'you have the aura of a third child about you'

Azula:

She is often given very little grace for her actions in comparison to her brother. I think people tend to forget that the only reason Zuko gets his redemption arc is because his banishment gave him access to an environment outside of his abusive home, as well as a support network who helped re-contextualize his experiences. Comparatively, Azula is younger than him, she's a girl in a patriarchal society, and she is systematically denied access to support and education that would inform her of the issues with how she is treated. Yes, the way she treats Zuko and her peers is often cruel, but she is also only 14 years old and lives under the constant threat of neglect and violence from a man who intentionally encourages competitiveness and conflates violence with authority. Any apparent delight she takes in Zuko's mistreatment is experienced alongside the understanding that if it wasn't him, it would be her. She does plenty of horrible things throughout the show, but I think her inability to understand the morality of those actions is more of a tragedy that people like to give credit for.

She is a child! Give her access to a support network, therapy, opportunities to learn about new people and places and the world outside of the bubble she has been kept in her whole life. She deserves a chance to deconstruct her experiences, to learn that how she was treated was wrong and that she deserves better, and that she has the opportunity to makes amends for her own actions and to break the cycle should she choose.

She's treated as an irredeemable war criminal and abuser at 14 while Iroh, a 50 something-at-youngest man who spent most of his life participating in a century of imperialism and besieged Ba Sing Se for 600 days before hanging up his hat as a general only after he personally lost his son and then proceeded to not actually take any steps whatsoever towards ending the war despite being the rightful heir, is a beloved fandom figure. People deny her humanity in every way they can at every chance they get and think she deserves to be psychiatrically abused and is incapable of being redeemed. Even a lot of the people who think she can be redeemed think more or less putting her on a leash so she can be Zuko's guard dog is "redemption." People won't even acknowledge that she's also a victim of her father's abuse.

Despite being a fourteen year old child soldier, she is adultified constantly. This usually comes in two forms - as an evil seductress or as evil incarnate, worse than even her father, Ozai. Some people even claim this fourteen year old girl SLEPT TO THE TOP. Or she is painted as evil and irredeemable despite her breakdown on screen. She is constantly hated on in order to prop her brother, Zuko, up.

She is clever and ambitious. She was able to restore her brother's honor, conquer Ba Sing Se, and kill the Avatar in one fell swoop. Evil actions? Yes but damn she did it well. She's been abused all her life and deserves a chance to heal from her trauma. She's the only one we see in the series wield blue flames, immensely powerful. She slays every outfit and scene she appears in. Insanely quotable. "Do the tides command this ship, or do I?…Then I think you should stop worrying about the tides, which have already decided to kill you, spend more time worrying about me, who's still mulling it over."

Sera:

The classic example of "if she was a man you wouldn't be so mean to her". She's loud and it's a flaw. She's crass and it's a flaw. She's not kissing your main character's butt and that's an affront to the player personally (even tho a male character like, say, Fenris is beloved for his snark). She has internalized racism written into her story and isn't shy about expressing the effects of it, and that pisses people off so bad they kick her out. Mind you, male characters like Varric, Solas or, again, Fenris, who express just as much disdainful opinions towards their own race and the city elves/the Dalish in particular, are largely beloved again. (Yes, Solas is more complicated due to his plot, but nobody knew that for sure until Trespasser came out, so don't give me that excuse). On top of that, of course, people are classist about her (claiming it's impossible to understand the way she speaks when even someone with English as their second language can do it. But it's a poor dialect full of street slang and somewhat of a cockney beat to it, so obviously it's bad.) And that's not even mentioning the additional lesbophobia. I could go on for a damn essay and someone will still show up in the comments with "Well I!!! don't like Sera 'cause she's annoying". Point me to a male character who ever got so much hate for being "annoying". Even Oghren doesn't get that.

When referring to sexual violence in the Circle, the first example that usually comes to mind is Ser Otto Alrik of the Gallows in Dragon Age II (DA2). Anders’s Act 2 companion quest, “Dissent”, is about Alrik’s “Tranquil Solution” to use the Rite of Tranquility on every mage in Kirkwall. In his letter to Divine Justinia, he proposes the following:

“The Tranquil Solution is our answer. All mages at the age of majority must be made Tranquil. They'll coexist peacefully, retain their usefulness—a perfect strategy! It's simply the best way to ensure mages obey the laws of men and Maker.”

Notice how Alrik puts an emphasis on “age of majority” and “retain their usefulness”? This would be sketchy on its own, but there is more evidence that Alrik is a rapist.

Confronting Alrik in “Dissent”, the player discovers him about to recapture a feeling young mage girl. She begs not to be made tranquil, saying she’ll do anything to avoid it. Alrik responds by saying “That's right. Once you're Tranquil, you'll do anything I ask.” The implication given his leer is that he is planning on raping her, something he already does to others. A Tranquil woman named Helena and her former lover, a mage named Jaken, have the following ambient dialogue in the Gallows:

Jaken: I've been searching for you everywhere. You weren't in your rooms, the libraries...

Helena: We have no scheduled appointments at this time, apprentice.

Jaken: No! Helena, it's me. Don't you remember me?

Helena: Of course. YOu are Apprentice Jaken. We were once involved in an illicit relationship.

Jaken: Illicit? I love you!

Helena: I am Ser Alrik's now. He is the only one who can command me.

The Tranquil are not always regarded as real people, even by their fellow mages. This is, of course, not true – just because they lack full mental capacity and are a vulnerable population does not make them less deserving of personhood. But the fact that they lack the capacity to properly consent is what so easily leads to them being abused as they are. If the Chantry actually cared about the wellbeing of the Tranquil, there would be proper protections for them put in place, to avoid people like Alrik getting away with his blatant crimes.

It is not just the Tranquil who suffer from sexual violence, though. Any mage is fair game for the templars. Alain, a mage first encountered in the DA2 quest “Act of Mercy”, can later be found in the Gallows. If Ser Karras survives the quest, Alain can be overheard saying, “Ser Karras said if I tell anyone he's been in my chambers, he'll make me Tranquil.” But even if Ser Karras does not survive, during the quest “Best Served Cold” when Alain is encountered again, he will uncomfortably say, “You don't know what it’s like. We're locked in our cells all day, no light, no air. The templars... ask things of us.” Alain is still being raped, just by someone else.

It is worth noting that Ser Alrik and Ser Karras are no random grunts, either. They are both Knight-Lieutenants, meaning the only two people of higher rank are Cullen and Meredith. They have been rewarded, granted even more control for their horrid actions. Other templars are supposed to obey them without question, or the Knight-Lieutenants have the power to strip them of their knighthood.

While the Gallows has the most examples, by virtue of being a central part of the plot in DA2, sexual violence is by no means exclusive to Kirkwall’s Circle.

In Dragon Age: Origins, during the mage origin, you can overhear an apprentice mage’s ambient dialogue: "Gerda told me the templars watch us while we bathe. I hope that's not true." And while voyeurism is certainly not as severe as rape, that is canonically confirmed by Anders to have happened in the Ferelden Circle as well, in a banter with Sebastian:

Sebastian: Did something happen to you in the Circle? I understand there were problems in Ferelden...

Anders: Are you saying a mage can only be unhappy in the Circle if demons were involved?

Anders: No, it's not about Uldred. It's not about being beaten or raped by a templar— that does happen, but I've been fortunate.

In the novel Dragon Age: Asunder, Cole watches two mages of the Val Royeaux Circle have a conversation about the infamous “ghost of the spire” (namely, himself). During this conversation, one mage suggests it may have been a templar the girl saw. Her response:

"You think I don't know every templar in the tower by now? Some of them far better than I'd like." She touched the bruise on her cheek, and the elven boy scowled but said nothing.

Saying that she knows templars “far better than she’d like” implies that she has had suffered from non-consensual intimacy – aggressively, given she was wounded.

The fantasy of a sexually available mage even bleeds out into the common person. In the DA2 quest “Repentance”, accompanying Sebastian to investigate the Harimann family involves witnessing Ruxton Harimann carrying out a sexual roleplay with an elven woman in which he says, “Now, you be the naughty apprentice, and I’ll be the templar torturer…” No shame on consensual roleplay, that’s not my point. My point is that this specific scenario did not come from nowhere; it is perpetuated by the Circle.

This is why I believe it is only fair to call the sexual violence mages suffer from to be a systemic issue, part of the entire structural Circle of Magi. These are not individual errors, but rather a built in part of how the Circles are set up. The Chantry giving the Templar Order complete control over the mages as they do easily creates an environment where abuse can flourish, including sexual violence. This cannot be fixed without changing the underlying system of the Circle itself.

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SOURCES:

Dragon Age: Asunder

Codex entry: Templar Letter (DA2)

Codex entry: Ser Alrik's Letter (DA2)

Dialogue: Ambient remark from apprentice mage (DAO)

Dialogue: Ambient remark from Alain (DA2)

Dialogue: Party banter between Anders and Sebastian (DA2)

Dialogue: Obtaining the quest “Dissent” from Anders (DA2)

Dialogue: Alain during the quest “Best Served Cold” (DA2)