You thought Mage vs. Templar was complicated? JUST YOU WAIT FOR...

In the Qun, they also can’t punish you just for thinking. They don’t have, say, an army of spirits who will tattle on the contents of your brain.

That’s something I always found kind of eye-rolly about Solas’ hatred of the Qunari. Qunari do have privacy within their own minds.

And while reluctant soldiers are technically possible, it doesn’t really make sense to choose people who won’t like it. That’s one of several reasons why modern countries tend to avoid the draft. Conscripts suck. Sure, you can punish them and try to whip them into shape, but it’s a huge waste of time and resources. Meanwhile your army is sloppy and uncoordinated. And if you have to eventually eject them from the forces, now you’ve spent all that training and effort on nothing. Better to have one guy who wants to be there than two who are dragging their feet. Let the people who don’t want to fight do something they’d be more passionate about, so they’re not a net drain on resources.

With slaves, the calculus is different. They’re already going to be doing the tasks no one wants to do, so there’s less ability to give them jobs they’re more passionate about. They’re more equivalent to viddath-bas than regular Qunari, at least from an economic perspective. And make no mistake, the existence of viddath-bas is a huge stain on the Qunari. But regular Qunari are not likely to be in a career they hate; it doesn’t make any economic sense for the tamassrans to do that.

I would side with Tevinter, since there is hope for change in their society. The Qun, not so much.

History also shows that more often than not, people have ways of snapping back to the devil they know when radical change happens to much and too fast. Honest and sustained improvement takes generations to take root, not just whenever the protagonist is in town. If it's more idealistic fantasy with clear cut heroes and villains you want, there are plenty of all-ages stories out there to enjoy. But at it's core, Dragon Age has always been a dark, adult fantasy with complex character and themes and no easy answers. For Bioware to change DA with such blatant adolescent wish fulfillment would be to objectively betray the franchise's unique identity, legacy, and very soul.

Is there? As soon as someone’s born into one of Tevinter’s upper classes, they’re safe from being made a slave. All their unpleasant work is externalized. There may be some lukewarm push to end slavery from a moral standpoint, but there’s no selfish reason to do so. They are in no danger of becoming an elf, and in very little danger of losing their magic.

Any Qunari can become viddath-bas. Aside from moral concerns, there’s now a selfish reason to make all hard labor obsolete. The less hard labor needs to be done, the less pressure there will be to turn “bad” Qunari into viddath-bas, and the more permissive Ben-Hassrath will become.* And that’s bearing itself out. The Qunari now have a level of mechanization that rivals the dwarves. They’re eliminating slavery from the other direction — by eliminating the crappy jobs that no one wants to do.

I would argue that eliminating slavery economically is a more enduring change than eliminating it by moral appeals. The moral appeals may work for a time, but now you’ve still got this collection of undesirable jobs that must be done. Soon enough, some unscrupulous portion of the population will reintroduce slavery (perhaps under a different name), and they’ll have an economic advantage over everyone else.

The only way to permanently destroy slavery is to make keeping a slave more expensive than keeping a machine that does the same thing.

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*there are real world examples of this effect. For example, one reason the US has the highest prison population in the world is because so many states rely on prison labor to do unpleasant or dangerous jobs. They’re pressured to constantly be “tough on crime”, even if it means more recidivism, more crime, and worse outcomes, because otherwise they lose this critical workforce. Politicians literally say things like “we can’t reform sentencing, even if it would improve public safety. We don’t have enough budget to hire non-prisoner replacements for these jobs.”

Qunari slavery is psychological too, so it is not quite the same as Tevinter. And there hardly are any Qunari aiming for reform, unlike Tevinter's Lucerni.

That was my point though. Aiming for reform is noble. Aiming for reform is good. Aiming for reform should be encouraged.

...but it’s not very useful if it won’t stick. All Qunari have a vested interest in eliminating the need for viddath-bas. This is why they’ve been innovating at such a furious pace, while Tevinter has stagnated both technologically and magically. It’s too easy for Vints to say “why bother making this easier, just make a slave do it” because they never have to fear becoming a slave themselves.

All Qunari have to fear becoming viddath-bas, so all Qunari have a great reason to eliminate the shitty, unfulfilling jobs that rely on viddath-bas labor. Removing the reliance on viddath-bas removes the threat of qamek. Why bother making someone mindless if there’s no mindless labor for them to do? It would be more expensive than leaving them be, because a viddath-bas needs someone to take care of the things they can no longer do themselves. Removing the threat of qamek fixes a lot of the current issues the Qunari have.

And they’re well on their way to doing that — not through moral appeals, but through engineering.

See? It is a black and white plotline, which leads to black and white opinions.

You don't feel conflicted about the subject, unlike what you might feel about Solas and Loghain. There is a clear "Circle bad, mages good".

The "system" isnt evil, there idiotic templars an there is idiotic mages an neither side is inherently good or bad, you can get a twat individual on either side or a so called saint but to deem the "system" evil is ludicrous . The simple truth of the matter is mages are freaking dangerous an they need a place, away from ordinary ppl, to learn to control there power an they need a guard not for if but when one of them goes bonkers.

Have in certain situations the Templars went to far? Without a doubt they have an the games have shown that but they also shown mages going to far an the reason the circles exist in first place, an there actual proof in game of circles working fine with both mages an templar living an working well together.

This aint the topic for this though so i'll leave it here

To destroy the system? I can accept the blood magic. It's a good tool against the Templars. But just until they use their own blood and pain. And not for to rule over the people but only for the freedom. You know, I never refused the blood magic totally. It's just magic. Use wisely!

And Qunari–Tevinter problem? This is less clear, but I see the Qun as the bigger problem: I wrote already, why: Tevinter shows some interest to get rid the corruption, so, perhaps also the slavery too, but the Qunari? Never. They believe, their world is the best world ever. This is dangerous. And under the Qun, everyone's a slave.

I don't agree with the notion that idea of Circles is inherently a bad one. I agree that they are not implemented well, the system is actually pretty crude and basic, but the idea is no more evil than compulsory school attendance in our real world.

Knowing control -is- neccesary for mages, their life depends on it in fact. Most of the problems of Circles might actually stem from the fact that they are being run by religion that is against magic. But those don't get solved by open armed rebellion, that's about as crude way of jump-startimg reforms as Circle implementation itself and unless you are wildly successful in your rebellion (which mages were not) it might leave you worse off, especially when dealing with a problem that's feared by superstitious common folk.

The Circles is evil. It's not about the implement: how we can implement well and humane a lifetime imprisonment? The thought to imprison innocents and to kidnap children from their parents, to prohibit the family, love, privacy to them, for a life, is evil. It's can be good, not even the intention.
The system allows the abuses, and not only allows but supports that.

The Circles should work as the education-research institutes. 

1000 years passed... they should just sit, praying and waiting calmly for some miracle? More? Were centuries not enough to wait? The people's mind will never change if nothing happens. How can they gather more trust? And why should? The freedom is not something that should deserve because this never will happen. The freedom is something that they should have, because it's right, not because they deserve. And if they don't have, they must fight for it. This is not a matter of trust. The world must change, and the people must learn to live with it. That so simple.