"Was Anders Right?" or "Here There Be Dragon Age Spoilers"

[Seil]

Let's get this off the table - this thread is going to be full of spoilers for the Dragon Age series.

Now, if you'll remember, Dragon Age the First took place in Fereldan, where we get our first good look at the Circle of Mages. It's running rampant with abominations and demons because one mage fraternities violently rebelled against Templar rule. Why?

Well, the bias against mages is simple: they have a strong connection to the spirit world, called the Fade. This is the place where demons and spirits reside. Because of this connection, mages are more susceptible to possession than anyone else, turning into abominations. While that's horrific, mages can also use blood magic. So the prejudice against mages makes sense - they have the potential to be dangerous, evil, possessed monstrosities. That's why Templars monitor them, that's why they're sent to a big tower upon realization of their powers. They're dangerous. They've even got a ritual to turn them into mindless servants - the rite of Tranquility. ...But then again, they're people. Mages are men and women. They're sent away from their families as children and forfeit any royal or noble titles or tithes when they leave for the Circle.

When Uldred attacks the circle in DA:O, he tried to incite a rebellion. One of his blood mage subordinates makes a good point:

"You don't really believe that do you, Wynne? Change rarely comes peacefully. Andraste waged war on the Imperium; she didn't write them a strongly worded letter. She reshaped civilization, freed the slaves, and gave us the Chantry. But people died for it... We thought... someone always has to take the first step... force a change, no matter the cost."

She makes a good argument. Think of the civil rights movement in the 1960's - protestors were sprayed with fire hoses, set on by attack dogs and beaten with clubs. Still they fought for their rights. For a life that... well, even today racism is still around. Would a strongly worded letter have done the trick? Probably not. In the games, it seems that most Templars are willing to kill apostates (mages outside of the Circle) just for the suspicion that they might be blood mages. Life's got to be rough when you're on the run from religious zealots - and life inside the Circle doesn't sound too great either:

Anders: No, it's not about Uldred. It's not about being beaten or raped by a Templar— that does happen, but I've been fortunate.

There was talks of the Tevinter Imperium, which is a country(?) ruled over by mages, where the stronger mages rule. It is the only place where slavery is legal. Blood magic and deals with demons are common place. In DAII, Fenris - an escaped slave who was tortured there - details their crimes and punctuates his sentences with a general hatred for all magisters.

I liked Anders. After hearing a lot about the Circle, and hearing about the Fraternities of the mages, I respected his point of view that mages should be free, and his repeated escape attempts. He could cite the Dalish Keepers as proof that mages could exist outside the circle without turning to demons. I even liked Justice in Awakening because he was a cool character who got caught up in a bad situation and tried to make the best of it.

What I didn't like was Anders in DA:II, what with all the rants and the hatred and the whatsits. I put that down to good characterization. Anders had taken Justice, a spirit of the Fade, into himself, and changed into a mixture of both. Justice became angered at the prosecution of the mages, while Anders became imbued with a strong sense of activistic righteousness. When you first meet him and he finds his lover turned tranquil, I fought with him. But as the game went on, I thought his claims had no merit. (At least until Meredith literally went mad.) But here's the thing - I recently did a replay of the DA series, and I overheard this conversation in the Gallows:

Ser Alrik is a templar who has been secretly turning mages Tranquil because of both prejudice and lust. It's suggested he sleeps with the newly tranquil mages. I realized something about Anders' character. He was born a mage, and forced into the tower. He grew dissatisfied with life in the tower and the abuse of the Templars and escaped, his best chance at leaving entirely to join the Gray Wardens. Leaving the Gray Wardens after... fusing with Justice, his newly developed personality drove him to fight against his perceived Templar injustices. He fell in with a mage named Karl in the Kirkwall Circle, and Karl was made Tranquil for that involvement.

Okay, so rich characterization. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get to the bit where Anders blows up the Chantry.

Anders does exactly what he says. He starts a war between mages and... well, everyone else. In DA:O, the blood mage in the Circle tower defend the assault as a rebellion against Templar rule, which, as detailed, is kind of... rape-y and murderous. However, the Chantry is a religious order, the largest in Thedas. It becomes well known that it was attacked and destroyed by a mage. This will incite not only Templars, but the whole of the world to rise up against them. This is not a solution. It's a means to an end.

Was Anders right in what he did?

[PyrosNine]

Well, a war between the Mages and the Chantry is something that is the only thing that could possibly bring about change, but the problem is that it might not actually make change for the BETTER.

In the past, and in the present, Humans outnumber Mages, and outnumbered and cornered mages tend to get nommed by Demons and quickly become a threat to both humans AND Mages.

And furthermore, the Mages themselves are mankind's big hitters in the fights against the Darkspawn.

The mages might become all wiped out and forced to live in seclusion, and the world will be crippled by the next time the mean beasties come out to play.

If Anders is proven right and the Mages win, then mankind is also very quickly going to move towards the same sort of society that lead to the creation of the DarkSpawn- if you have a ruling body of superpowered individuals, bad shit is going to go down no matter what you believe. And mages winning a war against anything is a snowball's chance in my oven.

The underlying idea of Dragon Age is that the world is brutal, and full of unpleasant truths. The unpleasant truth is that the world as it was in Dragon Age:O was a world at it's most stable- for better or for worse, and it's slowly but surely going downhill. The ratio of normals to mages/grey wardens is what prevented the rise of a ruling class of super demon mages, and the Chantry's crackdown on unregistered mages is also what keeps Human/Mage relations possible at this point: It's better to be tolerated rather than Exterminated. If you don't have something to keep them in check, there's nothing to stop the mages from deciding they don't have to obey any law.

It's a common fact in cynical works that the only thing that prevents one group's moral myopia is another group's moral myopia, and peace is merely the result of two groups being locked in a stalemate. Morality itself for us may not come from compassion or altruism, but from a hypocritical condemnation of the same things we would do in a heartbeat. The only thing keeping the Mages from abusing their power over people are the Chantry, who themselves are just as likely to abuse their power as well.

Ander's only driving goal is for a violent reprisal against the Chantry for what they've done, not create any sort of better standard of life for mages. He is guided by Vengeance, not Justice, and is no longer capable of caring about the ENDS of his actions, rather the MEANS. Even Anders will likely recognize that he has no endgame in his plans, but rather "Blow up Chantry, Enjoy their Deaths, ?" Anders will likely be defeated in a future installment by pointing out to him that his own actions have directly lead to the deaths of hundreds of mages just like himself, and will either snap or commit suicide.

[Kim]

Yes. Next question.

[Bells]

What makes the setting in Dragon Age (specially Origins) actually interesting to read about and explore is that you have all these colorful characters living in large grey areas.

There is no clear cut way of calling any larger group right or wrong if you start looking into specific and individual people in that group... i mean, you can totally disagree with them and define them as evil or bad or wrong, but i really can't recall a character that is "I'm eeeeeeeevil muahaha" , Like Morrigan in origins... she is a bitch, but at least i know why she is a bitch.

As for Anders, i haven't played enough DA2 to know, but the world of DAO supports that he would certainly feel justified for his actions.

[Seil]

If Anders is proven right and the Mages win, then mankind is also very quickly going to move towards the same sort of society that lead to the creation of the DarkSpawn- if you have a ruling body of superpowered individuals, bad shit is going to go down no matter what you believe. And mages winning a war against anything is a snowball's chance in my oven.

I like how in DA there's extremes. You can show Tevinter and say "This is what happens when mages rule." or you can show Kirkwall and say "This is what happens when the Templars go bat-crap crazy."

It's better to be tolerated rather than Exterminated. If you don't have something to keep them in check, there's nothing to stop the mages from deciding they don't have to obey any law.

That's actually.... a sad truth, come to think of it.

The only thing keeping the Mages from abusing their power over people are the Chantry, who themselves are just as likely to abuse their power as well.

Like I say above, sad truth, but also something totally unfair. At what point does a rebellion turn into a terrorist attack? ...I guess it depends on the perspective. History is written by the winners.

Ander's only driving goal is for a violent reprisal against the Chantry for what they've done, not create any sort of better standard of life for mages. He is guided by Vengeance, not Justice, and is no longer capable of caring about the ENDS of his actions, rather the MEANS. Even Anders will likely recognize that he has no endgame in his plans, but rather "Blow up Chantry, Enjoy their Deaths, ?"

Well, the lands of Thedas are ruled by a hierarchy of royals and nobles. The Chantry plays a big part in day-to-day life; many are devout. It has definite parallels to medieval England. So we can imagine that setting historically.

However, over the years, our sense of right and wrong has changed socially. We're more protective of life, more disturbed by slavery. Our royalty has turned into our government... and people rebel against their governments. Not to say that that people didn't do so years ago, but at the same time we've got Libya, Egypt and Somalia recently rebelling against a corrupt ruling class. Is what they did in those fights wrong? Maybe. Necessary? ...Maybe.

Then again, look at Cuba.

[PyrosNine]

Another way of seeing it is that yes, mages should rebel against the chantry for a better standard of living, but the rebellion should have happened at a better time and be started by someone OTHER than Anders, who is too compromised to effectively lead. Anders, despite all his words on blood mages not being walking time bombs of demonic possession has kind of... Well, y'know.

[Seil]

One could say he was forced to act because of the effect of Hawke's actions in Kirkwall. Without Hawke, there would be no lyrium idol to drive Meredith insane. Maybe it was less to do with the plight of mages in general and just that particular Kirkwall Circle.

Meredith's insanity was prompting overtly tortuous methods of constraint on the mage populous, while allowing her to overlook Templars breaking Chantry law by forcing Tranquility on mages for minor misdeeds. It's shown that Meredith was unforgiving even before she was affected by the idol - the character Samson was discharged from the Templar order by delivering love letters from one mage to another.

It's also worth noting that the Chantry has a monopoly on the lyrium market above Orzammar, and knowing that it's an addictive substance that causes mental deterioration over time, distributes it to their soldiers. That's another level of control there, both over all of Thedas and the Templars specifically. If you were the only place in the world with an addictive drug, and you had several able, armed persons relying on it, what could you do?

[Bells]

I think this begs the question of what comes next... after all, the next Dragon Age is called Inquisition. Think it will be more of the same? Or maybe a more pivotal to polarize one said as oppressor and the other as oppressed?

[Seil]

Only for the first third of the game. In the second third, we'll go have tea and cookies in Seheron with Sten. In the third third, we'll have a proper intro for Dragon Age 4: Gryphon Mounts.

[Seil]

Quick thought, Pyros; if not Anders, than who? Who should start the mage rebellion?