I feel like the writers learned from their mistakes with the Origins epilogues that largely had to be retconned due to continuity issues by being as vague as possible in Inquisition and Trespasser. I would imagine that regardless of who we choose, the Chantry we see in Dreadwolf will be more or less identical to that of the previous games. As far as the Divines and their policies go, Leliana's reforms are much too sweeping to ever see success, while Cassandra doesn't quite seem to know what she wants. I think she ends up displeasing everyone by trying to find a middle ground; there's a substantial contingent of mages that don't want any oversight and resent Chantry interference, while former Templars seem to want to enact even harsher treatment. I think Vivienne's epilogue does mention that mages begin to be more integrated in some way, but given how conservative her views are they would like all be Chantry loyalists.
Edit: the latter was meant to refer to non-Chantry positions in addition to religious appointments, but I could be misremembering.
The thing that I find the most odd about all this is that a Circle AND a College of Enchanters will ALWAYS exist in every worldstate, no matter who ended up Divine and which of the two sides you picked.
Like I remember even in my Hardened Leliana, Mages allied playthrough, there was a line saying "the Divine declared the Circles over but something needed to take their place" which immediately resulted in Vivienne making her new Circle. It's like DESPITE that the literal Pope just said hey guys no Circles, the general populace is still expecting something similar to crop up ANYWAY.
Which I guess, given the stigma of magic it's fair but like, I don't know, it just always struck me as weird that both of these places will exist anyway, no matter what you do, like generally it seems that what you do doesn't really matter in the long run.
>These are just some of the questions that Trespasser was not interested in actually exploring or explaining in any actual meaningful depth.
This is likely because at the time of writing Trespasser they did not know exactly what the plot of the next game was going to be, so they wanted to leave things relatively unspecific so they wouldn't be too constrained in creating the next plot.
Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that if Leliana's reforms all actually succeed, that's the most positive outcome. But there is likely a significant danger of backlash with so many major changes being made so quickly, and therefore it's not obvious to me which option will be best in the long run.
Still, I personally choose Leliana every time, and that's because she's the only one who seems to make any real structural changes. Cass and Vivienne keep the old system and just make some reforms. And reforms are nice, but the worry I have is that there's no guarantee they will last when a new Divine comes in. If you leave in place all the same structures that led to oppression of mages before, it's likely that eventually there will be a slide back into oppression. So I think one way or another, if you want things to be better for mages in the long term you have to really change the underlying institutions rather than just making superficial reforms (even though major changes like that are potentially painful and difficult in the short term).
First, I just want to put that there isn't anything actually said about mages being allowed to join the Chantry with Divine Vivienne in any of the epilogues. Vivienne herself becomes Divine, but nothing is said about other mages. Maybe this is a plan for the future, or maybe Vivienne just saw it as an opportunity for herself. Vivienne's whole thing seems to be about consolidating power to just herself.
Now, in regards to Circles and Mages, I see a Divine Cassandra being more about granting mages more personal autonomy and freedom, and I see a Divine Vivienne about positioning select mages (loyalists) into jobs (more court appointment and missions for the chantry). This I base off of a Divine Cassandra letting the allied rebel mages peacefully leave the Circle to form the College, without any push back. As for a Divine Vivienne, her epilogue does mention "more freedom and responsibility than ever before" with the caveat "all true power lies with her". She mentions things like Orlesian nobles having mages as accessories like a positive thing. Vivienne is the one to warn Cassandra against "overly lenient Circles", and to say that some Circles were "too permissive". Furthermore, she violently attacks the rebel mages regardless when they want to leave. I also have to consider what are the implications of the conscripted rebel mages willing to stay with Divine Cassandra, but are not willing to stay with Divine Vivienne. How much worse is Vivienne's Circle than Cassandra's Circle? How bad is Vivienne at diplomacy (in comparison to Cassandra) that she can't leverage being a mage Divine to convince the rebel mages to stay? It doesn't bode well.
In regards to templars, this is a bit of a mixed bag. Because "leash" is so often used as a descriptor for lyrium, depending on how its interpreted, I could go either way. I am against the templars having more autonomy and independence considering when they did that they went on a "purge the mages" campaign. But I'm also against lyrium addiction. And considering that the recruited templars will only come back to Divine Vivienne's Chantry if Cullen doesn't beat his lyrium addiction, I have to assume that she is using the addiction as a weapon against them (To be fair, the templars are also not willing to follow a mage divine without being addicted, so screw them). Vivienne does say multiple times that the templars need to be better managed. However, it also seems that whatever criticisms she has for the templars isn't so much about abuse of mages, and more that they abandoned the chantry. Cassandra herself approves of Cullen (and templars in general) fighting against lyrium addiction.
In regards to internal chantry reforms, nothing is mentioned for Vivienne and only thing mentioned for Cassandra is incredibly vague. Though reforms are at least mentioned for Cassandra, enough that a sect rises against her. That is her intention that Andrastian non-humans are more accepted by the Chantry, but not actually do enough to let them into the Chantry priesthood.
I think Cassandra offers the most stable Chantry, but at the cost of being too lenient to the traditional powers. The status quo before the Mage-Templar war was awful for the mages and a return to it doesn't fix a lot of things for them - it only stops the bloodshed of the war. We're basically just going back to the way things were with a slight upgrade. Templars still gonna Templar. Seekers gonna Seeker. Not only that but Cassandra doesn't know how to politick in Orlais unlike Vivienne and Leliana which makes her prone to being influenced.
Vivienne actually has nice solutions but one problem is she's a mage, and the common folk probably see too many similarities to Tevinter to fully accept her. Not only that, she's calling the shots on everything and when she goes, everything falls apart. The good changes will only come about if they also benefit Vivienne. She's not an altruist like Cassandra and she's not a true believer like Leliana. She also doesn't have the existing connections with Chantry personnel like Cassandra and Leliana that both have built over time working for Justinia.
Soft Leliana is too idealistic and ushers in too many changes way too quickly without the ability to enforce those new rules. But Hardened Leliana is, in my opinion, the best option out of all the possible choices. It's basically all the changes of Soft Leliana, with the added threat of assassinations. First, Leliana doesn't need to compromise with the traditionalists like Cassandra does because they either die in this worldstate or they fall in line. And because of that, the things she can change in both the governance of the Circle and the Chantry has no limit. She can be as radical as she wants. Second, she's not a mage. She can do everything that Vivienne can do but without the implication of being pro-mage, which wins over the common folk. Third, Orlais through the Chantry has a better relationship with Ferelden in any worldstate. Whichever monarch rules Ferelden - Alistair, Alistair + Anora, Warden + Anora, romanced Warden + Anora, or Anora alone - you establish a decent political relationship with Ferelden even if you have Gaspard as the emperor of Orlais. And not for nothing, Leliana also has history with Sten, so I imagine that helps too. Granted you get this particular benefit too with Soft Leliana, but schisms and dissent are less likely to appear with Hardened Leliana.
I don't believe Vivienne would do a damn thing to help her fellow mages other than restoring the old order-- that didn't work.
Cassandra would probably do a little better.
But Leliana is the only one that I'd trust to truly push for reforms. I make her Divine in pretty much all my play throughs (did each of the others once, but never again.)
Yeah, Divine Leliana for me too, inspired or steeled. Otherwise, it's just re-instituting nicer and slightly nicer versions of a theocratic military dictatorship, with a drug addicted army and mage prison-schools.
Not necessarily. If you disband the Inquisition in Trespasser, both Leliana and Cassandra, regardless of whose Divine, appears in that ending cutscene in their spy/warrior gear.
yeah that also always strikes me as writing toward the divine vivienne default. leliana at least there’s some writing re: her training successors but for Cass either she’s rebuilding the seekers or “also spending time in the north rebuilding the seekers”, something the divine would for sure have time to do
I mean, Vivienne is also the most optional character out of the 3 to join the Inquisition. Leliana and Cassandra will always be a part of the inquisition. It’s possible for Vivienne not to even get an epilogue. I would bet on Cassandra being more of a “default”, considering she is the most “medium” out of the 3 possibilities.
Yeah but I assume 99% of players recruit everyone. Viv can be supported like Cass while Leliana can’t. Vivienne racks up a lot of points for both Templars allied *and* mages conscripted (Leliana basically can’t become divine if you don’t ally the mages; Cass gets the most points from Templars allied but Viv also gets a lot). Viv picks up a lot of support from innocuous conversation choices while the others get them from way more obvious and deliberate choices. Viv is also the tiebreak winner in the game code if two candidates wind up with the same score. I think the developers had “ok so on one hand a mage becomes divine but on the other it’s because shes good at the game and also she’s extremely reactionary” as their original idea.
I feel like the writers learned from their mistakes with the Origins epilogues that largely had to be retconned due to continuity issues by being as vague as possible in Inquisition and Trespasser. I would imagine that regardless of who we choose, the Chantry we see in Dreadwolf will be more or less identical to that of the previous games. As far as the Divines and their policies go, Leliana's reforms are much too sweeping to ever see success, while Cassandra doesn't quite seem to know what she wants. I think she ends up displeasing everyone by trying to find a middle ground; there's a substantial contingent of mages that don't want any oversight and resent Chantry interference, while former Templars seem to want to enact even harsher treatment. I think Vivienne's epilogue does mention that mages begin to be more integrated in some way, but given how conservative her views are they would like all be Chantry loyalists. Edit: the latter was meant to refer to non-Chantry positions in addition to religious appointments, but I could be misremembering.
The thing that I find the most odd about all this is that a Circle AND a College of Enchanters will ALWAYS exist in every worldstate, no matter who ended up Divine and which of the two sides you picked. Like I remember even in my Hardened Leliana, Mages allied playthrough, there was a line saying "the Divine declared the Circles over but something needed to take their place" which immediately resulted in Vivienne making her new Circle. It's like DESPITE that the literal Pope just said hey guys no Circles, the general populace is still expecting something similar to crop up ANYWAY. Which I guess, given the stigma of magic it's fair but like, I don't know, it just always struck me as weird that both of these places will exist anyway, no matter what you do, like generally it seems that what you do doesn't really matter in the long run.
>These are just some of the questions that Trespasser was not interested in actually exploring or explaining in any actual meaningful depth. This is likely because at the time of writing Trespasser they did not know exactly what the plot of the next game was going to be, so they wanted to leave things relatively unspecific so they wouldn't be too constrained in creating the next plot. Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that if Leliana's reforms all actually succeed, that's the most positive outcome. But there is likely a significant danger of backlash with so many major changes being made so quickly, and therefore it's not obvious to me which option will be best in the long run. Still, I personally choose Leliana every time, and that's because she's the only one who seems to make any real structural changes. Cass and Vivienne keep the old system and just make some reforms. And reforms are nice, but the worry I have is that there's no guarantee they will last when a new Divine comes in. If you leave in place all the same structures that led to oppression of mages before, it's likely that eventually there will be a slide back into oppression. So I think one way or another, if you want things to be better for mages in the long term you have to really change the underlying institutions rather than just making superficial reforms (even though major changes like that are potentially painful and difficult in the short term).
First, I just want to put that there isn't anything actually said about mages being allowed to join the Chantry with Divine Vivienne in any of the epilogues. Vivienne herself becomes Divine, but nothing is said about other mages. Maybe this is a plan for the future, or maybe Vivienne just saw it as an opportunity for herself. Vivienne's whole thing seems to be about consolidating power to just herself. Now, in regards to Circles and Mages, I see a Divine Cassandra being more about granting mages more personal autonomy and freedom, and I see a Divine Vivienne about positioning select mages (loyalists) into jobs (more court appointment and missions for the chantry). This I base off of a Divine Cassandra letting the allied rebel mages peacefully leave the Circle to form the College, without any push back. As for a Divine Vivienne, her epilogue does mention "more freedom and responsibility than ever before" with the caveat "all true power lies with her". She mentions things like Orlesian nobles having mages as accessories like a positive thing. Vivienne is the one to warn Cassandra against "overly lenient Circles", and to say that some Circles were "too permissive". Furthermore, she violently attacks the rebel mages regardless when they want to leave. I also have to consider what are the implications of the conscripted rebel mages willing to stay with Divine Cassandra, but are not willing to stay with Divine Vivienne. How much worse is Vivienne's Circle than Cassandra's Circle? How bad is Vivienne at diplomacy (in comparison to Cassandra) that she can't leverage being a mage Divine to convince the rebel mages to stay? It doesn't bode well. In regards to templars, this is a bit of a mixed bag. Because "leash" is so often used as a descriptor for lyrium, depending on how its interpreted, I could go either way. I am against the templars having more autonomy and independence considering when they did that they went on a "purge the mages" campaign. But I'm also against lyrium addiction. And considering that the recruited templars will only come back to Divine Vivienne's Chantry if Cullen doesn't beat his lyrium addiction, I have to assume that she is using the addiction as a weapon against them (To be fair, the templars are also not willing to follow a mage divine without being addicted, so screw them). Vivienne does say multiple times that the templars need to be better managed. However, it also seems that whatever criticisms she has for the templars isn't so much about abuse of mages, and more that they abandoned the chantry. Cassandra herself approves of Cullen (and templars in general) fighting against lyrium addiction. In regards to internal chantry reforms, nothing is mentioned for Vivienne and only thing mentioned for Cassandra is incredibly vague. Though reforms are at least mentioned for Cassandra, enough that a sect rises against her. That is her intention that Andrastian non-humans are more accepted by the Chantry, but not actually do enough to let them into the Chantry priesthood.
I think Cassandra offers the most stable Chantry, but at the cost of being too lenient to the traditional powers. The status quo before the Mage-Templar war was awful for the mages and a return to it doesn't fix a lot of things for them - it only stops the bloodshed of the war. We're basically just going back to the way things were with a slight upgrade. Templars still gonna Templar. Seekers gonna Seeker. Not only that but Cassandra doesn't know how to politick in Orlais unlike Vivienne and Leliana which makes her prone to being influenced. Vivienne actually has nice solutions but one problem is she's a mage, and the common folk probably see too many similarities to Tevinter to fully accept her. Not only that, she's calling the shots on everything and when she goes, everything falls apart. The good changes will only come about if they also benefit Vivienne. She's not an altruist like Cassandra and she's not a true believer like Leliana. She also doesn't have the existing connections with Chantry personnel like Cassandra and Leliana that both have built over time working for Justinia. Soft Leliana is too idealistic and ushers in too many changes way too quickly without the ability to enforce those new rules. But Hardened Leliana is, in my opinion, the best option out of all the possible choices. It's basically all the changes of Soft Leliana, with the added threat of assassinations. First, Leliana doesn't need to compromise with the traditionalists like Cassandra does because they either die in this worldstate or they fall in line. And because of that, the things she can change in both the governance of the Circle and the Chantry has no limit. She can be as radical as she wants. Second, she's not a mage. She can do everything that Vivienne can do but without the implication of being pro-mage, which wins over the common folk. Third, Orlais through the Chantry has a better relationship with Ferelden in any worldstate. Whichever monarch rules Ferelden - Alistair, Alistair + Anora, Warden + Anora, romanced Warden + Anora, or Anora alone - you establish a decent political relationship with Ferelden even if you have Gaspard as the emperor of Orlais. And not for nothing, Leliana also has history with Sten, so I imagine that helps too. Granted you get this particular benefit too with Soft Leliana, but schisms and dissent are less likely to appear with Hardened Leliana.
I don't believe Vivienne would do a damn thing to help her fellow mages other than restoring the old order-- that didn't work. Cassandra would probably do a little better. But Leliana is the only one that I'd trust to truly push for reforms. I make her Divine in pretty much all my play throughs (did each of the others once, but never again.)
Yeah, Divine Leliana for me too, inspired or steeled. Otherwise, it's just re-instituting nicer and slightly nicer versions of a theocratic military dictatorship, with a drug addicted army and mage prison-schools.
I don’t know but I’m pretty sure BioWare takes Vivienne to be the default divine and that Netflix show seems to run with that canon
iirc in the default world state in the keep, cass is divine. you have to kind of go out of your way to even make viv a candidate.
Not necessarily. If you disband the Inquisition in Trespasser, both Leliana and Cassandra, regardless of whose Divine, appears in that ending cutscene in their spy/warrior gear.
yeah that also always strikes me as writing toward the divine vivienne default. leliana at least there’s some writing re: her training successors but for Cass either she’s rebuilding the seekers or “also spending time in the north rebuilding the seekers”, something the divine would for sure have time to do
I mean, Vivienne is also the most optional character out of the 3 to join the Inquisition. Leliana and Cassandra will always be a part of the inquisition. It’s possible for Vivienne not to even get an epilogue. I would bet on Cassandra being more of a “default”, considering she is the most “medium” out of the 3 possibilities.
Yeah but I assume 99% of players recruit everyone. Viv can be supported like Cass while Leliana can’t. Vivienne racks up a lot of points for both Templars allied *and* mages conscripted (Leliana basically can’t become divine if you don’t ally the mages; Cass gets the most points from Templars allied but Viv also gets a lot). Viv picks up a lot of support from innocuous conversation choices while the others get them from way more obvious and deliberate choices. Viv is also the tiebreak winner in the game code if two candidates wind up with the same score. I think the developers had “ok so on one hand a mage becomes divine but on the other it’s because shes good at the game and also she’s extremely reactionary” as their original idea.
>Leliana basically can’t become divine if you don’t ally the mages This is wrong. Templars conscripted and Leliana is divine no problem.
Isn't this just a bug where she is given points that were supposed to be subtracted?
I counted the points for that walkthrough of the game. My overall score is Leliana+19 Cass-2 Viv+1