How many of us genuinely enjoy playing 'evil' characters?

Tou said Synthesis removes free will.
I showed how it doesn’t.
I answered your question.

Ooh ad hominem attacks. The true last resort of people who have nothing left in their argument. You’re also wrong btw.
Also if we go by your rules Destroy does all that and more since the choice is not just stripped away but their life.

I was actually referring to your implication about me being against bodily autonomy.
But you keep avoiding me putting down your actual points with evidence, so we’re done here.

Really? You actually didn't pick that up from the DAO and DAA? To be honest, I thought Alistair was the only person who viewed the Wardens as some heroic order of chivalry. The moment I was asked to drink darkspawn blood as part of the Joining I realised there was a definite downside to this Order, particularly as opting out wasn't an option. Duncan couldn't just swear Jordy to secrecy on the pain of death could he? Or let him stay on as a regular soldier? No, despite using victory in a competition as a means of entrapping a young, married man with an expectant wife, without revealing the true implications of joining up, it was either drink up the goo or die. Nor would his wife ever be told what happened to him, as technically he ceased to have that family tie the moment he agreed to joining up. To be honest, I think the Wardens should not take family members with spouses and children unless there is absolutely no other option and make it clear that once you agree to join, there is no going back. Then again, we know they hold the power of enforced conscription, so once again the recruit doesn't really have any choice in the matter. All this because they maintain the propaganda that only Wardens can stop the Blight without ever saying why this is the case. Could they not at least tell people that it is necessary for a Warden to kill the Arch-demon or it will regenerate? That seems to me to be a vitally important piece of information and doesn't require revealing exactly why this is. Mind you, Duncan didn't seem to appreciate the importance of keeping his wardens alive until the Arch-demon actually appeared on the scene, since he placed all but two of them on the front line and then didn't even tell those two about the need for them to slay the beast.

Also, Stroud was not the only surviving warden in the south. Meanwhile some civilians are entrusted with the secret of the Joining (DAA), and we knew we were not actually in a Blight situation, so there would be time to send to Weisshaupt for a replacement commander. By now, the Inquisition had agents across Thedas and Leliana's raven post, so it would be an entirely different situation to the one we experienced in DAO.

I agree with the above about Ser Jory being killed by Duncan. Had Jory not drawn his weapon, would Duncan still kill him? If DAO is remade, I would have Ser Jory drink first, survives only to die on the battlefield along with the king and Duncan.

The reasons you've mentioned are to see for the people who are a part of the Order. I'm speaking about the perception of those outside. As the Inquisitor, you're given a look of the Wardens from the outside and from an opposing position. When you're running around as the Warden trying to save the entire world, you meet a lot of opposition and everyone's like nah we've got out own issues to resolve. I do get their reasoning, however, a part of my reaction to that was, are you crazy people? Isn't it obvious you should be helping me? All of you will die if I fail.

You may have not liked the situation with Jory, however, as the lead Warden later in the Awakening you recruit your own friends and have them go through that dubious and deadly Ceremony; and had any of them tried to back out, you'd have been tasked to do what Duncan has done. Oghren gives you lip service for it, 'you should have mentioned the nightmares.' It's so secret that you didn't even warn your friend he'll get nightmares. Granted, for the most part the game doesn't give you the option to do it.

In DAO, the game is giving you great leniency about what you're willing to do for the greater good. When you're doing some shady stuff to save everyone's bacon, it's not the same as passing judgment on someone else doing everything to save everyone's bacon.

To me, the biggest problems with the geth being affected by Destroy at all and Synthesis boil down to writer wish fulfillment and laziness; specifically, an unwillingness to explore, or even acknowledge the long term implications of how they presented such choices, or how they are incompatible with previously established lore.

In Mass Effect 2 Legion revealed how the true geth rejected working with the Reapers because it clashed with their philosophy of self determination. The geth wanted to create their own future on their own terms, alone. Cut to ME3, now they are quite happy to take the Reaper code shortcut for a change they didn't even need. Nevermind that Legion's entire ME2 Loyalty mission was to prevent the true geth from being brainwashed by a heretic virus made with Reaper aid. To me, the choice seems less like the next logical step in the geth's character development, and more the writers creating an artificially meta reason to link them to Destroy. The Crucible was made specifically to end the Reapers, and I can't see any reason why it should affect other synthetics other than adding forced drama to Destroy.

As for whether or not Destroying the Reapers themselves is genocide... I disagree. Emphatically. The Reapers reproduce by exterminating whole species, harvesting their genetic material and controlling in with cybernetics and indoctrination. In all the millions of years of their existence, I've never heard of them even trying to explore alternative means of procreation. They are quite literally a parasitic virus on all life in the galaxy. Destroying Reapers isn't killing living beings, so much as exorcising a demon from a corpse, and granting peace to the victims.

Finally, I do agree forcing Synthesis on the races of the Milky Way without their knowledge or consent is rape. Not to mention genocide in it's own way, since the nanotechnology has forever altered the DNA of what made every species unique. Trying to argue that the Extended Ending showed Synthesis as some Mega Happy Ending only proves to me that the writers valued personal wish fulfillment over recognizing the obvious major negative consequences of such a choice in a complex, adult setting. Or that they were too lazy to remember what happened every other time forcibly linking organic and synthetic minds without their consent in the Mass Effect universe. David Archer anyone?

I thought you were meaning the player because, as you pointed out, during DAO people on the outside were not necessarily in wholehearted support of the Wardens. For some reason Anora was apparently aware that the recruit might not survive the Joining (may be Riorden had told her this) but on the whole support seemed to depend on whether people had personally suffered from the darkspawn incursion. The fact you needed written treaties to coerce major groups into helping you does suggest that the Wardens struggle with their public perception. Then you have a smaller group of people like Alistair and Jordy (before he discovered the truth) who do regard them in a more favourable light.

I think where the Inquisitor was concerned is that generally the common people of Ferelden would trust the Wardens after the events of the 5th Blight because of their gratitude for their country being saved, although apparently that didn't extend to Arl Teagan who chose to reference much earlier history when speaking of the Wardens in Trespasser and then comparing them to the Inquisition. That didn't make much sense to me given his own personal experience but I think being Ambassador to Orlais had jaded him. Meanwhile, it seems memories across wider Thedas were also short when it came to trusting the Wardens compared with the Inquisition, since apparently once word got out we banished them from Orlais (which I had only intended as a temporary measure for their own safety until Corypheus was dealt with), the whole of the south turned against them, despite practically every nation at some point in their history owing their survival to the Wardens. So, if anything, it seems people need reasons to trust the Wardens outside of the Blight rather than reinforcing their suspicion of them.

I think the Reapers weren't an intelligent species. They were merely rogue machines that could never deviate from their programmed behaviour patterns. They never negotiate, they never try to find alternate solutions or try to make any intelligent approach to solving the organic/synthetic problem. They are basically a giant mechanical zombie apocalypse - completely unrelenting enemies that never give any quarter and never display any intelligent thought or insight. They just play clever sounding audio files (as long as you don't think too hard about them) while they're going about their genocidal business... while the geth, ironically, immediately stand down as soon as the Quarians stop shooting.

Killing off all Reapers has nothing to do with genocide, it's merely retiring a line of extremely faulty toasters on a really massive scale.

And the endings are so stupid that any intelligent discussion about them is a waste of time. The death of the geth if you pick Destroy is merely a writer ass pull to force drama and an artificial disadvantage onto that choice because who the hell would pick anything else if the result was "all reapers drop dead, no one else gets hurt, drinks are on me".

One reason I thought Teagan hypocritical for bringing this up at the Exalted Council is that he conveniently overlooked the fact that Sophia only got involved at the request of the Banns because Arland was a tyrant. Now whilst technically she ought to have remained neutral as a Warden, the fact is this was in accordance with the way things are done in Ferelden. Also, strangely enough this is effectively what Eamon and Teagan did when they used the Landsmeet to back Alistair/the Hero against Loghain, and then the Hero decides who governs Ferelden, even though as a Warden we should not have involved ourselves with the politics of the situation. Of course, we also did this with Orzammar and the dwarves didn't seem to have a problem with this. So, the Wardens staying out of politics seems a very grey area or very much a case of the ends justify the means, if breaking a political stalemate is going to give them the backing they need.   In the Last Flight, Garahel slept with the Queen of the Anderfels in order to get her to contribute her army to his cause, something about which his girlfriend was not exactly thrilled but political necessity and all that.

I am not so sure that it was the length of time between Blights that caused this, at least not the first 4. The second Blight ended in 1:95, having lasted 100 years, with Orlais, the Anderfels, Tevinter and the Freemarches (Nevarra was still just a city state then) being affected at some point during that time. This should have been enough to impress on people that they could expect more of them in the future, so even though it was another 110 years until the 3rd Blight, I doubt memories are that short. The Anderfels clearly felt they owed the Wardens more than Drakon, even though he came to their rescue and then promptly annexed them into his empire, because they declared their independence again before the Blight had ended (once Drakon was dead). Then it was 187 years until the 4th Blight but what I find most strange is that the Wardens weren't better prepared. If they can sense the Arch-demon and darkspawn generally, why didn't they notice the build up of their numbers in one particular area below northern Antiva? Why didn't they realise there was an Arch-demon there? Still, perhaps they did and people did just ignore their warnings until the Arch-demon emerged.

Now compared with the 200 and 100 years duration of the 1st and 2nd Blights respectively, the 3rd Blight was really short, only 15 years. Was this because the Wardens had become more effective over time or the fact that Orlais and Tevinter both contributed armies to the cause? What was evident is that these two empires coming to the rescue is a dubious benefit, since both annexed the city states in the Freemarches they had saved in the aftermath of the conflict and had to be driven out again. Given Orlais's track record when it came to annexing countries they had "saved" from the Blight and the fact they didn't get involved at all in the 4th Blight (because they were unaffected and saw no benefit to themselves in doing so), I've always felt that Loghain had a reason to mistrust their intent with regard to "helping" Ferelden. The 4th Blight only lasted 10 years and, of course, we ended the 5th Blight in just a year. Also, unlike previous Blights, there were not multiple eruptions of darkspawn across Thedas but they were limited to Ferelden or only appeared in small numbers that did not seem out of the ordinary. That, coupled with the fact that it had been 400 years since the 4th Blight may have accounted for why people had forgotten the importance of the Wardens and their numbers had likely fallen low everywhere as a result. It didn't help that Weisshaupt seemed more interested in the Anderfel political scene than fighting darkspawn but given the short duration of the 4th Blight and the length of time since then, I suppose their attitude was understandable. The lack of interest in darkspawn activity relative to the two remaining Arch-demons is still problematic though. Trying to reach them and kill them off does seem a rather risky endeavour when it is open to question what implication that might have on keeping the darkspawn in the Deep Roads but you would think it worthwhile monitoring them closely and about the only thing that justifies constantly putting recruits through the Joining between Blights.

Dear old Cailan. He obviously had the same teaching as Alistair when it came to the Wardens. No doubt he knew the name of every fabled warrior in Thedas, including those Wardens whose names had been recorded. Plus, he was a glory hunter. Duncan clearly turned up saying he thought a Blight had started and Cailan effectively went "yippy!", now I can do something splendid and battle an Arch-demon. You would think Duncan would have at least impressed on him the importance that he should not be the one to land the fatal blow because I'm pretty sure that is how Cailan saw it playing out, with him the hero of the hour.

I actually thought it ended rather fittingly for him if he makes the fatal blow on the Arch-demon. He had already offered to take the dive before Morrigan's offer and then begged me not to give into her demands, so clearly he had accepted the necessity of the sacrifice and ended his life saving Ferelden. Whilst he had made some terrible decisions in the preceding months, he had clearly been genuine in his desire to protect the people of Ferelden from their enemies, so I didn't have a problem with him going out in a blaze of glory. Even Alistair grudgingly admitted it was probably for the best (in the play through where I spared Loghain but married him to Anora).

Not doing it from memory but getting some use out of the lore books I shelled out good money on and then they keep contradicting information subsequently. Luckily, the time line for the Blights has been petty consistent. I wonder if they realised, though, the huge difference in the duration of 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th Blights. (I don't count the 5th because game narrative accounts for the short duration). It did make the length of time from the 4th to the 5th more understandable if it did reflect the number of darkspawn diminishing. Will we ever get an explanation for that or will it be something that is just forgotten about?