I can't finish the game as anyone but a Mage.

I think the problem is the writers went too far in DA2 with the abuses in the Circle. In DAO I could see both sides of the argument, particularly my first play through before I had experienced the mage origin story. I actually felt sorry for the Templars because I thought that may be Alistair was right and the Chantry used lyrium to control them, so they were slaves of the Chantry too. I was never comfortable with the idea of mages being forced into Circles and never able to leave but I could see the necessity for some form of formalised education after the experience with Conner. Even Morrigan was taught by an experienced mage, not left to struggle with no guidance among a village of non-mages, as would be the case with most commoner children.

The problem was that in DA2 there actually seemed no real justification for the Circles and the Templars totally abused their power. To makes matters worse they were totally useless at their job of keeping the lid on illicit mage activity and Meredith ignored the efforts of the one good Templar who was actually trying to track down a rogue mage serial killer. Alric seemingly was able to make mages tranquil in Kirkwall without anyone doing anything about it when Anders makes a point that it is actually illegal to make a mage tranquil in the Circle once they have passed their harrowing. In the Ferelden Circle the responsibility for authorising making an apprentice tranquil was actually that of the First Enchanter. The Knight Commander would make the recommendation but the First Enchanter would approve it. So what was Orsino doing? Even if the system worked differently in Kirkwall, which seems odd because rules need to be consistent everywhere so people understand them, Orsino has eyes; did he not see that mages were being made tranquil illegally? During Act 1 and Act 2 he had access to Elthina and (as we learn in Asunder) each Circle has a sending stone for contact with other Circles, so if he couldn't get a message out any other way, he could have done so via his sending stone. There were still regular meetings of the College of Enchanters in Cumberland up until when Fiona called for independence and so the Templars forbade them. So if Kirkwall was so out of step with the way other Circles were run, why didn't he say so there? If he was stopped from attending, why didn't other First Enchanters question this? I could go on and on how the situation in Kirkwall was so out of step with everywhere else that I can understand Anders' frustration with the system there, even if he hadn't objected to the Circles in principle, and feel that the only way to make people and particularly the Divine do something about it was to blow up something to make them take notice. Shouldn't that have been the moment the Seekers went in to investigate, not two years later?

Then in DAI they seem to have realised they had done too good a job of demonising the Circles, so we had Vivienne as Chantry/Circle apologist but her position seemed to run counter to everything we had understood about the Circles but to the opposite extreme. Why had Isolde been so terrified of losing her son when in Orlais apparently nobles can keep mage lovers who can openly use their magic in public? How was Celene able to keep not one but two powerful mages among her entourage? As Vivienne was aware of Morrigan and did not approve, why didn't she simply tell the Templars to arrest her? Why did Celene run foul of the population for seemingly being lenient with elves and yet not have riots in the streets for sheltering an apostate mage? As for the possibility of Vivienne being made Divine. That was so absurd. A fundamental law of the Chantry right back to Drakon, even before the Circles were set up, was that whilst mages can advise rulers, they should not unduly influence them or become rulers in themselves. The Divine is the ultimate ruler of the Chantry and arguably of all those who respect its authority. It doesn't matter how many senior clergy were blown up at the Conclave, every one of the remaining clergy was eligible before Vivienne and in fact making her Divine was illegal both in Chantry and secular law. Whilst I could just about understand her clinging onto power whilst she had the backing of the full Inquisition (assuming of course that the Inquisitor approved of her election), once it had been cut down in size (or disbanded) that should have been the signal for a full scale revolt across the south and ousting her.

So I am tending to regard each game in the series as separate from the other with regard to the lore and situation in which our PC finds themselves. That way I don't have to worry about the timeline inconsistencies with Anders from DAA to DA2, or try and reconcile the Institutions we find in DAO with the ones we encounter in DA2 or DAI, because they all take place in parallel universes and thus there is no continuity between them. If I want further justification in my own mind, Alexius did manage to turn back time to before Felix was hurt but in doing so he messed with everything in the timeline from then on. Which is why instead of Anders and Hawke being the leaders of the revolution, it is Grand Enchanter Fiona.

That's what I was getting at really. What has irked me for sometime is the fact that the writers seem to change lore on a whim because it suits the story they want to tell and then justify it through a codex or character's dialogue when it really stretches credibility to do so. They sell big fat lore books that also cost a fair bit of money (unless you get them on discount) and then promptly change what is set down in them.

Every Circle is different; the Dalish clans are growing apart so that is why there is no consistency between them; mages are fashion accessories so it is okay to disregard Chantry laws where they are concerned and so on and so forth. Yes, there have always been exceptions among the mages who are allowed to function in the community but still not holding any real power. Making Vivienne Divine was just a step too far in my opinion. I should imagine that noble mage children across southern Thedas would be insisting upon their rightful inheritance after that because how can you deny a mage the position of Bann or King or Empress when you have a mage as Divine?

Still we seem to have digressed from the original subject of this post.

I played both paths because I thought it would be interesting and I just loved my shadow assassin Hawke who was a real blast to play but the Hawke in my canon world state was my first Hawke, a female mage and total believer in mage freedom, even if she felt that blowing up the Chantry was a bit too extreme.

Yup. The same could really be said about Wynne though.

It's a mystery to me why so many games propose engaging and complicated dilemmas with vast implications... and then choose to present one side mostly through the mouths of insane tyrants or complete hypocrites. Even though the policies they're advocating are perfectly defensible for honorable and rational reasons that they never truly go into.

You really run up against the fact that game writers, well, writers in general, aren't actually philosophers, psychologists or social scientists, and can only add so much depth and believably to any scenario before they have to resort to clichés.

Although in this instance, Cassandra's politics are arguably more in line with the spirit of what the Circles are for than Vivienne's obvious lobbying for personal power is. You'd pretty much have to be a fully indoctrinated Chantry conformist to swallow her rhetoric. So I'd call Cassandra the party's "Circle apologist" and, if anything, Vivienne a walking lesson in why mages shouldn't be allowed to grease their way into political power.

I had no idea so many players saw Mage!Hawke as so central to the Mage/Templar conflict. A warrior or rogue Hawke who has to deal with the fallout of it still feels like the strongest story to me, but I'll be interested to see if my own Mage!Hawke feels just as relevant somewhere down the line, especially as she's going to fall down on the side of the Templars, which I've never actually gone all-in on before.

It's very logical to support your persecutors, hunters, of course. Almost like an escaped slave, who support the slaveholders/-hunters to catch the other properties. People who deny, betray their kind, from fear, and even worse, if they think, they're right. It exists, but very sad. A very interesting RP choice, by the way, I just can't (once I tried, it was very uncomfortable to me). 

At first: this isn't the Brexit. By the way, what means the word "Brexit" in Thedas? Or what language? Tevene? Orlesian? Or common-Trade? Dalish, or Qunlat?

Okay... so, then back to the Mage issues in Thedas.

Andraste and Shartan was radical, who put in danger the slaves, who fear/don't think about freedom (just remember Orana, and what Fenris said...) – and the peaceful citizens of Tevinter? Not.
The desire of freedom isn't some extremism. This is the normal state of people. The prison-Circle is the extremism. And not the welfare of the majority of mages. And not the welfare of anyone. The Circle isn't just inhumane, but even dangerous. The prison-Circle is wrong.

Also, it's not true, that the freedom fighters, like Anders don't give a shit how many people die, but the freedom has some cost, if they don't get it freely – and I didn't see any intention for it...

The free mages dealt with the evil? And the evil itself is Tevinter? Then what is Orlais? Not much better than Tevinter...

And now: back to Kirkwall, what suffers under a criminal madwoman with the support of the Chantry. And there is the planned annulment...
Hawke don't have to agree with Anders (can kill him, in fact), don't have to like Orsino as well, to see, that to kill every mage is more than intolerable, just like that Knight-Commander. Why would a mage Hawke support that madness?
The nobles also wanted to rebel against her and her mob. 

I know people fear the mages... so: their interest to find a better way to live with the mages – as Bethany say at the Gallows. This fear is an incentive, isn't?

(I also love that the Templars betray Viscount Hawke at the end and kick Hawke from Kirkwall... Nemesis!)

Let's just say there should be something workable between complete non-regulation and lifelong internment in an institution run by an organized religion that blames your kind for the world's greatest evils.

NOT the "radicals" and the "blood mages" ruined everything. How they could ruin anything, when their position was ruined inherently: they were locked in a prison from their childhood, innocently for their whole life. They were already doomed – as Anders said.
I don't even think, how someone able to think about it seriously, that "the radicals and the blood mages ruined everything". Absolutely wrong logic, a nonsense, and a dangerous view. The prison-Circle system was unacceptable originally, and nobody wanted to let live freely the mages before the rebellion. 
Even Wynne saw, that her peaceful solution never worked, attacked the White Spire with Shale. 

Without the rebellion, nothing would happen.

The freedom isn't "ideological extremism", this is the only acceptable base of any ideology – any ideology, what not based on this, is wrong. Everything else is just wrong. The Andrastian ideology, based on freedom as well. Everyone who violated this basis is wrong. The Chantry is wrong about the prison-Circles (and about many other things). Simple – even from a true Andrastian's angle. This is the simplest question in the whole game.

You don't say. Yeah, I don't see the suppressed mages as analogous to any real-world historically oppressed or misjudged people. I'd be more likely to compare them to people being born with machine guns growing out of their arms, among other things, with additional nascent nuclear warheads in their brains that might blow up deliberately or by accident on a really bad day down the line.

Regardless of historical resentment because of all the trouble their abilities have caused, people being born and growing up with those abnormal capabilities for destruction definitely mandate special treatment, if not outright culling, or society's days are numbered. That's just the reality of the matter, as it clearly always has been.

In my mind, the real debate is about figuring out exactly what level of internment and restraint is necessary to keep the worst of them from making trouble as much as possible, before it becomes counterproductive and incurs too much resentment in the majority to control them in the long run. 

For those purposes, I think training them to become useful members of society in some sense is pretty important, both to have them handy in case of a magical crisis and for their own mental well-being, to give them outlets. Magical crafting professions would be nice. Healing centers would be brilliant. Having them serve in the military would be a catastrophe for all sorts of reasons, except maybe as doctors.

That's obviously flirting with slavery. But still better than them either getting uppity and ultimately destroying the world (again) or them going insane from idleness and frustration and ultimately destroying the world (again), so I could live with it. 

What they absolutely cannot be allowed to do is go wherever they like and do whatever they feel like without strict supervision. I don't see a world where they're allowed to be "free" in any real sense where civilization survives for very long. And I'm liable to forgive a fair bit of internal corruption in whatever organization takes responsibility for preventing that from happening.

Mages aren't a uniform group with uniform ideology, no. That means that no matter what a bunch of them are no doubt good people who would never harm anyone and are disciplined enough to not be a danger. It also means that at least some of them are destructive and/or unstable, and will inevitably cause harm if allowed freedom, just like any truly unhinged person. Except these people are literally capable of ripping apart the fabric of reality if given the chance to do so. 

To my mind, the existence of the latter trumps the existence of the former when it comes to how mages need to be handled as a matter of policy, regardless of how much that sucks for the disciplined and responsible ones. 

And obviously how they're treated for their magic growing up has a big impact on how they turn out, and that needs to be taken into consideration. But there's no possible way to raise an entire population group to be upstanding citizens, and even a few outliers of this particular group are capable of untold destruction. "We'll just treat them all well and none of them will feel the need to be evil" isn't a realistic solution on any level.