So the plan to make peace between darkspawn and everything else is to murder everything else? Even if this plan, with the death of the majority of people who fail to make the transition, was acceptable, Grey Wardens have trouble conceiving children. Within a few decades there would be no people left.
Why is Bregan not reacting like it's a dumb plan? Are we meant to be reading that his mental capacities have been diminished by the advanced corruption?
Also I don't get why everyone acts like the Blights are such a big deal (in Awakening as well as here). They're bad, very very bad, but they're not infinite. Somehow everyone knows that the Archdemon is an old god and an old god is needed for a Blight to happen. What's more they know that there were only seven old gods. So that means only seven blights.
Add into it the fact that each successive Blight has been defeated, if not easily, than easier than the previous ones, and I'm not seeing the drama. There is an end, though much pain and blood and suffering, but there is an end.
Yes, they're bad. Very bad. Terrible. But the plan put forth here is to kill even more people on the face of it, and all the people once you start looking at the details. The Blights aren't that bad.
The first blight lasted almost two hundred years. I have no idea how they managed to farm enough food to survive during that time. But about two centuries, one of which without any Gray Wardens, plus a decade of post blight fighting. Second lasted 90 years, third 15 year, the fourth 12 years. Thank you world of Thedas timeline.
But I'm not too concerned about what would happen if all the Wardens were killed. Thedas survived a century without them, generations of people being born into the Blight, if all the current ones were killed, more would rise to take their place. Which is an oddly positive viewpoint considering it's coming from me.
But yeah, something is off with Bregan. I'm normally the one defending the writing as being secretly good, but I'm just not sure in this particular case. I wish we had a more obvious indication that he was slipping, maybe if we'd seen him before hand.
I will say, considering the situation and his plan in Awakening, the Architect does seem to be consistently detached from reality.
Also, it's been 400 years since the last Blight. In that time, even to the Wardens, why didn't it just become a theory? Is it an article of belief and faith to them? I mean the Thirty Years' War was terrible, but 400 years later I can't say most people give it much thought.
'it probably didn't have the potential to taint all life with unholy foulness and destroy the world as we know it.'
That's not what the Pope said! Get it? Because he was opposed to the Peace of Westphalia? ... Look it's a history joke, you work with what you've got.
Actually the Thirty Year's War had a bigger impact on Europe than WW2, looking at length of time, percentage of population that died (though Poland gets scary close), direct changes to society and how long recovery took. I'd be really surprised if WW2 was treated as that big a deal in three hundred years, and I intend to live that long just so I can find out.
Back on topic, even with the Warden's active knowledge of how dangerous the darkspawn are, knowing how close they are to destroying everything on a good day, and records of how much worse a full on Blight is, with just ancient stories and records to go on, it seems to me that it might become a bit ... theoretical
( ... )
An less dire example than before. Everyone can agree that being mugged is bad. But until someone pulls a weapon on you and takes your shoes, just how real does that threat seem?
It's a matter of degree.
A Blight isn't just being threatened by a weapon during a mugging. It's being Jewish and living in occupied Poland.
But just because there isn't a World War going on doesn't mean the Grey Wardens don't know how bad an armed force is. Like randomcheeses said, they have regular reminders of how bad the darkspawn are--any time a new Warden is recruited, they need darkspawn blood to do it. I haven't read WoT yet to know if they've gone into detail about that, but logically, the Grey Wardens would probably need to take a trip or Orzamaar and head into the Deep Roads to get a fresh supply of blood for the new recruits and if it's anything like Origins, they'd make the recruits themselves do it to get the first taste of what fighting darkspawn is like
( ... )
The reason I don't make to make a Blight too dire is that people lived, and survived for generations in the midst of one. There must have been a decent enough survival rate and enough time between being slaughtered to grow/gather food
( ... )
I got the impression (and I think it's explicitly stated later in the book) that Bregan was aware of what an awful thing to do it was, just didn't give a damn.
Does he want to kill the Oldgods? I got the impression he just wanted the Darkspawn to be in a spot where they could ignore the call. I thought it was him trying to "Awaken" the oldgod when he kicked off the Blight, but I can't find a Youtube clip of it, so maybe I made it up.
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Why is Bregan not reacting like it's a dumb plan? Are we meant to be reading that his mental capacities have been diminished by the advanced corruption?
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Add into it the fact that each successive Blight has been defeated, if not easily, than easier than the previous ones, and I'm not seeing the drama. There is an end, though much pain and blood and suffering, but there is an end.
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But I'm not too concerned about what would happen if all the Wardens were killed. Thedas survived a century without them, generations of people being born into the Blight, if all the current ones were killed, more would rise to take their place. Which is an oddly positive viewpoint considering it's coming from me.
But yeah, something is off with Bregan. I'm normally the one defending the writing as being secretly good, but I'm just not sure in this particular case. I wish we had a more obvious indication that he was slipping, maybe if we'd seen him before hand.
I will say, considering the situation and his plan in Awakening, the Architect does seem to be consistently detached from reality.
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That's not what the Pope said! Get it? Because he was opposed to the Peace of Westphalia? ... Look it's a history joke, you work with what you've got.
Actually the Thirty Year's War had a bigger impact on Europe than WW2, looking at length of time, percentage of population that died (though Poland gets scary close), direct changes to society and how long recovery took. I'd be really surprised if WW2 was treated as that big a deal in three hundred years, and I intend to live that long just so I can find out.
Back on topic, even with the Warden's active knowledge of how dangerous the darkspawn are, knowing how close they are to destroying everything on a good day, and records of how much worse a full on Blight is, with just ancient stories and records to go on, it seems to me that it might become a bit ... theoretical ( ... )
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It's a matter of degree.
A Blight isn't just being threatened by a weapon during a mugging. It's being Jewish and living in occupied Poland.
But just because there isn't a World War going on doesn't mean the Grey Wardens don't know how bad an armed force is. Like randomcheeses said, they have regular reminders of how bad the darkspawn are--any time a new Warden is recruited, they need darkspawn blood to do it. I haven't read WoT yet to know if they've gone into detail about that, but logically, the Grey Wardens would probably need to take a trip or Orzamaar and head into the Deep Roads to get a fresh supply of blood for the new recruits and if it's anything like Origins, they'd make the recruits themselves do it to get the first taste of what fighting darkspawn is like ( ... )
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Wait, is that what you're talking about?
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