Okay. With apologies to the person asking the question, general stuff first. I have no idea whether anybody who cares will read this. I don’t have a whole lot of followers. If a couple of people want to talk to me, I’m impressed. I’ve had things reblogged before, of course. But I don’t think I’ve ever really hit ‘controversial’ before, so I haven’t really had people arguing with me en masse. I mean – people thinking I managed some moderately funny snark about Varric isn’t the same thing.
I’m not even sure what the etiquette is here. Am I supposed to go through everyone who’s responded? I’d rather not. It’s not even the ratio of nonsense to sense – there’s just too much for that to be any fun. However, I am not setting out to ignore or avoid anyone or anything in particular. If anybody wants to draw my attention to a particular argument, they’re welcome to.
Otherwise, this is likely all I’ll say about it.
So, then, onto the substance.
I don’t think I made the argument ‘’he was violent, ergo not a terrorist’. That would be very silly, as the two are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, terrorism is a particular kind of violence.
However, the mere fact that people were afraid during the Kirkwall uprising does not automatically make a thing terrorism. Many things, both violent and otherwise, make people afraid, and they are not all terrorism.
Example.
Say I have a neighbour (invented) who decides to kill her husband for insurance money. Say she decides to do this by blowing up their house while he is inside it, so it looks as though a gas leak caused it. Say I am standing at the end of the street when this occurs, and end up ducking debris and dodging cars that have swerved off the road, and even see the remains of the dead man. That would almost certainly terrify me. But that’s not terrorism, it’s just a really flashy way of committing murder. My fear is incidental to the whole thing.
I realise that people can be vague about whether a particular act constitutes terrorism. It is, after all, a politically convenient word. People were committing terrorist acts well before we had a word for what they were doing, and are still doing so now. And of course, denouncing someone as a terrorist is a very good way of attacking them and shutting off potential support: you can’t agree with them, they’re a terrorist, and if you do, then you’re a terrorist too.
But if the word is to have any meaning at all, then surely it must be the threat that defines it. Many things cause fear, but terrorism is an attempt to shape people’s actions through fear. It is holding people’s emotions to ransom. In an act of terrorism, surely any initial act, however horrible, is not the point of the thing. Rather, it is the threat that it will happen again if certain demands are not met, or a certain ideology is not capitulated to.
We have shown you what we can do. Now give in, unless you want more of the same.
What Anders did was violent. It was a big, flashy murder with added destruction of public property. It had to be, so there could be no denial of what happened or who was responsible. It had to be big enough and public enough that there could be no cover up. Let’s face it: the Chantry is very good at covering up what it doesn’t like.
But, given that, it was about as non-threatening as possible. It was, at least, a contained act of violence.
To reiterate:
1) He did not use magic – not for anything flint and steel couldn’t have accomplished just as well, anyway. He did not invent some terrible new spell that other mages could then use on their enemies. He did not pass on to them the secret skill of killing lots of people.
That gaatlok is a weapon, not of mages, but of ordinary people, is a point raised repeatedly in the game. It’s why Javaris wants it, and the elven woman in Act 2 tries to make it. This is not some horrible new power that people suddenly need fear the mages have over them. In theory, anybody could do it.
2) Of course, in practice, nobody could do it. Anders has got hold of the formula for gunpowder, and he does not tell anybody exactly how to make it – not even a 100% friend Hawke. Otherwise, only the Qunari have the skill, and they’re the last people likely to back the mages. Even competing (and apparently inferior) lyrium explosives are risky to make; Dworkin is driven into hiding by the Qunari for his work. Thedas is largely an explosives-free zone.
It might be possible, of course, for somebody else to start from scratch and work out the formula. Just about anything is possible. But, despite, the obvious market and the gleeful military advantage that could be gained from using the infamous Qunari weapon against them, so far, nobody else has managed to figure it out. Insofar as he could, Anders ensured that no one could repeat what he did. There is no threat that he or anybody affiliated with him will do this again.
3) Anders makes himself available for arrest the moment the deed is done. If people are concerned that he might do such a thing again, they have the means to ensure that he will not. He can be arrested, interrogated and dealt with then and there. He admits to the crime and he acts in front of witnesses. Hawke, too, is a witness. Unless you hate quests, you’ll have done Justice, so you’ll know who helped him gather ingredients (Hawke) and who gave him the opportunity to plant the blackpowder (also Hawke). Hawke did not know exactly what they were doing, so we know exactly who is responsible. It’s Anders. If the people of Kirkwall feel threatened, it is very easy for them to assuage their fears.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? No one really cares about Anders. Well, Sebastian does, but his reasons are personal. No one is afraid of Anders, or of what he has done. No one in authority makes a move against him. What fear there is already exists. People fear mages because of what they are, not because of anything in particular they have done.
People don’t fear mages because they can make Chantries explode. I mean – they can’t, on the whole, do that. They fear mages because the Chantry has told them to fear mages. They fear mages because mages are segregated from normal society, and few people know them personally. They fear mages because so many lies have been told about them that the idea that they’re basically just people, the same as anyone else, is almost unthinkable.
Anders is not making a threat. He is not going to blow up anything else (he does not expect to live to do so), and he has not given anyone else the means to do the same. He is not doing something that only a mage could do, to demonstrate how powerful they are. He is not insinuating that others could do what he has done, so people should be afraid.
All he is doing is making public what was going to happen anyway. Anders commits a crime, and Meredith Annuls the Circle. Why? Because that’s what she was always going to do.
Though absolutely violent, it is, in a way, the opposite of terrorism, because the point is not that people should be afraid of mages – but rather that they should not be afraid of mages. The point is that mages are afraid. The point is that mages are prisoners. The point is that mages are helpless against the wrath of the Chantry. The point is that, if the Templars decide to murder mages, the law will not make them stop. The point is that any excuse will do for killing mages; it does not matter how innocent they are.
The Chantry explosion was loud, and the people unlucky enough to be in there died, and there was a giant hole in Hightown where a building used to be. That probably frightened people. Agreed. But that fear was not the point of the act – it was an inevitable and tragic side effect of it.
The people who were more afraid were the ones in the Circle. Anders did not create that fear either: they were already afraid, because they were already doomed.
Anders deliberately framed himself as a villain, in order to highlight the plight of the other mages. They pay for his crime, because no one ever cared who was responsible. He did this to demonstrate that the things done to them are wrong, horrible, and not their fault. The end goal is that people empathise with the mages.
So that is why I would say blowing up the Chantry was not terrorism.
Reblogging because Mllmead is making a terribly good point I had never thought about before.
ANDERS, IN MAKING A POINT AGAINST MAGE OPPRESSION USES A WEAPON THAT CAUSES A LOT OF DESTRUCTION AND THAT EVERYBODY CAN USE.
He is ALSO saying: “Your excuse to hate us is that we can do a lot of damage, but look. EVERYBODY can”
And that is… very interesting. And true.
Everybody could have. You need not to be a mage to use gaatlock.
So is the Chantry going to put everybody who could do what Anders has done in prison now?
Gonna run out of people soon.
Didn’t Anders generate fear, though? By causing violence, he struck fear in the hearts of all those present. People watched their loved ones explode, people died in terror and in pain. The people of Kirkwall were afraid. Violence is a tool that causes fear, not some separate entity entirely. You can’t just say ‘he was violent, ergo not a terrorist’, especially if even by your own definition, Anders is a terrorist because he caused terror in his wake.
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