#pro-templar

The Chantry, The Circle, and the Templar Order were all founded with the intent and purpose of helping people.

The Chantry was created to spread Andraste’s teachings on magic and slavery; it becomes corrupt because its leaders are people, just as susceptible to sin and stupidity as anyone else. It became not just a religious institution, but a political one, which led to some within the Chantry using it to further their own agenda and gain power.

The Circle was created to provide mages with a safe and stable environment to learn magic and avoid demonic possession, while also protecting common people from abominations and unstable magic. When the Chantry’s wariness of magic turned to outright fear, the Circle went from being Hogwarts to being Alcatraz, mages were feared and abused, and magic that could have helped so many was squandered.

The Templar Order was created to provide Circles with skilled crisis response in the event of demonic possession, to defend civilians from mages who would abuse their powers, and to defend mages from hostile civilians and armies who fear magic. Thanks to the Chantry’s anti-mage stigma, Templars were taught to mistrust all magic, are leashed to the Chantry thanks to lyrium consumption, and can be taken advantage of by superior officers (as shown by Meredith and Champions of the Just) because they’re trained from a young age to follow orders without question.

Best way to put it is that I believe there is good and bad on both sides. No! I do not believe that Mages are equally in the wrong as the Templars are! But there are always good and bad forces to everything, even if misguided.

Now, back to my example of Cullen. He grew up in a society that always taught that magic was to serve man and not rule man. He admired the Templars growing up, much in the same way that children sometimes admire police, firemen, or soldiers. He joined the Order at 13, a very idealistic - and impressionable - age. 

Now, I have grown up in church. I went to a college that, in the way they presented themselves, was very similar to what I learned growing up. However, when I got there, the college was much more cult-like. And even though I did not fall into the trap of believing what they were trying to pound into my head, the things they taught eventually weighed me down. I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong after hearing what they said over and over and over, I began to feel as if I was a bad person for not believing like them.

I’ve seen how religion or a religious denomination starts out good but is ruined by fanaticism or zealotry. Maybe the Templar Order started off as a good organization. Maybe they had limited power when they first started. But, as time went on and they joined forces with the Chantry, the organization became corrupt.

“You know what my problem with religion is? Man. Like anything that has the potential to be beautiful, man will turn it into something ugly. For every saint there are two million sinners.” This is a quote from the show The Blacklist, said by Raymond Reddington and to be honest, this is something I have experienced and wholeheartedly disagree with. This applies to my college, but also to the Templar Order.

Cullen began his career as a Templar. Throughout Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, his character is portrayed as the type who takes his job seriously but isn’t like the cruel Templars who take advantage of the Mages and the Tranquil. He was kind to his charges, even had a crush on one of them. Some mages will comment on how he is polite to them. Then, he went through the trauma with desire demons and Uldred. Anyone who experiences a trauma as severe as what Cullen is implied to have gone through are going to be affected differently. (Through my studies and the experience of others, I personally believed that he was raped or molested by the Desire Demon that kept taunting him. I’ll save that for another post though.)

His response is to lash out at all mages. Everything that the Chantry and the Templars taught him has actually happened. He has witnessed it. He saw his friends die left and right. He can’t tell friend from foe among the Mages. So he generalizes all of them. He groups them all together and believes they all have the ability to be a threat.

He gets moved to Kirkwall, where Knight Commander Meredith takes advantage of his trauma. He’s on lyrium, so everything that is going on in the Gallows, he experiences it in a very detached manner, like he’s watching it on TV, disconnected, drowsy if that term can be used. In the end though, he sides with the Mages and helps fight Meredith. After that, he takes charge of the Gallows and works to get Kirkwall back in order.

Now, some people want to point out that he’s never really apologetic in Dragon Age: Inquisition about his past mistakes. He still wants to recruit the Templars. He’s still wary of Mages. 

My view of his character is that he is a man of action, not necessarily a man of words. He’s not going to vocally shame himself. He may feel like words are inadequate, trite. But!!!! He stopped taking lyrium. Now, anyone who decides to quit any addiction cold turkey is going to go through a LOT of pain. Some side effects of withdrawals are tension, panic attacks, tremors, difficulty concentrating, short-term memory loss, anxiety, irritability, disturbed sleep, headaches, heart palpitations, sweating, nausea, muscle pain and stiffness, hypertension, and irregular heart rates. In the same vein as those in the Middle Ages who would whip themselves and cast themselves before God, not taking lyrium is Cullen’s penance. He is distancing himself from the Templar Order and punishing himself at the same time.

Now, on to the fact that he still wants to recruit the Templars and is still wary of the Mages. Cullen is falling back onto something familiar as well as seeing the potential to get some of the good Templars away from the Order. 

As I said earlier, even though I didn’t agree with my college’s beliefs, the fact that they were constantly present in my everyday life affected me. For example, if they said that it was a sin for women to have short hair, there I am sitting with short hair and feeling like I’m the bad person even though I knew there wasn’t anything wrong with what I did. The college’s beliefs became familiar to me even though I didn't agree with them. I was constantly uncomfortable in my own body at college. When I came home from college, I was okay for a time, but then I went back to being uncomfortable in my own body. It was an easier way to cope. Not necessarily a healthier way.

In this way, Cullen also falls back into something that is familiar. He knows that there are Templars that he can rely on. Mages, for him, are unpredictable. He isn’t a Mage, so he doesn’t know what it is like to be a Mage. However, he is fine, if a bit unsettled, if you recruit the Mages. Yet again, he’s unsettled due to the unfamiliarity. He becomes friends with Mages throughout the game. He even has the possibility of being romanced by one. The game shows that he becomes more open to relationships with mages, be they friendships or a romance.

Everyone has the potential to change. Sometimes, that change shows itself in small ways. And sometimes those small ways of change have a much bigger influence that people might not be able to see.

you know the fandom wank is bad when *I* hear about it. For a pro-templar writer, I’ve successfully kept in my corner and most of the wank misses me when it happens. But this? Really?

y'all motherfuckers sending death threats and suicide bait to someone (pro-mage, even) who happens to express sympathy for what the Templars go through, too?? y'all are stuck so far up your own asses you can’t acknowledge that the system is flawed for more than one group of people

MORE THAN THAT you apparently can’t recognize that this is a fucking video game and you are GROWN ASS ADULTS (shocking everyone, let me tell you) who should fucking know better.

I don’t care if someone has a different opinion than you. There is no good reason on the maker’s dumpster fire of a planet for you to harass *anyone* like that over their opinions on fictitious factions in a fantasy world.

*ANYONE* ok? I’ve seen too much of this shit going all directions since I joined the fandom less than 2 years ago. y'all really need to just let each other live. These opinions aren’t hurting anyone in real life UNTIL Y'ALL GO PULLING STUNTS LIKE THIS

OH ITS BEEN SO LONG SINCE SOMEONES ASKED ME ABOUT THIS.

Uhm! Well. Let’s see. Its not so much that I agree /with/ them, but you see - the way most people in the Dragon Age fandom see it, all templars and circles should be just blown up and their remains sent to outer space, and anyone who even so much as thinks that hey maybe templars/circles can be okay sometimes is an abusive oppressor and should be chased off of the internet, and also, sent into space.

And I’m not saying this as an exaggeration, I’ve literally dealt with and seen first hand how nasty some people can get over this discourse. 

The way I see if, there are always gonna be mages, if there are always mages, then naturally there should always be templars. Why? Because every single person is different, there are good people in this world and there are some fucking evil ass people too - ergo, there are gonna be amazingly sweet and wonderful mages and there are also gonna be fucking assholes who like to set things on fire just because they can. And the people who are best able to deal with magic users are templars. Like you wouldn’t go send a doctor to go put out a house fire, they don’t have the right tools for the job. 

I’m not even saying there should be this huge templar order either, and they don’t even have to be under chantry rule anymore either, but there just should be some. I also am pro-circle, or rather, pro-circle reform. I’d love to see the circle made into a more boarding school-like environment, where the kids stay there, learn how to control their magic, a few templars on stand-by should someone accidentally freeze the teachers hair, and can go back home and spend time with their family over the holidays and whatnot. Like ya know? An actual school, cause I think thats a great idea, and ya know - once they’ve learned all they can, they go out into the world and live their lives. 

So @ people who have heroes or OCs who are pro-Templar and/or pro-Circle and/or pro-Chantry: tell me about them? Tell me about their history, their personality, their beliefs, etc. I wanna know them. I want my OCs to be friends with your OCs. Let’s ~make friends and have a good time~, lol.

Characters who are not pro-anything but still sided with Templars in any of the games, too. Why did they make that choice? Tell me about their reasoning, their motives, I wanna hear that too.