Forum:Is DRAGON AGE 2 biassed ?

Forums: Index > Game DiscussionIs DRAGON AGE 2 biassed ?

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first thing first this is not a mage or templar bashing arena if you cant express your though in a cool calm and collected manner go somewhere else ! now that that's out of the way let's get on with the main idea of this posting : recently i completed 2 playtrough on DA2 one was what i call a "good templar" ( the concept of which is someone who fight mage when ( and only when ) necesary and is ready to accept a serender even at the cost of a potential betrayal and does'nt get off on torturing and humiliating mage ) the other was the all too archetypical evil bloodmage ( the concept of which was a darker version of ander minus the paranoia ) what trouble me is that for my good templar the oportunity to be fair ( accepting surrender for exemple ) was too few and too far between as for my bloodmage each time i was using the agressive ( the red fist and hammer symbol ) option it felt like i was supporting the templar while i was truly not as anyone else had a similar feeling while playing ? DragonInquisitor (talk) 00:33, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

I got the same impression that Diplomatic equaled Mage support and Aggressive equaled Templar support. However these are reflections of personal demeanor rather than moral leaning, you can be a kind-toned bastard (see Affably Evil on TV Tropes) as easily as a gruff, forceful good guy (i.e. Good Is Not Nice). Mostly anything that involved a direct influence had that triple arrow, which doesn't indicate a tone of voice. But generally, the templars in Kirkwall (a significant handful anyway) lack the 'mercy' of Andraste's faith and even the sound reasoning of templars in Ferelden (again, a handful), which results in a much more hardline crackdown on mages in the Free Marches, and the alignment of aggression to templars and diplomacy to mages reflects this. I believe this was deliberate to show that the templars do not act uniformly across Thedas, and neither do the Circles of Magi. There are good templars (who end up getting killed quite easily in Kirkwall, leaving only the sadists and those with Freudian excuses) as well as egocentric mages of both blood and lyrium variety, just as Jowan was as close to a "good" blood mage as they can get. Finally, the nature of Varric telling the story implies that virtually everything is predetermined to a certain extent, meaning your creative liberties are going to be much fewer than they were in the previous game. RShepard227 (talk) 03:38, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget Bethany the mage sister was shown as nice and Carver the warrior was mean, that's an example of biased thing you mention.FirstDrellSpectre (talk) 06:00, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

Because to your logic, there is no good mage. Every mage is dangerous and better to be feared or killed.27.110.171.117 (talk) 07:52, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

Carver was a jerk irrespective of whether he ends up as a Templar or a Warden - He's just an ass by nature. I didn't feel that the personalities of the twins was inherently related to whether they were mage/not-mage; rather it was simply one twin being the aggressive outgoing personality and the other was the introverted passive personality. As far as I saw it, Carver was suffering from "little brother syndrome", while Bethany was a bit of a wallflower. If anything, their personalities were stereotypically gendered.

On the topic more generally, I don't think that either the templars or the mages end up looking very good in DAII. Many of the Templars appear to be sadistic zealots, and a lot of the mages appear to be crazy blood mages, and they all come across as roughly equally insane. I often wish there was a third ending option at the end of DAII where, rather than picking a side, Hawke simply goes "Screw you guys, I'm going home." and leaves them to fight it out.--Darkly Tranquil (talk) 13:28, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

I read somewhere that there was a 3rd option in plans, but they didn't have enough time for this.FirstDrellSpectre (talk) 13:39, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

i dont know who wrote that last line but you miss my point entirely i never said that there was no good mage what i said is that IN THAT PARTICULAR PLAYTROUGH when i played the concept of an "evile mage" i had the impression of supporting the templar when i was truly not but soon i will play the complete oposite : a good mage who abhor blood-magic and demon summonning in all it's form and remember that in my good templar description i implied that she was closer to trask way of thinking !DragonInquisitor (talk) 08:27, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

I always thought that was due to Varric's storytelling. Making the good characters better and the evil worse. I assumed most templars in Kirkwall would have been like Greigor, more cautious than paranoid, and the mages were not escaping and rebelling every five seconds Mangelator1 (talk) 10:20, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

I sort of felt this way on my first playthrough. For me, being one to usually play a nice-guy character, DA2 was all about making you sympathize with the plights of mages under the boot of templars who were doing their darnedest to just kill them all--which I found a bit frustrating because I wanted to be a, as you put it, good templar. But, four playthroughs later, it’s clearer to me that this wasn’t a case of bias but poor story/gameplay execution.

The central mage/templar theme is supposed to make you pick a side knowing that neither is fully right or wrong, but the game, to me, doesn’t do a great job of emphasizing the difficult choices in that gray area for each side. Instead we get two main types of mages and two main types of templars: crazy demonic blood mages (bad); innocent mages who are doing what they’re supposed to (good); bloodthirsty sadist templars (bad); and rank-and-file templars who clamp down on the innocent mages because of how many crazy demonic blood mages keep turning up (um...not good, certainly). And with the only "good" group being the innocent mages, your tone-based choices essentially come down to "nice guys sympathize completely with the mages" or "tough guys completely agree with the templars." Which means, generally, your character’s ideology is linked directly to the personality you want him to have. Which makes the game feel biased. Is it deliberately biased (that is, did the devs want to say mages were good, templars were bad)? I don’t think so. But it can certainly feel like it is. HELO (talk) 14:38, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

Somewhere I read that in DA2 were supposed to be shown worst traits of mages and templars, when the best are supposed to be shown in DAI. It's a broken promise, because in DAI appear red templars, we haven't seen in the presentation any magisters or demon mages, but templars imitating Meredith with red lyrium, that's worse than in DA2. Bioware seems biased from the start, Gaider is the lead writter and he was interested in magic mainly, but ironically he wrote the biggest opponents of magic.FirstDrellSpectre (talk) 15:05, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

You're assuming that the Red Templar faction comprises every single Templar in existence, which is never something I got the impression of. The fact that they have to be distinguished as "Red Templars" as opposed to just "Templars" implies that their use of red lyrium sets them apart from those who don't use it. In addition it was stated that there are those who remained loyal to the Divine, who I assume have not gone off the deep end like Meredith did. In other words, don't jump to conclusions. 67.61.234.198 (talk) 17:09, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

"nice guys sympathize completely with the mages" or "tough guys completely agree with the templars." That's the dicotomy of the story I suppose. Hawke is only an adviser or associate to the templars though so I don't know what much he can do since it's already so rife with corruption. Being a templar supporter just means, asking Cullen to look out for Alain so he doesn't get executed, telling Samuel it's ok to pass messages for mages, ect. I'm sure Hawke can be a nice facist mage hunter but he can't really fix the system when Meredith is getting crazier and will look the other way to a few injustices to keep the system running. Orsino could be argued to be the same way. Cullen once said "achievment" and heroism isn't something that goes hand in hand with being a templar. Apostates will always be bitter about Templars and so will the mage's families. Being a templar supporter is about establishing order, with hope that their methods will be more humane in time, so that's the only thing a templar supporter can take from it, right or wrong, even at the cost of ire from the public. You also get to be viscount so...there's that too.

@FDS that wasn't vandadlism that was an accident of me trying to copy paste my post cuz it got lost when we posted at the same time. (Sports72Xtrm (talk) 15:14, April 17, 2014 (UTC))

@FirstDrellSpectre Just because we have only seen Red Templars doesn't mean that there isn't a mage equivalent. We know very little about the vast majority of the game, including the various factions vying for power. The Red Templars are, in all likelihood, just one of several factions we will be fighting. I'd be more shocked if there wasn't a mage equivalent to the Red Templars. Also, we may not have seen what you call "demon mages", but we know for a fact that there is a demonic invasion, a la the Oblivion Crisis in the Elder Scrolls series. Tears in the Veil do not happen on their own, they must be made by a mage of some kind, *cough*Flemeth*cough*. As for good Templars, while she technically isn't a Templar, Cassandra does support the Chantry and the Circle system, as does another of our companions, Vivienne. And that's not including Cullen, who I will assume is a companion because we will be able to romance him.

As to the original topic, I would say that DA2 is somewhat biased towards mages, but not a whole lot. What is arguably the most emotionally charged event in the entire Dragon Age series, the murder of Leandra, is caused by a mage. And not only is the murderer a mage, he's also buddies with the First Enchanter, who knew about him and did nothing to stop it. That's not exactly the most flattering image for the mage side of the debate. (Understatement of the week!) --TheFereldenMagister (talk) 16:42, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

I don't think Flemeth is behind the tears in the veil, I think The Forbidden Ones are behind this after reading Dragon Age: The Masked Empire. That would make sense.FirstDrellSpectre (talk) 16:49, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

@TheFereldenMagister The thing about Orsino is we don't know how involved he was with the serial killings. Was he helping Quentin, or did he just know he was a blood mage doing blood magic, did he know someone was in the Circle was communicating with Quentin and helping him ? We all assume it could be Orsino who's really "O", but is his name starting with O valid evidence to reveal it's him? It's circumstantial evidence at best. It makes Hawke look like he's consumed with grief and anger over his mother's death to punish whoever "looks" guilty in having a hand in Leandra's murder, even if there is a chance Orsino is completely innocent and who's only crime was to protect the Circle from Meredith's ire and possible Right of Annulment. Does that make Orsino bad or the system bad?(Sports72Xtrm (talk) 17:16, April 17, 2014 (UTC))

You can directly confront Orsino about it and he admits it. That's about as non-circumstantial as it gets. 67.61.234.198 (talk) 17:25, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

He said he knew ABOUT Quentin, not that he knew Quentin, not that Quentin was in anyway his friend or colleague. And that statement is vague at best. Is he implying that he knew about Quentin using blood magic/necromancy? That someone in the Circle is involved in helping him? It could very well be Orsino but we don't know for sure. The second statement of evidence was his apology to Bethany that he didn't know the range of Quentin's derangement until it was "too late". He said he didn't want to give Meredith ammo against the Circle. We know for sure someone from the Circle aided Quentin, just not sure it's Orsino, and that's why he kept it from Meredith. It could be him just trying to protect himself, or it could be someone from the Circle and thus give Merideth the reason to annul the Circle; we don't know for sure. It's all still circumstantial evidence to imply that he was aiding Quentin. Yes he said he protected Quentin, bu my point being is it's vague if he aided Quentin in his research and just hoped the Templars would deal with him. What's ironic is like his predecessor, his legacy is one that can be disputed. Is he a madman conniving blood mage that needed puting down or desperate leader using desperate measures to protect his charges?(Sports72Xtrm (talk) 17:42, April 17, 2014 (UTC))

The first one. He turned into a bloody Harvestor, that's not something he could have just learned on the spot or done instinctively just because he put a knife to his palm. Blood can be used as a power source for regular spells, which he could have conceivably done on the fly, sure, but specific blood magic rituals? Not a chance. He had to have been practicing blood magic or at the very least studying it to know how to do that ritual before that point in time, both of which are forbidden and dangerous. There is literally no one else who doesn't think that the letter was from Orsino. He admits he knew Quentin and of his work, the letter, Quentin's blood magic, Orsino knowing how to become a Harvestor, it all points towards it. Besides, do you really think the writers had anyone else in mind? All Bioware games follow the trend of having everything interconnected and everything ends up relating back to the named characters in one way or another, even in Mass Effect where they have a literal galaxy to work with, everything ends up revolving around the same two dozen or so people. All that said, I sympathize with him in regards to Meredith being batsh*t about the restrictions and general treatment of the mages, as well as in general as she proved at the end of the game. I am not saying his opinions were without merit, or that he didn't have some good points. He did. But he was also a deranged idiot who transformed into a harvestor in my game, right after we singlehandedly destroyed the Templars who attacked us and were pretty clearly winning. There was no reason for him to do that, but he did it anyways because...reasons, I guess. 67.61.234.198 (talk) 01:25, April 18, 2014 (UTC)

Like I said, knowing about Quentin doesn't necessarily mean knowing Quentin personally. I understand he knew how to do the ritual. Dragon Age is a grey game and perhaps he really was an evil blood mage but if he was, he wore the ethical concerned mage leader facade to the very end. Even when he knew he was at the end of his rope, he still said that he hated blood magic and its evil and did it only because his back was a against the wall. Let me remind you that he performed the ritual during the middle of the battle, Meredith and reinforcements were coming and a bunch of his apprentices were just massacred in front of his eyes. To you it may seem like the mages' were winning if Hawke sided with them but to him it looked like a hopeless battle. His demeanor, his actions prior to his transformation was not that of a deranged mad man. As to how he could have learned the ritual, he could have just learned it after Quentin's death. His reasons if but to study it so he can defend the Circle against it since Kirkwall is a powder keg of blood mages and Quentin had proteges like Gascard DuPuis. Blood magic exists and perhaps Orsino believed if he understood it he'd know how to defeat it like The Scrolls of Banastor quest. I've seen my fair share of mages such as Malcolm Hawke and Alain who learned some form of blood magic for various noble reasons but from an outside perspective, they would be suspect to be a power hungry madman. Since Hawke never made the connection until the very end and because he never investigated Orsino, it could be that Hawke missed a few details. As for not having any other suspects, like I said Bioware is a complex game and perhaps maybe it was to show how easily people fear magic and point blame at any mage for the dangers of it. I understand that all evidence infers to Orsino but then again, he didn't fit the profile of someone who would willingly help a blood mage.(Sports72Xtrm (talk) 03:23, April 18, 2014 (UTC))

Interesting point, TheFereldenMagister. I wonder, then, if...well, here, consider this:

The Leandra murder is a pivotal moment in the mage/templar story of DA2 because it presents Hawke with a decision that can (and should) influence his stance for the rest of the game: he can see it as the actions of a lone madman, or he can see it as an indication that this sort of behavior is inevitable without stronger intervention.

The templars, meanwhile, are rarely afforded the same kind of treatment, in the game--because they kind of can’t be seen as individuals. They are an organized group with a specific system of beliefs/orders/uniforms. Sure, there are rogue agents (Ser Alrik, for example) you can flag as acting on their own, but for the most part it is easy to just lump all templars into one generality--because they pretty much all have to be on basically the same page. Mages are less clearly able to be seen as a single-minded group because they have more latitude in terms of how they address their roles as mages. So it would, then, be easier to see the bad mages as representing themselves rather than mages overall. HELO (talk) 17:46, April 17, 2014 (UTC)

I tend to be pro mage but i do think DA2 tries to make you hate mages and magic a lot i mean the red lyrium that almost kills you because it takes over bartrand your mother gets killed by a bloodmage blood mages keep attacking you at every corner and at the end orsino goes insane for no reason (if you side with mages) it made me feel like mages were out of control tho the templars werent portrayed very nicely either mostly paranoid but than again mages were getting them possessed... and trust me im pro mage and what not but i felt like DA2 was more inclined to say mages will go insane at any point! tho in the end the image i had is that its a broken society and that it doesnt work.Faye_Cousland (talk) 00:33, April 18, 2014 (UTC)