No one in their right mind would side with mages yet everyone on the internet does. Explain this...

No one in their right mind would side with mages yet everyone on the internet does. Explain this. They're objectively a menace to society.

Since I'm a fucking superhero, I'll try my best to prevent needless deaths. Humane and fair treatment also prevents escalation that leads to magical nukes blowing up cities and demonic plagues. But all in all, no, nobody in their right mind can side with mages in Dragon Age.

The Templars did NOTHING wrong

DA2 put the nail in the coffin for mages in my eyes. I'm normally pro-mage and play one half the time, but fuck those guys and fuck Anders.

Pre-DA2 the mages were definitely given a lot of bullshit conditions for living, considering how much their abilities could have gone towards progressing civilization were the majority not trapped in ugly little towers jerking each other off.

But then DA2 happens where, aside from Merrill and a possible Hawke and terrorist Anders, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING MAGE turns into an abomination. So OP is kinda right.

Because we team up with and are related to some likable mages who don't hesitate to kill the psychotic mages in defense of normal people.

But templars like Meredith are All-Or-Nothing Zealots when it comes to wanting to purge entire groups that they think are dangerous. The circles are a fine idea giving mages a safe place to learn how to control their abilities, people just need to avoid turning them into violent prisons.

Because in every game but the first the Templars are completely in the wrong and often actually insane.

To be fair, Anders was a crazy fucko possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance and Kirkwall is built on eldritch ground that fucks with everyone's heads.

Meredith was just a well-meaning hardliner that got too fucked in the head by ambience evilness and concentrated mindfuckery in crystal form.

>EVERY SINGLE FUCKING MAGE turns into an abomination.
There's the little circle of the main ones that you protect, but it was pretty silly how you end up killing so many abominations even after you side with them.

I get that it's supposed to be thematic, where one group pushing out of fear just forces the other group to push back. But becoming an abomination was basically a glorified suicide pact for people who should have already had plenty of other abilities to defend themselves with.

Absolutely, magic users and elvish scum all need to be decimated.

It was a really weak point in DA2's story and messed up all moral ambiguity that game's main atmosphere were standing on. Meredith would be fucking perfect if they didn't include red lyrium sword fuckery.

1. The Circle of Magi is an adequate institution for keeping mages under check. Given that magical affinity pops up in population seemingly by random and the elimination of the Circle wouldn't rid the world from these newborn mages for good, the last thing you want is mages going underground and parents hiding their magical children lest they be executed (see: Connor). Indeed, the continued existence of the Circle seems vital for preventing magical nukes blowing up cities.
2. In this case, the Tower demonstrably WAS cleansed of maleficarum and demons, so the survivors pose no threat beyond one that is always looming. If cleansing the Circle was the right thing to do at that point for the sake of eliminating magic, it would have been the right thing to do before Ulfred's rebellion.
3. Magic doesn't seem like an existential threat. Even where the Veil has been turn asunder by magics (like that ghost town in Awakening), the damage has been local and fixable. Conversely, the Blight most definitely presents an existential threat with civilization being particularly ill-prepared to stop it during the events of Origins, and mages are one of the greatest difference-makers you can have.
4. Magic contains the potential to do things you otherwise cannot do. From contemporary perspective we can think of all sorts of stuff from conjuring perfect carbon nanotube cables for a space elevator to reversing entropy, and while people of Ferelden might not be able to imagine anything fancier than creating gold or some other ultimately petty or otherwise attainable things, a wise Warden would recognize the future potential in study of magic in relatively secure setting.

Honestly, I prefer "She walked a hard line and got turned fanatic by mindfuckery" to her being just an utterly unreasonable cunt. Everyone could see that her policies were escalating the situation and I think this is better than just making her blind and retarded.

She being unreasonable would be perfectly logical without red lyrium. A terrorist blew up a fucking cathedral for fucks sake. DA2 had a base for perfect political ambiguous storyline instead they made this mess.

Yeah, I thought the red lyrium was a kind of disappointing turn.

They backtrack on it a little in Inquisiont when Varric says it was just helping fuel fear and paranoia that was already there, but I do think it's more compelling when it was just her own fears and misgivings about mages that started to drive her to madness after starting out with good intentions.

I always side Templar because I cant stand ''muh weak victimhood'' complex of theirs. ''Oh, please help us warden/champion/inquisitor, we dindu nuffin.''

No, I meant beforehand. After some fucker blows up half the city, sure. But half the story is how about her increasing fanaticism is escalating the situation. Even most of the templars point out how most of her policies are unreasonably harsh and only serve to drive mages into hiding and/or to do the very thing the Circle and Templars are meant to prevent.

But a lot of them really didn't do nuffin.

Hash situations require harsh decisions. Kirkwall got tons of fucking immigrants, shitty redesigned darkspawns at the gate, there is the qun problem and fucking mages won't stop using blood magic. Their numbers rise during the game too. I mean what do you expect Meredith to do.

the circles are good in concept but end up being retarded and innefective, and also possibly to blame for mages ending up the way they do.

I say let mages regulate themselves and have templars as a backup in case shit gets out of hand, rather than have them be a constant oppressive presence.

>Hash situations require harsh decisions.
Absolutely, but most of these problems are not the Templar's fucking problem. Their first and foremost problem are the Mages, everything else is the Viscount's problem.

>I mean what do you expect Meredith to do.
Set reasonable and appropriate steps to deal with that problem. It's been a while since I played it, but didn't she cut down on personal rights to a degree that even other Templars disagreed, started to needlessly lobotomize them, ordered torture on the slightest hint that some mage might know where rogue mages or bloodmages might hide and switched from bringing mages in to executing them on the spot? Not to mention threatening a purge at every provocation?
I'm not defending mages that blow up cities or enter pacts with demons here, I'm just saying that she did a shitty fucking job. The entire point of the circles is to be a reasonable way for mages to live, so they DON'T go into hiding and start summoning demons in your backyard.