Dragon Age II: EA boogaloo

[Antiboyscout]

As for the Mages? They're slaves and the peasants want to burn them alive.

It's not slavery, the circles are micronations run by mages for mages, the Templars are intended to be border guards. The Chantry didn't create the circle system either, it started in early Tevinter as societies mages willingly created and joined, the Chantry just made them mandatory.

It's not that different from the system in Harry Potter it's just that the muggles are aware of it and implemented security measures.

Well, you are technically right... then again, serfdom didn't start by the force enslavement of poor people by the rich landowning elite either and if memory serves it ended up being abused. The result - again, if memory serves - ended up being a large number of serf revolts and in the 18th and 19th centuries many, many revolts, revolutions and rebellions with the explicit aim of abolishing serfdom. Rebellions, revolts, and revolutions that usually failed, serfdom being abolished by lawmakers when it was no longer economically viable and not when the people rebelled against it's abuses.

@CharlesPhipps care to share the site with us? you seem to be someone that knows his way around words.

Depends on the country. In England and France, serfs could ether buy their freedom or use weird loopholes in serf laws to become free. In Russia, serfdom didn't end even when industrialization began (part of the reason Russia fell to Communism)

[Rodan56]

Extra Universe material more or less says Dumat was indeed lying. He tricked the magisters to go to pierce the veil and enter the Fade. The city was already black, not corrupted by them, it was already fallen. Mages played a role in bringing the Blight to Thedas, but they did not create it because of sin. Chances are the Blight was trapped in the Fade, had turned the Gold City black already and Dumat just wanted a way to get it over to the real world. The Maker is already gone, it's not the Mages' fault he left. So yeah, the Chantry lied or the story was distorted somehow.

[name_here]

I'm generally inclined to doubt that the Old Gods actually wanted to bring the darkspawn taint over. We can't be sure about Dumat specifically, but the other Old Gods responded to the arrival of the taint by diving deep into the earth and sealing themselves in hibernation in an apparent attempt to avoid contamination by it. They're seemingly uniquely vulnerable to it, reportedly succumbing instantly on contact.

It also seems fairly solid that the expedition blackened the city; it's visible from anywhere in the Fade and was visibly golden prior to the expedition and visibly black afterwards. Quite possibly the mere act of opening the portal with a staggeringly enormous blood sacrifice had significant negative effects on the Fade, but it definitely was not black when the magisters decided to launch the expedition.

All that being said, Dragon Age III provides absolute confirmation that the taint was not originally created during the Golden City Expedition. Red Lyrium is contaiminated by the taint, and the Primeval Thaig was lost prior to the First Blight.

[MetalixK]

I'm gonna be blunt and bring up something I don't see too often, if the Chantry's interpretation of events is the most accurate one, then The Darkspawn are more the fault of The Maker than The Magisters.

Granted, they did attempt to invade the guy's house to steal from him, and he was in his rights to retaliate, but he picked the absolute WORST option to do so. Instead of smiting the Magisters with lightning or dropping a bunch of plagues on Tevinter, he turns them into the first Darkspawn who then go on to create an entire race of beings that murder, raid, and rape across the land, bringing unspeakable harm to not only those who had nothing to do with what happened, but his own faithful and the descendants thereof.

Between that, and the other a-holish stuff he's reputed to have done, it makes me wonder why The Chantry wants him back. With his record he'd probably lay a massive turd on Ferelden to make the Mabari stop barking, and make more Darkspawn in Orlais because all the masks scare him or something.

[Winter]

I'm generally inclined to doubt that the Old Gods actually wanted to bring the darkspawn taint over. We can't be sure about Dumat specifically, but the other Old Gods responded to the arrival of the taint by diving deep into the earth and sealing themselves in hibernation in an apparent attempt to avoid contamination by it. They're seemingly uniquely vulnerable to it, reportedly succumbing instantly on contact.

It also seems fairly solid that the expedition blackened the city; it's visible from anywhere in the Fade and was visibly golden prior to the expedition and visibly black afterwards. Quite possibly the mere act of opening the portal with a staggeringly enormous blood sacrifice had significant negative effects on the Fade, but it definitely was not black when the magisters decided to launch the expedition.

All that being said, Dragon Age III provides absolute confirmation that the taint was not originally created during the Golden City Expedition. Red Lyrium is contaiminated by the taint, and the Primeval Thaig was lost prior to the First Blight.

What scares me the most is the fact that the red lyrium has to be coming from a corrupted Titan so the question has now become, how did it get corrupted and how do we kill it. Thanks to Trespasser we know there is a way to kill Titans so obviously that will come into play later but yeah, there's a Pants to be Darkened moment, somewhere out in the world there is a creature the size of a mountain that can reshape the world just be coughing and it has the blight. Good luck sleeping.

[Rodan56]

Then why would Corphyeus lie? Especially when he has no legitimate substantial reason too. He claims the throne was empty and the city was black when they got there. That Dumat told them to go there and promised him power if he did. He has no reason to lie about that, especially when a lot of his motivation and his goals revolve around getting what he was promised.

As for the Old Gods, they apparently call the Darkspawn to them just by existing. They're like Eldritch abominations, they are sleeping for now, that's all. If they really didn't want to get infected they'd have gone literally anywhere else the Blight can't reach them. No, Dumat wanted this and he convinced the Magisters to do this. All evidence suggests the Blight existed before the city turned black and the Magisters arrived.

As for the City being Gold before... well we can't exactly be sure WHEN it turned black. There's no real evidence save for some people seeing it gold in their dreams over a thousand some odd years ago. How much stock are you going to put into the dream diaries of a bunch of people, specifically when proper time frames are concerned? That it was gold before the Magisters arrived and black after doesn't really prove anything save for their expedition was a part of the turning point, but that doesn't prove it was the cause.

Corpyheus has no real reason to lie about anything in regards to the expedition and his disappointment and anger towards seemingly being lied to about what he was promised is his core driving motivation. So really, when the bad guy seems convinced that his evil god tricked him and cheated him, I tend to believe there's some truth to his statement. Especially since the Blight existed prior to the expedition.

[GandALF]

He's a massive egotist who aspires to godhood, he wouldn't admit to being cursed by his hubris for defying the will of a god worshipped by non-mage barbarians.

[name_here]

What scares me the most is the fact that the red lyrium has to be coming from a corrupted Titan so the question has now become, how did it get corrupted and how do we kill it.

I'm inclined to think that the original Primeval Thaig incident got sorted long ago in some drastic fashion, severing the majority of the connection between the Dwarves and the Titans to prevent its spread, and the Titan sourcing the lyrium either wasn't affected directly or got killed. Given the indications that the Primeval Thaig dwarves had the ability to use magic, I think the most likely theory on how is that the Dwarves launched a Fade expedition of their own and the taint just happens when you do that. Granted, the Inquisitor and company physically enter the Fade a couple times and seem fine, but the brand and the enormous fear demon may have skewed things.

As for the Old Gods, they apparently call the Darkspawn to them just by existing. They're like Eldritch abominations, they are sleeping for now, that's all. If they really didn't want to get infected they'd have gone literally anywhere else the Blight can't reach them. No, Dumat wanted this and he convinced the Magisters to do this. All evidence suggests the Blight existed before the city turned black and the Magisters arrived.

Dumat didn't necessarily know about the taint; it could very well have been as much a surprise to him as it was to anyone else involved. And if he knew about the Primeval Thaig, he could've just gone down there and had a Red Lyrium buffet without having to orchestrate the expedition. And while we can't tell what Dumat thought of the taint, since he succumbed pretty much right away, his fellows had been lording it over Tevinter and promptly went dead silent after the expedition and do not seem to have made any kind of attempt to assist the burrowing Darkspawn in reaching them. Whatever they were expecting from the expedition, it probably wasn't what they got.

[Winter]

On the subject of Anders one thing that has always bugged me is just how differently he's written in DA2 in contrast to how he's written in Awakening. In DAA he's a bit of a twat but still a good guy and doesn't so much hate Templars as he hates being locked up while in DA2 he's a just a utter wanker who does nothing but complain about how much he hates the Templars, is so clinging to Hawke even if you haven't romanced and a utter hypocrite.

But you know what the worst part about Anders in DA2 is originally his role would have been filled by Velanna and once you know that a billion puzzle pieces just fall into place. The overreaction to every minor injustice, being a jerk to anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with you in every minor way and being so filled with hate that they turned Justice into a spirit of Vengeance everything about Anders makes so much more sense when you replace him with Velanna.

The only thing that doesn't work is the whole obsession with mages being oppressed by Templars and how that ties into the ending of DA2 but you can work around that if you assume that the real reason for doing this was Velanna's way of making humans pay for the injustice put upon by elves by having them destroy each other.

Sure it likely wouldn't have made her better but it would have made more sense as Velanna is the companion that changes the least in DAA while Anders, Nathanial, Justice, Sigrun and Oghren go through some rather big changes thanks to their character arc. Also Anders could shows up when the Qunari start attacking Kirkwall in place of Stroud and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was that case.

[CharlesPhipps]

My review site is the United Federation of Charles.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/