One thing which always struck me as wrong in Dragon Age was in the first game where you visit... That town, I forget the name, the one where the lord's son was a mage who had lost control and this lead to the entire place being taken over by the undead and the entire population of the (gigantic) castle turned into skeletons and ghosts.
So apparently one child with mage powers losing control could literally slaughter thousands of people and wipe out a major settlement. If mages are this dangerous? Well the arguments for the circle system become a lot more reasonable especially given the state of the circle when you actually get there. If anything it is amazing that humanity has not been literally wiped out due to one untrained mage losing control apparently being able to overwhelm essentially anything.
But the world is also literally full of myriad independent mages who are 1) Not turning everything into a hellscape and 2) Not even particularly more dangerous than a guy with a sword? Not much consistency. It is not as if they remarked upon the lord's son being exceptionally powerful or something which would have been easy enough to write in.
It was very much 'This is why they do this horrible oppression!' then never backed it up in the setting ever again.