and allowing you to completely trash and denigrate that religion to the faces of believers.Its pure wish fulfillment to have religion changed by someone raised to this level in extraordinary circumstance and then using that to try and change what the faith is and what it stands for, what its values and practices are.
Please let's not pretend the storyline in DA:I is anything like believable. Its allowing to enforce and encourage reform on a radical scale because you have magic powers that can save the world. Religious reform is a necessary and complex beast - it isn't as easy as waving a wand and changing things. You can't just say 'Oh, well I know we've believed *this* for centuries, but I think what Jesus was *trying* to say and *probably* meant was...'
Bioware need to stop with these overly simplified solutions to complex problems. For people who are ascribed such liberal views, their games sure do like to have a single, Nietzche esque Super Man come along and cut through all the bereaucratic (and democratic) red tape and determine what Morality is acceptable. Have some savior figure come and save us from our inaction and then be showered with accolades for their Might and Wisdom.
They are Illuminati preparing us for our Antichrist.
DAI lets you becomes de facto head of a religion and someone who has enough influence to decide who *actually* becomes the head of that religion, despite never showing you demonstrate any piety or belief whatsoever and allowing you to completely trash and denigrate that religion to the faces of believers.Its pure wish fulfillment to have religion changed by someone raised to this level in extraordinary circumstance and then using that to try and change what the faith is and what it stands for, what its values and practices are.
No it doesn't. At best it treats you like a saint, someone with a divine connection. And you don't even have to accept it. As for determining who is Divine, it's just a person using their political power to determine the outcome of a papal election, as was done many times IRL. Kings and emperors had huge influence on the church.
Basically I'm just sort of fantasizing about some kind of highly introverted sort of protag that wants to adopt what is rather than try to coerce the entire world to fit their personality? In a sense the trajectory considering DA is religion but honestly I'd settle for other things.
I even just think a "Fallen angel" concept would be pretty cool, even if they aren't steadfastly abiding by those ideals or feel they have failed them they still believe in them and strive to meet them anyway.
Kind of, but this game doesnt actually explore the theme of religion enough to make it more than window dressing, I suspect because the writers are atheists and dont really know how to write about it non-skeptically.
Kind of, but this game doesnt actually explore the theme of religion enough to make it more than window dressing, I suspect because the writers are atheists and dont really know how to write about it non-skeptically.
You'd have to explain what you mean, because I don't follow. I'm an atheist, but for a very long time I was a believer and I live among believers and I don't share your opinion about them "not knowing how to write about faith non-skeptically" - what they don't do is that they're not unsubtle about it and provide means to challenge it, as well as a prevalent undercurrent of subtle hints that is supposed to make us doubt whether this are as simple as 'the Chantry was wrong about everything'.
DAI lets you becomes de facto head of a religion and someone who has enough influence to decide who *actually* becomes the head of that religion, despite never showing you demonstrate any piety or belief whatsoever and allowing you to completely trash and denigrate that religion to the faces of believers.Its pure wish fulfillment to have religion changed by someone raised to this level in extraordinary circumstance and then using that to try and change what the faith is and what it stands for, what its values and practices are.
Please let's not pretend the storyline in DA:I is anything like believable. Its allowing to enforce and encourage reform on a radical scale because you have magic powers that can save the world. Religious reform is a necessary and complex beast - it isn't as easy as waving a wand and changing things. You can't just say 'Oh, well I know we've believed *this* for centuries, but I think what Jesus was *trying* to say and *probably* meant was...'
.... Huh, the heck?
The problem here is that yes - the scenario presented in DAI is not believable on Earth... but for different reasons.
We don't have magic. We don't have spirits. We don't have the Blight - we never had a few magisters from powerful Empire travel to a real place that is believed to be the seat of the Maker and unleashed terrible power from it.
We also never had leaders who survived a sudden catastrophe and emerged from 'the other side' with a unique power - and we never had as close as equivalent of the devil marching on South with his monstrous army and people having to face with real possibility of succumbing to him if they don't unite and send their own army against him, only for their Herald to have a deeply symbolic fight against that devil on a floating rock under the Breach with two dragons summoned to fight on each side.
You really think people wouldn't react to it, even if the leader itself isn't deeply pious? Heck, people point at survivors of horrible catastrophes, like plane crashes or earthquakes and the first thing I hear blaring from TV is "IT'S A GOD'S MIRACLE!" or pray to icons that the for some reason find sacred, even if they are inanimate objects - and you think most faithful folk wouldn't be receptive to a magical person falling from the sky in the wake of the biggest, non-Blight-related crisis in Thedas?
We're totally dealing with this sort of scenario:
I mean I'm not even sure how you can seriously write about "having religion changed" when the last time I checked at the end of DAI most of Southern Thedas is still predominantly faithful and subordinate of the Chantry and still believe that Inquisitor was indeed sent by Andraste...
Bioware need to stop with these overly simplified solutions to complex problems. For people who are ascribed such liberal views, their games sure do like to have a single, Nietzche esque Super Man come along and cut through all the bereaucratic (and democratic) red tape and determine what Morality is acceptable. Have some savior figure come and save us from our inaction and then be showered with accolades for their Might and Wisdom.
This whole diatribe is entirely pointless given that nothing like that happened. The Inquisitor is credited with bringing about change, but we're hardly dealing with a radical scenario you describe. They didn't just swoop in in and changed *everything* around - in fact Abyss has already pointed out that status quo was mostly preserved. Most of Southern Thedas institutions have remained. The faith so far has remained. Heck, Inquisitor is either "forced" to disband or become subordinate to the Chantry, FFS. And even the most liberal of Divines is still a staunch believer (ironically the one that is most stringent appears to most cynical about faith) and there's so much opposition against her reforms that some try to assassinate her; as some had tried with previous Divine who tried to change things around...
I've always felt the opposite. I feel like the game pushes too much that you're at least a little religious. You can disagree with the organized religion half of Andrastrianism, but there aren't really opportunities to say you don't believe in it at all. In Inquisition you see pieces of all sorts of other religions laid out, such as the Elven pantheon and the Magisters Sidereal that were called by the Old Gods. You see people more than willing to lift you to the position of being divinely chosen, even with no real proof of this. My feeling is that the logical conclusion is that all religions in Thedas are just based on spectacular events that the common people couldn't explain otherwise. If there are "real" gods or one real god, they're probably a Deistic entity that has no bearing on any of these known religions. It bothers me to still get those hints that my character believes at least in the Andrastrian Maker when I don't think that's a logical conclusion given the information that especially the Inquisitor has.
I get that there's been controversy over being able to claim to be an "atheist" in the past, but obviously you would just not use a word like "atheism" or "agnosticism" in the game, where it doesn't make sense for it to appear. You would just say, literally, that you think religions are based on incredible events of the past that people didn't know how to explain in any other way than to call them divine, but that you don't believe they truly were in the way most people understand that. Basically, just offer the possibility that religion is twisting of history and not a divine account of reality.
Anyway I feel like Inqusitor was meant to be like some kind of "crusader" or something but in practice the Inquisitor was really just the person who had special powers and the whole thing wasn't really related to Andraste or anything else in particular.
A 'crusader' would have pretty much positioned your character as a religious Andrastian, and some fans already complained that they didn't like being pigeonholed as a religious Andrastian in Dragon Age II with Hawke. Some players simply don't like the Chantry (for different reasons), which is why (when Inquisition was being released) you had developers continually talking about how the protagonist would not be "beholden to the church" or stressing how the new Inquisition is created "in opposition to the church" (said by developers such as Darrah and Laidlaw). So a story where your protagonist must be a religious Andrastian simply won't appeal to certain people, so it's not surprising they didn't force you to be one.
It was way cooler and better done being religious in DAO but of course that game had lotsa RP options.
On the other hand, if you played as an atheist you couldn't even finish the game. Why would a non believer waste time searching for some dead woman's ashes?
On the other hand, if you played as an atheist you couldn't even finish the game. Why would a non believer waste time searching for some dead woman's ashes?
Er, because it wasn't about their religious faith, in that particular case?
It was the last-ditch effort to try and save Arl's life, after everything else in disposal of people trying to save his life has failed.
Also - just because Andraste was a religious figure, doesn't change the fact that she was a historical figure in a magical world. No belief is required for that. In fact, in a world where belief appears to have real effect on the realm, and where places and artifacts are known to be magical or influenced by magic/spirits there's no reason for many things to be taken 'on faith' as they do in our world, as chances are that either people or items with legendary power do indeed have one.
On the other hand, if you played as an atheist you couldn't even finish the game. Why would a non believer waste time searching for some dead woman's ashes?
Because they could still be powerful? This is Thedas.
it's not worth reading too much into a game that is primarily about firstly having something like a magic power that sets the playable character apart (cos i wouldn't want a game about my life, playing me - dully dull dull!), and secondly gets to kick butt a lot.
That is the point.
You can play it religiously, but as a pacifist? not sure I'd buy that. not enough bashing
The treatment of the religious protag is even more jarring than of an atheist elf.
Religion is a major theme in DA:I. Herald this, Maker that, Chantry there, it's thrown around numerous times. And yet even a character who follows what should be the ideal mold for this story, a human and devout Andrastian who is convinced he was saved by the religious icon herself, ends up falling completely flat because the game fails. I played a human noble this way and for a while it went well. He was a self-righteous ******, but as a character he worked. Then the Fade quest happened and he learned it was not actually Andraste who rescued him. Pretty devastating for someone who was so convinced of that, right? Well, no, not according to Bioware. Mild surprise was about the most I was offered to express there, and then it was promptly forgotten. The question whether the figure behind him who was seen upon the first escape from the Fade was replaced by the question whether the Fade spirit was Divine Justinia's soul/spirit or not by the religious NPCs (Cassandra and Leliana). There was no possibility to discuss the revelation about Andraste and being the Maker's chosen with any of them. So the choice was now whether to fess up or continue as a devout figure and be a fraud. And even that is done without batting an eye, without any accompanying talk beyond that suggestion from Hawke, without the opportunity of any reaction from my character. He just had to keep going and still got the option to claim he was representing Andraste in the scene judging the Warden Ruth.
It was incredibly jarring and I stopped playing after that. I was looking forward to that important turning point for that character, the moment his beliefs were challenged, and I was curious about how I would be able to express that. For something so central to the game to be brushed aside like that is unforgivable, imo. You're forced to turn into a knowing fraud without any actual backing/acknowledgment of this, or to turn from a believer into losing your faith (not even sure that's possible, the game had my character pegged as pious at that stage) and not getting any dialogue about this either. Mind-boggling.
I am still waiting for my like minded religious cohort Sister/Mother Petrice to join me in the next game for our religious crusade against the horned devils. She said she would like to work with me again last we met.
The treatment of the religious protag is even more jarring than of an atheist elf.
Religion is a major theme in DA:I. Herald this, Maker that, Chantry there, it's thrown around numerous times. And yet even a character who follows what should be the ideal mold for this story, a human and devout Andrastian who is convinced he was saved by the religious icon herself, ends up falling completely flat because the game fails. I played a human noble this way and for a while it went well. He was a self-righteous ******, but as a character he worked. Then the Fade quest happened and he learned it was not actually Andraste who rescued him. Pretty devastating for someone who was so convinced of that, right? Well, no, not according to Bioware. Mild surprise was about the most I was offered to express there, and then it was promptly forgotten. The question whether the figure behind him who was seen upon the first escape from the Fade was replaced by the question whether the Fade spirit was Divine Justinia's soul/spirit or not by the religious NPCs (Cassandra and Leliana). There was no possibility to discuss the revelation about Andraste and being the Maker's chosen with any of them. So the choice was now whether to fess up or continue as a devout figure and be a fraud. And even that is done without batting an eye, without any accompanying talk beyond that suggestion from Hawke, without the opportunity of any reaction from my character. He just had to keep going and still got the option to claim he was representing Andraste in the scene judging the Warden Ruth.
It was incredibly jarring and I stopped playing after that. I was looking forward to that important turning point for that character, the moment his beliefs were challenged, and I was curious about how I would be able to express that. For something so central to the game to be brushed aside like that is unforgivable, imo. You're forced to turn into a knowing fraud without any actual backing/acknowledgment of this, or to turn from a believer into losing your faith (not even sure that's possible, the game had my character pegged as pious at that stage) and not getting any dialogue about this either. Mind-boggling.
That's... interesting. I was playing an inquisitive skeptic Inquisitor (human mage), but the Fade quest turned him into having more consideration and even hope that there was (A FORM OF) the Maker out there that would at least technically prove the Chant basically (though easily wrongly interpreted) correct. It actually made me and him swallow the Herald of Andraste myth being spread, and consider it better for a greater good - though he still didn't actively spread it around himself and did try to clarify misconceptions when allowed by the game.
Sure, DAI keeps us from being a devout member of the Chantry ... by its very thematic setup of having Cassandra establish an Inquisition against (living) Chantry's permission ... but it actually, in my opinion, encouraged us to consider truth to Andrastanism (not the same as present-day Chantry dogma) and use that to pursue a greater truth to Thedas (something some members of the Chantry do themselves, albeit within theological and political constraints).
It may be harder to view the Maker as a humanoid form of a man and Andraste as a literal bride to him, but if anything, the Fade quest *gave* my anti-theist Inquisitor some faith. And myself some curiosity and open-mindedness to the message of the Chant and earlier purpose of the Chantry.
It is true that we are not allowed certain RP path concepts, like being a tyrant or believing in the Chantry's present dogma to the letter. I'm just not sure if that equates to not allowing the Inquisitor to be religious, faithful, or even devout. It does mean that we are not playing a strict person - all of the leadership of the Inquisition seem written to be trying 'another way' that is not a radical departure from the status quo, but recognizes that change is necessary. I don't consider fanatics and fundamentalists to be the only religious people, though sure, I could see it being fun and more open-ended RP for Bioware to allow that path, and I'd take it at least once.
I'm just thinking of religious as in adherence to structured morality, I think as Straykat mentioned there is a problem since Andraste isn't super peaceful, but basically just someone who agrees on the idea of people not fighting each other.
Also there's nothing less religious to my mind than fundamentalism and extremism.
Er, because it wasn't about their religious faith, in that particular case?
It was the last-ditch effort to try and save Arl's life, after everything else in disposal of people trying to save his life has failed.
Also - just because Andraste was a religious figure, doesn't change the fact that she was a historical figure in a magical world. No belief is required for that. In fact, in a world where belief appears to have real effect on the realm, and where places and artifacts are known to be magical or influenced by magic/spirits there's no reason for many things to be taken 'on faith' as they do in our world, as chances are that either people or items with legendary power do indeed have one.
I image that if I had a Warden like my angontist Inquistor, than he'd just do it out of a pursuite of knowledge and a lot of pure curiouslity... And of course to save the yarl, but that's sort of a lesser concern to Artemis (which tells people a lot about him wanting to know dang things)
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