Breaking Canon

That's true, Minaeve mentions she was cast out. And? Where is the retcon? We know nothing about Minaeve's clan other than the fact that she was cast out. Perhaps they were very far away from other clans. Perhaps they were feuding with clans nearby. Perhaps the Keeper had a personal gripe. Who knows. However, no retcon has been established. Unless you can provide me the dev that says "yeah, we used to have it as clans could have all the mages, now it's no more than 3."  Otherwise, it's a fan assumption. Fan assumptions can be fun, but they are postulates and are discarded when true lore comes around.

It sounds like you are more interested in discussing your personal grievances about identity politics and that sounds like a waste of time. The words of the devs admitting the retcon are all that is needed, and no discussion changes what the dev says.

You still have provided ZERO evidence whatsoever that any developer said any such thing. And in any case I don't give a shit about retcons. I don't care if the next game replaces healing potions with diet coke.

It's not MY grievance with "identity politics", you're the one complaining about "woke trends", and we all know what that really means.

We're talking the writer of Mordin here...

I find having Weekes on the case as lead writer is a huge boon to DA4 - I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.

(probably with many unpronounceable elven names and many fan tears, the track record is not to pull punches).

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More generally, canon, or past practice is simply a reference point from which the story goes forward.

I don't think there is anything wrong with changes of direction so long as the change is self-consistent within the fantasy world, even if the justification is just 'fantasy magic'. The canon is owned by BioWare. It's theirs to change as required.

It was that and now it's this. ok. Hardly anything to lose sleep over.

The last I can judge is Inquisition which I found strong. John Epler brought us more Iron Bull rumpy pumpy.

Both these things made me happy.

The next point of judgement for me will be DA4 with all of this, though I suspect we'll speculate at length ahead of its launch.

That's a shame.

With DAI GOTY and I recall wide approval for the romances meant that these were very popular, even if they didn't work for you personally.

Very good, we can get back to 'canon' then.

It sounds like you're basing your opinion on how much magic is in the Dalish clans as to your feelings, rather than the lore. Feelings are highly subjective. You say that it seems magic is on the decline, but there are no hard numbers. At one point, all elves had magic, is the decline that you'd see only two or three in a generation? Further, it could simply be luck: The clan had four mage births, or perhaps a pair of twins. We can't just say "this breaks lore" with what little evidence we have.

You're also trying to do something about the Andrastian teachings, which really has no meaning here, I'm very confused. We've never seen a clan run short on mages except for what Merrill said about the Sabrae Clan's keeper getting killed by bandits. It happens, but how common is it. We've seen plenty of other clans so far, and none of them have mentioned problems with being short on mages. 

I'm aware that such a thing is a different reason. The point was that we don't know what happened with Minaeve other than that she was cast out at 7 because the clan had too many mages. There are countless possibilities and we can't base it on anything. Like I said, it could be that her clan was on bad terms with nearby clans and going there would probably have resulted in death. It could be the bad relations with the Chantry, and they were itching for an excuse to send the templars. 

I don't want to base my opinions merely on fan theory. 

Nah. I'm not playing this game. Someone talking about some things being "too woke" for their liking and then trying to play "you are just about emotion" game? Nuh-uh.


I'm not saying it, I'm quoting it. I cannot quite track down in-game dialogue, but as far as character codexes, which are usually not sourced to someone like Genitivi or worse, here you go.


Of norse not! What do you expect would become of any mage-templar argument if Bioware would have stated some numbers? Most of the time... they are not good with that anyway.

Well, current andrastian attitude ian't very fond of mages, eh? They could use "filling clans with mages" as part of their usual rants, besides all the sin and guilt of course. That attitude of "each mage is one too many, unless they blow up some infidels" doesn't apply to everyone though.


I didn't say Merrill said that. Ashalle discloses it, after a persuasion check. If "not enough mages" is now the issue, whch I take as "less than one Keeper and one apprentice" for this case, we also have the Sabrae again for a while after Merrill is gone. Hawen's clan looses both apprentices. As for Zathrien's clan, Lanaya speaks of having to compete, so there's probably more, which is also an argument against a supposed "universal" limit. That clan from Dragon Age: Redemption had its Keeper abducted by the Chantry and there was just one confirmed apprentice.


Again, "too many mages"=/="doesn't get along with mentor".
Other than that, isn't the Chantry always on bad relations with the Dalish? I mean, wrong religion and mages and stuff...

Ooh, ooh!

DA4 should have us assist the Intersectional Qunari in their conflict with the the A-AERQ (Aqun-Athlok Exclusionary Radical Qunarists).

I admit I never played much Mass Effect, I don't know that character.
However I find some of Weekes views disputable which wouldn't be an issue if he wouldn't drag them into his professional work. I'm a feminist to the core, the entire biology denying gender rhetoric is incredibly problematic from a feminist standpoint. It prolly doesn't fit this thread so I'll leave it at that.

Frbbitgrbtgrgghghghg.

Man, it is so weird how putting minorities in fiction is *always* political, and leaving them out *never* is. What a crazy coincidence.

I wonder why Patrick feels so compelled to use his creative work as a vehicle for his own politics and beliefs? I've never heard of an author ever doing that before.