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I was actually glad Anders blew up the chantry, those motherfuckers had it coming
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Oct 31, 2019 02:51
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Should be noted that the "Church" Anders blew up is home to the resident enabler of tyranny, murder and rape, Grand Cleric Elthina, whose response to "we deserve rights and fair treatment!" was to tell the impudent little mages to go back to their cages and like it. This is a pretty radical forum, isn't it? Elthina is the white moderate liberal to Meredith's Klanswoman. Her refusal to do...anything at all except maintain a perverse status quo is why he had to do what he did. Fighting the Chantry is like fighting the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval times. It's perfectly legitimate to fight a political institution and that's what it was more than a religious sect. What I'm saying is #MageRights Also Dragon Age 4 isn't coming until after April 2022 https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1189301057446432770?s=20
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Oct 31, 2019 02:57
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NikkolasKing posted:Should be noted that the "Church" Anders blew up is home to the resident enabler of tyranny, murder and rape, Grand Cleric Elthina, whose response to "we deserve rights and fair treatment!" was to tell the impudent little mages to go back to their cages and like it. This is a pretty radical forum, isn't it? Elthina is the white moderate liberal to Meredith's Klanswoman. Her refusal to do...anything at all except maintain a perverse status quo is why he had to do what he did. Zane fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 03:16
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NikkolasKing posted:Should be noted that the "Church" Anders blew up is home to the resident enabler of tyranny, murder and rape, Grand Cleric Elthina, whose response to "we deserve rights and fair treatment!" was to tell the impudent little mages to go back to their cages and like it. This is a pretty radical forum, isn't it? Elthina is the white moderate liberal to Meredith's Klanswoman. Her refusal to do...anything at all except maintain a perverse status quo is why he had to do what he did. Also I really didn't like Elthina. It's good to have a voice of de-escalation in the midst of an escalating situation, but she wasn't really... effective? At all? And ofc she just ended up re-inforcing the status quo instead of questioning the necessity of it, so yeah, white moderate liberal sounds about right. That said, Anders attack didn't just take out Elthina, or Petrine, or w/e. I haven't actually hit that point in the game but doesn't his bomb kill like at least a hundred people, many of them complete innocents in this? Arguably his actions do lead directly to the mage rebellion and eventually the formation of the college of mages or w/e, but that's like, after a brutal war and one way that situation can play out is a bunch of mages pledge themselves to Tevinter and get used up as disposable resources, including children, while wandering tranquil get slaughtered so their skulls can be used to see weird keys that lead to something that is like, interesting but not actually super important in the grand scheme of things. And those tranquil have to be brutally killed in the brief moment of lucidity after they get possessed but before they become an abomination, so you can't even argue they don't suffer! Zane posted:fine. but the mages are not, to complete your own analogy, equivalent to the industrial proletariat or to plantation slaves or whatever here. the best historical analogy is of a special guild, or caste, suffering under special social opprobrium, and searching--like every other feudal group--for special social privileges. the mages are terribly, horribly, imposed upon. but the fight is ultimately over which of these groups--clergy, lords, mages--within the elite feudal hierarchy--all of them lording over the benighted peasantry--wins out. feudalism is the name of the game until the (hypothetical) equivalent of the market, constitutional, and popular revolutions of the eighteenth, nineteenth, centuries. and none of the major groups and factions in any of the da games are conceivably responsible for driving any of these historical developments forwards.
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Oct 31, 2019 04:10
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Anders new he was killing innocents; in fact I think his plan “worked” because of it. He had to force everyone’s hand and start a war that had been brewing for a long time. He knew what he did was wrong but told himself it was for the greater good. I thought Anders was one of the better parts of DA2, along with Varric and Fenriz. Fenriz is kind of goofy and whiny, but his voice actor loving sells it so I cut him some slack.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:00
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chaosapiant posted:Anders new he was killing innocents; in fact I think his plan “worked” because of it. He had to force everyone’s hand and start a war that had been brewing for a long time. He knew what he did was wrong but told himself it was for the greater good. I thought Anders was one of the better parts of DA2, along with Varric and Fenriz. Fenriz is kind of goofy and whiny, but his voice actor loving sells it so I cut him some slack. I also feel like he's got a decent progression of getting his poo poo together if you invest in him, at least in terms of 'learning how to be social when your memories start at being a trained attack dog and you killed your first real friends because you were ordered to'. It'd be more frustrating if that wasn't the case, but by act 3 he's got solid friends he sees on a regular basis and has learned to process his emotions well enough he's not jumping out a window at the first sign of commitment.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:09
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He’s got reasons to be bitter, I’m just not a fan of him squatting in a house for several years and just sitting in one room drinking. It’s his character growth that bugs me and makes me call him whiny. But yea he’s definitely got reasons to be bitter.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:20
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chaosapiant posted:Anders new he was killing innocents; in fact I think his plan “worked” because of it. He had to force everyone’s hand and start a war that had been brewing for a long time. He knew what he did was wrong but told himself it was for the greater good. I thought Anders was one of the better parts of DA2, along with Varric and Fenriz. Fenriz is kind of goofy and whiny, but his voice actor loving sells it so I cut him some slack. Anders is a good person which is why he felt guilty about what he did. But it's really all on Meredith for starting the war. Anders was not even a Circle Mage, he was a clear Abomination and he alone was responsible for destroying the Chantry. If Meredith had just beheaded him, it all be over then and there. But Meredith literally ignored him, turning her back on the culprit, and went off to genocide the entirely innocent Circle and every other Mage in Kirkwall except the one who did this crime. Anders wanted to show that there could be no peace with people like that and it worked. Anders is a fantastic character because people liked to pretend that Awakening Anders and DA2 Anders are totally different when in reality DA2 Anders is a very logical development. Awakening Anders was full of resentment at the injustice he and other Mages suffered, too. He hated the Templars. But he was too much of a selfish coward to do anything a bout it. He knew what was right but he looked out for Number One before doing what was right. But then he merged with Justice and all that did to him was give him the spine to do what needed to be done. And for six years that entailed nothing more than operating a free clinic and helping mages escape imprisonment.But then Meredith became Tyrant of Kirkwall and was having her Brownshirts go around killing anybody who so much as housed a mage for one night. It's very possible that if Meredith hadn't gotten so powerful and Elthina wasn't so useless that Anders wouldn't have gone to such extremes. This is not to say sharing a body with Vengeance wasn't also a factor, though. But Kirkwall being a loving Hellmouth where everything that can go wrong does go wrong didn't help. I think the only real justification for executing Anders is for the sake of mercy, to free him and Justice from their mutual captivity. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 05:22
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chaosapiant posted:Anders new he was killing innocents; in fact I think his plan “worked” because of it. He had to force everyone’s hand and start a war that had been brewing for a long time. He knew what he did was wrong but told himself it was for the greater good. I thought Anders was one of the better parts of DA2, along with Varric and Fenriz. Fenriz is kind of goofy and whiny, but his voice actor loving sells it so I cut him some slack. Name one innocent person Anders killed.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:53
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Also whatever else you wanna say about the game, I thought The Arishok was the single best written antagonist I've ever seen in a BW game. I say antagonist because he's not as villainous as somebody like Malak or TIM. I love that you can earn his respect and get the one-on-one duel out of it. He's clearly not your friend but he's nuanced enough to not be a cartoon villain, either.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:54
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chaosapiant posted:He’s got reasons to be bitter, I’m just not a fan of him squatting in a house for several years and just sitting in one room drinking. It’s his character growth that bugs me and makes me call him whiny. But yea he’s definitely got reasons to be bitter. Basically, I think the writing on Fenris is fine, but the actual area design ends up leaving some unfair impressions that are probably not intended to be actual canonical, but it's hard to tell because while the drinking thing is more directly countered in context if you're looking for it, there really is nothing saying he is NOT living in a very large pit of fancy garbage for 6 straight years like some sort of moody Tevene goblin.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:55
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NikkolasKing posted:Also whatever else you wanna say about the game, I thought The Arishok was the single best written antagonist I've ever seen in a BW game. I say antagonist because he's not as villainous as somebody like Malak or TIM. I love that you can earn his respect and get the one-on-one duel out of it. He's clearly not your friend but he's nuanced enough to not be a cartoon villain, either.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:57
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Zane posted:fine. but the mages are not, to complete your own analogy, equivalent to the industrial proletariat or to plantation slaves or whatever here. the best historical analogy is to a special guild, or caste, suffering under special social opprobrium, and searching--like every other feudal group--for special social privileges. the mages are terribly, horribly, imposed upon. but the fight is ultimately over which of these groups--clergy, lords, mages--within the elite feudal hierarchy--all of them lording over the benighted peasantry--wins out. feudalism is the name of the game until the (hypothetical) equivalent of the market, constitutional, and popular revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. and none of the major groups and factions in any of the da games are conceivably responsible for driving any of these historical developments forwards. It's unclear to me why mages as a class would be intrinsically antagonistic to peasants. Are you saying that a society where mages aren't controlled would inevitably end up like Tevinter, with the mages replacing the non-magical feudal lords?
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Oct 31, 2019 06:33
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PetraCore posted:I love the Arishok and I'm just surprised it took him 4 years to move to direct aggression in a city as antithetical to the Qun as Kirkwall, of all places. I mean, I suppose several of those years were implied to have been planning, but still. Ultimately he's sort of stuck since he can't leave without the book, or even really call for too many reinforcements without serious consequences, and his group is relatively small (if elite). Watching him just finally break and just going full 'gently caress all of you' was the most relatable character action in the game. Zore fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 06:38
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VostokProgram posted:It's unclear to me why mages as a class would be intrinsically antagonistic to peasants. Are you saying that a society where mages aren't controlled would inevitably end up like Tevinter, with the mages replacing the non-magical feudal lords? where do mages stand within this pseudo-historical setting? they're either force specialists using their military power to protect/extract agrarian surplus, or they're guild merchants (a somewhat under-elaborated possibility) monopolizing a specialized commodity (enchantment) that directly contributes to military power. neither analogy is perfect. but both positions see mages utilizing a specialized technique to accumulate (or help others accumulate) military power; and both positions see mages compelled by a necessary master imperative to limit and control this technique -- effectively keeping it from the masses. there isn't anything else that mages seem to do with themselves. and the fundamental raison d'etre for pre-modern military power is, again, to extract/protect agrarian surplus. Zane fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 08:02
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Templars are the victims. Edit: I just realized every one my characters have taken the Templar skill line. I'll help Cullen drop his habit, but that didn't stop me from taking the mage smashing abilities.
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Oct 31, 2019 08:22
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Anders should have bombed Meredith and the templars instead.
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Oct 31, 2019 08:29
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PureRok posted:Templars are the victims. Truth. The Chantry has two sets of slaves, one charged with guarding the other. I'm sad for my one Inquisition run I sided with the Templars so I got Calpernia instead of Samson. Samson has way better motivations.
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Oct 31, 2019 08:40
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Avalerion posted:Anders should have bombed Meredith and the templars instead. Bombing Meredith would not achieve what he wants to achieve, which is for her to admit in front of everyone in Kirkwall that she turbo hates mages and will seize any opportunity to eliminate them, irrational or no. Also, he did bomb some templars- aside from clergy, templars were the only other people explicitly shown to be in the Chantry at the time of the explosion. The only other concentration of them would be the Circle itself, which would make even less sense as a target.
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Oct 31, 2019 08:53
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NikkolasKing posted:Truth. The Chantry has two sets of slaves, one charged with guarding the other. And what work do they force mages to do? Mages are prisoners, not slaves. Their confinement is pretty comfortable by our prison standards. It's not good, but it's probably better than being one of the peasants who feed them, or a city elf, or a casteless dwarf. Hell, I'd volunteer for a circle right now, if occasional family visits were allowed (and since Hawke can see mages in the city, I guess they are, even in Kirkwall).
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Oct 31, 2019 08:55
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Oh dear me posted:And what work do they force mages to do? All Tranquil are by definition slaves since they are incapable of consenting to anything.So whether it's enchanting or Meredith using a Tranquil to take notes, everything done to them is by force and they have no control over their lives. But fine, I was mostly using some rhetoric there. Most Circle Mages are prisoners, not slaves.
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Oct 31, 2019 09:11
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PetraCore posted:Fine by me. I want da4 to get enough time to develop properly. Oh my god it's adorable. Bless you you sweet little cherub.
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Oct 31, 2019 09:14
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I mean, I love a well-stocked library as much as anyone else, but I'd rather not go to a boarding school where the headmaster has economic incentive to lobotomize me if I get too sassy or tell the armed, drugged, and indoctrinated hall monitors "no".
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Oct 31, 2019 09:14
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SurelyForth posted:I mean, I love a well-stocked library as much as anyone else, but I'd rather not go to a boarding school where the headmaster has economic incentive to lobotomize me if I get too sassy or tell the armed, drugged, and indoctrinated hall monitors "no". The groups I listed - ie most of Dragon Age society - are also constantly vulnerable to armed monitors and bodily and lethal punishments if they get too sassy, they just have to work or starve, as well. I'm not saying Circles are good. I would not have volunteered for a Circle when young. I just don't think mages are the most oppressed people in Thedas, and I wish one could support some peasant rebellions, for a change.
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Oct 31, 2019 09:47
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Oh dear me posted:The groups I listed - ie most of Dragon Age society - are also constantly vulnerable to armed monitors and bodily and lethal punishments if they get too sassy, they just have to work or starve, as well. I mean, origins has two to three peasant revolts depending on your origin. The alienage origin and throwing the tevinter slavers out are both peasant revolts and you get one from the other side in awakening. NikkolasKing posted:Anders is a fantastic character because people liked to pretend that Awakening Anders and DA2 Anders are totally different when in reality DA2 Anders is a very logical development. Awakening Anders was full of resentment at the injustice he and other Mages suffered, too. He hated the Templars. But he was too much of a selfish coward to do anything a bout it. In the recent lp that finished I finally noticed just how many sinister undertones they gave Anders in awakening. Take for instance the first time you meet him. He's sitting alone in a room with his guards dead and the only defense you ever get from him or anyone else is "uhhh this isnt what it looks like." Sure, theres a dark spawn invasion going on and it's possible that they did, in fact, kill the templars with Anders as the lucky survivor, but the game very much leaves it open that he murdered them or stood back and watched them die. He's like moridin, people ignore a lot of his bad poo poo because he makes them laugh and has a kitty. FoolyCharged fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 11:04
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FoolyCharged posted:The alienage origin and throwing the tevinter slavers out are both peasant revolts and you get one from the other side in awakening. Those victims are city elves, who the game does acknowledge are oppressed, but the game places all the emphasis on their species, not the feudal system. The human servants in the game are not portrayed as victims, and actual peasants are essentially invisible.
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Oct 31, 2019 11:26
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I feel like you're forgetting Sera and all the insightful political discourse you can have with her about the plight of the 'little people.' Did you ever consider that instead of a peasant revolt the better option would be to be throw pies at rich people??? (It might be for the best that these writers don't try to tackle actual societal change too much, is my point)
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Oct 31, 2019 12:01
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Nephthys posted:I feel like you're forgetting Sera I wish I could. 
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Oct 31, 2019 12:35
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You tackle actual societal change in a realist setting. For all it's dark ultra-realistic fantasy stuff Dragon Age shows oppression and intolerance in a very blunt way. It's not rich and poor, it's about Dwarven caste systems, or elves being literally enslaved, or mages being more or less imprisoned. And it's fine, I wouldn't want a realistic analysis of the plight of a little man in a game where you slay dragons.
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Oct 31, 2019 12:59
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Oh dear me posted:Those victims are city elves, who the game does acknowledge are oppressed, but the game places all the emphasis on their species, not the feudal system. The human servants in the game are not portrayed as victims, and actual peasants are essentially invisible. Fair point. The revolt in awakening does get into that, but it also has the optimal solution of murdering the nobles inciting it(Because the peasants can't be angry in the midst of an orc invasion on their own?) and talking the crowd out of it so it never reaches an actual revolt for most players.
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Oct 31, 2019 13:00
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I miss the Ion Zurr soundtracks. E. A seem determined to have bland orchestral tracks in every game.
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Oct 31, 2019 15:32
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The Templars are protecting the rest of us from the fantasy nuclear bomb that is mind controlling mages.
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Oct 31, 2019 17:45
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Zane posted:'class,' in the modern sense, refers to a determinate position within the economic division of labour. and a 'class society' is an (ideal-typical) society in which all power is synonymous with one's position within the economic division of labour through the reduction of all social relations to market relations. this kind of society only becomes possible with the consolidation of a modern international market economy. and none of this translates very well into the analogously pre-modern societies of dragon age. before the (relative) sovereignty of the market there was the (relative) sovereignty of the state -- with the 'state' being (very reductively) a frequently superficial patina over the sovereignty of powerful families. all pre-modern states were, fundamentally, historical expressions of the utilization of military force by powerful families to extract agrarian surplus from relatively helpless populations labouring under near subsistence (under the real or fictive guise of 'protection'). there is no other pre-modern basis for developing a complex society of any real size. I mostly agree with you, but I think mages don't necessarily have to do only enchantment or fighting. I think if magic were not as demonized (lol) in this world you would see mages being/helping farmers and other types of laborers. Like give me some food and I'll make your crops grow faster or whatnot. The fact that their only apparent use to society is military is because that's the only thing the feudal state values enough to risk bringing mages out of their confinement. But in the absence of that relationship of domination, mages could do productive things. I think Thedas has the potential to be a bizarro medieval equivalent to the Federation from Star Trek, under the right circumstances
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Nov 1, 2019 01:44
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VostokProgram posted:I mostly agree with you, but I think mages don't necessarily have to do only enchantment or fighting. I think if magic were not as demonized (lol) in this world you would see mages being/helping farmers and other types of laborers. Like give me some food and I'll make your crops grow faster or whatnot. The fact that their only apparent use to society is military is because that's the only thing the feudal state values enough to risk bringing mages out of their confinement. But in the absence of that relationship of domination, mages could do productive things.
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Nov 1, 2019 05:03
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Lol at anyone who thinks the d4 delay is gonna be good. It will be a bad game now or a bad game in 2 years. BioWare is dead. Release the lore so we know the answers and can bury this poor studio at a respectful service.
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Nov 1, 2019 06:19
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I think there's a non-zero chance it'll be good. Dragon Age is the only post-EA Bioware series where every entry has at least been interesting, if not objectively good. But DA2 was good.
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Nov 1, 2019 12:22
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CottonWolf posted:I think there's a non-zero chance it'll be good. Dragon Age is the only post-EA Bioware series where every entry has at least been interesting, if not objectively good. Agreed, even with spoiler. I really hope they take their time with DA4 and give the fans a game that shows there's still some old Bioware spirit in that studio somewhere.
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Nov 1, 2019 15:25
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chaosapiant posted:Agreed, even with spoiler. I really hope they take their time with DA4 and give the fans a game that shows there's still some old Bioware spirit in that studio somewhere. if we can't get bioware spirit, at least we'll for sure get bioware magic
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Nov 1, 2019 20:03
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I want to believe, but I see no reason to
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Nov 1, 2019 20:34
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NikkolasKing posted:words words words lol what the gently caress are you on about. anders is just terribly written dipshit, put in a terribly written game. comparing mages fighting templars to some gestalt proletariat uprising/rebellion against the catholic church is hilarious though. as an aside, I meant what I said about DA2 being the worst RPG I've played with a few caveats, like that I've played the whole thing a couple times, and haven't actually played games like Ultima 9.
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Nov 1, 2019 22:28
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