So who needs the Templars and the Circle anyway? Nobody is turning into abominations. Apparently most mages can just teach themselves and keep themselves free from enslavement. Look at Morrigan, she turned out just fine, right? Look at Hawke, also completely fine! And as a cherry on top; Templars are evil boogiemen who physically and sexually abuse mages.
Brilliant. Now everyone will automatically symphathize with these poor victims of oppression, who can shoot lightning from their fingertips and give them all the freedom they want.
FWIW - I've noticed a shift in the portrayal over the course of the 3 games.
In DAO, things were fairly balanced imho. We have Wynne who thinks well of the circle and dedicated apostate Morrigan. We see Knight-Commander Greagoir patiently awaiting the arrival of the official authorization for annulment, but willing to give the Warden an opportunity to resolve the situation without annuling the circle. We see the damage an untrained mage can do in Connor, and Wynne released to assist the Warden. In DAA, we see Wynne and Iona both out of the circle (apparently with permission), whereas Anders had escaped, thus becoming an apostate. I can't say that I ever completely understood the rules, since they weren't always applied evenly to individuals, let alone different circles. In any case, we also have Alistair, a general all-around nice guy and former templar trainee.
Then comes DA2, where the PC we play comes from an apostate family and goes to a city with an extreme Knight-Commander and some mighty abusive templars. The harder Meredith squeezed, the harder the mages pushed back, and we eventually arrived at a point where she ordered an anullment in response to the actions of an apostate.
In DAI, the templars are led by a demon, loads of red lyrium, and actively slaughtering anyone who remotely looks like they might be willing to help a rebel mage whereas the rebel mages 1) didn't *all* want to rebel, and 2) are so desperate as to have gotten involved in a deal with Alexius, poor things.
So I think things have shifted to a point where it's a lot easier to support the abolishment of those evil, wretched prisons known as mage circles. Ahem.
Thematically, I can see abuse of power (as previously mentioned), but I've always seen the whole mage-templar thing as more along the lines of freedom versus security (mundanes enjoy greater security when mage freedom is restricted). The freedom versus security dichotomy fits with tightening TSB travel regulations, the Patriot Act, gun control regulations, etc. - and has apparently been considered for quite awhile, as suggested by this quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
One thing I found particularly interesting in DAI is Cassandra's description of Seeker powers. They can actually kill with their thoughts, no lyrium or blood required? Wow. That's a whole new twist.