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Post by Iddy on Sept 23, 2018 2:37:44 GMT
I'm sure there are many arguments about the morality of what he did, but would you say it was necessary?
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Sept 23, 2018 2:42:20 GMT
We know it would have happened without Anders doing what he did. The book Dragon Age: Asunder is all about how the Mage-Templar War started, and it wasn't because of him.
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Post by Sokemis on Sept 23, 2018 3:38:11 GMT
The rebellion was already happening - Anders was a part of it, not the start of it. I don't doubt that the Mage-Templar War would have eventually happened despite Anders. I do however believe that the Chantry explosion, and its fallout, was the "point of no return" and what led to the other Circles to finally taking the leap from rebellion to revolt when they did.
ETA: I also think the explosion led to the Chantry/Templars cracking down even more on the Mages, who in turn started to push back more. Rinse, lather, repeat until you get the war... (I also haven't read Asunder, so don't know all the exacts of what happened between DA2 and Inquisition.)
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Post by Catilina on Sept 23, 2018 3:51:35 GMT
He was who pulled the problems out of the Circle. It was necessary. Little riots always were, mostly inside – like Uldred's or Decimus'.
Anders ignited a spark, what escalated to a fire.
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Post by Catilina on Sept 23, 2018 3:58:35 GMT
We know it would have happened without Anders doing what he did. The book Dragon Age: Asunder is all about how the Mage-Templar War started, and it wasn't because of him. Yes and No. The Asunder says, that the war was started by the Seekers/Templars. But the rebellion was started by Anders. The Inquisition strengthened both.
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Post by gervaise21 on Sept 23, 2018 8:26:18 GMT
The problem is the different slant that the book Asunder put on the whole episode. According to Varric's version of events in DA2 Anders' action, and to an extent Hawke's, was what caused the Circles to fall. Whether Hawke supported Anders in his rebellion or fought against it, Hawke's name became a rallying cry for freedom from oppression.
According to Asunder, whilst the events in Kirkwall increased the sense of unrest and desire for change, particularly among the Libertarians, the real instigator of the rebellion was Fiona.
"You know who I am. I came to the Circle from the Grey Wardens because I saw something had to be done. In the Wardens we learn to watch for our moment and seize it and that moment is now."
Unfortunately, there is no indication of exactly when Fiona re-joined the Circle, so it could have been either before or after Kirkwall. She apparently lost no time in converting many people to her cause, so getting their support in making her Grand Enchanter. Then at the gathering of the College of Enchanters in Cumberland in 9:39 (a year after the events of Kirkwall) she called for independence from the Chantry. At the time she appeared to lose the vote, due to the Aequitarians being against it but as a result the Templars forbade any further gatherings of the mages as a whole. It was this that led to increased tension between the mages and Templars that is brought to a head in 9:40 when Fiona hijacks the first meeting allowed between First Enchanters, with the express permission of the Divine, in order to discuss the findings about the Rite of Tranquility, to call for another vote for independence. Wynne saw the gathering as an opportunity to push for reform of the Circles but that wasn't good enough for Fiona. Seeker Lambert responds by arresting all the First Enchanters and things go downhill from there.
Now the words of Fiona to the gathering of First Enchanters would seem to be contradicted by what she tells the Inquisitor in Asunder. There she claims she left the Grey Wardens because they made her feel unwelcome due to no longer having the taint. However, that occurred back in the book "The Calling", with events that occurred some 20 years before the 5th Blight and 30 years before Asunder. If Fiona was made to feel unwelcome by the Wardens and left as a result, then she seemed to have been able to put up with it for a considerable period of time if she only finally left them to cause trouble in the Circles.
So if you use the events in Asunder, it would seem that Anders merely caused a degree of unrest and allowed Fiona to rise to power on the back of it. Thus he was indirectly responsible for the fall of the Circles. Would the rebellion have happened without him? That all depends on whether you think Fiona could have become First Enchanter without his action or if anyone else could have sparked the rebellion without her.
You will recall that in DA2 there seemed a faction of mages known as the Resolutionists, who were committed to bringing about change through violent action, but we never hear of them again. May be they morphed into the Venatori and the earlier term was just a front to conceal their true identity. The Venatori were already active by 9:38 and either Fenris or Leliana (I can't remember which) suggests that the Resolutionists were sponsored by Tevinter. Now agents of the Venatori within the Circles fomenting rebellion I can believe and using Anders' action to advance their agenda would make sense. After all, according to Fiona, it was rogue elements in the ranks of her rebels that caused the vote in favour of accepting Alexius' offer.
Thus I would say that the rebellion could have happened without Anders but may be it would have taken longer to come to fruition. Anders' actions, was used by other people to advance their own agenda, part of which was to cause the severance of the link between the Circles and the Chantry and win the mages over to their cause, thus advancing the state of unrest to the point were rebellion was inevitable.
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Post by gervaise21 on Sept 23, 2018 8:48:04 GMT
A related question might be "Would the Divine have authorised research into the Rite of Tranquility without Anders?"
It is clear that the Templars of Kirkwall were misusing the Rite as a general punishment to silence any form of dissent in the Circles. The Divine was certainly aware of the proposal by Ser Alric and whilst she rejected it, this surely should have raised alarm bells that a Templar was even suggesting this sort of action. Elthina could not have missed the increased number of tranquil around the city and in the Chantry itself, since that is where we encounter Karl. It would seem that Divine Justinia may have felt that doing away with the Rite would go some way to placating the mages, so that is why she authorised the research by Pharamond, which must have been after the events of Kirkwall. Then it was at the gathering to discuss these findings that Fiona called for independence and it was Seeker Lambert's desire to conceal the truth which inflamed things still further. So may be none of this would have happened but for Anders.
Again, we have a bit of a problem with timescales though. Apparently Seeker Cassandra was only trying to get to the truth of things in 9:40, 2 years after the events in DA2. Why would the Divine have left it so long to investigate such a serious matter? I'd always assumed that the delay could only be because the rebellion had already occurred straight after, so seeking the cause was irrelevant to trying to restore order. It was only when the Divine sought a means of ending the war that she sought out Hawke in the hope of them being able to bring the two sides together at the Conclave.
However, if Anders and Hawke were not considered the drivers of the war, why did the Divine consider Hawke was so vital in her efforts to stop it? This is where there is a lack of continuity between the plot of the two games and the books. At the end of DA2 Leliana's words make it seem like the disappearance of both Hawke and the Warden at the same time is suspicious and related but it turns out it really isn't. At that point both seem to be likely to be important to the plot going forward but Hawke is only connected in a minor way and the Warden not at all.
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Post by Templar Knight on Sept 23, 2018 13:14:38 GMT
Asunder also seemed to me to imply (I think World of Thedas has managed to explain it in a way that makes sense) that Tevinter had proper Circles and templars *within Lambert's lifetime*, and his friend was the first Black Divine - at least, that's how I read it. That, of course, is ludicrous with ingame lore in mind.
Cole's ingame banter with Cassandra also justifies Cole killing him by having Cole reveal to Cassandra that Lambert was plotting to kill the Divine or something - something that isn't even remotely suggested in the book, even in Lambert's whole inner monologue at the end (which *does* lay out his actual plans very clearly).
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Post by Iddy on Sept 23, 2018 13:20:42 GMT
This thread is Catilina bait. LOL, yeah. That's what I thought when I posted it, but I accepted the consequences.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Sept 23, 2018 13:27:22 GMT
I'm not sure whether or not the Mage Rebellion would have happened without Anders.
Ultimately, I don't think the rebellion would have happened if Adrian hadn't done what she did, which was pretty similar to what Anders did but a lot more effective. I think there's two reasons she succeeded where Anders seems to have failed: one, Wynne had persuaded the Circles from voting to rebel after the Chantry explosion, and two, most of the mages who weren't already inclined to support the rebellion blamed Anders for what happened at least as much as they blamed Meredith. Adrian's didn't have the first problem because her plan played Wynne against the Chantry (and later led to her death,) and it didn't have the second because the other mages didn't catch a Libertarian railroading them this time (since all Rhys did was get arrested for a crime none of the other mages believed he'd committed, and as far as we know he's the only one who figured out Adrian was involved.)
So if I'm right that those differences are why Anders failed but Adrian didn't, and if Adrian's plan accounted for those problems because she'd watched them stop what Anders had started, then the mage rebellion wouldn't have happened without Anders. (Over the short term, anyway, because over the really long term who can say what would have happened?)
Or, of course, it's possible Adrian wouldn't have gotten the idea to manipulate the templars into acting like cartoonishly hamfisted tyrants at all if it weren't for Anders. So in that case, he'd still have been a necessary factor.
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Post by Sokemis on Sept 23, 2018 16:04:52 GMT
gervaise21 - Just wanted to say I enjoy reading your posts on lore related threads, they always seems so well thought out and researched
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Post by mikoto on Sept 23, 2018 19:55:54 GMT
I haven't read the books or the comics, but based on the lore I've learnt and the contents of this thread my opinion has remained the same.
Yes, I believe without Anders the mage rebellion and civil war with the Templars would have happened anyway but it would have taken quite a bit longer to happen.
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Post by lexlavellan on Sept 26, 2018 12:48:19 GMT
Well, ultimately, the Circles are an untenable system. Something would boil over at some point, especially considering other inciting events, like the civil war in Orlais and the way the Templars chafed under Chantry control. Far beyond mistreatment of mages, the Chantry was already extremely unstable, with conflict between the Divine and Lord Seeker (as shown in Asunder).
So, yes. It might not have come to a head as quickly without Anders' intervention, but something else would have happened that set off the collapse of the Circles and the Chantry.
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Post by Iddy on Sept 26, 2018 13:13:08 GMT
On a relatively unrelated note, it kinda bothers me that Gaider named her "Adrian".
It might be technically unisex, but it sounds like a guy's name to me.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Sept 26, 2018 13:27:58 GMT
Well, ultimately, the Circles are an untenable system. Something would boil over at some point, especially considering other inciting events, like the civil war in Orlais and the way the Templars chafed under Chantry control. Far beyond mistreatment of mages, the Chantry was already extremely unstable, with conflict between the Divine and Lord Seeker (as shown in Asunder). So, yes. It might not have come to a head as quickly without Anders' intervention, but something else would have happened that set off the collapse of the Circles and the Chantry. I'm not so sure. Solas and Varric both argue that the system was unstable and looking for a single spark for the gaatlok barrel, and maybe it was, but I have doubts. It seems to me that a whole lot of things had to happen just right (for the mages, and more specifically for the mages who wanted independence) in order for the Mage Rebellion to begin. It took a mage framing her former lover (who was already on thin ice with the Lord Seeker) for murder, the Lord Seeker reacting like a cartoon villain, and then the Divine breaking the eventual mage rebels out of solitary confinement. If the first step hadn't happened, or if Adrian had done it incompetently and been caught in the act, then the Lord Seeker either wouldn't have acted at all or would have acted against a friendless mage who was actually guilty of the crime. If Lambert had reacted more calmly, the mages might not have lost their cool (especially if he found the truth and used it as a propaganda piece against the cause Adrian had murdered for.) If Justinia hadn't sent her best catspaw to break the mages out of their cells when things blew up (despite Fiona absolutely not courting her as an ally,) the rebellion would have been over before it began. And if as I speculate above Adrian had been influenced by Anders, that's another thing that had to happen. If three things (or four if Anders was necessary) have to go wrong in relatively quick succession for a particular war to start, maybe that war wasn't truly inevitable. It's not like there haven't been sparks that failed to set the barrel off. Uldred's rebellion was quashed, and is rarely even alluded to anymore. The third Annulment in all of history was at least as questionable as Meredith's, but that doesn't seem to have set off any violent protests either. If the powder in the keg was live, you'd think Anders wouldn't have been needed. Unless you when you say it was untenable and that something would go wrong at some point, you mean over the really long-term, long enough that no political institution lasts forever. If you do mean that, then... nothing lasts forever.
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Post by Catilina on Sept 26, 2018 20:21:04 GMT
Well, ultimately, the Circles are an untenable system. Something would boil over at some point, especially considering other inciting events, like the civil war in Orlais and the way the Templars chafed under Chantry control. Far beyond mistreatment of mages, the Chantry was already extremely unstable, with conflict between the Divine and Lord Seeker (as shown in Asunder). So, yes. It might not have come to a head as quickly without Anders' intervention, but something else would have happened that set off the collapse of the Circles and the Chantry. I'm not so sure. Solas and Varric both argue that the system was unstable and looking for a single spark for the gaatlok barrel, and maybe it was, but I have doubts. It seems to me that a whole lot of things had to happen just right (for the mages, and more specifically for the mages who wanted independence) in order for the Mage Rebellion to begin. It took a mage framing her former lover (who was already on thin ice with the Lord Seeker) for murder, the Lord Seeker reacting like a cartoon villain, and then the Divine breaking the eventual mage rebels out of solitary confinement. If the first step hadn't happened, or if Adrian had done it incompetently and been caught in the act, then the Lord Seeker either wouldn't have acted at all or would have acted against a friendless mage who was actually guilty of the crime. If Lambert had reacted more calmly, the mages might not have lost their cool (especially if he found the truth and used it as a propaganda piece against the cause Adrian had murdered for.) If Justinia hadn't sent her best catspaw to break the mages out of their cells when things blew up (despite Fiona absolutely not courting her as an ally,) the rebellion would have been over before it began. And if as I speculate above Adrian had been influenced by Anders, that's another thing that had to happen. If three things (or four if Anders was necessary) have to go wrong in relatively quick succession for a particular war to start, maybe that war wasn't truly inevitable. It's not like there haven't been sparks that failed to set the barrel off. Uldred's rebellion was quashed, and is rarely even alluded to anymore. The third Annulment in all of history was at least as questionable as Meredith's, but that doesn't seem to have set off any violent protests either. If the powder in the keg was live, you'd think Anders wouldn't have been needed. Unless you when you say it was untenable and that something would go wrong at some point, you mean over the really long-term, long enough that no political institution lasts forever. If you do mean that, then... nothing lasts forever. This is the point. Uldred's rebellion and that Annulment, was inside the Circle. Nobody cares. Nobody even knew about it. What Anders did: pulled the problem out of the Circle. If he wouldn't, I'm sure, Meredith would annul the Circle as well, but again just nobody care. There are many blood mages in Kirkwall, the Chantry knew it as well. Leliana was sent to investigate the blood mage and Resolutionist presence in Kirkwall. "The world needs to see this, then also stop pretending the Circle is a solution" After this, nothing happened quietly.
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Post by xerrai on Sept 26, 2018 21:33:38 GMT
Would the war have started without Anders? Maybe not, but I am leaning toward that idea that if it wasn't for Anders, the war would have come a lot later in the timeline. And the main reason I say that is because of Kirkwall.
Something was going to happen to Kirkwall (or at least its Circle). And that something was most likely going to be violent. I mean, the blatant corruption on both sides of the conflict were apparent and even though some people pushed for reform, nothing was coming of it. It got so bad that Meredith sent to the Divine for the Right of Annulment, Ser Alrik suggested a tranquil solution, and even the pro-reform Divine ended up contemplating an Exalted March at some point. With the way things were going, the Circle was either going to have to move (which apparently wasn't even considered), or it was going to require drastic action. And that 'drastic action' would more than likely result in several lost lives. And those lost lives in turn would fuel the call for rebellion.
Perhaps not as much as Anders did, but it would have contributed.
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Post by Nightscrawl on Sept 27, 2018 0:54:51 GMT
Unfortunately, there is no indication of exactly when Fiona re-joined the Circle, so it could have been either before or after Kirkwall. You truly think there is the possibility that she remained with the Wardens 20+ years after Alistair was born? The taint was removed from her body. They tried to figure it out for a while, but never did. After that point, they kicked her out; she could no longer be a grey warden. I highly doubt all of that took 20+ years. While reading Asunder, I never got the impression that she just turned up out of nowhere to lead these people. She acts as a known figure and seems to be known by others. At that point both seem to be likely to be important to the plot going forward but Hawke is only connected in a minor way and the Warden not at all. We didn't get the Exalted March expansion, remember? It's unfair to judge the DA2 ending as it was planned when they didn't get the chance to carry forward their initial vision.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Sept 27, 2018 1:21:51 GMT
I'm not so sure. Solas and Varric both argue that the system was unstable and looking for a single spark for the gaatlok barrel, and maybe it was, but I have doubts. It seems to me that a whole lot of things had to happen just right (for the mages, and more specifically for the mages who wanted independence) in order for the Mage Rebellion to begin.
It took a mage framing her former lover (who was already on thin ice with the Lord Seeker) for murder, the Lord Seeker reacting like a cartoon villain, and then the Divine breaking the eventual mage rebels out of solitary confinement. If the first step hadn't happened, or if Adrian had done it incompetently and been caught in the act, then the Lord Seeker either wouldn't have acted at all or would have acted against a friendless mage who was actually guilty of the crime. If Lambert had reacted more calmly, the mages might not have lost their cool (especially if he found the truth and used it as a propaganda piece against the cause Adrian had murdered for.) If Justinia hadn't sent her best catspaw to break the mages out of their cells when things blew up (despite Fiona absolutely not courting her as an ally,) the rebellion would have been over before it began. And if as I speculate above Adrian had been influenced by Anders, that's another thing that had to happen. If three things (or four if Anders was necessary) have to go wrong in relatively quick succession for a particular war to start, maybe that war wasn't truly inevitable. It's not like there haven't been sparks that failed to set the barrel off. Uldred's rebellion was quashed, and is rarely even alluded to anymore. The third Annulment in all of history was at least as questionable as Meredith's, but that doesn't seem to have set off any violent protests either. If the powder in the keg was live, you'd think Anders wouldn't have been needed. Unless you when you say it was untenable and that something would go wrong at some point, you mean over the really long-term, long enough that no political institution lasts forever. If you do mean that, then... nothing lasts forever. This is the point. Uldred's rebellion and that Annulment, was inside the Circle. Nobody cares. Nobody even knew about it. What Anders did: pulled the problem out of the Circle. If he wouldn't, I'm sure, Meredith would annul the Circle as well, but again just nobody care. There are many blood mages in Kirkwall, the Chantry knew it as well. Leliana was sent to investigate the blood mage and Resolutionist presence in Kirkwall. "The world needs to see this, then also stop pretending the Circle is a solution" After this, nothing happened quietly. But what good did pulling it out of the Circles do? Especially when pulling it out of the Circles meant major structural damage to (and loss of life in) a civilian population center by a mage? How would that have won the Libertarians any allies outside the Circles? How would it not have lost them allies outside the Circles? It's true that the Libertarians had allies outside the Circles after Anders' actions, but I'd assumed they'd had those allies despite Anders. Perhaps most importantly, how would pulling the fight out of the Circles have galvanized the allies they already had inside the Circles? Until those allies actually pushed the vote to leave the Circles through, it didn't matter much that the Libertarians had allies outside the Circles.
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Post by Catilina on Sept 27, 2018 1:54:39 GMT
This is the point. Uldred's rebellion and that Annulment, was inside the Circle. Nobody cares. Nobody even knew about it. What Anders did: pulled the problem out of the Circle. If he wouldn't, I'm sure, Meredith would annul the Circle as well, but again just nobody care. There are many blood mages in Kirkwall, the Chantry knew it as well. Leliana was sent to investigate the blood mage and Resolutionist presence in Kirkwall. "The world needs to see this, then also stop pretending the Circle is a solution" After this, nothing happened quietly. But what good did pulling it out of the Circles do? Especially when pulling it out of the Circles meant major structural damage to (and loss of life in) a civilian population center by a mage? How would that have won the Libertarians any allies outside the Circles? How would it not have lost them allies outside the Circles? It's true that the Libertarians had allies outside the Circles after Anders' actions, but I'd assumed they'd had those allies despite Anders. Perhaps most importantly, how would pulling the fight out of the Circles have galvanized the allies they already had inside the Circles? Until those allies actually pushed the vote to leave the Circles through, it didn't matter much that the Libertarians had allies outside the Circles. Why? Because if the rumour spread (Varric). The Libertarians were inside the Circle, yes, but every Circle was separated. I don't think, they knew too much about each other. Who knew about Uldred's rebellion's details? They only knew, in Ferelden were abominations and the Circle Annulled – or not. Who knew about what happened in Starkhaven? But now happened something that forced everyone to some step. And the mages had very little numbered allies. They lose nothing with the explosion. So: I suppose it was good, that the rebellion started by a mage.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Sept 27, 2018 2:14:41 GMT
But what good did pulling it out of the Circles do? Especially when pulling it out of the Circles meant major structural damage to (and loss of life in) a civilian population center by a mage? How would that have won the Libertarians any allies outside the Circles? How would it not have lost them allies outside the Circles? It's true that the Libertarians had allies outside the Circles after Anders' actions, but I'd assumed they'd had those allies despite Anders.
Perhaps most importantly, how would pulling the fight out of the Circles have galvanized the allies they already had inside the Circles? Until those allies actually pushed the vote to leave the Circles through, it didn't matter much that the Libertarians had allies outside the Circles. Why? Because if the rumour spread (Varric). The Libertarians were inside the Circle, yes, but every Circle was separated. I don't think, they knew too much about each other. Who knew about Uldred's rebellion's details? They only knew, in Ferelden were abominations and the Circle Annulled – or not. Who knew about what happened in Starkhaven? But now happened something that forced everyone to some step. I'd assumed, given the way nobody expresses doubt or uncertainty as to what happened in Ferelden or Kirkwall, that everyone in both the Circles and the Templar Order knew as much of what happened in those Annulments as they needed to. Besides, if the problem was that the Templars were controlling what the mages were allowed to know, or even that just that the mages didn't know very much about what was going on outside their little bubbles, this wouldn't have been the solution. If the mages didn't communicate between Circles, they wouldn't have heard about this either, and the solution would have been to start pen pal programs between the Circles, making sure that eventually every Circle was linked to every other at least indirectly. If the problem was that the Templars were censoring communications from outside the Circles (and I'm not sure how this would work given the fact that mages apparently routinely leave the Circles for work,) then the Templars would have censored this too, and the solution would have been to evade or turn the censors on a Circle by Circle basis. Blowing up a Chantry isn't necessary for any of that. And... do you honestly think Varric was deliberately spreading rumors about what happened in Kirkwall to try and start a war? Despite disapproving of Anders actions and the war they led to, because it led to people on both sides dying? It risked what allies they had. And don't let yourself forget that those few allies they had were both disproportionately powerful and absolutely necessary. If it weren't for "Fuck The" Divine Justinia, the mage rebels would have rebelled from inside locked cells. If it weren't for the Crown of Ferelden, the mage rebellion would have had noplace to set up shop.
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Post by Catilina on Sept 27, 2018 2:44:41 GMT
Why? Because if the rumour spread (Varric). The Libertarians were inside the Circle, yes, but every Circle was separated. I don't think, they knew too much about each other. Who knew about Uldred's rebellion's details? They only knew, in Ferelden were abominations and the Circle Annulled – or not. Who knew about what happened in Starkhaven? But now happened something that forced everyone to some step. I'd assumed, given the way nobody expresses doubt or uncertainty as to what happened in Ferelden or Kirkwall, that everyone in both the Circles and the Templar Order knew as much of what happened in those Annulments as they needed to. Besides, if the problem was that the Templars were controlling what the mages were allowed to know, or even that just that the mages didn't know very much about what was going on outside their little bubbles, this wouldn't have been the solution. If the mages didn't communicate between Circles, they wouldn't have heard about this either, and the solution would have been to start pen pal programs between the Circles, making sure that eventually every Circle was linked to every other at least indirectly. If the problem was that the Templars were censoring communications from outside the Circles (and I'm not sure how this would work given the fact that mages apparently routinely leave the Circles for work,) then the Templars would have censored this too, and the solution would have been to evade or turn the censors on a Circle by Circle basis. Blowing up a Chantry isn't necessary for any of that. And... do you honestly think Varric was deliberately spreading rumors about what happened in Kirkwall to try and start a war? Despite disapproving of Anders actions and the war they led to, because it led to people on both sides dying? It risked what allies they had. And don't let yourself forget that those few allies they had were both disproportionately powerful and absolutely necessary. If it weren't for "Fuck The" Divine Justinia, the mage rebels would have rebelled from inside locked cells. If it weren't for the Crown of Ferelden, the mage rebellion would have had noplace to set up shop. Not Varric spread the rumours, he said, that it happened. It's not about censored or not – but ofc most likely censored – rather about that everyone was too apathetic to do anything. Centuries in captivity... nobody really thought, it can change. Even Anders before Justice. Always was some riots, but nothing serious. Until Kirkwall. I suppose they're awakened. And about led people to die at both sides? It often happens in a revolution. And this was why the people hesitated. But it was not vain. Not mentioned: in Kirkwall, didn't existed any peaceful solution. Yes, you're right, it risked many things. But everything has risks.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Sept 27, 2018 3:09:02 GMT
I'd assumed, given the way nobody expresses doubt or uncertainty as to what happened in Ferelden or Kirkwall, that everyone in both the Circles and the Templar Order knew as much of what happened in those Annulments as they needed to.
Besides, if the problem was that the Templars were controlling what the mages were allowed to know, or even that just that the mages didn't know very much about what was going on outside their little bubbles, this wouldn't have been the solution. If the mages didn't communicate between Circles, they wouldn't have heard about this either, and the solution would have been to start pen pal programs between the Circles, making sure that eventually every Circle was linked to every other at least indirectly. If the problem was that the Templars were censoring communications from outside the Circles (and I'm not sure how this would work given the fact that mages apparently routinely leave the Circles for work,) then the Templars would have censored this too, and the solution would have been to evade or turn the censors on a Circle by Circle basis. Blowing up a Chantry isn't necessary for any of that.
And... do you honestly think Varric was deliberately spreading rumors about what happened in Kirkwall to try and start a war? Despite disapproving of Anders actions and the war they led to, because it led to people on both sides dying?
It risked what allies they had. And don't let yourself forget that those few allies they had were both disproportionately powerful and absolutely necessary. If it weren't for "Fuck The" Divine Justinia, the mage rebels would have rebelled from inside locked cells. If it weren't for the Crown of Ferelden, the mage rebellion would have had noplace to set up shop. Not Varric spread the rumours, he said, that it happened. Accomplishing what? Like I said, nobody seems at all sketchy on the details of what happened in Kinloch Hold, even if logically it would be hard for the information to travel that far. Maybe Varric could have helped things along in a way that brought the war, but not accidentally: he'd have needed to use the information like a weapon, which as I said he wouldn't want to do because it would start a war he didn't want.And killing people outside the Circles is what awakened them? It seems to me what it did was awaken everyone (especially the people mages want to live alongside) to how dangerous the Libertarians can be. And why would an attack outside the Circles help more than the rebellions that routinely went on inside them? The intended effect of what Anders did (if this plan makes any sense at all) was to show the mages that the Templars will come down on the innocent and guilty alike, and convince them they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by rebelling. Whether that worked is not entirely clear. The mages didn't rebel immediately afterwards, even though the Grand Enchanter forced a vote on the issue. But maybe it was at the front of everyone's mind when Lambert tried to arrest Rhys for a crime the mages didn't think he'd committed, and maybe it was what Anders did that inspired Adrian to put the mages in that position. But if it did neither of those (which is possible) then it did basically nothing and he got what he wanted in spite of his actions to attain it.I have my problems with people dying, and especially with violence that targets a whole lot of people at once without even trying to keep the ratio of people helped to people killed reasonable, but that's not the point: this was meant to specifically address what Varric sees in all of this.Is that a reason to risk everything? If it weren't for these allies, the mages wouldn't have lasted long enough for the player to give them the win in Inquisition. Anders gave these allies reason to reconsider before they'd had anything to consider at all. What Anders did risked dooming the rebellion years before it actually started.
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Post by gervaise21 on Sept 27, 2018 19:20:57 GMT
Besides, if the problem was that the Templars were controlling what the mages were allowed to know, or even that just that the mages didn't know very much about what was going on outside their little bubbles, this wouldn't have been the solution. If the mages didn't communicate between Circles, they wouldn't have heard about this either, and the solution would have been to start pen pal programs between the Circles, making sure that eventually every Circle was linked to every other at least indirectly. If the problem was that the Templars were censoring communications from outside the Circles (and I'm not sure how this would work given the fact that mages apparently routinely leave the Circles for work,) then the Templars would have censored this too, and the solution would have been to evade or turn the censors on a Circle by Circle basis. Blowing up a Chantry isn't necessary for any of that. You know another problem about Asunder is that it contradicts the idea that the Circles were cut off from one another with the Templars totally controlling the means of communication between them. In Asunder Wynne sends off Shale to the Circle at Montsimmard with a message informing them of Pharamond's discovery and the instruction to transmit the information to every other Circle by sending stone. Of course if every First Enchanter had access to this quick and fool-proof means of communication with every other First Enchanter then every Circle should have been aware of major events that occurred with other Circles including Annulments. In fact sending stones would have explained a rapid response by other Circles to Anders' action but in contradiction of the epilogue to DA2, they did nothing until Fiona stirred things up. However, it would presumably explain how quickly the refugees from the White Spire were aware of what happened in the Circles in their absence, including the Annulment of the Circle in Diarsmuid. If it weren't for the Crown of Ferelden, the mage rebellion would have had noplace to set up shop. This is another thing they never adequately explained, why Fiona dragged the entire mage forces the length of Thedas simply to attend the Divine's Conclave. When they first fled Val Royeaux, they very sensibly headed north, so if the worst came to the worst, they could just slip over the border into Tevinter. However, it is stated at the end of the novel that a small number of mages could have held out against vastly superior forces even at the semi-ruin of Andoral's Reach. I would imagine their biggest problem would be laying in sufficient supplies for a long siege but even so, it would surely have been easier to source them in the vicinity of their base up there, than do so on a journey across Thedas through a region beset by civil war and in constant danger of attack by Templars. If they thought their chances were better under the protection of a legitimate monarch, then why on earth did they then stab that monarch in the back and surrender Redcliff Castle to a foreign power? Then again, why didn't they appeal to the monarch of Nevarra or the Mortalitassi for assistance? It seems rather strange that the Templars completely ignored the set-up in Nevarra, although I suppose that considering the Chantry had always permitted them to continue, despite the order having been established by a Tevinter mage (I never understood why this was allowed), may be the Mortalitassi refused to be drawn into the conflict and regarded themselves as loyalists. Yet we have a War Table mission where it is said that the mages still within the Circle in Cumberland are in danger of being killed by an angry mob. Why them, who on the face of it are loyalist mages rather then rebels, and yet not the Mortalitassi? I still think that the question of whether the rebellion would have happened without Anders is only necessary because the writers were not consistent in how they told the story of the rebellion. For example, if the rebellion had started in Kirkwall, it would explain why the leaders ended up in Ferelden, as it was just across the Waking Sea and if Alistair is King we learn in Act 3 that he has already been giving shelter to mages fleeing from the Circle. However, moving the start of the rebellion to Val Royeaux and having the leaders flee north from the city, makes a nonsense of centring the war between mages and Templars in Ferelden. Sister Nightingale says to Hawke that if "Kirkwall falls to magic then none of us are safe". Then Kirkwall is torn apart by magic and the Chantry there destroyed but then nothing appreciable happens as a result for another 2 years and then only because of the initiative by the Divine concerning the Tranquil. Had the Divine not authorised that research and making all First Enchanters aware of the results, it is likely that whether Fiona wanted to make trouble or not, the Circles would have continued running as normal until she died of old age and a new Grand Enchanter was elected.
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Post by riverdaleswhiteflash on Sept 28, 2018 10:53:00 GMT
We're probably putting way more thought into this than all of Bioware combined did, and trying to understand things more deeply than they were meant to be understood... ... but why stop now? Besides, if the problem was that the Templars were controlling what the mages were allowed to know, or even that just that the mages didn't know very much about what was going on outside their little bubbles, this wouldn't have been the solution. If the mages didn't communicate between Circles, they wouldn't have heard about this either, and the solution would have been to start pen pal programs between the Circles, making sure that eventually every Circle was linked to every other at least indirectly. If the problem was that the Templars were censoring communications from outside the Circles (and I'm not sure how this would work given the fact that mages apparently routinely leave the Circles for work,) then the Templars would have censored this too, and the solution would have been to evade or turn the censors on a Circle by Circle basis. Blowing up a Chantry isn't necessary for any of that. You know another problem about Asunder is that it contradicts the idea that the Circles were cut off from one another with the Templars totally controlling the means of communication between them. In Asunder Wynne sends off Shale to the Circle at Montsimmard with a message informing them of Pharamond's discovery and the instruction to transmit the information to every other Circle by sending stone. Of course if every First Enchanter had access to this quick and fool-proof means of communication with every other First Enchanter then every Circle should have been aware of major events that occurred with other Circles including Annulments. In fact sending stones would have explained a rapid response by other Circles to Anders' action but in contradiction of the epilogue to DA2, they did nothing until Fiona stirred things up. However, it would presumably explain how quickly the refugees from the White Spire were aware of what happened in the Circles in their absence, including the Annulment of the Circle in Diarsmuid. But do we have any reason to believe that information from outside the Circles was censored? Because while I agree that that's something the Templars would have had incentive to do, I haven't heard that they were, and I'm not sure it would be possible. I'm not even sure the Sending Stones are the worst problem: if the Templars are doing this then it should be a fairly simple matter to control the information that comes through them by forbidding anyone except the FE to use them and putting someone they trust in the top spot. A bigger problem would be the mages who are allowed to (and do) receive visitors, but with enough control over the terms of the visit any danger that poses could be averted too. Worse than either would be the mages who are allowed outside to do various jobs outside the Circle: they can gather news on current events without anyone there to stop them and can spread it whenever the templars aren't watching. And there's not much to be done about that danger: a lot of the reason the Tranquil Solution and the Drown Them All At Birth Solution aren't practiced is because mages and magic are useful. (Maybe that's more than half the reason if the KC in question is one of the less humane ones.) I... honestly have no idea why Fiona thought stabbing the Crown of Ferelden in the back was a good idea. The idea that made the most sense to me was that Alexius took the castle before he made his offer to Fiona, so that she could not refuse his offer no matter what the terms were, but when he explained to my second Trevelyan why he removed Teagan from power he used a wording that seemed to me to weakly suggest he'd already gotten Fiona by then, and (if what I thought I was seeing was there) Fiona didn't call him on that wording. The explanation I'd kind of settled on was that she was just really dim, but... that's not satisfying either. As for why and how Fiona's group moved to Ferelden... well, I'll get into why I don't think Nevarra was an option later, but for right now if we assume it wasn't then their only options were to stay where they were or move to Ferelden. Given the distance and danger involved maybe staying put should have been an attractive option, but if we assume they had a solution to that problem that wasn't author fiat... maybe they weren't traveling as an organized group? Maybe the templars had to search the haystack of people traveling between the Southern Anderfels and Ferelden for needles, the actual needles just needed to dodge the organized group of armored knights hunting them, and if one needle messes up that task they're the only mage to die? It would explain Fiona's dialogue in Skyhold that states that the mages didn't enter Redcliffe as an organized group. I'm not sure that the mages in the College at Cumberland are Loyalists, or that the angry mob after them have anything to do with the Templars. The College was supposed to have been abandoned, and we only know the mage refugees to have been there starting around the middle of Inquisition. Furthermore, the language of the war table mission seems to me to suggest that they haven't been there for the entire war. Maybe they were Loyalists driven from their Circles by either Libertarian violence or the Templars deciding to get their Annulment on, or mages from the local Circle who decided to stay, but I think it's at least as likely they left their Circles because they wanted to and were squatting in the College building because nobody else was living there. As for the angry mob, that only occurs after the Mage-Templar war has transformed into the Inquisition vs Corypheus war, and the Inquisition suspects that the Venatori were behind it and acting less because they wanted the mages dead and more because they wanted some powerful artifacts from inside the College. Concerning the Mortalitasi's status, I think the order as a whole probably does count as a Circle/Loyalist organization. This is partially because after all the Chantry did allow them to exist, and partially because the Belles of Hunter Fell war table operation chain concerns one Mortalitasi and one apostate (which implies that that's a legitimate distinction.) I'm not sure the Templars would have let that alone stop them, since they were getting a bit crazy by this point, but the Mortalitasi also serve a culturally important function for Nevarra's upper class. Maybe it's not one the Templars approve of, but it probably is one that the Nevarran upper class would feel is worth keeping them around for. That, plus the fact that (per Wikia) some of them serve as advisers to powerful nobility, plus the fact that at least two (Cassandra's uncle and Viuus Anaxas) are related to powerful nobility probably means the order enjoys the protection of the Nevarran Crown and Nevarran military. Given that the Templars have given up their own financial backers to wage this war I don't think they have the means to fight it against Nevarra. And anyway, if the Mortalitasi are Loyalists, why would they help the mage rebellion? As for why this tradition was allowed to continue as the Circles were forming at all... I'm not sure. My only guess might be that the tradition predates the Chantry's hold? Wikia says that the Mortalitasi order was started by an adviser of the King who took over Nevarra 246 years after the Chantry started. We know that the Chantry wasn't already established everywhere in Thedas by that point since they got their foot in the door of Ferelden with the aid of the King who (again per Wikia) united it about two centuries after Caspar's coup in Nevarra. Maybe by the time the Chantry could get its foot in the door in Nevarra, they were too late to do so except by compromising with the Mortalitasi? Yeah. If the rebellion started in Kirkwall as Varric implies in DA2 I think we'd all know Anders started it.
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