#mage rage

Part of it is that Anders himself doesn’t always have a clear understanding of what he thinks or wants. He spends much of those seven years in Kirkwall evolving his own position, struggling to come to terms with his own upbringing and lived experience. A lot of his dialogue and earlier writings reflect that confusion. Even aside from that, while he certainly is a very wordy person, that doesn’t mean those words are necessarily eloquent or clear -- he hasn’t exactly taken a class in public oratory or communications. And depending on Hawke’s status, he may have been struggling to come to terms with his own message in the face of being gaslighted and undermined by the person in his life who is most important to him.

Anders has a lot of feelings, a lot of thoughts. A lot of messages. He tries to communicate them to the world, in a lot of ways. In his manifesto: “The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker,” he writes. In his actions: “Magic is not awful, and mages are not evil,” he says with every healing spell, every kind act of charity gifted to those in need. And finally, when all other words and actions have failed him, when it has become starkly clear that the only language the Chantry knows is that of violence, in a burning bleeding skyward scream of pain: MAKE IT STOP.

What does Anders believe? What does he want? A lot of things. Some can be boiled down to a sound bite: The mages must be free. Some can’t, entire systems of philosophy and theology. He tells the world his messages in a dozen different ways, a dozen different times. At least some of them got through, judging by the fallout of Kirkwall and the subsequent events of the Mage Rebellion. But a lot of the message got lost, and one of the biggest parts of the message that I feel was lost was one of the most important: it’s the Chantry, not the Templars, that are doing this to us.

Anders’ manifesto doesn’t talk about how much he hates the Templars and wants them all to die. Anders didn’t plant the bomb in Templar Hall. Anders understood something very important: the Templars are only a symptom, only a military manifestation of the greater system of subjugation and theology. It is the Chantry that makes this system, that profits from it, that upholds it. The Templars are as much pawns in that system as the mages are. Killing Templars is not the way to freedom; only overthrowing the Chantry power structure can do that. The Chantry was made by men, and it can be brought down by them.

And so many people fail to see that. I’ve mentioned before that one of the things that most annoyed me about Inquisition was the way the conflict was constantly framed as being between the Templars and the Mages while the Chantry stood on the side, wringing their hands and tsking sadly about how terrible all this violence was. By the time of the Inquisition the Mage Rebellion has completely lost sight -- if it ever had it in sight -- of who its true enemy was, allowed itself to be distracted, allowed the Chantry to position itself as the higher authority that could broker peace.

In that respect, what Anders was trying so desperately to do -- to remind the world who really authored this war -- failed. And I do grieve for that.

Whose fault was that? I can’t really blame the mages, honestly; for all they frame the conflict as a “war,” the mages are mostly civilian refugees desperately trying to find a way to survive the conflict with a group that literally wants to exterminate them. I could blame the Chantry, if I thought it was their propaganda that was reframing the narrative, but really I mostly blame Inquisition itself.

Inquisition, as a story and narrative, works damn fucking hard  to make you forget Anders’ message. Every part of it, from start to finish. In the first act of the game, the conflict is never even mentioned without being sure to rush “magesandtemplars” in one breath, to make sure to underline and emphasize how alike and equal and equivalent they are. And it never misses a turn to assassinate Anders’ character and smear his message. Of all the ways Inquisition dropped trou and took a shit on his character -- from having random mage mobs to a literal demon  wearing his clothes and hair -- I have to say that the one that leaves the bitterest taste in my mouth is the little random house where you find a pile of corpses and a copy of Anders’ manifesto. For all the years of blood and sweat and labor he poured into trying to get his message out, Inquisition never once mentions it except to link it with the ramblings of a sadistic murderer. The message could not be more explicit: Anders was a monster and everyone who agrees with him is likewise a monster.