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I was the one who replied to the initial Is This an Example query, and I do think that Anders fits better under Well-Intentioned Extremist than The Extremist Was Right for reasons similar to what I said in my reply. While his actions might ultimately be beneficial to mages in the long run (at which point I would think there might be an argument for the latter trope) we haven't seen evidence of it yet in the games or any related media—all it's done is taken the tensions between mages and the chantry and turned it into open conflict.
Edited to add: Anders is a very contentious character, so I know I personally would like more voices than just mine and OP's on this.
Edited by Afterword A smile better suits a hero
I do favour Well-Intentioned Extremist and not The Extremist Was Right as regards Anders/Vengeance. If the mage-templar conflict is resolved, it wasn't and won't be by their actions.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Bumping for more thoughts.
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
Bumping again since this has fallen to the third page. I'll also add what I had put for Well-Intentioned Extremist, in case anyone thinks it could be worded better and/or more context is needed.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Anders falls into the type one and three varieties in that his goal is good, but his methods and the consequences of his actions are problematic. Many understand the goals of wanting mages to have more freedoms and rights, but blowing up the Chantry wasn't the right way to go about it, even if Anders was pushed to his breaking point. Not only did his actions kill hundreds in Kirkwall but also made the mage rebellion and mages in general that much more feared. Other characters point this out as well, and many mages denounce Anders' actions to the point he's not welcome amongst them if he's alive.
Seems okay.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
You should have at least PMed me, you know :-) It is funny to accidentally find this topic a week after it was created.
As far as the WIE example is concerned:
- I deleted "Many understand the goals of wanting mages to have more freedoms and rights". This is an Audience Reaction, and we never document what fans think on Main pages; "many mages denounce Anders' actions" is an In-Universe reaction, and I believe this part is fine to stay.
- I removed "blowing up the Chantry wasn't the right way to go about it" because directly stating whether he was right or wrong, given that there is zero agreement on that, looks like flame bating and is irrelevant for the trope in question. A WIE can be right and still be a WIE.
- I also removed the part about the types, because stating that the trope is Type A or Type B, or Type 1 etc is not advisable, as far as I know, which I wrote in the edit reason
.
This is the shortened wording I kept:
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Anders's goal of wanting mages to have more freedoms and rights is good, but his methods after he was pushed to his breaking point and the consequences of his actions are problematic. Blowing up the Chantry killed hundreds in Kirkwall and made the mage rebellion and mages in general much more feared. Other characters point this out, and many mages denounce Anders' actions to the point that he's not welcome amongst them if he's alive.
The Extremist Was Right trope currently has two examples:
- "Anders's insistance that the Circle system must be destroyed through an open rebellion rather than peacefully reformed is validated in one of three endings of Inquisition where Leliana is named Divine. After the mage-templar war, she dissolves the said system, granting the mages their freedom and creating widespread mage acceptance. The Circles stand in the other two endings, so the trope is either played straight or averted depending on player choices."
A player may choose to validate Anders's argument by making Leliana the new Divine (especially, if she is hardened and "blood runs through the halls of the Grand Cathedral," as that ending says). Or the player may choose to invalidate it by making Cassandra or Vivienne the Divine. Since we trope all outcomes, I believe this one should be kept.
- "The flavor text of the Magehunter shield in Inquisition tells of a previous misuse of the Right of Annulment. In 3:09 Towers, twenty-five years after the Right was first granted, the Circle of Magi in Antiva City was annulled to cover up the fact that its Knight-Captain was a serial killer who murdered over a hundred mages out of pure bigotry. While the Seekers eventually hunted him down and punished him, they assisted the Templars in covering up the incident, leaving the rest of the Circles completely ignorant of the truth, and there is no mention of them punishing the Knight-Commander for Annulling a Circle under false pretenses. Background chatter in the second game reveals that Meredith had gone over Elthina's head and petitioned the Divine for the Right of Annulment for the Kirkwall Circle. By provoking Meredith into jumping the gun instead of waiting for the Divine's permission., Anders prevented yet another silent annulment of mages, this time in Kirkwall."
This one ties into the Batman Gambit entry on his page, and is based on an easily skipped piece of dialogue with this guy which was widely discussed after the game release. Anders was right that if Kirkwall mages didn't openly rebel they'd just be silently slaughtered by Meredith. Not that the mages needed to blow up the Chantry for that, but the example doesn't state that anyway :-)
Edit: Fmt
Edited by Asherinka
He was completely right that they needed to rebel. Which is still extremism, and is not an idea shared by most in-game characters.
^ He is right to rebel, yes. He is not right to blow up a building. That's what makes him a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
Most in-game characters do not agree with his methods. Even the mage rebellion wants absolutely nothing to do with him in DAI. This part is what eliminates him from The Extremist Was Right. Not everyone thinks his methods were correct, so he can't be completely right.
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
Bumping because this never really got solved.
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
I'm confused about what "completely right" means.
It's only with the benefit of hindsight that anyone can look back at Anders' actions and condemn destroying the Chapel, but there is no alternative scenario where he does NOT do that. There's no method of comparing whether or not a necessary mage rebellion would have started if Anders' had not performed that action. That makes it almost impossible to judge from a "necessity" standpoint.
I mean, if I recall correctly according to the novels, Anders' actions were one of two incidents that sparked the mage rebellion, so really his importance in that regard is debatable.
A smile better suits a hero
Removed with apologies to Nubian, that was rude of me (and a poor argument to boot)
Edited by Afterword A smile better suits a hero
^^ Again, that's an opinion said characters make with the benefit of hindsight. The fact remains that his actions are what sparked the rebellion. We don't have an alternate reality where the Mage-Templar War started without it. I also don't know about "all characters" disagreeing with his actions. In DAI, you're told that minstrels sing of him as both a hero and a monster, and whether or not Hawke implicitly approves of Anders' actions is literally one of the choices you are asked to make even if you never played DA 2.
Edited by NubianSatyress
Yes, but it doesn't matter if everyone doesn't disagree with him. There's a journal of a mage in DAI who made notes on Anders' manifesto. What counts for this trope is that everyone agrees with him both in methodology and ideology and that just isn't true.
I'm not sure why you're stuck on hindsight either? Hindsight doesn't really matter when more than half the world, including the people you're fighting for, blatantly disavow your actions. And you're not going to find many people who agree with Anders that blowing up a building is the correct course of action even before he does it.
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
I'm "stuck" on hindsight because the necessity of his actions came up as a topic. It's right there in my first post. Again, there doesn't exist an alternate timeline where the Mage-Templar War started without Anders. In fact, his actions are what directly led to the war.
Also, this issue is a bit more nuanced than "not everyone agrees with him". It's literally a topic of ongoing debate within the world on Thedas. This is especially true when one of the main characters of the story, who knew Anders directly, can either flat out condemn his actions or paint them as unfortunate, but not meritless. Whether not the "Extremist was right" in regards to Anders depends both on how you are defining "right" or "correctness", and both the overt and implicit opinions of the persons within the story.
The problem is that, because we don't have any example of the War starting without Anders' involvement, and that Anders himself doesn't really care if people hate him for what he did, it's a massive Zero-Approval Gambit that even Hawke can implicitly acknowledge if the player chooses that option.
As I stated earlier (before resorting to an uncharitable argument that I do apologize for and blame on work-and-sleeplessness-related crankiness) Anders' actions aren't even the sole inciting incident of the Mage Rebellion (unless you want to completely disregard the events of Asunder), so we can't say for sure that the war wouldn't have started if he hadn't blown up the Chantry any more than we can say that it would have if he hadn't. Setting aside the question of in-universe approval for a moment, the description of The Extremist Was Right says that the character in question has to have succeeded in creating a better world. Given the ambiguous and flexible nature of the world (and the multiple sparks that started the War) we cannot for sure say that Anders' actions specifically created a better Thedas, only that they helped lead to one that is in the midst of a war.
Edited by Afterword A smile better suits a hero
At this point, it seems like I'm getting vastly outnumbered, and needing to respond to multiple people right after the other. I don't want to appear like I'm super invested in this debate (I'm really not....I just don't see what the big deal is). So I'll just state my final thoughts and leave it alone.
While I don't think Asunder should be "disregarded", in this case, it's the secondary medium. In DAI, when people talk about the cause of the Mage-Templar War, what they primarily mention is Anders' destruction of the Chantry. Even if Anders' actions could be objectively quantified as only "half" the cause of said war, that's not exactly an argument against its necessity. As a real life comparison — the Montgomery Bus Boycott was completely inevitable; Rosa Parks was just the last straw.
And yes, I would agree that in endings where the war winds up making things even worse for Mages (particularly if Cassandra is voted as Divine Victoria), he wouldn't qualify. But, in endings where things end up better for mages (particularly if Leliana becomes Divine), he was right. Even if his actions are outright condemned or disliked, he planned for that. His main goal was to eliminate the possibility of compromise, and he succeeded.
I don't see any reason whatsoever, we can say the trope may or may not apply due to player actions. That's commonly done for games (or other media) with multiple potential outcomes. A Childhood Friend Romance doesn't stop being a Childhood Friend Romance just because another route allows you to marry a character that the player just met.
^ This is my point exactly. The trope is either played straight or averted depending on player choices in Inquisition, which is why it is fine to stay.
Also, trying to prove that in-game characters support a single view so the trope does not apply is not a way to resolve this argument, especially given that when you play the games a certain way you don't get too see all responses. This is just a way to restart the old discussion about who was right, and there is zero agreement in the fandom on that. I don't see how a handful of tropers can magically resolve this debate here :-)
But if we are really doing this, Hawke (the protagonist of DAII) can approve Anders's actions both in DAII ("I could have understood if you only told me") and in Inquisition (if you load the save where they supported Anders). Varric refuses to state his opinion on the matter at all, Merrill can echo Anders's lines about men and their fear of magic in certain outcomes etc. I also disagree that Asunder is a secondary medium, it was written by the series initial head writer (Gaider). In this book, Adrian and Co are effectively Anders#2, and hardened Leliana as the Divine in Inquisition is Anders#3.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say by referring to Adrian and Leliana as Anders #2 and Anders #3, but if you're trying to ascribe their actions to solely resulting from what he did, that's a pretty big stretch. Also, I'm pretty sure that the "must have succeeded in making the world a better place" stipulation in The Extremist Was Right means they unambiguously succeeded, not "the events they helped to spark potentially led to the world being a better place in one of several optional endings that depend on other characters' actions"
A smile better suits a hero
I'll just cite TEWR description: "These are genuine examples of that term that so many villains falsely claim to be, necessary evils, within the context of the story."
Anders forced Meredith's hand by blowing up the Chantry, Adrian forced Wynne to make a stand by framing Rhys, hardened Leliana forced reforms by killing the dissenters. All count as necessary evil and all unambiguously succeed, if you get a certain ending. All don't count if you get a different one.
In DA and Mass Effect, a lot of stuff depends on player's choices. As I understand it, we just trope all outcomes but clearly describe when and how they happen. We don't choose the "right" way to play the game and exclusively trope it.
For instance, on Mass Effect - Commander Shepard page, there are tropes for both the paragon and the renegade (and anything in-between), and they often directly contradict each other. And this is fine for this type of games.
Edited by Asherinka
^^^ Also, we don't need to prove any characters' POVs at all because they tell us exactly how they feel about it, regardless of what Hawke did or how the immediate aftermath went down. Anders is literally chased out of the rebellion.
I can appreciate his goal, hells, even Vivienne has an appreciation of his goals, but the problem, the thing that everyone does not agree with, are his methods, and that is why he can't be TEWR. However, because his goals were noble, that puts him into Well-Intentioned Extremist.
Edit: ninja'd
Edited by Hello83433 CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
I'm still trying to stay out the argument from this point on, but there's a couple things bugging me. Chiefly, I don't understand what you mean "one of several endings".
Endings which end favorably for the mages are plentiful, with even Vivienne's ending basically turning the Circles into a meritocracy where mages can rise quickly if they prove useful to the Chantry.
Also, even if we assume that Anders' actions were universally loathed (which they aren't), in-universe approval isn't required for TEWR. Especially given that Anders' actions were an intentional Zero-Approval Gambit. Arguing about whether or not people approved of how the war started misses the point entirely.
Edited by NubianSatyress
^^ "but the problem, the thing that everyone does not agree with, are his methods"
I'll repeat myself :-)
Anders forced Meredith's hand by blowing up the Chantry, Adrian forced Wynne to make a stand by framing Rhys for Pharamond's murder, hardened Leliana forced reforms by killing the dissenters. Rhys directly compares Adrian to Anders by the end of the book. Also, this guy just flat out tried to kill the Divine, and there are hints that the Libertarian fraternity planned it and was on board with that. How are their methods different? Their goal is similar as well - mage freedom.
It seems to me that you are trying to prove that there is a single right way to play these games, and all outcomes that don't match it can't be troped, which I can't agree with.
Edited by Asherinka
I apologize if my meaning has come across wrong. What I've been trying to state is as follows: 1. While Anders' actions were in favor of Mage Rebellion and helped kick it off, he was not a leader of the subsequent rebellion, with some of them even disowning his actions. Thus, he can not be considered solely responsible for the rebellion and its aftermath. 2. I'm not arguing for a correct method of play or ending, only that the existence of endings where things end up the same or worse for the mages (ie Cassandra becoming Divine) means that even the rebellion does not have an unambiguously good ending for the mages.
Edited by Afterword A smile better suits a hero
Yes, they are. This isn't an Audience Reaction, it requires something in the work itself to affirm that the methods as well as the goal were needed. That is why hindsight isn't a disqualifier. Find me something that shows someone approved of the explosion that Anders/Vengeance caused.
That quote shows that Hawke doesn't approve of what happened. That's what the conditional means; you didn't tell me, so I don't sympathize with you. It doesn't even go so far as to suggest that Hawke would agree with Anders/Vengeance that it was needed, just that they would have sympathy if given warning.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Again: define "needed". Needed =/= approved.
Anders' entire plan was to force a war that left no chance of compromise, and he didn't care if people approved of his actions. He got exactly what he wanted.
The games literally give the player the option of 1) approving of Anders's actions on more than one occasion and 2) having his actions result in unambiguously positive results. (In fact, finding an ending where mages are WORSE off than before is the minority. You have to actively be trying to screw over the mages, and even then, there are still major reforms.) You are also flat out told in DAI that there as as many stories painting Anders as a hero as a monster.
Except that when you make choices on Hawke's personality for DAI at the Dragon Age Keep, one of the choices is "Hawke approved of Anders' actions" and "Hawke did not approve of Anders' actions". This is reaffirmed when you talk to Hawke in DAI, and they either say Anders' was crazy, or they say that Anders knew that nothing would change without drastic action. You really cannot get more blatantly literal than that.
Sorry, but I don't see how it's possible to come to these a different conclusion about Hawke's reaction based on the evidence.
Edited by NubianSatyress
Recently, I modified a couple of entries on Dragon Age – Anders, removing the The Extremist Was Right entry and reformatting the information and moving it to Well-Intentioned Extremist. Before I did this, I took it to the Is This An Example
thread, where I was mostly ignored despite posting several times. Now, I previously did the same thing for the same entry on the main page for TEWR after I got agreement from the same thread that it wasn't an example, so despite lack of replies, I thought I was okay.
Shortly after I did this, Asherinka reverted the entry back and edited it to have more neutral wording (or tried to at least). The topic for the Dragon Age fandom is major Flame Bait and Anders himself has a Broken Base, so I'm trying not to let this devolve into an argument over whether or not he was right.
My big hang up on TEWR vs WIE is that I believe they are mutually exclusive tropes. And, for Anders, I do not believe he meets the requirements for TEWR.
Hello83433: I'm a bit concerned about [this particular TEWR example] in general, because it relies a lot on player perception and it seems to be used as an Audience Reaction, because there's hardly anything in-universe that is justifying the actions taken. The trope itself says the people whom everyone thought were completely right and in-universe it's noted that many, including mages, denounce Anders' actions. The supporting material (i.e. comics and supplementary novels) also have that the character is dead, because some events that occur do not occur in a universe where he lives.
Overall, this seems more like someone trying to convince others that the actions were right, when they moreso fall under Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters (and he's already listed under). Thoughts?
Reply from Afterward: Sorry I haven't said this before, but I think there's enough negative reactions to Anders' actions in-universe that he doesn't qualify (and while the Mage situation in Dragon Age was already pretty bad before Anders blew up the Chantry, there's no real evidence that it got better, just that the conflict became open), although I'm not super familiar with the inner workings of the trope.
Hello83433: Reposting because I think it got lost in the page transition. After cutting Anders' example from The Extremist Was Right, it was added to his character page. The first bullet point text is exactly the same as TEWR, and the second point is diving deep into begging the question and slippery slope territory, but I wanted to bring the full example here again just in case.
[Example In Question]
Reply from nrjxll: Honestly, I think there's a seed of a valid example buried in there, in that Inquisition does pretty clearly show that Anders's broader goal of dragging these festering problems out in the open led to necessary reforms that probably weren't going to happen otherwise. What it doesn't validate is the method he did that by. (Just speaking personally, one of the few points I found myself majorly agreeing with Vivienne - who I rather disliked on the whole - on was that tying the cause of mage independence to a terrorist attack that killed hundreds of people was a huge PR self-own.)
BTW, the definition of The Extremist Was Right is distinctly not helpful here. I don't see anything about other characters in a story needing to say as much to qualify an example the way you originally cited, but the description's not all that long in general.
Hello83433: I was going off of Laconic and the first sentence of the description, although I agree it could be written clearer. The heavy disagreement on his methods is what puts him out of TEWR territory for me. Although, now that I'm looking at it, would it be a better fit for Well-Intentioned Extremist? Anders seems to fit under the first and/or third types (the problem is the means and/or consequences) just based on in-universe reactions to his "solution".
I don't want this OP to be too long, so just to sum up I don't believe the example fits The Extremist Was Right primarily due to in-universe backlash against Anders and his actions. I suppose moving it to YMMV might be an option, but to avoid an edit war I'm asking here to get a consensus one way or the other.
Edited by Hello83433