[ SECRET POST #1615 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1615 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 08 pages, 185 secrets from Secret Submission Post #231.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeats ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom.livejournal.com]

25. http://i53.tinypic.com/10qcmmw.png

[(Anonymous)]

To be honest, siding with the mages at the end is less about abolishing the circle everywhere, and not letting one group of templars murder every last woman man and child in the circle because of what someone who is in no way related to the circle did. At least for me. The fact that it resulted in circle uprisings I say is the templars fault. They pushed too far, deciding to bring in the right of annulment over something unrelated to the circle in every way.

Also I'm not sure the Tevinter thing works because honestly, look at our world, we still had slavery despite having no mages. I'd say Tevinter has slavery because of it's culture rather than because it has more freedom for mages.


...I do agree on hating killing Anders though. My first playthrough I couldn't let him live and I FELT SO GUILTY. And every playthrough where I romanced him I just couldn't do it.

[(Anonymous)]

you know, after playing through both endings, i'm tempted to only ever pick the templars' side, despite my love for mages. it made more SENSE. and even my mage Hawke could admit that it was only done to bring back some semblance of order and come the fuck on, Kirkwall, stop it with your every other mage turns to blood magic shit. how do you expect me to be sympathetic?

oh and it's not the same as going to school with a gun. you can CHOOSE to bring a gun and CHOOSE to put it down. you cannot do this with magic.

[(Anonymous)]

Really? The templar ending made NO sense to me at all. First they invoke the right of annulment to kill all the circle..over something someone who wasn't part of the circle did.

Then you get the option to spare people.....which should have ended the fight right there. The only reason the mages were fighting back was because they thought the templars were going to slaughter them all regardless. Not to mention, the entire point of the right of annulment is that you kill EVERYONE. Letting some live was so cheap and I think just so people could go templar without having to kill bethany. If they were honestly willing to spare people the fight shoudl have ended RIGHT THERE. They could have brought it up AT ANY TIME WHEN ORSINO SAID THEY WERE WILLING TO SURRENDER. It was so so dumb.

Plus, if you rivaly Anders all the way, you can apperantly bring him with you siding with the templars. SO you can go kill the mages for blowing up the Chantry..which they didn't do. And you can do it with the person who actually blew it up fighting beside you.

[mondaisenshi.livejournal.com]

oh and it's not the same as going to school with a gun. you can CHOOSE to bring a gun and CHOOSE to put it down. you cannot do this with magic.

This. IAWTC x10.

Yes, mages have the capacity to harm others at all times. But really, all of humanity does, to some extent. And let's say there's a kid who, for whatever reason, has a hook for a hand. Even if that hook is blunted, it can still potentially kill. But would you refuse the child's right to go to school with all the other kids because they had an accident and lost a hand? I mean, sure, if you could have them remove the prosthetic that might be ideal, but that's not something mages can do. They can't set aside their powers and leave them at the door to pick them up on the way out. They have no say, no control. How can you honestly punish them for it?

And before you say that it's not punishment, it is. They're being separated and treated differently, watched and guarded at all times. They didn't want this, they didn't ask for it. "Separate but equal" is a fictitious concept that does not translate into practice. You're basically telling these children that they're monsters, what else do you expect them to become?

[dgcatanisiri.livejournal.com]

I'm all for reforms for the Circle. I do think that because of the dangers that mages face from demons and other mage-exclusive issues, it would be foolish to put mage children in the same schools as non-mages.

However, I side with the mages at the end because they were not responsible for what happened. An apostate was, and Meredith orders the Rite of Annulment, the execution of every mage in the Circle, because of it. I won't execute people for crimes they have not committed.

[(Anonymous)]

This. Also, in my file with Ser Karrasshole still alive after the Qunari act, he mentions that Meredith intends on invoking Annulment of Doom. Once the "light show" goes off, Meredith comes off to me as taking advantage of the situation because she has an excuse to get the circle destroyed. Does not fly well with me at all.

orz

[anthropomorphe.livejournal.com]

I only sided with the mages in DA1 to get the achievement.

anon is very helpful sometimes

[mondaisenshi.livejournal.com]

I think I've spent too much time thinking about this whole thing, and I've honestly decided that there is no resolution. There is no co-existence. If mages are given the freedom to walk about with non-mages, well, we'll end up where Tevinter is. And I'd have been perfectly fine with that, (Honestly, I consider this the lesser of two evils.) except that I had a nice conversation with Fenris as a mage Hawke and, I swear to god, this was the first time I'd ever had a level-headed debate over the merits and drawbacks of mage freedom... ironic as it is that Fenris should be the source of CALM, RATIONAL discussions about mages... Until now, I'd never heard an argument against mages that wasn't fueled by ignorance, superstition, or recitations of what one had been told over and over and over as a child.

But the alternative is the Circle. But the problem here is that the circle CANNOT work. If the circle has no guards, then there is nothing to keep the mages from walking free with everyone else. The Templars are, in this sense, necessary in at least the bare minimum capacity. But caged animals will want to be free, and humans (and elves, perhaps even moreso in this case) are no exception, so the Templars must be more than just watchdogs, they must be given the clearance to stop any mages who wish to escape, by whatever means necessary, or they serve no purpose in being there at all. And at this point, it's already gone too far. Now that Templars have a defensible reason to be in charge, they will act on it. Not all of them, not even most of them, but there will be Templars who abuse their position. There will be Templars who break, for hatred or fear of the mages -- potentially violently considering that while every mage has frightful power at their fingertips, so too does every Templar have a sword. And while this action will not simply be shrugged off, it will change nothing in the grand scheme of things. The Templar will be sent away and life will go on. But should a mage snap and attack a Templar, even if no real harm is done, the consequences would be dire. But in the end, honestly, all it takes is for them to look down on the mages, not even to strike them, for the mages to feel unrest in their own home.

Their own home! They never asked to be sent to the tower, away from friends and family and a normal life. They never asked to be watched at all hours. Why should they be punished and looked down upon for something that was forced upon them at birth? Given, most mages will come to embrace their gifts. But if you're already being punished for having something, why should you hide it away? Why shouldn't you enjoy it?

There can be no co-existence. There can be no equal treatment. It is not within the capacity of human behavior. And I want more than anything for the games to prove me wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

Except mage freedome doesn't always mean Tevinter. Look at the Dalish, they have mages running their clans without slavery in their culture. Tevinter has slaves BECAUSE THAT IS TEVINTER CULTURE. Not because it has mages. Look at our world, we had slavery despite the complete lack of magic involved.

And while one mage we see in their group turned to blood magic, she was then shunned and rejected and it was never encouraged. They don't like blood magic any more than non-tevinters. Frankly the dalish co-exist with mages fine.

[(Anonymous)]

I felt almost as if the developers/writers were trying to go with a "OHO, YOU WERE EVIL ALL ALONG! ISN'T THAT CLEVER AND EDGY AND INSIGHTFUL!" tactic, since siding with the mages was almost always presented as basically 'the good option', and it turns out all the mages are comically evil terrorists. Unfortunately it was deeply inept and didn't really give the player much expression (surely the answer is "hey you templars are being overzealous nazis but mages might be dangerous, let's keep guarding them but not so oppressively" but Hawke must side with one or the other).

Also I love that all the Templars blithely slag off mages and talk about how they're dangerous and should all be killed/locked up while Hawke is standing there in mage robes, with a long staff, radiating magic power. Couple that with the fact that 99% of the mages you defend during the game DO turn completely batshit and start spraying blood out of their wrists, and, welp. GAME OF THE YEAR.

[dgcatanisiri.livejournal.com]

I have two reads on the whole '99% of mages in the game are crazy' thing. One is that it ties into a recurring theme of the game that the opposing groups are not that different in the end. The other is that the natural reaction of most people is to resist locking people away and denying them their freedom, so they had to show why the templars have to be so vigilant with the mages. They may have just tipped the scale a little too far.

[relmneiko.livejournal.com]

This comment just made me laugh to tears. So true, anon. So true.

[kylenne.livejournal.com]

Honestly, partisans on both sides piss me the fuck off because they all completely miss the point 99% of the time. And I say this as someone who played mage mains in both games and is generally sympathetic to mages moreso than templars. The entire point of the conflict is that nobody's hands are clean. Both factions have valid points to their arguments, that's what makes the conflict so difficult. What myopic templar fans are basically arguing is that the ends justify the means, and what myopic mage fans are basically arguing is that mages can do no wrong, ever and templars are so meen (when they are not bringing IRL biases and personal ~edgy atheism~ into the mix when bashing the Chantry). The solution probably lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes--there's a reason that Meredith is still the Big Bad even if you side with the templars, and there's a reason Anders' action is condemned by Orsino. If there's one idea the Dragon Age series as a whole consistently puts forth, it's that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. People frequently justify their heinous actions by believing it was for the good of whatever ideal they're fighting for. Hell, even in the first game, Loghain was just trying to protect Ferelden from Orlais, after all, and Branka just wanted to make golems to protect Orzammar from the Darkspawn.

Personally I don't think the writers did this any favors when they leather pants'd and brought back Cullen for DA2 because a segment of fans had boners for him. Nor did they do any favors by making mages so sympathetic in the first game and pulling a complete 180 for the second one. I hope they go with a more balanced portrayal for DA3.

Also, while I'm on unpopular fan opinions, fuck Anders. I think he's a selfish, arrogant prick from any standpoint, and any goodwill/sympathy I may have had for him flew out the window when he gave me shit about dating Fenris and implied that he was little more than an animal; it was also hella sexist to me playing a femHawke. Honestly, it just felt like nothing but jealous butthurt because Hawke was fucking some other dude besides him, and having it come in the middle of me helping his lying, user ass pull off an act of terrorism I would never support did nothing to endear him to me.

So yeah, I killed him in my game, and felt no guilt about it whatsoever. The only problem I have with it is that the only options are to kill him or to basically give him a pass because I couldn't bear to kill my friend or w/e. Given those two options, I chose killing him, BUT I would have preferred a third option where I let him live but told him the fuck off and got to explain I wasn't about to let him die as some ~martyr to the cause~ when he was responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people, including many of the people he supposedly was trying to free. As a mage sympathizer, I feel like he's the best possible argument for the Circle (a reformed one, yes, but one nonetheless).

*cleans up after self*

[mondaisenshi.livejournal.com]

Branka just wanted to make golems to protect Orzammar from the Darkspawn

This is my only issue - I think that USED to be true, but I feel like Branka lost sight of this YEARS ago. I think now she just wants the power and to get her hands on this.

[dgcatanisiri.livejournal.com]

BUT I would have preferred a third option where I let him live but told him the fuck off and got to explain I wasn't about to let him die as some ~martyr to the cause~ when he was responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people, including many of the people he supposedly was trying to free.

That's why I let him live myself, along with the fact that I see him as WANTING to die in that moment. Killing him is a mercy. It just bugs the crap out of me that if he's left alive, the dialogue is all 'hooray for Chantry destruction and massive death!' I can't bring myself to make him a martyr, but I don't want to say that he is able to get away scotfree. And this is why I'm currently writing a 'Hawke viciously tears Anders a new one for what he's done' fic.

[justaminuet.livejournal.com]

I sided with the mages in DA:O, because there they gave me a balanced view of both sides, and a totally awesome mage companion in Wynn. In DAII they front loaded it with crazy blood mages, and a whiny, hypocritical, downgraded version of Anders, who I couldn't fucking stand. The only mage in DAII that I enjoyed (if I wasn't playing one myself) was Bethany, and I couldn't even keep her. Merrill wasn't so bad, but she's no Wynn. So yeah, I sided with the Templars, and didn't feel that guilty about it.

[(Anonymous)]

For what it's worth (even if the game had errors) it seemed to be deeply thought provoking. I think that's really cool and one can give credit for that alone. I mean, this wouldn't have worked with a book or a movie!

[myrasis.livejournal.com]

Thedas needs a Hogwarts, that would solve everything.

rambling

[specimen-47.livejournal.com]

the thing with Kirkwall is that they send the CRIMINAL MAGES TO KIRKWALL. The Circle isn't the Circle but an Asylum for the criminally insane. Not to mention that Kirkwall is one giant fucking beacon for evil demons, it was designed that way by the Tevinter Imperium before they were forced out.

So. You know. Bioware could have made that a more obvious part of the story, make it more obvious that no matter what, most-if-not-all mages will eventually be driven insane/driven to blood magic, even if they were 100% good beforehand.

But lol, no. Bioware slanted the whole game against mages and offered no alternative route, and it was some of the laziest storytelling I've seen in a long fucking time.

/end rant

[strangetwn-god.livejournal.com]

I want the Sam Vimes option. "Fuck you both, I'm walling off the neighborhood and protecting it."

[magnetic-regina.livejournal.com]

Maybe if mages weren't stuck in the circle and denied their basic rights and shat on constantly, less would turn to blood magic out of desperation. Just sayin'.

My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts

[reanimatrix.livejournal.com]

what gets me is that no one would ever make this argument for the X-men, for example. I mean, the "they should be excluded from humanity because they're dangerous zomg" despite the fact that I'd much rather deal with an abomination than angry Wolverine or Cyclops. Aveline by herself can probably take on an abom-- I don't think even Wolverine or Cyclops can take each other on, since they're both so destructive in different ways, never mind even the biggest of normal humans--- and that's not even bring characters like Colossos or Juggernaut into the picture!

Also, I'm a Christian IRL but I think Andraste was full of shit, mostly because she reminds me of the Rambo!Jesus that the fundies love so much, so I really hope and pray she ends up being some kind of evil fade spirit and at the very end of the series you have to kill her. The chantry is really a load of bullshit, and if I were actually in Thedas I'd be the equivalent of Richard Dawkins. Seriously I'd want a penis so I could piss on her effigy's face.

And I'm fucking sick of people harping on Anders for what he did, particularly when they most likely have NO fucking idea what it's like to live in an environment where dissent will get you dragged off in the night, and your families killed. I think Livejournal in particular is so used to using the term "privilege" in terms of being white and male and straight in America that they forget about the privilege of being able to speak out against your government and still be there the next day. And because 90% of LJ is American/European well to do, we also think of civil disobedience, and forget that civil disobedience will sometimes only get you run over by a tank. Civil Disobedience banks on who ever you're resisting valuing human life-- and honestly Meredith doesn't, if that life belongs to a mage. What else was he supposed to do? Just quietly allow perfectly innocent people to be punished for the way they were born? Allow their family members to have their privacy invaded because they happen to be related to people who were born with magic? Sit down and allow himself and those like him to be oppressed? Because if you say "I think Meredith is a crazy bitch" and you're heard by a Templar, and you don't have Good Ol' Champion Hawke to hide behind like Anders and Merrill do? You're fucked. Even if you never touch blood magic because the sight of blood makes you ill, even if you're not a mage they make it pretty clear that they'll find an excuse.

Look up the Cultural Revolution in China. Look up the Dominican Republic during Trujillo. Or remember during the "elections" in Iran, how people were being tracked by their twitters and disappearing from their homes? For a better fictional example read or watch V for Vendetta.

Someone has to take a stand, and taking a stand is not always pretty. Actually, despite what fantasy would have us believe, it's NEVER pretty.

And this whole obsession with Anders being selfish while Fenris is awesome and saintly. WHAT. Fenris is a self-absorbed asshole.. Look at what Anders is fighting for-- MAGES. Not Anders. MAGES. Their rights, as a whole. He's upset because this entire group of people is being mistreated, having their rights denied having their personalities forcibly removed because they MAY pose a threat. When Merrill points out that elves have it pretty shitty, Fenris snaps and says he doesn't care that "he is the plight of our people." (WHAT.) He never talks about other slaves. He doesn't give a shit about other slaves or other elves. He only cares that he was treated badly by Danarius, and if he had had a kind master? He would have never fought against slavery. Anders, up until Kirkwall, had had it pretty well as a mage-- he wasn't upset about his own mistreatment, he hated watching others being mistreated once Justice pointed it out to him and started goading him.

The thing is? I totally understand his motivation and his point of view, and agree with it, and I don't even have a spirit of a dubious virtue.

Also, the Templars look like fucking Storm Troopers. How anyone can think they're meant to be the good guys is beyond me. :P

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, I have... difficulty with the whole templar/mage issue - in part because I feel like the arguments against the mages were shoehorned in, or at least done sloppily. Grace will turn on you regardless of whether you helped her/helped the mages, because blood mages can't be trusted lolol. If mages have freedom, they will form a new Tevinter empire because that's totally the next logical step! And also it was a mage that killed your mother, don't you hate mages now? Please?

IDK, I think the game developers knew that most players were going to go in sympathising for the mages, but they failed in presenting a reasonable argument as to why they shouldn't.

[kiraya.livejournal.com]

Ugh, all this shit is why I haven't finished the game and am still sitting in the final act avoiding any of the main plotlines.

Screw the mages, who overall did a piss-poor job of being sympathetic. Screw the templars, who largely came across as a bunch of psycho mage Nazis. I want an ending where I seize control of Kirkwall and can go "OKAY, YOU NATTERING TWATS, SIT THE FUCK DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP; WE'RE DOING THINGS MY WAY SO AS FEW PEOPLE DIE AS POSSIBLE, CAPICHE?"

If Bioware hadn't rushed this game so much so they could focus on other crap, it could have been fantastic. They could have, in a less hamfisted manner, shown that both sides had both creepers who needed to be taken out and shot and MULTIPLE honorable and sympathetic people -- this last part is something severely lacking, honestly. And if they'd dropped the frame narrative there could have been much more flexibility in the end of things.

As it is now it's enjoyable despite its flaws, but I can't get within a mile of the ending because it just makes me rage.