kingmeghren:
dalish-ious:
mllemaenad:
After several years as Meredith’s second-in-command, Cullen was beginning to question the blind loyalty with which he had followed her. Relations between the city’s mages and Templars were growing worse. More and more, the templars confided their own slips to Cullen, fearful of the punishments Meredith gave for even minor infractions. While still ill at ease among large groups of mages, he was beginning to notice the tension and fear that filled the eyes of his charges. It was fear reminiscent of his own, and it troubled him. These were the people he had sworn to protect. Meanwhile, Meredith had become increasingly guarded and evasive when questioned, expecting his devotion.
– World of Thedas II
Bullshit. I know I’ve said this before, but I’m in Act 3 of Dragon Age 2, now. The midden has hit the windmill. The moment to act is now. Every mage in the Gallows is in mortal peril. This is the story the Inquisition’s propagandists spin about Cullen’s activities during this period. And it is one of the ugliest coverups in the entire game series. So: bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bull-bloody-shit.
We have the background on this already:
We know that Cullen was the driving force behind the destruction of the mage underground – a heroic group of mages and their friends and families who were devoted to rescuing the Gallows prisoners:
To Knight-Commander Meredith, re. the so-called “Mage Underground”
Every Circle in Thedas suffers from individual mages who rebel and attempt to flee. These apostates are usually found and returned to the Circle or mercifully killed if they have fallen to demonic temptation. Until now, I have never served anywhere that the populace does not fully cooperate in hunting these rebels.
Here in Kirkwall, citizens actually help rebel mages escape. Escaped apostates have survived their freedom long enough to form the “the mage underground,” a network that feeds and shelters escapees and even transports apostates into remote areas of the Free Marches and beyond our easy reach.
As of late, the movement has grown bolder, sending raiding parties into the Gallows in an attempt to break out mages who lack the skills or willpower to escape on their own. This is a grave concern. My recommendation is to fight back, both physically and in turning the minds and hearts of their supporters against them.
– Knight-Captain Cullen
– The Mage Underground
We know that this was more than a policy recommendation: Cullen is seen acting on his own advice in the quest Enemies Among Us when he assaults and threatens with torture a young recruit whom he suspects of associating with the underground.
Wilmod: Don’t hit me.
Cullen: Wilmod has never been fully … convinced of the Order’s rules. Mages cannot be our friends. They must always be watched.
Cullen: I thought Wilmod might be meeting with some old friends who’d escaped the Circle.
The idea that Templars with sympathy for mages, or even Templars who failed to be as brutal and severe as Meredith wanted, would feel safe confiding in a man who drew his sword on a boy on the mere suspicion of associating with mages is fucking laughable.
World of Thedas II would have us believe that:
Kirkwall’s Templars were unsure what to make of their newest member. He startled easily and conversed little, save to wake his comrades with disturbed muttering. The mages found Cullen civil but cold. A note dated soon after his arrival, found wedged in a mage’s closet, read: “Danger? No. But cannot be trusted.”
– World of Thedas II
In fact, it is virtually impossible to get Cullen to shut up, particularly on the subject of why mages are dangerous, and far from being civil but cold he outright dehumanises them, clearly creating a mental image of ‘monsters’ that can be put down without regret.
Cullen: The Templars are not a good choice for anyone who requires a strong sense of achievement.
Cullen: It is a losing battle. Every day new mages are born in Thedas. Every day, those born a dozen years ago come into their power.
Cullen: The best we can do is contain the threat … and recruit more to fill our own ranks when they’re emptied.
Cullen: The image of the poor, chained apprentice is a powerful one. And one the mages are more than willing to exploit.
Cullen: The Tranquil ritual was created as a mercy so that mages need not be killed out of hand for the threat they might pose.
Cullen: There is an argument to be made for applying it more widely.
But we’re past even that, now. Beatings, rapes, illegal Tranquility – that’s all old hat, now. In Act 3, the Templar Order has usurped the throne of the viscount of Kirkwall. The city is under combined Chantry and martial law, as Templars occupy positions of power and rule the streets.
And the mages? They nothing more nor less than walking dead men and women.
Ser Karras: All mages are confined to their quarters.
Ser Karras: The knight-commander has sent to Val Royeaux for the Right of Annulment.
Ser Karras: Those robes are gonna get their lesson. Soon.
Meredith is going to do this. Let’s be quite clear: this isn’t some secret. Her subordinates know about it, and will discuss it openly. The mages have already been imprisoned in their cells in preparation for this act of mass murder. It doesn’t matter if the mages catch wind of it ahead of time: they’re locked up; organising or resisting would be virtually impossible. They’re screwed: every six-year-old apprentice, 80-year-old senior enchanter and everyone in between is going to die.
Let it be said that not every Templar in Kirkwall behaved abominably that year. Some of them found their courage, and did the right thing.
Meredith: There was an incident within the Gallows. A number of phylacteries were destroyed and several mages took the opportunity to escape.
Meredith: We’ve recovered most of the fugitives. However, I require your assistance in tracking down the last three.
Hawke: How did the phylacteries get destroyed?
Meredith: An insurrection. Several of my own Templars orchestrated the escape, presumably out of sympathy for the mages.
We can likely identify these people: these would be Thrask’s rebels; a group of people committed to bringing Meredith down before she murders the entire Circle – and likely half of Kirkwall while she’s at it. There may be some genuine radicals in the group – Samson ran with them, after all – but most of them will have been convinced by Thrask. And Thrask spews the same kind of Templars-protect-mages bullshit you get from most ‘good’ Templars.
These are people who will have been okay with kidnapping children from their homes, with forcing apprentices to choose between the Harrowing and Tranquility, with the execution of blood mages and with the general expectation that mages will live out their whole lives in the Gallows, with only a handful leaving to serve the Wardens or the nobility.
But even these people have now reached their breaking point. They have looked at the situation and realised that they have only two options: get the mages out, or let them die. They are aiding mages in becoming apostates because if they do not, every one of them will soon die on the end of a Templar sword.
This is how bad it is in the Gallows. This is where we are.
And Cullen? Well, let’s take a fucking look at Cullen, shall we?
Hawke: If it comes to war with the mages, whose side do you think the grand cleric will take?
Cullen: She is bound by faith and duty to support the Templars.
Cullen: We have dominance over mages by divine right.
Let’s be clear on what ‘support the Templars’ means. Grand Cleric Elthina is an elderly woman with no known military training. She is not going to charge into battle beside the Templars. When Cullen says Elthina is required to support them, he means she is required to invoke the Right of Annulment. She is required to provide legal cover for the Templars’ actions.
There is no ‘war’ with the mages. The Kirkwall mages are not an army, and they are not invading anything. This is in stark contrast to the Templar Order which has overthrown and likely murdered one viscount, blackmailed a second, and recently outright usurped control of Kirkwall. Rather, the mages are being tortured and killed, and any act of self defence on their part is regarded as an act of aggression. Even any attempt to flee is regarded as an act of aggression.
While Elthina has not given permission yet, and Meredith has sent to Val Royeaux instead to expedite the process, Cullen firmly believes that she will give permission – should the Kirkwall mages make any further attempts to defend themselves from Templar attacks.
Cullen isn’t on Thrask’s side here. He’s on Karras’s side, and Meredith’s.
Cullen is not a man who was cold and difficult, and perhaps a little too strict with the mages at the outset, but did the right thing when he saw how afraid and oppressed the Kirkwall mages were. Rather, he favours their continued oppression – and outright murder should they offer any resistance to that oppression.
Cullen: What he did to the men under his command was unacceptable.
Cullen: He betrayed their trust, betrayed ours. I despise him for it.
This is Cullen’s reaction to finding out that ‘Blackwall’ is actually Thom Rainier, a man who is responsible for the murder of an entire family. Cullen is … remarkably comfortable with judging other people, given that he assaulted a Templar recruit on the suspicion of consorting with mages … arrested Thrask’s rebels when they attempted to return the Templar Order to its proper place in society, even though he himself recognised that Meredith was increasingly unfit for duty … and ultimately supported Meredith when she chose to illegally (as she had no order from a grand cleric) Annul the Kirkwall Circle for a crime they didn’t commit.
He too led his men into an act of mass murder, even though he knew what it was. Meredith was beyond reason at that point – but he wasn’t. And it is worth remembering that there would have been far more than the four children Blackwall murdered in the Kirkwall Circle.
But Cullen has got away with it. The official story is now that he was a good man who made some mistakes, but did his best in trying circumstances. So yes – he’s very comfortable passing judgement, knowing that no one can now pass judgement on him.
This is Knight-Captain Cullen Rutherford: devoted second-in-command to Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard, murderer of the mage underground and butcher of the Kirkwall Circle.
If it’s reasonable to hang Rainier for his crimes, I damn well think we should be hanging Cullen for his.
I can’t remember the last time–if ever–I’ve read such a well written post about this.
Can I also point out (not as eloquently or with receipts) that if you side with the Templars/kill the mages in DAO Cullen takes the place of Knight Commander in the Circle of Magi.
He is considered /worse/ than Knight Commander Greagoir; the man who locked mages, including completely defenceless children, in a tower infested with abominations and rife with blood magic to protect his own men. Men who were employed to destroy abominations and keep mages ‘safe’.
You can imagine that those Templars who were in the foyer(?) of the Circle Tower ran for their lives, cowardly, ignoring the threat to both the people they’re supposed to protect and their brothers and sisters in arms. Then agreed that they all need to be slaughtered.