Yeah, I think much of the sympathy for mages and hatred of Templars (or how terrible it is to be either of them, for all that) in fandom comes from how you play a mage. But you don't play a peasant or templar, so you're inclined to feel sorry for the mages.

Then again, it's odd to me how rarely in fandom it's brought up that Alistair is a poor, miserable templar who barely makes it out of the Chantry. (And I'm curious, too, as to why so many mages in the stories hook up with him without being all like "eewww, get away from me mage killer!" Although I think that this is Lehni's impression of him. ;)