Chapter Text
What Rights Do Mages Even Possess?
The short answer:
None
The long answer: everything that follows. A record of every law, every chain, every sanctified cruelty that keeps the answer exactly the same.
Mages are dehumanised and persecuted for nothing more than being born with a gift — a gift bestowed upon us by the Maker himself.
The moment your magic manifests, you cease to be a person in the eyes of the Chantry. Frost on a four-year-old’s bedsheet after a nightmare or a twelve-year-old setting fire to something in juvenile anger — it does not matter.
From that one moment, the rights you once had are stripped away.
It is not a sin to be a mage; nor is it a crime, a test or a divine punishment. It is only the Chantry’s teachings that convince even your own family to fear or abandon you.
To imprison all mages simply because they can wield magic and might one day misuse it is no different than caging all dogs because they have teeth capable of tearing flesh, just to prevent one from biting.
Such indiscriminate punishment is not justice — it is fear dressed as control. It condemns the innocent alongside the guilty, breeds resentment, and ensures nothing but suffering and rebellion. The answer is not fear or confinement, but guidance, education, understanding, and trust.
So why are mages treated as monsters before they have done any harm?
Andraste suffered at the hands of magisters. Thus, she feared the influence of magic. But if the Maker blamed magic for the magisters' actions in the Black City, why would He still gift us with it?
The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker.