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Post by colfoley on Mar 11, 2019 17:49:43 GMT
to be fair humans likely weren't civilized, there were no Qunari, and Dwarves were probably their arch enemy. 'To be fair', none of that is an excuse for racism. Lol wtf. i know what this is in relation to but: 1. Fiction is not real life. 2. If anything Solas's arc is about him learning and evolving in such things where he's not a racist. Now i suppose we'll have to see how successful we were in DA 4 ultimatley but he fully admits to all people's personhood.
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Post by wright1978 on Mar 11, 2019 17:56:52 GMT
Solas is fascinating, but in truth, he's just incredibly pretentious. I think that's what made him fascinating, he was completely believable: Dressing up his ideals and hiding behind a calm facade, when he's really just an elven supremacist. I wonder how much do the elves following Solas actually know. Are they aware that only ancient elves have a place in the world he wants to create? I’d say he probably tells them part of the truth. Plenty would accept martyrdom in what they believe to be a noble cause you’d think.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 12, 2019 1:37:53 GMT
I think it's quite a leap to assume ancient elves would fare better than anyone else, honestly. Solas says the world will 'burn in raw chaos'. Why would his people escape unscathed? They didn't last time.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 12, 2019 19:00:37 GMT
Solas has a choice: commit genocide, or don't commit genocide. Whether it's for the sake of another goal or not doesn't matter. The moment he choose not to take the "don't commit genocide" route, then that means what he wants is genocide. Because if he didn't, he could choose not to. Yeah. This isn’t a case where a decision is forced on him. Like a ticking bomb. Do you leave it in your room and kill 100 or throw it over there and kill 5. It’s a active choice to commit genocide as a side effect of his overall goal. It'd be silly to expect him to think in those terms, though. He must be hard-pressed to see humans, dwarves, modern elves or qunari as sentient creatures of any value at all, given how short-lived and unrefined they are compared to the world he knew up until a comparative moment ago. It's actually incredible that he's even reluctant to throw any number of those pointless, short and miserable lives away to bring grace back to the world. He's also spent a long time leading desperate people in a bitter war against injustice. And has spent his time in modern Thedas reliving their lowest and most brutal moments through the fade. Not only must he be pretty damn desensitized to large-scale cruelty and violence in general, his responsibility to all the noble and immortal elves who followed him into ruin must supersede any respect he has for Thedas' current occupants by a good bit. He already committed genocide. Now he has a chance to partially undo it by causing a much lesser one. And frankly, it's not obvious to me why a race of creatures able to live and love and accumulate wisdom and knowledge for thousands of years wouldn't ´inherently´ be more valuable on an individual basis compared to us. And not just by a small margin. Obviously the average Thedasian has plenty of reason to fight and try to prevent what Solas is trying to do, but that isn't the same as that cause being evil or unjust. Moreover, as the only person even remotely able or inclined to bring the ancient elves or their power back, you could argue that it's his responsibility to judge the value of such an action on its own merits and champion it if he feels he must. The comparison to some rando sitting with a bomb and considering whether or not to throw it doesn't make sense. Solas can't seek council or rely on anyone else's understanding of his situation because it's totally unique and but nonetheless affects everyone. He has to think it through and do the right thing as he sees it. Anything else would be beyond irresponsible.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 13, 2019 3:04:33 GMT
So because they don't live as long, and their civilization lacks the means to progress to a point Solas would consider acceptable, all their lives are worth less? Yeah, that doesn't sound like Nazi talk at all.
And tearing the veil down won't bring back the people Solas killed. He's not "undoing" shit.
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Post by Cleric on Mar 13, 2019 3:51:30 GMT
So because they don't live as long, and their civilization lacks the means to progress to a point Solas would consider acceptable, all their lives are worth less? Yeah, that doesn't sound like Nazi talk at all. And tearing the veil down won't bring back the people Solas killed. He's not "undoing" shit. It straightforwardly does not sound like Nazi talk. It sounds like a magical wizard talking about magical immortality and the sundered condition of people's spirits (as well as actual spirits) in a fallen, doomed fantasy world where magic and spirits are real. It's still morally consternable - just as the Tranquil should not be considered as less than people for their condition, neither should the modern Thedosians - but it's got nothing to do with Nazis. There aren't Nazi or otherwise racist concepts to be found here because magic, magical differences and mortality divides between peoples are real in Thedas, whereas racism and racial science are very much fake. Solas also isn't acting because he thinks elvhen civilisation is superior or because he thinks bringing what was lost back as in the society/culture is desirable or possible. He is the harshest critic of the actual social structure of Arlathan in the games: he considers it morally equivalent to Tevinter and its romanticisation to be pointless. (Another reason Solas used the comparison with the Tranquil imo is because the Tranquil are victims who had their condition inflicted on them, just as Solas inflicted modern Thedosians with their condition. The average Thedosian looks at a Tranquil person, feels pity and discomfort, and can't help but think of the Templar who did it to them. Same with Solas, initially, though it's his own guilt and responsibility he sees. It's not the world's natural state, further divorcing it from real world race comparisons.)
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 13, 2019 12:25:38 GMT
So because they don't live as long, and their civilization lacks the means to progress to a point Solas would consider acceptable, all their lives are worth less? Yeah, that doesn't sound like Nazi talk at all. And tearing the veil down won't bring back the people Solas killed. He's not "undoing" shit. Nope, again with the straw men. Because they live much shorter, their lives are objectively worth less. Not worthless. Because there's less potential, you see. Which is what makes sentient life valuable in the first place. Nothing to do with Nazi thinking, the hypothetical difference between living for eighty years and ten thousand isn't exactly comparable to the difference between brown eyes and blue. And what sort of moral universe do you live in where you blow a fuse at something that "sounds like" Nazi talk? How about putting that big primate brain of yours to work and thinking through if it actually is before you start arguing with it out of hand? It sounds like tearing down the veil would bring back the ones he imprisoned, but that's neither here nor there. I imagine he wants to do it to reconnect elves with their magical natures and make them nigh-immortal again. Which would be worth quite a few deaths on the face of it. Especially if one is an elf. Obviously. And then there's all the spirits, cooped up in the Fade, going stir-crazy and taking it out on people in the material world whenever possible. Apparently tearing down the veil would help that situation. How exactly? Only Solas knows. It'd be natural for non-elves to fight that outcome, and certainly not want to die for it. And you could definitely argue that Solas doesn't actually seem to know what he's doing when he mucks around with the fade on that scale. But we don't know enough about the exact mechanics of his plan, or the exact beauty and injustice of the ancient elven society that spurs him to such drastic measures, to know as well as he does. So pretending that we do is kind of silly. Calling his actions evil is both pointless and cheapens our concept of actual evil. Or "Nazi talk". All we know is he is putting a lot of people in extreme danger for reasons that haven't been clearly explained and don't necessarily benefit them, which should obviously be reason enough to try to stop him without also reducing his motivations to meaninglessness when discussing them on the forums.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 13, 2019 12:46:34 GMT
So because they don't live as long, and their civilization lacks the means to progress to a point Solas would consider acceptable, all their lives are worth less? Yeah, that doesn't sound like Nazi talk at all. And tearing the veil down won't bring back the people Solas killed. He's not "undoing" shit. Nope, again with the straw men. Because they live much shorter, their lives are objectively worth less. Not worthless. Because there's less potential, you see. Which is what makes sentient life valuable in the first place. Nothing to do with Nazi thinking, the hypothetical difference between living for eighty years and ten thousand isn't exactly comparable to the difference between brown eyes and blue. I don't consider the particular criteria by which Solas measures the worth of individual lives to be even remotely relevant. That he might possess such arrogance in the first place is enough for me to object. 'Blow a fuse'? You don't need to make baseless claims about my emotional state in order to debate me. Or do you? I call it "nazi talk" because the term is apt. Claiming racial or cultural superiority because you live longer (which is not even an inherent trait of the elves, because when Solas created the veil, it went away) is not practically different from claiming racial or cultural superiority for any other reason. I didn't use the word evil, but if applying it to the destruction of most (possibly all) life on Thedas, which Solas (whether he's right or not) says will happen as a result of his actions is a "cheapening" of the term, then I'd sure be interested to know in which situations you would deem its use appropriate.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 13, 2019 14:21:44 GMT
I don't consider the particular criteria by which Solas measures the worth of individual lives to be even remotely relevant. That he might possess such arrogance in the first place is enough for me to object. 'Blow a fuse'? You don't need to make baseless claims about my emotional state in order to debate me. Or do you? I call it "nazi talk" because the term is apt. Claiming racial or cultural superiority because you live longer (which is not even an inherent trait of the elves, because when Solas created the veil, it went away) is not practically different from claiming racial or cultural superiority for any other reason. I didn't use the word evil, but if applying it to the destruction of most (possibly all) life on Thedas, which Solas (whether he's right or not) says will happen as a result of his actions is a "cheapening" of the term, then I'd sure be interested to know in which situations you would deem its use appropriate. Uh-huh. The reason you can so casually grandstand about the equal value of life and your right to object to any dispersion cast on it is that you're talking about humans. As in homo sapiens. As in a single species of people with near-identical emotional cores and potential lifespans, making it a fairly reasonable proposition that nobody is worth particularly more than anyone else. Once you introduce a second species that is markedly different in obvious and specific ways that relate directly to quality of life all that goes out the window. Frankly, if you woke up tomorrow in bed next to a guy who could live ten thousand years in his physical prime, and you considered your life anywhere near as valuable as his was, you'd be an idiot. Why would that hugely valuable trait being selective to a different species suddenly make valuing that trait racism? It wouldn't. It would just be calling a superior species exactly that based on its clear merits. Nothing unfair about that. Aaaaw, you don't like people making baseless assumptions about what or how you think? That's hilarious. I just meant that you set up straw men and attacked them with gusto, claiming perfect moral superiority based on faulty logic while completely ignoring what was being said to you, as usual. I'd call that blowing a fuse, and as a trained electrician I couldn't care less about what you think the term refers to. Yeah. A video game character trying to revert his own catastrophic mistakes and incidentally risking the lives of people he really has no particular reason to value compared to those he wants to save totally deserves the same scorn as actually making starved inmates march sacks of sand back and forth across concentration camps for one's own amusement, or actually raping someone to death to punish them for their sexual orientation. Putting those three things, for example, in the same box absolutely doesn't disrespect two of them.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 13, 2019 15:20:39 GMT
I don't consider the particular criteria by which Solas measures the worth of individual lives to be even remotely relevant. That he might possess such arrogance in the first place is enough for me to object. 'Blow a fuse'? You don't need to make baseless claims about my emotional state in order to debate me. Or do you? I call it "nazi talk" because the term is apt. Claiming racial or cultural superiority because you live longer (which is not even an inherent trait of the elves, because when Solas created the veil, it went away) is not practically different from claiming racial or cultural superiority for any other reason. I didn't use the word evil, but if applying it to the destruction of most (possibly all) life on Thedas, which Solas (whether he's right or not) says will happen as a result of his actions is a "cheapening" of the term, then I'd sure be interested to know in which situations you would deem its use appropriate. Uh-huh. The reason you can so casually grandstand about the equal value of life and your right to object to any dispersion cast on it is that you're talking about humans. As in homo sapiens. As in a single species of people with near-identical emotional cores and potential lifespans, making it a fairly reasonable proposition that nobody is worth particularly more than anyone else. Once you introduce a second species that is markedly different in obvious and specific ways that relate directly to quality of life all that goes out the window. Frankly, if you woke up tomorrow in bed next to a guy who could live ten thousand years in his physical prime, and you considered your life anywhere near as valuable as his was, you'd be an idiot. Why would that hugely valuable trait being selective to a different species suddenly make valuing that trait racism? It wouldn't. It would just be calling a superior species exactly that based on its clear merits. Nothing unfair about that. Aaaaw, you don't like people making baseless assumptions about what or how you think? That's hilarious. I just meant that you set up straw men and attacked them with gusto, claiming perfect moral superiority based on faulty logic while completely ignoring what was being said to you, as usual. I'd call that blowing a fuse, and as a trained electrician I couldn't care less about what you think the term refers to. Yeah. A video game character trying to revert his own catastrophic mistakes and incidentally risking the lives of people he really has no particular reason to value compared to those he wants to save totally deserves the same scorn as actually making starved inmates march sacks of sand back and forth across concentration camps for one's own amusement, or actually raping someone to death to punish them for their sexual orientation. Putting those three things, for example, in the same box absolutely doesn't disrespect two of them. Why does it all go out the window? What practical difference does it make if Solas is an "elf" or a subset of "human" (which is what all elves in fantasy are anyway, let's be honest). Using the term "species" is just pointless pedantry. Individual humans are "markedly different in obvious and specific ways that relate directly to quality of life", should we place differing values on those lives, based on 'quality' and expected length? If we sub out the elves for any of the dozen sub-groups of Human scatter around Thedas (let's say Rivaini), does anything change? Let's re-contextualise the Rivaini as a native race of "humans", who possessed the capacity to extend their lifespans through magic (because we know for a fact it was through magic, and not an inherent trait of the elves). Human!Solas rocks up on the scene after spending a few millenia napping in a temple or whatever, is appalled by the current state of the world (that he caused), and decides to nuke it all so he and... whoever he thinks the survivors will be (which is unclear tbh), can party it up as immortals again. Do his actions now become shitty, by virtue of being a "human"? Or are they still okay by virtue of being super-duper old? And yes, I do consider my life just as valuable as someone who lives thousands of years longer, because my life is mine and I want to keep living it. I value my life more than I value most other people's, and especially more than I value the life of someone who poses a threat to me. Life has no inherent, objective value to begin with, so having more of it means nothing. Zero times zero is still zero. Solas may be of a different "species", but he's still "human" in every way that actually matters, and the fact that people here are capable of sympathising with his position proves that definitively. Also, it's just plain fucking ridiculous that you would accuse me of disrespecting the horrors of the Holocaust, when you are here, literally saying that it's okay to commit genocide on the theoretical basis of lifespan, because that's a "real" inferiority, apparently?
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 13, 2019 17:06:45 GMT
Why does it all go out the window? What practical difference does it make if Solas is an "elf" or a subset of "human" (which is what all elves in fantasy are anyway, let's be honest). Using the term "species" is just pointless pedantry. Individual humans are "markedly different in obvious and specific ways that relate directly to quality of life", should we place differing values on those lives, based on 'quality' and expected length?
If we sub out the elves for any of the dozen sub-groups of Human scatter around Thedas (let's say Rivaini), does anything change? Let's re-contextualise the Rivaini as a native race of "humans", who possessed the capacity to extend their lifespans through magic (because we know for a fact it was through magic, and not an inherent trait of the elves). Human!Solas rocks up on the scene after spending a few millenia napping in a temple or whatever, is appalled by the current state of the world (that he caused), and decides to nuke it all so he and... whoever he thinks the survivors will be (which is unclear tbh), can party it up as immortals again. Do his actions now become shitty, by virtue of being a "human"? Or are they still okay by virtue of being super-duper old? And yes, I do consider my life just as valuable as someone who lives thousands of years longer, because my life is mine and I want to keep living it. I value my life more than I value most other people's, and especially more than I value the life of someone who poses a threat to me. Life has no inherent, objective value to begin with, so having more of it means nothing. Zero times zero is still zero. Solas may be of a different "species", but he's still "human" in every way that actually matters, and the fact that people here are capable of sympathizing with his position proves that definitively. Also, it's just plain fucking ridiculous that you would accuse me of disrespecting the horrors of the Holocaust, when you are here, literally saying that it's okay to commit genocide on the theoretical basis of lifespan, because that's a "real" inferiority, apparently? Yes, and we do. A child is more valuable than an adult. Why? More of their life left to live and more potential. A healthy person is more valuable than a deathly sick one. Why? More life left to live and more potential. One mostly average person has no real reason to feel superior to another, but on each end of the curve there's a clear difference in how much we value people based on life potential. That means that a person's value, regardless of personal sense of preservation, is at the very least more than zero. And it increases with your expected length and quality of life. What's infinity times anything more than zero? Obviously you won't necessarily feel that way if you're old or sick, but that's irrelevant to your actual intrinsic value, and every member of society trained to operate in environments where lives may actually be in danger are taught to prioritize as such. From soldiers to doctors to firefighters and policemen right down to your average guy taking a first aid course for his driving license. And yes, you are disrespecting the Holocaust. This is the second thread in which you've accused me of harboring real-life genocidal fantasies just because I can sympathize with decisions of video game characters that require the deaths of numerous people, and despite thirteen thousand/+ years escalating violence and misery you just can't accept that occasionally actually being necessary for one reason or another. Imagine a woman starved half to death on her way to the gas chamber, or being electrocuted with increasing voltage to determine the point at which the human body started taking lethal damage from the current (0.0033 Ampere, by the by, because that's how we know today and why the relay in your home immediately switches off if more than 0.003 suddenly go unaccounted for). Can you imagine her hoping that her suffering would someday abruptly be brought up in a discussion about video games as a straw man to try to browbeat someone into applauding the strictly theoretical virtue and fair-mindedness of some overenthusiastic geek who never faced real hardship in his life? I sure as hell can't. But there you go again. Because you just can't be bothered to actually debate people on their actual points. Because why should you have to, with all that infinite and totally untested wisdom we all should be heeding on principle?
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Mar 13, 2019 17:33:01 GMT
This is the second thread in which you've accused me of harboring real-life genocidal fantasies just because I can sympathize with decisions of video game characters that require the deaths of numerous people, and despite thirteen thousand/+ years escalating violence and misery you just can't accept that occasionally actually being necessary for one reason or another. Genocide is never necessary.
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Post by Iddy on Mar 13, 2019 17:35:52 GMT
So because they don't live as long, and their civilization lacks the means to progress to a point Solas would consider acceptable, all their lives are worth less? Yeah, that doesn't sound like Nazi talk at all. And tearing the veil down won't bring back the people Solas killed. He's not "undoing" shit. It straightforwardly does not sound like Nazi talk. It sounds like a magical wizard talking about magical immortality and the sundered condition of people's spirits (as well as actual spirits) in a fallen, doomed fantasy world where magic and spirits are real. It's still morally consternable - just as the Tranquil should not be considered as less than people for their condition, neither should the modern Thedosians - but it's got nothing to do with Nazis. There aren't Nazi or otherwise racist concepts to be found here because magic, magical differences and mortality divides between peoples are real in Thedas, whereas racism and racial science are very much fake. Solas also isn't acting because he thinks elvhen civilisation is superior or because he thinks bringing what was lost back as in the society/culture is desirable or possible. He is the harshest critic of the actual social structure of Arlathan in the games: he considers it morally equivalent to Tevinter and its romanticisation to be pointless. (Another reason Solas used the comparison with the Tranquil imo is because the Tranquil are victims who had their condition inflicted on them, just as Solas inflicted modern Thedosians with their condition. The average Thedosian looks at a Tranquil person, feels pity and discomfort, and can't help but think of the Templar who did it to them. Same with Solas, initially, though it's his own guilt and responsibility he sees. It's not the world's natural state, further divorcing it from real world race comparisons.) And yet, bringing it back is his goal. He said the plan was to tear down the Veil and "restore the world of my time. The world of the elves." Ancient elves are the only ones he sees as people. He admits that nobody in the modern age qualified as such in his eyes, though that can change.
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Post by AlleluiaElizabeth on Mar 13, 2019 17:50:11 GMT
It straightforwardly does not sound like Nazi talk. It sounds like a magical wizard talking about magical immortality and the sundered condition of people's spirits (as well as actual spirits) in a fallen, doomed fantasy world where magic and spirits are real. It's still morally consternable - just as the Tranquil should not be considered as less than people for their condition, neither should the modern Thedosians - but it's got nothing to do with Nazis. There aren't Nazi or otherwise racist concepts to be found here because magic, magical differences and mortality divides between peoples are real in Thedas, whereas racism and racial science are very much fake. Solas also isn't acting because he thinks elvhen civilisation is superior or because he thinks bringing what was lost back as in the society/culture is desirable or possible. He is the harshest critic of the actual social structure of Arlathan in the games: he considers it morally equivalent to Tevinter and its romanticisation to be pointless. (Another reason Solas used the comparison with the Tranquil imo is because the Tranquil are victims who had their condition inflicted on them, just as Solas inflicted modern Thedosians with their condition. The average Thedosian looks at a Tranquil person, feels pity and discomfort, and can't help but think of the Templar who did it to them. Same with Solas, initially, though it's his own guilt and responsibility he sees. It's not the world's natural state, further divorcing it from real world race comparisons.) And yet, bringing it back is his goal. He said the plan was to tear down the Veil and "restore the world of my time. The world of the elves." Ancient elves are the only ones he sees as people. He admits that nobody in the modern age qualified as such in his eyes, though that can change. I don't think that "The world of the elves" refers to the civilization of the elves. I think everything indicates he means the literal state of the world, ie being veiless, that the elves previously inhabited and were immortal in.
So because they don't live as long, and their civilization lacks the means to progress to a point Solas would consider acceptable, all their lives are worth less? Yeah, that doesn't sound like Nazi talk at all. And tearing the veil down won't bring back the people Solas killed. He's not "undoing" shit. Nope, again with the straw men. Because they live much shorter, their lives are objectively worth less. Not worthless. Because there's less potential, you see. Which is what makes sentient life valuable in the first place. Nothing to do with Nazi thinking, the hypothetical difference between living for eighty years and ten thousand isn't exactly comparable to the difference between brown eyes and blue. I disagree about people's lives being objectively worth less for being shorter. You don't need a minimum amount of years on earth to leave a lasting impression on someone else or the world at large, and such a lasting impression is not measurable in its value. I consider all people to be intrinsically and indefinably valuable. I do agree Solas is not a nazi, though. I think its a stupid comparison.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 13, 2019 19:09:40 GMT
I disagree about people's lives being objectively worth less for being shorter. You don't need a minimum amount of years on earth to leave a lasting impression on someone else or the world at large, and such a lasting impression is not measurable in its value. I consider all people to be intrinsically and indefinably valuable. I agree entirely. I'm not saying that people with shorter lives are worth less as a hard-and-fast rule, I'm saying that people with shorter lives have less potential for value, for obvious reasons, which is just how we compare and judge the relative importance of people's survival in the real world. It's why women and children are considered higher priority in an emergency, and men almost expendable. More potential for life and meaning in the long run. And however else it may have looked, the world Solas comes from would have worked the same. Compared to what he knew, people with lives as short as eighty must seem almost entirely pointless. If I asked you how many dogs you would sacrifice to save the life of a baby, I'd bet the number wouldn't be zero. And a person with eternal life would certainly have more potential for impacting and touching the lives of others in positive ways compared to a normal person than a normal person, even a baby, has compared to a dog. Obviously that's not a conceivable argument for anyone to treat anyone else as inherently inferior in ordinary society, because that kind of behavior leads to all sorts of problems, aforementioned "Nazi talk" among them, but if you're ever unfortunate enough to be put on the spot and forced to make a choice that really affects everyone, like a few of the Bioware protagonists and Solas - entirely through his own fault - have been, then you have to prioritize if you want to minimize the damage you do and - as a definite and cautious second - maximize the good.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 13, 2019 19:30:57 GMT
Just popping in to say i am loving this convo and this is (one of) the reasons i love dragon age so much.
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Post by AlleluiaElizabeth on Mar 13, 2019 19:34:11 GMT
I disagree about people's lives being objectively worth less for being shorter. You don't need a minimum amount of years on earth to leave a lasting impression on someone else or the world at large, and such a lasting impression is not measurable in its value. I consider all people to be intrinsically and indefinably valuable. I agree entirely. I'm not saying that people with shorter lives are worth less as a hard-and-fast rule, I'm saying that people with shorter lives have less potential for value, for obvious reasons, which is just how we compare and judge the relative importance of people's survival in the real world. It's why women and children are considered higher priority in an emergency, and men almost expendable. More potential for life and meaning in the long run. And however else it may have looked, the world Solas comes from would have worked the same. Compared to what he knew, people with lives as short as eighty must seem almost entirely pointless. If I asked you how many dogs you would sacrifice to save the life of a baby, I'd bet the number wouldn't be zero. And a person with eternal life would certainly have more potential for impacting and touching the lives of others in positive ways compared to a normal person than a normal person, even a baby, has compared to a dog. Obviously that's not a conceivable argument for anyone to treat anyone else as inherently inferior in ordinary society, because that kind of behavior leads to all sorts of problems, aforementioned "Nazi talk" among others, but if you're ever unfortunate enough to be put on the spot and forced to make a choice that really affects everyone, like a few of the Bioware protagonists and Solas - entirely through his own fault - have been, then you have to prioritize if you want to minimize the damage you do and - as a definite and cautious second - maximize the good. The dogs' lives vs a baby idea is probably why acknowledging modern Thedosians as people puts Solas in such an emotional snarl and why he tried to avoid doing it. Which of course means on some level he considered them people already; he was just trying to lie to himself to make things easier.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 13, 2019 19:38:45 GMT
The dogs' lives vs a baby idea is probably why acknowledging modern Thedosians as people puts Solas in such an emotional snarl and why he tried to avoid doing it. Which of course means on some level he considered them people already; he was just trying to lie to himself to make things easier. Well, yeah. Put a pretty face on a hunk of steel full of wires and programming and we humans instinctively want to give it equal rights. How must he feel surrounded by people who are for all intents and purposes people, only robbed of the vast majority of their existential value? In his shoes, there's a definite case to be made that trying to reverse that is the right thing to do almost no matter the sacrifices.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 13, 2019 19:45:18 GMT
I wonder what this says about his outlook on the Dwarves as well as Elven culture in general given the Dwarves likely were never, and can never be, connected to the fade in the first place.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 13, 2019 19:52:36 GMT
I wonder what this says about his outlook on the Dwarves as well as Elven culture in general given the Dwarves likely were never, and can never be, connected to the fade in the first place. That's a good question. If memory serves, Solas is mostly just baffled by and curious about anything Varric says or anything related to Dwarven culture in their banter. It's possible he just hasn't thought about them very much, and dismissed them from his ultimate view of where he's trying to take the world. Most of his reference points on human culture seem to be from what he's gathered from fade imprint sites. It's unlikely he's been down in the Deep Roads to explore Dwarven history or Orzammar itself the same way.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 13, 2019 19:56:29 GMT
I wonder what this says about his outlook on the Dwarves as well as Elven culture in general given the Dwarves likely were never, and can never be, connected to the fade in the first place. That's a good question. If memory serves, Solas is mostly just baffled by and curious about anything Varric says or anything related to Dwarven culture in their banter. It's possible he just hasn't thought about them very much, and dismissed them from his ultimate view of where he's trying to take the world. Most of his reference points on human culture seems to be from what he's gathered from fade imprint sites. It's unlikely he's been down in the Deep Roads to explore Dwarven history or Orzammar itself the same way. If he even can given i strongly suspect that the Deep Roads might be a place of 'anti fade'
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Post by Lazarillo on Mar 13, 2019 19:58:49 GMT
I wonder what this says about his outlook on the Dwarves as well as Elven culture in general given the Dwarves likely were never, and can never be, connected to the fade in the first place. Solas' views on the Dwarves are pretty clear: back in the good old days, they were all slaves to the Titans with no free will, and thus, this is how they should still be. His clamoring for "freedom" doesn't apply to them because that's just not "how Dwarves are supposed to be". More of his inherent racism.
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Post by colfoley on Mar 13, 2019 20:01:00 GMT
I wonder what this says about his outlook on the Dwarves as well as Elven culture in general given the Dwarves likely were never, and can never be, connected to the fade in the first place. Solas' views on the Dwarves are pretty clear: back in the good old days, they were all slaves to the Titans with no free will, and thus, this is how they should still be. His clamoring for "freedom" doesn't apply to them because that's just not "how Dwarves are supposed to be". More of his inherent racism. An interesting view and it might explain a lot but i am curious to see your supporting evidence.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 13, 2019 20:04:12 GMT
That's a good question. If memory serves, Solas is mostly just baffled by and curious about anything Varric says or anything related to Dwarven culture in their banter. It's possible he just hasn't thought about them very much, and dismissed them from his ultimate view of where he's trying to take the world. Most of his reference points on human culture seems to be from what he's gathered from fade imprint sites. It's unlikely he's been down in the Deep Roads to explore Dwarven history or Orzammar itself the same way. If he even can given i strongly suspect that the Deep Roads might be a place of 'anti fade' That's... a really interesting point. Can you elaborate on your reasons? Not to put you on the spot or anything, but I haven't heard that theory before.
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Post by Lazarillo on Mar 13, 2019 20:27:13 GMT
An interesting view and it might explain a lot but i am curious to see your supporting evidence. About how Dwarves used to be? In the case of the former, there's a War Table mission for Dagna where she does some investigating of Runes and such and talks about afterward how during the process she has the thoughts of all the Dwarves, as well as ancient writings describing them as "witless, [and] soulless". And, of course, the behavior of the Sha-Brytol. It's pretty clear how we're meant to take it. Granted, DAI was already a mess of retcons designed as "psych!" moments, so they might try to do the same in the future.
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