Sigh….looks like I need to make some more brofessions when I get on my lunch break…
Well, I can be pretty scary. >.>
I agree with this confession actually. Anders is a truly interesting, complex, and tragic character. He sees the, pardon the pun, injustice in how Mages are treated and how admittedly Meredtih’s methods are getting out of hand and he feels he must do something. But blowing up the Chantry and killing innocent pledges and mothers and the grand cleric; I do not see how this helps his cause other than to make people notice to what extreme a Mage would go to in order to be free. Do I think what he did was right? Absolutely not. What scares me are the fans that are so obsessed with how “cute” and “adorable” he is when he’s not consumed by Justice, that they completely ignore his completely unstable crazy drastic side.
Actually, the reason I adore Anders is because of the things he does, not in spite of them.
It took me quite a while to wrap my head around it- on my first playthrough when he blew up the Chantry I ached. I actually went and cried a little, then went to bed with an ache in my chest. I couldn’t believe what he’d done, that he’d forced Hawke’s hand like this, and actually asked Hawke to kill him.
But then I thought, and thought, and thought some more.
I thought about the fact that mages have been imprisoned, lobotomized, or killed for one thousand years.
That’s a one with three fucking zeros.
There are very, very few worldviews in our universe that have subjugated/denigrated/de-humanized/tortured/murdered a specific group of people for ten centuries- not surprisingly, most of them are religions.
Many of the templars in-game that you fight come right out and say “They’re not really people.”
Mages can’t get married. They can’t have children, or families. If they have children, the children are taken away and they never see them again. If they fall in love, that person becomes emotional collateral and you’ll do anything, anything, as long as the templars don’t hurt them.
They’re ripped away from their parents as soon as their magic manifests, or in Anders’ case, thrown away because they are “cursed.”
They are told, over and over again from the time they arrive at the Circle and throughout their lifetime that their very existence is a sin. They are the next thing to demons.
They are put through a ritual designed to test their willpower and ability when they are little more than children, pushed into the Fade where the magical equivalent of a dinnerbell has been rung, and a demon waiting to possess them. If they fail they will be killed. If they take too long they will be killed. There are men with swords standing by and waiting to kill them.
And all of that at the ripe old age of 17-18.
They are subject to the whims of their often sadistic jailers, who will beat them, rape them, and try to provoke them into becoming possessed simply to have an excuse to cut them down.
They are rarely allowed outside- no sunshine, no fresh air, no running in the fields or playing ball games. No frolicking in the snow, or ice skating, or even standing in the rain. They are kept inside, under guard, where their existence is regulated from sunup to sunset- classes, meals, and sleep, all under the watchful eyes of the guards who are there to kill you if you fuck up. Some of the mages are five or six years old.
They are forced into crowded quarters with 20-30 people (remember all the bunkbeds?) and no privacy. No doors on the bathrooms, no closed areas for bathing or taking a piss or a crap, no privacy for dressing or masturbating or sleeping or kissing your girlfriend or boyfriend or sex. Even the Harrowed mages are crowded into rooms without doors, where three beds, separated by a wall or a bookshelf mock the convention of privacy.
They are given no autonomy. As Emile says, he’s never had a drink, never cooked something for himself. They are treated like overgrown children all their lives and then punished for not being adult enough to resist temptation.
And if they are brash enough to want more, to hope for more, if, like Anders, they come to the Circle at an age where they remember what it’s like to run free, to have family, friends, crushes on the pretty girl next door, pets, work, freedom, they are branded rebellious troublemakers. If they run away from their stone prison they are hunted like animals (using what is, hypocritically enough, pretty much blood magic) and dragged back. If it happens often enough the punishments become severe, like being put in solitary confinement for a year.
Plenty’s been written on the extraordinarily traumatic nature of solitary confinement and the long-term consequences it brings- I won’t reiterate that here. But it’s torture, pure and simple.
And when a mage can’t take it anymore, he’ll either fall apart internally or externally. Anders says the most common way for a mage to die is by his own hand, and just imagine that for a moment- Anders has seen mages, multiple, kill themselves- has found their bodies, perhaps, or had friends that simply gave up the fight and didn’t come to breakfast the next morning.
If they fall apart externally the demons are there, taking them over and puppeting them in a grotesque parody of power before they’re cut down. Either way they’re dead.
Now put yourself in his shoes. Remember what you were like at 5, or 7, or 12? Remember your parents, your family, your world? Now imagine that it’s been discovered that you have a trait totally out of your control- something dangerous and feared, yes, but no more so than a sword in the hands of a child.
Imagine your parents cursing your name, beating you, locking you up, handing you over to armed strangers. Imagine your mother tearfully pressing a pillow into your hands and knowing that in all likelihood you will never, ever see any of your family again.
Imagine these strange armed men then drag you across the countryside, screaming, crying, afraid, lonely, and bring you into a prison. You are thrown into a large room full of strangers, people you’ve been told to fear all your life until you realized you were one of them. Maybe they make fun of you, the new kid, the one who can’t read, who doesn’t know a fireball from a sleep spell. Imagine the first time you have to take a shit in front of dozens of strangers.
Imagine being thrown into a boarding school where you never get to go outside, where your days of working in the fields with your parents or playing with your dog or cat or sibling are replaced by lessons, lessons, and more lessons. Where you are taught to harness the power inside of you and simultaneously condemned for having it in the first place. Where you are taught to heal, to help others, but never allowed to actually do so.
Maybe you remember when Aunt Bernice was sick, or the cow sprained a leg, and you wish you could just go home and help, where you could fireball the damn wolf that keeps eating your family’s sheep. But you can’t go home, ever, and so you’re reduced to setting up sock blinds and performing ridiculous arcane exercises that may or may not have practical value, ever. You’re cursed, useless, and in the eyes of your jailers, a punishment inflicted upon the world. You’re less than human and you will be watched, always, in case you slip, and if you do, the templars will be there to cut you down.
This is Anders’ reality. And when he fights back, does he immediately go blow up the Chantry? No. The first thing he does when he stops running is set up a clinic to heal people, to help, and to hide. He only gets involved in the mage underground because he came to help Karl, his first lover.
Imagine finding the first person you ever cared about and left on friendly terms lobotomized.
So he blows up the Chantry then, right?
No. He sits down and writes out well-thought out arguments, and goes around begging people to read it. He tries to send it to Orsino, Meredith, anyone who will listen and make changes. He tries the peaceful route.
But no one is interested in logic, in how mages, properly trained and cared-for are no more dangerous than a trained soldier. How they could help. No one is interested in the fact that mages are the Maker’s children, too, and as his creations don’t deserve to be punished for something completely out of their control.
And this is Anders with Justice riding sidesaddle in his head. Awakenings Anders would just have cut and run- he has a history of it, and after Dissent he tries to run, before he hurts anyone.
But Justice won’t let him leave, won’t let him abandon his people and the fight they both sacrificed so much for. You can tell him to leave, and cut him out of your party. Justice finds a way to make it happen.
At the beginning of Act III, in your house, Anders reveals that the mage cause is all but lost. Most of the people he worked with have been killed by Meredith. No one is reading his manifesto- no one is even considering his viewpoint, because the system as it is has endured for a thousand years.
How do you change something a thousand years in the making?
How do you incite your fellow mages to rise up, at last, to see the slow death for what it is, how do you fight for the freedom simply to live as a human being?
You do it by forcing the hand of your common enemy. Anders didn’t blow up the Chantry to kill the Grand Cleric, or to kill anyone, for that matter. He did it because it was the one thing that would guarantee that Meredith would order the Rite of Annulment on a Circle full of innocent mages.
He exposed, to all of the mages, once and for all, that their guilt or innocence doesn’t matter. The Templars have the power of life and death over them, and will exercise it at their whim. There is no one to protect them, no one to save them when the Rite is ordered.
Meredith would have ordered it anyway (had already sent to Val Royeaux for permission, as is revealed if you go and talk to the Templars in the Gallows at the end of Act III) but that particular execution of the Rite would have been cloaked under the guise of “They’re all blood mages and they deserve it.” They all would have died without a murmur, the Circle wiped clean, and no one left to argue their guilt or innocence.
Anders’ actions make it crystal-clear that he is the one to blame for the Chantry, the Circle was in no way responsible. But Meredith takes it out on them anyway, because the people will demand blood, and after all, they’re just mages, it’s not like they’re human, right? Keep in mind that the Circle is full of innocents, men, women, children, Bethany.
Anders reveals to all of the mages beyond a shadow of a doubt that they exist at the Templar’s sufferance, to be executed regardless of guilt or innocence. The Circle is a death sentence. Change and revolution won’t come from the outside- so he creates it on the inside, and pushes the Templars to reveal who they really, truly are- executioners.
There are fourteen Circles of Magi in Thedas, each with dozens, or even hundreds of mages. For a thousand years, untold generations of mages have come and gone, been imprisoned, tortured, killed. Unless someone does something, untold future generations will continue in the same vicious cycle.
Anders steps up, with Justice’s help. He takes on the mantle and burden of being the savior of his people. The compassionate healer kills a building full of innocent people (and it nearly destroys him to do it) in order to save thousands upon thousands of innocents in the present and future. He knows that he deserves to die for what he’s done and begs you to put him to the sword. As long as the revolution occurs, his own life is unimportant.
Anders is an epic figure, a tragic hero, a cursed and blessed man. He refuses to accept that he, or any mage deserve their treatment, and he fights, unceasingly, for all of them. He sacrifices his life so that justice may be done.
I know exactly who Anders is, and I love the hell out of him. Vive la fucking revolution, baby. <3
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
titsay
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