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[Ahisgewaya]

Some things are worth fighting for.



And there can be no starting again when humans clearly look down on the elves as much as they do in the game.

[this isnt my name]

Ahisgewaya wrote...

Some things are worth fighting for.

And there can be no starting again when humans clearly look down on the elves as much as they do in the game.

Hostility is on both sides, if the elves want to rebel and hold grudges, let them they wont get my sympathy when there are almost comletely wiped out and things are made worse because they cant let go of past hatered.

[RPGlover732]

religion is like a knife, its not good or bad.... its neutral

[Ahisgewaya]

Jack Anvil wrote...
And finally, if you completed "The Gauntlet" with faith, you'll know that the Chantry is correct. Andraste's ashes have miraculous healing powers, Andraste was the prophet and bride of the Maker, and Andraste believed in the Chantry. 

I'm guessing you never took Oghren with you to do that quest. Oghren points out that that entire place is covered with tons of Lyrium. So much for Andraste. Potions have healing powers too, does that mean they're also brides of the maker?

[Booglarize]

Jack Anvil wrote...

Ahisgewaya wrote...

It's only irrelevant if you can't see how the ability to read is power, in which case you are an absolute idiot and I have nothing further to say to you. The Church IN REAL LIFE knew this and thus instituted policies in which the Bible was written only in latin, among other things. And either way that doesn't excuse the Chantry. It destroyed the elven homeland and forbade them from worshiping their gods. There is no excuse for that.

Zathrien used his magic to fight humans, and it was the decendants of those humans who infected his clan. It's not an abuse at all if you use it to fight your enemies, otherwise the circle abuses their magic every time they toss a fireball.

The FACT is that the Dalish elves do not have anarchy, nor does the Tevinter Imperium. The Chantry does not keep order, it enslaves people. That's all it does.

No need for name-calling. I am not an absolute idiot; I can simply see the difference between magic and literacy. Literacy can be taught, whereas magic cannot. Literacy is a figurative power, whereas magic is a literal power. 
The Dalish Elves are nomads, broken up in to small clans. Governing a clan of thirty is different from governing a nation of thousands. I do agree that the Chantry was wrong in taking the Dales and enslaving the elves. One wrong action, however, does not make one inherently evil. The elves have been freed, after all. The Chantry simply believes that if the Chant of Light is sung from all four corners of the world, the Maker will return and turn the world into a paradise.
And finally, if you completed "The Gauntlet" with faith, you'll know that the Chantry is correct. Andraste's ashes have miraculous healing powers, Andraste was the prophet and bride of the Maker, and Andraste believed in the Chantry. 

Jesus Andraste was an extraterrestrial.  

[Nhadalie]

Technically speaking, the Chantry did not exist when Andraste was around. It came forth after her death, and was started by her disciples. What necessarily was true during Andraste's time is not necessarily what the Chantry is teaching in Origins. Think about the game telephone. Each time something is spread by person to person, the original message changes. Sometimes it changes drastically, sometimes it only changes a little. With a larger amount of time for something to change, it will change further.

My main point is that the Chantry may be right about some things. But they're not necessarily right about others. They were right about Andraste, yet they make their templars addicted to Lyrium to control them more easily. They also lie to the templars, and say that lyrium is necessary for their abilities. Unfortunately, there have not been very many people trained as templars who get away from the Chantry. Alistair is a bit of an exception to the general rule there. And he proves that someone does no need lyrium to use templar abilities.

Andraste gathered the elves and worked along side them despite the fact that the elves did not worship the Maker. If she of all people could work alongside them, why can't the Chantry? Yes, there are problems on both sides. The elves are very isolationistic due to their distrust of other people, and they have made some bad decisions because of it. Likewise, the Chantry and different human groups have assumed things about the elves and made bad decisions. I'd really like to see a time where they all sit down, and work things out logically in a future game.

[General Balls]

worksa8 wrote...

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.

Pretty much this.

The Chantry has an amazing set of ideals, and that belief leads them to do some truly beautiful things. Of course, that same zeal leads them to do some very questionable acts.

The Chantry isn't right or wrong. What it does, and how it's members interpret the rules, are.

[YourFunnyUncle]

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4. BC - AD 65)

[draxynnus]

this isnt my name wrote...

Eli-da-Mage wrote...

Like i say its promises of glory that makes them fight. They dont stop to think why their leaders arent fighting. Think of it this way:
Every day you have only crumbs of food and sips of water to live on. A man comes along and tells you you can have all the money and power you want. All you have to do is fight for him. Would you do it? Youre family sits and starves and you could do something.

Food and water are useless if your dead, then there is one  less person to help the other family members.

Ah, but that's how they get them - the supporters of terrorism provide stipends to the families of "martyrs". They also feed potential "martyrs" a skewed version of history that points the finger for the poorness of their family at the target of the group, therefor the poor schmucks think they're acting to improve the conditions of not only their own family, but others like them.

Regrding the Crusades: The real trigger for those is that the Byzantines played the religious card hoping to get allies for a counterattack against the Islamic Empire, working on the assumption that being a different denomination of Christianity was better than being a different religion altogether. Now, the Crusades were a cluster**** from the massacres and the refusal to work with the Byzantines at the start to such silliness as the Children's Crusade and sacking Constantinople itself in one of the later crusades, culminating in Constantinople being largely abandoned to its fate against the Turks in the 1400s (something that southeastern Europe probably came to regret, since Constantinople had among the strongest fortifications in the world and sat on a natural chokepoint into the Balkans). 

However, the fact remains that while the Islamic Empire was one of the more civilised nations at that time in history (especially when it came to the treatment of conquered populations) it was still the aggressor before the Crusades began.

[Ahisgewaya]

Jack Anvil wrote...
Haha. Lyrium by itself does not have healing properties. Quite the opposite, actually.
It is one ingredient in the recipe for a healing poultice (which were useless in healing Arl Eamon), among others things. What you just said is akin to me saying, "This place is covered in blue mold. Penicillin kills harmful bacteria, so smearing blue mold on my wound will cleanse it." 
The ashes of a "false" prophet of the Maker have miraculous healing powers, when the ashes of other do not. Lyrium is irrelevant.

Okay, now I stand by my previous assesment of you. Lyrium is not an ingredient in Healing potions. That's elfroot. Lyrium is the "waters of the fade" and can do some incredibly miraculous stuff, especially in large ammounts. Add to this the ashes of a dead abomination (or whatever you want to call what Wynne is, there is ample evidence that this is what Andraste was). Blue Mold is not a magical item that comes from a mystical spirit world nor is it often considered the essence of magic. Lyrium is.

But all of this is beside the point, because you clearly like the Chantry and their cooky religion, and I personally hate it with a passion. We are never going to agree with each other, and most of the people in this thread have expressed a similar dislike of the Chantry. So how about you go start up a "The Chantry is Awesome!" thread.
Andraste could have easily been a mage possesed by a spirit of the fade. The demon you meet in the Alienage could also be telling the truth, that there is no "maker". 

Modifié par Ahisgewaya, 13 mars 2010 - 12:52 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

draxynnus wrote...
However, the fact remains that while the Islamic Empire was one of the more civilised nations at that time in history (especially when it came to the treatment of conquered populations) it was still the aggressor before the Crusades began.

Remember however that the lands the Muslism conquered were themselves occupied and the natives more often then not saw the Muslism as liberators and even fought with them.
The Byzantines considered Syriacs and Copts as heretics and they attempted to suppress both sects despite being Christian (so much for "Christian" land). Needless to say, it was "illegal" to be Jewish within Byzantium. Both the Jews and Middle Eastern Christians generally supported the Muslims and were an important part of the Islamic State's bureaucracy (see St John of Damascus).  

Same with Spain. It had been conquered by the Visigoth, who repressed the native Jews and Christians alike (especially Jews, they passedan edict saying that all Jews should either convert or be banished). It was Julian of Ceuta, a native christian noble, and Jews who asked the Muslims to come in and support them. The Spanish Jews and Christians were a large part of the Muslims armies.

So while the Islamic Empir was flexing its muscles more, by virtue that it is more powerful. Its expansion wasn't based on pure aggression. More often then not, it was the natives that assist them in establishing their rule.

[Ahisgewaya]

Yes, because there's no such thing as tyrants and revolution is never a good thing, right? Ugh.

[Mlai00]

@ Knightofphoenix:

+1

Which is why it's funny reading about some ppl's opinion on the Qunari in this thread. Well... actually ignorance is not funny. Maybe they never took Sten on quests, and never heard his banter. Qunari treatment of the conquered is very much like the idealized Muslim treatment of the conquered. Except mages, ofc.

Every nation in Thedas fights wars and conquers peoples. The Qunari is the only one showing a semblance of rules of conduct in the treatment of native populaces. All other conflicts we know of, in Thedas, are littered with words like "brutal", "enslaved", "sacked", etc etc. No such descriptions apply to the Qunari in any lines in the game.



@ Ahisgewaya:

That's some heavy roleplaying you're doing, thar.

[Frank the Running Bugzepel]

Nothing is right or wrong. It is how we perceive it that is.

[Altima Darkspells]

Look at it from the elves' point of view.



According to their legends, they were immortal before the humans came. However, once they made contact with humans, their blood quickened and they started to die. Shocked by this, they began to retreat from their contact with the humans.



The humans took this as a sign of hostility and waged a war against the elves. The elves were slaughtered, captured, and forced into slavery.



This only changed when Shartan led an uprising and joined forces with Andraste. For his efforts, he and his people were granted the Dales, where elven numbers bolstered the nation.



Then the next Blight came, and the Dales were a new nation. Even the humans' own Chantry tells that it is the hubris of man that caused the darkspawn, so it's not hard to see them take a "it's not our problem" stance.



After the Blight, the elves will tell you that the humans at their borders began to act more aggressively until it came to open conflict. Even then, the elves were able to defend themselves. In fact, they so thoroughly trounced the invaders, making great gains in land, that the humans begged the Chantry for assistance.



When the Exalted March was called, the elven homelands were destroyed again. Whatever gains they had made to recover their lost history was lost, and many of their race were enslaved once more. Those who would not submit became the Dailish, where, even now, the keepers of their ancient knowledge and lore are constantly hunted by Chantry templars.



Adding to that is the fact that the Chantry has removed Shartan's contribution to Andraste's cause from the Chant of Light and deemed them heretical. How many generations more until the humans forget that, without the help of Shartan, there would be no Andraste, and they'd still be worshipping the Old Gods that return, corrupted, to exterminate them?



So if the Dailish seem overly pissy, can't really blame them.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Mlai00 wrote...

@ Knightofphoenix:
+1
Which is why it's funny reading about some ppl's opinion on the Qunari in this thread. Well... actually ignorance is not funny. Maybe they never took Sten on quests, and never heard his banter. Qunari treatment of the conquered is very much like the idealized Muslim treatment of the conquered. Except mages, ofc.
Every nation in Thedas fights wars and conquers peoples. The Qunari is the only one showing a semblance of rules of conduct in the treatment of native populaces. All other conflicts we know of, in Thedas, are littered with words like "brutal", "enslaved", "sacked", etc etc. No such descriptions apply to the Qunari in any lines in the game.

There exists differences. The Qunari treat the conquered as equal if the convert. If they do not, they are sent to labor camps.
That's obviously not how the Muslims acted. Those who didn't want to convert payed the Jizya tax and became Ahl Al Dhimma (the protected people). They had absolute freedom of religion, their holy temples were preserved, their property protected, their communities had their own laws and courts indepedent of the Sharia law, in addition to military exemption. And that's not to mention how women, widows, the sick, the elderly, children and those who volunteer in military service were all exempted from the tax. Of course, they had to realise that they are subordinated to the Islamic state, but as long as they didn't bother anyone, they were left alone.
In addition, non-Muslims within the Caliphates could attain very important political positions, without converting. Best examples are St John of Damascus and Hasdai Ibn Shaprut.

So while the Qunari and Muslims are similar because they have a certain code of conduct to the conquered, that code is not similar. The Qunari do not treat the conquered the same way Muslims did.

EDIT: Actually I just remembered, the people of Rivian were allowed to keep their religion, which they fused with the Qun, as they were similar.
Perhaps the Qunari were flexible and open when it came to conversion.

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 13 mars 2010 - 02:46 .

[Ahisgewaya]

Mlai00 wrote...
@ Ahisgewaya:
That's some heavy roleplaying you're doing, thar.

Good god for the last time I don't role play on forums. Ever. 
I can understand the point of view of this fictional race.
I also see quite a few correlations to something that happened in the United States within the last 120 years. Something that I'm really pissed off about and a lot of my friends are too. This is because in REAL LIFE something very similar happened to our great grandparents, and it sucked ass.

Modifié par Ahisgewaya, 13 mars 2010 - 06:27 .

[Nhadalie]

Ahisgewaya wrote...

Mlai00 wrote...
@ Ahisgewaya:
That's some heavy roleplaying you're doing, thar.

Good god for the last time I don't role play on forums. Ever. 
I can understand the point of view of this fictional race.
I also see quite a few correlations to something that happened in the United States within the last 120 years. Something that I'm really pissed off about and a lot of my friends are too. This is because in REAL LIFE something very similar happened to our great grandparents, and it sucked ass.

Native Americans or Asians? Those are the only two groups I can think of offhand that have been persecuted, and grouped together in areas in the US almost like the Dalish have.

[Ahisgewaya]

I'm Native American, but the Asians have good reason to be pissed off too.

[Nhadalie]

Ahisgewaya wrote...

I'm Native American, but the Asians have good reason to be pissed off too.

Yeah. I just had to ask. Too curious for my own good, and I quite like history. I read a book for English class in highschool about how Japanese people in particular were treated around the time of WWII.

[Godak]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

EDIT: Actually I just remembered, the people of Rivian were allowed to keep their religion, which they fused with the Qun, as they were similar.
Perhaps the Qunari were flexible and open when it came to conversion.

The Rivaini people believe in a natural order to all things. This pretty much sets them in line with the Qun's whole "everyone has their place" bit.

PS: If the Qunari had instated a "freedom tax" they would seriously own all of Thedas by now.