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Post by Catilina on Jul 27, 2018 3:09:17 GMT
At what point does a desire become unhealthy? When it impairs your functioning and degrades quality of life. That's quite standard in psychological literature from what I understand. When you indulge it beyond anything a reasonable person would consider healthy or necessary. You waste the life you've been given to live which hurts you and others. Ah, so this is what you think it's about. Clinically depressed people have a unique set of challenges. This has nothing to do with them or their condition. So: the Circle is evil. (This is a very unhealthy environment.) And the Chantry let them work... the Chantry's evil...
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Jul 27, 2018 3:11:16 GMT
When it impairs your functioning and degrades quality of life. That's quite standard in psychological literature from what I understand. When you indulge it beyond anything a reasonable person would consider healthy or necessary. You waste the life you've been given to live which hurts you and others. Ah, so this is what you think it's about. Clinically depressed people have a unique set of challenges. This has nothing to do with them or their condition. So: the Circle is evil. The Circle is an evil, propagated by people who honestly believe that the alternative is fraught with worse evils. And they have an argument.
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Post by Catilina on Jul 27, 2018 3:13:45 GMT
The Circle is an evil, propagated by people who honestly believe that the alternative is fraught with worse evils. And they have an argument.No. they not. Because there better solution, just the Chantry can't think, because the fear (what is evil, we know from lilyonce ) prevents them. And the Chantry helps to keep/generates the fear... so according to lilyonce, the Chantry's evil.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jul 27, 2018 3:14:12 GMT
Yes, I do understand that, and honestly, if it weren't for same-sex romance options, I wouldn't play the games at all, because I don't find Thedas to be worth saving. It's an awful place, and also not particularly interesting as fantasy settings go. But unlike the characters in the game, I have the benefit of not being a complete and utter moron. The current system is a total tear-down, but it's not particularly difficult to conceive of systems that would work much better for everyone. I don't think you and Evildude are talking about the same thing. The last sentence of your post makes it pretty clear you're talking about Thedas's social system being something in need of reform, whereas Evildude's actual point was that the magic system is inherently rigged to make the setting an inherently messed up place, and that as horrible as the Circle is, the magic system was specifically and deliberately written to be something it's a legitimate answer to. Mind you I'm not saying Thedas's social structure couldn't use some shaking up. I'm just saying that that wouldn't solve the problem that magic represents in this setting. Well I don't think magic represents a "problem" in the setting. To me, that's like saying "nature" is a problem in the real world that we have to somehow fix. Magic is natural and inherent to Thedas. However, there are indications in the lore that humans may not be. The only reason the place is remotely livable is because Solas altered it beyond recognition. If anything, people are the problem. Maybe they should leave.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Jul 27, 2018 3:25:07 GMT
I don't think you and Evildude are talking about the same thing. The last sentence of your post makes it pretty clear you're talking about Thedas's social system being something in need of reform, whereas Evildude's actual point was that the magic system is inherently rigged to make the setting an inherently messed up place, and that as horrible as the Circle is, the magic system was specifically and deliberately written to be something it's a legitimate answer to. Mind you I'm not saying Thedas's social structure couldn't use some shaking up. I'm just saying that that wouldn't solve the problem that magic represents in this setting. Well I don't think magic represents a "problem" in the setting. To me, that's like saying "nature" is a problem in the real world that we have to somehow fix. Magic is natural and inherent to Thedas. However, there are indications in the lore that humans may not be. If anything, the only reason the place is remotely livable is because Solas altered it beyond recognition. If anything, people are the problem. Maybe they should leave. Are you saying that nature isn't a problem we have to fix? Because it very well can be, and frequently is. Diseases are natural and inherent to this world. We still fight them. Dangerous predatory animals are natural and inherent to this world. We still make efforts to keep them out of our population centers and away from our livestock. And don't get me started on how different those livestock are from anything nature created. Not everything that's natural is bad, and not everything that's artificial is good: I prefer clean air to breathing car exhaust, for example. But the fact remains that I see no problem bending and twisting nature until it does what people want and need it to do. If nature and humanity aren't on the same side, don't assume it's humanity that needs to leave.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Jul 27, 2018 3:28:45 GMT
The Circle is an evil, propagated by people who honestly believe that the alternative is fraught with worse evils. And they have an argument.No. they not. Because there better solution, just the Chantry can't think, because the fear (what is evil, we know from lilyonce ) prevents them. Are you sure? Just about every other society you can name has some kind of fault or cruelty in how their system handles magic, because fault and cruelty are inherent to the magic system itself.
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Post by melbella on Jul 27, 2018 3:47:24 GMT
No. And desire is a synonym for lust in the setting- just to be clear about my opinion.
Because of how desire demons in DAO are portrayed? Except, Connor was not lusting after anyone/thing. He desired his father to not die, and got his wish. The Templar enthralled in the tower also wasn't lusting after anyone either. He desired a family, and the desire demon made him think he had one. Desire and lust are not the same thing. They can be, in certain situations, but in the two cases I mention, they are not.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jul 27, 2018 4:24:59 GMT
Well I don't think magic represents a "problem" in the setting. To me, that's like saying "nature" is a problem in the real world that we have to somehow fix. Magic is natural and inherent to Thedas. However, there are indications in the lore that humans may not be. If anything, the only reason the place is remotely livable is because Solas altered it beyond recognition. If anything, people are the problem. Maybe they should leave. Are you saying that nature isn't a problem we have to fix? Because it very well can be, and frequently is. Diseases are natural and inherent to this world. We still fight them. Dangerous predatory animals are natural and inherent to this world. We still make efforts to keep them out of our population centers and away from our livestock. And don't get me started on how different those livestock are from anything nature created. Not everything that's natural is bad, and not everything that's artificial is good: I prefer clean air to breathing car exhaust, for example. But the fact remains that I see no problem bending and twisting nature until it does what people want and need it to do. If nature and humanity aren't on the same side, don't assume it's humanity that needs to leave. Nature CAN'T leave, dude. It's nature. And if it did leave, humans would be fucked anyway. Disease and predation are only problems if you think death is a problem, and if you think death is a problem, then you are always going to have that problem. The human race is going to go extinct. It's inevitable. And why shouldn't we go extinct? What makes us more deserving of life than the many, many species we stamped out to get this far? In the context of Thedas, magic was around before humans, and it will be around after. It's in the air and the ground, it's in people's blood, and in their dreams. In the world of Dragon Age, cutting people off from magic also cuts them off from their emotions, essentially their "humanity" (for lack of a better word), which suggests the two are deeply intertwined. To suggest that its existence is a "problem" that should or even CAN be solved suggests to me an arrogance of the highest order. And if there IS a "solution", it's not going to be found in insisting that we fear and hate it. Nobody cured a disease by running away from it. Whether or not something is a "problem" is purely a matter of perspective. As of the events of Trespasser, we have learned that the very land of Thedas itself is alive, and seems to possess some form of sentience. Maybe IT sees humans as a "problem", as an incursion or infestation that should be removed. And why should it NOT feel that way? The Titans don't need humans, humans need the Titans.
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Post by thats1evildude on Jul 27, 2018 4:56:38 GMT
whereas Evildude's actual point was that the magic system is inherently rigged to make the setting an inherently messed up place, and that as horrible as the Circle is, the magic system was specifically and deliberately written to be something it's a legitimate answer to. Yes. The world is inherently flawed; it sets up mages to be a threat. The Circle is an answer to that threat. Was it the best answer? Maybe not, but it was the answer that Thedas came up with after a thousand years of tyranny by mages.
Could that threat be removed if the Veil was torn down and the world was returned to what it was? Sure, but it would also create new problems, the most notable being that everyone would die.
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Jul 27, 2018 5:13:10 GMT
No. And desire is a synonym for lust in the setting- just to be clear about my opinion.
Because of how desire demons in DAO are portrayed? Except, Connor was not lusting after anyone/thing. He desired his father to not die, and got his wish. The Templar enthralled in the tower also wasn't lusting after anyone either. He desired a family, and the desire demon made him think he had one. Desire and lust are not the same thing. They can be, in certain situations, but in the two cases I mention, they are not.
This reminds me of this scene from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
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Post by gervaise21 on Jul 27, 2018 12:25:33 GMT
There is no need to keep insisting on "Circles must be places of education". They can be replaced by the College of Enchanters.
I know this thread has moved on somewhat since my last post but I would point out that the term "College of Enchanters" is really only a catch-all to distinguish those mages who have banded together independent of the Circle system and the loyalist mages who continue to work within it. It refers back to the time when all the senior mages would have their regular (annual?) get together with the Grand Enchanter in Cumberland and hammer out a consensus of approach for the future. The difference being that the Circles, which were Chantry run buildings are not just a mage collective but actual locations throughout Thedas where mages can gather. Whereas the College of Enchanters have no real estate to their name. There are no specific locations that you can point to and say, to a young mage, that is where you go to get some training.
That is what I feel was never addressed in game. In the case of Divine Leliana, the loyalist mages probably stayed at the Circles but certainly would return to them as I assume the local Chantrys would happily allow this. Where are the College to be housed? Did Leliana order the local Chantrys to cede ownership of the Circle real estate to the College? Did they then evict the loyalist mages in occupation? This seems unlikely considering how much power Vivienne seems to wield as Grand Enchanter. A far more likely scenario is that loyalist mages retained occupation of the old Circle buildings and the College had to find what they could. Loyalist mages would likely still receive patronage by the local nobility even if their original source of income, the tranquil, were largely killed off by the Venatori. What would the College do for funds? Under Divine Cassandra or Vivienne the College of Enchanters definitely would have no base of operations because the official Circle system still exists. How do these independent mages provide a system of education for the young mages when there is nowhere they can go to find it? This is why I keep stressing that the Circle system, funded either by the Chantry or the State, was a good way to guarantee a decent education to young mages. They had the buildings established already in place, with their libraries and other essentials, including a way of keeping contact with other Circle Towers, the sending stones. If you already have the infrastructure in place, why not use it? The only exception to this I feel should be the Gallows which should never have been a Circle building in the first place considering its history. Now it would appear to be infect with red lyrium and is being kept out of bounds so hopefully it will remain that way.
In Tevinter the Circles are places of education and it is considered a privilege to be able to attend. If anything lower class mages are probably fighting to get in rather than out. There are no Templars policing them and presumably senior enchanters are quite capable of dealing with any problems that occur including the occasional abomination. The Circle system pre-dates the Chantry and it is only the change in the way they operated that took place in the south that gave the term negative connotations. In fact what the rebels were originally demanding was independence from Chantry and Templar oversight, not the destruction of the Circles. That largely happened when the Templars rebelled.
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Post by lilyonce on Jul 27, 2018 12:25:34 GMT
Because of how desire demons in DAO are portrayed? Except, Connor was not lusting after anyone/thing. He desired his father to not die, and got his wish. The Templar enthralled in the tower also wasn't lusting after anyone either. He desired a family, and the desire demon made him think he had one. My point has nothing to do with any of that. I didn't want my view that lust is a vice conflated with a view I don't have- that all desires or desire itself is vice- so I made that distinction. This reminds me of this scene from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I hope the guy with the metal arm didn't listen him. May as well quote Gordon Gekko.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2018 13:43:37 GMT
I think you're all missing the truly evil possession that's been right under your noses this whole time. That poor little panda has been stuck in dance purgatory for months! Maybe even years! Yet you all stand around doing nothing.
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Post by xerrai on Jul 27, 2018 21:06:28 GMT
Because of how desire demons in DAO are portrayed? Except, Connor was not lusting after anyone/thing. He desired his father to not die, and got his wish. The Templar enthralled in the tower also wasn't lusting after anyone either. He desired a family, and the desire demon made him think he had one. My point has nothing to do with any of that. I didn't want my view that lust is a vice conflated with a view I don't have- that all desires or desire itself is vice- so I made that distinction. This reminds me of this scene from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I hope the guy with the metal arm didn't listen him. May as well quote Gordon Gekko.Well actually, Edward (metal arm guy) himself didn't reply but it was implied in the series that he believed Greed (yes, that's his name) to a degree. The whole series kind of makes it a point to engage with archaic forms of thinking where desires=evil and where perfection can be achieved by expelling these vices/desires. It's not exactly subtle about it either. Characters names and monikers include all of the seven deadly sins, Father, and Truth. At the end of the series, the antagonist Father ends up getting berated by Truth/God for trying to become superior to humans by removing his seven desires. And many of those same expunged desires end up developing more human or sympathetic qualities by the end of series. In particular, Greed is the one who always held a certain faith in humanity and ended up using his greed (by his definition of "wanting something you don't have") to achieve things like friends and companionship which the Sins usually thoughts as 'beneath them'. Wisecrack on youtube has better videos on the subject, but overall the series does end going along the route of "not all desires are a vice". But of course, FMAB is not Dragon Age. The demons of Desire, despite playing with the more benign ideas that tie into things like Greed and Love, is usually portrayed as a vice due to said Desire being a demon.
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Post by lilyonce on Jul 27, 2018 22:22:22 GMT
overall the series does end going along the route of "not all desires are a vice". Seems like it confuses the point because greed isn't commonly defined that way. And I guess our PM is done?
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Jul 27, 2018 22:32:25 GMT
The seven deadly sins used both in that series and Dragon Age are not in and of themselves evil. It is when a person indulges in them with excess that it becomes a vice and a sin. Even the priest who made them the Seven Deadly Sins says that. For example let's use Pride. A parent can be proud of a child's accomplishment and that is not evil or sinful. However if they are so prideful of it that they do things like rub it in other's faces then it becomes that because it is done in excess. Same with all the others.
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Post by lilyonce on Jul 27, 2018 22:56:57 GMT
For example let's use Pride. A parent can be proud of a child's accomplishment and that is not evil or sinful. That's not the common definition of pride (when cited as a vice at least) either. I haven't seen this show but it seems to me like it really confuses the point. That's much closer to pride when it's a vice.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jul 27, 2018 23:52:50 GMT
I think you're all missing the truly evil possession that's been right under your noses this whole time. That poor little panda has been stuck in dance purgatory for months! Maybe even years! Yet you all stand around doing nothing. DANCING IS MY DREAM, MOM! YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND!
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Post by Catilina on Jul 28, 2018 2:25:33 GMT
The pride can make you overconfident, and get a feeling, you're perfect, you can't fail and you're right in everything – and you don't need to work on making you a better person (sloth). You deserve everything – because you're perfect. This is dangerous. But the pride can help you too: to make you confident – that help you in your decisions.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Jul 28, 2018 4:42:22 GMT
Are you saying that nature isn't a problem we have to fix? Because it very well can be, and frequently is. Diseases are natural and inherent to this world. We still fight them. Dangerous predatory animals are natural and inherent to this world. We still make efforts to keep them out of our population centers and away from our livestock. And don't get me started on how different those livestock are from anything nature created. Not everything that's natural is bad, and not everything that's artificial is good: I prefer clean air to breathing car exhaust, for example. But the fact remains that I see no problem bending and twisting nature until it does what people want and need it to do. If nature and humanity aren't on the same side, don't assume it's humanity that needs to leave. Nature CAN'T leave, dude. It's nature. And if it did leave, humans would be fucked anyway. And yet bits and pieces of it leave all the time. Some of them we'd have been better off keeping, but some we're much better off without. That something is the natural state of the world doesn't mean it can't be changed or managed, and it certainly doesn't mean that it shouldn't change.That there's no solution to death doesn't mean it's not a problem. That the danger of magic can only be mitigated rather than being removed entirely doesn't mean that that danger isn't a problem either.To suggest that it shouldn't be tried suggests to me a fatalism of the highest order. And in the interests of accuracy, magic itself isn't quite the problem. It's the fact that the system of magic is designed to be unjust that is the main problem, and the rest kind of follows from that. The major problem is that mages are more vulnerable to posession than non-mages, because they're linked into the Fade and able to pull things across it accidentally. But magic in and of itself? That isn't the problem.Nobody ever cured a disease by saying it couldn't be done, or that it was nature's will, either. People have, however, made diseases less deadly by removing those who had them from the general population. And most doctors probably fear deadly diseases. For one thing, the diseases in question are deadly. For another, if they weren't to be feared, would they really be worth curing? Pro-mages keep arguing that magic shouldn't be feared. I don't understand why. Magic creates abominations. Magic creates fireballs. Magic allowed Wynne to cast a spell that the mages of White Spire feared might bring the tower's stone roof down on all of their heads. That's far from all there is to magic, but if you're not at least a little scared, you either don't fear death at all (I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not, though I strongly lean toward the latter) or don't understand what it is to be a physically possible being facing a physically impossible threat. Also... where did I say that hating magic is a good idea? Because that's not actually my opinion. Fearing, yes. That's a very good idea. If you're not afraid, you're not paying attention. But the same is true of fire, of electricity, and of many other useful but dangerous things... none of which are quite as useful as magic is. How does the idea that "problems" are a matter of perspective work in the context of the post I originally replied to, though? You said that you could create a better social system than Thedas's, right? And you didn't qualify that sentence by saying that it was merely something you'd prefer. Now, I'm not necessarily going to deny that you can create something better, since I can't think of any social system in Thedas that doesn't have at least one worrying aspect, and in fact I suspect that each of these societies were created to be flawed for the same reason the magic system was written to be inherently unjust... but if you truly believe it's all perspective, don't you have to deny that whatever you prefer is objectively better? Oh, yeah, and... the Titans probably are going to try to wipe out humanity later. Why shouldn't they? I can think of a few reasons, most notably whichever PC gets the job of making them regret it.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jul 28, 2018 5:50:31 GMT
Dude, I'm not quoting all of that, but I never claimed to be stating objective facts. However, I do flatter myself that my own perspective is broader and slightly more nuanced than the rigid moral essentialism and appeal to the law fallcies that other people are relying on, and that it is grounded in more than simply taking it for granted that the Chantry is right about ERRYTHANG (despite in-game evidence of alternatives).
I was mostly responding to the repeated assertion that magic is a "corrupting" influence, which aside from being weirdly moralistic, is just nonsensical on its face.
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Post by Nightscrawl on Jul 28, 2018 6:11:40 GMT
And most doctors probably fear deadly diseases. For one thing, the diseases in question are deadly. For another, if they weren't to be feared, would they really be worth curing? Pro-mages keep arguing that magic shouldn't be feared. I don't understand why. Magic creates abominations. Magic creates fireballs. Magic allowed Wynne to cast a spell that the mages of White Spire feared might bring the tower's stone roof down on all of their heads. That's far from all there is to magic, but if you're not at least a little scared, you either don't fear death at all (I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not, though I strongly lean toward the latter) or don't understand what it is to be a physically possible being facing a physically impossible threat. You realize you can say all of that about science, right? Science gave us nuclear weapons. You can have "accidents" with science too, and abuses. Are you saying that we should fear science, which is the purest way of understanding the way the universe works? Both science and magic are capable of great wonders and immense good, provided they're used correctly, by people who have the training and the desire to do good works. Both science and magic are also capable of great tragedies and immense evils*, by both the trained and untrained.
Fear the mage, not magic itself. Someone like Erimond should be feared. Someone like Dorian should not be feared. Magic should be understood (or people should strive to understand it). Fearing what is not understood is the hallmark of the weaker mind.
* I know some will say that science in and of itself has no moral value. I agree with that in principle, but also think that things like nuclear weapons were a terrible mistake that should never have been created. And it's not like it was some innocuous thing that was re-purposed into a weapon; they were specifically created for war.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Jul 28, 2018 6:22:58 GMT
I'd go so far as to say that studying magic is, by definition, a form of science. Science is the systematic study of the natural world, and "magic" is part of the natural world of Thedas.
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Post by Nightscrawl on Jul 28, 2018 6:28:43 GMT
I was mostly responding to the repeated assertion that magic is a "corrupting" influence, which aside from being weirdly moralistic, is just nonsensical on its face. Forget magic in the sentence and replace it with power. Any power. That power is a corrupting influence is generally held to be a truism in society. In this case, I think magic is on the same level as status (nobility, etc), wealth, political influence, physical strength, or anything that can give one person power over another (or many others). I don't think that magic is any more or less corrupting an influence than any of those things just because it's magic.
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Post by lilyonce on Jul 28, 2018 7:39:00 GMT
Mages light up like christmas trees to demons in the Fade every time they cast. Performing magic of any kind attracts them. No power of any other kind engages demons that way. Magic is the power. Demons seek it out for a reason. I bet few psyches can withstand that overtime. So yeah, the Chantry is right it's a corrupting influence and uniquely so.
Tevinter is in no small part one of the worst countries- if not the worst country- on the continent because of it's magic and mages from what I can see. The Orlesian noblity is exclusive and corrupt but an even more extreme and vicious minority rules Tevinter. Tevinter is more poverty stricken than any other nation despite its great wealth. Slavery has been abolished every where else but is still legal there. Actually every society of size with mages at the top (so not tiny nomadic tribes) has had incredible problems with them. Two ended in mass slavery and blood sacrifice and one of those two ushered in the blights. Magic is just not the same as any other power. I don't see how you all say that it is.
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