Editorial Atheism in Dragon Age: Origins

[Angthoron]

But these supernatural phenomenon, are not explained by divine intervention. But by.... well........... nothing really. Sometimes spirits are responsible, sometimes it just works. They never tied it to the maker though, because as the chantry says the maker is oposed to magic (see fall of the golden city / birth of the darkspawn).

So the maker is not the source of magic.

On the other hand there are divine interventions in the case of Golden City and Andraste, both are fairly public events and apparently documented as well. Basically, consider this a High Fantasy with a few touches of dark overtones, some momentous realism and a couple of allusions.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Yeah, it's not that the maker is attributed as the cause of magic - it's more that in a high-magic setting there's no reason why a publically documented divine miracle would be anything odd.

It would be as though the bible told the story of 'Jesus, the carpenter who started a small business and ended up making a tidy profit selling building materials to the romans.' Sure, there might be no hard proof other than eyewitness testimony (less reliable than you might think - plenty of cases where crowds of eyewitnesses have accused the wrong person, as proved later by video+DNA), but when the story is completely within the normal realm of everyday life there's less reason to be skeptical.

 

[Azrael the cat]

North Amerika does NOT equal Amerika. Idiots.

Kanada is a country on the North Amerikan continent as is Amerika.

Don't be idiots. Know your fuckin' map. Also learn the difference between country and continent. FFS

FFS Volly, you misspelt kountry and kontinent.

 

[Shannow]

But these supernatural phenomenon, are not explained by divine intervention. But by.... well........... nothing really. Sometimes spirits are responsible, sometimes it just works. They never tied it to the maker though, because as the chantry says the maker is oposed to magic (see fall of the golden city / birth of the darkspawn).

So the maker is not the source of magic.

On the other hand there are divine interventions in the case of Golden City and Andraste, both are fairly public events and apparently documented as well. Basically, consider this a High Fantasy with a few touches of dark overtones, some momentous realism and a couple of allusions.

Well documented: the Bible.
You'd have to approach it from a different angle. The bible claims lots of stuff that is clearly disproved by science. The more moderate christians have already moved to a standpoint where "you can't take everything literally, but the gist is true".
In DA there is no science to point out flaws in the belief system. And Bio didn't give that role to magic either. So there is a lot less reason to disbelieve even if the Maker doesn't directly interact FR-style.
So to sum it up: Inquisition (even if poorly implemented) makes actual expression of disbelief improbable, there actually are some atheistic dialogue options, a setting were it makes little sense to not believe in the existence of the Maker, actual miracles (Andraste's ashes) that the player experiences = the blogger is a moron.

 

[Angthoron]

Well documented: the Bible.
You'd have to approach it from a different angle. The bible claims lots of stuff that is clearly disproved by science. The more moderate christians have already moved to a standpoint where "you can't take everything literally, but the gist is true".
In DA there is no science to point out flaws in the belief system. And Bio didn't give that role to magic either. So there is a lot less reason to disbelieve even if the Maker doesn't directly interact FR-style.
So to sum it up: Inquisition (even if poorly implemented) makes actual expression of disbelief improbable, there actually are some atheistic dialogue options, a setting were it makes little sense to not believe in the existence of the Maker, actual miracles (Andraste's ashes) that the player experiences = the blogger is a moron.

Well, that's basically what I meant, as Azrael the Cat indicated in his post above, so, completely agreed. Basically, it's well-documented and completely within the realm of normality for the setting. There's no sense of not believing in the Maker - just as there's no sense believing in, say, trees in our world - they just exist, period. The correct approach would be denying the following/worship of such a deity, or of trees. Does this still imply atheism? I'm not sure. I'd say it would be more of nihilism that way.

 

[Der_Unbekannte]

Well documented: the Bible.
You'd have to approach it from a different angle. The bible claims lots of stuff that is clearly disproved by science. The more moderate christians have already moved to a standpoint where "you can't take everything literally, but the gist is true".
In DA there is no science to point out flaws in the belief system. And Bio didn't give that role to magic either. So there is a lot less reason to disbelieve even if the Maker doesn't directly interact FR-style.
So to sum it up: Inquisition (even if poorly implemented) makes actual expression of disbelief improbable, there actually are some atheistic dialogue options, a setting were it makes little sense to not believe in the existence of the Maker, actual miracles (Andraste's ashes) that the player experiences = the blogger is a moron.

Well, that's basically what I meant, as Azrael the Cat indicated in his post above, so, completely agreed. Basically, it's well-documented and completely within the realm of normality for the setting. There's no sense of not believing in the Maker - just as there's no sense believing in, say, trees in our world - they just exist, period. The correct approach would be denying the following/worship of such a deity, or of trees. Does this still imply atheism? I'm not sure. I'd say it would be more of nihilism that way.

While I agree that these events are perfectly "normal" for the DA-Universe, I fail to see why this should be conected with a deity.
Because it is in the realm of normality, why do they create a god as explanation?
Andraste could have just been some powerful sourceress thus here ashes are magical. And the decline of the golden city could just have been a magical experiment gone wrong.
The only reason why the maker is conected to these events is because the chantry preaches so.

These stories are presented in the chantry viewpoint. From the Tevinter Imperium viewpoint, it could be that the maker doesn't exist.


Ultimatly my reasoning is futile, since Bioware just didn't think long enough about their religion. I mean why does a society with magic need gods, when you yourself become a god if you are powerful enough.

 

[Kthan75]

I mean why does a society with magic need gods, when you yourself become a god if you are powerful enough.

Explain that to wizards of the coast.

Personally, I don't find the existence of magic and gods mutually exclusive.
A god is a being of immense power and knowledge. Worshiping gods makes sense when there is irrefutable proof of their existence and a person can identify with their god's attributes --> see the D&D universe.

Magic doesn't really interfere with this in any way.
And if you are powerful enough to become a god yourself, go for it.
Though D&D lore shows, for example, that this is not exactly a simple feat.

 

[Angthoron]

While I agree that these events are perfectly "normal" for the DA-Universe, I fail to see why this should be conected with a deity.
Because it is in the realm of normality, why do they create a god as explanation?
Andraste could have just been some powerful sourceress thus here ashes are magical. And the decline of the golden city could just have been a magical experiment gone wrong.
The only reason why the maker is conected to these events is because the chantry preaches so.

These stories are presented in the chantry viewpoint. From the Tevinter Imperium viewpoint, it could be that the maker doesn't exist.

Well, if we send out my favourite Ocham's Razor principle at this, the simplest answer is, cumulatively, "Maker's Miracle", because Andraste being a sorceress and all the other stuff being the case as well requires too many additional variables. Of course, nothing prevents Bio from making a "what a tweest" flip-flop on its own lore, but basically, it's about as simple a logical conclusion as FR gods actually being gods (even if they are ascended mortals). Anyway, that's as far into pseudo-intellectual debates as I want to go for Bio's product as they themselves didn't bother, and continuing this "analysis" will put us on the same level as Bio fans, which isn't where I'd personally like to be.

Ultimatly my reasoning is futile, since Bioware just didn't think long enough about their religion. I mean why does a society with magic need gods, when you yourself become a god if you are powerful enough.

Pretty much this. There's no point of analyzing the "religion" of that setting because frankly it's not a religion at all - the Godsmen philosophy that you have evoked here is much more vivid in Torment - and it's just a miniature episode there, while in DA "religion" is supposed to be one of the larger themes. Blech.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Because it is in the realm of normality, why do they create a god as explanation?
Andraste could have just been some powerful sourceress thus here ashes are magical. And the decline of the golden city could just have been a magical experiment gone wrong.
The only reason why the maker is conected to these events is because the chantry preaches so.

These stories are presented in the chantry viewpoint. From the Tevinter Imperium viewpoint, it could be that the maker doesn't exist.


Ultimatly my reasoning is futile, since Bioware just didn't think long enough about their religion. I mean why does a society with magic need gods, when you yourself become a god if you are powerful enough.

But these gods don't exist as an explanation to fill a vacuum that would leave people uncomfortable otherwise , like in our world, rather people simply acknowledge them as someone/something with enough power to have godlike mystical influence in the world.

Kind of like buddhism, I guess. Buddha isn't a wizard-did-it god, just a dude that managed to achieve a higher state of existence, thus is someone you look up to and may ask for guidance when in need. Mostly because it's fuckhard to do it, like becoming a god in D&D-esque settings.

Discalimer: I don't actually know how buddhism works, that's just what I gather from anime.

 

[We are Venom]

I’ll let people believe what they want as long as they don’t try to make me do the same.

Well the Inquisition tries to make you do that. Sorry the game added atheist options only when it wouldn't get you killed because they didn't want 1/3 of the options in the game to lead to guaranteed death. Telling them what they want to hear doesn't mean you're being honest.

 

[GarfunkeL]

because they didn't want 1/3 of the options in the game to lead to guaranteed death.

Fuck that. The PC is very quickly able to kill anything and everything thrown against the party. That's just a lazy excuse for poor design. Better to argue that being atheist in-the-game-world would not make any sense and since the PC is a rational being, they would not be one.

But claiming that their lol Inquisition would be able to kill the PC immediately when they are fucking impotent if we go by the in-game examples... is fan-retconning on the level of why there is sound in space in Star Trek, ie fucking retarded.

So YES PLEASE give the player options to be jerk/dick/asshole in dialog, resulting in fights where player could get killed or kill important NPC's! But noooooo, it would frustrate the casual crowd so no, your actions must not have negative consequences for the player.

 

[We are Venom]

The fact the game is poorly designed has already been covered. You can play as an atheist, you just can't tell many people about it.

And you wouldn't get instantly killed, that's the problem. They would have to code a ton of junk so that you could eventually get killed or not get killed and tell a story they didn't want or have time to tell. I wish I could do a lot of stuff, some games don't even let me jump.

 

[Velius]

This is fucking ridiculous

There were atheist dialogue options number of times, you could even screw up Leliana's romance with them. Also the dwarves where atheists, the dalish were pagan, the qunari were militant " budhists" and humans were " christian" with their own crusades and inquisition.

DA's story might be cookie-cutter, standart fantasy, but by no means it was written too terribly. Also, complaining about "too few atheist dialogue options" reminds me of one guy in the internets who complained about the lack of virtuous romance option because little goody two-shoes Leliana turned out to be a whore who fancied bisexual interracial foursome. FFS!

 

[Sulimo]

Complaining about no atheist option in DA:O personally reminds me of some militant feminist complaining the main character in both the Witcher and PST was male. Believe it was over at the Infinity engine-mod forum. Those posts were insanely funny.

 

[Fomorian]

Re: This is fucking ridiculous

There were atheist dialogue options number of times, you could even screw up Leliana's romance with them. Also the dwarves where atheists, the dalish were pagan, the qunari were militant " budhists" and humans were " christian" with their own crusades and inquisition.

DA's story might be cookie-cutter, standart fantasy, but by no means it was written too terribly. Also, complaining about "too few atheist dialogue options" reminds me of one guy in the internets who complained about the lack of virtuous romance option because little goody two-shoes Leliana turned out to be a whore who fancied bisexual interracial foursome. FFS!

Actually I'm pretty sure the Qunari were supposed to be Islamic.

 

[deuxhero]

I'm going to say he has a point. Requiring the PC to believe in the maker (and was Bioware really THAT fucking lazy making the worlds religion? Deism with God's name changed?) is separate from not including an option for this or an option for that. It isn't so much "no Gay Option" but "Character is forced into heterosexual relationships" (and we all know how painful that is), forcing aspects of a personality on a character that is meant to be a blank slate instead of a fixed character the player decides parts of (Such as The Avatar, The Nameless One, Geralt ect.) is not a good idea.

 

[Phelot]

This is like complaining about the story of a Saturday morning cartoon I mean really DA's story was there just to drive forward the sex blood and combat that no one likes but for some reason still praise.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

that no one likes but for some reason still praise.

So...is it art?

 

[Phelot]

that no one likes but for some reason still praise.

So...is it art?

TO answer that you must first answer what an RPG is.

 

[Der_Unbekannte]

For me a RPG is riding a horse and running around killing stuff.


Damn... this quote never gets old.

 

[Angthoron]

For me a RPG is riding a horse and running around killing stuff.


Damn... this quote never gets old.

That's for Bethesda. For this case it's about riding an alien chick and running around killing stuff.

 

[Shannow]

If it has an inventory and if you are playing a role it's an RPG.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Its entirely possible that the whole Andraste thing was purely a powerful mage who is long since dead, or whatever. Since the maker does jack shit in the present, there isn't much reason to care about him.


Still, I agree that trying to pander to every possible player ideology is stupid. You might as well not play ME because you don't believe in aliens. Actually you would be better off not playing ME, but you would be stupid for using a bad excuse not to.