#however i guess they did give me the chance to kill the templars involved in the dairsmund circle

[mohntilyet]

same anon, do not apologize about taking an excuse to rant because it was a very enjoyable read 👍 especially because i share similar frustration regarding the lack of lore on rivain and even less lore on the lords as a faction. My very first rook was a lord and it was honestly kind of a miserable playthrough roleplaying wise 😭 i think i only got like five faction related dialogue options throughout the ENTIRE game!!! That combined with rook acting like they dont know anything about their own factions or even their own nation was absolutely maddening… anyway whoops sorry for my own little rant

RIGHT.... you do not have to apologise either anon i am right there with you. the map surrounding rivain being so nothing is just insult to injury when 1) like you said, almost no dialogue choices, 2) jack all content because i was running around for 70 hours hoping to find decor related to them/finding none because there IS none/absolutely nothing in the lighthouse being customised as a result and 3) they have decided the only thing you get to say about being a lord is repeating their catchphrase like this shit is scooby doo

the art book also has some pages on the lords that gave me mixed feelings lol spread that i scanned under the cut

i really thought that they would lean into the "mix and match" thing especially because even when i was designing my rook pre release, i was trying to incorporate elements of this! i was looking at duncan's armor to try and patch together something that reflected rivain! but when the game comes out it's just. orientalist. and there's a bull on my crotch. even though the art book discusses this idea of the lords having patchwork armor that they've stolen or put together because they're so diverse. there's a few designs in here that i would have loved to see in the game with the more piratey longcoats and hats, and if they were going to draw inspiration i wish they'd looked more at mauritius and south india (kerala, tamil nadu) instead of . i'm not actually sure what the fuck they were doing here. my first thought when i saw the jewelry and design in game had been indigenous south american? but ofc the longer i looked the more i leaned away from that initial judgement and the more i got confused, and what little we know of rivain is obviously inspired by south asia (asha's maiden name being bahadur, bharv, hari, etc. but there's also mateo?) so i think it is the tried and true method white people looove to do where they mishmash cultures into one place and then get defensive when poc say "we aren't interchangable like that"

visually i think veilguard is so so successful in most cases with that consideration of shape language, colors, etc (though sometimes i think it goes too far. let the crows wear black again) but rivain/the lords is one of the weaker ones because i wish there was something specifically rivaini that tied it all together. like if dragons are found here (presumably. taash has a reputation as a dragon hunter. they would need to hunt dragons in rivain) then maybe scale armor as an identifier. or if rivain is known for pearl farming then it features more in their armor. or if the climate is hotter, so the fabric they wear would be linen and would actually cover more of their skin to avoid sunburn! or if they wear lots of blue, is that because they're a producer of that dye? just worldbuilding things like this completely ignored to make their main thing 'lots of gold and it should be revealing' and be weirdly racist/orientalist in the process.

[him-e]

hi i’m really confused why people who hate ben say the first order/ben is/are nazis? like ???? how does that even exist or work in this story? am i just dumb and don’t ~see it~? i hope you don’t think this is me baiting you into something else (regarding your last ask) that’s what made me ask this since it mentions nazis in the article. i really am just confused since i loved tlj and didn’t see any problem with it.

It’s okay, don’t worry. First off, don’t let the discourse get in the way of your enjoyment of fiction, especially when it’s comprised essentially of guilt-tripping, manipulative buzzwords. 

Now. The nazi coding in the First Order (and the Galactic Empire in the OT) is there—from the uniforms to the insignia to Hux’s speech to the troops in TFA, everything screams “evil space nazis”—but it’s mainly for the aesthetics. It’s window dressing. It’s a literary trope. 

It’s make up, essentially, a shortcut to help the audience identify easily the bad guys as, indeed, Bad Guys. It’s the equivalent of dressing up your villains as monstrous, stinky orcs in tolkienesque fantasy. That’s because Star Wars is a mash up of different literary and cinematic genres, and one of those is classic WWII movies from the ‘40s and ‘50s, the ones that established the trope of nazis as action/adventure/historical drama villain material. The original trilogy in the late ‘70s was targeted to a young audience, an audience entirely born after wwii, who grew up with the imagery of nazi as fictional villains rather than present, tangible real world threat.

So basically the nazi imagery in Star Wars is a homage to a certain movie genre and its tropes and trappings more than a political statement. And the sequel trilogy deconstructs those tropes, which adds an extra layer of distance from actual political discussion of *real life* nazism. (please note that both TFA and TLJ were written before Trump’s election and before alt-right became a pressing matter in the us political scene).

This doesn’t mean Star Wars doesn’t have a political message. It absolutely has one, and it’s powerful precisely because it’s universal, not necessarily localized to this or that specific ideology or political climate: it’s a statement against imperialism, militarism and antidemocratic oppression, which applies to WWII nazi Germany just as much as it does to other (present-day) dictatorships or to the current rise of populism across the world, BUT most of all it refers (in its original intent) to post-wwii US’ politics. In fact, despite the undeniable pseudo-nazi-fascist aesthetics, George Lucas conceived the Empire as a parody/criticism of the united states’ imperialistic politics in the 60′s–70′s and of the Vietnam war, with Palpatine as a Nixon-like figure.

The superficial nazi metaphor, decontextualized from the other influences and taken in isolation as the only possible real world parallel to the First Order, is neither a particularly deep nor an accurate political reading of it. I would also add it comes from a shallow, imprecise idea of what makes nazism different from other fascist ideologies. Consider this: the most defining aspect of the nazi party—the belief in a superior race and the systematic extermination of Jewish people through the Holocaust—has no recognizable in-universe equivalent neither in the Empire nor The First Order ** (we can guess both are sorta racist—the term would be speciesist—towards non-human species, given the fact that you can’t see a single alien among their ranks, but it’s never a Plot Point, and in any case I hope nobody is under the impression that alien, aka non human or subhuman, creatures can be an acceptable metaphor for Jewish people. Right?). 

** and by the way: no, the destruction of Alderaan or the Hosnian System is not an equivalent to the Holocaust. The intention there was to wipe out a political/military target, not an entire race because of their race. The real life equivalent to the death star and starkiller would be the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Guess who dropped those?

So what makes a nazi analogy effective, exactly? Just generic imperialism and world domination? Evilness™? War crimes? The use of weapons of mass destruction? Aren’t other real life ideologies and military superpowers guilty of those things too? How do you strip a fictional representation of nazi ideology of its most important and atrocious aspect, antisemitism, and still expect the audience to take that metaphor literally? 

Spoiler: it isn’t supposed to be taken literally.

It doesn’t have to, in order to speak to the heart of the audiences all over the world. The nazi coding might be superficial, but this doesn’t mean that the First Order as presented by the new trilogy isn’t absolutely, unequivocally bad. Why is it bad? The narrative doesn’t get too specific about it—in fact many criticized how vague the politics both in tfa and tlj are—but we know they’re bad: they have a rigid militaristic structure, they blow up planets and entire solar systems, they oppose democratic-looking entities called the Resistance and the Republic (names are important just as coding is), they summarily execute prisoners. We just KNOW that those things are bad—we aren’t sure what their political vision is (beyond obvious galactic domination. To quote GRRM, what is the First Order’s tax policy?), but if they do those things, it must be bad, period. That’s all we need to know to understand this story.

The nazi aesthetics help broadcasting this evilness to the audience loud and clear, because we’re all children of the same culture that (thanks to the aforementioned movies and tropes) taught us to instantly recognize those black-dressed, seriously-looking guys marching in lines and swearing allegiance to an ominous-looking red-and-black symbol as evil incarnate (except we fail to recognize fascist and nazi ideology when it manifests in other, less obvious forms).

BUT here’s the thing that antis constantly get wrong, like abysmally wrong. While the First Order is portrayed as bad and unsympathetic, Kylo Ren/Ben Solo isn’t. 

Kylo Ren being made of a different cloth was clear since TFA (you cannot deny the truth that is your family) and insisting to claim otherwise at this point is willfully misinterpreting canon and loudly communicated authorial intent.

Aside from the stormtroopers (who were groomed into their role and are used as cannon fodder by the Order, and who I think will be eventually liberated by Finn), Kylo is the one part of the First Order who is clearly REDEEMABLE, because his nature is essentially extraneous to it. He’s a Skywalker. He’s the last of a breed of wizard-warriors who worship the Force and whose political views, for better or worse, will be always secondary to the way they perceive this energy in the galaxy and their role in it. His enormous power might be dark, but it’s not evil, and right now he’s misplacing it in the hands of an evil organization which he erroneously considers as a chance to bring “a new order” to the galaxy.

Is Kylo a nazi, or at least is he as superficially nazi-coded as the rest of the first order is? Let’s see:

there is no indication of Kylo being racist (or speciesist). Classist? Hell yeah, you can see it mostly in his interactions with Rey (which are, however, complicated and in part contradicted by the fact that Kylo seems to respect and value force users more than “regular” people, including those on his own side). Racist? There’s zero reason to believe that. Or at least there’s no satisfying in-universe equivalent of real world racism emerging in Kylo’s character.

the only group of people Kylo wants to exterminate (like Snoke, and like Anakin before him) is the Jedi order, but the Jedi aren’t an ethnicity or a species. You aren’t born a Jedi. You become one. Destroying the Jedi order is a purge, not a genocide. It’s like killing all the members of a political party, or the supporters of a religious heresy. STILL BAD! (and definitely something nazism, as many other dictatorships, did.) But not steeped in racism or eugenetics. It’s interesting that upon meeting Rey and discovering her force powers, Kylo proposes to teach her. He doesn’t have a problem with force sensitive people per se, he has a problem with those who adhere to the Jedi order. This grudge against the Jedi exists in the context of the eternal hostility between lightsiders and darksiders in star wars canon. It’s not the first time that one side of the Force tries to completely destroy the other, and yes, the Jedi have tried to exterminate the Sith too.

Kylo’s outfit marks him as different than the rest of the First Order, and specifically different from Hux (who is, in many ways, the epitome of the “evil gay nazi” trope, which in turn is a bastardization, mostly for the lulz and/or for fictional purposes, of nazism). Kylo doesn’t wear an uniform or display any official first order insignia indicating that he is, indeed, a believer of that ideology. His TFA costume is reminiscent of a monk or a knight templar (see also how his saber is essentially a red cross shape) while also evoking the classic image of the Grim Reaper (when he’s in full cowl+mask attire), while his TLJ one, while not very different from its earlier version, gives him a dark prince vibe, with the long, willowy black cape and the elegant shorter tunic resembling a medieval/renaissance doublet. Not a lot of nazi coding here, and believe me, how a character looks is very, very important to convey this sort of messages.

So.

What makes a(n allegedly) nazi-coded character convincing, aesthetics aside? 

His politics.

Do we know what Kylo’s politics are? 

No.

If the First Order’s political vision is vague because it works essentially as a stand-in for “evil organization” and we don’t need a lot of details about it, Kylo’s political views are more than vague, they’re non-existent. That’s because Kylo isn’t a political figure, at all. He got involved with this organization because his dark side master was the Supreme Leader, but we have no way of knowing whether his political ideas really align with those of the First Order, or if he has any at all. We believe they must align, to an extent at least, because why would he stick with them for so long if they don’t. The problem is that Kylo is too fucked up to discuss him this way. We actually see in TLJ how he keeps doing things that “split his spirit to the bone” just because his master asked, and because he sees no choice. He just keeps rolling like a wrecking ball towards complete (self) destruction. He’s a mess. He’s the opposite of a political thinker.

Antis insist to see Kylo as the embodiment of the first order when he’s actually (probably) the seed of its destruction. He exists at the margins of the organization, as a scary, but essentially extraneous presence, who follows his own rules and whims (proof of this is Hux’s seething hatred and distrust for him). We now see him rise as its Supreme Leader, but he, like Snoke before him, is an outsider, a custodian and wielder of an ancient magic/religion that the First Order is very willing to use for their own profit, but seems to be inherently skeptical of. And this conflict is 100% going to come to fruition in IX, make no mistake.

Framing Kylo as a nazi is such a massive misunderstanding of how his character is constructed, his role in the story and what he’s meant to represent to us. And of course it creates a VERY unfortunate dissonance in the fact that we’re EVIDENTLY meant to sympathize with him and root for his redemption. 

This is a character who isn’t meant to represent a political allegory, but an existential one. He’s an archetypal figure—the prodigal son, now become the Usurper. His political views remain largely unexplained and unexplored because they don’t matter. What matters is the archetypal ball of negative, destructive energy he represents, as well as the psychological horror of his personal and familial drama, which is the bulk of his motivation in everything he does. Kylo lashes out because of his unresolved trauma with his family and with Snoke, not because he knows what he’s doing or because he wants to achieve a specific goal. Even at the end of TLJ, he’s using the First Order war machine as a weapon to enact his personal, and deeply masochistic, vendetta against Luke, who tried to murder him, and Leia who (in his mind) rejected and betrayed him for the Resistance. He’s also externalizing the blind terror, the hurt, the confusion of having just killed his mentor and long time abuser to save someone who (from his point of view) only used him and then dropped him like a sack of potatoes (yeah, that would be Rey).

There’s no sound military strategy or even logical thinking in his almost delirious attack on the resistance base on Crait, to the point that even Hux is appalled. This isn’t a man who is pursuing a political ideology. This is a deeply broken individual who is fumbling to deal with some major unresolved issues from his past and childhood and who for some reason believes that burning everything to ashes is the only way to achieve some sort of peace. The “order” he wants to restore is more on a personal scale than on a galactic one. The galactic scale is always a byproduct of the personal, as it’s always the case with these thrice damned Skywalkers, tbh.

so to summarize

the nazi aesthetic is superficial and is meant to convey that the first order is Evil

the political message of sw is more universal than “fight the nazis”, not because the nazis aren’t bad, but because the nazis aren’t the only form of political evil people should fight against, and depending on where and when you are in the world, there might be more immediate forms of imperialism and oppression that the local audience might want to see reflected in the First Order (note that the current nazi discourse is incredibly westerncentric and especially us-centric, because that’s where we’re unfortunately experiencing a resurgence of these ideologies, but other parts of the world might have their own oppressive powers to fight that have nothing to do with nazism)

the First Order is 100% evil but Kylo isn’t integrated within it, and even as the Supreme Leader he represents an outsider

Kylo’s relevance in the story is broader than his affiliation with the First Order

in fact, the main themes of his character aren’t political at all

Kylo matters as an archetypal and tragic figure, the continuation of the very archetypal and tragic familial saga of the Skywalkers

Kylo is neither a “literal” nazi nor nazi-coded

insisting that Kylo is a nazi makes you (not you, anon, those who propose this interpretation) look stupider and stupider as it becomes increasingly clear that he’s a HUGELY sympathetic character who is on a redemptive (and romantic) arc

seriously, disney ain’t gonna “normalize” nazis

stop saying that

stop worrying about that

this is the least of your problems

the first order will eventually be destroyed as it should be. Kylo, who is not a nazi, will not

end

[mllemaenad]

Something occurred to me recently, when I was contemplating the outcomes of a Leliana!Divine world-state. Circles, imperfect as they arguably are, provide a contained environment with which to resolve a potential outbreak of possession. I acknowledge that, as you have opined, the Rite Of Annulment is a sub-optimal response to them; that said, even a less questionable solution would be easier to implement with the Nevarran Accord in place. How would the post-circle Thedas solve such events?

Well, that’s a bit of an understatement. I believe I said that the Right of Annulment is fucking evil. :)

I stand by that, absolutely. I don’t think it is ‘questionable’ or ‘sub optimal’. I think the indiscriminate murder of what may amount to hundreds of trapped and helpless people is a grotesque and horrific thing. I get these Asks, sometimes. And they all amount to ‘But when do we get to murder mages? Surely now we can murder mages? Surely this situation is bad enough that we can murder mages?’

My answer is never. You never get to murder mages without consequences. And let’s be clear here: my word is ‘murder’. If you are cornered by a mage, possessed or otherwise, who means to kill you, and you find you must kill them to survive, then you are acting in self defence. And that’s fine. But if you have arrived on the scene with the intent to kill, you are a murderer.

First thing: this business about Circles and the Annulment being set up to resolve possession scenarios. They’re not. Not at all. If they’ve ever actually accomplished that, it was incidental to their true purpose. However, I think in most cases the Circles (and in all cases Annulments) have made things worse rather than better. I know that safety is how the Chantry sells it, but the Chantry lies.

Let’s take a look at how all this got started:

In the 83rd year of the Glory Age, one of the mages of the Nevarran Circle was found practicing forbidden magic. The templars executed him swiftly, but this brewed discontent among the Nevarra Circle. The mages mounted several magical attacks against the templars, vengeance for the executed mage, but the knight-commander was unable to track down which were responsible.

Three months later, the mages summoned a demon and turned it loose against their templar watchers. Demons, however, are not easily controlled. After killing the first wave of templars who tried to contain it, the demon took possession of one of its summoners. The resulting abomination slaughtered templars and mages both before escaping into the countryside.

The grand cleric sent a legion of templars to hunt the fugitive. They killed the abomination a year later, but by that time it had slain 70 people.

Divine Galatea, responding to the catastrophe in Nevarra and hoping to prevent further incidents, granted all the grand clerics of the Chantry the power to purge a Circle entirely if they rule it irredeemable. This Right of Annulment has been performed 17 times in the last 700 years.

– The Right of Annulment

The Templars murdered a mage for practising ‘forbidden magic’. What did he do? We’ll probably never know. And that’s the root cause of the problem: Templars are empowered to perform summary executions, and are never held accountable for their actions. They are assumed to be justified in anything they do.

The Circle mages, finding themselves trapped in a building with a mob of religious fanatics who had just proved they were not even slightly above murder, retaliated. Apparently, they were really good at it. Targeted guerilla warfare that kept the Templars on the back foot, and for which they were never caught. I’d just like to pause for a moment to give a fucking standing ovation to the Glory Age Nevarran mages. It’s doubtful they were ever able to write down and disseminate their tactics. Nevertheless, they should be an inspiration for every generation that followed after.

Eventually, someone broke through the Templar lines. I’m not sure whether I believe the bit about the demon summoning. I’ll certainly concede that it’s possible: people do summon demons to fight their battles, and that can get very, very, very out of hand. But ‘demons’ and ‘blood magic’ are the Chantry’s go-to excuses for everything, and they’ve been caught out lying or misunderstanding these situations before. The mages were, as I said, doing really well. And they were Nevarran mages. This is a culture that knows how to work the Fade, and, given that this is early Chantry history, I’d expect traditional Nevarran practices to be more prominent and less suppressed by Chantry forces. I’d put Nevarran mages up there with Rivaini and Avvar in knowing how to handle spirits.

Someone got out, and they stayed free for a year. Given that a ‘legion’ of Templars were sent after them (from context I’m not entirely sure if the author means 5,000 (ish) Templars, like they sent in the Roman army, or if she just means ‘a lot’ but I suspect the latter because bloody hell, that’s a lot of Templars), and they were pursuing them over the course of that time, I would guess that the 70 people killed were mostly, if not entirely, the pursuing Templars.

Whoever this was, possessed or not, they conducted an extremely effective rebellion against the Chantry and Circle systems. They, as well as the other mages involved, demonstrated that Templars could be resisted. And not just resisted: killed. They could be taken out in large numbers. You can just walk out of a Circle.

That could never be allowed to happen again.

The Right of Annulment meant that, back at the stage where the mages were just ‘mount[ing] several magical attacks against the Templars’, the Templars could just go in and slaughter everybody, without making any effort to discover who was behind the rebellion.

The Right of Annulment is a terror tactic, aimed at suppressing rebellion. The Circle system exists to oppress and contain mages, both for the financial and political gain of the Chantry, and because Orlesian culture is genuinely anti-magic and wants to suppress magic in other cultures. None of this is done for anyone’s safety.

Look at the other times it’s occurred (where we have any details to discuss):

The third time the Right of Annulment was invoked on a Circle of Magi, in 3:09 Towers, Knight-Commander Gervasio of Antiva killed all of the city’s mages for demonic possession. However, a massacre may have already occurred at the hands of Knight-Captain Nicolas, with the Right invoked as cover-up. The Seekers of Truth later apprehended Ser Nicholas, who had left the order to kill mages and admitted to having murdered over a hundred.

– Magehunter

Ser Nicholas murdered a bunch of mages, both inside the Circle and out, and the other Templars killed any survivors to prevent retaliation or attempts to seek justice. This is a perfect case of the process Galatea implemented working exactly as intended: the Antivan mages were never given the chance to organise and resist the way the Nevarran mages did. They also claimed they did it because of mass demonic possession, which is why I’m suspicious of the original Glory Age event.

The Annulment in the Broken Circle quest was called due to Uldred’s rebellion:

Uldred will show us the way. Finally, recognition within the Circle and freedom from the scornful eye of the templars. We will not be shunned. Be ready.–Enchanter Gravid, Libertarian

The time is drawing near. Uldred has brought his intentions to light and a confrontation is all but inevitable. We will separate or walk with our brothers, but we will be free.–Enchanter Boson, Libertarian

If blood must be shed and used, so be it. I will follow when he calls. The yoke must be released, whatever the cost.–Enchanter Prist, Libertarian

I have spoken to him directly. His intentions are that we will demand the templars withdraw. I don’t know that I am willing to follow, but I will be present to hear his argument.–Enchanter Fonst, Aequitarian

Madness! I doubt blood will be of use to you if it is flowing down the tower steps. Step away from this folly, before it consumes us all.–Enchanter Luvan, Loyalist

The call is made. We will stride out of here with pride in our step, regardless of outcome. This is for the good of the circle. Uldred will see to it.–Libertarian Rhonus

– Promises of Pride

I can’t take any Templar handwringing over this situation seriously when I have to note that this is, once again, a rebellion. Uldred and his allies had an actual plan: with Loghain’s backing they were going to force the Templars out of the Circle. It is entirely within Templar interests to kill all of these people.

This is also a rare case where we can actually confirm a demon outbreak in the Circle. It is thus a clear example of why ‘containment’, as you’ve put it, is cruel, counterproductive, and indeed itself an outright evil.

If you are confronted by a demon, and lack the strength to fight it, the best thing you can do is leave. The Circle system does not allow mages to do that. They are unable to get away from the demons hunting them, and have no choice but to confront them. 

Because the mages could not leave the Circle, what started with a single case of demonic possession, when Uldred fucked up a summoning spell, became a plague. While the timeline on this is somewhat murky, the events of Broken Circle likely took place over two or three days: during that time both mages and Templars who were trapped in the Circle were hunted down by demons and either killed or possessed. This was always bad, but the Circle made it a nightmare.

The Annulment in the Kirkwall Chantry was largely called because Meredith is a terrible person who likes to hurt mages … but, it can certainly be framed as a reaction to what she perceives as open rebellion:

Varric: The more she squeezed the mages, the more they resisted. The more they resisted, the tighter she squeezed.

Mages have been attempting to flee Meredith’s brutal regime in the Gallows for years:

Here in Kirkwall, citizens actually help rebel mages escape. Escaped apostates have survived their freedom long enough to form the “the mage underground,” a network that feeds and shelters escapees and even transports apostates into remote areas of the Free Marches and beyond our easy reach.

– The Mage Underground

We can’t trust the raiders’ promise of passage - the templar’s bounty on us is far too tempting. Press on every contact you have! We must leave Kirkwall before the knight-commander does something drastic. Each night, more of our brethren make it to the coast.

If the hounds sniff out your current location, the other site we discussed is clear. Be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.

– Blood Mage Dispatches

Ultimately, of course, Meredith used Anders’s attack on the Kirkwall Chantry as a pretext for the slaughter. That had fuck all to do with the Circle mages, but it didn’t need to: the Kirkwall mages were already attempting to escape their oppression in large numbers. That couldn’t be permitted. ‘Anders’, ‘demonic possession’, ‘blood magic’ – in the end, any excuse will do, when the point of an Annulment is to both crush the present rebellion and deter anyone who thinks about trying again.

When we heard of the injustices against our fellow mages at the White Spire, the Circle of Magi in Val Royeaux, I feared what was to come. Our Circle at Dairsmuid is small and isolated; it exists largely as a façade to appease the Chantry.

When the other Circles rose up, the Chantry sent Seekers across the bay from Ayesleigh to investigate. They found us mixing freely with our families, training female mages in the traditions of the seers, and denounced us as apostates. Perhaps they thought we were spineless robes who could be intimidated with a little bloodshed. Before I was first enchanter, I was the daughter of Captain Revaud, of the Felicisima Armada. I know how to plan a battle.

They brought with them a small army of templars. We fought. And we might have won. But they invoked the Right of Annulment, with all the unrelenting brutality that allowed. It is their right to put screaming apprentices to the sword, burn our “tainted” libraries, crush irreplaceable artifacts under their heels, tear down the very walls of our home. No mage has the right to disagree.

We of the Dairsmuid Circle wait now, behind barricades. I have sent word to our brother and sister mages of this outrage. When they break through, we will not die alone.

– The Annulment at Dairsmuid

The Annulment at Dairsmuid happened because a large-scale rebellion was already underway. The Dairsmuid Circle is clearly sympathetic to the rebellion – Rivella clearly calls the events at the White Spire an injustice – but given that they are a small Circle, practically speaking they probably couldn’t add much might to the uprising. This Annulment was symbolic: the Rivaini mages have likely been living their lives like this for generations; in the context of the mage uprising any deviation from Chantry dogma could be called ‘rebellion’. This Circle could only be said to be in rebellion in the most technical sense, but that was enough. They killed them all.

The Annulment is not a solution to demon possession. It’s not intended to be. That’s not what it’s for, and that’s not how it’s used. It’s terrorism. I’m sorry for the length of this, but every time I get an Ask like this I feel like I’m somehow failing at a fundamental level to convey the horror of what is going on in Thedas. The grim, ugly persecution and mass murder that is going on day-by-day, and is being sold to the average Thedosian as for their safety. The world of Dragon Age is terrifying, but not because it has demons or mages in it. It’s terrifying because of the amount of power it has ceded to the Chantry, and because of what that means for any person who doesn’t meet the Chantry’s definition of ‘normal’.

Okay. So. How should they handle it?

There’s a flippant part of me that just wants to say ‘Any way other than this!’ Because, honestly, it’s difficult to think of a system that’s worse than the one they have now. But it’s not as though they have no way forward.

The first thing I would say is that simply abolishing the Circle system should alleviate the problem considerably, because you aren’t going to have hundreds of mages packed into a place they can’t leave. You can’t have 500 possessed mages on your hands if only three mages live in your village.

It would also limit several of the causes behind possession: you won’t be forcing people to live in places where the Veil is routinely thinned by blood magic and demon summonings (phylacteries and Harrowings, respectively, and fuck the Chantry for their hypocrisy). You won’t be constantly subjecting people to high-stress situations: Tranquility, the Harrowing, forced separation from your family, long-term confinement, Templars in general, the fact that sometimes your friends just disappear and you have to accept this as normal – you know, the standard horrors of being a Circle mage.

Of course, there will still be cases where relatively large numbers of mages congregate to deal with matters affecting them specifically: classes, lectures, magic-related competitions or other leisure activities, and the political proceedings of the College of Enchanters.

Should any trouble occur in such situations – well, most schools have evacuation and lockdown procedures in place aimed at protecting students and staff when there’s a threat on campus. Why should this situation be any different? No system is ever going to be perfect, and you can’t guarantee that no one is ever going to die (we can’t do that in our world either), but you can have strategies arranged in advance to get people away from danger areas, and on what to do if you find you can’t get out and have to protect yourself until help arrives.

First thing is clear the area. Anyone who is not actively hurting someone else right now gets to evacuate. Right now, I don’t care whether any of the people in the crowd are also possessed. You can test for that, and it may not even be a problem. Unless you currently look like this:

… and you are trying to rip people’s arms off, you get to leave.

Now, yes, that still leaves us with a possessed person. On that point, I would say that the Chantry lands need to completely change how they view spirits, mages and possession. As far as I can tell, everything they think is wrong, and a lot of it is dangerous. The Chantry regards demons as ‘the Maker’s first children’, who turned on humanity out of jealousy. They are inherently evil and irredeemable. That’s not true. No spirit has ever corroborated that story, and All New, Faded for Her demonstrates that a demon is a spirit in pain, and can be healed.

The Chantry regards possession as just about universally a death sentence. And that’s … really not true. There are some cases where possession is just fine. The Chantry would have killed Wynne just as much as Uldred if they knew about her situation. Cullen wants to lock Sigrid in a room with a Templar, because he doesn’t grasp that there’s nothing wrong with her. Your first question, when dealing with a case of possession, should always be ‘Is this actually a problem?’ If not, go away and leave them alone.

Even in cases where you are looking at outright hostile demonic possession, the mage is rarely gone. Connor, untrained child that he is, still surfaces sometimes. Having defeated her Templars attackers with demonic assistance, Evelina first flees from her kids, taking the demon away from them – although she loses control later. Marethari will contain the pride demon with which Merrill has been working until she is clear of her clan and the battle can be fought in seclusion. Grandin’s kind of a weird case, because the possession was voluntary and the two are working together – but it does seem to be a demon. Nevertheless, in that case you can speak to him, and there remains hope that the two might eventually sort themselves out.

We know that mages can be saved from demons. Connor, Feynriel, Fiona, Pharamond – all people who have survived demonic possession. It’s not even necessarily difficult: you can send Jowan in to fight Connor’s demon – this poor hapless apprentice whom they were going to make Tranquil – and he does just fine. Of course, some demons are stronger than others; I’m not saying it’s not a good idea to have specialists. But the Chantry is seriously overstating the problem here.

When possessed, most mages think they are about to die. The brave, the strong, the selfless – they fight to contain the demon until someone can come and kill them so they don’t hurt anyone else. But in those circumstances, it’s all too easy to succumb to despair. Imagine if mages could think, not ‘hold on, they’re coming to kill you’ but ‘hold on, help is on its way’.

So the next thing to do would be ask Dorian. People always seem to forget that Tevinter exists and, given that mages are aristocrats there, would seriously frown on just murdering them out of hand. Anders says in Dragon Age 2 (I haven’t got a screenshot, yet) that they help possessed mages in Tevinter. Now, when you explain to him that your previous plan had just been to murder small children because of demons, Dorian is probably going to yell … a lot. I mean … really a lot. But the entirety of southern Thedas deserves that and worse, so I can’t be too bothered. Get him to send books and specialists. Make this part of the curriculum in the College of Enchanters. It might become part of the Spirit Healer specialisation, since they’re already good with spirits.

Our third thing is … well, asking Solas is probably impractical at the moment, but there are alternatives. We need people who care about spirits and who want to help them. Ask Cole: one way or another, his entire quest line is about providing a spirit with the emotional tools to handle the mortal world. There’s more than one path that works, so regardless of whether you chose more spirit/more human, he should have some insight. Ask the Rivaini, the Dalish, the Avvar. They know about spirits, and they know how to reach the Fade. Some things the Chantry thought were impossible (like safe spirit possession) turn out to be perfectly normal in other cultures.

The Chantry needs to admit they know fuck all about this situation and have been causing incalculable harm for centuries.

This whole process should be regarded like an outbreak of a really complicated illness: get everyone clear of the area, and send in professionals to help, rather than harm. Ideally, everyone should get out of this alive. You should be aiming to save the spirit and the mage. If that’s not possible, you save whom you can. Killing is only ever a last resort.

And finally … now we need to determine whether a criminal act was committed. If you got possessed because you live in Kirkwall, and it’s hard to go three steps without running into a demon, then you are a victim and once you’ve been freed of the demon you have nothing to answer for. If you thought it was a good idea to summon a demon army in your basement to TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD, then we’re going to have to bring in the guard to arrest you.

Now … that’s should. It’s probably not will. The Chantry has ruled Thedas for centuries, and they have taught people that mages want to get possessed and kill people and/or that mages want to be magisters and make everyone else slaves. Making Leliana Divine does not just do away with all that prejudice. She may well ask the questions and do the research – she’s a bright lady, and will just give zero fucks about gossip about talks with Tevinter or ‘barbarian’ cultures – but teaching people not to stab first and think later, not to regard mages as inherently evil at worst and as expendable sinners at best will take time. I expect them to handle many things badly. We haven’t done away with bigotry in the real world either, so.

There’s also the problem of Bioware, because they would really like it if I were deeply conflicted over whether to choose mages or Templars, so I do expect more side quests where they force me to kill possessed mages. I mean – I really hope they stop that shit, but I’m not expecting it.

But Circles and the Annulment are for no one’s protection. Well, no one’s but the Chantry’s. And I say: fuck the whole lot of them.

[lady-hammerlock]

Assassin’s Creed Rogue - The Novel - Chapter 14

30th July 1757

The next time the Morrigan pulled into port we bid farewell to La Vérendrye. We also received word that Hope wanted to meet us in Albany. The message did not say why, but Liam seemed optimistic that Hope would have word of James Wardrop for us. We heard also of a political conference that was due to be held at Albany in a few days’ time. I regret that I did not pay much attention to such things at the time, but looking back on it now, I can say that it was a gathering of some significance that signalled the beginnings of the war with the French in which we I now find myself embroiled.

Liam and I did not care about such things however, or waste any time discussing them. As far as we were both concerned the only tasks of any importance that might be waiting for us in Albany was the assassination of James Wardrop, and the recovery of the Precursor manuscript.

And of course, as we approached Albany, Liam made sure that he did everything within his power to convince me that James Wardrop was an absolute monster. He told me of the native tribes that James Wardrop had forced off their land, as though every man of standing in the colonies has not, in their own small way, been guilty of the same thing. He told me also of the laws that James Wardrop bent to suit his own needs, Liam’s old hatred of politicians still as strong as it had ever been. We were not even sure that I would need to kill James Wardrop, or that he would be at the conference, but Liam was not taking any chances.

I listened to every word that he said to me, and I tried to believe in them, and in my friend. I was sure that he was telling the truth, and yet I could not shake the feeling that killing James Wardrop would probably feel just as distasteful and unnecessary to me as killing both Washington and Smith had.

When we pulled into port I saw to the needs of the Morrigan and her men while Liam ran off to find Hope. I took my time, wanting to give Liam and Hope as much time alone together as they needed. It had been a few months since they had last seen one another after all. At least, I told myself that was why I stayed with the Morrigan. In truth I was not looking forward at all to potentially having to kill another Templar.

Eventually I ran out of excuses to stay with the Morrigan and her crew, and headed off in search of my friends. They had clearly been talking for a while when I arrived, and Hope was so enraptured with whatever it was that Liam had been saying that she did not notice my arrival, and I accidentally startled her when I placed a hand on her shoulder in greeting.

“You’re here,” she said, sounding rather more surprised than I would have expected of an Assassin. We were always supposed to be alert and aware of our surroundings after all.

“The Congress is still in session,” she continued. “George Washington and his militia have fired on French troops under Jumonville. The French are calling it an act of war.”

At the time I did not know how important that first act of war would turn out to be. All I could think of was the name Hope had mentioned; George Washington. I had known Lawrence’s brother was a high-ranking member of the military, and it seems as though his importance in such matters is only increasing these days, but at the time all I could picture was the concerned face of a young man as he watched his elder brother slowly fading away thanks to the illness that ate at him.

“You mean Lawrence’s younger brother?” I asked Hope, barely able to believe it.

“Yes, it’s the same,” Hope confirmed. “Speaking of Lawrence Washington, since you eliminated him, James Wardrop has moved up the ranks. All the Templar resources are at his disposal now.”

So my target had become one of even more significance than before. I was under no delusions. It was not as though I was going after the Grandmaster himself. No, by all reports the Colonial Grandmaster had not been seen in the colonies for months at that stage, and Lawrence Washington and James Wardrop were only leading in his absence, and were, of course, in charge of the operation involving the Precursor box and manuscript.

��What about the manuscript?” I asked Hope.

“My sources in New York confirm that Wardrop has it,” Hope replied. “I also learned that he is here, at the congress, under heavy guard.”

Liam’s guess had proved correct. He would undoubtedly view the news as good, although I was probably not as excited by Hope’s revelation as I was expected to be.

Liam had remained silent while Hope and I talked, but at that moment he turned to me.

“Shay, find Wardrop,” Liam told me. “Get that manuscript.”

No matter how I looked at it, Liam’s words were nothing more or less than an order. My friend had dismissed me. It stung, but I nodded nevertheless and made to leave.

“This place is thick with Templar troops,” Hope added before I could leave. “Liam and I will make sure Wardrop doesn’t escape.”

I was sure that the two of them wanted to spend as much time alone together as they could. Since the outbreak of typhoid fever in the homestead Liam and Hope had been closer than ever. It felt as though the two of them had dismissed me all too easily, but I could hardly begrudge my friends wanting to spend a little bit of time alone without me. Or at least, I tried not to begrudge them this, but I was all too aware of the fact that I was growing slightly jealous of the both of them, and of their bond.

I took my time as I wandered around Albany. It was easy enough to find my way to the buildings in which the congress was taking place. It seemed as though nearly every person in the colony was interested in the political meeting in one fashion or another.

I soon found a rather large gathering of people. They were all watching a man on a raised platform in front of them as he orated rather passionately. He was trying to convince his audience of the importance of the colonies joining together to create one government, and doing a remarkably good job of it. Even though I was in the crowd for a reason other than the man’s speech, I found myself taken in by his words.

At the time I was aware of the speaker only by reputation, but before long I would come to know him rather a lot better. His name was Benjamin Franklin, and he had a way of speaking that made you want to listen. From the time I have spent with him I can also report that he is a friendly, intelligent individual, although not, perhaps, as observant as you might expect of such an academically minded man.

As I stood there amongst the crowd, enraptured by Benjamin Franklin’s words, I spotted one of James Wardrop’s allies. William Johnson, another high-ranking Templar, was also in the crowd, and appeared to be just as absorbed by Franklin’s speech as anyone there.

When Franklin had finished Johnson applauded the loudest, and immediately moved towards the podium to greet Franklin as he stepped down. I kept a close eye on Johnson, thinking that he might eventually lead me to James Wardrop, or that he himself might actually be in possession of the manuscript or know where to find it.

“A rousing speech, Mister Franklin,” Johnson commented as he fell into step alongside Benjamin Franklin. “But do you truly believe Great Britain will grant her colonies autonomy?”

The two began to walk off together and I followed them, careful to stay far enough back that they would not spot me. As they walked they continued to discuss Master Franklin’s speech for a short while, before Johnson swiftly changed the subject.

“Let us leave politics for another day,” Johnson said. “I wanted to thank you for your research.”

This peaked my interest. What sort of research could Benjamin Franklin possibly be doing for the Templars? The answer seemed obvious to me at once. Benjamin Franklin had been assisting them either with translating the manuscript or with trying to work out the secrets of the box.

I continued to follow along after them, hoping that I would hear more. They did not make it easy for me. Templar presence around the congress was a lot heavier than that of my Assassin brethren. It appeared that the other side paid a lot more attention to politics than Achilles’ brotherhood did.

“Of course,” Benjamin Franklin said, somehow making even those two simple words sound so passionate and genuine.

And here I must take a moment to address whoever it is that may be reading this; if you have not had the good fortune to converse with Master Franklin I highly recommend seeking him out or at least finding an opportunity to watch him speak. The man is a brilliant orator, in possession of a magnificent mind, and quick to make friends.

But I should return to my tale.

“In the brief time I could examine that box,” Franklin said, and by this stage I was sure that I had stumbled across something grand, and actually growing quite excited, “I could tell that it was something unique. From Ancient Egypt you said?”

Master Johnson nodded in response to this.

“Well,” Franklin continued, “as I mentioned in my letter, I am quite ready to electrify it.”

At this stage I had no idea of Master Franklin’s experiments, and no idea what it was that he might be talking about. All I knew was that Master Franklin suddenly seemed a lot more excited about their topic of conversation, and eager to proceed with whatever it is he and Johnson had arranged.

“Excellent,” Johnson replied, looking just as pleased. “We will have the box delivered shortly. As for the manuscript…”

Master Johnson paused and gestured to a nearby British officer who had been standing close by for the latter part of the conversation.

“Captain!” Johnson called, and the man came scurrying over.

He hung his head, and looked rather nervous as he approached the high-ranking Templar.

“I apologise sir,” the British officer began, “but Master Wardrop refused to hand it over. He said the risks were too great.”

I frowned. Apparently Wardrop at least had anticipated that we might be coming for him and the manuscript.

“The risks?” Johnson exclaimed, before letting out a cry of frustration. He shook his head and then turned to Benjamin Franklin once more.

“I apologise,” he told Master Franklin. “You will have the manuscript and the box in the briefest of delays.”

Master Franklin nodded politely in return and began to walk off, but before he left he fixed the officer who had delivered the bad news with a less than friendly glare. Clearly he had been looking forward to getting his hands on the manuscript.

As soon as Franklin was out of earshot, Johnson turned his attention to the officer once more and offloaded all of his anger and frustration on the poor man.

“You mangy excuse for a uniform!” he hissed, leaning in close as he did. “Run to Fort Frederick and tell Master Wardrop he had better cough up the manuscript post haste, else I will have him scalped!”

The officer nodded and then ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. I followed him, knowing that ideally I would be able to stop the man before he reached Wardrop and took the manuscript. I sprinted and jumped across the rooftops, until I found the perfect spot and pounced on the poor man, my blade sinking deep into his neck.

I now knew where to find Wardrop, and Fort Frederick stood almost directly in front of me. I had stopped the messenger just in time. Any closer to the fort and my kill would surely have been spotted by the men stationed there.

With the messenger out of the way I turned my attention to the fort itself. Both Johnson and the manuscript lay somewhere inside. Fort Frederick was not particularly large, and was old enough that the wall had begun to crumble in places, the broken and uneven stonework making for an easy climb.

I scaled the walls easily, but as soon as I was inside it was a different matter. Fort Frederick was not large, playing host to only a few dozen troops at the time, but nevertheless a couple of them spotted me as soon as I stepped foot on the rampart.

I dispatched them as quickly and quietly as I could, before looking around for my target. I soon spied James Wardrop speaking to a nearby soldier and slowly approached.

Whether my fight with the soldiers had alerted him, or whether it was my slinking towards him, James Wardrop immediately looked up, his eyes fixing on mine. All was still for a couple of moments, and then the man began to run.

There was nowhere for him to go though. I stood between James Wardrop and the entrance of the fortress’s doors. I ran after him along the wall of the fortress, and leaped down on top of him, plunging my blade into his chest, just as I had done with Samuel Smith. I hoped that this time my target would die quickly, or that he might give me some reason to not immediately regret his death.

The man was still holding the manuscript in his hands, and I grabbed it from him before he had even finished falling to the ground, not wanting to get the precious book covered in Wardrop’s blood.

“No!” he cried out, trying to reach for myself and the manuscript, despite the blood that was flowing out from the wound in his chest and staining his clothes.

We had settled into that strange place between life and death again. He did not have long to live; seconds only; and yet he fought just as hard to reclaim the artefact as Samuel Smith had with the box.

“You have no idea what you’re doing fool!” James Wardrop spat at me.

“I’m keeping the people free from your control,” I told Wardrop as I tucked the manuscript into my coat. That was at least what Liam had tried to convince me I was doing.

“How free will you be when the French undermine these squabbling colonies?” Wardrop argued.

“These colonies would be far better off without the Templars pulling the strings,” I spat back, trying to pretend that he didn’t have a point. The French or the Templars; from my point of view they both seemed just as bad as one another, and just as nebulous and distant an enemy.

James Wardrop could not have had much life left in him, and yet he used his dying moments, his very last bits of strength, to continue arguing with me.

“We bring order from chaos,” he declared. “If everything is permitted, no-one is safe.”

I tried to pretend that the words had not gotten to me. I tried to pretend that they had not made more sense to me than everything that Liam had been saying to me of late. It did not work, and in my anger I leaned down to glare at James Wardrop.

“Even the devil can quote scripture to suit his own purposes,” I hissed at him, but the quote was lost on him.

James Wardrop was already dead.

And so there you have it. The truth. I was responsible for…

No, that is putting it too mildly. Best to say it straight, without any mucking around. I killed Lawrence Washington, Samuel Smith and James Wardrop. I have no doubt that if I was given enough time with them I would come to realise that they were all excellent men in their own right, and did not deserve to die, by my hand or by any other.

Alas, my tale is far from over, and there are more important events that I must still recall; ones that weigh on my conscience even more than the deaths of Washington, Smith and Wardrop.

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