32 réponses à ce sujet

[Jedimaster88]

Shale: Does it think it was wrong to destroy the Anvil, then?

Oghren: (Sigh) No... sometimes people need to be kept from doing stupid things, even for good reasons.

[LobselVith8]

Corker wrote...

Bhryaen wrote...

the people being enslaved to it aren't going to agree that they're better off as slaves than as broodmothers- either way dead- and in any case it will only ever ultimately meet resistance from those being both enslaved and "saved." .

There was an in-game quote about that, right? Somewhere... oh. Right there!

"A civilization cannot be civil if it condones the slavery of another. And that is what this Circle is! But by accident of birth, those mages would be free to live, love, and die as they choose. The Circles will break - if it be one year, a decade, a century, or beyond. Tyrants always fall, and the downtrodden always strive for freedom!" - Aldenon the Wise 

Aldenon the Wise didn't face an enemy that threatened to bring his people - and virtually every other race on the continent, if not the entire planet - to extinction. Koyasha addressed some fairly good points in a much earlier thread about this issue a while back:

Koyasha wrote...

Krigwin wrote...

The Angry One wrote...
Expecting the surface nations to help reclaim the dwarven empire when there's no Blight when they have never, ever, ever done so before is futile
Even Alistair will not be able to head up a war nobody cares about and nobody wants to fight. When there's no Blight, Orzammar is on it's own, and thus the Anvil is needed.

Wrong. Ask for human military aid as your boon from Alistair and the Darkspawn will be driven back into the Dead Trenches. You've braved two Thaigs (Aeducan Thaig and Cadash Thaig) in the game, you know more than anyone else (possibly more than even any Grey Warden to come before you) what there is to face in the Deep Roads. It's not tough, the only reason the dwarves can't do it is because they lack the numbers.

The dwarves aided the humans in defeating this Blight even though their agreement was centuries-old and Orzammar had problems of their own. They honored their oath and Ferelden would have no problem returning the favor, especially as you have so many rallied armies ready to go after the siege of Denerim. Spread the news that the Darkspawn do in fact still exist, and possible more Blights are to come, and not only will the Grey Wardens, themselves numbering in the thousands, come rushing to the aid of the dwarves, but I can't imagine the other human nations not doing the same. Even the Qunari, after Sten brings back information of what exactly a Blight is and what the Darkspawn are capable of.

First off, I've got to start by reminding everyone that the dwarven kingdoms and the deep roads extend the entire length and breadth of the continent.  The distance to the dead trenches is miniscule compared to the entirety of Thedas, and retaking that tiny portion of the deep roads is insignificant as far as the whole of the continent goes.  It is like saying that if the entirety of the United States was overrun by enemy forces, with the exception of Los Angeles (Kal Sharok) and New York City (Orzammar), that securing the vast distance between New York and Trenton, New Jersey (Bownammar), was "much" of the lost territory.  Even if we went as far as Philadelphia, I don't think it would be that significant.

Furthermore, you are arguing from a position of utter fantasy that exists only in your imagination, it seems.  Do you believe the Grey Wardens, who send their people to Orzammar to die fighting darkspawn in the deep roads, are unaware that there are darkspawn in the deep roads?  Do you really think that after the last Blight was defeated, four hundred years ago, the surface nations simply did not know that there were more darkspawn in the deep roads?  Everyone knows damn well the deep roads are full of darkspawn.  And one of the early dialogue options as a mage sums up the attitude on that entirely: "Darkspawn are a dwarven problem."  Do you really believe the surface nations could be convinced to commit themselves to a decades or possibly even centuries-long war effort in order to secure the entirety of the deep roads and wipe out the darkspawn once and for all, when they do not feel threatened in the slightest?

Furthermore you behave as though the recent fight in Ferelden will spur the nations to action as though it presents the darkspawn as a major threat, when in point of fact it does quite the opposite.  To quote Alistair, "No Grey Warden has ever defeated a blight without the army of a dozen nations at their back."  From what we understand, the last four Blights spanned much of the continent, and every nation in Thedas was threatened.  This time, the Blight was defeated with most nations barely even becoming aware of it.  If anything, this is an indication to other nations that darkspawn and blights are nowhere near as threatening as the legends made them seem, a problem easily dealt with if you don't also have a civil war going at the same time.  And certainly not a problem that requires committing massive military force over generations in order to root out of their nests for the sake of the dwarves.

But you bring up a good point about the battle of attrition. Why is it that the dwarves are so hopelessly outnumbered? It could be because of the Brood Mother method of reproduction, that is certainly true. But then again, the Darkspawn do not go to the surface except in the case of a Blight, so where would they be getting these female victims from? Their only source would be the dwarves, and unless they were plopping out Brood Mothers by the dozen, they wouldn't have enough to breed such a massive army to outnumber all of Orzammar.

Consider that the only Brood Mother you encounter in the game is the result of Branka leading her house deep into the Deep Roads, and then willingly abandoning them to the Darkspawn. Otherwise, the only dwarves that go into the Deep Roads are warriors, which are all male. Consider that, without an Archdemon to command them and form the powerful synaptic hive mind that guides a Blight, the Darkspawn war amongst each other endlessly, just like Orcs, or demons, or any other faction of mindless beasts from fantasy.

No, I believe the real reason the dwarves are so outnumbered is because of their caste system, which limits the size of their armies. Dissolving the castes and conscripting warriors to fight the Darkspawn, which is very similar to what Bhelen does, would be more than enough to not only defend Orzammar but also branch out and reclaim lost territory. It sounds bad at first, but then you remember the alternative is extinction. The dwarves were getting too fat and lazy relying on their golems to do all the work, that's why when the Anvil was lost they lost ground so quickly. Only the Legion of the Dead has any real idea of how to fight the Darkspawn, and you hear it yourself from Kardol - they are bound by tradition to follow the lead of Orzammar's King, and Orzammar's Kings have been content to... pretty much do nothing and have a generally defeatist attitude about the Darkspawn.

Darkspawn are known to raid the surface in ragtag bands.  This is clearly stated quite often in the early stages of the game.  Their reason for doing so is rather clear, considering their method of reproduction.  Dwarves are not their only source of females to make broodmothers with.  And dwarves do have female warriors, or did you miss, say, the story of Astyth the Grey, who fought for the right of females to be warriors, and wound up inspiring an entire order of Silent Sisters?

The second is your character, and you're either not even a dwarf, or you're casteless. Neither of you are fit to represent society, and with the Assembly in disarray and no King in sight, no one has the real authority to make a decision like this. And even if you disagree, you're not even handing over the Anvil to society - you're handing it over to Branka. And even if you still disagree with that, you're not seizing food from some greedy farmer or something, you're taking the Anvil from not just any Paragon, but the most important Paragon in all of dwarven history, who has made revolutionary contributions to society and was much more powerful in his day than Branka ever was, and in order to do so in fact you have to kill him.

Branka and Caridin are both Paragons, and therefore equal as far as dwarven society goes.  Caridin himself notes that he made many things in his time, but the one he was made a Paragon for and the only one that he is remembered for is the Anvil.  Which he now wants to destroy.  Indeed, if he's going to destroy the reason he was made a Paragon, shouldn't that sort of...I don't know...nullify his Paragon-hood?  Cause he was made a Paragon cause he invented the Anvil and gave the dwarves golems, not for any other reason.

But none of that really matters, because Grey Wardens do whatever is necessary to defeat the darkspawn, and the Anvil can help in that goal.

Wrong. The weapon has already been taken away, and has been for centuries. Indeed no one even believes it still exists at the time of the game, except for Branka. You make it sound as if Caridin is actively rooting for the dwarves to fail, when really he has been long forgotten and the dwarves have moved on without him.

Ok, he took away their only effective weapon, past tense.  Rest is still entirely applicable.  The dwarves moved on without him because they felt they had no choice.  Branka was the only one driven (crazy?) enough to go after the Anvil, realizing that without it, they were doomed in the long term.

If you were somehow able to keep the Anvil around, but ensure that is used only for good, only to create soldiers to fight the Darkspawn, then this would be a tough choice, because while it is still a tool of evil, you'd be serving the greater good. But there is no such option. You have to hand it over to Branka, a psychotic megalomaniac who has already proven she has no qualms with sending her own kind off to the slaughterhouse. Branka is obsessed, her own husband tells you she has become increasingly unstable and possibly insane, and at the time you meet her she is legally dead with no real power amongst the dwarves. Once she gets it she even starts kidnapping people to use on the Anvil!

And in order to do this, you have to kill Caridin - a hero, who only tried to help his people. You have to murder him (and Shale) in order to keep the Anvil. You're committing an act of evil, to save a tool of evil, in order to hand it over to someone who could be called evil. Yeah, I can totally see the moral ambiguity there alright.

But what is she obsessed with?  Defeating the darkspawn!  Therefore, any means necessary still applies.

And while Caridin tried to help his people, he also turned around and rescinded that help when he decided it wasn't being done exactly the way his delicate sensibilities wanted.

Moral ambiguity is irrelevant.  Is keeping the anvil "evil?"  It doesn't matter.  It only matters that it is an effective tool to construct weapons against the darkspawn.  No sacrifice is too great in order to accomplish that goal, including the eternal enslavement of countless tens or hundreds of thousands, or even more, to construct the golem force needed to achieve ultimate victory.

[darkmanifest]

Seriously, yeah, I'd've been cool with preserving the Anvil if I could have convinced Caridin and a bunch of other free golems to be the ones solely in charge of how it was used. The problems all seemed to arise from people who would never be golems themselves - the dwarven nobility and crazy paragons - getting to determine who else would make the sacrifice, and forcing the issue if anyone was unhappy with it. The golems could govern themselves just fine, put down any murderous nuts among them better than the squishy folk could, and there'd be a low chance of all of them deciding to go on a killing spree of non-darkspawn so long as they were all volunteers with free will, no control rods involved. They'd probably be fairer about it, knowing intimately what it means to live that kind of life for so long.

It's like how the Grey Wardens are largely self-governing, you have to keep outside politics and people who don't understand the sacrifices involved away from that kind of organization or it all goes awry.  Hey, maybe Grey Wardens about to take that last journey into the Deep Roads could instead be given an option to be turned into a golem, assuming the taint wouldn't prevent it.  I'm sure some would jump at the chance.

All that said, I think Caridin was, understandably, more than a little crazy by that point, though, and he just wanted to be free to after centuries of being a slave to that Anvil. But then, there should have been an option to get him to teach an apprentice all his tricks before he took his dive. Like maybe Shale!

Modifié par darkmanifest, 09 juin 2013 - 04:25 .

[Fuggyt]

darkmanifest wrote...

Seriously, yeah, I'd've been cool with preserving the Anvil if I could have convinced Caridin and a bunch of other free golems to be the ones solely in charge of how it was used. The problems all seemed to arise from people who would never be golems themselves - the dwarven nobility and crazy paragons - getting to determine who else would make the sacrifice, and forcing the issue if anyone was unhappy with it. The golems could govern themselves just fine, put down any murderous nuts among them better than the squishy folk could, and there'd be a low chance of all of them deciding to go on a killing spree of non-darkspawn so long as they were all volunteers with free will, no control rods involved. They'd probably be fairer about it, knowing intimately what it means to live that kind of life for so long.

It's like how the Grey Wardens are largely self-governing, you have to keep outside politics and people who don't understand the sacrifices involved away from that kind of organization or it all goes awry.  Hey, maybe Grey Wardens about to take that last journey into the Deep Roads could instead be given an option to be turned into a golem, assuming the taint wouldn't prevent it.  I'm sure some would jump at the chance.

All that said, I think Caridin was, understandably, more than a little crazy by that point, though, and he just wanted to be free to after centuries of being a slave to that Anvil. But then, there should have been an option to get him to teach an apprentice all his tricks before he took his dive. Like maybe Shale!

That all sounds peachy.  It seems like there just ought to be a way to control the use of the Anvil, doesn't it?  Such a waste otherwise.  You could set up a special all-volunteer Golem Corps, say, and only replenish their numbers when one or more is lost, damaged beyond repair, or destroyed.  You'd disperse them among your front-line companies--the opening cut scene shows such an arrangement--and use them like modern armor.  And why restrict the humanitarian potentiality of the Anvil only to Grey Wardens trying to cheat the Taint?  You could recruit among the maimed, crippled, and terminally ill and you'd probably have more candidates than you could shake a lyrium-infused balpeen hammer at. 

But there are unintended consequences to any such scheme.   Dwarven warriors would demand ever more golems, because why should they take a bolt to the face if they don't have to, and pretty soon whoever controls the Anvil and the Golem Corps would be the dictator of Orzammer.  And at some point, wouldn't such a ruler become as great a threat to the rest of Thedas as a Blight?  Would you want to live under the benign rule of Bhelen and his golem army?  And if the Anvil were viewed as a passport to immortality, wouldn't the elites start keeping it to themselves and use it to create a golem aristocracy?  Sure, you might assume "the golems could govern themselves just fine," but I'm just cynical enough to suspect that sooner or later they might start having ideas of their own about the proper maintenance of the merely squishy.

I don't think the Anvil can be legislated.  I think its very existence invites catastrophic consequences that far outweigh any perceived short-term benefits.  Besides, the damn thing's haunted.  It's a Fade tear of epic proportions just waiting to happen.      

Modifié par Fuggyt, 09 juin 2013 - 05:13 .

[Bhryaen]

Fuggyt wrote...
I don't think the Anvil can be legislated.  I think its very existence invites catastrophic consequences that far outweigh any perceived short-term benefits.  Besides, the damn thing's haunted.  It's a Fade tear of epic proportions just waiting to happen.

That's so true about the Fade tear risk. I can just see a bunch of self-satisfied dwarf nobles all surrounded by their golem-slaves after their victories over their political opponents, the stubborn casteless victims, and, oh yeah, maybe the darkspawn as well, toasting ale mugs over the Anvil with glee when suddenly from a hairline fracture in the Anvil a blood-drenching rupture bursts with deathly wailing from the release of the souls trapped within, and out pour thousands of angry Fade spirits to spoil the party... Just how many souls can be crammed into it after all?

@darkmanifest
The trouble with self-governing golems is that those self-determined golems we meet- like the Shale you offered as Caridin's apprentice- are both deadest against the creation of any more golems at all, regardless of whether they maintain their own policing. Plus you'd have to get people like Bhelen or worse to agree to have a potentially large portion of the population be golem-bound and making their own decisions- decisions which such autocrats may or may not like. After all Bhelen already insisted that Branka produce only for his own personal army, so an autonomous golem army would likely also meet with his violent opposition. It would be hard to get the arrangement where volunteer free-thinking golems could be made without interference from power-crazed squishies, and nigh impossible to maintain such an arrangement so long as politics in Orzammar remains as it is. And what if Beraht types were the ones golemized while keeping their minds and then they started dominating the politics of the golems? There would be legitimate reason for concern about free-thinking golems at that point. Loads more considerations on top of the obviously minor consideration of condemning countless souls to eternal torture...

@LobselVith8
You brush aside the comparison with your signature quote too easily, enough that it's surprising you use the quote at all. For reference I'll quote it again:

"A civilization cannot be civil if it condones the slavery of another. And that is what this Circle is! But by accident of birth, those mages would be free to live, love, and die as they choose. The Circles will break - if it be one year, a decade, a century, or beyond. Tyrants always fall, and the downtrodden always strive for freedom!" - Aldenon the Wise, co-founder of Ferelden

The concepts involved in the quote are actually far more applicable in the case of dwarves (or whoever) subjected to the Anvil than of mages subjected to Tower internment, yet you actively espouse the concept of opposition to slavery on behalf of mages while being utterly and righteously in favor of slavery regarding dwarves. Mages are not some minor threat for the surface. Not only can evil ones or blood mages be very dangerous in themselves (though so can warriors and rogue), but more specifically they truly are always on the verge of demon possession. I think it was Greagoir who said something about a single demon getting loose from the Tower being able to destroy an entire village. It doesn't happen much, AFAIK, but then again there is a Tower to contain mages, unlike anything containing darkspawn other than the walls of Orzammar. But as we see ourselves, a child merely reading the wrong passage from a book can end up with an entire castle turned undead and its surrounding village slaughtered. Concern about mages is no less imminent and justified than dwarven concern about the darkspawn, and both pose the risk of overwhelming destruction at any minute (despite that they relatively seldom do). In other words, both demons and darkspawn threaten to destroy Thedas, and draconian measures are executed to deal with those threats by enslaving part of the population. Yet again you empathize with mages to the point of advocating resistance to their enslavement while you don’t empathize at all with the dwarves threatened with the enslavement of golemization.

Yet the measures taken against mages involve merely keeping them in a tower with comfortable accommodations, guaranteed food and lodging, plenty to read, their own bed, the opportunity to develop their abilities, careful monitoring 24/7 but also a relatively welcoming environment, no shackles, an honors system, etc. And that warrants your concern about them being enslaved and enables you to recognize that they're bound to revolt at one point or another due to such oppression… But literally ripping souls from dwarven bodies (I’m a monist, so I don’t see how that’s possible, but, oh, well, it’s fiction, so…) and trapping them in eternal torment within the Anvil, ending their lives and enslaving their “essence” to the every whims of whatever schmuck wields the control rod- and this being done to casteless dwarves far more regularly than those with a caste… That's all ok for you, quite worth it, hurrah, and keep it comin'. No good reason dwarves might revolt against being subject to those conditions, right? Some noble wants to win back his Thaig after all. So take my son. Take my wife- please. Whoever you need...

And you balk at the mention of Caridin caring about his fellow dwarves... But back to earlier points…

LobselVith8 wrote…
You stated that "golems weren't very powerful in a fight"…

I didn’t. This was likely the actual quote of mine to which you refer (bolded for clarity):

 

Bhryaen wrote…
Yes, the golem might was stopped by Caridin rather than golems being ineffective in a battle.

So you’ve been contesting a concession on my part. To paraphrase for further clarity I said, “Golems stopped being a contributing factor to the war effort because Caridin left with his Anvil, not because the golems were ineffective.” In short, you read it wrong. *shrugs* (Not the only instance…) I’m not contesting the usefulness of golems in battle in the least. I’m contesting the viability of golem creation as a solution for the long-term survival or resurgence of the dwarves of DAO.

As for the rest of your arguments, your primary problem appears to be not facing reality- the actual conditions within which all these decisions and events regarding golems either were made (in the lore) or are made (in-game).

To start, whether you like it or not or think he should have or not or call him names for it, the very founder of golems saw and felt and experienced firsthand what it means to deliver unconditionally an Anvil sort of engine into the hands of an ambitious dwarven monarch, and he consequently turned against the idea. This wasn't some fit of hysteria on his part or what Koyasha described as Caridin's "delicate sensibilities" being offended. Caridin saw that golem creation went against the very purpose he had invented them to serve: advancing the interests of the dwarven people. It's hard to argue that you're murdering someone in order to help them. It's like the Vietnam War addage (USA side) of "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Somehow burning down a village of people to the ground was portrayed as helping those same now-dead villagers. If you destroy Orzammar’s (or the Ortan Thaig’s) people to make them golems, you’re merely consuming them- extinguishing them- not saving them. If some go voluntarily, well, there’s an administrative rationale to be presented in order to proceed: “He asked for it, didn’t ‘e? (Sucker! Haha)” And then you can only hope that the golem made from his death and eternal torment serves an honorable purpose. But even then the sacrifice you enable isn’t necessarily vindicated: you’re still killing the people you’re supposed to be defending. You yourself acknowledge that the golemization process is cruelty at its core- “certainly a horrible one-“ that it murders people and enslaves their lives and condemns their "souls" to a foreseeable future of torture. Sorta atrocity really. And once Valtor began forced golemizations the honor possibility went out the window entirely. Caridin himself was forbibly subjected to it- the only reason he’s a golem when we meet him. And he knew that that subjection- or “violation” (a term you prefer)- was bound to be multiplied over and over again upon countless victims.

Now, creating golems isn’t any of that for, say, the monarch who commands the Anvil’s use- or those who curry favor with said monarch- or those the monarch deems worthy of a stay of execution (for now) because the oh-so-brave monarch and his closest entourage never allow themselves to be made into golems. And why not? It's for the cause, no? Lead by example, brave sacrifice, and all that. Anything to defeat the darkspawn! And, hell, Caridin maintained his own mind, so you could have a golemized royal still able to rule as before, except now as a powerful golem. I know, right? Totally awesome! But somehow King Valtor's "delicate sensibilities" precluded letting anyone use the Anvil on himself. And it’s doubtful Bhelen would’ve ever let it be used on himself either. Gosh. Whyever would that be? Doesn’t he believe in his own cause? Yet when Caridin- the very Paragon himself- resists, Valtor forcibly subjects him to the Anvil- i.e., as a punishment, not a salvation. Clearly golems could be made without Caridin if his assistants could make him into a golem, so golemizing him wasn’t required to keep the process going. (And in retrospect if Valtor had just executed or imprisoned Caridin, then the Anvil couldn’t have been spirited away by Caridin off to Bownammar. Poor choice of execution made by the greedy king.) But Caridin had resisted the monarch’s golemization plans, so Valtor had Caridin entombed as a golem himself. Seeing anything fundamentally off about this picture? I am: the Anvil can be and tends to be misused rather than focused exclusively on darkspawn thumping.

So instead of everyone in dwarven society being considered part of the available pool of forcible golemization victims (they’ve got to come from somewhere) the list excludes the monarchs who choose which fellow citizen gets forcibly golemized, a threat extending only to the rest of dwarven society. This creates a new dynamic in society in which the vast majority of dwarves are constantly in danger of themselves or someone they love being summarily abducted and sacrificed at the monarch’s whim, abductions commonplace and the abduction squad inevitably becoming a known and regular gang of Crown-sponsored thugs on the streets, likely accompanied by golem enforcers. Everyone else’s lives become worth only their weight in golem animation for the monarch’s execution forces. And thus what becomes truly “horrible” for dwarves with accepted golemizations is no longer the risk of darkspawn incursions but the revulsion of daily life in general in Orzammar, everyone scrambling to not get picked next. It reminds me of the short story “Lottery” in which once a year everyone gets a lottery ticket and the lucky “winner” is publicly stoned to death… except that this nightmare stoning would be more than once a year- a lot more. At which point one must honestly ask oneself, “Is this the sort of society worth fighting off darkspawn for? Is this the sort of loss and depravity we can suffer as dwarves and even still call ourselves a civilization?” I’m going with Caridin’s answer on that one.

One needn't get into a self-righteous fever and proclaim, "Hey, that's wrong!," to recognize that the Anvil is ultimately a counterproductive method toward the goal of long-term survival. One need only recognize that such a state of affairs that the Anvil enables is utterly destructive to dwarven social stability and social coherence. Orzammar (or the Ortan Thaig in Caridin’s time) would’ve been converted into a concentration camp of herded people awaiting slaughter by Anvil. That threatened vast majority of dwarves would resent living in daily dread of abduction- not to mention dread or resentment at losing family, friends, loved ones, etc. to the “horrible” hammer. The only reason no one opposes it straight away is likely because Caridin doesn’t mention the sacrifice required when he initially presents the Anvil to the Ortan Assembly. Why might he hide that fact, I wonder? Maybe because he was afraid of people’s “delicate sensibilities” getting in the way of the war effort. Perhaps you’d rather that the Ortan or Orzammarian dwarves never learn what they and their fellows and neighbors are being abducted for, the sacrifice involved, postponing for as long as possible the point at which people recognize that mass murder is being committed in the name of progress and they start refusing and revolting. That would be sort of like some Tevinter slavers hiding their enslavement of Alienage elves behind a ruse of being healers. Or even maybe like Templars hiding their oppression of mages behind a veneer of community protection- but quite a bit worse than that. But it’s a worthy sacrifice to be abducting people for Anvil murders, right? So why hide it? Because the sort of social atrocity entailed by use of the Anvil cannot be maintained indefinitely regardless of the effectiveness of the subterfuge against the masses. And if it cannot be sustained in the open because it will be rejected, why should it be sustained at all?

To reiterate your signature quote, the tyranny of forced golem conscription "will break - if it be one year, a decade, a century, or beyond." It's just that in this case Caridin- already golemized against his will- didn't require a “century or beyond” before he attempted to ensure that enslavement to the Anvil "broke." And our Warden has the chance to end forever its ability to enslave.

So Caridin's acts were quite natural, quite expected, and most importantly quite inevitable- and if not by Caridin then by others later after far greater losses and far more bitter caste-based social division and strife had set in. Resistance can be anticipated- whether by Caridin or ultimately by dwarven society as a whole. Or do you really believe dwarves would just accept it unquestioningly? Well, perhaps most of the castes of Orzammar would accept it so long as the only victims were the casteless and criminals (who are usually the casteless anyway). But the casteless- already considered non-beings (dust at best) by dwarven caste society- wouldn’t exactly happily consent to an arrangement that essentially genocides them for some military campaign of the nobility. What would they care anymore if the darkspawn come when they're already treated like the rubbish of Orzammar anyway, particularly now that they’re being death-marched off to the ovens- I mean, Anvil. And what side would you be on if the casteless were to revolt against being forcibly golemized, particularly if their battle cry were “Destroy the Anvil!”? Would you stand by their struggle against oppression and enslavement or would you cheer on the monarch as golems are sent to crush the casteless resistance? After all, the golems are the only viable solution for you, right? The casteless must accept their treatment or all of dwarven civilization will be wiped out! Even if the casteless have to be forced through that meatgrinder, let’s do it! Victory by any means! Literally over their dead bodies... And indeed that is Valtor’s approach- forcibly golemizing the casteless- and you are a supporter of Valtor as against Caridin, correct? You rail against Caridin for preventing Valtor from continuing, right? So would you volunteer to join the ranks of Valtor’s thugs entering Ortan’s Dust Town to quell the resistance? Don’t forget to bring your “slavery’s not cool” banner with you…

You see, even if the monarch weren’t into forcing dwarves to become Anvil victims, there ultimately never would be enough volunteers to suffice as fodder for golem creation- not even if you throw in the criminals among whose numbers would be included such heinous miscreants as mere petty thieves and smart-mouthed brands who smarted off to the wrong tooth merchant, etc. There also aren’t enough political opponents among the nobility to fill the ranks of an army, so your eagerness to see mass murdered those who are branded by Bhelen (rightly or wrongly or entirely arbitrarily) as “traditionalists” brings up the same point: you’ll never get enough that way. For that you’ll have to turn to (or rather turn against) some large segment of dwarven society. Not to mention that those “traditionalist” nobles hold much of the power in Orzammar, regardless of a Bhelen-like dissolving of the Assembly, so you’d have to pull a Loghain and start a civil war to make that sort of forced induction possible- something the darkspawn always appreciate, dividing forces in front of the enemy. Just ask Loghain- made a glorious moment for him. Whatever Anvil-backed monarch is in power- Valtor, Harrowmont, Bhelen, or whoever else- the most likely source of the bulk of forced golem inductees will be from lower castes and the casteless.

But you try to counter that Bhelen surely wouldn't forcibly conscript the casteless due to the reforms for the casteless that he’s put forward. Only Valtor or Harrowmont would do it, right? But unlike Bhelen,  Harrowmont isn't described in the epilogue slides as resorting to forced conscriptions at all ever. And yet of course the kinslaying, backstabbing Bhelen whose contacts among the casteless included such fine representatives as Jarvia (and Beraht, particularly given who Bhelen marries) and who casually and brazenly refers to the casteless "noble hunter" Mardy as a whor*e… has nothing but utmost respect for the casteless and would never subject them to forced golemizations, much less move to crush any resistance from them if they were to present it. Perish the thought. It's not like Bhelen’s the type to betray people he claims to support, right? He’s not some ruthless tyrant, planning out betrayals coldly and calculatingly behind the scenes for months, maybe years, just to get “ahead in the game.” Do you think him so ruthless and cruel? Oh, wait, he is that type. Which is why- unlike even Valtor who accepted only volunteers for the Anvil for some time before  his golem greed set in- Bhelen immediately seeks forced victims (and what that must’ve looked like, dragging those victims through the streets of Orzammar and then the Deep Roads all the way to the Dead Trenches to their agonizing ends). Bhelen’s violent personal ambitions are already in full throttle when we begin our DAO game, so why would he suddenly take a principled position when an Anvil comes along? With access to the Anvil suddenly thrust into his hands as an unanticipated superweapon, why would he care to curry support from the casteless anymore? Bhelen is no champion of the casteless: he curries support also from the nobility using the usual promises of position and rewards for favors). And the rabble of casteless is nothing compared to a battalion of golems, right? So why bother continuing to cater to a rabble when he can advance himself all the better by golemizing them? No, Bhelen is not immune to targeting the casteless, and no dwarven leader presented by DAO is so impeccable as to be able to decisively put golemizing the casteless past them.

And even if Bhelen were (uncharacteristically) to spare the casteless from the Anvil indefinitely, he'd still have to target some large social sector from which to procure the quantity of sacrificial lives required- one that’s feasible (not nobles due to their power and influence, and not warriors due to the greater difficulty of forcing them)- and one that’s accessible. But not the casteless though… Riiiight. Then perhaps the servant caste? Not the merchants or smiths if he wants to maintain the whole “trade with the surface” thingy. Maybe the nug wranglers. Hmm... then who is expendable? And more importantly: who gets to determine who is expendable? In fact, Bhelen in particular ends up so isolated unto himself after dissolving the Assembly that it's not in the least implausible that he'd end up targeting absolutely everyone around him for golemization, eventually turning the whole of Orzammar into his own private Brankaesque golem fortress, the once-proud dwarven capitol now a ghost-town of silent golems standing vigil outside a palace where the bones of "great" Bhelen lay sprawled on his throne...

At some point dwarves would have to resist if they wanted a dwarven civilization that isn't comprised solely of giant stone once-dwarves and what’s left of the former population drenched in the blood of uncountable contemporaries. And when that natural resistance to oppression would come, it could result in a civil war, bloodletting a people who are already facing a reduced reproduction rate, not to mention a diversion of resources from fighting darkspawn to fighting each other. The Anvil forces dwarves against dwarves (or in Harrowmont’s case, dwarves against surfacers)- whether dwarves using it on other dwarves or resisting dwarves fighting for their lives against their Anvil-crazed fellows. And if there isn't resistance- and it's not exactly guaranteed that there would be any (or any successful), particularly not with golem SS thugs patrolling the streets of Orzammar to enforce "order"- but either with a golem-crushed rebellion or acquiescence to atrocity, it would freeze dwarven society at its core, dwarven culture dying a living death on the way to dwarven self-extinction- the once-proud people of the stone who sacrificed all the dignity and honor they had for a quick and easy chance at immortality at the expense of their kin. Whether you empathize with Caridin or with Valtor and Branka, above all is the reality that dwarves share a common interest in preventing or overturning the oppression that the use of the Anvil entails. Caridin merely reduced the losses which organized resistance and countless Anvil sacrifices would've involved later.

And then there’s another ignored reality: the politics of Orzammar. The seeming permanence of corrupt political maneuvering and the deplorable caste system which ever tear at the heart of dwarven society… are simply not worth enforcing with the might of golems. Those are problems- even fatal flaws- of dwarven "civilization" which hamper dwarven self-sustenance and require redress for dwarves to ever rally the cohesiveness as a society involved in a resurgent people. Adding the Anvil to the mix merely accelerates the ill mixture of political intrigue and caste oppression in dwarven society to their most pernicious extremes. Your buddy Bhelen is directly responsible for the political scandal and treason that hampers the governance of the dwarves' last great city to the point of deadlock just as a blight appears. Subsequently shoving golem control rods into the hands of all those inveterate plotters and schemers hardly helps matters. It just makes the brutality involved that much less subtle, whether because one brutal leader uses them to oppress everyone else or multiple nobles get them to use against each others’ houses and against anyone else in their way.

It's notable that you do seem to see that giving golems to at least one leader (Harrowmont) is a bad idea. You respond to the suggestion of Harrowmont getting the golems with:

Lobselvith8 wrote…
You seem to confuse me for someone who would ever give the Crown to Harrowmont.

As if the question were ever about who you would vote for. So am I to take from this that you believe sparing the Anvil is thus not a good idea even by your reckoning- at least under some conditions- which, given the tenuousness of rule in Orzammar and the inability to ensure a non-oppressive ruler, is to say never? Or do you think it is still a good idea to give the Anvil to Harrowmont just so long as golems get made? Golems are the only answer, right? So which is it? Golems are the answer regardless of the leader, regardless of what you read that Harrowmont does with them, or golems aren’t a solution given that people like Harrowmont get Crowned? If you (as a player viewing metagamingly) side with unconditionally giving the Anvil to Branka (there is no conditional alternative proffered by the game (though you can try to admonish her)), you condone everything Harrowmont (and Branka) does with them when he's chosen, telling every casteless dwarf who Harrowmont murders that it’s for the best. In fact, for all you know at the moment in-game that you leave Branka in the Dead Trenches, Bhelen may already be dead or outvoted in the Assembly and Harrowmont the only available recipient of golems, so your plans to give it to Bhelen would be for naught. And even if you give it to Bhelen, you thereby also condone passing it to some successor of Bhelen who may be even worse than Harrowmont. Whatever you think the chances of Bhelen’s brat to get elected, if Bhelen, Jr., learned how to govern from Pops, Bhelen may very well be the next dwarven monarch removed in a coup by his own “scion.” And it’s not guaranteed that Little Bhelen will follow Pops Bhelen’s outward favoritism toward the casteless (however long that lasts). And why would it be impossible for someone else to get the throne rather than Bhelen’s “scion” given what you assert about the Assembly’s rejection of Bhelen’s methods (provided that Little Bhelen grows up to worship Bhelen rather than kill him to get ahead like a good dwarf should)? There is nothing guaranteed about the integrity of a Bhelen successor or of Orzammar politics whatsoever- not even a guarantee about the integrity of Bhelen himself. As a result there is a guaranteed that golems will be misused and created through oppression. Valtor already showed this.

But that's the lesser evil, you say- golems being forged through murder- regardless of how they're used by whatever caliber of monarch comes along. It’s just that putting the golem-producing murder machine in place is not merely the lesser evil. It’s the only guaranteed evil. The evil of the Anvil merely augments the evil of a corrupt social system, and they would be inseparably bound together.

According to the epilogue slides it’s quite clear that the politics of Orzammar are such that a Branka-saddled Anvil does end up causing miserable consequences for Orzammarians. Either Bhelen starts right up forcing golemizations and then sacrifices more lives and resources trying unsuccessfully to capture Branka's fortress or Harrowmont uses golems to trample both Dust Town and Bhelen’s remaining fanatics until the surface ends up at war with Orzammar. You don't have to like it. You can think it should've gone one way or another instead. You can say it’s a failure of the DAO writing staff. You can blame Branka for denying Bhelen yet more fodder. You can accuse Harrowmont of being an evil, wicked, mean, bad, and nasty person. You can even hypothesize about whether a caste-free, corruption-free dwarven civilization could handle the Anvil with no problems. But the Orzammar in the game is what it is, so golems do not enhance Orzammar's future any more than they ultimately would have for the kingdom ruled by Valtor if Caridin had not spared countless lives the tyranny of that Anvil-backed Crown. Golems merely end up further polarizing an already divided dwarven society and accelerating all the most outstanding conditions for its decline.

You are correct, of course, that the epilogue slides do not tell everything, but that doesn't provide you much of an out. Firstly, the reality they describe with their all-too-brief synopses entails a focus on the significant developments. Would you not agree that winning back thaigs and such would be a significant development? So if it really happens, it would likely get mentioned, no? And it does get mentioned in some epilogue slide results. And it doesn't get mentioned in others. And if such an eventful event doesn't get mentioned... the likelihood is that it simply didn't happen. No? How reasonable is it to figure they would simply leave it out? "Oops, forgot to mention that the Deep Roads were reconquered in entirety and all the darkspawn vanquished forevermore. We mentioned about a tavern in Redcliff though, right?" Why would they describe how Branka denied golems to Bhelen and Bhelen tried unsuccessfully to capture her fortress if the most important thing that actually happens is that Bhelen did get the Anvil which he used to make golems to win the Deep Roads with? Because the (blood red) rosy-colored latter notion just doesn't happen... The Anvil becomes a disaster and loss with Bhelen, and it becomes a war with the surface (among other things) with Harrowmont. Period. All they wrote.

But admittedly that’s not the entire picture because not mentioning an event doesn’t necessarily entail nixing said event. It just makes it less decisively consistent with the game lore to assert. And in that regard- secondly, the epilogue slides are not entirely nebulous affairs that could go any which way you prefer indiscriminately, but instead contain definitive story arcs which provide a trajectory for potential story directions. The epilogue accounts described are truly the jumping off points for the imagination, but some imaginings will logically flow from them while others will not at all- not without the sort of “stretch” that requires Mr. Fantastic’s abilities. Of course everything's debatable and imagination knows few bounds, but the stronger case will stay logical with the canon. For instance, after reading the epilogue slide that says:

“Bhelen’s reforms quickly found him enemies within the warrior and noble castes, however, and after several assassination attempts, the Assembly was dissolved. The king then ruled alone…”

It’s not particularly reasonable to assert that after those events Bhelen was much loved by the noble and warrior castes and ultimately given Paragon status by the Assembly- the opposite of what was described, almost as if you hadn’t read it. Some assertions just don’t wash with the lore.

You favor Bhelen having the golems, so we'll take it from there. It mentions initially that Bhelen and Branka worked together to make golems (some forced) "so that the golems could push the darkspawn back." It doesn't say that they were actually used to "push the darkspawn back," but only that they were made "so that" such a thing “could” be done. Nevertheless this begins to be a story arc which could include Bhelen using the (forced or otherwise) golem conscripts as you propose they were- i.e., to retake the Deep Roads. However, the next section immediately contradicts that story arc- nips it right in the bud- and shifts it elsewhere: shortly after ("before long") Branka decides she’s going to bludgeon people into golems for herself, not just for Bhelen, and Bhelen responds with a clamp down. So the rosy scenario of murdering people to make golems doesn’t last long… or as the epilogue slides put it incontrovertibly: “This arrangement was not to last, however.” He never gets particularly many (“horribly” created) golems to use to begin with, and thus there never will be any Bhelen-led golem army ventures into the Deep Roads even if you’ve Crowned Bhelen and given the Anvil to Branka. The one story arc was curtailed by the other- very simple. You're free to imagine there was a golem army anyway (a Brankaesque head canon would do no less) but it’s not borne out by the logic of the epilogue story arcs. And in fact among the ventures into the Deep Roads that Bhelen does commit to are the wasting of dwarven lives (and possibly all his scant remaining golem forces) trying in vain for purportedly years to invade and take over Branka's fortress. He fails miserably: “Years into the siege, Bhelen was forced to relent.” There isn’t much room for “And then he got a golem army to take over the Deep Roads with” to tack onto it. And due to golems having been thrown into the equation, whatever the successes that the casteless bring to the military offensives in the Deep Roads with Bhelen as king, all those become overshadowed by Bhelen’s obsession with getting the Anvil for himself.

Note also the full epilogue slide statement (just recognized it myself):

"Before long, Branka refused to make golems only for the king, who soon banned the use of the Anvil."

So your brave, supposedly golem-friendly Bhelen ends up openly opposing- banning even- golem construction just like Harrowmont does- and just as Caridin wanted- albeit simply because he wanted to be the only recipient of Branka's death-creations rather than due to some change in heart or recognition of their ultimate counterproductiveness in dwarven society. So while Bhelen himself is banning them, you're arguing for them… to give to Bhelen… who’s banning them. Even Bhelen comes ("before long") to see the Anvil as an ultimately untenable solution, and when he tries to take Branka’s fortress it is found to be “impenetrable-“ i.e., no chance that he ever prevailed and obtained the Anvil (much less knew how to use it). But despite this reality, you imagine Bhelen winning back the Deep Roads with an army of golems. Sorry, but it just isn't happening. There isn't a single story arc to show it and only story arcs that depict that he doesn’t. Did the writers have to write it that way? Absolutely not. But they did. *shrugs* So all your arguments supposedly in favor of golem use due to your Warden’s actions is for naught: it doesn’t happen. It’s more an argument for what you would prefer to happen… and wishful thinking isn’t reality any more than a politician’s promises.

Yes, I do know that the same Bhelen ending of conquering a few thaigs occurs whether or not you've given the Anvil to Branka. You see, that was precisely my point. The reality is that you do not have to give golems to (well, Branka, but...) Bhelen for Bhelen to preside over winning back a few thaigs. Destroy the Anvil and he leads the accomplishment anyway- and for the reasons stated in the epilogue slides: reforms for the casteless, treating that large sector of dwarven society like people for once, empowering the formerly needlessly socially disabled. No golems necessary... and really not a point in favor of the golem army direction, is it? And in fact, that is a story arc left open, indicating that maybe over time the regular dwarven army- now infused with the casteless recruits and possibly encouraging a lot of fraternity between the casteless and warrior caste- takes over much more than just a few thaigs. The epilogue slides only mention a few thaigs won through an empowered casteless, but without anything stating otherwise, it’s reasonable to imagine that the same formula would produce repeated
victories afterward. And really Bhelen himself doesn't have to have anything to do with it at that point or even be around in a few years. He forges the historical opening for the casteless which demonstrates to all of Orzammar the undeniable material advantages of such social progress. After that he becomes politically isolated, maybe hardly even involved, but the social progress continues. So after giving Bhelen the Crown and not giving him the Anvil I can imagine all sorts of gains for Orzammar's future and all sorts of defeat for the darkspawn given the non-golem-related story arc of the social reform solution. And not a single other epilogue development contradicts it. But if you do start the Branka-Bhelen conflict, it’s not entirely clear that Bhelen goes on to focus on beating back the darkspawn since he becomes primarily concerned with defeating Branka’s fortress. Better to simply destroy the Anvil then, eh? Nothing but success for campaigns in the Deep Roads without it.

Similarly for the dwarf-origin-enabled "boon" (telling Anora or Alistair to send troops to aid Orzammar) + Bhelen ending where the united forces of casteless and regular dwarves and surfacers conquer all the way to Bownammar together. You know: the ending which you say is just paltry and barely worth mentioning... despite that it saves untold numbers of dwarven women from the “violation” of broodmotherhood, as you keep harping on as a priority... I guess it doesn’t count for much if it’s not done the way you want- i.e., if it’s accomplished by empowering the casteless and forming alliances with the surface rather than by enslaving souls in stone bodies, then fie on it, I say! Fie! And if Bhelen’s casteless-backed military conquers a few thaigs you’ll go on about how insignificant are a few thaigs as compared to the rest of the fallen dwarven empire. But if golems under Valtor conquer a mere few thaigs outside Ortan before Caridin removes the Anvil- which is exactly as far as it ever got- you’ll leap to point to that otherwise insignificant success, claiming that it was proof that the entire continent could be recaptured and that all of dwarven prospects for the future depend on it. The hypocrisy in your Branka-like fervor for turning dwarves into golems to win a few thaigs is glaring. But winning those first thaigs without golems- or
going further and retaking Bownammar as well- are necessary first steps, not the whole picture. Frodo didn't accomplish much at all in the scheme of things just by traveling successfully to the first inn where Gandalf sent him, so who cares, right? But it was a decisive and key victory at that juncture and a first step in a very long and involved process of saving the world from Sauron forever. Similarly I don't see the offensive against the darkspawn ending at Bownammar at all. It just says, "Within months, the darkspawn were driven back as far as the Dead Trenches..." So what happens in the months and years and decades that follow? No, it doesn't say, so maybe it does stop there… but there is no story arc ender to conclude with certainty that the darkspawn are only driven back to there. It also doesn't say when or even if the surfacers ever stop lending aid to the effort against the darkspawn beneath the surface. So in my head canon, there is a very glorious ending of liberating great territory within the Deep Roads after that. And you know what? The game's epilogue slides never contradict it! :-) So there at least is a salient rosy scenario for the future of dwarven civilization- if you break the Anvil (and Crown Bhelen).

You are right that it is a shame that only a dwarf origin enables the player to request assistance for Orzammar's fight against the darkspawn, especially since it's not really a request for Orzammar alone but effectively for the entirety of Thedas, a request to stay with the darkspawn-combating alliance effort to a grand conclusion of wiping them all out for good. So why wouldn't other Origins get the same option to select joint surfacer-dwarf Deep Roads military campaigns, albeit outlined in different terms than a dwarf Warden would get? Dunno. They just don't. That's how they wrote the options. But again: there may be no epilogue slide and story arc for a non-dwarf Warden who commits the surfacers to assisting Orzammar in a concerted effort, but there's also no epilogue slide which contradicts it to say they absolutely didn't. Nowhere does it say, "And the surface world pretty much just ignored the Deep Roads after that, abandoning the dwarves to their fate, once again dooming themselves to another blight in centuries to come." Or, "Given the alliance Orzammar was poised to survive the darkspawn over the long run, but, well, no one asked the surfacers for aid, so that was it for the dwarves and they went extinct. Too bad they didn't have golems." So I can still see a joint surfacer/dwarf venture into the Deep Roads happening- even despite the Warden’s neglect of or complete disinterest in such a thing- particularly if Leliana mentions at the Coronation that she’s heading up a team to do accomplish just that: surfacer assistance in the Deep Roads. Nothing states it didn’t happen or that something completely different happened that would’ve prevented it. Plus it does happen under some circumstances (a dwarf Warden who chooses the Orzammar boon), and it’s quite reasonable to accept the idea that it would happen given the aftermath of the blight. So I don’t see Orzammar necessarily having no surface support after the defeat of the archdemon. Our non-dwarven Warden just isn’t privy to it or the player isn’t told about it as relevant to their Origin or choices. And again: such an imagined ending is only possible by not giving Branka the Anvil (and Crowning Bhelen).

This is where you interject your false dichotomy: either dwarves in the player's non-dwarven run (or even a dwarven one that chooses a different ending boon than assistance to Orzammar) try and fail to appeal to the surfacers who will never do anything to help against the spawns and thus for that reason dwarves can never prevail decisively against the spawns... or Branka gets the Anvil and thus dwarves hammer other dwarves into golems, and therefore dwarves turn the tide against the darkspawn and advance their civilization. I've already addressed how clear it is in the epilogue slides that the latter scenario doesn't exist: no dwarven king gets golems- or at least not for the long term- because either way, after Branka is given the Anvil, either king candidate subsequently bans its use, Branka retreats with her animated servants to her lunacy, and we don't hear from the Anvil again (unless DA3 involves an expedition to find a way into and explore Branka's fortress). So that part of your false dichotomy doesn’t exist: there is no "dwarves get golems" possibility in DAO except for the short run. After all we do see them added to the dwarf contingent during the surface battle against the archdemon (which I never use). But that’s it. And as you know, our Wardens do defeat the archdemon just the same even if they oh-so-heinously  spared dwarven society the Anvil’s “horror.”

On the other hand you see already how with a dwarf GW there is a real and vibrant possibility for an alliance with surface forces- simply not one a non-dwarf is scripted to be able to select in-game. Regardless of the player's ability to select it, it obviously remains a viable possibility- and the alliance is an outright reality during the Treaty invocation process of your own Warden. Also simply choosing Bhelen (and no golems), Orzammar does end up winning back some ground from the darkspawn on what appears to be a permanent basis. So without surface help and without golems, it's possible for Orzammar to push back the battle lines with the darkspawn, just not as much as with surfacer help.

Thus all aspects of your false dichotomy- surfacers incapable of alliance with dwarves and dwarves unable to advance against the darkspawn without golems- are out of touch with the reality in the game. A more accurate dichotomy of DAO’s dwarf options regarding their future is: either dwarves find a way to get surfacers to join forces with them in the Deep Roads to continue the eradication of darkspawn and thus the offensive goes splendidly, rapidly, and famously... or the dwarves have it a lot harder trying make headway in expanding Orzammar's territory but do manage it under Bhelen due to social reforms... (or they're simply stymied at the gates of Orzammar with Harrowmont...)

On another note, how much of the Deep Roads can ever meaningfully be reconquered anyway? We don't exactly know which parts of it are infested with spawners, where all the brood sites are, where they conglomerate, etc., so it may not require conquering the equivalent of North America anyway, only a portion. But even if it’s only half the fallen empire that’s occupied by darkspawn, that’s still a huge underground continent of territory to cover, as you point out. Meanwhile there are only so many dwarves to go repopulating the submerged houses of the Cadash Thaig and other thaigs or forming military outposts beyond Bownammar. Hell, there are only so many surfacers available to join the same occupation should they be invited and inclined to. And the larger the territory conquered, the more ground that will need to be patrolled and defended. There simply aren't enough- maybe never will be enough- forces- not below or above the surface- available to conquer, occupy, or maintain every square meter of the former dwarven empire’s territory at its zenith- with or without golems. Yet another reality not being faced.

And then there is the other out-of-touch-with-reality false dichotomy formula of "either dwarves get the Anvil or they go extinct." Or as you put it:

LobselVith8 wrote…
There's nothing enarmoring about the decision [to commit mass murder to create a golem army]. Everyone admits it's unpleasant and horrible. Some of us simply think it's a necessary move because the alternative is possible extinction.

Yes, mass murder is “unpleasant” but it’s OK given that it’s either that or die, right? Again: dwarves don't get the Anvil. They lost it in Caridin’s time and the entire city of Orzammar survived, and they don’t get it in our Warden’s time either but still wage successful campaigns to reclaim territory. But by your estimate dwarves are nevertheless therefore already condemned to extinction. May as well just evacuate Orzammar immediately, no?

Yet dwarves don't go extinct either. Just doesn’t happen. Nothing in any epilogue slides- not even Harrowmont's rather crippled Orzammar future- mentions the threat of imminent or even distant annihilation of the dwarves or their last two great cities. It doesn’t bode well for them (and Gaider's team and damning telemetry stats aren't helping either), but it doesn’t state it outright anywhere. Nothing close to Orzammar being overrun is mentioned by a single NPC or comes out in a single article of lore or game canon. Even despite the dissolution of nearly the entire continental dwarven empire- in all its thaigs and nearly all its cities- following the first blight, Orzammar's defenses held unwaveringly. The situation is not so desperate or dire for Orzammar. City folk continue hating the casteless and conducting trade and parading their new jewelry without the slightest glimmer of worry regarding a looming doom from spawnies. As Duncan describes it in the DN intro cutscene, most residents (not the casteless) are relatively content safetywise within the "impregnable construction" of the city’s defenses- at least regarding any threat posed by the darkspawn. (They don’t sit so comfortably regarding threats posed by fellow dwarves…) Darkspawn have been outside the city gates for centuries without managing to breach the walls once- through blight after blight- even with that nice tunnel system under Dust Town that no one would ever know about except Jarvia's gang, except that she’s dead now...

This is not to say that darkspawn pose no threat to the dwarves of Orzammar whatsoever. Nor that other factors aren’t contributing to the decline of dwarven civilization. Just that for all its history as the dwarven people’s great metropolis, Orzammar has been in no crisis of survival (at least after sealing its greater connections to the Deep Roads). It’s never been just on the verge of going under due to ogres blasting through the walls of the Commons or genlock emissaries blasting up through the floor of the Assembly Hall. And there is certainly no such threat at the moment our Wardens hit the scene given that you hear the guards at Orzammar’s entrance to the Deep Roads speaking of their unprecedented recent successes. When we first arrive the darkspawn have retreated from Orzammar's general vicinity to swell elsewhere for a surface offensive, leaving Orzammar completely unthreatened and untargeted. Then later after the sweeping defeat of the archdemon, the spawnie numbers have been thinned and they're in retreat and disorganization once again, scattering everywhere, not necessarily directly back to Orzammar’s borders… incidentally leaving Orzammar’s borders rather ripe for expansion. Not to mention that the next blight is very likely to arise somewhere far, far away from Orzammar's gates, not putting the dwarven city on the frontlines at all. Blights crop up where the archdemons are buried, and now that south Ferelden’s blight disaster has been averted, Orzammar is that much more likely to enjoy not being the first place struck when the next blight begins. And all that sustainability without the Anvil…

So with no actual impending doom, you appear to be presenting your false dichotomy merely in the spirit of alarmism… “Dwarves MUST kill each other to make golems! If they don’t they’ll PERISH! Doom is upon them!” tsk tsk. As if to compel acquiescence to forced golemizings through fear-mongering. You’d make the Redcliff Doomsayer blush. “But dwarves are just about to be swallowed up by darkspawn! Quick! Give that lunatic- you know, the one that just turned her family into spawn reproduction engines and viddles- give her the Anvil at once!” In reality your call for golems at this point appears more a matter of ambitions for territorial expansion for Orzammar, not a matter of preventing any imminent disaster regarding Orzammar’s survival, much less saving the rest of Thedas. And in that case Orzammar is in no greater threat from the next blight than anywhere else in Thedas: blights always threaten to engulf the entire world, not just dwarf cities.

Now admittedly the situation was immediately desperate and dire in the last blight, particularly according to the game opener cutscene. As Duncan narrates it: dwarves (and everyone else, but dwarves especially) were "on the verge of annihilation." Apparently the last blight even started with an offensive against the remaining dwarven cities and thaigs rather than a surface offensive like the one our Warden fights. So it’s not entirely unthinkable that the next time a blight might entail a swell, not a withdrawal, of darkspawn in the Deep Roads surrounding Orzammar. It could happen. Thus over the long-term dwarves have no reason to be complacent regarding the possibility of the darkspawn finding yet another archdemon in their vicinity, even with Orzammar as "impregnable" as it is.

But also in the main game opener cutscene (not the DN one) you'll notice that the dwarves did have golems. Dwarves of the Ortan Thaig were in just such a crisis of survival when Caridin started forging them… And, erm… you may not have noticed this, but... they were being overrun anyway. The initial scene of a long line of dwarves and golems- so powerful and determined to hold their ground, stoically awaiting the forced entry of darkspawn through a bridge gate... cuts to a montage of scenes of dwarves being impaled helplessly. (Not that trying to fight from a bridge was the best tactic in that situation, but still.) The golems simply weren't enough- with or without Caridin's removal of the Anvil and further forced golem abductions. We kill golems searching for Branka, so we know they fall and what weaknesses they have. The DAwiki does mention that golems did temporarily hold the lines at the Ortan Thaig and assist in winning back a few thaigs- seeming fairly canon- but this doesn’t necessarily mean that such successes would’ve continued much further, never to be reversed, nor that they were necessarily due to unstoppable golem ranks. The DAwiki also happens to mention (from Codex 209) that after the blight there remained enough golems to form the Legion of Steel which Queen Getha had at her disposal… a battle formation which included fully 126 golems- and apparently that was not the entirety of the Ortan Thaig’s complement if our Warden’s experience in the Ortan Thaig is any measure. So all was not lost when Caridin removed the Anvil from Ortan. And rather than being able to boast of great feats being associated with the Legion of Steel, Getha instead became known for having lost the entire Legion of Steel in one go trying to reclaim Caridin’s fortress (just as Bhelen tries the same with Branka’s fortress). So it’s fairly clear that regardless of golem might, their revolting creation is not a guarantee of military success even when they actually do get used right there on the frontlines of battle with the darkspawn. And it’s also not a guarantee that they’ll be employed effectively. Not to mention what I showed earlier about them not being necessarily employed even to fight darkspawn. Getha didn’t lose the Legion of Steel in an offensive against a broodmother site.

Again- this isn’t to say golems would be useless and ineffectual on a battlefront. It’s just to say that they aren’t the silver bullet you seem to be making them out to be. It’s more likely that the laments by dwarf loremasters for the “good ol’ days” with golems (a period too brief in dwarven history to warrant such reminiscing) is just an excuse for the real reason dwarves have been failing through the centuries… which I’ll now turn to.

So if I’m not merely moralizing about how wrong it is to murder people to make golems, do I have anything to offer in counterpoint to the assertion that Caridin's spiriting off the Anvil to the Dead Trenches is what did it in for the dwarves? Why, yes, I do… something far more heartwrenching than the travesty of the Anvil and something that’s been plaguing dwarves in plain sight all along for a millennia- a corruption of dwarven society from within rather than without. Another Codex- #141- answers fairly succinctly why the dwarves have continued to lose ground to the darkspawn for blight after blight, century after century, piece by piece. Hint: it has nothing to do with golem possession or the lack thereof:





A house divided against itself cannot stand… and in this instance I mean, of course, the house refers to all of dwarven society, not just the individual houses stubbornly standing against each other in dwarven society… Now tell me that if only Orzammar had had golems back then, none of that would’ve happened. With golems (created from the bloody corpses of their kin) surely dwarves wouldn’t have been so self-centered, would’ve abandoned inter-house armed conflicts, would’ve made the hard choices to surrender all feuds and instead ignore the risk or certainty of personal losses to band together and fight as one people wherever the best strategy required, would’ve had a leadership that could rally the empire in common cause, wouldn’t have needed an Aeducan to perform last ditch efforts to save them from themselves because they’d all already be focusing on victory as he did. No, golems wouldn’t have been the solution, and they wouldn’t have been enough to compensate for this fundamental Achilles Heel in dwarven society. Extra tough thugs don’t cure disharmony. Dwarves have even maintained recklessly divided forces during an overwhelming blight and in the face of extinction! Is it any wonder they’ve been in decline? It isn’t a coincidence that the decline of dwarves has been accompanied by the tenacious clinging to outdated and self-destructive tendencies and traditions. And it has nothing to do with the might of darkspawn or a lack of the might of golems. It’s a bitter reality of dwarven society itself that they’ll stick a knife in each other’s guts as soon as they would a darkspawn. Far more serious problems beset the prospects of dwarven civilization than the darkspawn- problems that, in fact, have left them wide open to darkspawn victories over them all along.

Codex 143 spells this out further (albeit “written by” the wandering Genitivi, not a dwarf):



 Even normal political disputes apparently regularly erupt into bloody clashes and deaths, but death can come from something as trifling as debating “better belt buckles.” It’s “dangerous”- day after day- to remain unmindful of brutal alliances and intrigue. It’s like the merchant Ademaro in the Dwarf Commoner Origin says:

 

“It always seemed sad to me that our homeland is the one place in this world where you’re likely to be killed by a fellow dwarf.”

And I could start quoting at length the Codexes and such about the brutality and backwardness of the caste system and the delineation of a segment of the population as “casteless,” but I assume you know about this. Suffice it to say that it affects the integrity and functionality of society when people’s ability to contribute to and benefit it is curtailed so severely by oppressive restrictions as to render them inert. Denek Helmi at Tapster’s puts it very plainly:

”You know, most smiths and tavern keeps would make good deshyrs if we gave them a chance and a seat in the Assembly.”

Orzammar ends up suffering- even crippled- due to the constriction of aptitude for governing to the limited pool of its arbitrarily assigned “highest” social station- a pool polluted by the cutthroatism that got them all there in the first place. And he was just talking about governing. What about the countless great artisans and builders and scholars and warriors who are forced to be something different- something they’re not going to be great at (or to be nothing at all if they’re casteless) because they were fixed by birth into a particular caste? It’s not just a question of city residents failing to find self-fulfillment. It’s a matter of Orzammar as a city trying to defend itself with its arms tied behind its back. This is why Dagna’s sacrifice of ties to kin and clan was so readily acceptable for her despite the severity of the loss: it was her only way to pursue her talents and interests. That is a good example of pragmatism.

Political and other rivalries and the caste system aren’t simply “dwarven culture.” They’re the anchor dragging dwarves into the abyss of historical oblivion.

It's a wonder that dwarves ever managed to build or maintain the vast civilization they once did with all the strife and divisiveness built into dwarven society. Or perhaps it was only at the empire's zenith that things changed, complacency set in, corruption began, dwarves starting to take each other and their civilization below the surface for granted, and perhaps it was then that castes were established or made more recognizable and permanent and brutal. Regardless, the shortsightedness of petty ambitions has been a plague more deadly to the dwarves than the darkspawn taint, and no amount of golems will ever cure that- whether constructed with the deaths of their dwindling kin or forced from surfacers or infused with Fade spirits. It is self-defeat which has compromised dwarven efforts to beat back the darkspawn, the vulnerability that the blighters were able to take advantage of with every new blight.

That’s why your formulation is backwards:

LobselVith8 wrote…
Things have remained uncivil for millennia, while the darkspawn are a very real threat now.

Rather the darkspawn have remained for centuries without prevailing utterly- even despite some exceptionally virulent blights- and will likely go on pestering Orzammar and being a usually (except during blights) less pressing concern for the indefinite future… while dwarven incivility is a very real, very mortal threat to dwarven civilization now- as it always has been- and also to dwarven self-preservation- not only weakening them in their resilience against the darkspawn but also sliding them into repetitive patterns of self-annihilation. The ruination of dwarven civilization from within may not have a conspicuously ugly darkspawn face on it or be as obvious a threat as a marching horde, but it’s the critical threat dwarves face, and undoing that threat is the key to undoing all others.

(Continued below...)

Modifié par Bhryaen, 03 juillet 2013 - 07:03 .

[Bhryaen]

PART 2

Yes, there is common mention among dwarves that they face an eternal, relentless blight due to the constancy of darkspawn outside the gates, but this is an outright exaggeration because blights supposedly involve the coordination of an archdemon- i.e., unity of the darkspawn forces- something that normally doesn’t happen. Just as with the dwarves, when darkspawn are disunited and at odds with themselves, they tend to be incapable of the power required to press forward or win ground. (Actually the analogy fails somewhat because darkspawn do tend to eventually find archdemons to unite and organize them whereas dwarves only appear to pine after some brief yesteryear of producing more ogre-equivalent golems for their ranks, Paragons never leading them to great surges as archdemons lead darkspawn during a blight.) Dwarves were broken apart and reduced from a gargantuan society down to their last two cities during due to blights, not during normal times. During non-blight years dwarves face the same scattered bands of attackers that surfacers face, simply a lot more often than surfacers due to proximity of Orzammar to the darkspawn roaming and breeding grounds. Crises like the one Bhelen orchestrates, however, are more of a regular imminent threat to dwarven survival- the whole people brought to near civil war for nothing more than one noble’s power play. Imagine if Orzammar were placed in just such a crisis of leadership during the last blight when it began not as a surface raid but as an attack on all civilization beneath the surface. That would’ve been it for those durgenlin, thanks to “dwarven” fratricide and personal ambition.

If dwarves can successfully overturn their centuries-old habitual practice of injustice to their fellow dwarves- make blood feuds as a means to settling political differences a part of the past, abolish all caste requisites in their legal system and establish anti-discrimination laws, abolish casteless branding, make caste distinctions no more than a matter of different careers and trades while enabling social mobility, open up Assembly seats to general election, and most of all win over the majority of Orzammar to such social changes... then dwarves will stop losing ground to the corruption of the darkspawn. Then they can stop needlessly hemorrhaging population on a regular basis and start growing enough to be able to expand past Orzammar. Then the darkspawn will not be able to take one thaig or city or section of a city while the others squabble about protecting only their own. Then dwarves can have a real revival and the prospect of seeing their own beaten into golem form on an Anvil will send shudders down their spines- to think they once considered that acceptable. And this requires no magic, no blood sacrifice, no long journey to the far reaches of the old dwarven empire- just the courage and wherewithal to produce the necessary social progress right there in their own city with their own people. And they have nothing but victory to gain- at least as a people. Despite it being in their interest, a large portion of the nobles will likely resist to the end regardless, but still. It can and must be.

And the theme doesn't stop with disunity among the dwarves. The same petty rivalries and ambitions have prevailed on the surface between nations and within them. All the blights that have hit Thedas have prevailed against the surface peoples for decades because those nations were so intent on rivalry and mutual destruction that alliances could not be formed. When at last the alliances came, the blights fell. Leliana and Zevran will each in turn describe the petty contests for power so commonplace among Orlesians and Antivans. Fereldens may share the same cynicism about their neighboring surface nations being willing to come to their assistance as the dwarves have about their surface neighbors. So when considering what is leaving dwarves vulnerable to a darkspawn triumph, one must consider the entire picture of why the corruption spawns continue to take Thedas by surprise with every blight in crippling blows… The blight which our Warden defeats saw yet another scenario of Thedans against Thedans making the progress of the darkspawn that much more assured.

Duncan's narration in the opener cutscene continues from the gruesome scene of dwarven and golem defeat with the answer to how the last blight was overturned (and really all blights have always been overturned). A massive army of golems marching in phalanxes to wage death upon the horde? Not quite: Gray Wardens and allies from multiple races and all walks of life joined together in common cause, an alliance of the widest spectrum of peoples- sounding uncannily like the Treaty allies we later must unite ourselves. Even if blight levels were to resurge in the Deep Roads and blight coordination suddenly came to the spawn hordes just outside Orzammar as they converged on the besieged city all at once, still the solution would be- as it always has been with blights- the united front of all the peoples of Thedas acting in concert against the darkspawn. There is that line from Alistair that Koyasha quotes: "No Grey Warden has ever defeated a blight without the army of a dozen nations at their back." The ranks of dwarves don’t contain enough to substitute for nations, not even if golems required no sacrifice of life. This is why Orzammar must not only face its need to end the “traditions” of caste oppression and policial rivalries but also face stoically and realistically its need for good relations with surfacers- and not merely for "improved trade" but for the long-term prospects of prevailing against the darkspawn.

There’s a brief encounter with Duncan during the DN Origin in which your character is told about the blight and you have the option of saying something like, “Good, let them leave our city and pester the humans.” Not only is the characterization of a blight as “pestering” a bit naïve, but it sounds a bit like this quote of yours:

LobselVith8 wrote…
The surface world isn't going to help, dwarven society hasn't changed for centuries, and the darkspawn are a real threat to everyone. I look at the situation pragmatically. An army of golems that can be used to get back the darkspawn and reclaim thaigs, along with the warrior caste, the Dead Legion, and Bhelen's newly recruited casteless fighters. That's the best of a bad situation.

That’s far from the “best,” and the situation is not so bad at the conclusion of the game. Duncan responds to both the DN and to your argument very poignantly as a Gray Warden (emphasis mine):

“No one is safe from a blight. If the darkspawn overrun the surface lands they will return in even greater numbers. Orzammar would perish along with the rest. No nation is truly self-sufficient.”

No combination of dwarf forces alone- with or without golems- would be sufficient against a blight. Only alliance with surfacers prevails against a blight. So that’s where you have to focus. And that’s how a seasoned Gray Warden would think regarding advice for Orzammar. Duncan’s pragmatism wouldn’t cause him to eschew the prospect of an Anvil-oppressed Orzammar due to “delicate sensibilities” any more than Caridin’s did. He’d eschew it because there’s only one way forward, and it’s not through golemizing the population: build those alliances. And it’s the maintenance and strengthening of such alliances that present the true challenge for Thedas… particularly if DA3’s trailers are telling us anything.

The motto should not be “Golems or Bust!” It should be “Unity or Bust!”

So I'm not willing to take your pessimistic view of dwarven chances to prevail against the darkspawn without forcibly meatpacking some portion of their dwindling numbers into walking armor.

The other major issue you seem to have- and one shared by so very many others on one DAO topic or another on the forum- is a predilection for the veneration of Machiavellianism in the name of pragmatism. I've seen the term "pragmatic" bandied about by plenty more than yourself during discussion of the numerous draconian decisions with which DAO presents our Wardens, using it to mean something like Machiavellianism, Thrasymachus-like “might makes right,” cold-hearted shrewdness, unflinchingly doing destructive deeds, a callous preference for power by any means- or some permutation of the like. Rather than getting into a semantics debate (a laborious and likely pointless diversion) about the term “pragmatism,” however, I'll just suggest that if you prefer a Machiavellian "ends justify the means" approach, then it's more accurate to just use the term “Machiavellian.” Thus you’d instead say, “My Machiavellian mage gave the lunatic Branka the Anvil because the end that I thought would come from doing so- making golems to fight darkspawn with- justified how horrible and despicable the means were of obtaining them… yada yada.” Obviously it's more difficult to maintain an air of virtue and brilliance that way, but at least it's more honest.

Machiavellianism is behind every single instance of someone stating that the Gray Warden goal of “defeating the darkspawn” must be done “at all costs." And that's the problem with Machiavellianism. Not all "costs" are worth it.

Firstly, the cost may be so great that the means don’t even produce the end. Take Avernus who was asked to summon demons as a means to defeat King Arland’s troops “at all costs.” (At least he didn’t have to sacrifice fellow Wardens to produce his demon army…) But the demons then turned on the Wardens, and that was it for Warden’s Peak other than Avernus himself and a handful of his later victims. Actually the summoned demons did defeat Arland’s troops that way, so was that means justified? If one formulates the end goal as saving the Wardens, well, the means not only didn’t produce the end that was supposed to justify them, but also produced a far worse end: nearly every Warden was overtaken by the demons. As we see in the epilogue slides, the promised end of a golem army never happens- doesn’t work- so if the means (tossing the Anvil bone to the rabid Branka) only justifies the end (eradicating the darkspawn) when it actually accomplishes the end, that means isn’t justified on that ground alone. We have to consider what are the most effective ways of accomplishing an end, not necessarily the most expedient ways.

Perhaps the Machiavellian way allows for even such fiascos as Avernus’ or the Branka-friendly Warden to be justified given that the means were supposedly intended for an end even if they didn’t realize it. One can respond, “Well, but you can’t know ahead of time (in-game) how poor a choice it would be to give Branka the Anvil, so it’s reasonable to give it to her with good intentions.” This is just like the blindness some players have about the relation of Harrowmont’s calls for “tradition” to oppressing the casteless- a blindness that gets Harrowmont elected more often than Bhelen. If one doesn’t wear golem-colored glasses, it is very obvious in advance how poor a choice it is to spare the Anvil given who would be wielding it (you know what she did to her family) and who would be getting the golems (brutal Orzammar nobles). It’s not as if our characters are incapable of becoming aware well before the confrontation with Caridin and Branka of what the real problem facing dwarven society has been, nor made aware during the confrontation of what forced golemizations would likely do to Orzammar. One has to deliberately ignore such considerations in order to preserve the Anvil. In that case why not destroy all Thedas since that “cures” the planet of darkspawn, no?

With no overriding concern about the nature of the means being employed toward an end, ultimately Machiavellianism is just a rationalization tool, not sage wisdom- the weaker approach, not the most sagacious. Not all defeats of the darkspawn are worth winning, and that recognition cannot be sustained if pursuing an oversimplistic, short-sighted policy of just doing “whatever works”- or rather whatever seems to work- at any given juncture.

And this brings us to a second failure of Machiavellianism: not all means are worthy of their ends. If the dwarves were to unearth in the Deep Roads a magical means to obliterate all darkspawn everywhere right this instant… but which nevertheless would simultaneously also obliterate all humans everywhere... should they do it? They’d kill the darkspawn, wouldn’t they, sparing countless generations (of non-humans) from their particular evil forevermore? Isn’t that the end to justify it? History would remember them as the great liberators of Thedas for it, no? But such an action would be well beyond the rationalized reckonings of “collateral damage.” Why kill the darkspawn if no one will be around afterward to enjoy the peace? Why resort to it when there are other means at one’s disposal? There’s a little more to that end than can justify any possible means that attains it. Now, if your goal is to wreak havoc on a small village, most any means will do. But if your goal is to save that village, then saving people does need to be part of that means. And nothing requires dwarves to go the route of sacrificing all humans everywhere- nor sacrificing fellow dwarves on an Altar of Golem for that matter. There is still the ongoing war with the darkspawn which can be won- and has been won blight after blight- the long and hard way and which at least has the potential to end very well with dwarves and humans still very much alive and kicking, if not thriving.

Finding an appropriate means to an end requires a bit more discrimination than arbitrary Machiavellianism ever engenders. Not all ends are even equivalent when employing different means. You can end an unwanted conversation by killing someone, walking away abruptly, informing the person you don’t wish to speak further, or feigning lateness to an appointment, but not all those means result in an end to the conversation that looks the same. Perhaps your lawyer would explain to the judge, “Your Honor, my client is filing Not Guilty. He only decapitated the prosecution’s sister because he didn’t want to talk with her anymore.” By Machiavellianism all means are “justified.” Other examples abound. The can of worms which one has to open in order to employ a more cruel and destructive means only adds to the attained end a mess of worms.

Could golems pound darkspawn exceptionally well? Yes, and so could high level rogues and warriors trained from the casteless and elsewhere. But there’s a qualitative difference between the two means, not just quantitative. The former means affects the end differently than the latter means. At the very least after murdering the necessary portion of one’s kin, far fewer dwarves would be available for the victory celebration if you or Koyasha get to produce, as Koyasha puts it with zeal, "the eternal enslavement of countless tens or hundreds of thousands, or even more, to construct the golem force [which you're willing to believe is] needed to achieve ultimate victory." Ultimate victory simply doesn’t require such a genocide of dwarves, nor is guaranteed by it. (Mind you, Koyasha’s statement is not a declaration I'd quote to lend my position integrity.) Kind of makes one wonder whether the end intended is to save dwarves or to destroy them- or maybe just to make golems- when perhaps millions "or even more" (billions perhaps?), are condemned in advance to existences as disembodied, mindless golem animation... It would be interesting to know just what portion of the population of dwarves- you know, the ones the golems are purported to "save"- you think would be too high to sacrifice the lives of. No more than 20% of the dwarven population? 50%? 80% is too much, but 79% is OK? Perhaps 99% is OK: it's only that last 1% that includes Bhelen and his closest noble thugs who are simply too valuable as living beings to be sacrificed to the golem-making effort “at any cost.” They’re the only “cost” that isn’t worth it, right? And a new dwarven civilization will be built with just them... that neither I nor any sane person would want to be a part of…

When you accept the "anything goes" policy carte blanche, you enter the slippery slope of Machiavellian rationalization for utterly any horrific blunder or atrocity. In fact, your insistence on golem endorsement- unhindered by any other consideration- obligates you to sound exactly like Branka herself, articulating in every significant way nearly every rationale for giving her the Anvil which the lunatic uses herself. You don’t just settle with her as your “best of a bad situation:” you articulate everything she espouses as if her biggest fan, a tried and true Brankaite. Her Machiavellianism is your Machiavellianism. Do you even oppose her having fed her family to the darkspawn or no? Sure she violated dwarf women to attain her ends, but it led the Warden to the Anvil, didn’t it? And maybe it would’ve gotten her to the Anvil eventually if our Warden hadn’t come along, right? So what if a single dwarven house is converted into broodmothers and spawnturds? It’s all about the golems! Go, Branka, go! Despite acknowledging (in word anyway) the Anvil’s horror and Branka’s lunacy, you endorse unleashing that horror into the hands of that lunatic, even if you have to kill the Paragon Caridin and the golems she can’t control in order to do it. Your “pragmatic” Warden’s role is as a lackey for an insane asylum escapee. Her interest in the Anvil isn’t about advancing dwarven civilization. It’s about the Anvil being “MINE!!!” She doesn’t go on with the Anvil to be some great liberator of the Deep Roads, just an unwitting thrall of the Anvil’s golem production process and the voices in her head that she claims to hear from the Anvil. Except there’s one major difference between your approach and hers: when presented with the facts, Branka acknowledges that she’s been a lunatic the last couple years, recognizes that the voices in her head aren’t calling her to enslave more dwarves to golemhood but rather to free them from their unending nightmare, and then she (of all people) does what Caridin had wanted all along: destroys the Anvil. You, on the other hand… well, let’s just say some people aren’t as receptive to the reality when it’s articulated to them.

I won't bother arguing this point further since you've already stated it outright that you're in favor of golemizing “traditionalists” like the Harrowmont family- decent folks like Baizyl who would’ve otherwise been an ally against the caste system- and whoever else is declared Bhelen's political opposition of the moment. A small "price to pay", you say- amplifying the usual brutality that mires Orzammar society and politics in historical quicksand- all to enable the atrocities that can be done with a golem army. Machiavellian naivete in action…

Gray Wardens may indeed often be required to wade into moral gray areas in DAO and must do something decisive to resolve a tenuous situation. And no solution may be available that turns out a rosy scenario. This doesn’t automatically give Gray Wardens or dwarves or humans or Fereldens cause, need, or justification to employ the darkest means available- not on the Anvil, not in any matter. If you’re roleplaying, sure, you can play a flawed Warden that makes mistakes. Just don’t pretend that the mistake of resuming Anvil enslavement is defensible by you as a player. I’m presently playing a Dalish elf who tried arguing with Caridin just for clarity and ended up battling him by accident that way, though he then persuaded Branka to, as Oghren says, “do what is right.” I also just played a chaotic neutral mage that gave Harrowmont the Anvil just for the mayhem she knew it would bring.

[Klidi]

I'd like to point out that it is NOT true that all dwarves who became golems VOLUNTEERED. First dwarves, volunteered, yes. But then King Valtor began FORCING criminals, casteless and political dissidents into becoming golems. They produced so many golems that they exported them to Tevinter, and sold them to magisters. It was then that Caridin refused to do it. Then, at the King's order, Caridin was forcibly turned into golem himself - but what the King probably didn't want, the process of creation was lost thanks to this.

So it is similar decision as with the elves in the alienage: sell them to slavery to become stronger, or free them and remain weaker? Except the decision about golems cis on the much bigger scale. In alienage, the business would continue during the Blight, but would be stopped once the order is restored (and the slaver is aware of this as well). With the Anvil, it would be forever.

Besides, letting Branka to start with it again is imho very short-sighted. Yes, it could help with the blight, but the Anvil would be there and functional even AFTER the Blight, and the Wardens wouldn't have any control with it. It would take just one ambitious ruler such as Valtor to start with genocides again. And who can guarantee that such king will only used the newly-created golems against the darkspawn? Ferelden would be an easy prey, weakened after the war. It takes years, decades to restore the economy and stability after such an even as a Blight.

[LobselVith8]

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

@LobselVith8
You brush aside the comparison with your signature quote too easily, enough that it's surprising you use the quote at all. For reference I'll quote it again:

[quote]"A civilization cannot be civil if it condones the slavery of another. And that is what this Circle is! But by accident of birth, those mages would be free to live, love, and die as they choose. The Circles will break - if it be one year, a decade, a century, or beyond. Tyrants always fall, and the downtrodden always strive for freedom!" - Aldenon the Wise, co-founder of Ferelden[/quote]
The concepts involved in the quote are actually far more applicable in the case of dwarves (or whoever) subjected to the Anvil than of mages subjected to Tower internment, yet you actively espouse the concept of opposition to slavery on behalf of mages while being utterly and righteously in favor of slavery regarding dwarves. Mages are not some minor threat for the surface. Not only can evil ones or blood mages be very dangerous in themselves (though so can warriors and rogue), but more specifically they truly are always on the verge of demon possession. I think it was Greagoir who said something about a single demon getting loose from the Tower being able to destroy an entire village. It doesn't happen much, AFAIK, but then again there is a Tower to contain mages, unlike anything containing darkspawn other than the walls of Orzammar. But as we see ourselves, a child merely reading the wrong passage from a book can end up with an entire castle turned undead and its surrounding village slaughtered. Concern about mages is no less imminent and justified than dwarven concern about the darkspawn, and both pose the risk of overwhelming destruction at any minute (despite that they relatively seldom do). In other words, both demons and darkspawn threaten to destroy Thedas, and draconian measures are executed to deal with those threats by enslaving part of the population. Yet again you empathize with mages to the point of advocating resistance to their enslavement while you don’t empathize at all with the dwarves threatened with the enslavement of golemization. [/quote]

You seem to brush aside the fact that the golems were able to keep the darkspawn from destroying the dwarven kingdoms too easily, as without them the dwarves lost virtually all their kingdoms save for only two Great Thaigs. Two, out of many thaigs and Great Thaigs that spanned the entire continent of Thedas. I'm focused on keeping the darkspawn from eradicating all of the sentient races on Thedas, while you seem more focused on the fact that the process is unpleasant.

Putting mages under domination of the Chantry of Andraste and the Order of Templars because they think they have "dominion over mages by divine right" isn't the same as trying to stop the darkspawn from literally destroying all of known civilization. As the codex notes, "They are devastating weapons in war, living siege engines, capable of hurling boulders like a catapult or plowing through enemy lines like an earthquake."

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

Yet the measures taken against mages involve merely keeping them in a tower with comfortable accommodations, guaranteed food and lodging, plenty to read, their own bed, the opportunity to develop their abilities, careful monitoring 24/7 but also a relatively welcoming environment, no shackles, an honors system, etc. And that warrants your concern about them being enslaved and enables you to recognize that they're bound to revolt at one point or another due to such oppression… But literally ripping souls from dwarven bodies (I’m a monist, so I don’t see how that’s possible, but, oh, well, it’s fiction, so…) and trapping them in eternal torment within the Anvil, ending their lives and enslaving their “essence” to the every whims of whatever schmuck wields the control rod- and this being done to casteless dwarves far more regularly than those with a caste… That's all ok for you, quite worth it, hurrah, and keep it comin'. No good reason dwarves might revolt against being subject to those conditions, right? Some noble wants to win back his Thaig after all. So take my son. Take my wife- please. Whoever you need... [/quote]

Slavery sometimes involved food, living accomodations, an education, and fine clothes. That doesn't make it any less abhorrent. And the enslavement of the mages is no different, but considering that there are societies with free mages (from the elven lore addressing the kingdom of Arlathan to the nation of the Dales that arose from the actions of Shartan and his elven followers centuries later), I don't find any validity in the argument from the Chantry that mages endanger the entire world unless they are enslaved by an anti-mage religion.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

And you balk at the mention of Caridin caring about his fellow dwarves... But back to earlier points… [/quote]

Because Caridin allowed millions, of not billions, of dwarves across the continent (the span of the dwarven kingdoms) to be eaten and sexually violated by the darkspawn, which you gloss over to focus primarily on the unpleasantness of the Anvil of the Void. Dwarven civilization is on the brink of ruin because of Caridin, and I don't excuse his actions.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote…

You stated that "golems weren't very powerful in a fight"…[/quote]

I didn’t. [/quote]

Yes, you did, as I even quoted you on the first page. Here is the specific quote:

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

Except that enslaving people to golem form doesn't ultimately succeed and can and will be used for the opposite of dwarven interests: killing fellow dwarves in fratricidal conflict. Yes, the golem might was stopped by Caridin rather than golems being ineffective in a battle. But the central issue isn't that golems aren't powerful in a fight. [/quote]

Look at the last line you wrote. That is precisely what you said, word for word.

[quote] Bhryaen wrote…

As for the rest of your arguments, your primary problem appears to be not facing reality- the actual conditions within which all these decisions and events regarding golems either were made (in the lore) or are made (in-game). [/quote]

The golems providing a hundred years of peace for the dwarven kingdoms and beating back the first Archdemon is the very reality that I address when I discuss the usefulness of the golems.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

To start, whether you like it or not or think he should have or not or call him names for it, the very founder of golems saw and felt and experienced firsthand what it means to deliver unconditionally an Anvil sort of engine into the hands of an ambitious dwarven monarch, and he consequently turned against the idea. This wasn't some fit of hysteria on his part or what Koyasha described as Caridin's "delicate sensibilities" being offended. Caridin saw that golem creation went against the very purpose he had invented them to serve: advancing the interests of the dwarven people. It's hard to argue that you're murdering someone in order to help them. It's like the Vietnam War addage (USA side) of "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Somehow burning down a village of people to the ground was portrayed as helping those same now-dead villagers. If you destroy Orzammar’s (or the Ortan Thaig’s) people to make them golems, you’re merely consuming them- extinguishing them- not saving them. If some go voluntarily, well, there’s an administrative rationale to be presented in order to proceed: “He asked for it, didn’t ‘e? (Sucker! Haha)” And then you can only hope that the golem made from his death and eternal torment serves an honorable purpose. But even then the sacrifice you enable isn’t necessarily vindicated: you’re still killing the people you’re supposed to be defending. You yourself acknowledge that the golemization process is cruelty at its core- “certainly a horrible one-“ that it murders people and enslaves their lives and condemns their "souls" to a foreseeable future of torture. Sorta atrocity really. And once Valtor began forced golemizations the honor possibility went out the window entirely. Caridin himself was forbibly subjected to it- the only reason he’s a golem when we meet him. And he knew that that subjection- or “violation” (a term you prefer)- was bound to be multiplied over and over again upon countless victims. [/quote]

No one denies that the Anvil of the Void is cruel. The dichotomy you and I face is that I think it's a necessary evil that has the potential to save dwarven civilization and help stop the darkspawn, who threaten all known civilization, while you would prefer for the dwarves to change their entire civilization after a millennia of tradition.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

Now, creating golems isn’t any of that for, say, the monarch who commands the Anvil’s use- or those who curry favor with said monarch- or those the monarch deems worthy of a stay of execution (for now) because the oh-so-brave monarch and his closest entourage never allow themselves to be made into golems. And why not? It's for the cause, no? Lead by example, brave sacrifice, and all that. Anything to defeat the darkspawn! And, hell, Caridin maintained his own mind, so you could have a golemized royal still able to rule as before, except now as a powerful golem. I know, right? Totally awesome! But somehow King Valtor's "delicate sensibilities" precluded letting anyone use the Anvil on himself. And it’s doubtful Bhelen would’ve ever let it be used on himself either. Gosh. Whyever would that be? Doesn’t he believe in his own cause? Yet when Caridin- the very Paragon himself- resists, Valtor forcibly subjects him to the Anvil- i.e., as a punishment, not a salvation. Clearly golems could be made without Caridin if his assistants could make him into a golem, so golemizing him wasn’t required to keep the process going. (And in retrospect if Valtor had just executed or imprisoned Caridin, then the Anvil couldn’t have been spirited away by Caridin off to Bownammar. Poor choice of execution made by the greedy king.) But Caridin had resisted the monarch’s golemization plans, so Valtor had Caridin entombed as a golem himself. Seeing anything fundamentally off about this picture? I am: the Anvil can be and tends to be misused rather than focused exclusively on darkspawn thumping. [/quote]

Yes, it can be misused, but it's relatively simple for me. There were dwarven kingdoms with the Anvil being used. When it was sealed away, there were only two left. It's rather simple for me to acknowledge the difference without getting bogged down in the fact that we had corrupt politicans and some misuse with the Anvil.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

So instead of everyone in dwarven society being considered part of the available pool of forcible golemization victims (they’ve got to come from somewhere) the list excludes the monarchs who choose which fellow citizen gets forcibly golemized, a threat extending only to the rest of dwarven society. This creates a new dynamic in society in which the vast majority of dwarves are constantly in danger of themselves or someone they love being summarily abducted and sacrificed at the monarch’s whim, abductions commonplace and the abduction squad inevitably becoming a known and regular gang of Crown-sponsored thugs on the streets, likely accompanied by golem enforcers. Everyone else’s lives become worth only their weight in golem animation for the monarch’s execution forces. And thus what becomes truly “horrible” for dwarves with accepted golemizations is no longer the risk of darkspawn incursions but the revulsion of daily life in general in Orzammar, everyone scrambling to not get picked next. It reminds me of the short story “Lottery” in which once a year everyone gets a lottery ticket and the lucky “winner” is publicly stoned to death… except that this nightmare stoning would be more than once a year- a lot more. At which point one must honestly ask oneself, “Is this the sort of society worth fighting off darkspawn for? Is this the sort of loss and depravity we can suffer as dwarves and even still call ourselves a civilization?” I’m going with Caridin’s answer on that one. [/quote]

Bad things happened. No one denies that. But Caridin sacrificed all of dwarven civilization simply to keep the Anvil from being used by anyone. That's my issue with your argument. You chose to ignore that the loss of the Anvil meant the loss of virtually all of the kingdoms, except for two Great Thaigs: Orzammar and Kal-Sharok.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

One needn't get into a self-righteous fever and proclaim, "Hey, that's wrong!," to recognize that the Anvil is ultimately a counterproductive method toward the goal of long-term survival. One need only recognize that such a state of affairs that the Anvil enables is utterly destructive to dwarven social stability and social coherence. Orzammar (or the Ortan Thaig in Caridin’s time) would’ve been converted into a concentration camp of herded people awaiting slaughter by Anvil. That threatened vast majority of dwarves would resent living in daily dread of abduction- not to mention dread or resentment at losing family, friends, loved ones, etc. to the “horrible” hammer. The only reason no one opposes it straight away is likely because Caridin doesn’t mention the sacrifice required when he initially presents the Anvil to the Ortan Assembly. Why might he hide that fact, I wonder? Maybe because he was afraid of people’s “delicate sensibilities” getting in the way of the war effort. Perhaps you’d rather that the Ortan or Orzammarian dwarves never learn what they and their fellows and neighbors are being abducted for, the sacrifice involved, postponing for as long as possible the point at which people recognize that mass murder is being committed in the name of progress and they start refusing and revolting. That would be sort of like some Tevinter slavers hiding their enslavement of Alienage elves behind a ruse of being healers. Or even maybe like Templars hiding their oppression of mages behind a veneer of community protection- but quite a bit worse than that. But it’s a worthy sacrifice to be abducting people for Anvil murders, right? So why hide it? Because the sort of social atrocity entailed by use of the Anvil cannot be maintained indefinitely regardless of the effectiveness of the subterfuge against the masses. And if it cannot be sustained in the open because it will be rejected, why should it be sustained at all? [/quote]

Counterproductive? History proves that the golems were capable of keeping the darkspawn from destroying the dwarven thaigs and the Great Thaigs for an entire century, to the point of holding back the first Archdemon Dumat.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

To reiterate your signature quote, the tyranny of forced golem conscription "will break - if it be one year, a decade, a century, or beyond." It's just that in this case Caridin- already golemized against his will- didn't require a “century or beyond” before he attempted to ensure that enslavement to the Anvil "broke." And our Warden has the chance to end forever its ability to enslave. [/quote]

Freeing people from enslavement by an oppressive and tyrannical religious regime is different than doing whatever it takes to stop the apocalypse.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

So Caridin's acts were quite natural, quite expected, and most importantly quite inevitable- and if not by Caridin then by others later after far greater losses and far more bitter caste-based social division and strife had set in. Resistance can be anticipated- whether by Caridin or ultimately by dwarven society as a whole. Or do you really believe dwarves would just accept it unquestioningly? Well, perhaps most of the castes of Orzammar would accept it so long as the only victims were the casteless and criminals (who are usually the casteless anyway). But the casteless- already considered non-beings (dust at best) by dwarven caste society- wouldn’t exactly happily consent to an arrangement that essentially genocides them for some military campaign of the nobility. What would they care anymore if the darkspawn come when they're already treated like the rubbish of Orzammar anyway, particularly now that they’re being death-marched off to the ovens- I mean, Anvil. And what side would you be on if the casteless were to revolt against being forcibly golemized, particularly if their battle cry were “Destroy the Anvil!”? Would you stand by their struggle against oppression and enslavement or would you cheer on the monarch as golems are sent to crush the casteless resistance? After all, the golems are the only viable solution for you, right? The casteless must accept their treatment or all of dwarven civilization will be wiped out! Even if the casteless have to be forced through that meatgrinder, let’s do it! Victory by any means! Literally over their dead bodies... And indeed that is Valtor’s approach- forcibly golemizing the casteless- and you are a supporter of Valtor as against Caridin, correct? You rail against Caridin for preventing Valtor from continuing, right? So would you volunteer to join the ranks of Valtor’s thugs entering Ortan’s Dust Town to quell the resistance? Don’t forget to bring your “slavery’s not cool” banner with you… [/quote]

I don't think the golems are the only viable solution. However, the golems have proven their usefulness in the past, and since none of the human kingdoms seem to care enough to contribute to the fight against the great menace in the Deep Roads, I chose to spare the Anvil, instead of making the same mistake Caridin did when he chose sentimentality over saving his people.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

You see, even if the monarch weren’t into forcing dwarves to become Anvil victims, there ultimately never would be enough volunteers to suffice as fodder for golem creation- not even if you throw in the criminals among whose numbers would be included such heinous miscreants as mere petty thieves and smart-mouthed brands who smarted off to the wrong tooth merchant, etc. There also aren’t enough political opponents among the nobility to fill the ranks of an army, so your eagerness to see mass murdered those who are branded by Bhelen (rightly or wrongly or entirely arbitrarily) as “traditionalists” brings up the same point: you’ll never get enough that way. For that you’ll have to turn to (or rather turn against) some large segment of dwarven society. Not to mention that those “traditionalist” nobles hold much of the power in Orzammar, regardless of a Bhelen-like dissolving of the Assembly, so you’d have to pull a Loghain and start a civil war to make that sort of forced induction possible- something the darkspawn always appreciate, dividing forces in front of the enemy. Just ask Loghain- made a glorious moment for him. Whatever Anvil-backed monarch is in power- Valtor, Harrowmont, Bhelen, or whoever else- the most likely source of the bulk of forced golem inductees will be from lower castes and the casteless. [/quote]

Bhelen was able to keep his power as King, unlike Loghain's attempt to hold onto the role of Regent. If the price of sparing the Anvil is that King Bhelen conscripts the traditionalist nobles to the Anvil to become golems, that's a price I'm willing to live with. As Oghren said, one golem is worth ten dwarven fighters. The warrior caste, the casteless recruits, and the golems fighting darkspawn sound much better in unison as a fighting force against the darkspawn threat instead of simply having two out of three fighting against a foe that literally corrupts everyone and everything it comes into contact with.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

But you try to counter that Bhelen surely wouldn't forcibly conscript the casteless due to the reforms for the casteless that he’s put forward. Only Valtor or Harrowmont would do it, right? But unlike Bhelen,  Harrowmont isn't described in the epilogue slides as resorting to forced conscriptions at all ever. And yet of course the kinslaying, backstabbing Bhelen whose contacts among the casteless included such fine representatives as Jarvia (and Beraht, particularly given who Bhelen marries) and who casually and brazenly refers to the casteless "noble hunter" Mardy as a whor*e… has nothing but utmost respect for the casteless and would never subject them to forced golemizations, much less move to crush any resistance from them if they were to present it. Perish the thought. It's not like Bhelen’s the type to betray people he claims to support, right? He’s not some ruthless tyrant, planning out betrayals coldly and calculatingly behind the scenes for months, maybe years, just to get “ahead in the game.” Do you think him so ruthless and cruel? Oh, wait, he is that type. Which is why- unlike even Valtor who accepted only volunteers for the Anvil for some time before  his golem greed set in- Bhelen immediately seeks forced victims (and what that must’ve looked like, dragging those victims through the streets of Orzammar and then the Deep Roads all the way to the Dead Trenches to their agonizing ends). Bhelen’s violent personal ambitions are already in full throttle when we begin our DAO game, so why would he suddenly take a principled position when an Anvil comes along? With access to the Anvil suddenly thrust into his hands as an unanticipated superweapon, why would he care to curry support from the casteless anymore? Bhelen is no champion of the casteless: he curries support also from the nobility using the usual promises of position and rewards for favors). And the rabble of casteless is nothing compared to a battalion of golems, right? So why bother continuing to cater to a rabble when he can advance himself all the better by golemizing them? No, Bhelen is not immune to targeting the casteless, and no dwarven leader presented by DAO is so impeccable as to be able to decisively put golemizing the casteless past them. [/quote]

My point is that King Bhelen is already opening the door for the casteless to fight against the darkspawn, offering them more freedoms in exchange. He wouldn't bother with that if he was simply toss them to the Anvil of the Void as you suggest. His willingness to go against tradition and improve the lives of the casteless is why the Epilogue addresses that some viewed King Bhelen as a reformer.

[quote]Bhryaen wrote...

And even if Bhelen were (uncharacteristically) to spare the casteless from the Anvil indefinitely, he'd still have to target some large social sector from which to procure the quantity of sacrificial lives required- one that’s feasible (not nobles due to their power and influence, and not warriors due to the greater difficulty of forcing them)- and one that’s accessible. But not the casteless though… Riiiight. Then perhaps the servant caste? Not the merchants or smiths if he wants to maintain the whole “trade with the surface” thingy. Maybe the nug wranglers. Hmm... then who is expendable? And more importantly: who gets to determine who is expendable? In fact, Bhelen in particular ends up so isolated unto himself after dissolving the Assembly that it's not in the least implausible that he'd end up targeting absolutely everyone around him for golemization, eventually turning the whole of Orzammar into his own private Brankaesque golem fortress, the once-proud dwarven capitol now a ghost-town of silent golems standing vigil outside a palace where the bones of "great" Bhelen lay sprawled on his throne... [/quote]

King Bhelen seems to use volunteers and his political opponents to create golems with the Anvil, i.e. the political 'traditionalists' of the Houses and the Assembly who don't even see the casteless or the surface dwarves as people. I'm also not certain why you seem so deperate to vilify King Bhelen as some one-dimensional, black hat cartoon villain, except to fuel your own attempts to make this a black and white choice, rather than a choice between idealism and pragmatism.