Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2011-06-05 03:36 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2011-06-05 03:36 pm
[ 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.
My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
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
Re: My rather unpopular (on LJ) thoughts
:p It's something I've been sitting on for a while.
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
(Anonymous) 2011-06-06 05:35 am (UTC)(link)Civil Disobedience can only get you so far. What do people expect Anders to do, just sit there and boycott? In that type of political climate, the only sure way to do anything is to fight back. And some became desperate enough to do blood magic for it. How desperate can you be when you're taught "communing demons is bad" and you do it anyway?
The Chantry isn't the right solution. Locking mages and oppressing them at the levels Kirkwall did only causes mages to desperately seek other means. And taking teenagers and turning them into drug addict killing machines just in case "mages go bad" is fucking disgusting. I recently just went through the conversation when Allistar mentioned his templar training. To force a demon into someone just to see what would happen and testing a templar? Dear god.
I don't know. Maybe I think this way because I'm an ex-anarchist so I know this point of view all too well but seeing what happened in Kirkwall was disgusting.
And Anders does have his selfish moments. But that comes with being a human character. I find that the majority of your party is flawed and selfish in some fashion or another.
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
The Tranquil Solution terrifies me because yeah, I'd be one of the first people to go. I'm not good at keeping my mouth shut when I don't like something. Tranquility in general scares me because I've always been a problem child, so again... they'd make me one faster than you can say "little smart ass". And then I wouldn't be me anymore, I wouldn't feel anymore... the tranquil themselves are both incredibly creepy and sad at the same time.
What would he boycott anyway? What would anyone boycott? And yeah, even the Templars themselves are victims of the chantry's system. I've hated the chantry since DAO honestly.
I'm lucky in that I live in the US so I personally will never have to worry about oppressive governments, but I did an entire year's worth of research on the Cultural Revolution in China, and have read quite a few books about the DR under Trujillo, so it's not too hard for me to see what happened in Kirkwall in that light. I think for a lot of people though, it's impossible to really think about... and mind you, I have no idea what it's like IRL and I hope I never do.
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
I'll be honest that I've just gotten into the games so I don't know how fandom treats the characters. I'm unsurprised, however, that people don't sympathize with Anders. Anders is essentially a terrorist, when you look at him. However, if you look at what is going on as a whole, you can understand why he is driven to such means. Not to mention Justice/Vengeance doesn't help the matter.
I am not going to get into what Isabela did. In some ways, I think she made the situation worse because her actions led to the Viscount being killed. That led to Meredith taking over the city.
That aside, I wish people would not look at the story as "X was made to look evil." It's all a matter of perspective with the story. In my eyes, The Chantry wasn't great and the Templars were driving the mages to take extreme measures. That's how I viewed the game. It is a game where you can view the story differently, as much as it has its' flaws.
There was a lot going on that made both sides look "bad." The Templars with psycho in command and oppressing behavior; The mages with the blood magic and some being down right insane. It's just what you skew it to be in the end.
..I'm making so many edits. It's late and I should clearly be in bed. XD
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
I understand that Anders is a terrorist in way, but I don't know. It's hard for me to feel any sadness or horror at the chantry going, I guess because I feel so strongly about oppressive governments and environments. (I would not blame someone in Libya for blowing up Gaddafi and his supporters, for example). He did the only thing he could do to solve the problem, and it was nasty. People compare killing him to killing a rabid dog, but I see that with the chantry more so. These were people willing to turn a blind eye to unjustified magical lobotomies and to give people crippling addictions to make sure they continued to serve them. Their very doctrine was based on marginalizing and denigrating a group of people for an aspect of themselves they cannot help. It's like if Jesus' only message had been "X group sucks, God gives them this feature to mark them, feel free to treat them like shit". The disgusting "mark of Cain" excuse for slavery comes to mind.
Again, I love Isabela but her motivations were also much more selfish-- she was only thinking about what would serve her best, and she had no qualms about bringing the entire Qunari fleet down on Kirkwall... and then there's the utter disrespect in taking what was a sacred tome in the first place like it was just some trinket... if we're applying modern terms and Anders is a terrorist, Isabela is a colonialist looter, and Fenris is a violent bigot. :P
Obviously not all Templars are like that-- Thrask and Cullen himself come to mind. And mages are not entirely innocent either.. but... again, I feel they're in a situation where they have to no real good, "nice" choice.
It is in the end, a matter of how you look at it. I find that the deviant art comm is a lot more sympathetic to Anders than the LJ comm, which is interesting in its own right and makes me think too. I absolutely love this game btw, way more than the first, because there's so much to think about.
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
I am such a girl.That being said, in hindsight, I don't like what Anders did. But I know why he did it, and on some level I know it was necessary. I honestly really do wish that we had been able to save the Revered Mother because while she wasn't perfect, as I saw it she didn't have anything against mages walking free - something I'm honestly not used to seeing in the Chantry.
And on a separate note: the whole "people are harder on Anders than Fenris"... I think I've been around the rabid fangirls too much, 'cause they all seem to want to give Anders the world. ... and a test drive. And Fenris is INSANELY biased, but if you look hard enough, he does have some valid reasons to distrust mages as a whole. It's not enough to sway my position, but as I said in my earlier post, I really do appreciate that we got more insight than just "OHMIGAWD WHAT IF THEY TURN INTO ABOMINATIONS OHGOD WHAT WOULD WE DO WE CAN'T TRUST THEM AND THE BLOOD MAGIC, FUCKNO MAGES!"... 'cause... those arguments were getting REALLY STALE.
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
I get really immersed as well, which is why I feel so passionately about this-- my absolute favorite Hawke who I think of as "The" Hawke was a mage who was sick of being told she was broken, and sick of watching people like her being mistreated, and my entire opinion was colored by that.
Yeah, I understand where Fenris is coming from... but again, from the perspective of my mage, it's like meeting someone who had a traumatically bad experience with someone of your nationality, and they're holding you by those standards, when you had nothing to do with what was done to them. Someone who has an entire religion telling them they're dirty and bad is not going to appreciate Fenris' quipping in and reminding them. And yeah, he reminded me too much of actual hate groups for me to really be able to get past my mage's hurt feelings and actually like him. That said, his comment to Merrill sealed the coffin.
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
I think Elthina is a person with good intentions and a laudable goal. But she was also sticking her fingers in her ears and going 'lalalalala!' It doesn't make me feel like she deserved what happened, but I do think that she brought it on herself.
Overall, with Anders, Fenris, Merrill, and Isabella, I'm disappointed that if you're friend-mancing them, it basically leads to agreeing with them at every turn, while rival-mances open their eyes to their flaws and make them try to fix their problems. It really bugs me - I like to think that if you're romancing someone in a friendly fashion, you wind up trying to fix your problems to be a better person. I don't want Fenris to treat me as the exception that proves the rule, I want him to see that his attitude is destructive. Same with the others. That's about my only complaint with the game's romances.
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
Aside from the argument that X-men is ultimately a fairly idealistic storyline that is going to portray the X-men in a heroic light... I really do think the Circle, as an ideal, was supposed to be Xavier's school. An institution where mages could be protected, nurtured, and taught to use their abilities responsibly. The reason Xavier's school is so popular is because it's a refuge for mutants who are running away from society - the Circle is an enforced institution. But the principle is the same. Of course the Circle needs reform - nobody's gonna disagree that Meredith was out of her mind.
Ahh the Anders vs. Fenris argument - honestly when I first started the game I really couldn't stand Fenris, while Anders came across as a pretty great guy. But the danger in Anders is precisely his idealism and wanting to "do the right thing" - people who think they're acting in your best interests are the most dangerous of all. The most convincing cult leaders believe their own myths. Fenris is terribly selfish, but in being terribly selfish he doesn't involve other people in his shit. He has issues and so he sits at home and broods. Anders has issues and so he blows up the Chantry. The kicker for me, though, is that Fenris can be convinced to join you even if you side with the mages - showing that he has the potential for change. Anders you side with or kill. (or was that patched recently? I heard if you rival him and them make certain choices you can, with difficulty, convince him he was wrong).
At any rate, I get the impression that on a base level of personal treatment, Fenris has probably had it worse than Anders. Fenris has something of an excuse for being a dick; he's had his hands full just figuring out his own shit. Anders is just a dick.
Oh, and Fenris does give a shit about other slaves. If you enslave that chick who had been Hadriana's slave he gets really pissed off and cusses you out. Conversely, if you sell Fenris back into slavery to Danarius, Anders applauds you.
And to the final remark: because Cullen is hot, obviously. :P
Re: My rather unpopular on LJ thoughts
Xavier doesn't force you to be his school. Even if you're a mutant, if you don't want to be in his school, he's like "Okay." As far as I know he doesn't have men in armor suits with faces you can't see show up at people's houses and drag five years olds kicking and screaming from their parent's arms, never to see said parents again. He also doesn't punish "bad" or dangerous mutants by turning them into the equivalent of a living zombie or robot. And he doesn't get young people addicted to opium or cocaine in order to make them enforce his mutants to behave. Also, the most dangerous mage is far less dangerous than Jean Grey on the Phoenix. So I would say the circle COULD be like Xavier's school, but there's several key differences. Intent is a big one here. Xavier's school is meant to help mutants, the circle is meant to contain them and is an oppressive force.
Anders has conviction, and he cares about others... but again I think you're not understanding how dire Anders', and mages' in general situation is. My revolutionary who's willing to do the ugly thing no one else wants to do for the sake of a group of people's basic freedoms is your scary cult leader. I think if anyone is a scary cult leader it's Meredith. And honestly? Considering the crimes the chantry is responsible for (tranquility, murder, turning a blind eye to this behavior) it's really hard for me to feel any pity for them. You can't push a group of people down, and not expect them to push back. Anders was the one who was willing to push back in a way no one else could, and in the end, though he had you help him get materials, he does his best not to implicate anyone but himself. He takes responsibility for his own actions. He does what he does and is willing to accept the consequences.
Fenris doesn't consider mages human-- he's the equivalent of a member of the KKK or Westboro baptist. It's really hard for me to get past that, though I know it's due to trauma. Hell, Zevran went through some pretty shitty things (torture hurrah!) but he doesn't turn into a seething hate machine whenever someone brings up assassins or Antivans or even the Crows. Fenris got out of it, he got a cool super power, he really needs to cry some more. Anders gets to watch his friends have their personalities sucked away because they happened to disagree with the status quo. He has to live in fear of who will go next, watching mages and mage sympathizers either disappear or give in to blood magic out of sheer desperation. If I had to constantly look over my shoulder and worry for my friends, I would be a dick too. I think you're missing my point-- Anders himself has had it pretty well, but people who are like him are constantly being put down and mistreated. You haven't answered the question of what else Anders is expected to do, what other action he could have taken. Because honestly? Not taking any action while people like you are being hurt because you happen to be able to pass would not be an acceptable option.
And yeah, you know, if someone were to constantly refer to me as a monster because I can do magic? I would applaud them being sent back to hell too, because it's hard to think of someone as human when they don't treat you like a human. I understand you should be the better person, but that's hard to do when your very existence is being constantly insulted.
Oh, wow. He cusses you out. But he lets her remain your slave. Despite knowing first hand how horrible slavery is, he does nothing to help her except tell you what a fucker you are, which if you're willing to enslave someone, I doubt you really care what he thinks. And again, there's his response to Merrill when she asks him about the Alienage, which is a big "I don't give a fuck about other elves or what they go through, my shit is worse." Which it is, but at the same time... ewww.
Cullen is a hot storm trooper. Still a fucking storm trooper. And a drug addict. :P
ETA: removed a word because it was making a sentence say the exact opposite of what I wanted it to. :P and then another word. :P It's early.