My mage Hawke dealt with Cullen 2.5, I guess. He didn't know about Cullen's history, but he didn't think of him as a mage-hater, really. He thought of him as an idiot. This is largely the fault of the limitations of the game dialogue, which for the most part treats a mage Hawke exactly the same as a warrior or rogue Hawke. Cullen never acknowledges that Hawke is a mage, even after seeing him cast spells in front of him. The only conclusion Hawke could come to is that he was in on the con of bribing the templars to ignore him--which doesn't square with the guy who blushes talking about the Blooming Rose--or he honestly doesn't realize that the guy standing in front of him with the GINORMOUS SKULL-HEADED STAFF ON HIS BACK is a mage, so he thinks it's okay to say that "mages aren't people like you and me." That sentiment is appalling enough on its own, but when said to a mage it comes across as either Cullen being a huge dick and yanking mage Hawke's chain, or again, being completely oblivious to the fact that Obvious Mage Is Obvious.
The other spanner in the works for Cullen's arc for me and my Hawke is the "Dissent" quest. Again, we're asked to believe that either Cullen, the second-in-command, isn't paying enough attention to what's going on under his nose to see that there are tmplars who are abusing their authority...or he's deliberately turning a blind eye to assholes like Alrik. Neither possibility makes him look good. A culture that perpetuates abuse can't work without some level of complicity or enabling from the top. It's even worse for mage Hawke because the abuses are obvious enough that a new recruit like Carver notices them. After that quest, the only templar Hawke felt was trustworthy was Thrask (yes, including Carver, but that's a whole other discussion). There was no chance he was going to side with the templars, because he agreed with Anders that the system was fundamentally broken and had to be torn down; the difference was on how they wanted to go about doing that.
I occasionally wonder if the devs thought through the ramifications of the "Dissent" quest. It's more than just "both sides do it" moral equivalency. Yes, the Grand Cleric and Meredith reject the "Tranquil Solution", but they don't immediately strip Alrik of his rank and send him to go hunt mages in the Thedan equivalent of Siberia. They're apparently fine with him using the Rite of Tranquility to make mages into his personal sex dolls as long as it's not too many. It's possible to change the institutional culture that supports abuse--but only if you admit that it's happening. No one on the Chantry side other than the newest guy is willing to do that--not Elthina, not Meredith, and not Cullen.
Anyway, thanks for posting these. You just got me to think about DA for the first time in months; I'd almost forgotten how much I loved talking meta.
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My mage Hawke dealt with Cullen 2.5, I guess. He didn't know about Cullen's history, but he didn't think of him as a mage-hater, really. He thought of him as an idiot. This is largely the fault of the limitations of the game dialogue, which for the most part treats a mage Hawke exactly the same as a warrior or rogue Hawke. Cullen never acknowledges that Hawke is a mage, even after seeing him cast spells in front of him. The only conclusion Hawke could come to is that he was in on the con of bribing the templars to ignore him--which doesn't square with the guy who blushes talking about the Blooming Rose--or he honestly doesn't realize that the guy standing in front of him with the GINORMOUS SKULL-HEADED STAFF ON HIS BACK is a mage, so he thinks it's okay to say that "mages aren't people like you and me." That sentiment is appalling enough on its own, but when said to a mage it comes across as either Cullen being a huge dick and yanking mage Hawke's chain, or again, being completely oblivious to the fact that Obvious Mage Is Obvious.
The other spanner in the works for Cullen's arc for me and my Hawke is the "Dissent" quest. Again, we're asked to believe that either Cullen, the second-in-command, isn't paying enough attention to what's going on under his nose to see that there are tmplars who are abusing their authority...or he's deliberately turning a blind eye to assholes like Alrik. Neither possibility makes him look good. A culture that perpetuates abuse can't work without some level of complicity or enabling from the top. It's even worse for mage Hawke because the abuses are obvious enough that a new recruit like Carver notices them. After that quest, the only templar Hawke felt was trustworthy was Thrask (yes, including Carver, but that's a whole other discussion). There was no chance he was going to side with the templars, because he agreed with Anders that the system was fundamentally broken and had to be torn down; the difference was on how they wanted to go about doing that.
I occasionally wonder if the devs thought through the ramifications of the "Dissent" quest. It's more than just "both sides do it" moral equivalency. Yes, the Grand Cleric and Meredith reject the "Tranquil Solution", but they don't immediately strip Alrik of his rank and send him to go hunt mages in the Thedan equivalent of Siberia. They're apparently fine with him using the Rite of Tranquility to make mages into his personal sex dolls as long as it's not too many. It's possible to change the institutional culture that supports abuse--but only if you admit that it's happening. No one on the Chantry side other than the newest guy is willing to do that--not Elthina, not Meredith, and not Cullen.
Anyway, thanks for posting these. You just got me to think about DA for the first time in months; I'd almost forgotten how much I loved talking meta.