#and unless you really delve into it intentionally the game skips the hell out of the Qunari so there’s so much barely known! I hope this

[ziracona]

dont they sew the mouths shut and cut the horns off the sarabas? Also idk the full meaning of the name but I know the bas at the end translates to nothing? Seems a demeaning role idk? Maybe I'm missing something. I'm not very knowledgeable on qunari stuff tbh so this isn't an attack just genuine confusion

They do; you are not incorrect! You will not hear me arguing they are less brutal or less strict, only that I think their treatment of their Mages is nevertheless easily preferable. ‘Bas’ has several meanings actually, though, but not ‘nothing’. Its most technical meaning is ‘thing,’ but it is used in context most frequently to mean ‘foreign’. Qunari call all non-Qunari ‘bas’ or ‘basra’ (fem version) as a neutral term, kind of like being called a goy. Just means ‘not Qunari’. The technical name for Mages is ‘dangerous thing’. It is certainly a little othered, but it’s not derogatory.

Qunari deeply fear magic and its potential to go out of control or be influenced by demons. Some of this is superstition and fear itself, some is because some Qunari do have a more difficult time controlling themselves when in fits of rage than other species, and their magic is stronger than that of humans and elves (both the berserker issues and magic strength likely due to intentionally introducing dragon into their gene pool). Their reaction to that fear, and to the Qun’s demand that the good of the one always be sacrificed for the good of the many, is extremely brutal: to have Mages assigned a keeper to watch them (Arvaarad), to wear a shocker that immobilizes them if their Arvaarad is afraid they’re going out of control, and often to have their mouths stitched shut.

However, while this looks extremely horrific to outsiders, unlike most Circle Mages, Saarebas aren’t publicly kidnapped and dragged from their homes and imprisoned against their will. Like all in Qunari society that aren’t actively rejecting it, their Mages want and work hard to be honorable and fulfill their duty to the Qun and their countrymen. One could of course also argue they’re manipulated by their cultural upbringing, but the point here isn’t about whether or not Qunari or Circle Mages were raised into their religions and societies and manipulated to stay there, or chose it of their own volition. It’s about the experience that both have inside that culture.

Again, I’m not arguing that how the Qunari treat their Mages is flawless or good. It is clearly flawed and should be reformed. What I am here to argue, is that I think it’s easily preferable ethically and as a life to experience, to how Andrastian countries treat their Mages.

(Continued under the cut out of love to people on dash and in tags because it got long)

Andrastian Circle Mages are inexorably tied to the religion of their countries, like everything else in Andrastian counties. And it’s certainly brutal as well. It just tries to make it look prettier, when the Qunari are, as about most things, up front. Most Mages are ripped from their homes as children at the first sign of magic, imprisoned, have their blood taken to make them trackable for the rest of their life, like getting a gps chip implanted in their head. They’re guarded for the rest of their lives by people who were trained to kill then, and the majority of whom are looking for an excuse to, and hate and fear them. They’re encouraged not to associate with the Mages they guard so they won’t be emotionally attached if they have to kill them, which leads to about the dehumanizing prisoner life you’d expect. Their harrowing is insanely difficult, and even taking too long can get you assumed demon possessed and executed on the spot. Most circle Mages are too terrified to love, because Templars will find out and use your relationships to punish and control you. They also know at any time their entire circle could be accused of something it did not do, and be razed. There’s a religious statute in place for permission to kill all Mages in a Circle. And if you do try to flee or see your family again, you’re dragged back in chains and punished incredibly harshly, or worse, made tranquil, which is essentially being a lobotomized slave whose body will be used to clean your old prison and sell wares for your masters. They could at any time be made Tranquil, without even knowing why. While they have easily more freedom to walk around and be alone than under the Qun, it’s not pretty, and it’s not kinder.

Beyond the brutality, the core of both this argument and their life is the shape of the role they inhabit. Circle Mages are dragged away publicly by the church and told every day of their lives “You are dangerous. You are evil. You are the physical embodiment of mankind’s sin that lost us the Maker, only allowed to exist at all by the bottomless empathy and forgiveness of the Chantry. You are a danger to everyone around you. You are inherently shameful and sinful. You are a living container of the failings of your species. You’re bad, and you must be controlled by our bottomless kindness not to be too vile to be allowed to exist at all. You’re dangerous, and evil, and must be saved from yourself. You, left to your own devices and choices, will always inevitably succumb to evil and demons and hurt people like your kind always does. You can only do Holy Magic for the church under our Holy Control or you’re happily making yourself a vile monster. If you step out of line, you’ll be lobotomized and have your body used as a slave like your former brothers and sisters walking the halls Tranquil, to protect you from your own evil. Don’t you feel loved and grateful you’ve been allowed to live?” It is a life of endless shame and fear and guilt over what you were born, and societal shame. Nobles try to hide magic in their kids often not out of love, but the shame of magic, and drowning a child within an inch of their life is considered a worthwhile chance among human nobles to kill the magic in their offspring. There is no honor or hope or joy in it. Ethically speaking, it’s an abysmal and miserable place.

Saarebas, on the other hand, are a role of value to the Qunari. One of the positive things among the Qun is its intense and utter fairness. While this certainly has downsides when you get to individual liberty, a lot of it is good. All jobs are of value, all species are equal under the Qun, and all sexes. They don’t even have the average concept of gender—they’re job gender. You’re the gender of whatever job you do. If you do it, you are it, no matter what you were assigned. It’s not a tiered society at all. It’s just an insanely organized one. As for Saarebas, they are no different. While magic is deeply feared among the Qunari, their own aren’t blamed for what they’re born as. They are very powerful, and useful, they simply are born along with strengths, with more dangers to them than anyone else. They are simultaneously considered pitiable, and the most honorable of all roles under the Qun. While all Qunari are asked to sacrifice for the good of all, none are asked to sacrifice more than their Mages, who are asked to sacrifice their entire lives. Thus, no one adheres to the Qun more strictly and entirely than them. They are perhaps the most truly Qunari, and seen as deeply honorable and dedicated for that. (Before I forget: they do cut off the horns, yes. This would seem to a human like a shaming act, because the horns are innate only to Qunari and lovely, but actually horns are considered basically like we do hair, and Qunari born without horns, a rare genetic mutation, are considered extra cool for being different, the way heterochromia might be in humans. It’s an act to make them visibly recognizable on sight even if ever not in full garb, but it’s not to humiliate them. It’s like having a monk haircut as a monk).

Continuing: They will be asked to commit suicide if ever away from their watcher, for fear a demon has taken them and they may hurt others, which is brutal and a horrible practice, but it is not seen as them being a vile monster falling to their sinful flaws, but an innate danger to the power a Saarebas wields, and they are seen as an honorable member of society doing the most devout thing a person can, and offering their own life freely for the good of all. They are not bullied or hated or treated and seen as monsters; they are seen as dangerous, but in a simple factual way, and live as members of their society recognized as very worthwhile, and admirable, and whose choices to follow their Arvaarad dedicatedly for safety, or to follow their code and end their life if asked, are expected instead of enforced by terror and prison walls. It is not a life to make you devoid of happiness and pride. They have more freedom in some very real ways, than Circle Mages do. Mostly in regards to inner life and personhood. When Ketojan willingly ends his life in DA2, he tries to explain to you that he’s doing his duty, and is at peace, and if you inform the Arishok of the events and ask if he’s not surprised, he will rather sternly tell you it’s no less than he’d expect, and he will not dishonor Ketojan’s memory by suggesting he thinks sacrificing himself to protect the others was a difficult decision for the man to make. There is mutual respect and trust and honor in the role.

While I am not arguing those practices are right, and I very much don’t agree with a lot of it, I think the way most players see other aspects of Qunari society as worse than the Andrastian ones applies hard here too; the flaws with one are unfamiliar, and with the other, normal. The ways Circle Mages feel about being Mages is the guilt and shame many people brought up in Christian societies are raised to feel about being female and bearer of the first sin, or being gay, or just being a living human at all. Guilt and self-hatred and sinfulness and shame and fear seem normal to a Euro-Christian player base. And then much like the way many people from Euro-Christian areas look at full body coverings or rigid societal rules in the Middle East as inherently oppressive and bad for their unfamiliarity; and all in of course much worse ways than their own, Qunari society is mostly treated by players the same way. [[And is largely a culture in-game somehow both middle eastern and Chinese coded? Anyway.]] The familiarities the Qunari do have culturally are not to a Christo-European experience, but to cultures often othered already by those people, or feared. Does the fact it is a voluntary and proud experience of cultural belonging instead of hatred make everything a Saarebas goes through right? No, that’s not how that works. It definitely does not. But does it matter significantly that they are voluntary, proud and honored members of society? Yes. Absolutely, and it should.

Moving even a step further past personal identity and socio-religious place, comes how the power structure has them treated by others under its rule. The Chantry, the highest religious power for circle Mages, espouses the sin of magic and dangers of it every day, and shapes the views of commoners and nobles alike to see Mages as abominations waiting to happen, lesser, bad. Makes them mobs with hate and pitchforks. Makes their own Templar guards gleeful to lash out and harm them, and righteous in their paranoia and fury. The Arishok, the highest power of military for the Qunari, adherent to the Tamassran’s (religious heads) teachings, snapped at even a foreigner without context suggesting a Saarebas not have been entirely honorable in his death. They are separated from their society, but as dangers with honor, not as monsters. To quote my eloquent and much more concise friend:

Both Saarebas and Circle Mages are forced by their cultures to surrender autonomy and freedoms, and to suffer. The difference is that the Qun demands people respect the Saarebas for their sacrifices and suffering, and treat them with dignity. Whereas the Chantry encourages the abuse and degradation of mages beyond even what the circles do. Both draw a line, regarding mages. The Qun draws a line in the sand, and doesn't allow anyone to cross it. The Circle draws a starting line, and tells everyone to start running.