What's so bad about supporting Templars? There are pros and cons to supporting both sides so I don't see such a big deal about it. I mean yeah, they're kind of assholes, okay they're HUGE assholes, for imprisoning mages and all that shazzam but what I've seen throughout each game is the mages not giving the Templars good reasons to NOT keep them in the Circles. I've picked both sides in all my playthroughs and I still can't find a valid reasoning behind it all.
i mean play your game however you want you do you but templars are by far the worse option considering they have done the following:
rape, abuse, and beat their charges
itâs actually common for them to laugh when a mage commits suicide like a lot of them donât even view mages as people. hereâs proof:
and then thereâs cullen âmages arenât peopleâ rutherford. who is second in command. of the largest circle in thedas.
templars personally oversee magical lobotomy.
templars personally kill mages if they fail their harrowingâa test they throw them into without knowing anything about it.
templars keep mages helpless so they canât function in the outside world.
the first two pages of asunder is literally a mage talking about how she got beaten.
grand enchanter fiona, a former slave, says the conditions of the circle were barely better than slavery. i wonder whose fault that is?
thereâs a chantry sister at haven who says she hates the templars because she would catch them doing the most horrible things to the mages when they thought she wasnât looking.
templars use magesâ lovers as blackmail against them. see: anders and karl.
some banter from inquisition:
Cassandra: What the Templars did to you, to the real Cole⊠I knew the treatment was harsh, butâŠCole: There were beatings, worse than beatings. âIf you tell anyone, Iâll say you used blood magic.âCole: Not all Templars were like that. But not enough could stand up to the ones who were.
Cole: Youâre a better Seeker than Lambert. You care about everyone.Cassandra: You knew Lord Seeker Lambert?Cole: I killed him. He cared more about stopping mages than protecting people.Cassandra: You⊠killed the Lord Seeker?Cole: Pathetic mages. Crush them at Andoralâs Reach or starve them out. Doesnât matter which.
(keep in mind lambert literally runs the templar order)
Cassandra: I have considered what you said about Lord Seeker Lambert, Cole.Cassandra: If its true, then perhaps he deserved to die. Though it need not have been you who killed him.Cole: He would have hurt people.Cassandra: It is not that simple.Cole: Why not? He made Templars see monsters instead of mages. Made them push until it all fell down.
Cassandra: What the Templars did to you, to the real Cole⊠I knew the treatment was harsh, butâŠCole: Yes. Beatings, worse. âDo you remember telling me no? You canât do that now. The Tranquil donât say no to anything.âCassandra: Makerâs breath!Cole: Not all, but enough. The good templars were too afraid to stop the others.
ser alrik in DA2 literally made mages tranquil so he could rape them. he was really high ranked too and no one stopped him until hawke came along.
templars hold the power to commit genocide for the slightest infraction. the rivaini circle was annulled because mages passed down rivaini traditions and were allowed to contact their family in 9:40 dragon.Â
lord seeker lambert attacked a conclave of mages for simply meeting to discuss whether or not they should separate from the circles. they hadnât even reached a decision and he attacked them.
thereâs a tranquil mage in the gallows of DA2 who tells you not to touch her wares or sheâll be beaten within an inch of her life.
thereâs another tranquil mage in inquisition who says she prefers tranquility because if she returned to normal she wouldnât be able to bare what the templars had done to her.
anders tells you that the most common death for a circle mage is suicide.
if a mage gets pregnant in the circle the templars will take the child away.
the templars locked up cole in prison for a year and left him to starve to death. then they wiped his records.
the templars put anders in solitary confinement for a year.Â
meredith already called for the rite of annullment long before anders blew up the chantry. her witch hunt in act 3 gave her all the more reason to do it too.
oh, and not to mention if you take the templarsâ side in DA2, for all meredithâs âit breaks my heart to do thisâ she played up before you picked a side, she tells you sheâs eager to start killing mages in the streets. sheâs in charge here.
i think the most damning thing mages do is blood magic, and in 95% of the cases weâve seen in game itâs usually out of fear or an attempt to rebel against the templars. the only exceptions to those rules i can think of off the top of my head are merrill and tevinter mages. even then mages in tevinter have it down on lock and key because you certainly donât hear about abominations crawling the streets in tevinter. for all tevinter does wrong their mage population is stable and functional because they a) donât fear monger them and b) educate their mages from a young age. a common argument against letting the mages remain free is that itâs a slave society but if you look at the examples of tevinter characters we have, just from conversation alone you can tell tevinterâs problems stem from racism and classism, not mages vs non-mages.
iâve also seen connor in origins used as a reason mages should be feared, but keep in mind what happened at redcliffe was a product of fear mongering from the chantry and the templars. isolde knew the circles were horrible and wanted to keep her child out of one, and fear attracts demons. seems a little counterproductive to me if templars constantly talk about mages being prone to possession while knowing fear baits demons and then scaring the piss out of the mages with their rhetoric.
as for the whole anders thing, iâm wholeheartedly behind his endgame actions. iâve discussed it at great length many times but hereâs a good compliation of my main arguments here if youâre interested.Â
other than that if you still think the mages are just as bad as the templars idk what to tell you man. play your game how you want iâm not gonna judge you for that but thereâs literally zero reasons for templars to have as much power as they do and zero reason for them to stick aroundâmages can police their own because there are spells that deplete mana and paralyze targets so templars are pretty much around for no other reason than for the chantry to display its power.
