Blood magic in Dragon Age - Your opinions

[Arrogancy]

You present a number of good points, and I'm respecting your position, but allow me to clarify what I meant.

When I say that teaching it openly to mages above apprentice or journeyman level would help restrict the risks, it's like the difference between teaching someone how to use guns properly, and showing them which ones are allowed by law, vs, the guy who gets them on the black market, and uses the biggest baddest thing he can afford with enough skill that he risks shooting himself in half as much as the next guy.

The reason it was so effective during Uldred's attempt was due to one, dragging Demons over into the fight, and two, no one else knew blood magic to any degree enough to counter it or it's effects. Part of having an effective defense is to understand how the magic coming at you works and undermining it. If it were taught more openly with restrictions, you'd be able to keep tabs on more of those who show interest, watch them more closely for abuse.

Yes there will always be those who go to the demon's to learn, but it'd be infinitely more simple to police non demon influenced mages teaching the craft than what they have to put up with now. That said, other than a few examples, there is no proof that using blood magic is in fact corruptive. Almost all blood mages who wound up possessed learned it from Demon's or so blatantly went above and beyond safety parameters that it's laughable to consider them as uninfluenced scientific proof that the magic is corruptive.

yes I know I just tried to apply science to Magic, and honestly, it's a viable idea, especially with how DA magic works. You can scientifically catelogue it's function, mechanics, etc.

don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to force my view as utterly correct, I'm trying to hammer out what is more likely the truth by bouncing things back and forth between your critical eye and mine and seeing what the end result is.

You make a good counterpoint, however your response doesn't fix the problem. In fact, it widens it rather astonishingly.

You have a fair point that the corruptive effects of Blood Magic are debatable, much to the point that it calls into question whether the power itself is necessarily 'evil'. This doesn't negate the fact that Blood Magic is itself unholy and in no small part risky, not only to the caster, but to every person around them. You can't deny that for every blood mage like Jowan, there's a hundred like Uldred.

All mages are at risk of becoming possessed by demons. That's the nature of magic and the nature of demons, however, blood mages and maleficarum are at an extremely heightened risk. By starting large-scale education of Blood Magic you broaden the pool of those who are at heightened risk and, therefore, increase dramatically the risk of those people becoming abominations.

As to your example of Uldred's attempted coup, there were, in fact, measures to counter Blood Magic in place. The Litany of Adralla is the eminent counter-ward to Blood Magic, particularly brainwashing. Adralla wasn't a blood mage or maleficar, she was a devout Andrastian whose work to stem the power of Blood Magic was through her abstaining of it, not her use of it. Most of the possessed mages from the tower were Uldred acolytes, not the vast majority of the mages. It could be argued that, were every mage in the Circle trained in the maleficarum arts, far more would have been possessed due to a greater attraction of demons.

The comparison of Blood Magic to guns is somewhat incorrect. Yes, not every Blood Mage will become an abomination, and training in the art of Blood Magic would make a marginally safer environment, but the power itself is exceptionally volatile. In its best case, it's used as a tool specifically designed to break and destroy men (elves, dwarves, etc.), at its worst it invites the destruction of the caster and the obliteration of everyone within striking distance. Rather than training with a gun, it's more like releasing poisonous gas into the air. If the wind blows the correct way, you'll only kill your enemies, but if the winds turn, it will come back at you and nothing can stop it. It can't be aimed and it can't be controlled.

Furthermore, encouraging Blood Magic wouldn't necessarily make surveillance any easier. It's a fallacy to assume that encouraging the study of Blood Magic would make the more destructive mages more obvious to track. There is nothing to say that those with a greater propensity toward Blood Magic wouldn't be more able to easily blend in with their peers. It seems to me that such practices would give the more destructive a free pass to conduct their practices more openly, and with less room for punitive action on the part of regulating authorities (i.e. the Chantry and the Templars). If anything, encouraging the open study of Blood Magic encourages the creation of a greater volume of more dangerous maleficarum.

 

[5ilver]

The disconnect between gameplay and story was both hilarious and jarring at the same time. Aaand blood spec+arcane warrior pretty much breaks the first game. (I didn't like Blood Magic in the 2nd game that much).

 

[Fetus]

Funny I was playing as my mage in DA:O when I get off to see this thread.

Anyway, as many have said before I think it's pretty useless to use as a mage.
Story wise, everyone who seems to use it goes insane and tries to kill you so it's a no no.