"Well. I imagine what they told us won't shock you. Contain abominations, keep everyone safe from mages gone wrong. Keep mages safe from fearful peasants, maybe, though I thought that argument was a bit weak even at the time. After all, they let some of us out to help with the Darkspawn. Stakes are high enough, they're willing to risk it."

His hands are folded; he absently runs a finger along the side of a ring he's wearing.

Quieter, he says, "But it's much easier, isn't it. Telling people that mages are dangerous if they've never met one who isn't a small child. If they've never met one at all. Easier telling people we're too different, that there's no practical way we can live with normal people. That it's better for everyone if we're kept apart and to ourselves. How many people were in a position to say anything different, especially here in Ferelden?" No Grand Necropolis that needed tending; no nobles eager to ensure their afterlives were shepherded properly. Just a population who heard nothing about the mages at all, or that some of the had inevitably become Abominations as expected, though even that probably made less of an impression than it otherwise would have if it hadn't happened in the middle of a Blight. Normal people had other things to worry about.