205 réponses à ce sujet

[deathscythe517]

I am honestly surprised no one has brought up issue with this 'the right way' Expy of Catholic faiths.

If it isn't an Expy its at the least very very very very painfully similar and it kind of makes me depressed how such a corrupt and hypocritical church could take control of most of the known world, they suppressed the Dalish simply because they worshipped nature spirits (so help me god if you call them pagan gods i'll smack you).

And the Tevinter Imperium is rotten to the core but at the least they didn't try to bull**** their followers and everyone else in existence on what they're about. 'Hey is it alright if we worship dragons? No? Fook roo!' maybe not the most sociable but atleast brutally honest.

The Qunari however I have no justification for as that was just normal war, Qunari invade, natives retaliate: simple as that.

And don't get me started on how they demonize every mage in existence wholely, Morrigan may grate my nerves as much as she calms me, but she has one point.

The Chantry appears to be 50% BS and 50% half-truths

[worksa8]

How can I say this without offending people....mhnn....

Well, it's a lot like real religion and real world issues, they just took them and applied them to a fantasy like world.

[xzxzxz701]

More like 120% BS and -20% truth.

[deathscythe517]

Kind of figured that out, I'm not saying Christianity and Catholic faiths are invalid.

They do help people improve themselves sometimes and I know many people whom have made it through troubling times on sheer devotion, however the Chantry in the game is taken to ridiculous levels with being able to assault the Tevinter Imperium, Dalish Elves, and those Qunari in almost a rhythmic order.

Plus there is a distinct lack of people questioning the chantry in the game which strikes me as odd: oh well, guess it's to be expected when they're about as friendly as the Imperium of Man.

filaminstrel wrote...

I thought pagans had repossessed the
term pagan to have a positive connotation again. At least, for them
using the word anyway. Many people identify as pagan themselves. I
suppose people from any of the Abrahamic religions might still treat the
term with a measure of scorn.

It's not so much people treating it with scorn as the way the wiki put it, it's almost as if they purposely wanted to insult Pagan religions by referring to the whole BS Exalted March against the Dales as "Elves get pwned for being Pagans"

To the guy above you I'm still trying to sort out what's truth and what isn't in this but at this point I'd rather live in the Tevinter Imperium that worshipped the Old Gods because this stuff with the Chantry is plum ridiculous.

Modifié par deathscythe517, 12 mars 2010 - 03:43 .

[mousestalker]

You know the Tevinters are Andrasteans at the time of the game?



Since the developers based the game world on Medeival Europe it makes sense that you don't find a lot of people being vocal about not being an Andrastean in Ferelden.

[ClonePatrol]

In the old days, if your beliefs differed from the church, you didn't say s*** unless you were with close friends or lucky enough to escape their reach. Otherwise they would kill you. Much as the Chantry does with their exalted marches.

I don't get how Andraste their prophet could grant a promise land to the elves, likely knowing full well what they would do there, and the Chantry could decide they knew better than her and take it back.

[Haasth]

I have never defended religion as I think it causes more wrong than right. Both real life, and most games out there. The same is what I will say about the Chantry; I dislike them quite a lot. Want to believe in it? Be my guest, but don't try to push my Mage around because he simply has powers you are afraid of.

[urvashi]

The Chantry is pretty hard on mages. But in comparison to what the real life Medieval church did to 'witches', heretics and other non-believers, the Chantry seems pretty mild.

[Nhadalie]

Honestly, it parallels what occurred during the Medieval ages and slightly before then in Europe. The Christians converted the Pagans, and they led the crusade to take Israel. Which is oddly similar to the "Exalted marches" of the Chantry.


But like everything there is some fact and some fiction to whatever they say. Time changes how things are viewed, and over time what people say happened can be editted to the point of not being recognizable. People act according to their beliefs. So will the characters.


It did kind of amuse me when I tried to start a debate with a priestess at Ostagar about what they did to the Dalish on my Dalish PC though. "Take your hatred elsewhere" just makes me want to say "Yes, because my hatred caused your people to slaughter mine and destroy our homeland."

[ClonePatrol]

My rule is, never trust a religion with it's own military branch, Buddhists and the Shaolin Monks being the exception to the rule. Also don't trust a religion could ever be defined as "strict".
It's kind of understandable to fear mages, when Abominaions like Flemeth and Uldred, or Maleficar like Avernus were strong enough to cause the massive damage that they did. Few in Thedas can actually stand up to that kind of power, and it's ripe for abuse. I mean look at what happened to Redcliffe, a single mage can save that town solo, and a single Abomination can destroy it.
About the Dalish, I remember piecing together from Codex, and items and such, that they weren't entirely innocent, In the second Blight the Dales refused to send aid to fight off the Darkspawn, in addition to repeatedly expelling the Chantry missionaries and other humans who went there. To top it off after the Blight ended, some of the Dalish finally got fed up with the humans sending people over and harrassing them all the time and attacked a small village, still weak from the blight. This pissed off the Chantry (still mad about the lack of aid during the blight) who then declared an Exalted March, and proceeded to take things way, way to far. The relationship between humans and elves seems to be one of payback, and then some.

Modifié par ClonePatrol, 12 mars 2010 - 04:22 .

[darkmax1974]

Most of you are spot on with the medieval examples.



The Catholic Church and their faith as a whole WAS an organization of bullies who reigned the religious circle with the "either you're with me or you are pagan" attitude. Just look at the mess that is the Crusade. 9/11 is just an extension of the ancient events.

[Evolution33]

The main difference is the Chantry could be founded on facts and not just faith as real world religion is. If you ever find the Black City in a future game (which would be awesome btw) then the Chantry is right at least about some things. There also doesn't seem to be as much debate about the historical Andraste vs the real life Andraste as there is with figures like Mose, Jesus, and Muhamad. They seem to use a lot of allegory just like real religions do and people on both sides of the debate sometimes don't get the allegory just like in real life.



Take for example the phrase about magic, "Magic should be ruled by man and never rule over him." That can be taken a lot of ways. It can be refering directly to the Tevinter blood mages ability to dominate a persons mind, or it could be an allegory on the great power responsibility cliche. The Chantry however uses it in a way to basically imprision mages. A lot like how some people take bible verses and twist them to their own meaning. it is interesting to look at it and study it but I think they did a lot of good work with it. The comparisions to the real world and the Dragon Age world are perfect in being both superficial and complex at the same time.

[ArcanistLibram]

It's right and wrong. Like just about everything.

[ClonePatrol]

Mark you this, Bassanio,

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

An evil soul producing holy witness

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

A goodly apple rotten at the heart:

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!



The Merchant of Venice - Act One, Scene Three

[errant_knight]

This isn't going to end well.... There's a reason people avoid talking about religion, you know, and especially avoid implying that it's BS, a pack of lies or evil.  >,<

Modifié par errant_knight, 12 mars 2010 - 04:34 .

[ClonePatrol]

All to true, we should all check back in twenty pages to see how this has degenerated.

[Trooper Guy1]

What the Chantry says seems right but even as a Templar I have thy doubts. Tis it true that the Black City even use to be Golden? Did the Tevinter Mages simply find the Black City already..Black, and it's immense power corrupted them?

This may not be to much with the subject, however; For me I like to wonder what is true in The Chant and what is not. 

More forward on the subject itself, I believe the Chantry is 50/50. It is a good idea to keep watch over the mages just in case but no need to abuse such power. Templars themselves don't really seem like jerks. Just soldiers who praise the Maker doing their job. The ones I have a problem with are the Priests/Priestesses. No offense but they remind me of any real world Christian. Wanting to force their ideas upon you cause they believe it is right. This would go with any other religion and even Athiests (some love bashing other religions).

If this causes the thread to go ka-poot....My bad.

[LingXiao]

darkmax1974 wrote...
 Just look at the mess that is the Crusade. 9/11 is just an extension of the ancient events.

It's not, although they like using that and their religion as a façade to justify their wrongdoing. And the Crusades were no more and no less a mess than any other medieval conflict, whereas - unlike many other war efforts all over the medieval world - the Crusades had two legitimate reasons: reclaim native Christian territories and take revenge for the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by a Fatimid caliph.

In comparison, the Exalted Marches had other, far more aggressive reasons and therefore cannot be compared to the Crusades. There are many other similarities between the Christian church and the Chantry, but those are just that: superficial resemblances.

It just irks me to see many people claiming provocative things about religion thoughtlessly like that. There is a reason why politics and religion is being avoided as a topic.

But one thing is true: You don't know if they are right or wrong until you die and see it for yourself. That goes for every religion as well as the Chantry (although BioWare surely knows more about their own universe). Anyway, this is the reason it is called 'belief' and not 'certainty'.

[Evolution33]

there are possibilities in the game for an exalted march against the dwarves. It seems rather hard to avoid as I have gotten it every time. So maybe the next game will be an exalted march against the dwarves and while this happens the Quanari invade. just imagine all the choices and the level of epicness that could be involved.

[darkmax1974]

those are legitimate reasons?! fine, perhaps in their time it was real enough.



So then, killing and exclaiming God's name at the final blow on any Muslim?... That I guess must be legitimate.



Please check the Bible from that period. You will notice how the Church, Mosque and nobles have twisted everything in their favor and in the name of God.



Whole bunch of BS.



Look, I am a christian and I don't see this as right. But then again, I'm quite a fundamentalist these days.



So please, let's move on, before this subject is blown beyond our intentions or control.

[Spitz6860]

look at the bright side, at least churches don't have their own armies or militia these days... i suppose you could count holy crusades back in the day.

[this isnt my name]

darkmax1974 wrote...

Most of you are spot on with the medieval examples.

The Catholic Church and their faith as a whole WAS an organization of bullies who reigned the religious circle with the "either you're with me or you are pagan" attitude. Just look at the mess that is the Crusade. 9/11 is just an extension of the ancient events.

The muslims started the holy war, the crusades were retaliation, then the muslims started it up again, sorry but pinning the current problems on the crusades is stupid as the reason they happaned is because of the muslim jihad, as a result its totaly self inflicted, love how you say the church is bullies and brush over 9/11, not at all an act of intimidation and violence, sounds like bullying to me...Dont put all the blame on one party.
As for in the game, I agree with some things, mages need to be monitered, one abomination is bad, thousands would be worse, the qunari deserve it by attacking and as for the exhaulted march, I would agree with the one in Orzammar, as the dwarves are stopping people beleive in what they want, so to me its more of a liberation.

[Ceridraen]

I thought they did a pretty good job of showing it as both - which sums up most Our World religions, imo. Some people used it for their own power, ego, etc - some seemed well intentioned. Maybe it helped the world in some places - in certainly hurt in others. It seems that religion is really just the people it contains - it's almost like we worship ourselves, good & bad.



In my unreligious opinion...

[LingXiao]

darkmax1974 wrote...

those are legitimate reasons?! fine, perhaps in their time it was real enough.

So then, killing and exclaiming God's name at the final blow on any Muslim?... That I guess must be legitimate.

Please check the Bible from that period. You will notice how the Church, Mosque and nobles have twisted everything in their favor and in the name of God.

Whole bunch of BS.

Look, I am a christian and I don't see this as right. But then again, I'm quite a fundamentalist these days.

So please, let's move on, before this subject is blown beyond our intentions or control.

To assess a historic situation, one have to view it with the eyes of those who used to live back then. It is easy to open wikipedia and judge people based on todays knowledge who didn't know it better. I'm sure people in several hundred years will laugh about today's "we-know-everything-better"-attitide.

But I agree, it may prove very unwise to discuss a touchy subject like that on these forums.