“Not being able to side with The Arishok. (064)”
Wait. Really? I mean, this is worse than siding with the templars in many ways (and for the sake of this argument, I’m assuming player-sympathy rather than character-sympathy here as I’ve talked to far too many people on the BSN who are very much pro-Qun).
Let’s take a refresher in what supporting the Arishok means. It means that all mages get their mouths sewn shut, are dehumanized to the point of not being viewed as sentient beings at all (the name saarebas translates into “dangerous thing,” after all), and are obligated to kill themselves if they’re ever out of contact from their masters. This goes beyond the already horrific practice of slavery because you are teaching an already marginalized group that they not only don’t have rights, but don’t have any sort of value the way other humans (or Kossith) do.
But hey, you say, I’m not a mage. Why do I care? Well, because the Qun also features a rigid caste system that you can’t escape. Are you a woman who wants to fight? Tough nuts, because the Qun says men do it better. So even if you’re really suited towards being a warrior, because the Qun believes men are physically more suited for this work, you don’t get to fight. If you’re really lucky, maybe they’ll let you join the Ben-Hassrath. There you can indoctrinate and brainwash other people into seeing how you see.
I know the games haven’t specifically gone into brainwashing techniques yet, but I’ve studied up on them when I was learning about cults for my studies in criminology. Many common techniques include: food and water deprivation, randomly alternating periods of light and darkness, constant loud music, sleep deprivation, etc. Experts have found that if you keep your subjects from sleeping and take away their ability to tell time, you can pretty much make any person susceptible to programming in as few as three days. Assuming the Qun aren’t this advanced, we’re probably talking a week or more of hellish conditions just to churn out loyal followers to the Qun.
Furthermore, this is a culture that stifles free will. We’re talking no choosing what you want to do, who you want to marry (because “breeding” is tightly controlled by the Qun), or anything else. You do as you’re told and that’s it. It’s really a kind of nightmare scenario if you think about it hard enough.
So please, someone tell me why they want to side with the Arishok beyond, “he has a cool voice” or “he’s a badass.” Yeah, he might be. That doesn’t make him a good person or his values anything close to what we might call &ldqu
(via andromedasreach)
