Skinwalker
*teleports inside you*
As I said, if the Golden City was already evil by the time the magisters arrived, it would have been visible to everyone as a dark rather than golden city, and thus the magisters would have no reason to want to go there.1. Evilification of the Golden City seems to have happened after. The lore(church history) stated that Magisters went to the golden city, it was awesome, turned evil, and the Maker turned them into Darkspawn. Corypheus states that they arrived at the Golden City and it was already empty and full of Darkspawn. Darkspawn(and this isnt really covered in the games too well) have this corrupting effect on everything they touch, its like an aura that radiates, so I assume the Golden City looked more and more like Barad-Dur the longer the Darkspawn were around.
"Seems to have happened after" - after what? You're positing a city that looks golden from the outside, is actually full of evil from the inside, and then starts looking evil from the outside after the magisters invade it. This is nonsense.
He confirms nothing of the sort.When Hawke meets Corypheus in the DA2 DLC he confirms that the "golden city" was an illusion