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

So: the game doesn't suggest, that "Templars bad, mages good", only our sense of justice says anything. This what I wanted to say exactly, Iddy.

I never said anything about "the ends always justifying the means", whatever that's supposed to mean. But some catastrophic risks justify some extreme measures, and sometimes that's ugly.

Mages have already caused three cataclysmic or near-cataclysmic disasters over the course of the last few thousand years alone - that we know of. And one of them is a repeater, regularly returning to turn everyone everywhere into monsters if it weren't for thousands of brave men and women dying to prevent it each time. They've also essentially conquered the world and enslaved everyone and everything else twice, on two separate occasions, in the same time-frame.

That simply isn't survivable in the long run. Odds are, Thedas is never going to make it to their industrial revolution because it will be wiped out long before then. By or because of mages.

As for why the mages haven't been culled en masse, I'll admit that if there was a workable way to do that then I might actually consider it the best option. There isn't though.

For one thing, attempting to Tranquilize or put any large group of mages to death carries a risk of disaster on its own, because the mages know they have nothing to lose by turning to demons for help. Were the Templars to start doing that everywhere then half the major cities in Thedas would be dealing with demon and abomination infestations for decades, not to mention the mage underground potentially going to war and whatever other nastiness the most powerful or prepared mages might be able to trigger in their final moments.

For another, even if it worked out exactly as intended with no collateral damage, mage children would still be born all over the countryside to mothers who would suddenly be quite a bit more reluctant to turn them over to the Chantry. Hundreds of more mages growing up outside Chantry control would kind of undermine the whole effort.

Oh, and then there's all the lingering magical threats from past mage atrocities that Thedas kind of still needs mages' help to defend against and neutralize. 

I'm personally rather allergic to "everyone should potentially die because you don't want to take responsibility for a few not feeling so good" mentality. The world is chock-full of people who are unhappy with their fates. If just a fraction of a percentage had to be made to live in relative discomfort for literally everyone else to have a future, I'd see that as a steal.

No life in confinement is wretched enough to outweigh the world literally ending.

Noxluxe


If you state that your first and foremost goal is to stop the world from being destroyed because that is what you believe will inevitably happen if mages are not all 'culled' and every other concern comes second, then you are justifing your means because of that end.



Did I understood it right that your goal would still be to put them all down, but it's just due to possible bad publicity and short-term risks that you would suggest an 'improved internment' instead until "kill them all" is feasible? Well, let's assume that the world would really inevitably end sooner than later if any mage gets out. Given what happened in Kirkwall and elsewhere, i.e. not everybody is willing to go through with most extreme measures, you would need to brainwash anybody involved in that control-and-interment system a hundred times more effectively than even the Chantry did. Your 'supervisors' would need to be in any place at any time to make sure that any mage child is picked up as soon as possible, besides heavily brainwashing the population so that they are even more likely to report a mage child immediately. The problem I sense with this is that people are people - they are emotional and at times irrational. They don't always react in that logical way that you propose. There is always somebody who might object, unless the 'unpleasant job' is done by robots.
In order to get rid of all those other safety risks, i.e. mage children, living outside of your influence, you would need to force your view on the few other cultures that are not convinced of your interpretation (yet?) and most certainly finally exterminate them.



If you intent on killing them anyway, why should they help? The only reason that I could imagine is that some might want "to help making the world a better place" for any relatives they might have. But other than that?



I merely tried to express my train of thought according to my personal impression and perhaps could have worded it better, admittedly. But if you like to call anybody irresponsible if they don't want to follow with what essentially amounts to a "kill them all!" approach, fine. Call it culling if you want. In my limited understanding as a non-native speaker, that always appeared as "sort somebody out to kill them".


In the end, I suppose it boils down to what one believes and which group you feel 'to belong to' if one creates an "Us vs. Them"-scenario.

Simple paranoia (what can block the mind!).

The only solution is mine: education, an effective anti-magical force, with mages and non-mages. The prison-Circles only false sense of security, this prevents people to form a better system. Plus the locked towers make the mages irresponsible children. If anything, this is the danger. And still inhumane (I know, that not really important to you.)

You said: it's dangerous to allow them to fight, but the Chantry's reason to stop the hunts against them and let them alive in those prisons was, that they're able to fight effectively against the Blight for example. (Weirdly in [most of] the Circles, they prevented the martial training...) So: especially their magical abilities and their effectiveness in the fight were the reason, they didn't exterminate them all.

But if they have unstoppable power, why didn't win the mage/Templar war instantly? Nobody prevented them to use blood magic anymore! Perhaps, they're not that danger... or they're not that monsters/senseless walking weapons like you present them all.

Your arguments are absolutely wrong, not effective and based on immorality.
And doesn't count about that there are free mages in Thedas in many societies. So as I wrote before: let's launch a war –on multiple fronts!–, for the safety of the world. Congratulation!

Tevinter is not the threat for centuries. Especially Tevinter show, that the mages able to control themselves and don't destroy the world. The problem in Tevinter is the slavery and the corruption. Like in Orlais. Not the magocracy.

And if you consider Tevinter as a danger, you need more mages against it... more mages who willing to fight at the side of the Southern. More free mage, even in the army. 

I never said that any internment method, of any kind, would be perfect. Much less that I would struggle so hard to make it perfect that it couldn't function in practice or would destabilize the world all by itself. The world would still be doomed to destruction by magic eventually, one way or another, thanks to those things impossible to control or account for. Controlling the mage population as well as possible is just the best bet for staving it off.



Theoretically you're completely right, the Qunari are technically just another culture, and dealing with them somehow without magic, or war for that matter, would be ideal just like it would with anyone.

In practice though, unified cultures of pathological mindsets unwaveringly intent on conquering and enslaving the world exist on another threat level than normal rivaling nations do. They have to be resisted at nearly all cost, or they and their insane belief systems are simply our new masters. And being subservient to a system like that has an unfortunate tendency to end up being worse than death, according to history. That's just how they work.

Thedas' struggle to fight off the Qunari isn't just a territorial conflict, it qualifies as existential just like the fight against Solas does. And I'd say that that may warrant using magic in as controlled and careful a way as we can.

I can see how that feels muddy and less clear-cut, and I agree. It absolutely is.



1) I disagree with that, but that's an entirely different discussion.

2) The problem with people like Dorian is that everyone isn't like him. He's an exceptionally good and disciplined and clear-eyed man with an intelligent sense of right and wrong. If all mages were like him there'd be no problem at all. But for every Dorian there's a Danarius, or an Erimond, or god forbid a Sethius Amladaris. And seeing any of the latter dead or in chains is just plain more important than seeing the former walking free with no rights infringed upon.

His ambition to serve and change Tevinter for the better is very admirable, and definitely a good thing. But even if he succeeds beyond his wildest dreams he's never going to make it into a nation entirely full of mages as good and sensible as he is. And whatever number of mages resist his influence are still going to be a threat to the entire world, as they always have been.

And frankly, hell is going to freeze over before you engineer a society where those with power don't use it for leverage. There are plenty of stories, real and fictional, of people spectacularly failing to do that, and they're definitely interesting as well as educational. Maybe not video game plot material though. 

One of the more successful answers in real life has been to set up systems of accountability and counterweight. Checks and balances. Powerful people still naturally try to exploit their power, other powerful people and influences are just put in place to try to prevent it from tearing society apart.

The Templars under the Chantry's control are essentially an attempt at that. They just aren't a very efficient one, in part because this is a medieval world with medieval logistical limits, and in part because magic doesn't work like any other kind of power. They're still better than nothing though.

Then lock every possible troublemaker up! (Aveline in rivalry) And because we never know, who is the real troublemaker, we should lock every people. People will always kill each other. I don't think, the mages (1%!) would kill more people, than the other thugs and nobles.
But to lock them, isn't safe enough... you're right about that the only "safe solution" to put common people in safety, is make tranquil/kill every mages in their childhood. But also the nobles, rulers are a danger, so, kill them all as well. And the poor people... kill them all too. And you still have the danger... 

But just as the mages can cause the problem, they're able to solve it. Lock them up isn't the solution – false sense of security. To kill/lobotomize them also inhumane (ofc), and a waste. In this world, the mages are necessary.

Nobody is saying that ordinary people can't be dangerous too, but there's a difference of scale that makes that a false equivalency. No amount of moody guys with swords or spears are going to start a zombie apocalypse or turn the laws of nature upside down, evaporating civilization in an instant. Singular mages have already done both of those things by accident.

And regular medieval peasantry were in fact heavily restricted in what sorts of weapons they were allowed to carry for entirely obvious reasons.

There's still no comparison though. A nutcase brandishing a sword can be grappled and dogpiled by any two people as big as he is. A mad mage might burn down half the countryside if he's stupid and ineffectual before anyone with the necessary skills could get to him. To effectively do what you suggest would take a lot more Templars than I think the Chantry has ever had, and it would take for those Templars to be better coordinated and informed than any medieval military force in history.

I'm not an expert on Thedas' actual logistical situation, but certainly the only effective way I can see of semi-reliably keeping the mages from harming people en masse would be to gather them all into a few places and concentrate all the necessary oversight there. Which is exactly what the Chantry has done for the last thousand years.

It's not a question of punishment, it's a matter of world stability. Mages are simply too dangerous to have around people. I'd bet you if we tallied up just the average number of people killed by a single mage in the Dragon Age setting, that number would still surpass the combined body-count of every known serial killer and mass murderer in real-world history.