~Thunder Road~

And obviously no mage rights fans are going to agree with Vivienne’s views on Anders. But even as someone who one hundred percent loves and supports Anders there are things he’s said that I don’t agree with (cough Merrill cough) but I don’t put a disclaimer saying that on every pro-Anders post I make, so I think it’s unfair to expect people to do so on pro-Vivienne (or anyone else) posts. (Especially on something that was so clearly the devs yet again reminding us that we’re supposed to hate Anders. They do this through several characters throughout DAI, even including a Hawke who romanced him.) 

Vivienne is villain-coded. Yes. And albeit being a very interesting character (and one I like very much for a great deal of things), she’s part of The Things About Inquisition That Bioware Fucked Up Real Bad. BioWare developers are a bunch of cowards, and it shows very much by how they treated Vivienne.  So, why isn’t making her Divine a feasible option? Because she locks the mages back into the Circles, depriving them of that little freedom they managed to achieve, and puts the Divine over them with absolute power.  The epilogue: “Mages rise quickly in the new Circle, having more freedom and responsibility than ever before - even if all true power lies with her.” That “having more freedom and responsibility” means the mages have more freedom and responsibility in the Circles, not out of them. It means they are still prisoners. It means that Templars can still abuse them, that they can wield the brand for the Rite or Tranquility, and the sword for the Right of Annulment. 

Would Vivienne be alright with abuse of power, though? Obviously not. She cares for mages. She knows the struggle, she started from rock bottom and managed to become a candidate for Divine. She’s a great player of The Game, she carved her place in Orlais, all the while being a mage.  Still, she is alright with Templar control. 

In a dialogue with Cassandra: 

Cassandra: You would prefer to have the templars return to guarding the circles, Vivienne? Vivienne: Of course, my dear. They need better oversight, clearly, but one does not throw away a tool because it was misused. Cassandra: Few mages would ask for templars in the circle. Vivienne: Speak to Ferelden’s first enchanter. You might be surprised. When abominations ravaged your tower, suddenly the world holds far too few templars.

We can all agree that this is overwhelmingly wrong. What happened in Ferelden was Loghain exploiting the desperate need of mages to be free, Uldred wanting that freedom and becoming an abomination in the process. Was that the Templars were all dead or enthralled by demons, and mages were protecting other mages.  Niall saved the day with the Litany of Adralla, together with Wynne and those who resisted and protected the younglings (plus the HoF).  But it didn’t go like this for Vivienne, because maybe she isn’t pro-Chantry, but she does believe their lies and propaganda. 

As such, she doesn’t ultimately see that Circles are bad.  There is absolutely nothing good about Circles. The education the mages get there is Chantry brainwash, and the protection they get is the abuse which comes from Templars.  Does this count for all the Circles? Surely not: it depends on the attitude of the Knight-Commander - to make an example, the Gallows was nowhere near DA2wise brutal before Meredith, and Kinloch Hold (which is supposedly a “good” Circle) became a hell in the retconned epilogue of DAO, with C*llen as Knight-Commander after Gregoir.  And it’s exactly because of this that the system of the Circles doesn’t work - packing mages up into a place and under Templar control, is bound to end bad for one of the parts or for both of them.

So what Vivienne did was ultimately changing nothing, because she did not see the value of freedom. Another dialogue between Vivienne and Cassandra:  Vivienne: You must see the value in restoring the circles, Cassandra. Cassandra: Provided they fulfill their purpose. Too many have suffered since the mage rebellion began, but we cannot ignore the abuses that prompted it. Without change, we risk repeating the events at Kirkwall. Vivienne: Or recreating its opposite. An overly lenient circle is a comparable threat. Kirkwall is lamentable, but it was the misuse of power, not restrictions, that led to the first Blight.

Vivienne considers the situation in Kirkwall “lamentable”. An abuse of power. Of course she does, she is not heartless and she surely felt for those abused mages. But she doesn’t see that the whole thing came off as abuse for the sole reason that Anders blew up that Chantry.  Because if Anders hadn’t blown that Chantry, the Annulment of the Gallows would have been sold to the world like another case of corruption and abominations running wild, all the voices of the mages silenced, no “abuse of power” denounced and recognized by the Seekers. And Anders is the one she brands a terrorist. Yes, this word should not have been used because this is BioWare narrative here, telling us that Anders is The Bad Guy, trying to make us hate him. But Vivienne’s views on Anders are clear, whether she uses that particular word or not. She doesn’t realize that it’s thanks to him that she heard the cries of the mages in the Gallows.  I think Vivienne would be capable of growing out of this. I entirely believe that. She is sweet and protective with those she loves, she is wise and brave, and has a personality which doesn’t allow her to skim over details.  And here comes Inquisition’s problem: Vivienne doesn’t get to talk with any of the characters which could counter her point of view. We don’t see her engaging in a debate with the Avvar, the Rivaini, another apostate with strong opinions, Fiona. Not even a former Circle Mage Inquisitor can speak their mind about it. And Leliana can’t contradict her over what happened at Kinloch Hold, even if Leliana was there.  She is horribly wrong on a lot of things, and the game doesn’t give her a counterbalance. 

This is not Vivienne’s fault at all. And I don’t like when people dismiss her character because she’s great, and has the potential to be a lot more - only the game doesn’t allow her. 

The recent “controversy” about her never tackled one of these issues. 

Vivienne would not be a good Divine, not for those who want mage freedom. Better than Cassandra? Yes, probably. Still, she enforces the oppressive system of the Circles, and it matters nothing that some of them (not all, it can’t count for all, Vivienne is not everywhere and Thedas is huge) might resemble schools more than prisons, because at some point Vivienne will stop being Divine, with the difference that the Divine would be even more powerful now.  Mages will be still locked there with Templars as their captors, and Chantry-law would be unchanged.

You can love her and recognize her flaws. I do. I do love Anders and recognize the ton of flaws he has - he’s self centered enough not to recognize that he’s not “turning Justice into a demon”, he’s brainwashed enough to constantly try and talk Merrill out of blood magic, he can be vicious with words to a point that makes me want to yell at him. He has issues due to his traumas and is still suffering from Chantry indoctrination.  Perfect characters don’t exist, same as with people, and I want them to be horribly flawed. 

So yeah, I recognize that Vivienne - a black mage woman - is awesome for being in the place she is, for having the great skills she possesses. But I don’t dismiss her flaws, so that I can bring myself to consider her a feasible choice for Divine.  Does she deserve all the hate she gets? Absolutely not. People hate her mostly because she’s a strong, independent woman, and they prefer Wynne’s meekness. 

It is mentioned that she’s afraid of falling prey to demons, yes, she’s in fact afraid of Cole at the beginning . This shows how much Chantry indoctrinated she is, at best, since Cole is no demon, and this is exactly what Chantry doctrine taught her - all Fade entities are bad.  Thedas desperately needs freedom for mages, and Vivienne can’t provide it. Vivienne can make good things, yes, make the Circles a place of learning. But what about who comes after her? And what about her not being able to be in every Circle at the same time?

Yes, absolutely!!! I’ve seen a couple of posts floating around in the last day or so talking about which Divine is the best option and what should be done with the mages post DA:I and I wanted to take a stab at addressing them below. (also- my apologies, this got reallyyy long!)

So first of all, education: in any kind of world/setting/whatever, even the “real” one, education and understanding are the key to peaceful coexistence and acceptance. People are scared of what they don’t know and don’t understand (it’s a human and normal thing), and it gets worse when misunderstandings and hate-mongering are included in the picture.

This is what happens to Thedas: magic is scary in and of itself, and the Chantry founded its whole cult around fear and hate of magic. Mages committed the “original sin” (entering the Golden City and corrupting it), and the whole ideology of “magic must serve man and not rule over him” is based off that, summing it up: “every child born with magical abilities must pay for the sin of their hypothetical forefathers who made the Maker abandon His people”.

This is what the Harrowing is about after all - putting a young, inexperienced and “easily influenced” mage before “demonic temptation”, and if they resist the lure then they are worthy of living.

In the Circle, magic is not properly taught. Mages are not taught about how to defend themselves from demons (a lot of Harrowed mages still become abominations, so the Harrowing is clearly useless), they don’t get educated about spirits and Fade entities (basically because the Chantry knows shit about the Fade), and the only concrete knowledge they get is that anything they might do which defies Chantry law (blood magic, necromancy, interactions with the Fade which go beyond going there during dreams) is wrong and worth Tranquility.

This brings the mages to fear themselves, and “normal people” to be terrified of them, even of their own children when they develop magical abilities. Anders’ father beat the crap out of him after the fire incident in the barn and shoved him into the arms of Templars, and Jowan’s mother didn’t even want to see him after he manifested magic, calling him an abomination (even if the kid was six and she probably had no idea what an abomination was in the specific sense).

This kind of mass indoctrination is not broken in a couple of years, of course, but magic being a mandatory part of education for everybody not only would help mages, but normal people too.

Now, Thedas is a world where probably a very few people can read and write, let alone have the means and will to understand magic. But it needs to be started somewhere, and Circles functioning as state-sanctioned “schools” is a good place to begin, provided that they function ONLY as schools and that mage kids can get back to their families after a day of study. Also, that everyone can go there and study magic, whether they possess Arcane abilities or not. Research and herbalism can be performed by laymen, and there are A LOT of things a non-mage can do in regard to magic (some you mentioned in your post).

And moreover, not all mages “want to be mages”. A lot of them would probably prefer to live as farmers, bakers, shepherds and so on. So they can get taught how to control their magic and then they can live as they prefer.

This will result in integration, in the collapse of misconceptions such as the one you mentioned (mages are privileged because they get meals and shelters), and in the erasure of the common fear of magic basically everyone shares in southern Thedas.

It’s partially what Anders’ clinic was about, after all: a statement to tell people that mages are not the scary monsters the Chantry taught everybody about. They can do very good things with this “scary magic”, like heal people and save lives.

But most of all, what needs to be broken is the Chantry control over both mages and Templars.

Unpopular opinion here, but I do think Templars are victims of Chantry law, maybe not as much as the mages but they’re close.

A lot of them are taken into the Order as children, and they can’t refuse to join (like what was going to happen to Alistair). And those who are stationed in the Circles are as much prisoners of the towers as the mages, much like confined jailers, since they can’t go home to their families after they’re done with their work shift.

We’re talking about an indoctrinated army of drugged zealots here. Even the most good hearted Templar can’t defy Chantry law and what the Order dictates, because if they do they don’t get lyrium, and if they don’t get lyrium they go in withdrawal, suffer enormously, have hallucinations and probably die.

And what happens with “bad” Templars? They’re given the possibility (and also the wink and nudge) to abuse mages as they please, whenever they please, for any reason they please.

Mages get not only guarded by Templars, but most of all abused both physically and mentally. In the Circles there are rapes, beatings, tortures. There’s the Rite of Tranquility. An the whole “it depends from Circle to Circle” is complete BS, because it depends on the Knight-Commander’s personal inclinations.

Like we know that the Gallows was a pretty normal place (as much “normal” as a Circle can be) before Meredith, enough for Malcolm Hawke to be besties with a Templar which allowed him to run away to Ferelden with Leandra.

And that in the non-retconned epilogue of DA:O, Cullen became the worst and most ruthless Knight-Commander in the history of Kinloch Hold, even if Kinloch was considered a “nice” Circle for the standards.

And here we get to the “Divine issue”.

The Divine matters nothing when Circle affairs are handled case-by-case, and Thedas is a huge place. Anything Vivienne might decide, she can’t be everywhere at the same time. Templars might be more strictly controlled, but they would still be addicted to lyrium and still suffer from Chantry indoctrination. Mages would still fear themselves, and weak ones would be disposed of like “useless elements”. Not just disabled ones but also those less inclined to magic, which only possess some Arcane abilities but aren’t much talented.

The situation wouldn’t change much. There would still be Annulment and Tranquility and the mages would still fear themselves, while everyone else would fear them and consider them “different and dangerous”.

But let’s say Vivienne manages to keep complete and strict control of all the Circles, and the situation remains stable. What about her successor? The ruler counts nothing if the rules are not changed, and Chantry indoctrination is so endemic that it requires radical changes, otherwise it’s as you said - the situation would slide back to the way it was before Vivienne.

About this: “because Vivienne is a mage doesn’t mean she knows what’s best for all mages”.

This is true on many levels, especially because every experience in every Circle is different. Take Dairsmuid. Vivienne wouldn’t probably allow a situation like that of Dairsmuid to arise. Or take the Gallows. Vivienne would have been made Tranquil in the Gallows, because Meredith didn’t accept any mage which defied mediocrity. Vivienne would have been selling wares in the Gallows courtyard, or would have been another Karl Thekla - made Tranquil because he dared exchange letters with this lover - or another Ella - made Tranquil because she was a pretty girl and Alrik wanted to rape her.

As strange as it might sound, Vivienne isn’t fit to be Divine because she’s a mage. She thinks she knows how it works for all mages in Thedas where it’s absolutely untrue, and it shows by how she speaks of Anders and of the situation in Kirkwall.

Vivienne is absolutely horrified at the thought of mages being free, she’s scared of spirits, she doesn’t understand magic except for what the Chantry taught her. That’s exactly why she I don’t make her Divine - the mages need an approach which isn’t that of the Chantry, and Vivienne can’t provide it.

Last thing to address: “but mages are dangerous! How can they be controlled if not in the Circles? And what if angry mobs attack them? Wouldn’t they be safer in the Circles?”

Mages are dangerous, yes. But anything - anything - would be better than what the Circle does to “contain” them.

We only need to look at the mages who didn’t grow up Chantry-brainwashed. Hawke, Bethany, Velanna, Dorian, Morrigan - these are all powerful mages, and they never risked going out of control nor anything the Chantry suggests it might happen. There are the Avvars which knows a lot more about magic than the Chantry does, and there are the Rivaini, and the Dalish. Dalish mages have always existed and they have never been a problem, and even if they might do bad things (like with Zathrian and the Werewolf curse) it doesn’t depend on the fact that they’re mages. Everyone can do “bad things”, if they have the chance and the means to do it, and the systemic abuse and oppression perpetrated by the Chantry is absolutely not the solution.

Mages aren’t “safer” in the Circles because in the Circles they are prisoners, and slaves, and not even treated like people but like cattle. This can’t be considered “safe” from any point of view. There’s no safety which compares to a complete loss of freedom, especially when it comes with taught self-loathing, beatings, tortures and lobotomy.

Sure at the beginning it would be very hard to accomplish, and yes, there would be blood. But how much blood the Chantry already spilled? Seventeen Rights of Annulment, constant abuse of mages, Tranquility brands, Exalted Marches. I could go on.

The Chantry needs to be reformed as a whole, and Leliana is the only reasonable choice to achieve that.

I’ll specify that I don’t intend this as an attack to Vivienne either. I like her as a character and I mean no disrespect towards her personal experience, I simply disagree with her political views.

I definitely think higher of Vivienne as an option now than I did before. I’d only ever seen short summaries of “Vivienne as Divine” and I didn’t actually know the details. I can definitely understand the appeal of her as a choice knowing that she does actually change some things. 

That said, I still support Leliana over Vivienne. Vivienne’s Circle reform is good, but I personally think that there’s danger in not changing enough.

Firstly, because it’s going to be really hard to get mages and Templars not to see each other as jailers and prisoners when they’re in the exact same situation they’ve been in for, in most cases, all their lives. Things are different, but they’re not going to feel different, definitely not at first. I think a drastic change is necessary to break both sides free of that mindset. And that mindset is incredibly damaging to mages.

Second, if the changes are small then it’s possible for it to be changed it back. Vivienne won’t be Divine forever, and she can’t control what happens after she’s gone. The next Divine could step in and undo all her changes one by one. Or it could even happen over several generations of Divine, each of them taking away more and more freedoms until we’re back to square one. That’s how the Circles got to this point in the first place.

Leliana’s way gives the mages true, unconditional freedom. Not only does this make it clear to everyone both involved and not that things have truly changed, but it also makes it immensely more difficult to take those freedoms away. By the end of Leliana’s reign mages will have at least started to integrate into society. Which means that 1. they will have gotten used to this freedom and they’ll be that much less likely to give it up, and 2. people will have learned to rely on them. There will be mages like Anders who open local healing clinics, or mages who use their magic to help with farming or building things. Reinstating the Circles wouldn’t only hurt the mages, it would hurt society. 

The issues raised about Leliana as Divine are definitely valid. Mages have no experience in the real world, and as long as people hate them they’ll be in danger. But I don’t think Leliana is the one who has to solve those problems, not alone at least. Individual chantries can offer services and protection for mages, things like shelters (run entirely by mages. I imagine Anders would start something like this) can be opened for mages who are in danger or have nowhere to go, a new organization could be formed to protect mages the way the Templars claim they’re supposed to (but no Templar abilities, and they work for and with the mages and in no way rule over them), etc. 

I think a lot of this decision depends on headcanons, how you headcanon each goes and how much you add on each headcanon. The way I see it, Leliana has done her part. The rest can be done by others, mages and their allies. What Leliana gave them is the opportunity to do these things. 

“I did the ritual and then killed Morrigan in Witch Hunt cause she slept with my man”

UMMM. 

Can we all please stop pussy-footing around supporting these two and their cause? 

No apologies need to be made.

No de-characterization by removing their flaws or violent side.

This does not mean don’t correct the de-characterization that Bioware did to them, aka “Anders and Justice approve when Fenris is given back to Danarius”.

Anders is NOT mentally ill. He has PTSD, and that is a condition. But he’s also a strong, stubborn and badass mortal that has mastered the difficult art of Spirit Healing, survived the Joining Ritual, became an awesome Grey Warden, stomped into the Deep Roads several times despite his fear of closed spaces and darkness after Solitary Confinement, and was considered worthy by Justice.

Justice is a Spirit of the Fade that has merged with him. They are now Anders AND Justice. As much as Anders claims them to be one, recognize that Justice still has his own identity. Just as Anders has HIS own identity. They complete each other. Justice now knows and has seen EVERYTHING Anders has suffered.

Justice is NOT an illness.

Justice is very much capable of violent moments of outrage, as well as patient contemplation.

Anders is also capable of violent moments of outrage, more than Justice, because he is human and he is fucking bitter as hell and has every damn right to be so. But he is also FULL of compassion and wears his heart on his sleeve.

Justice and Vengeance are two aspects of the same concept or virtue. They are the same. You get justice for someone by avenging them.

Imagine a DA:O where Duncan survives the battle of Ostagar, grieves for Cailan, and tells you stories of the man Loghain once was, his eyes darkening as he thinks of how far the Teyrn has fallen. 

Imagine him biting his tongue as Goldanna demands sovereigns from her “half brother,” knowing all the while that this woman holds no relation to Alistair, but still thinks they should help for the sake of her impoverished children.

Imagine getting to know more about him during fireside talks. He becomes a father to you, just as he has to Alistair. He tells you how sorry he is for conscripting you at the worst possible time, but eventually admits that he doesn’t know how he and Alistair could have done it without you. 

He still accompanies you and your ragtag gang of heroes on your adventures, but hangs back like an advisor, too wounded by the battle to run around like everyone else. Still, he waits at camp and weighs in on your decisions until he’s finally healed enough to attend the Landsmeet and face the Archdemon.

Instead, Morrigan offers no dark ritual this time. The Archdemon is nearly slain, and now you face a decision: either you, Alistair, or Duncan will have to make the final sacrifice.

And as you turn to Alistair with tears in your eyes to decide which one of you it will be, a fierce battlecry rings out above the chaos. 

He did it for you, his pride and legacy. For Alistair, the boy he once cradled in his arms. Duncan saves you both, saves Ferelden, and dies doing what he set out to do. 

HOW DARE YOU

HOW DARE YOU OP

yeah like i wouldn’t support it irl because we’re not in a dark fantasy world irl but if we were? 

we call tranquility “fantasy lobotomy” but i think it could better be explained as “ripping people’s souls out of their bodies and forcing them to continue living as an empty soulless shell” and there are powerful people in the city who want to extend this to all mages regardless of what they’ve done