Havok wrote:The difference between the Arishok and Orsino is that the Arishok sacrificed nothing to do what he did, and actually held steadfast to his beliefs and what his people and religion stood for.
Orsino sacrificed EVERYTHING that he spent basically his entire life preaching, teaching and trying to convey to the world at large. He undid it all.
On top of that, the Arishok was still the Arishok, while Orsino would forever be an abomination, win or lose. He not only gave up and sacrificed the lives of every mage in Kirkwall, but he effectively committed suicide in the process.
This is why the second act was far superior to the third, and end game act.
The Arishok sacrificed his life and the lives of his soldiers. The fact that his philosophy doesn't consider that a sacrifice is not much different than Orsino deciding that he had nothing to lose after seeing everything he had tried to protect being destroyed. Remember, he used the bodies of his dead comrades to become a monster.
Anyway, personally I think that he just snapped, and wasn't really being rational at the time.
Havok wrote:In the case of Thrask and Grace, neither of them knew who was being kidnapped and if you look at it though, it is the Mages in the instance of the kidnapping quest that attack the Champion and do not allow for a peaceful solution each time the option come up. (It's almost as if the writers have something against wizards.
)
On the contrary, Ser Thrask will point blank tell you that they took the hostage with the intention of guaranteeing the Champion's cooperation. And it's not just the mages, but their templar allies that attack Hawke on sight, apparently, because they're scared shitless that the Champion will just go berserk on them due to the hostage. Which just begs the question of why did they bother with the hostage in the first place. Stupid...
Havok wrote:Petrice feels that she is protected by her status and the head cleric chick. I actually liked her involvement as it shows religious people as they are.
"I am devout to my God who is real, therefore I am righteous and justified, while these other people are heathens that are devout to their god that doesn't really exist."
It may be a dumb point of view and course of action, but it is a very real one.
Hey, I said it was stupid, not that it wasn't in character for them.
Vendetta wrote:On the other hand, I don't think there were any instances in DA1 of people having Blood Magic go well for them. Even the ones that didn't turn into abominations themselves usually caused some other catastrophic and highly avoidable instance of demon shenanigans.
Well... There's the main character and the party members.
Also, the only bad consequences of Jowan's use of Blood Magic are the social ones. He refuses to deal with demons at all, and can even find some measure of redemption, if he survives to the end of the game. Actually, none of the characters you can ask to enter the fade to free Connor will accept anything from the Desire Demon (unless you decide your main character is more succeptible to that). Also, Avernus, from the Warden's Keep DLC, was a Blood Mage trapped in a castle full of demons for a century, and never became an abomination.
The only case in DA1 in which we see too many abominations is in the Circle Tower mission. And that's because Uldred (an idiot through and through) became one when he thought his plans were finished, and summoned other demons, which then force-possessed many of the unprepared apprentices in the tower.
Havok wrote:"yeah, padawan mages are susceptible, but Jedi Knight mages aren't, and the real higher ups on the Council laugh at Fade demons."
I got the impression that this is really how it works in general. Think about Tevinter, where every mage and their brother abuses Blood Magic, but we don't hear about cases of Abominations there. Actually, none of the Tevinter mages you battle throughout DA2 will turn into abominations. Only in Kirkwall is it different, mostly because there's something in Kirkwall that causes these tragedies. There's a whole plotline dealing with how Kirkwall was built by a magister of the Old Tevinter Imperium for some sinister purpose, down to how the streets were laid out. That seems to be the main reason behind all of the many tragedies that happened throughout it's history.
Even so, we hardly see any mages turning into abominations unless they're at the end of their rope, with nothing to lose. It's desperation city, at that point. And even so, many of the crazy mages you fight will die without turning to that "option", anyway. Heck, the one mage that's most sought after by the demons, Feynriel, can finish the game completely possession-free.
Stark wrote:In context of DA, absolutely not, because it is 100% a trick and you will 100% turn evil and 100% die. There are literally no upsides ever, and every mage in the game knows that.
NaH. We walk around with an abomination through most of DA2 (Anders), and, thus, have a good idea of what it is to be one. It's mostly a fusion of personalities between the mage and the demon, with some willpower disputes to determine which is the "dominant" one at any given point. The fact that the games don't give fleshed out personalities for abominations you'll only meet through a combat encounter is hardly a fault...
