I’m usually pretty bad about remembering lore and plots from fiction, but the way mages were treated in the game’s society always stood out to me. On the one hand, the way the mages in the chantry are cloistered is clearly oppressive, and if you try to go your own way you’ll get hounded by the Templar goon squads. What they do to the tranquil is especially fucked up and kind of reminds me of how antipsychotics got rid of most of what little personality I had. On the other hand, while the constant threat of demonic possession is kind of like mental illness, they do also become weapons of mass destruction in the control of a demon if they get possessed, so its not hard to see why people would want to control that.
I don’t think there’s any real world analogue for a group for which oppression is to an extant neccessary to prevent them from becoming major public safety hazard. I can’t help but wonder if Bioware was just playing with a cool idea that could only exist in fantasy or if they, consciously or unconsciously, were writing conditions into their lore that justify oppression as a neccessary aspect of human society.
Yeah absolutely. I hope that their intentions aren’t to mirror real-world political issues with the Mage-Templar divide, but those comparisons will be made anyway. Drawing upon themes of oppression and subjugation in fantasy is tricky business I think, and seemingly very difficult for some writers to properly abstract from real world liberation struggles, and real world atrocities. Analogies can also be useful, at times.
Another potentially controversial analog is that of the Dales and the Dalish. The Andrasteans waged an Exalted March against them, basically committing genocide and turning a once thriving nation into scattered clans trying to recreate their ancient animist culture out of the few scraps of their native history that weren’t deemed heretical and destroyed by the invaders. This 1:1s pretty snugly with real world imperialism, especially imperialism perpetuated by Catholic states, and the destruction of native peoples in the “New World”. It’s also, in my opinion, extremely intriguing lore and gets me all the more hype to roleplay as a Dalish elf revolutionary. Fine line and all that.
On the mages though, Dragon Age is going to Tevinter and I couldn’t be more excited. In Ferelden and Orlais it’s so bloody obvious that the Chantry are corrupt theocrats who abuse common people, mages, the irreligious, anyone of a different species, on and on and on. The mages are almost certainly 100% in the right to be fighting for liberation. But then there’s Tevinter. It makes the dialogue surrounding magic so much more nuanced and complex. The nation ruled by power-hungry mages who use their innate gifts to subjugate and oppress others, enslave and annihilate people, and rather openly consort with demons and practice blood magic. It serves as an example to give the Templars just enough credibility in their ideology to make mage liberation a difficult question, and I enjoy it thoroughly.
I’m usually pretty bad about remembering lore and plots from fiction, but the way mages were treated in the game’s society always stood out to me. On the one hand, the way the mages in the chantry are cloistered is clearly oppressive, and if you try to go your own way you’ll get hounded by the Templar goon squads. What they do to the tranquil is especially fucked up and kind of reminds me of how antipsychotics got rid of most of what little personality I had. On the other hand, while the constant threat of demonic possession is kind of like mental illness, they do also become weapons of mass destruction in the control of a demon if they get possessed, so its not hard to see why people would want to control that.
I don’t think there’s any real world analogue for a group for which oppression is to an extant neccessary to prevent them from becoming major public safety hazard. I can’t help but wonder if Bioware was just playing with a cool idea that could only exist in fantasy or if they, consciously or unconsciously, were writing conditions into their lore that justify oppression as a neccessary aspect of human society.
Yeah absolutely. I hope that their intentions aren’t to mirror real-world political issues with the Mage-Templar divide, but those comparisons will be made anyway. Drawing upon themes of oppression and subjugation in fantasy is tricky business I think, and seemingly very difficult for some writers to properly abstract from real world liberation struggles, and real world atrocities. Analogies can also be useful, at times.
Another potentially controversial analog is that of the Dales and the Dalish. The Andrasteans waged an Exalted March against them, basically committing genocide and turning a once thriving nation into scattered clans trying to recreate their ancient animist culture out of the few scraps of their native history that weren’t deemed heretical and destroyed by the invaders. This 1:1s pretty snugly with real world imperialism, especially imperialism perpetuated by Catholic states, and the destruction of native peoples in the “New World”. It’s also, in my opinion, extremely intriguing lore and gets me all the more hype to roleplay as a Dalish elf revolutionary. Fine line and all that.
On the mages though, Dragon Age is going to Tevinter and I couldn’t be more excited. In Ferelden and Orlais it’s so bloody obvious that the Chantry are corrupt theocrats who abuse common people, mages, the irreligious, anyone of a different species, on and on and on. The mages are almost certainly 100% in the right to be fighting for liberation. But then there’s Tevinter. It makes the dialogue surrounding magic so much more nuanced and complex. The nation ruled by power-hungry mages who use their innate gifts to subjugate and oppress others, enslave and annihilate people, and rather openly consort with demons and practice blood magic. It serves as an example to give the Templars just enough credibility in their ideology to make mage liberation a difficult question, and I enjoy it thoroughly.