Memories fade. People with information are killed. Sorry, but a slave race with roughly a millenia between present day and the last time they had any cohesive civilization, which we mysteriously can't find the capital of, isn't likely to have a whole lot of reliable data. The Dalish admit this themselves. They can barely even speak their own language, you expect me to believe they have a firm grasp on their history?
Even ignoring the flaws in what you just wrote, you just admitted to them living for millenia without circles. That, in itself, dwarfs the entire "Circles are necessary!" timeframe argument.
It's a stupid idea built out of fear that leads inevitably to revolt.
Memories fade. People with information are killed. Sorry, but a slave race with roughly a millenia between present day and the last time they had any cohesive civilization, which we mysteriously can't find the capital of, isn't likely to have a whole lot of reliable data. The Dalish admit this themselves. They can barely even speak their own language, you expect me to believe they have a firm grasp on their history?
Even ignoring the flaws in what you just wrote, you just admitted to them living for millenia without circles. That, in itself, dwarfs the entire "Circles are necessary!" timeframe argument.
It's a stupid idea built out of fear that leads inevitably to revolt.
Memories fade. People with information are killed. Sorry, but a slave race with roughly a millenia between present day and the last time they had any cohesive civilization, which we mysteriously can't find the capital of, isn't likely to have a whole lot of reliable data. The Dalish admit this themselves. They can barely even speak their own language, you expect me to believe they have a firm grasp on their history?
Even ignoring the flaws in what you just wrote, you just admitted to them living for millenia without circles. That, in itself, dwarfs the entire "Circles are necessary!" timeframe argument.
It's a stupid idea built out of fear that leads inevitably to revolt.
The millenia between Arlathan, or whatever actually existed, and now they spent as a slave race with a brief interlude in the Dales which ended in them being reduced to informal slavery. Again.
So...yes, no wonder they managed to exist without Circles. They had no control over their existence to begin with making it a moot point.
They don't work very well when built in places where the veil is extremely thin, due to... wait for it...
Wait...
Due to the previous actions of free mages who sacrificed tens of thousands of slaves in that area.
But otherwise yes, the circles do work. They certainly work better than not having them at all.
The Ferelden circle is a perfect example. Shit went as wrong as it can possibly go. But it was contained within that tower. Had it not been contained...
Some circles have worked in the short term. But at the end of DA2 we learn
that Templars and Mages everywhere, seeing the events in Kirkwall, have turned on each other. The circle/templar system spent much of its time building up high-pressure resentment that looks to be heading towards civil war.
And enough with the false choice of "having circles" and "letting mages do whatever they want." There are options besides those two.
You have a very interesting definition of "short term"
And by "interesting" I mean dumb.
And by "dumb" I mean wrong.
Fine, forget I said "short term." What I'll say instead is that circles don't work in ANY term, since they've created a tinderbox that can be set off at any time.
I gracefully accept your retraction and re-statement of your argument.
And using the Fereldan circle as an example of the circle working because it contained the problem is not a great argument. I don't recall there being much in particular preventing Uldred and company from leaving. The fact that it's in the middle of a lake isn't much of an obstacle to a mage (or anyone else with a boat).
As I recall, the doors were special and Uldred and co. could not simply batter them down. They were contained, which is far better than running amok.
I think an even better example of the risks posed by mages is how the Qunari handle them. A culture that is extremely pragmatic and wastes nothing, but places zero value on personal freedom. Look what they do with their mages.
Clearly, the danger is not some small thing. Not at all.
I would say the Qunari are a demonstration of a culture that's gone too far in the other direction (and not just with mages). The Qunari solution is only workable because they put so little value on freedom (or I guess as they think of it, they all choose to exist so any freedoms beyond that choice are meaningless).
To Fiaryn: you don't have to use the ancient elves as an example of a functional culture without a circle - the Dalish elves right now appear to have a system that works as least as well as the circle. The Dalish mages I can remember are Zathrian (was that his name?): bad, Marethari: good (but dumb). I don't get the impression that Dalish Keepers are a huge threat to the public, human or Dalish.
Memories fade. People with information are killed. Sorry, but a slave race with roughly a millenia between present day and the last time they had any cohesive civilization, which we mysteriously can't find the capital of, isn't likely to have a whole lot of reliable data. The Dalish admit this themselves. They can barely even speak their own language, you expect me to believe they have a firm grasp on their history?
Even ignoring the flaws in what you just wrote, you just admitted to them living for millenia without circles. That, in itself, dwarfs the entire "Circles are necessary!" timeframe argument.
It's a stupid idea built out of fear that leads inevitably to revolt.
The millenia between Arlathan, or whatever actually existed, and now they spent as a slave race with a brief interlude in the Dales which ended in them being reduced to informal slavery. Again.
So...yes, no wonder they managed to exist without Circles. They had no control over their existence to begin with making it a moot point.
Plus, if Merrill/the Dalish are right and most/all of the elves had magic back then it was probably a very Tevinter-y situation.
I mean, there's probably a reason the mirror was a perfect demon conduit...
I would consider Zathrian an enormous threat to the public. Our sample population so far with Dalish Keepers has not been kind to their reputation as responsible mages.
Memories fade. People with information are killed. Sorry, but a slave race with roughly a millenia between present day and the last time they had any cohesive civilization, which we mysteriously can't find the capital of, isn't likely to have a whole lot of reliable data. The Dalish admit this themselves. They can barely even speak their own language, you expect me to believe they have a firm grasp on their history?
Even ignoring the flaws in what you just wrote, you just admitted to them living for millenia without circles. That, in itself, dwarfs the entire "Circles are necessary!" timeframe argument.
It's a stupid idea built out of fear that leads inevitably to revolt.
The millenia between Arlathan, or whatever actually existed, and now they spent as a slave race with a brief interlude in the Dales which ended in them being reduced to informal slavery. Again.
So...yes, no wonder they managed to exist without Circles.
Also, you know, this great civilization that had figured out how to balance magic against the norms of regular life were swallowed whole by another civilization which hadn't figured that out.
Now the first civilization was elven, and the second one was human.
And virtually everything the elves knew was lost.
So how do you re-create their society? You probably don't.
What is plainly obvious, is that the civilization that did the swallowing was a shitty one, and what remains of it is still really shitty, so imitating it is probably a bad idea. So Andraste's followers created a different civilization, drawing from the lessons they learned from Tevinter.
It's an imperfect society at best, but it avoids the excesses that allowed Tevinter to completely wipe out elven culture.
And those excesses can be summarized thusly: "Mages in charge, free to pursue their arcane goals."
I think an even better example of the risks posed by mages is how the Qunari handle them. A culture that is extremely pragmatic and wastes nothing, but places zero value on personal freedom. Look what they do with their mages.
Qunari, pragmatic? Wut? I think the word you were looking for was dogmatic, the opposite of pragmatic. Qunari society is portrayed as a brutal theocratic caste system with a completely inflexible view on the role of the individual in society. The qunari can do what they do with their mages because qunari doesn't give individuals any value whatsoever.
I would consider Zathrian an enormous threat to the public. Our sample population so far with Dalish Keepers has not been kind to their reputation as responsible mages.
Well it's a small sample. But it seems to me that if Keepers were routinely running amok Dalish culture wouldn't exist at all.
I should point out that I'm not 100% against the circle/templar system. In fact my hypothetical ideal system would be a similar one, just with more clearly defined rights for mages and with the Templars structured more as a police force than as a military one.
They don't work very well when built in places where the veil is extremely thin, due to... wait for it...
Wait...
Due to the previous actions of free mages who sacrificed tens of thousands of slaves in that area.
But otherwise yes, the circles do work. They certainly work better than not having them at all.
The Ferelden circle is a perfect example. Shit went as wrong as it can possibly go. But it was contained within that tower. Had it not been contained...
Some circles have worked in the short term. But at the end of DA2 we learn
that Templars and Mages everywhere, seeing the events in Kirkwall, have turned on each other. The circle/templar system spent much of its time building up high-pressure resentment that looks to be heading towards civil war.
And enough with the false choice of "having circles" and "letting mages do whatever they want." There are options besides those two.
You have a very interesting definition of "short term"
And by "interesting" I mean dumb.
And by "dumb" I mean wrong.
Fine, forget I said "short term." What I'll say instead is that circles don't work in ANY term, since they've created a tinderbox that can be set off at any time.
I gracefully accept your retraction and re-statement of your argument.
And using the Fereldan circle as an example of the circle working because it contained the problem is not a great argument. I don't recall there being much in particular preventing Uldred and company from leaving. The fact that it's in the middle of a lake isn't much of an obstacle to a mage (or anyone else with a boat).
As I recall, the doors were special and Uldred and co. could not simply batter them down. They were contained, which is far better than running amok.
I think an even better example of the risks posed by mages is how the Qunari handle them. A culture that is extremely pragmatic and wastes nothing, but places zero value on personal freedom. Look what they do with their mages.
Clearly, the danger is not some small thing. Not at all.
I would say the Qunari are a demonstration of a culture that's gone too far in the other direction (and not just with mages). The Qunari solution is only workable because they put so little value on freedom (or I guess as they think of it, they all choose to exist so any freedoms beyond that choice are meaningless).
To Fiaryn: you don't have to use the ancient elves as an example of a functional culture without a circle - the Dalish elves right now appear to have a system that works as least as well as the circle. The Dalish mages I can remember are Zathrian (was that his name?): bad, Marethari: good (but dumb). I don't get the impression that Dalish Keepers are a huge threat to the public, human or Dalish.
I only brought up the Qunari to give credence to my claim that magic and mages are inherently very dangerous. The Qunari are pragmatists. If the mage threat were not very real then the Qunari wouldn't do that to their mages.
Man, this is a weird game. For whatever reason, it reminds me more of the original KotOR than it does DA: Origins. A step back in some ways, a step forward in others.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
I would consider Zathrian an enormous threat to the public. Our sample population so far with Dalish Keepers has not been kind to their reputation as responsible mages.
Don't forget Velanna, who flips out and murders every human she comes across because she's too stupid to do a simple investigation into her sister's disappearance.
The Ferelden Circle went bad precisely because they were sick of being oppressed.
So far as fanfic, okay. Ask a father to give up his child for what the Circle has been exposed to be. Good luck riding into a community with that request and riding back out of it in one piece.
The Ferelden circle went bad because it turns out it only takes one mage with a reasonably strong personality who is possessed to turn virtually every other mage he comes into contact with.
Oh clearly, more freedom and less supervision is the solution!
Uldred was possessed by a Pride demon. The Demons of the Fade codex explicitly state that Pride Demons are the strongest of all demons, so using a vessel to turn other mages into abominations would be child's play, provided it was in a mage body to begin with.
Don't forget Velanna, who flips out and murders every human she comes across because she's too stupid to do a simple investigation into her sister's disappearance.
Just remember, Aistan: She's a terrible person, and her ears are clownish.
I would consider Zathrian an enormous threat to the public. Our sample population so far with Dalish Keepers has not been kind to their reputation as responsible mages.
Well it's a small sample. But it seems to me that if Keepers were routinely running amok Dalish culture wouldn't exist at all.
I should point out that I'm not 100% against the circle/templar system. In fact my hypothetical ideal system would be a similar one, just with more clearly defined rights for mages and with the Templars structured more as a police force than as a military one.
It is indeed a small sample. Which is partly my point. We know that Dalish more or less have protocol for Abom'd Keepers, so it's not unheard of. If it does happen though, it's not likely to be known of by humans due to the distance the Dalish keep. End story: How much does it happen? We don't know, but the size of the Dalish population (and their admitted dwindling magic) makes it by statistical necessity comparitively small. Regardless, as we've seen with Zathrian even one rogue Keeper can cause bad shit.
I think with a power like Mages, you need a check like Templars to keep the balance, or you end up with Tevinter, where Mages are king and do whatever the fuck they want because there's no one to oppose them. It's the whole "imprison them from infancy til death and everyone who harbors mages is a criminal" aspect that doesn't work and ultimately is the factor that leads to constant tension between mages and templars.
If Templars were set up as almost a special, almost anti-Mage task force, branch of a military that specializes in responding to Mage threats, maybe. Let Mages have their freedom, but respond in kind should a mage related incident takes places, similar to how a city guard would respond to a non-mage related act of violence.
I think with a power like Mages, you need a check like Templars to keep the balance, or you end up with Tevinter, where Mages are king and do whatever the fuck they want because there's no one to oppose them. It's the whole "imprison them from infancy til death and everyone who harbors mages is a criminal" aspect that doesn't work and ultimately is the factor that leads to constant tension between mages and templars.
If Templars were set up as almost a special, almost anti-Mage task force, branch of a military that specializes in responding to Mage threats, maybe. Let Mages have their freedom, but respond in kind should a mage related incident takes places, similar to how a city guard would respond to a non-mage related act of violence.
Isn't this...basically what the templars are anyway? The only difference with your suggestion is reactive rather than preventative force. And someone on here has already pointed out that mages (and especially abominations) are far, FAR more deadly than some street thugs the guard has to deal with.
Especially considering that one of the codex entries about abominations talks about just one of those monsters wreaking havoc in the countryside and killing ~70 people before being put down
I'm not going to address this point by point because there's really no function. "Oppressing them just makes them more likely to do it!" and letting them live free and proliferate makes it more likely by virtue of sheer statistics. This is not a compelling argument and much of your argument is founded on appeals to mankinds better nature. I don't think that has much weight in the real world or Dragon Ages world, particularly given the ending.
It also doesn't hold much weight in light of Tevinter. You say that locking them up empowers apostates, but let them run free and eventually it's just magical capitalism. You do whatever it takes to compete. Competition requires power. Power requires either more lyrium or more blood. You do the math. The end result is a mageocracy.
Oppressing them turns them into what you 'think' they're only capable of becoming, it's a vicious cycle. "Letting them live free and proliferate makes it more likely by virtue of sheer statistics." ... I'm not going to argue statistics on an internet forum over a mythical scenario. You seem to assume that every mage given the opportunity will resort to blood magic/demons/etc... or at least enough to trigger a 'mageocracy'
I'm also not saying just let everyone run free and let the chips fall where they may, some regulation and oversight would be needed and it would have to be carefully done to ensure that mages are kept in check. I've never once argued that your not going to have a few bad apples, my argument is simply by not oppressing them you might have more good apples. My response is... how do you know??? The only case you cite is the Tevinter... I can cite one case of democracy and then extrapolate how ALL democracy is bad if you like... you can't take one bad example and then extrapolate it onto a broad population.
If you want to go citing history, how many lives do you think the war between the mages, templars, and chantry are going to claim?
How do you know that a properly balanced and regulated arrangement between templars and mages won't work?
Granted I'm not saying that my scenario wouldn't result in a total clusterfuck, but I think it would be worth a shot and be better than the alternative. I'm no sociology major and all this is my uninformed opinion. I don't think this is a problem with a simple solution. You just got to pick the solution that you think would work best. In my opinion I like my solution better than yours. Which is right and wrong I don't think one can say.
On a conciliatory note, this is why I love Bioware. I think this is a problem with no right or wrong answer. It's nice that they can make a game to offer such thought provoking discussions.
Basically, while ME2 was essentially the same gameplay as ME1, but really polished, DA2 plays quite a bit dfferent from DA1.
I don't know that I'd agree with that. ME2 retained the same form - third-person squad cover shooter with sci-fi flavor/powers - yet was pretty dramatically different in play due to the standardization of the RPS defenses and the extension of powers to complement it (like the completely revamped Warp); the ammo system; the far fewer but more distinct weapons; the inability to customize squadmate armor in exchange for having a distinct silhouette, etc. DA2 has an inferior camera, an inferior spawning system (and battle pacing as consequence), faster animations, better appearance, less imbalance (DA:O's mages similar to ME1's biotic gods) and yet is still a third-person party-based tactical combat game with pause-orders and so on.
I don't think the changes are measured on separate orders of magnitude.
I think people are hoping for lower scores so that maybe Bioware wont rush job out the next game with only 3 dungeon sets.
Which isn't needed because they already know everyone hated that.
This really is the one aspect which you can say is without question bad. They don't just use the same tileset again and again which might make sense, they literally use the exact same level again and again and again. I keep on thinking I've gone to the wrong place.
Basically, while ME2 was essentially the same gameplay as ME1, but really polished, DA2 plays quite a bit dfferent from DA1.
I don't really agree with this. Maybe it feels a lot different on consoles, I can't really speak to that, but I was playing it almost exactly like DA:O only with more repositioning between waves.
Blackjack on
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Basically, while ME2 was essentially the same gameplay as ME1, but really polished, DA2 plays quite a bit dfferent from DA1.
I don't really agree with this. Maybe it feels a lot different on consoles, I can't really speak to that, but I was playing it almost exactly like DA:O only with more repositioning between waves.
Naw, it's pretty much the same on consoles...except I do more than auto-attack with my warrior.
I think with a power like Mages, you need a check like Templars to keep the balance, or you end up with Tevinter, where Mages are king and do whatever the fuck they want because there's no one to oppose them. It's the whole "imprison them from infancy til death and everyone who harbors mages is a criminal" aspect that doesn't work and ultimately is the factor that leads to constant tension between mages and templars.
If Templars were set up as almost a special, almost anti-Mage task force, branch of a military that specializes in responding to Mage threats, maybe. Let Mages have their freedom, but respond in kind should a mage related incident takes places, similar to how a city guard would respond to a non-mage related act of violence.
Isn't this...basically what the templars are anyway? The only difference with your suggestion is reactive rather than preventative force. And someone on here has already pointed out that mages (and especially abominations) are far, FAR more deadly than some street thugs the guard has to deal with.
Especially considering that one of the codex entries about abominations talks about just one of those monsters wreaking havoc in the countryside and killing ~70 people before being put down
That one distinction is a pretty big one, since it's apparently the difference between freedom and imprisonment, and Templars being an arm of the Chantry is a pretty big deal, especially in swaying public opinion.
Again, this is a world without global telecomms, cars, or cellphones. Freedom is a significant hazard since one mage out in the middle of fucking nowhere going Abomination without anyone knowing can lead into an uncontrolled Fereldan Tower situation. We need to stop viewing this from a modern viewpoint.
The freedom of these people carries a heavy price. What exactly is the magical oversight and regulation that addresses this better than what we already have, Stick?
People will often times go through any number of contortions of reasoning to justify why they need more power, why they deserve more power, why they have the right to exert that power over their fellow man. Mages have more means to do so than anyone. The kind of atrocities Mages are capable of dwarf anything the Templars can pull off. For lack of a better option, the few must pay the price for the many.
I'm working under the assumption that people tend to be assholes and abuses of power are inevitable to one degree or another. Under that framework, controlling mages to the utmost is the logical thing to do. They pose the greatest risk by a huge margin.
I think with a power like Mages, you need a check like Templars to keep the balance, or you end up with Tevinter, where Mages are king and do whatever the fuck they want because there's no one to oppose them. It's the whole "imprison them from infancy til death and everyone who harbors mages is a criminal" aspect that doesn't work and ultimately is the factor that leads to constant tension between mages and templars.
If Templars were set up as almost a special, almost anti-Mage task force, branch of a military that specializes in responding to Mage threats, maybe. Let Mages have their freedom, but respond in kind should a mage related incident takes places, similar to how a city guard would respond to a non-mage related act of violence.
Isn't this...basically what the templars are anyway? The only difference with your suggestion is reactive rather than preventative force. And someone on here has already pointed out that mages (and especially abominations) are far, FAR more deadly than some street thugs the guard has to deal with.
Especially considering that one of the codex entries about abominations talks about just one of those monsters wreaking havoc in the countryside and killing ~70 people before being put down
That one distinction is a pretty big one, since it's apparently the difference between freedom and imprisonment, and Templars being an arm of the Chantry is a pretty big deal, especially in swaying public opinion.
Right. But that still doesn't address the part where one abomination killed 70 people before it was brought down. Given preparation, travel, and tracking time, who knows how many dead there would be before the anti-mage specialists killed it.
Not to mention, full freedom for mages means you can't watch all of them all the time and because there's no way of keeping track of the mages there is almost no way of knowing there was something wrong unless someone is already dead. That's a steep price to pay, especially when you have no way of knowing that the templars can prevent even more deaths and is precisely what Meredith was talking about whenever somebody advocated full-on mage freedom.
What's funny is that I'm actually pro-mage. I just think a modified Circle with more emphasis on mages self-policing themselves (with oversight still being done by templars, but with less of an iron grip) would get rid of a lot of the 'us vs. them' mentality that both the templars and mages have.
I realize that this sounds a lot like the Circle as it is, what with the hierarchy of First Enchanter -> Senior Enchanters -> blah, blah, blah, and that's basically what it is: The Circle, with all of its preventative qualities, but with greater freedom for the mages that reside within. And, hey, it apparently works with American occupation in foreign countries: as I understand it, we make authority figures out of members of the society - they police themselves and the people generally find it more agreeable because it's not some foreign entity that doesn't have their interests at heart. The plaque in the guard's quarters also talks about those guarding Kirkwall should be those with emotional investment in the city, i.e.- its citizens.
In the mages' case, they're should be acutely aware of the dangers of possession and how to fight against abominations since, you know, it should be on their minds at all times. Plus, if Bill from down the hall goes abom, who's gonna take his place on poker night? It's a hassle. Templars are effective, but they're also alien and usually don't understand anything about a mage besides the danger they present
I'd be down with a Circle wherein there was more self-policing from the mages and each mage had a sort of live-in Templar that accompanied them on any trips out of the tower.
I'd call it
"The buddy system"
Realistically this is a slight modification to what we saw in Fereldan.
So, for those of you that want to be the most powerful Blood Mage you can be, there's a mod that removes the Willpower requirement from mage equipment.
I'd be down with a Circle wherein there was more self-policing from the mages and each mage had a sort of live-in Templar that accompanied them on any trips out of the tower.
I'd call it
"The buddy system"
Realistically this is a slight modification to what we saw in Fereldan.
are you talking about the less oppressive templars or the mage underground finding blood mages summoning demons and sending folks out to wipe them out before they could do real harm?
I think a decent system would be to take them at birth but release them after they've mastered their magic and reserving tranquil enforcement for the really bad cases.
These people are so full of hate and arrogance...who and why? I don't get it, its like they are some exiled ex-oligarchy.
You know, based on the intro the game really does have some bad dialogue, like when Aveline is helping out her hubby and says "You will not have him....They will not have you....Not while I breathe". Or when he says "The order dictates". Partly it's down to the VA's sounding really stilted, but I think that's a result of the weird dialogue.
For me it has been reminiscent of The Witcher so far, in that some of it sounds quite awkward, as if English isn't the writer's first language. Also I remember thinking a few times that a line seemed completely out of place or nonsensical. Like this point from the above thread:
If you ask Flemeth's name, she responds "Names are pretty but useless." How does that make any fucking sense? The fail at wiriting is more significant when you look at PS:T and how it handled names.
Ironic spelling and grammar included. :P (I know that's from DA:O but I couldn't be bothered to boot up the game to find a DAII example.)
names are pretty (pause) but useless. are you suggesting that sentence is confusing or are you defending it. It's a brilliant sentence really.
I'd be down with a Circle wherein there was more self-policing from the mages and each mage had a sort of live-in Templar that accompanied them on any trips out of the tower.
I'd call it
"The buddy system"
Realistically this is a slight modification to what we saw in Fereldan.
are you talking about the less oppressive templars or the mage underground finding blood mages summoning demons and sending folks out to wipe them out before they could do real harm?
I think a decent system would be to take them at birth but release them after they've mastered their magic and reserving tranquil enforcement for the really bad cases.
This isn't Dungeons and Dragons. You don't "master magic". It is an omnipresent threat.
And for reasons we've gone into at length, the heavily reactionary system you suggest asks a lot of everyone who isn't a mage.
I'd be down with a Circle wherein there was more self-policing from the mages and each mage had a sort of live-in Templar that accompanied them on any trips out of the tower.
I'd call it
"The buddy system"
Realistically this is a slight modification to what we saw in Fereldan.
are you talking about the less oppressive templars or the mage underground finding blood mages summoning demons and sending folks out to wipe them out before they could do real harm?
I think a decent system would be to take them at birth but release them after they've mastered their magic and reserving tranquil enforcement for the really bad cases.
Well, you can't take a mage at birth, because there's no way of telling that someone is a mage at birth. And, if by let them go "once they've mastered their magic" you mean let them go "once they're no longer at risk of becoming an abomination" then that is what they already do. Once a mage is dead or Tranquil, they are allowed to go.
Mages are a threat to themselves and others, and must be restrained. This is not opression, for striving while under constant threat from within is truly selfless, and the highest virtue of the Qun. Struggle is an illusion. The tide rises, the tide falls, but the sea is changeless. There is nothing to struggle against. Victory is in the Qun.
The conversation seems to suffer from the same problem as Meredith. Mages aren't some problem with a quick, brutal solution. If anything, the rationale response to mages seems to be to keep them firmly on your side as people. Otherwise, they're going to realize that they are numerous and powerful enough to restart the mass enslavement of humanity they had going before Tevinter fell.
Being a mage is basically a recessive gene that can appear in any family - see the explanation of why Hawke's family fortune decline - so there's no chance of eliminating mages. Even if you went on a bout of ethnic cleansing, the best you could hope for is about 20 years of paranoid peace before the pissed-off next generation of mages gets old enough to burn down all your castles.
Imprisoning them seems to have worked for a bit with Chantry support, but that died the second Circle turned from light imprisonment with plenty of freedom to frolic into a mage concentration camp in Kirkwall. Even then, it seems that the Circle was a bit of a joke when functional. Every other band of outlaws has their own mages and, as Hawke and Bettany both mention at the start of the game, having the protection of any random group of thieves and mercenaries is enough to keep the Templars away.
The only way out of this presented by the games are to treat the mages as people, allow them to develop allegiances and identity beyond the Circle and hope for the best. Otherwise, and I think this gets lost, normal humans lose.
They don't have the power to completely eliminate the mages, and they need the mages to survive against the darkspawn, Qunari and Tevinter. An anti-mage pogrom would quickly turn into the first phase of the genocide or reenslavement of Thedas.
The only way out of this presented by the games are to treat the mages as people, allow them to develop allegiances and identity beyond the Circle and hope for the best. Otherwise, and I think this gets lost, normal humans lose.
Letting mages run free poses too many societal issues even assuming they somehow manage to consistently avoid abomination issues.
Namely that mind control fucks any chance of a functioning judiciary. The higher your population grows while the mage population simultaneously runs free, the more of an issue this becomes. Neither Judge nor Jury can be trusted to be impartial, nor can you prove "within reasonable doubt" that someone acted of their own volition.
This is just one example of how mages fuck up society.
This is all nonsense. Mages are pansies, grown men wearing dresses. All they need to do to fix this abomination problem is to concoct and administer some distillation of Varric: their chests will sprout beards, and then they can storm the Fade and take the Black City.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
The only way out of this presented by the games are to treat the mages as people, allow them to develop allegiances and identity beyond the Circle and hope for the best. Otherwise, and I think this gets lost, normal humans lose.
Letting mages run free poses too many societal issues even assuming they somehow manage to consistently avoid abomination issues.
Namely that mind control fucks any chance of a functioning judiciary. The higher your population grows while the mage population simultaneously runs free, the more of an issue this becomes. Neither Judge nor Jury can be trusted to be impartial, nor can you prove "within reasonable doubt" that someone acted of their own volition.
This is just one example of how mages fuck up society.
Yet if they imprison them indefinitely against their will, the Templars are guaranteeing a revolt that will kill an incredible number of mages, templars, and ordinary people. Plus it will guarantee a turn towards more forbidden magic and demonic possession. Oppression will not work. The best you can do is strike a balance between security and freedom, and manage the consequences as best you can.
I really don't see how modern tech plays into this argument one way or another. An abomination would go down the same way with or without modern tech... Someone goes abomination starts killin' folks you assemble a force to kill them and go to town...
I wouldn't cite the current system as a good model if I were you as I mentioned in the previous post
it lead to a war that will cost the lives of a lot of mages, templars, and civilians.
hardly ideal in my opinion. Imho I think that'll probably cost more lives in total than a hundred random abominations in the woods.
Once again your extrapolating your view of society and people as a whole onto an entire population to justify your argument. If that was acceptable one could assume that after the massive earthquake in Japan there would have been mass lootings, people fighting for food and water, and mass hysteria from a damaged nuclear power plant. That's what would happen in the US... We haven't seen that we haven't seen that there because not all societies are cast from the same mold.
Look we can go back and forth all night on this. It's like an NP problem, you have to weigh your solutions pick the best answer. They all have they're drawbacks, nothing is perfect. I like my solution better. There's nothing wrong with just agreeing to disagree.
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Even ignoring the flaws in what you just wrote, you just admitted to them living for millenia without circles. That, in itself, dwarfs the entire "Circles are necessary!" timeframe argument.
It's a stupid idea built out of fear that leads inevitably to revolt.
It's built out of experience.
The millenia between Arlathan, or whatever actually existed, and now they spent as a slave race with a brief interlude in the Dales which ended in them being reduced to informal slavery. Again.
So...yes, no wonder they managed to exist without Circles. They had no control over their existence to begin with making it a moot point.
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I would say the Qunari are a demonstration of a culture that's gone too far in the other direction (and not just with mages). The Qunari solution is only workable because they put so little value on freedom (or I guess as they think of it, they all choose to exist so any freedoms beyond that choice are meaningless).
To Fiaryn: you don't have to use the ancient elves as an example of a functional culture without a circle - the Dalish elves right now appear to have a system that works as least as well as the circle. The Dalish mages I can remember are Zathrian (was that his name?): bad, Marethari: good (but dumb). I don't get the impression that Dalish Keepers are a huge threat to the public, human or Dalish.
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Also, you know, this great civilization that had figured out how to balance magic against the norms of regular life were swallowed whole by another civilization which hadn't figured that out.
Now the first civilization was elven, and the second one was human.
And virtually everything the elves knew was lost.
So how do you re-create their society? You probably don't.
What is plainly obvious, is that the civilization that did the swallowing was a shitty one, and what remains of it is still really shitty, so imitating it is probably a bad idea. So Andraste's followers created a different civilization, drawing from the lessons they learned from Tevinter.
It's an imperfect society at best, but it avoids the excesses that allowed Tevinter to completely wipe out elven culture.
And those excesses can be summarized thusly: "Mages in charge, free to pursue their arcane goals."
Well it's a small sample. But it seems to me that if Keepers were routinely running amok Dalish culture wouldn't exist at all.
I should point out that I'm not 100% against the circle/templar system. In fact my hypothetical ideal system would be a similar one, just with more clearly defined rights for mages and with the Templars structured more as a police force than as a military one.
I only brought up the Qunari to give credence to my claim that magic and mages are inherently very dangerous. The Qunari are pragmatists. If the mage threat were not very real then the Qunari wouldn't do that to their mages.
Don't forget Velanna, who flips out and murders every human she comes across because she's too stupid to do a simple investigation into her sister's disappearance.
Uldred was possessed by a Pride demon. The Demons of the Fade codex explicitly state that Pride Demons are the strongest of all demons, so using a vessel to turn other mages into abominations would be child's play, provided it was in a mage body to begin with.
Just remember, Aistan: She's a terrible person, and her ears are clownish.
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It is indeed a small sample. Which is partly my point. We know that Dalish more or less have protocol for Abom'd Keepers, so it's not unheard of. If it does happen though, it's not likely to be known of by humans due to the distance the Dalish keep. End story: How much does it happen? We don't know, but the size of the Dalish population (and their admitted dwindling magic) makes it by statistical necessity comparitively small. Regardless, as we've seen with Zathrian even one rogue Keeper can cause bad shit.
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If Templars were set up as almost a special, almost anti-Mage task force, branch of a military that specializes in responding to Mage threats, maybe. Let Mages have their freedom, but respond in kind should a mage related incident takes places, similar to how a city guard would respond to a non-mage related act of violence.
Isn't this...basically what the templars are anyway? The only difference with your suggestion is reactive rather than preventative force. And someone on here has already pointed out that mages (and especially abominations) are far, FAR more deadly than some street thugs the guard has to deal with.
Especially considering that one of the codex entries about abominations talks about just one of those monsters wreaking havoc in the countryside and killing ~70 people before being put down
I'm also not saying just let everyone run free and let the chips fall where they may, some regulation and oversight would be needed and it would have to be carefully done to ensure that mages are kept in check. I've never once argued that your not going to have a few bad apples, my argument is simply by not oppressing them you might have more good apples. My response is... how do you know??? The only case you cite is the Tevinter... I can cite one case of democracy and then extrapolate how ALL democracy is bad if you like... you can't take one bad example and then extrapolate it onto a broad population.
Granted I'm not saying that my scenario wouldn't result in a total clusterfuck, but I think it would be worth a shot and be better than the alternative. I'm no sociology major and all this is my uninformed opinion. I don't think this is a problem with a simple solution. You just got to pick the solution that you think would work best. In my opinion I like my solution better than yours. Which is right and wrong I don't think one can say.
On a conciliatory note, this is why I love Bioware. I think this is a problem with no right or wrong answer. It's nice that they can make a game to offer such thought provoking discussions.
I don't know that I'd agree with that. ME2 retained the same form - third-person squad cover shooter with sci-fi flavor/powers - yet was pretty dramatically different in play due to the standardization of the RPS defenses and the extension of powers to complement it (like the completely revamped Warp); the ammo system; the far fewer but more distinct weapons; the inability to customize squadmate armor in exchange for having a distinct silhouette, etc. DA2 has an inferior camera, an inferior spawning system (and battle pacing as consequence), faster animations, better appearance, less imbalance (DA:O's mages similar to ME1's biotic gods) and yet is still a third-person party-based tactical combat game with pause-orders and so on.
I don't think the changes are measured on separate orders of magnitude.
Aren't you always complaining about graphics?
This really is the one aspect which you can say is without question bad. They don't just use the same tileset again and again which might make sense, they literally use the exact same level again and again and again. I keep on thinking I've gone to the wrong place.
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Naw, it's pretty much the same on consoles...except I do more than auto-attack with my warrior.
That one distinction is a pretty big one, since it's apparently the difference between freedom and imprisonment, and Templars being an arm of the Chantry is a pretty big deal, especially in swaying public opinion.
The freedom of these people carries a heavy price. What exactly is the magical oversight and regulation that addresses this better than what we already have, Stick?
People will often times go through any number of contortions of reasoning to justify why they need more power, why they deserve more power, why they have the right to exert that power over their fellow man. Mages have more means to do so than anyone. The kind of atrocities Mages are capable of dwarf anything the Templars can pull off. For lack of a better option, the few must pay the price for the many.
I'm working under the assumption that people tend to be assholes and abuses of power are inevitable to one degree or another. Under that framework, controlling mages to the utmost is the logical thing to do. They pose the greatest risk by a huge margin.
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Right. But that still doesn't address the part where one abomination killed 70 people before it was brought down. Given preparation, travel, and tracking time, who knows how many dead there would be before the anti-mage specialists killed it.
Not to mention, full freedom for mages means you can't watch all of them all the time and because there's no way of keeping track of the mages there is almost no way of knowing there was something wrong unless someone is already dead. That's a steep price to pay, especially when you have no way of knowing that the templars can prevent even more deaths and is precisely what Meredith was talking about whenever somebody advocated full-on mage freedom.
What's funny is that I'm actually pro-mage. I just think a modified Circle with more emphasis on mages self-policing themselves (with oversight still being done by templars, but with less of an iron grip) would get rid of a lot of the 'us vs. them' mentality that both the templars and mages have.
I realize that this sounds a lot like the Circle as it is, what with the hierarchy of First Enchanter -> Senior Enchanters -> blah, blah, blah, and that's basically what it is: The Circle, with all of its preventative qualities, but with greater freedom for the mages that reside within. And, hey, it apparently works with American occupation in foreign countries: as I understand it, we make authority figures out of members of the society - they police themselves and the people generally find it more agreeable because it's not some foreign entity that doesn't have their interests at heart. The plaque in the guard's quarters also talks about those guarding Kirkwall should be those with emotional investment in the city, i.e.- its citizens.
In the mages' case, they're should be acutely aware of the dangers of possession and how to fight against abominations since, you know, it should be on their minds at all times. Plus, if Bill from down the hall goes abom, who's gonna take his place on poker night? It's a hassle. Templars are effective, but they're also alien and usually don't understand anything about a mage besides the danger they present
I'd call it
"The buddy system"
Realistically this is a slight modification to what we saw in Fereldan.
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are you talking about the less oppressive templars or the mage underground finding blood mages summoning demons and sending folks out to wipe them out before they could do real harm?
I think a decent system would be to take them at birth but release them after they've mastered their magic and reserving tranquil enforcement for the really bad cases.
names are pretty (pause) but useless. are you suggesting that sentence is confusing or are you defending it. It's a brilliant sentence really.
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This isn't Dungeons and Dragons. You don't "master magic". It is an omnipresent threat.
And for reasons we've gone into at length, the heavily reactionary system you suggest asks a lot of everyone who isn't a mage.
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Being a mage is basically a recessive gene that can appear in any family - see the explanation of why Hawke's family fortune decline - so there's no chance of eliminating mages. Even if you went on a bout of ethnic cleansing, the best you could hope for is about 20 years of paranoid peace before the pissed-off next generation of mages gets old enough to burn down all your castles.
Imprisoning them seems to have worked for a bit with Chantry support, but that died the second Circle turned from light imprisonment with plenty of freedom to frolic into a mage concentration camp in Kirkwall. Even then, it seems that the Circle was a bit of a joke when functional. Every other band of outlaws has their own mages and, as Hawke and Bettany both mention at the start of the game, having the protection of any random group of thieves and mercenaries is enough to keep the Templars away.
The only way out of this presented by the games are to treat the mages as people, allow them to develop allegiances and identity beyond the Circle and hope for the best. Otherwise, and I think this gets lost, normal humans lose.
They don't have the power to completely eliminate the mages, and they need the mages to survive against the darkspawn, Qunari and Tevinter. An anti-mage pogrom would quickly turn into the first phase of the genocide or reenslavement of Thedas.
Letting mages run free poses too many societal issues even assuming they somehow manage to consistently avoid abomination issues.
Namely that mind control fucks any chance of a functioning judiciary. The higher your population grows while the mage population simultaneously runs free, the more of an issue this becomes. Neither Judge nor Jury can be trusted to be impartial, nor can you prove "within reasonable doubt" that someone acted of their own volition.
This is just one example of how mages fuck up society.
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I know this is from a few pages ago, but I wanted to chime in...
Yet if they imprison them indefinitely against their will, the Templars are guaranteeing a revolt that will kill an incredible number of mages, templars, and ordinary people. Plus it will guarantee a turn towards more forbidden magic and demonic possession. Oppression will not work. The best you can do is strike a balance between security and freedom, and manage the consequences as best you can.
It's not no system lasts forever...
I wouldn't cite the current system as a good model if I were you as I mentioned in the previous post
Once again your extrapolating your view of society and people as a whole onto an entire population to justify your argument. If that was acceptable one could assume that after the massive earthquake in Japan there would have been mass lootings, people fighting for food and water, and mass hysteria from a damaged nuclear power plant. That's what would happen in the US... We haven't seen that we haven't seen that there because not all societies are cast from the same mold.
Look we can go back and forth all night on this. It's like an NP problem, you have to weigh your solutions pick the best answer. They all have they're drawbacks, nothing is perfect. I like my solution better. There's nothing wrong with just agreeing to disagree.