#pro mages

[eobard-thawne]

honestly? if i could choose to play as an apostate, i would.

[ohnoitshappening]

The way there are ways to learn to weild magic and magic-like abilities in the universe (Templars, Berserkers, Spirit warriors or whatever that subclass was called) with Templars originally not even needing lyrium to have their skills, and how that could affect the story is ignored especially after it got retconned to lift responsibility from the chantry and fit in the "both sides equally bad" bullshit in...

[olillskio]

Finally finished my piece for the mage war! I know this took long but I finally found motivation to finish this and move on for more art lmao xD

also yes Anders has long hair here because ya all cant stop me

[corpocyborg]

BTW, if you've never had both Loghain and pro-templar Hawke at the same time, there is some FANTASTIC unique dialogue... I wish I could remember the exact wording because I can't find it anywhere... but it starts out with Hawke talking about all the things that Loghain has done wrong in his life and then Loghain says, "I see. Atrocities are your purview alone? You killed every mage in Kirkwall."

[anneapocalypse]

Honestly something that really affected my view of Varric (and again, I say this with great love for the character) was playing my Terrible Hawke, Emilia, who ends the game an absolute anti-mage fanatic who believes that magic is a curse and it was a blessing that the Maker called Bethany back to His side before she could fall to demons. She is a Hawke who is mainly diplomatic, well-spoken, respected, and absolutely unhinged in her views on magic. She is the Viscount of Kirkwall, and by the time she comes to the Inquisition she's also taken Chantry vows and become an actual templar (after having practiced the discipline off the books for years). She singlehanded kept Kirkwall under Chantry control after Meredith's death. She slaughtered every mage to a one, even the ones who surrendered.

She's Varric's best friend. And he's just as starry-eyed about her in Inquisition as he is about any other Hawke. I love what a deeply unsettling side of Varric that is to see.

She's the best. She's a hero. She saved his city.

[itzscribz]

“Hello, welcome to Café Regale !

What can I do for- Um. Would- would you excuse me for a second ?”

IT’S FINISHED !!

Oh my GOD this was a beast of a project- but I’m soo happy with how it turned out !! Animating these goobers was a lot of fun !

@magebunkshelf

[robo-dino-puppies]

dragon age 2 | fenris

[magnetic-rose]

“vivienne is so rude and mean i can never befriend her” skill issue because vivienne is literally my rock without her the inquisitor would be lost.

[kirkwallguy]

one act three handers conflict i love to make up in my head (because act three is held together by three quests and a piece of string) is that hawke is playing the political game, they're doing this fucked up dance with meredith because they KNOW that they're getting closer to her. so when she asks them to kill blood mages for her, trying to degrade them and push them to breaking point, they agree because at least it means they can get into her office. meanwhile, anders hates this and thinks it's deeply scummy. he doesn't believe it's worth it and sees even a fake alliance with meredith as a major betrayal. even if they're killing blood mages, they're still doing templar work! maybe he never forgives hawke for it deep down.

[eeriemothz]

maybe I'm just prone to liking the Fandom problematics but I genuinely don't understand the visceral hatred some of the Fandom gives Solas and Anders. Idc if someone doesn't like the characters I do but?? Dawg?? Neither of those two are evil both of them work well because they have a point because their core message "my people are being treated like shit and nothing is going to change unless I make it change" is true. (Solas in particular is just being stupid about it) idk I've seen people all but spit in the faces of Solas and Anders fans and I don't get it.

Anyway this is a Solas and Anders fan page I love the tragic mages.

[gruviaa]

[crunchbuttsteak]

Anders didn’t go far enough when he blew up the chantry.

He should have blown up 17 (or 18, depending on decisions made in Origins) chantries, one for every circle annulled.

[hadescavedish]

Zev: I'll help you stab that fascist if you are nice to me

[squirrelwithatophat]

Wynne defending children from the Templars

It’s interesting to reflect on Wynne’s Establishing Character Moment in Dragon Age: Origins, especially in light of the strange whitewashing of the Templar Order in Inquisition as well as her apparently conservative politics.  When we encounter her in Broken Circle (our first interaction with her since the brief chat at Ostagar), we see her fighting to protect a group of young children not only from demons but from the Templars -- the very military force that claims to protect them.  If she is recruited into the party, in fact, we discover that she had already sacrificed her life for them.  She is technically dead/undead and only kept standing due to possession by a spirit of Faith.

As soon as the party enters the door, she’s fearful that the Warden has come to kill them all on behalf of Knight-Commander Greagoir, and depending on player choices/intentions, she may in fact be correct.  

Wynne: It’s you!  No... come no further.  Grey Warden or no, I will strike you down where you stand!

Warden: Wynne - what are you doing here?

Wynne: I am a mage of the Circle.  More importantly, why are you here?  The templars would not let just anyone by.

Warden: You have children with you.

Wynne: The tower is a place of learning.  Young apprentices are always here.  Why is that surprising?

Wynne: But this is no time to discuss that.  Why are you here?  Why did the templars let you in?

Warden: I am helping Greagoir resolve the Circle’s difficulties.

Wynne: Then you do serve the templars as I feared.  Do they have the Right of Annulment?

Warden: The Right of Annulment?

Wynne: The order from the grand cleric allowing the templars to completely annul a Circle.  Do they have it?

Warden: No, but Greagoir expects it to arrive soon.

Wynne: So Greagoir thinks the Circle is beyond hope.  He probably assumes we are all dead.  

Wynne: They abandoned us to our fate, but even trapped as we are, we have survived.  If they invoke the Right, however, we will not be able to stand against them.

Warden: It’s nothing less than this Circle deserves.

Wynne:  Do these children deserve death too?  Will they die by your hand?

Warden: Mages are a danger.  If I had a say, you would all be culled.

Wynne: Killing us solves nothing, but with training and education, mages learn to control their powers.

Wynne: You’re mad if you think I’ll let you lay a finger on these children.  If will fight you if you won’t listen to reason.

Wynne: I am not afraid of you.

Warden: This Circle must be destroyed, for all our sakes.

Wynne: If you insist on making war on the Circle, we have nothing more to discuss.  It comes to blows, then.  I will stop you or die trying.

BONUS - terrified child fleeing from being murdered:

Commentary

While Wynne can be condescending and sometimes preachy in her support for the Circle, her dialogue both here and elsewhere indicates that she has no illusions about the Templars keeping them locked inside.  

After all, they imprisoned her in Kinloch Hold since she was a young child, took her own child away from her forever, and threatened to slaughter both her and the other children she was mentoring in her son’s stead.  If recruited into the party, she opens up about the despair she felt as a girl when she realized she would be trapped there forever, and it was only by turning to the religious faith that was being forced on all mages in the tower that she began to make peace with her fate.  She knows that if the Libertarian Fraternity successfully leads a vote for independence from the Chantry, the Templars will simply kill them all.  She even uses the term “genocide” to describe what will happen.  She explicitly cites this as the reason why she opposes the independence vote. 

The mages will never be free! The Chantry would never allow it. Our only hope for survival is to show them we can be trusted! Don’t you remember what happened to the Circle in Ferelden? Do you want to give the templars another excuse to call for the culling of all mages?

She doesn’t reject freedom for her fellow mages for any personal advantage, throwing others like her under the bus to reap the rewards of brown-nosing.  If she wanted any semblance of power or status, after all, she would have accepted the post of First Enchanter (or second-in-line to it) a long time ago.  As of Dragon Age Origins, she has consistently rejected the opportunity to become Irving’s successor.  As of the end of Broken Circle, if she joins the party and defeats Uldred’s rebels, she still needs to ask for permission just to temporarily leave the tower, despite having proven her loyalty and competence beyond any reasonable doubt both here and over the past thirty or so years of incarceration.  It takes helping the Hero of Ferelden save the entire country by defeating the Archdemon to convince the Templars to allow her to come and go freely - an opportunity that, as her own son later points out, no one else has had or probably ever would have in their lifetime (and one, as the only the player knows, that is entirely conditional on player choices).

The only context in which she ever even considers fighting the Templars is when she has no other way of preventing the Templars from killing them all anyways - both during Broken Circle and in the climax of Asunder.

Her politics are, in the end, based on fear.

Not the usual fear of the Other or fear of social change that hamper normal politics, but the completely rational fear, as someone at/near the bottom of the social hierarchy, about what the authorities will do to her and everyone like her if they step out of line.  As it turns out, she’s not wrong about what the powers that be are and how they will react - she’s only wrong about the potential for a better future and the rewards of fighting for it.

[corpocyborg]

"i didn't think templars were going to be executing me," says the mage who voted for the "templars executing mages" candidate

[anneapocalypse]

At the end of the day you can use "Varric is an unreliable narrator" to overwrite literally any part of DA2 that you don't like. Like you can say, "Oh of COURSE Varric isn't actually against mage freedom! He just said that he objected to Hawke freeing the mages because Cassandra was interrogating him." And sure, I can't prove to you that he isn't lying about that. I can't prove to you that Varric isn't lying about anything. I can't prove to you that the entirety of Inquisition isn't also Varric making things up because he did also write a book about that and we hear Cassandra reading it in the end credits. At the end of the day if you want to you can basically wipe out Varric's entire character as presented to us and say, "Actually he was lying! He's really this."

But at a certain point you do also have to acknowledge that the frame narrative is a storytelling device that's meant to enhance the story, not like... erase it. Or at least I prefer to acknowledge that, because going too far the other way basically guts the story of all meaning. If Varric is a character we are meant to engage with on any level--and I think it's clear from his prominence in the franchise that he is!--then at least some of what we see him say and do needs to be able to meaningfully interpreted, even if we second-guess him, even if we can pick out half-truths here and there, even if we cross-check our interpretations against how he behaves in other parts of canon.

Like at least some of what we're given about Varric has to be meaningful to his character, or why even bother, I guess is what I'm saying.