#THE ONLY ANCIENT ELF WE KNOW IS FLEMETH
Text
Zathrian’s Quest
[Updated post, originally from here]
Replaying Dragon Age Origin I realised details about Zathrian’s quest that, I think, were or are a rough foreshadowing of the Elvhenan. The whole quest of the Werewolf Curse in the Brecilian Forest provides interesting information as well as questions. The following post contains
Parallel with Solas
Parallel with the Elvhenan: immortality
Blood magic and Immortality
“The nature of things is unchangeable”: another parallel with Solas’ thinking
Parallel with the Maker
What we can infer from all this?
[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]
[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]
Refreshing the Quest: Zathrian is an elf hundred years old. He claims that he has recovered the ancient elven ability of being immortal, but we know later it's because a curse: he bound a Spirit [the spirit of the forest] to a white wolf.
Parallel with Solas
Zathrian and Solas share similar design (only the lack of Vallaslin in Solas makes them different, taking into account the different games engines). Later, we will realise that this design is the way elvhenan used to be: bulky bald elves [Abelas and his people share this design as well. The only one who differs seems to be Felassan, who has violet eyes and hair]. In fact, in the late game Heroes of Dragon Age, Zathrian is presented using a wolf fur in similar fashion to Solas. I think that, from a design point of view, there was an intention to encourage the player to think in the parallels between these two characters and their quests
Solas and Zathrian want to recover what was lost (For Zathrian, his family; for Solas, his “people”), but for Zathrian it is impossible. So Zathrian resorts to vengeance. Solas, on the other hand, has the power of a god, so he doesn’t need to “cling to what once was because lacks of any power to change it” [as he describes Abelas]. He just wants to and can fix his “past mistakes” that destroyed the "People”’s world. However, Revenge doesn’t apply to Solas: he doesn’t want any kind of revenge per se, but now that he has absorbed Mythal, maybe his actions will end up in a sort of revenge in her name [Let’s remember Flemeth always said that she wanted to avenge Mythal]. It’s not clear what terms Flemeth, Mythal, and Solas reached in agreement when Solas took Mythal’s power in favour of The People.
Both of them have a great care for their people to the point to make big mistakes. Zatrian's revenge started to affect his own clan, and he truly regrets this to the point to end his life to solve it (well, you can solve this in many ways, that’s not canon but it’s a possibility). Solas is all the time thinking in “his people” (the non-evanuris elvhen) and we know that he destroyed them when he created the Veil, in an attempt to protect them, to free them form their masters, and to protect the world since the Evanuris unleashed something terrible [details in “The Death of a Titan”]. In the process, Solas removed the nature of the elvhen people and turned them into mortals like the humans.
Zatrian finally sees his mistake and ceases the conflict. Solas acknowledges his past mistake, but on the other hand, he claims he had no other choice [which I personally believe since the codex in “The Death of a Titan” implies that the world had been doomed with the evil that the Evanuris unleashed]. Now he wishes he can be wrong again and someone would give him another choice than destroying the Veil and get rid of the sealed Evanuris for good.
A minor design common symboly that both of them have is the wolf: Solas represents an entity that the Evanuris made a propaganda against, calling him the Wolf Fen’Harel who is related to black wolves, while Zathrian is related to a white wolf, to whom he bind the Spirit of the Forest.
Parallel with Elvhenan: immortality
Elvhen Immortality is a big mystery in the DA series, kind of resolved in DAI when speaking with Solas [details in Solas sharing Lore: Part 1]. There, we learn that the Elvhenan immortality was a consequence of the kind of magic they manipulated and therefore, part of their own nature.
Zathrian’s story is an important quest in DAO because he may or may not offer an answer to some Elvhenan mysteries. The fact that Zathrian IS immortal in a post-Veil era is a mind-blow (we know that in Dragon Age world there are three rules that prevent mages to acquire three things with magic: instant teleportation, immortality/agelessness, and physical walks in the Fade [explicit in the codex The Cardinal Rules of Magic]. Ironically all of them were completely overruled by Ancient Elven magic. Thus, we can see the limitless power of elven magic. On the other hand, it’s worth remembering that Elvhenan were not exactly mortals in the same sense that Humans are: they were more related to the Spirits and the “brethren of the air” than to dwarves or humans. There are some hints that may suggest that they found power in dragon blood or dragon means [Mythal was a dragon, and they considered a winged shape as “divine”, implying that it may have been the draconic shape; details of all these things in posts: Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins, Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara, and the comic series: The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak, Until We Sleep].
According to the story, Zathrian acquired immortality and agelessness through binding a spirit to a white wolf. Here is the other recurring topic in Elvhenan lore: the binding processes, specially explored in posts such as Ancient Elven codices; The Lost Temple of Dirthamen and Humanoid Dirthamen. Elvhenan had developed a culture of binding, that may be related to the original purpose of the Vallaslins. This brings a lot of questions, situations, and potential retcons.
Forced bound: Flemeth would say “a soul cannot be forced upon the unwilling”, and Solas claims that Spirits and Demons are the same: Spirits are a purpose, while a Demon is that purpose going wrong or being perverted, forced to do another purpose against their will [details in Solas sharing Lore: Part 1]. So maybe when Zathrian forced the binding, he caused the corruption of the Spirit of the Forest and the curse of the werewolves, basically spreading this savage rage in them. It seems reasonable to think that an extra side-effect of this bound process is the immortality of the one performing the ritual. This would be material for speculation about the origin of the Blight if it were not for a small detail: it has been stated in codex that this spirit [the Lady of the Forest] is not from the Fade... which is something so wrong in DA lore in my personal opinion. So far we know all spirits in DA series come from the Fade. I guess it was a mistake, or the lore was still not as mature and rounded-up as it was in DAI.
It's true we have others examples in the game: The Oak Tree who speaks in rhymes looks like another kind of strange spirit, but taking into account what he says... it's pretty clear that he is something else, like Flemeth or Anders. In them, the spirit has joined to the soul willingly, so the merge is quite different.
In fact, depending on how many other examples I see of these strange possessions along the games in minor quests (topic quite more repetitive than I had expected), I would bet that the process of binding [or more like possession of] a spirit to a material body can be fine as long as it's willingly [Anders, Wynne, Flemeth, Sigrid Gulsdotten, Solas?, for more details about why I consider Solas a bound spirit read “Solas’ nature” section in Solas sharing Lore: Part 1 ]. When it's forced, abominations happen but it seems with Zathrian that other things may occur: curses, corruption. It's clear that the spirit in this case has to be one which embodies good positive virtues. The Lady of the Forest seems to be a Spirit of the Calm or something like that [but well, she is not from the Fade, so it makes no sense to compare her to one of those spirits. But I would like to assume that the fact that she is not from the Fade is a lore mistake]. When it's a demon the one binding to the material body... things end up out of control [Grey Wardens in DAI binding themselves to "negative emotion spirits”=demons.]
What it’s clear is that in Zathrian’s quest, Immortality is part of the curse, and it exists as long as the curse exists. When we are told by Solas that the Elvhenan were immortal due to a side-effect of the kind of magic they used, would that be possible to interpret it as a curse coming from their culture of binding? I found no answers about this interpretation, sadly.
Blood magic and Immortality
This is subtle, but the Lady explicitly said that her binding with Witherfang could have never been done without Zatrian's blood. And I think there is a little hint here about the fact that Elvhenan were immortals. This is a specualtion and not a fact: according to what they say in this scene, we know that Zathrian used his blood to bind a spirit to a body of the material world (a white wolf). Somehow, the process granted him immortality, and caused a curse. If we try to use this piece of lore in the ancient Elvhenan time, we may find interesting potential ideas: Blood magic done by Evanuris to bind creatures of the Fade with creatures of the material world and take advantage of them seems to fit the hypothesis that the vallaslin [tattoos made out of blood=potential blood magic] was forced onto elvhen bodies [created by the Earth that was stolen from the Titans, Solas sharing Lore: Part 1] in order to create slaves or ,maybe even the creatures from the story The Horror of Hormak .
We know the Vallaslin are done with blood/lyrium and originally we have no idea if they were strongly magical to the point to bind several elves to an Evanuris. Via Abelas we know that drinking from the Well of Mythal [potentially part of the process to have her Vallaslin and serve her] makes you empty and bound to the Evanuris for Eternity [details in Temple of Myhtal: Part 5] . I’m speculating that the Well of Sorrows was involved in some manner during the process of the Mythal Vallaslin.
It’s true that the situation in current Thedas is not the same as it was in the ancient times. The world was not separated in Fade and Waking World, and Elvhenan were something in between spirits and mortal elves. I'm not saying Zatrian's quest shows exactly what Elvhenan did in those ancient times. But it could be a version/pararell, a pinch of truth in the broken world that Thedas was left [which is basically how Solas always encouraged us to see all what we know and read in game: Tales hide a bit of truth, but not all of them have historical accurancy].
“The nature of things is unchangeable”: another parallel with Solas’ thinking
I liked this other parallel too. Solas has a pretty elvhenan mindset and he has shown in Inquisition more than once that he is convinced that the nature of things cannot change. He says it with his friend Wisdom [who is corrupted when it is forced to fight and defend the mages that bind it], he repeated it with Cole's quest, proving himself wrong [more details in Solas sharing Lore: Part 1 ]. And he repeated it once more with the inquisitor, which depending of their race, Solas will drop some bias/predjuice proper of “your race has a nature that can't be changed”. And in most Solas-Friendly playthroughs, the player proves him wrong again.
Zathrian is pretty much the same with less opportunities to repeat it, though. He claims that werewolves are beasts, slave of their bestial nature, and that the spirit follows the same rule, even though she is calmer than a lake's water and her purpose and role inside the werewolf community seem to be of bringing calmness to them.
Parallel with the Maker
The Lady of the Forest is half humanoid and half wolf, and considering all the specualtion around Solas’ nature [Solas sharing Lore: Part 1 ] one is prone to think if similar process happened to Solas.
“You are my Maker”
This was such a strong sentence in the context of DA world. I don't believe it was thrown there casually. Maker is a big, big word in Dragon Age, and this is what gave me the suspicion to think about the previous point. Evanuris were called later as Creators of a “world” truly known by only Solas, Abelas, and Flemeth (and Felassan if he is stil alive). That Zathrian could craft a creature half spirit and half material body like the Lady of the Forest, has strong remmineses of what the Evanuris may have done with Dalish, Dwarves or even humans. What I mean by this is the following:
What the Evanuris may have done to the Dalish is to create them as creatures bind with blood magic to physical form. The way Abelas and Solas speak of the Dalish, always makes them look like “fake” elves. Maybe the origin of this disdain comes from there. There is also the The Horror of Hormak, where it’s expressed that Evanuris or elvhen mages created abominations and mismatched creatures through magic, becoming themselves into “makers”.
What the Evanuris may have done to the Dwarves is very unclear, but in the Tresspasser DLC there are some bits of information that may suggest that Mythal infused the “workers of the Titans” with a soul [making them able to dream], so they were not empty anymore. A long interpretation of this is done in the post Deep Roads [DLC Trespasser]: Lower Walkways, however I have a lot of mixed feelings with the source of it: the codex Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 3 was written by a clanless Dalish that was not even a Keeper.
What the Evanuris may have done to the humans is even unclearer and not even possible to speculate, since there is not even a piece of information about them from Elvhenan sources, but if they meddled with Dalish and Dwarves, they could have meddled with humans if they wanted to.
A potential implication of the fact that the Lady of the Forest called Zathrian her Maker, could be that it’s a very vague hint that the lore is telling us that the creatures created from another race see them as Makers, and maybe some bit of this implication may or may not apply to the human Maker.
What can we infer from all this?
If we compare this old lore with what Solas may have done to the Evanuris we can come up with some speculations.
Speculation 1: We know that the Evanuris unleashed something terrible into the world [we don't know what but it may be the Blight, or something else; details in “The Death of a Titan”]. In the process, they may have killed Mythal [this logic is implied by Solas and the Dev’s notes in “The Death of a Titan” but never said explicitly].
Solas claims that he stopped the Evanuris by sealing them when they made something that was the last straw, which was Mythal’s murder, but I suspect it was something else too due to the codex and dev’s notes we find in “The Death of a Titan” mural: the thing that they unleashed was truly the real last straw, which does not exclude that it may be related to Mythal’s death [hence my speculation to relate both events]. That Solas does not say it explicitly is because he wants it to be as unknown as possible [probably because he doesn’t even want a reflection of it in the Fade]. I wrote a long analysis of this in the post “The Death of a Titan”. In that post I explained that there is a chance that the Evanuris may have been bind to lyrium and this forceful procedure caused their corruption or the corruption of the Lyrium into the Red Lyrium [hence we find the Whispers Written in Red Lyrium]. This may have been faster if it’s true that Andruil was blighted already [read Andruil section in Evanuris or codices related to her in Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal]. Taking into consideration the young lore expressed in Zathrian’s quest, one could explain this corruption of the lyrium as a “disease” [wether it is The Blight or something else that causes The Red Lyrium] which may be a consequence of this forced binding.
Personal speculation about this: Solas seems to know a lot about The Blight, but he does not understand red lyrium, so I'm inclined to think that the binding procedure caused something that Solas did not expect: red lyrium, while the big evil unleashed by the Evanuris is the Blight. He understands a lot more Blight magic and the Blight: in the mural “The Creation of the Veil”, it seems to be implied that Solas studied how to create the Veil to contain the Blight in the Black City, and may have used dragons to protect the "gates" of access to this place, which are the only creatures we know so far who are resistant to it.
On the other hand, no other mural speaks about red lyrium as the one recently done by Solas: in the comic The Missing, we find some parts of the mural “The Destruction of the Veil“, which means that the trailer where we saw this mural for the first time, with Solas touching it, was a ruined temple of Andruil located in the Forest of Arlathan. As he usually does with his murals, they seem to reflect a persistent thought in his mind that he expresses through art in order to find courage to execute them. In this last mural, the destruction of the Veil and all the pain that will cause to Thedas is something that will hurt Solas deeply [maybe even corrupt him if he follows the same rules than the spirits, in that case, this brutal change of role may affect him], because he would love to find another solution and be “wrong” [as he claims to a friendly inquisitor] but sadly he didn’t find any other. We know due to the history, that he always tries to pick the less evil option, but sometimes, there are nothing more than evil ones to pick.
Speculation 2: Another possibility I think about which relates Zathrian’s quest with the latest lore we have, is that maybe the “evil unleashed” by the Evanuris is the one related to The Horror of Hormak, where once more we find the recurring theme of the binding process: creatures with different souls and bodies are bind in an abomination, and the resulting creature is corrupted beyond salvation, as the two minds fight to exist in the same combined body. This seems something that may have horrified Fen’Harel, and also a knowledge he wanted the world to never access again, hence the collapse of the cave underground, sealing this horror, and claiming that the Evanuris had to be stopped for good [details in “The Death of a Titan”]. Since Solas doesn’t lie, and he also confessed the Inquisitor that the Death of Mythal was what motivated him to stop them, I speculate that some experiment related to The Horror of Hormak was tried to be applied to Mythal [a dragon being, speculated to be the Divine shape that the Elvhenan aspired for in order to acquire divinity] and killed her in the process [which is something rare, since the Evanuris “are not easy to kill”, according to Solas’ words]. Therefore, both events may end up related, and Solas never lied, he technically omitted some piece of sensitive truth that he has been hiding since forever so nobody would be tempted to create more abominations again.
In both speculations, the binding process was so wrong, that may have caused a disease/curse that began to spread [Blight or Red Lyrium], pretty much like Zathrian ended up causing the curse of the lycanthropy when he forced the binding between the Lady of the Forest and Whitefang.
However, the con of this interpretation is that we know that the immortality of the Elvhenan/Evanuris is not a consequence of this binding. The Elvhen have always been immortal as a side effect of the magic they manipulated [Solas explicitly says so in the Elvhenan section of Solas sharing Lore: Part 1]. I can see, however, the Evanuris wanting to be Dragons since they are powerful creatures, and power is directly related to Divinity in DA series.
[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
WIP Whenever
Okay, so - IN MY DEFENSE, I was actually tagged by @oxygenforthewicked for WIP Wednesday, but I actually didn’t have anything GOOD to post then. So I decided to wait for a while. Thank you for tagging me @oxygenforthewicked~ :D
Also, this is the third story that focuses mostly on Leilani, now called ‘Spirit’s Call’ (because I was going to go with a whole memory kind of thing but I decided not to, since spirits are going to be in here). Spirit’s Call WILL be remarkably different when I get it up and going fully, because I will be naming chapters for one reason: Not only does it not fully focus on Leilani alone, it’s also several parts taking place at once. Like three, four different storylines within the same time taking place (I know, it’s giving me a headache but I’m the one who was genius enough to do that. also that was sarcasm. I was dumb, okay? I know what I did... I both regret it and don’t regret it at all...) and the chapter titles will reflect that. Mostly, they’ll be location names.
Okay. *claps hands* enough about that, here’s this excerpt from ‘Spirit’s Call’!
(fyi: Anders and Fenris do generally get along in this AU. Mostly because I want Anders alive, and Fenris has come a long way from the days of getting into screaming fights with mages. Also, in this AU, Anders wasn’t a constant companion to Hawke but he’s a good friend of Hawke’s.)
Fenris scowled darkly as he knocked on a door in the slums of Kirkwall two days after returning. He honestly couldn’t believe he had voluntarily come this way.
Not that he hated this person, anymore. Fenris truly couldn’t care less. For all intents and purposes, Fenris just… couldn’t bring himself to hate this person. Not after they’d come for him when he’d been –
Fenris clamped down on that thought, shoving it to the side.
The door opened.
“Fenris,” Anders said, his expression morphing into one of actual surprise. Fenris kept scowling at him. “Does Hawke need help? Is there a Qunari invasion? Oooh, did Varric –“
“We need to talk,” Fenris said, abruptly.
Anders blinked at him.
“We do?” he asked, confused.
“Yes, we do. I have… questions only you and… Justice may be able to answer.”
Anders’ expression hardened, his lips thinning.
“Come in,” he said.
Fenris entered.
“I brought no weapons,” Fenris said, ignoring the prickling feel on the back of his neck. “But I know you and Justice are still separate beings, Anders. We need to talk about that.”
Anders brushed past him.
“Would you like some wine?” Anders asked.
“Yes,” Fenris accepted.
Anders gestured for Fenris to follow him up the stairs to his rooms. Varric had built him a clinic after his return as Viscount; Fenris very well knew nights were Anders’ least profitable times, because nobody wanted to risk being in the cat-adoring mage’s home after dark.
Why, Fenris figured it had something to do with the fact he was known to destroy things in the night. Like the Gallows.
There was a kitchen and a sleeping room in the top of the building. Cozy.
Anders plucked two wooden cups onto the table, wine sloshing out of the top.
“It’s surprising you of all people want to know how my magic works,” Anders said, after a moment.
Fenris scowled deeper as he twirled his finger in the air. The wine twirled in the air.
“I got magic now,” he said, deadpan.
Anders’ eyes widened in absolute shock.
“Also, Mariana’s an elf,” he added, wondering how far Anders was out of the loop.
Yeah. Anders’ jaw dropped.
“How?” he demanded.
“Well… remember when Hawke told us about that Flemeth lady, when she was fleeing the Blight?” Anders nodded. Fenris sighed. “We slept with Flemeth’s daughter, who, shortly after, happened to be in love with Flemeth’s object of affection, and Flemeth was pissed off about it and changed Mariana into an elf.”
At least, that’s the gist of the story he got.
“Oh, and Flemeth turned out to be the ancient elvhen goddess Mythal stuck in a human body.”
Anders just stared at him, mouth agape.
“Did you not notice the hole in the sky?”
“Once or twice, but I figured it was not important after it vanished.” Anders shrugged. “What does any of this – wait a second, you and Hawke slept with the daughter?! Why didn’t she kill you?”
“Oh, we were supposed to be a distraction.” Fenris frowned.
#fenris#anders#this is a weird dynamic#but I really like it#dragon age fanfiction#dragon age inquisition#wip whenever
0 notes
Text
Ok, so I said I’d make a theory that the ancient dwarves in Dragon Age made and that I’d compile a bunch of evidence to this theory, whether it proves or disproves it, but I literally cannot even focus on stuff that I WANT to focus on so instead I’ll just ramble about stuff that I can vaguely remember watching/reading/listening to in-game.
(TBH this is mostly a crack theory that I think would make a pretty cool AU fic lol)
1. They made Golems. Golems, even during the time of Caridin, which I believe was the first time “modernish” dwarves made a Golem, weren’t something new. I think it’s Caridin’s journal that states the inspiration for Golems came from a dream, which might have been an innocuous detail, as getting ideas from dreams is kind of common occurrence I think, if it wasn’t obvious later on that something weird is going on with the dwarves’ mental connection to the Stone. Something else seemed to guide Caridin through the process of making Golem, besides his own natural brilliance.
2. Dagna. Dagna’s probably biggest support of this theory, when she talks about hearing all the thoughts, or being all the thoughts. Like she was “as big as a mountain, or I was the mountain.” It was like she was seeing through a massive consciousness of many collected beings, which, if the dwarves from the Descent area (the Sha-Brytol) are in a way absorbed into the area, or if the “Stone” (as it is) has spirits in it or something, would be possible in a weird way.
3. The dwarven halls are HUGE! Now this is probably just because the dwarves were epic architects and because they could do it, they were going to do it, but also it could mayyyyyyybe be possible they needed to fit something huge through there, too. Like a giant mecha suit. It’s brought up a couple times by a few characters (I think Sera’s one of them) and it seems like an interesting observation.
4. Not a part of this theory, but additionally: what if the Titans are ancient dwarves? Like those things are ancient “golems” and they possess the souls of old dwarves.
Honestly, I just think it would be super cool to have an AU with dwarves that have giant stone mecha suits, that don’t require blood sacrifices.
#MECHA DRAGON AGE AU WHEN#ALSO THE OLD GODS ARE PROBABLY ANCIENT ELVES#THE ONLY ANCIENT ELF WE KNOW IS FLEMETH#WHO CAN BECOME A DRAGON#SHE TEACHES THIS TO MORRIGAN#WHICH MEANS A LOT OF THE REALLY POWERFUL ANCIENT ELVES PROBABLY TOOK ON FORMS#THAT WOULD ALLOW THEM TO LIVE A VERY LONG TIME AFTER THE VEIL WAS CONSTRUCTED#BECUASE THEY KNEW THEY WOULD AGE QUICKLY IN THEIR REGULAR FORM#HOWEVER DRAGONS DONT AGE#AS FAST AS PEOPLE DO THEY CAN SLUMBER FOR CENTURIES#AND MORRIGAN SAYS YOU HAVE TO KNOW THE BIOLOGY OF THE CREATURE YOU'RE TRANSFORMING INTO VERY WELL#SO YOU LITERALLY BECOME THAT ANIMAL ON A BIOLOGICAL LEVEL#THAT MEANS WHEN YOU'RE A DRAON YOU ARE LITERALLY GOING TO LIVE AS LONG AS A DRAGON#BECAUSE BIOLOGICALLY YOU ARE A DRAGON#AND THAT'S WHY SOLAS IS SO VEHEMENT AGAINST KILLING THE OLD GODS#THIS ALMOST FEELS BASICALLY CANON#either that or they transformed for another reason#sorry if any of this seems SUPER obvious I am NOT good with subtext in reading#i'm with cassandra on this one SPEAK PLAINLY SOLAS WHAT ARE WE DEALING WITH
10 notes
·
View notes
Text
things I want in da4
different backgrounds for the protag like in origins. da4 is supposed to span different cities etc , so it should be easy to have humans / elves / dwarves / qunari from different backgrounds. pls dont make the only background for an elf a tevinter slave, or the only background for a mage a magister
on that note no more noble human backgrounds. let me be an avvar instead
more tarot card art idk I just really liked it
body sliders let me be a buff lesbian
better hair I'm begging
returning companions from dai. I know it's unlikely but dai does kind of feel like a prequel to da4 what with everything we learned , and I feel like if u were friends with all the companions it would be nice to see them
a dialogue option that says 'cool motive still genocide' when talking to solas
a balanced ratio of female to male companions , and romance options more like da2. no race locked romances cause that was weird
pls do not go 'all elves are working with solas'. there should be at least one (1) big group led by briala, merrill and fenris opposing him. they should also have a big part of defeating him / saving the world in the end that is visible to the whole world, because otherwise elves are gonna be hated more than ever, especially since it seems like the writers might have the ancient elves be the cause of the blight, rather than tevinter
let me actually shit on the chantry. let us discover there is no maker / the 'maker' was mythal whispering to andraste. the writers have destroyed the dalish's beliefs and the dwarves beliefs, time to do the same for the maker. I'm tired of the writers saying actually all these other religions are fake! except the maker!
let the players opinion of solas matter. dont have it be like 'oh u decided to kill him and that's actually the bad ending!!' I get that people love him but people who dont like him due to the lying / racism / genocide are also valid and i dont want 'u were supposed to like him' to be forced on me
mythal is alive and working with the elves opposing solas (led by briala merrill and fenris). her hoast is an elf (merrill mayhaps). I know notes at the end of dai say she was headed to morrigan, but considering that the last scene with flemeth and morrigan could be read as flemeth realising how she's failed morrigan, letting her live her life with kieran instead of becoming a vessel would be nice. also flemeth definitely had other vessel options, especially since she's known for years that morrigan was 'unwilling'
let me see flemeth / mythal fight. da2 hinted but didnt let me see it. we've never seen her actually fight (dragon form aside) and i want to See It.
also let me romance mythal
more stuff about the titans and the dwarves! the descent was my fav dlc
more qunari stuff - lemme see a family of tal-vashoth , and the qun from the inside
if the inquisitor drank from the well let them turn into a dragon / have mastered more of the well of sorrows knowledge
if hawke stayed in the fade flemeth rescued them
warden reappearance
the warden & hawke & the inquisitor having a scene together. also maybe a lil scene with their LI
let me befriend dragons rather than kill them thanks
let me hit someone with my staff as a mage pls I'm begging
okay that's it for now but I'm sure there's more
68 notes
·
View notes
Text
To the Victor the Spoils
In the Skyhold gardens, in Adamant's wake, Solas meets Loghain.
A character study of two trickster-kings, speaking a little too honestly.
As Loghain himself says, "The past is always with us. It’s in our bones and our blood and we wear it on our skin. You can think otherwise, but you’ll never get far without it."
Read on Archive of Our Own here.
The Inquisitor’s hand aches, and Solas is responsible, so he rouses himself from the Fade and dresses quietly. His erstwhile roommates, Varric and Dorian, snore away soundly. They came back late last night and may still wake up drunk. If this were not the third night in the row they had done this, he would be more sympathetic and leave a tincture for their headache. Alas, they must learn soon, or he will simply make a lot of noise waking up. There are healthier ways to cope with bad battles and beloveds’ deaths by drinking, however Varric wants to honor Hawke. Adamant has left them all aching. He would still like to sleep.
Outside Blackwall is running the new recruits through their basic drills. He is yelling at them about honor—another Adaman casualty. The children look like badly-plucked chickens in their ill-worn armor, shambling in the gray morning light. Solas would tell them to stand up straight and widen their stances, but here he does not need to play the drill sergeant. He leave Blackwall to his work and retreats into the main keep.
Morning prayer has just released and Leliana is wistful, her hood down. She pauses by Varric’s table and looks unseeingly at the stack of books. Then she sees him, and her face grows as porcelain-clear as a doll’s.
“Good morning, Solas,” she says. “You’re up early.”
The easiest way to answer is to obfuscate, and the best way to obfuscate is simply to say the truth. Solas says, “I enjoy the quiet, before Skyhold’s residents slip back into their daily routines.”
Leliana chuckles, and the porcelain visage warms into flesh. “Surely the Fade reflects routine too? The Hero of Ferelden told me she found me at my prayers, when we were trapped by a Sloth demon.”
You people dream such dull lives, Solas thinks but does not say, but of course I took the dreams away. He says, “There is disruption to be found on both sides of the Veil.” She watches him as he walks towards the cloister. He resists the urge to strut. Apostates, particularly those claiming to be hermits, do not walk with pride in their power and accomplishments. Many of the mages he has observed scuttle rather than stride. Solas has never tried to draw attention to himself; he cannot help being six feet tall and occasionally a redhead. Still, he tempers his walk.
In the cloister Elan’Vemal is buzzing around the felandaris like an angry wasp. Solas ignores her and walks towards the royal elfroot, pulling out his knife.
“Absolutely not,” she says.
Solas crouches down next to the bush. “I beg your pardon?” he says to the branches. The tips of its leaves are an electric violent. He can grind the stalks into a salve that will soothe the spasms in the Inquisitor’s hand and temporarily numb the spread of the Anchor. The leaves he will keep for himself.
“Inquisitor’s only,” Elan’Vemal says. “Unless you have a requisition form.” She looms over him, arms crossed. She’s a nasty little creature. The Inquisitor had not been pleased at her barefaced attempt at manipulation. Solas touches his own cheek, sans vallaslin, and does not even allow the thought to fully form.
He says, “I am making a salve for the Inquisitor.”
“A likely story.” Elan’Vemal is unimpressed.
Irritated, Solas says, “The stalk of this plant, ground into a salve with arbor blessing harvested wild and the stamen of the amrita vein, releases a numbing agent useful for treating Fade-inflicted wounds.” This is accurate enough, for her purposes. “We will be marching on Adamant in two weeks, and best be prepared.” He takes his knife and cuts only two branches from the stalk, when initially he had hoped to take three. Elan’Vemal watches him work. He is careful not to wound the plant. Grudgingly she remains silent as Solas ties the branches into a small bundle.
As he pushes himself to his feet, brushing the dirt from his knees, she says, “And the leaves? What will you use that for?”
Solas says, “Getting high, of course. What else?”
Shocked, Elan’Vemal laughs. He smiles slightly and makes his escape, dodging Mother Giselle with a polite “good morning.” The salve will not take much time to prepare, but the day is barely long for all he wants to do. There is the basic sketch for his fresco of Adamant. He already has a sense of what the colors need to be, and so he need to requisition more cinnabar for the corrupted lyrium holding the City enchained. There are calculations to be run, as well, regarding the latest of his Veil accelerometers. They have reactivated enough for him to use the lodestone at Skyhold as a base and predict where the Veil is weakest. The Inquisitor ought to plan her next foray where the Veil needs the most attention; but first, he must soothe her hand, and let her know she is cared for. He cares for her. She knows that; but after Adamant, the reminder will help.
A man is staring at him, not unkindly, so Solas turns with a practiced mild expression.
“May I help you?” he asks. It has not been easy to fall back into the habits he developed as Mythal’s thrall, but he has never been one for ease.
Loghain says, “You fought valiantly at Adamant.”
The almost-king of Ferelden: even now he cannot help but trip into exalted circles. Solas takes him in quickly before responding. He has heard the Inquisitor complain about Loghain’s betrayal of the Night-Elves, the resistance force both the Dalish and the urban elves of Ferelden launched against the Orlesian occupation. Solas separates the personal dislike from the political necessity. Of course the Teryn could not keep the elves of Ferelden armed; he could not risked an armed and organized minority clamoring for land just after they had waged and won one foreign war. Factionalism is so easy to fall into; Solas knows this from experience. That does not excuse it, but one does what must be done. He has done similar and worse. He would have left Cailan to die at Ostagar, and the Wardens too—but he would not have been so obvious about it.
Loghain himself looks like a tired but brawny old man, much like himself nowadays. Blue rings his eyes, but he is clean-shaved and his armor is polished. If the darkspawn in his blood keeps him up at night, he does not let it taint his day. He still survives.
Why does he notice him? Why did he notice him on the battlefield? Solas is too old for flattery. What does he want from him?
Solas says, “Thank you. You as well.” Inveterate loser, he thinks. He does not know if he is insulting him or Loghain: both, this is your human kin, the Fade will press him into your archetype.
Loghain says, “I’ve fought with apostates before, when we faced down the Archdemon—Dalish and human too. But I’d never seen any mage move that quickly, or so competently bark orders at frozen soldier in the field. Have you served before? Ferelden, Tevinter, or Orlais?”
Solas, as practiced, recites, “I’ve journeyed deep into the Fade, in ancient ruins and battlefields, where I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past in ancient wars both famous and forgotten.” He smiles thinly. “One learns from their mistakes.” Yours and mine, he thinks and cannot say: I would have done what you did at Ostagar, but I would have made sure I was not blamed. So quickly one’s allies misunderstand the good one attempts to have wrought; so quickly it spirals out of one’s own control.
Loghain stares at him. “You dream on battlefields? And can see what had happened there?”
“I can watch spirits copy the strongest emotions felt there,” Solas corrects. “There is truth but she wears many faces.” Obfuscation via weak poeticism works so very well, though it marks him as more polished than most elves. “In the same blood-drenched patch of dirty a spirit acts and reenacts a soldier throwing himself to the ground in anguish as he sees his king overpowered. And then, in the same blink, another plays the role of the relieved foot soldier, glad to be spared a fatal charge in a battle of fools.” Perhaps bringing up Ostagar is not the most tactful, but he struggles to know the average quickling’s reference-point. His knowledge of history is vast, and time has slowed to a crawl. He does not know what else to reference.
Loghain presses his thin lips into an even thinner line. “Ostagar,” he says. “And before I’ve had my breakfast. Did you go there deliberately, or just…fall asleep?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” Solas says simply. It is not an untruth. He had found Flemeth’s cottage first. The dreams came easy. “Battles that change the tide of history mark the Fade as much they do the waking world. It is difficult to dream anything else, north of the Korcari Wilds.”
Loghain stares into his eyes. Solas, of course, peers back. The man’s eyes are a clear, cold blue, more brilliant for the bruises under them. The former regent of Ferelden says levelly, “When I dream, all I remember is a fool’s death and a hard choice. And I’d make the same again.”
“As you should,” Solas says. “There is no time for regret. You have lived your life according to the demands of your honor: for your countrymen, and now, your fellow Wardens. If you regretted that choice—if you sought to deny it, to fruitlessly work against the tide of the history you have made, that would be dishonorable. But you are an honorable man, are you not?” He realizes he is perhaps speaking more passionately than he ought. This is not Blackwall, an easy mirror to his own sins. He must remember what he is in the world: an elf, an apostate, a dirty outsider—no matter that he keeps himself cleaner than Cassandra. Repressively, he says, “Forgive me. Adamant stirs up old memories in us all. I am marked by what I witnessed as well.”
Loghain says, “You know war. Of course, most of your people do. The Warden has told me what the elves face in Orlais and Tevinter. It’s not much better in Ferelden.” Solas stirs, irritated, wanting to deny—but he is an elf, he is stuck in these circumstances, and he does know war intimately. He could not help but speak first. He cannot snap back. Loghain may be held in dishonor; that does not mean an elf can talk back. “Your friends have spent the past two nights in the tavern, drinking, and when that lugubrious warden isn’t weeping into his ale, he’s drilling the recruits to exhaustion. At least that will make them sleep at night. But that won’t do away with the dreams.” He smiles thinly. “I find your description of the Fade comforting. It means no one can lie about the past. Whatever it is. It’s always with us. It’s in our bones and our blood and sinks into our dreams. We wear it on our skin, and even the heavens are scarred with it. However history writes us.”
“To the victor the spoils,” Solas says.
Loghain burbles a laugh. It’s a pleasant sound, unexpected and a little hoarse. “Ha! And it’s my daughter who won. And right now—the Inquisition. The Wardens. Us. It’s easy to die for your cause. I could have claimed my redemption, if I need one, at Adamant. But it’s much harder to live for it, bearing the weight of the dead.”
Solas, surprised, says, “Yes.” He thinks, this is a lonely man, opening his deepest thoughts to a stranger, but aren’t I the same? Haven’t I been doing the same, with him, with Blackwall, with the Iron Bull and Varric and Cassandra and them all? He did not need the death of Wisdom as an excuse. He has found comradeship enough where he goes. He clears his throat, suddenly overcome. He thinks it through: I am upset, why? What has disturbed me? That this man carries his sins on his skin, and rejects the need for redemption. History has painted him the villain; I, also. Dread Wolf take you: what will they say about Loghain?
Loghain says, “It’s early in the day for this talk. I must be keeping you from your work.” The moment has passed; now they are awkward with each other, and not two soldiers who are harrowing a war. The man’s drawing into himself, embarrassed at the truth he told. Disappointed, Solas draws up to his full height and remembers: don’t hold yourself too tall.
He says, “Quite,” and holds up the pouch of royal elfroot. “Duty calls.” The Inquisitor’s hand is hurting and needs a salve. The quartermaster needs to order him cinnabar. Then there is the composition of the fresco to calculate and then sketch with charcoal, and more calculations, and sidestepping Leliana and Vivienne as to how he made those calculations. He saw it in the Fade. When he saw it, the Fade was everything, and there was no bleary waking. He leaves the courtyard and the almost-king, remembering and forgetting his words.
#dragon age#dragon age fanfiction#dragon age fanfic#dai#solas#loghain#character study#solas & loghain#elan ve'mal#leliana#adamant#ptsd#survivor's guilt
23 notes
·
View notes
Note
🌹
Right, so the only AUs I’ve yet to reveal (besides the new ones I haven’t outlined yet) are honestly sad/dark AUs. Since the existence of this one is your fault to begin with, I’m going to leave you with an AU scene, where Niamh is turned Tranquil just as the events of What Pride Had Wrought come to a close. >:)
Essentially, the Red Templars found a method to perform the Rite of Tranquility almost instantaneously over the course of several months, leading to numerous reports of Tranquil mages being found across Thedas. Niamh was well-aware of all of this before she took her team into the Arbor Wilds, but as the trek through the forest was so arduous, she was running on little energy by the time she defeated Samson. The Red Templars managed to separate her away from the group, and well... She was made Tranquil.
Niamh’s team made their way through the Eluvian in the hopes Corypheus wouldn’t discover what had happened to her, and this scene takes place some time after that.
Cassandra watched as Leliana paced soundlessly across the Inquisitor’s personal quarters, her face set into an impassive mask—the same one she had seen her wear for years during their respective duties as the Hands of the Divine.
…at least until her reunion with Lady Cousland, and it was like watching the other woman slowly come to life again as they fell in love.
Still, even the grim resolve she saw here was better than the absolute devastation she had seen on Leliana’s face when she saw Lady Cousland’s condition for the first time upon returning from the Arbor Wilds. The Spymaster had nearly ridden her mount ragged in her haste, especially when Cassandra had sent a message out to her, stating that something had gone wrong in their mission and the Inquisitor’s position had been compromised.
It had been a severe understatement, of course, and Cassandra couldn’t help but grimace as she saw the radiating, curved lines of the Chantry Sunburst branded—albeit haphazardly so if the imperfect embossment was any indication—across the woman’s forehead.
As had been her norm upon their return, Lady Cousland continued to sit eerily at the foot of the bed, staring into the nothingness beyond the balconies. She never spoke unless prompted, and even when she did, there was a dullness to her voice—a sunken stone buried in depths long forgotten—that was a far cry from the woman’s usual quiet warmth and benevolence.
She was little more than a sentinel as she sat there—back rigid and shoulders set—as if waiting for instruction. Waiting to be commanded.
…Waiting to serve.
Cassandra had to swallow the bile that had gathered at the back of her throat.
“Besides abject failure, this was the only thing in all the world that absolutely terrified her,” Leliana said apathetically, hands behind her back as she continued pacing before the fireplace. “That, or the idea that we might succeed, and the Chantry would’ve seen reason to chain her and take away her magic in the most abusive way possible, ensuring that it would never again have a rival to its power.” Blue eyes seemed to burn with more than just the firelit reflection within them. “What does that say about us, I wonder? What does it say that she helped us and agreed to be Inquisitor even with the thought that she’d still have every last shred of her autonomy taken away?”
While the question was an uncomfortable one, Cassandra could only be thankful it was far better than the reaction Morrigan had received, especially when Leliana had discovered the woman had abandoned Lady Cousland in order to chase after the ancient elf responsible for guarding the Well of Sorrows…
---
Leliana’s eyes had been a steely blue as they gleamed beneath the moonlight—a glimmer of a knife’s edge and with all the danger that it implied—as she pulled the mage forward by the lapels of her outfit almost to the point of choking her.
“The only reason my blades haven’t sunk into your neck or that I haven’t thrown you from this very tower is because you told me the knowledge you obtained from the Well of Sorrows might prove useful in overturning what has been done to Niamh,” she said coolly, never raising her voice. “I do not want your apologies or your meager reassurances. I want progress. You and I have nothing to say to one another until then. Am I understood?”
Morrigan’s eyes had narrowed, but even Cassandra could see the guilt that had settled there—a common sight these days—as she was reminded of her own part in Lady Cousland’s current state. As such, the woman could only nod, allowing Leliana to slowly release the strangling grip on her clothing, which Morrigan resettled idly before making her way toward the stairs.
“And Morrigan?”
The mage looked over her shoulder to see Leliana there, standing tall with her hands behind her back—a cold ruthlessness exuding from every pore of her body. Although they weren’t directed at her, Cassandra felt the chill of reproach and threat in that icy glare.
“You may have evaded Flemeth over the years, but make no mistake: if I find you’ve given anything other than your absolute best in helping Niamh—if I find that you’ve abandoned her again—there will be nowhere on Thedas where you can hope to hide from me…”
---
Cassandra sighed. “It was not the Chantry that did this to her, Leliana.”
“But they never argued against the Rite’s use in all its existence, have they? What is the purpose of it if not to chain mages to them with fear?”
“It was originally a preventative measure against the outright execution of mages.”
“Mages they thought might be useful to them alive as pets and mindless servants than dead, Cassandra!” Leliana retorted, whirling on her with fury as the flames from the fireplace outlining her form. “The last Inquisitor warned it could have abused, and nothing was done to prevent it! A thousand years later, and the Chantry is no better than when it first started! Niamh had every reason not to trust in it!”
“Leliana—"
“Do you not see what this world has done to her?! It rejected her, and it denied her very existence as a person! She has been abandoned at every turn the moment her magic manifested! She had very nearly given up by the time she came to The Conclave because she was so desperate to see if it could change one last time for the better, and she ended up bound to the Chantry again as part of the Inquisition instead! Despite everything, despite how much she was hurting, she still sought to try and help us, and this is what she received for her goodwill!”
“Leliana, what more do you want me to say?” Cassandra implored desperately. “I know now how deeply the corruption ran. I know why Lord Seeker Lucius abandoned his duties and why he gave the tome to me. I swear, we are doing everything we can to reverse this, and if it works, I promise I will spread knowledge of the cure all across Thedas, but…” She hesitated. “From what I’ve read, she might not be as she was before.”
Silence.
“You’re telling me that even if this does succeed, I may only have a part of her back?”
“Yes. We have asked her, but her answers remain tied to our desires. She will agree to it if we feel that it is necessary, but she…” Cassandra paused, choosing her words carefully even as she averted her gaze. “Lady Cousland no longer has the will to fully agree to this. Given your relationship with her, I felt you might know her wants better than us. As the reversal has been documented so very few times, it’s possible we can negate some of the more concerning side effects, especially with so many mages here openly helping us, but—”
“Then proceed,” Leliana said without hesitation. “Because I’m not letting her go again.”
((This does have a happy ending. I might write more about it once I get to the Arbor Wilds part of OtSttCA, so there’s still time before I hit you all with a load of sadness and angst. Lol.))
#Dragon Age: Inquisition#leliana#female cousland/leliana#female inquisitor/leliana#My writing#OTP: What If We Rewrite the Stars?#lee's au ideas#Rite of Tranquility#Tranquil AU#theherowarden#late to the party as always eh? :P#i always feel a little guilty writing these darker AUs because Niamh deserves so much happiness :'(#writer stuff#writing meme response#lee's inbox
31 notes
·
View notes
Note
What is your opinion on Flemeth? I see so many fans praising her for being a bamf grandma, for saving Hawke and it confuses me. Didn't she abandon Elves? Didn't she abuse Morrigan? According to them not, because she was hurt and sad during their confrontation or that she actually never planned to possess her body. Her supposed friendship with Solas is iffy to me too.
Hi Nonnie! This answer is under a cut for sensitivity as it mentions abuse, and for length.
I think there’s nuance here. Liking (or appreciating the storybeats from) a fictional character, in the context of them as a character, doesn’t mean liking them as a person or agreeing with their actions. It also doesn’t mean that you’d endorse such actions happening in the real world, or that you’d like, support or spend time with such a person in real life. We separate the two. It’s okay to like her character and it’s okay to not like her. Certain things can also be true simultaneously - for example, like many characters in Dragon Age, Flemythal has done things that have had good impacts (such as saving Hawke, although it should be noted that she did this for her own benefit and in pursuit of her own ends), and she’s also done things that are questionable or even bad.
I like Flemythal as a character in a fictional setting. I find her very interesting. Mysterious, complicated, cryptic, plot-integral. I like that she’s powerful (she is pretty badass) and clearly has her own ends and agenda. That’s agency. Her voice casting is second-to-none and I find her involvement to have been one of the intriguing (and arguably iconic) staples of the series. She generates a lot of speculation and theorycrafting given that a lot of questions still remain about her, her past involvement in events and possibly her future involvement also. It’s also nice to see a visibly older woman in a prominent role, as they are often underused or underrepresented in media.
That said, she wasn’t a good mother. I don’t think she’s a good person, and multiple elements of her relationship with Morrigan do read as abusive (in several different ways too, as abuse has several forms). Morrigan compares her to Kalah Brosca, which is self-explanatory. Morrigan recounts times when Flemythal broke her possessions, taught her harsh lessons, told her horrifying stories, punished her or only gave her gifts which came at a cost. Morrigan’s Fade nightmare in the Circle Tower consists of the spirit/demon emulating her mother hitting her and saying horrible things (and such Fade-scenarios do in a way reflect what happened or what was perceived to have happened by the ‘experiencer’ in ‘the real’). Flemythal was manipulative, insulting and told half-truths to her. Morrigan’s personality is also in large part due to her background, Flemythal’s influence, treatment and teachings; it’s why she values survival and power above all, thinks that love is a weakness and makes some off-color, heartbreaking comments about love as a concept. It speaks of both the reality of what the Evanuris were like (compared to the Dalish conception of them as the Creators), the impact the murder of Mythal had on her as a being and of the further impact functionally fusing with the intensely aggrieved/angered human Flemeth, that this is the kind of parent that Mythal the Protector and All-Mother, goddess of love and patron of motherhood, was to Morrigan. Thinking of it in those terms makes it seem sadly ironic and puts me in the mind of the perversion of spirits of Justice away from their purpose towards Vengeance (not literally exactly, but thematically?).
Prior to the murder, Mythal in her fullness was the “best” of the Evanuris, according to Solas’ account, but even then... The best of a bad bunch is not exactly much of an accolade, and although she cared for and protected her people and was often a voice of reason compared to other Evanuris that would mitigate the worst of their whims and excesses, she was still... a false-god divine-pretender, and essentially the queen of their extremely classist empire system. She may have had slaves marked with slave-brands. She struck down some Titans and gave their “land” to the People, and did “something” ominous-sounding to the Titans and/or the dwarves. She was a patron of vengeance as well as justice. Some accounts paint her as dark and vengeful, and Solas admits that she was “both of these [both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ versions of her from the tales] and neither.” (“It’s more complicated than that”!) To add, Mythal being the best of them is Solas’ opinion, no doubt partially colored by his personal history with her. It’s difficult to comment on Mythal in her fullness and the Evanuris in general though, as all we have are partially biased accounts and scraps like misremembered tales and Codex entries which each come filtered through the respective lens of their writer.
Flemythal did seem to express sadness or regret in her DAI encounter with Morrigan. This is another one of those situations with nuance and where two things can be true at the same time. Flemythal was a bad parent and was abusive towards Morrigan. Flemythal also seems to care for her, in a way. I make no comment on other peoples’ experiences or on the majority of cases, and in no way would Flemythal’s treatment of and dynamic with Morrigan be acceptable in a real life situation, just, speaking from direct personal experience, there are sometimes instances where the abusive relative did care about their respective family member at the time, and later felt sad and regretful about the things they did to them and the impact it had on them. And she did intend the essence of her godhood as a gift for Morrigan, not hostile possession.
Her abandonment of the elves is something that can come up both with Lavellan and other Inquisitors in those scenes: “If Mythal is a part of you, why haven’t you helped us? We’ve called to you, prayed to you.” “[looks away and looks sad] What was could not be changed.” “What about now? You know so much.” “You know not what you ask, child.” // “If Mythal is within you why not reveal yourself?” “And to whom should I reveal myself?” “To the elves, to everyone!” “Hah... I knew the hearts of men even before Mythal came to me. It is why she came to me. They do not want the truth, and I... I am but a shadow lingering in the sun.” I do wish she had interacted more with the elves in Thedas, especially given the lot of modern elves there and especially considering Dalish tales of and reverence towards her as Asha’bellanar (Merrill bowing to her in DA2, how Marethari sought her out in 8:82, the clan that turned Maric and Loghain over to her, the way Lavellan can mention their people speak of her legend).
The writing in that conversation is kinda frustrating in that it’s intentionally vague and more of a non-answer than a sufficient explanation to the question posed. But there’s some Thing we don’t know yet, something we’re not supposed to know about Mythal right now. It sounds like the truth of why and of the matter isn’t simple or... pleasant (“You know not what you ask” - that sounds like worshipping her, the reality of her, wouldn’t be good). In DA2 when Merrill bows, Flemythal asks her if she knows who she is beyond the title Woman of Many Years. Merrill replies that she knows only a little, and Flemythal says “Then stand. The People bend their knee too quickly.” It sounds kinda like “If you knew I was Mythal, and if you knew what Mythal and her compatriot gods and by extension our society was like back in the day, you wouldn’t be bowing to me and wouldn’t want to worship me.” sefesjfesfeksj this gap in our knowledge is maddening lol. Or perhaps she thinks that the elves wouldn’t want the truth, would reject it or would feel worse after learning it? The revelations in DAI that the gods are false and were actually jerks, that vallaslin were originally slavemarkings, that an elf caused their downfall (not humans) and that their ancient society practised slavery and all that - it’s a lot. If so, I do wish she would’ve let them make up their own minds about it though.
There’s also the question of whether the Dalish would believe her claims if she came forth with them. Some would, but her appearance is outwardly-human as the Inquisitor can note, and Solas didn’t make any real headway with most of the Dalish he encountered when he tried to talk about some of his knowledge with them before joining the Inquisition, and that was without including the undoubtedly seismic “btw, I’m one of your gods” part. Would she even be capable of doing much to help them in her current form? A shadow lingering in the sun sounds like she’s barely a fragment of what she once was, and only has a fraction of her old power. In the modern day she’s a powerful mage who can shapeshift into a dragon and cheat death with a Horcrux, sure. Is that enough to, say, destroy the human kingdoms, or radically alter the social position of elves in Thedas? To add, if you subscribe to the belief that there’s a connection between Flemythal and Andraste (with Shartan) and/or Tyrdda Bright-Axe (with her “leaf-eared lover”), it seems that she’s tried to change things before in the past along these lines and failed.
Who are “the elves” to her, anyway? She mentions to Lavellan and Merrill how they are of the People, but we can see a back-and-forth on that subject with Solas during DAI, who at times says modern elves are his people, and at other times says they are not. Who’s to say who “the elves” or “The People” are to Flemythal in her mind, millennia later, really? If her conception of her people is ancient elves, not modern elves or both... Recall Abelas, one of Mythal’s lead acolytes: “'Our' people? The ones we see in the forest, shadows wearing vallaslin? You are not my people.” Maybe that’s why she hasn’t done much to help modern elves? If her people are the ancient elves, and if Solas’ plans don’t include modern elves, perhaps that’s why she didn’t do much for modern elves all this time but /does/ help Solas power up so that he can carry out his plans to help the ancient ones (along with the fact that her desire for vengeance depends on his success, of course). She knew he would come after all. An alternative reading is that his plans do include modern elves, but in order to save the People (and again also to get her revenge) she needed him (to gift her power to and do The Thing), and so until he woke up from his many years of slumber, all she could really do was wait for that moment? Their respective natures in the modern world are different; she’s just a spark of a dead goddess in a formerly-human vessel, a shadow lingering in the sun, and he’s still his proper full self, albeit temporarily weaker than usual. He specifically says in Trespasser that his situation isn’t comparable to Flemythal’s - “Are you a fragment of what Fen’Harel once was, like Mythal?” “No, this is all I have ever been”. It’s a stark difference in their two conditions, and it ties back to the question above of whether Flemythal’s abilities in the modern age would have been Enough to do anything concrete. In this reading, Flemythal’s nudging and influencing of history along a certain course through time, which she’s been doing in order to line up events just so so that the Evanuris will be unleashed again by Solas, take on a secondary motive too: lining up events just so so that Solas will be able to carry out his plans and in so doing, save the People.
Mythal’s relationship with Solas is another one of those things that’s difficult to comment on, as we only have hints and pieces. They were close, that much is clear from the intimacy and familiarity on both their parts in the post-credits scene, from how he speaks of her in Trespasser, and from his desire to subject the Evanuris to an eternity of torment as a fitting punishment for the crime of murdering her. Fen’Harel statues in the Temple of Mythal, which Morrigan says is a thing that seems like naked paintings of Andraste in the Chantry. Wolf ‘guardian-like’ statues on either side of her Altar. The eluvian in the post-credits flanked by both a dragon and a wolf. Statues in the Deep Roads: “Many of them are for Mythal, though. And Fen'Harel. Not in a spot of honor, but guarding, attending. Protector and All-Mother, why are you honored here, so far from the light of the sun? And why was the Dread Wolf at your side?” Cole’s words, if they’re about Solas and Mythal: "He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face.” Legacy dev notes stating that he was once her oldest friend. These are fragments and we can only try to infer. Were they involved? Was he her second-in-command, her spymaster, her consort, her enforcer, her confidant, the leader of her ‘kingsguard’, her right hand, her advisor, the ‘guardian wolf’ to her ‘Emerald Knight’, what? Was he once a spirit and he manifested a body at her behest? What events led to him burning her vallaslin off his face? Did they have a disagreement? To what extent was she using him? The specifics of their relationship and their respective positions therein aren’t, but what’s clear is that once, she needed him, he was in her service, and that there was fondness between them.
(For the record I don’t believe she possessed him in the post-credits, or that he absorbed her essence/Mythal-spark and now the Well-drinker is bound to him. I think she passed her godhood through the mirror to Morrigan and allowed Solas to take her power/strength, that’s all.)
There’s an undertone that Flemeth may not really have full autonomy in what she’s doing (or was doing), at least where her broadstoke actions and goals are concerned. After her angry rant about vengeance, [worldstate dependent] she looks up at the statue of Mythal. In both scenarios her expression then becomes kind of sad, and she looks to the side. “Alas, so long as the music plays, we dance.” That sounds kind of like she has no choice? Like something’s fated or she’s bound to her cause? Before Flemeth’s end, Mythal was to her as our hearts are in our chests. They are intrinsic and carry out their function - beating - no matter what, until death. Given the dichotomy of Justice and Vengeance as explored by the nature of spirits and demons, and the ‘spirit-adjacent’ nature of elves, it feels like she’s compelled to do what she’s been doing all these centuries, in pursuit of the goal of getting that all-important revenge. “Our destinies are not so easily avoided.” She gets so incensed when she rages about her vengeance, it’s like she’s consumed by it. The burning desire for revenge is what kept her wisp alive through the Ages, after all.
#dragon age#bioware#abuse#abuse mention#abuse cw#morrigan#queen of my heart#solas#cole#spirit boy#mj replies#anonymous#video games#mj meta
79 notes
·
View notes
Text
blood magic,the blight, and the mysterious it
Something I’ve been curious about for a while now are the blood magic rituals in DAI which hint at the origin of the blight, or at the very least, the reason why the veil was created in the first place.
The hidden veilfire rune in Trespasser suggests a blood magic ritual was performed by the ancient elves to strike down the pillars of the earth (the titans). An aeon later, these caverns are collapsed due to it’s anger:
In the light of the veilfire, the runes seem to shift, coiling and uncoiling like snakes. A thunderous voice shatters the stillness, shouting:
"Hail Mythal, adjudicator and savior! She has struck down the pillars of the earth and rendered their demesne unto the People! Praise her name forever!"
For a moment, the scent of blood fills the air, and there is a vivid image of green vines growing and enveloping a sphere of fire.
The vision grows dark. An aeon seems to pass. Then the runes crackle, as if filled with an angry energy.
A new vision appears: elves collapsing caverns, sealing the Deep Roads with stone and magic.
Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast.
A voice whispers:
"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."
A very similar ritual to the one above is also described in the Forbidden Oasis at Ritual Rock:
A page from a charred book:
You offer a sip of water while they provide a feast.
Know they speak of the same wickedness, but place it in you.
I have heard them speak, and I have listened.
I hear the whispers of all.
Let them offer silver while you give gold.
Let them think themselves your betters and know nothing more.
Would you not purge the world of wickedness—of those who speak against you?
Would they not do the same?
If we do not have an agreement, then I shall depart.
When I am through, none shall speak of treachery.
When all have given word, then all shall be appeased.
Written in the margins:
Must remember the words. The right materials on the flame in the right order. Earth, the vine, the phial, then the blood. The blood comes last. No missteps. One wrong move, and the binding will not work. But if it does—oh, my enemies will quake.
These rituals all describe the same thing, using Earth, Vines, a phial of something (lyrium?), then blood, to bind a spirit as a means to attain power to defeat their enemies.
Between the time of the titan’s defeat and Mythal’s death, something bad clearly happened which caused the spirit she used to defeat the titans to go rogue.
Perhaps her bound spirit turned into the mysterious ‘it’ that has been haunting people’s dreams throughout the series and appears wherever the blight is also associated.
Tamlen sees it in the eluvian. Fiona dreams of a dark terrifying shadow in The Calling. Leliana has a similar vision about an ungodly noise and falling into darkness (which is significant IMO, because she has a strong spiritual connection to Andraste, who has links to Mythal).
In DAO, an ancient elf’s spirit describes a presence killing both humans and elves:
You see a place of serenity, where the Eldest come to slumber and are visited by those who offer tribute to the gods on their behalf. The Presence's memories of what happened there are uncertain. There are flashes of violence, of war.. but it is all too long ago. None of it is clear. The Presence remembers the humans. This was a time even after the humans had come. It was they who had built this place, long before. Perhaps the war was with other humans. Perhaps it was with something else, something that killed both the humans and elves that were here. It is not clear. You see images of a great battle, elves and humans both screaming and attempting to flee from some terrible presence. What that presence was is blurry and lost to time. The Presence fled the destruction by using the Life Gem, escaping its body. It was sure that someone would come, to rescue it. But no one did. Not until now.
Even Corypheus’ memories suggest he had plans for this monster once he cracked open the Fade again:
Calpernia prepares to set foot in the place where regret dwells. To bring it into the light.
Flemeth says herself, regret is something she knows well.
And remember what Solas says about spirit binding in Cole’s personal quest?
Cole: It isn’t abuse if I ask (to be bound)
Solas: Not always true
What if Flemeth’s big regret was performing that blood magic ritual and binding that spirit in the first place to defeat the titans? That bound spirit eventually became the monstrous blighted creature as a result of the evanuris’ attempt at gaining more power.
We know from Solas himself that Falon’Din started wars to amass worshippers, and it is inferred he used the blood of slaves to power his own magic. He was only stopped when he began going after Mythal’s own followers, causing his brethren to bloody him in his own temple.
Perhaps Falon’Din and his allies betrayed Mythal because they wanted control of the spirit she had bound as well as her power to control the titan’s workers. Remember, that power alone was enough to defeat the titans. Imagine that power combined with the magic from the Void, a place Falon’Din personally specialised in navigating?
yes I know, fade magic and blight magic are different and alien from each other. But there is something that connects both of them together and that is lyrium - the blood of titans.
===
Consider this gem below:
youtube
Mythal speaks the calling....
The whispers could be nothing. But then again, it could be something.
Fact: Flemeth has been very personally invested and involved in the blight.
She knew about the fifth blight way before anyone and warned Maric of it. She knew Ser Jory would die from the Joining. She knew Hawke’s blood could seal/unseal Corypheus from his prison.
I don’t think she can simply see into the future. I think she knows all of this because a part of Mythal is connected to the blight through the blood magic ritual described in the veilfire rune.
Abelas says Mythal was slain, if a god truly can be.
Sure, she may have lost her physical body and worshippers, but the idea of her lived on through her wisp, and the well itself.
If the evanuris wanted Mythal gone entirely, they must have known her well of sorrows held power. So why go to the trouble of defiling her temple but keeping the well intact?
Maybe the evanuris killed her physically and destroyed any evidence of her godhood, but they left her well alone because Mythal’s will is a part of the blight's power.
Mythal supposedly gave dwarves dreams and hijacked the titan’s hive mind to wrestle control of the titan’s workers. Isn’t it strange that very same logic applies to the blight, where the darkspawn operate as a hivemind and are connected through tainted titan’s blood?
In DAO, Zathrian also used a blood magic ritual to summon and bind the spirit of the forest to put a werewolf curse on his enemies.
Because Zathrian used his own blood to bind the spirit, it was only through his death that Witherfang’s spirit was set free and the curse lifted altogether.
This all sounds mighty familiar.....
I know, this entire post is already super tin foily and many big reaches have to be made to get to this point, but what if the idol depicts Mythal at her death and the creation of the taint, at the heart of Arlathan?
Through time, the magic from the ritual infected the lyrium around it, overwhelming her body and the titan heart, keeping her alive.
We already know that red lyrium can overwhelm people, turning them into unrecognisable nodes of lyrium (just look at Fiona in In Hushed Whispers or Meredith as described in TN).
Drakon’s foreshadows death as the path to rebirth:
"Remember the fire. You must pass
Through it alone to be forged anew.”
Perhaps it is only through Mythal’s true death in DA4 that will spell the end of the blight as we know it- through the destruction of the red lyrium heart that lies in the fade. And that is Solas’ end goal - to destroy the veil so he can destroy the heart so the mysterious it can be destroyed and the blight can be lifted once and for all, just like what happened with Zathrian’s curse.
But most likely, it’ll be Mythal’s thirst for vengeance that'll be the foil in this plan because I’m sure she would want her due with her betrayers before truly dying.
Yeah I know. This post could really be fanfiction at this point. But you have to admit, it’s interesting to think about.
46 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Story Behind Solas with Dragon Age Lead Writer Patrick Weekes - Dialogue Wheel (Part 3 of 3)
The final piece of the interview!
Here is Part 1, Part 2
Time: 25:35
One of the most beautiful scenes I think in Dragon Age Inquisition is the scene that you get with Solas if you play as a female elf Inquisitor. Talk a little bit about that choice to have this romance option very, very specific. It’s race- and gender- specific. Why that scene - what that scene meant and a lot of the subtext, because it is a very rich sequence of scenes, not just one. And, I think it’s really one of the most interesting romances in the game.
I love that scene because that scene for me shows how far we’ve gone past - not the make myself irrelevant anymore - but how far we’ve gone with the digital acting. Jonathan Epp the cine-designer for that scene put it together and when you take everything that Gareth David Lloyd - the voice actor - everything he did on his lines. And just putting so much tragedy, and making it clear in every line that he wants to say more than he can. And with Jon Epp the cine-designer, just in the wordless scenes: showing the tragedy, showing the heartbreak, showing how much he does genuinely care against his better judgement, and how he finally forces himself to step away.,
You know how I said when we were talking about the Iron Bull - everything, every major moment we do, is there for a specific type of player fantasy fulfillment. And you know, not all types of fantasies are the happy ones. There’s a reason why The Phantom of the Opera was on Broadway for so many years and it’s not because it has a happy ending.
The Phantom of the Opera isn’t exactly the theme for the romance - the razor was something closer to almost professor and student in some ways. He definitely comes across as a mentor in some ways. When he finally steps back it is him beating himself up, not you, saying “Wow what I have done here is actually really unfair to you, and you, player, at the time don’t know that I’m beating myself up because I’m actually 1000s of years old and not the person you think I am and it’s disrespectful to you for me to continue this relationship.” So it’s a very moral perspective for our ancient, quasi-evil, trickster god to come with.
Time: 28:41
And it’s amazing because it’s another instance of content that so few players would actually get an opportunity to see. When it comes to making it that specific, I guess, why was that choice made? Because usually a lot of your content - most of the Dragon Age content - it’s very easy to get really rich, wonderful characters right in your face and have those wonderful “eat-em-up” experiences, why for this one was it such a steep price to get in?
You know, I won’t lie, a lot of it came from some of our designers. Some of the women in the design department really, really loving his voice and saying, “You are absolutely fools if you do not make him romance-able in some capacity.” And, really, his story overall is - and, you know, I think we’ve only hinted at that but I think we have hinted at it enough that I can at least say this part of it - his story isn’t a happy one. His story is one, where, if you look at him and Mythal, there is clearly some grief, there is clearly some tragedy. And, adding in the option - even for players who don’t take it - on my end as a writer, knowing that some players will have this as a star-crossed, forbidden romance, you know, it makes him more sympathetic. It’s important to me as a writer because when you’re writing about someone who, according to Flemeth, is at least somewhat responsible for the bad guy getting the magical item that he used to blow up half a mountain in the prologue, it’s important to have something in there that you can always have, as a writer, look at as your touchstone and go “This is a real person. This is someone who experiences sadness. This is someone who falls in love.” Even if he doesn’t do it with that Inquisitor on that playthrough, this is always someone who can be like that.
Time: 30:58
Where do you see a character like Solas ending up?
(Big sigh) Musical theater.
(laughs) Right when we reach those beautiful moments, Patrick!
I think that it is fantastic that people have emotionally engaged with Solas and I hope we get a chance to explore that in some future content.
Alright and that’s the most that we’re getting right now.
Time: 31:37
Oh, and here’s a little tie in: Here Lies the Abyss, the demon that spoke to Solas - what was all that about, what was that going on?
Oh yes - the demon who speaks perfect Elven!
Yes perfectly to him, and if you remember any of that - did you have anything to do with that?
Yes, Here Lies the Abyss was mine. It was a fun plot. It was a terrifyingly difficult plot, because - I’m not sure how clear this is to players that have one done one playthrough or with one import state - but your key characters throughout the events at Adamant Fortress and then the events of the Fade, it’s a customizable Hawke. Which means it could be a male Hawke or a female Hawke and within that, Hawke from Dragon Age 2 is characterized by one of three different attitudes: friendly, grim, or sarcastic. So, that’s three attitudes times two genders, that’s six different Hawkes and three different possible Grey Wardens: Alistair, Loghain, or Stroud. So, the process of going through Adamant Fortress and then going through the Fade was a crazy juggling act of trying to keep track of “Okay, now one of these five people, these five Schrodinger’s cat quantum people, will say this line, and then another of these five Schrodinger’s cat quantum people will respond with this line.”
It’s important to remember that as we went through everything in Adamant Fortress and the Fade was taking place in that contest. There was a long period time when we were looking at that really going, “Okay, I just have to hope this actually makes sense when it’s nothing but Alistair and my sarcastic female Hawke.”
But, to actually answer your question. As I recall, the Nightmare, who as a friendly, chipper guy was basically - I do basically two types of villains: I do the villain who thinks he or she is the hero, and is misguided and has opposed goals, and is kind of tragic and tortured in that way. And then I do the mean-girl villain who says snotty high school insults.
That’s it - that’s the gambit.
Well, just about, yes. I’m looking forward to see who writes the villain in the future Dragon Age games - so get ready for either tragic pathos or really, really good high school mean-girl zingers.
As I recall, he was speaking Elven to Solas and if I remember right, he said, “Your pride is responsible for everything that has gone wrong” and I think he said “You will die alone.” And then Solas said something that translates to either “Nothing is known for certain” or “Not necessarily.”
And what does all that mean?
Well I think it’s fascinating that people are emotionally engaged, and I hope we have the chance -
It was a very asked question - it was a question that was asked a lot. Specific to that.
Oh, I’m not surprised, and I hope one day that we can tell you. But, obviously, that demon knows that Solas is hurting and Solas feels guilty about some stuff and really wanted to dig in there, and Solas was shouting back.
Literally just describing what happened (laughs). All right, so something that will clearly be talked about in other games.
TIme: 36:22
Dealing with this particular quest I really think that this was one opportunity to involve the Grey Wardens in a story, and a world, that kind of progressingly, after the first game had less and less of a need to exist - let alone in the world - but in the main characters arc. Talking to David I remember initially there was some idea for this particular mission they would just fall into the hole and be hanging out in the Deep Roads, and having out with the dwarves, so tell us a little bit about this creation.
A lot of the process of writing these large plots, like I talked about the razor, you figure out what the core concept is, you always start with a lot of things, and in most cases what you then end up having to do is cut. And if you’re not someone in the studio, talking about having to cut things sounds like you’re losing awesome content, you’re ruining what would have been clearly the best part of the plot. Inside the studio though, most cases what you’re cutting is the stuff that didn’t actually help tell the story you wanted to tell.
So yes in the original version, in a very early draft, actually this was before I was actually on the plot - this predates me - there was, yes, going into the Deep Roads, and when you fell in instead of ending up in the Fade you ended up down in the dark. And finding out what the Grey Wardens in this version of the story had been involved with the Architect from Dragon Age: Awakening. It was an interesting direction, and it was, I think, a very cool direction, but it did not help tell the story of the Inquisition. It was more a story of “Hey, if we wanted to do more with the Hero of Fereldan, here is an interesting place we could go” and it did not help tell the story of “What is the Inquisition doing?” “What is Corypheus doing?”, “How do these two organizations bounce off each other and who’s caught in the middle?” So trying to come to terms with the Grey Wardens in this game not being the protagonists, not being the group that is in the center of the action but being the group that is caught in the middle of this power struggle was something that led to us having to eventually do the re-jiggering that got us to the plot you saw.
#solas#dragon age#patrick weekes#patrick weekes interview#da4#dragon age: inquisition#dai#solas x lavellan#dread wolf#the dread wolf rises#dragon age 4#dragon age lore#fen'harel#fenharel#part 3
174 notes
·
View notes
Text
Arbor Wilds: Temple of Mythal - Part 5
Main Quest: What Pride Had Wrought
The Temple of Mythal was a place of justice, where petitioners walked religious rites of passage in order to have their pleas for justice heard by Mythal. According to some, it is also the site of some mysterious religious artefact called the vir'abelasan.
This post contains the following sections
The Well of Sorrows
Drink from the Well
[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]
[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]
The Well of Sorrows
We finally reach an inner garden of the Temple which walls are decorated with more mural paintings: the standing elf, and several golden hallas. Some statues of the dragon Mythal are broken on the top of the wall. On the highest part of this garden, looming over the whole garden, we see a gargantuan statue of Humanoid Mythal. Probably the only statue with god-like dimension in all this Temple.
The Well of Sorrows is at the end of the path, on top of a big platform. As we reach it, Solas says “So Mythal endures”. Which is strange. Did he not know she was alive? Is this a line meaning he realises in this moment she is truly alive? Or part of this Well has a “will” of Mythal, so the existence of this artefacts means that Mythal still can exist? It’s curious his wording in this precise moment.
We learn from Samson that the Well contains wisdom/knowledge that would allow Corypheus have access to the Fade without even having the anchor. This is such a brutal lore-concept. The Vir’abelasan contains a power that allows to cross the Veil without any artefact.
If we talk to Calpeania [watch the video here] she seems to understand that the well has knowledge and power abandoned by the Evanuris [”The well of sorrows overflows with knowledge, power abandoned by those the elves worshipped as gods. To walk the Fade without the Anchor.”]
After getting rid of Samson or Calpenia, we see Abelas creating a stair of rift magic towards the well, ready to destroy it.
Depending on your respect to the Temple [meaning, you did the rituals at the entrance or you didn’t] we have different scenes in what follows:
Abelas has a duty: protect the well. If he can’t, he prefers to destroy it, losing all the wills/knowledge inside the water. This knowledge has been stored in this artefact over thousands of years, all servants of Myhtal have passed their knowledge and will to it when they head to Uthenera [once again, this has strong resemblances with the codex A Flowering Imago, explained in Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara.
Solas encourages Abelas to stay in this world and perform another duty. Solas says “your people linger”, and then he confirms “Elvhen such as I”. Here is pretty clear the “People” that Abelas and Solas kept referring to: the Elvhen.
If the inquisitor asks for permission to drink from the well, Abelas says something that reinforces what he said: one doesn’t ask for permission to drink from the well, one has to work hard to get Mythal’s favour [“one obtains the right”]. So it is obviously implied that the Servants of Mythal were less than unwillingly slaves and more like willingly servants. However, I feel that this contradicts some mural paintings we saw along the Temple.
If the inquisitor asks for the price of drinking from the well, Abelas says “no boon of Mythal was ever granted without cost”, meaning that receiving a favour from Mythal is something you have to work hard to obtain, and there is always a price. I think this produce an extra indirect implication with Flemeth along the DA series: all the favours that Flemeth has been granting to several characters in books and previous games have a price that was never explicitly said, but it was implied in an obscure way.
Then, Abelas says something that called my attention: Anyone who drinks from the well is bound to the will of Mythal. In The Shrine of Dumat, and in the Attack of Haven, Corypheus made always an emphasis about being the “will of Corypheus”. This makes me suspect that Evanuris, and their “hard to kill” characteristic has to do with this “will”, a will that can jump into other bodies to survive.
Morrigan mocks a bit the idea of being bound to someone who, in her opinion, doesn’t exist anymore.
Abelas and the rest of the servants of Mythal are bound to her. What this exactly means, it’s a bit more speculative since the game says little in an explicit way.
It’s surprising for me that Abelas, despite mourning the death of Mythal for ages, answers that anything is possible when asked if Mythal still exists. Did he meet Flemeth? Or Flemeth, since she is nothing more but a fragment, a shadow of what Mythal was, has changed, and preferred to never interact with these sentinels? The motherly goddess, abandoning her children because the world betrayed her and death changed her [we know via Solas’ words and Avvar’s codices in the DLC that all spirits return when killed but not in the same way. How much of this aspect of the spirits still remains in the Evanuris/Elvhen?]
Abelas, an elvhen who lived the time of the Evanuris, says that Dalish tales are wrong: The dread wolf had nothing to do with the death of Myhtal. Mythal was murdered.
Those who destroyed this temple were who killed her. [This bit of information is so vital yet we have nothing. In all the temple, what little we see destroyed, is mostly via Red Templars. But Abelas is referring to a very well known enemy by him. It’s not a modern enemy. When we enter to the chamber of petitions, he doesn’t know who Corypheus and his red templars are. So we can’t assume he is referring to them when he says this line. It’s a group of people form his past. In trespasser, Solas says that the last straw that motivated him to seal the Evanuris was the murder of Mythal. So, those who destroyed this temple had to be other Evanuris, but who? I can’t find any link. In the post Arbor Wilds: Temple of Mythal in detail I work on some potential hypothesis of these enemies, but there is no lead in-game.
Solas invites Abelas to look for purpose elsewhere. I have the impression, and this is mere speculation, that Solas is recruiting him as an agent.
Here, Abelas speaks of Uthenera, and not mere slumber. Uthenera is something more definitive, to never come back.
He also reinforces the idea that the fall of the Elvhenan empire was exclusively Elvhen doing.
In this comment we can infer, in combination with the codex Unstranslable Writing from Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal, that elvhen kept changing their name depending on their role. And this makes so much more sense if we keep in mind what Solas has been repeating to us for ages about the nature of the spirits: a spirit’s name is its purpose. And elvhens had a spirit-like nature. They are more vivid that the mere spirits we find in the Fade, which are described by Solas as “semi-existent”. Elves have always been more complex, fluid, and able to embrace more than one aspect than the spirits [this is also repeated by him several times when people question Myhtal’s duality of being fierce but also motherly]. That elves change their names as their purpose/duty is reshaped makes sense, it works similar to spirits: Wisdom spirits change their name to Pride when corrupted and their purpose is disfigured. And probably this change of name is vital, since acting against their purpose twist their nature.
On the other hand, if you showed a disrespectful behaviour towards the Temple, and Abelas is determined to prevent the spoil of the Well, we see an interesting cinematic [video here]
When Abelas is asked if he can claim that Mythal was a god, he seems to understand the truth of the Evanuris, since he says “to you... it shall make no difference.”
When Abelas attacks, we see the same kind of special effects that Mythal shows when she appears in the Altar [grey smoke, soft blue sparkles] and a blue glow inside his eyes [same as Flemeth when she commands the one who drank from the Well to stop Morrigan]
When he is destroying the well, the magical effect in his eyes makes me remember the old effect of the Archdemon, black, purplish fumes in eyes and breath [putting aside the differences of engines, of course]. Not because I want to relate Abelas to Archdemons, but because I wonder how close these powers are related to the Blight itself: a purified, non-corrupted version of them. We see similar ominous effect in Flemeth, and in the last seconds of the end of the Game, in Solas when he consumes Flemeth’s powers.
When Abelas dies, he says “Mythal Sulevin”. Sulevin is the elven word for “purpose”, as if he were saying: the goal of Mythal or the purpose of Mythal. What does this exactly mean? Has Flemeth planed this? We can ask her about how much she controlled the situations in her Temple and with the voices of the Well when we are in Flemeth’s Fade, and she praises the cleverness of the Inquisitor as an answer [see the post about Flemeth’s Fade]. So, Mythal has already told these elves to let the Well be consumed or destroyed? Or being killed by Flemeth’s chosen daughter was the real purpose of Abelas? Too vague.
Solas reacts to this unnecessary death, explaining: “he was defending all that was left of what once was.”
Once the well is consumed, there is similar effect around the drinker and the inquisitor [due to the Anchor, I imagine]: a smoky effect that Abelas had showed a moment before when trying to destroy the Well.
Curiously, it’s the same visual effect of Corypheus [hence my association with the old effect in the old engine of DAO in the Archdemons] It’s quite an ominous effect for magic related to the Fade.
Drink from the Well
Once Abelas is rid of, we have to decide what to do with the Well, learning some details in the process:
This well is the key for the activation of this Eluvian.
The well has a presence in itself, and something negative: a hunger, a compulsion.
Morrigan assumes that it’s the mere nature of knowledge: it begets a hunger for more.
Morrigan and Solas have a discussion. Solas asks for them to take the knowledge, but not giving it to Morrigan who represents, to his eyes, a person with too much ambition to trust this power.
If you offer the Well to Solas, he simply denies it, without any explanation and any chance to ask him again.
Morrigan suspects there is a remaining compulsion in the magic of the Well.
An Inquisitor with skill or knowledge in the arcane, can sense something else that Morrigan didn’t: the idea of “will” is reinforced again. And here is where I think the bound process and the wells are something that may be related to the codex A flowering Imago in Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara: the whole persona, their will, is in this well, bound to Mythal forever, feeding a pond of memories and knowledge. It’s not just knowledge from the ancient elves. It’s their will, their “souls”. If we think that before the Veil elves were closer to spirits, these kind of Wells are aberrations: they bound their whole being to this pond.
The collective will of priests puts a compulsion in the person who drinks it. A geas. Corypheus knew about this [probably thanks to the orb] and for this reason he wanted a vessel [Samson or Calpenia]
If the inquisitor drinks, we can see the procedure of the bound: inside the well, we hear the will of all those priests, I imagine. They know how to stop Corypheus, and mark the inquisitor with a standard overused snake-glyph that I showed in the post General glyphs and magical symbols. I think that speculations on this glyph have little to offer, the game has a limited amount of glyphs to give particular meaning to each of them.
As the inquisitor recover their consciousness, all the water has been consumed.
No matter who drank from the well, the inquisitor is surrounded by a dark smoke and blue reflections that make them glow. This kind of power is the same one we see in Abelas if he tries to destroy the Wll, or in Flemeth when she leave the Altar of Mythal. It’s the same effect that Solas has after consuming Flemeth’s essence at the end of the game.
With the Well inside the inquisitor or Morrigan [the same scene can be seen no matter who drank it], we can activate the eluvian and escape Corypheus’ wrath.
This is a scene that always was a mystery to me. I am not sure what happens here, but suddenly, the Well has water again and we see an entity raises from the water. It has the shape of a female human [rounded ears] and closes the eluvian behind her. This entity is one of the biggest mysteries to me. Nothing of what Abelas said, and all what we analysed before says anything about this creature. The only remote hint is that, if this Well had a piece of Mythal inside it, that piece could be shaped into a female human because Mythal merged herself with Flemeth’s soul and both are now a single entity [similar mash-up happens with Anders and Justice]. Honestly, I am not very convinced on this hypothesis, and it’s really hard to speculate what this human-spirit is.
Returning to Skyhold, we discuss some details:
Because the Inquisitor was not as prepared as Samson, Calpenia or Morrigan were, they can’t use the knowledge of the Well properly. In fact, it’s quite useless for the rest of the game. This powerful tool should allow us to understand so much more lore, but still yet the devs were quite cowards in that sense. For the inquisitor works like a google translator of ancient elven, and nothing more, sadly.
Morrigan seems to make a better use of it, but we can’t know all what she learns from it.
We learn that Corypheus’ dragon is not an archdemon but a mere dragon where he put part of his power. If we kill the dragon, he can’t jump to other bodies. This is very retconned since in DA2 we don’t see any dragon, and yet Corypheus jumps to Janeka’s or Larius’ bodies anyways.
At the end of this quest, we can speak with Solas and analyse some vague bits of information he drops. These details will be posted in “Lore by Solas”.
Arbor Wilds: Temple of Myhtal - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
#playing DA like an archaeologist#main quest#temple of mythal#well of sorrows#mythal#eluvian#abelas#elvhenan#elvhen
10 notes
·
View notes
Text
It has been 20 years since Inquisitor ‘Manehn Lavellan defeated Corypheus, and 18 years since the Exalted Council. Solas is furthering his plans and so far, all efforts to stop him seem to be in vain….until the Well of Sorrows begins to speak to ‘Manehn once more. Led by ancient magics and beset by enemies from Ferelden and Orlais to Antiva and Tevinter, ‘Manehn must gather allies old and new in a race against time to defeat Solas - at any cost.
(NOW ON AO3)
Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7
CH 8: Dalish Pariah
Since ‘Manehn and Davhalla had stepped into the eluvian on Sundermount, they had wandered aimlessly for what had seemed like eternity, though no time had actually passed.
Time flows differently in the Fade. Time in the permanent world is linear, static, unchanging. The Fade is fluid, always changing. There is no past or future, there is here and not. It is a concept only Dreamer mages like Davhalla, Mirwen and Solas could truly grasp. The link to the Fade was too strong to ignore it, and if Dreamers like them did not learn to know the Fade as intimately as they knew themselves, they would have long been consumed, stolen by a distorted spirit itching for a taste of the static world.
“We’re lost,” Davhalla finally said, her fingers thrumming against her sides as a sign of her twitching nerves.
“Davhalla -”
“Well, what would you call wandering about these Fade-like spaces without direction or without an end in sight?” Davhalla said. “It was foolish. I should not have done something so reckless,” she said, furrowing her brow and sweeping her locs from her broad face.
“Like leaving your position as Keeper?” ‘Manehn unhelpfully added.
“I would not be so flippant to speak of abandonment,” Davhalla said, in a defensive tone. “Many in our clan believe you abandoned us long ago…”
“I have done no such thing!” ‘Manehn snapped, stopping in her tracks, her hand balled into a tight fist that drained the color from her fingers. “Everything I have tried to do was for my people! I do not need to hear -”
“What your people think?” Davhalla said, “How can you win the war if you have not won your peoples’ hearts? Why do you think so many of our people rushed to Fen’harel’s side? His ambitions seem greater and his promises do not seem so empty.”
Davhalla softened her tone and gently clasped ‘Manehn’s shoulder. “I apologize. I did not mean to twist that against you,” she said, sorrowful, “I am stating what is whispered around the campfires and at the gatherings of clans. I know I did not, and neither did you - no matter how others perceive it.”
“I know quite well what people think,” ‘Manehn sighed as anger and pain and regret and bitterness roiled within her. She normally would have been livid with Davhalla. She was with anyone who dared question her dedication, cutting them down with biting remarks while forcefully recounting everything she had done not just for the elves, but for all of Thedas. But the kernels of truth within Davhalla’s words hurt more and, even worse, they frightened her. Years had passed. Decades. Solas had infinite patience and infinite time. ‘Manehn was wearing thin on both. She could no longer rely on past triumphs to silence her present critics.
A sad but tense silence passed between them as ‘Manehn and Davhalla surveyed their surroundings. The air hummed with magic like a singer with a tune on her lips, beckoning them forward down paths of dazzling light and color even though they still had no idea where they had come from or where they were headed. Even now, both of them could not help but marvel at the sight, which felt homey and inviting and filled with as much warmth as sorrow, for both of their hearts panged as they realized this was yet another marvel the elves had lost.
An interruption of shouting and the clink of armor and blades drew them back to reality. Five elves rushed towards them, blades and teeth bared. ‘Manehn and Davhalla had barely readied their weapons when they both felt a sudden searing heat near them.
“Stay next to me!” Davhalla yelled as she threw up a barrier. A wall of flame rushed towards them, immolating the elves, turning their screams of bloodthirsty rage into screams of unbearable pain. As the last ones fell, bodies ash-blackened, a figure strided towards them, carefully maneuvering around the bodies.
She was tall and pale, with angular features, a strong square jaw and a fiendish gleam in her piercing yellow eyes. Long jet back hair cascaded behind a crown of dragon’s horns that gave her a menacing aura. She pointed her staff, adorned with a ram’s head, at both of them.
“You are not lost,” She said in a cool tone. “You are just refusing to be guided.”
‘Manehn put her hand on the hilt of her dagger and Davhalla readied her staff.
“Doesn’t sound like much of a difference,” Davhalla said.
“And I wouldn’t exactly take guidance from a complete stranger,” ‘Manehn added.
Davhalla leaned into ‘Manehn and whispered. “Not a stranger. I know what she is. She is a Witch of the Wilds. I would not trust her.”
“My name is Yavana, young ones, and I expected you,” she said in a smoky voice, with the briefest glance at ‘Manehn’s grip on her dagger, which had grown tighter. “The Well of Sorrows led me to you as you were led to me, to play our part.”
Davhalla was raised on tales of Flemeth’s daughters, as all elves were. Though she knew it to be a childish impulse, she could not help but fear her, if only because she could sense the immense power that Yavana wielded.
“And what is your part, exactly?” ‘Manehn asked with a snarl, pointing her dagger at Yavana's chest.
“The same as yours," Yavana said nonchalantly, as if explaining the simplest concept to the most stubborn child. "To restore what was before. To protect what fools would destroy. To avenge what was lost.”
“I am merely here to aid you, not fight you.” Yavana added, “I have a purpose, as do you. Mythal compels you to fulfill your part, as I fulfill mine. And should you try to end me as others before me….” she flashed a wicked grin, “know you will not succeed. Kings and peasants alike have tried.”
“I don’t know,” ‘Manehn retorted, “Corypheus thought the same of me.” Unlike Davhalla, her fear merely did little more than feed her anger at this interloper.
“A grasping pretender is nothing compared to whom you face now.” Yavana’s eyes narrowed. “You have been given a great gift, to be the Vessel of Mythal, to be her beacon, her champion. Her will works through you.”
She came closer to ‘Manehn and surveyed her, slightly bemused at this brash elf. ‘Manehn glared back at her, her dagger still pointed at Yavana.
“You have not embraced what you were given. Hopefully you will learn after what comes next.”
“And what does come next, witch?” Davhalla said with a condescending sneer.
‘Manehn hesitated for a while, her temper cooling as she evaluated the situation they were in. They were lost. This strange woman was offering...something. And she had just killed a bunch of elves who were ready to antagonize them. She was not a friend, but she was being friendly enough. Still suspicious yet compelled, ‘Manehn sheathed her dagger and turned to Davhalla.
Yavana stared at both of them with an almost bored expression.
“We might as well follow her, unless you want to keep wandering around ‘refusing to be guided’,” she whispered to Davhalla with air quotes and a sarcastic tone. Davhalla lowered her staff and merely sighed, saying “I just hope this doesn’t end with our deaths.”
"You are smarter than you look," Yavana said as she turned her back and began to walk away from them towards a crossroads. She stopped after some distance and called to them. "Do you wish to follow, or would you prefer to stay here forever?"
"You don't want to miss your meeting, after all," she added, as she bade them to follow.
'Manehn and Davhalla studied the strange woman who strolled along the paths in front of them with inhuman ease. All humans, when they entered these in-between spaces, found the footsteps grew leadan and legs weary, struggling to keep up with elven companions. Both were equally curious as to how she even managed to not merely keep up, but outpace them.
Yavana would occasionally glance back with an almost amused expression and 'Manehn's eyes would narrow every time she looked back. If she had learned anything at all from Morrigan, whom she strongly resembled, it was that any alliance, boon, or favor from someone like her was a demon's bargain.
She would not find out until much later how high the price was that she had chosen to pay.
In between her speculations and suspicions of Yavana's intentions, ‘Manehn’s thoughts returned to those she had left behind, thoughts that she had reserved only in her times of greatest distress, the worries that came to her when she feared that her current moments were her final ones. Thoughts of her mother, sister and clan, now a wisp of memory she could almost never recapture. Thoughts of her friends and her daughter, those she loved most, who kept her from succumbing to the darkest corners of the darkest thoughts that came to her in her loneliest moments. She wasn't sure this was her last moment alive, but she also wasn't sure she wasn't making a grave mistake.
Davhalla's thoughts were focused elsewhere, on the strange witch who guided them. She noticed Yavana sauntered forward with an easy confidence but Davhalla sensed a secret within her. Whatever Yavana spoke of, she spoke of not as an agent freely acting within their will, but as a servant humbly obeying the wishes of a great master. 'Manehn had revealed Flemeth's true nature, and the nature of her daughters, these Witches of the Wilds, to her before. If Flemeth was Mythal, then why did she work through human daughters? Davhalla's fear grew with every step forward. This was not the will of Mythal the gentle Mother. What Yavana spoke of was a great vengeance that would shake their foundations. Either way, she thought, Thedas would quake under the power of a Creator. She just couldn't decide if it was Fen'harel's remaking or Mythal's reckoning she should fear more.
The twisting paths Yavana had guided them along stopped at a deactivated, darkened eluvian. With a wave of her hand and a mumble under her breath, the eluvian sprang to life, the silver sheen of the glass surface warping and whirling. Davhalla and 'Manehn almost audibly gasped and shared a weak laughter between them. She had actually guided them out. This wasn't a trap. Yet.
“Go ahead and meet your elf,” Yavana said as she began to walk away. “I will be waiting.”
“Great,” ‘Manehn said sarcastically, meeting her eyes with one last glare as she and Davhalla stepped into the eluvian.
————————
In the Brecilian Forest, as sunlight peeked through the canopy of trees that covered an ancient Tevinter ruin, a small elf with short black hair and large forlorn green eyes dressed in a First’s robes sat in front of an eluvian, muttering to herself with while leafing through a large brown leather book.
The eluvian was a miraculous find, she mused, since the only other one she had found in this forest was nothing but a shattered frame sitting in her hovel in Kirkwall’s alienage. She would never get rid of it. It still had a use, though shattered beyond repair. It was a memorial to Tamlen and Naira. A reminder of mistakes that she, and those she loved, had made. And most importantly, it was motivation to finish what she had started.
When she heard the news that Fen’harel had risen, had revealed himself, and was now walking the mortal world with a promise to remake the world to his whims, she felt not just fear and anger but vindication. She had doubted herself for so long. But protecting the people, all of her people, from the Dread Wolf was what she had been born and groomed to do. Even if she failed, even if she perished, she thought, she would try to do something, no matter how small.
She was too lost in thought, and in her notes, to notice the small hum that began to emanate from the eluvian that stood behind her. Not until the hum grew louder and she felt the blast of magic behind her as two figures tumbled out behind her.
She tossed the book aside, leapt to her feet and grabbed her staff from the ground, pointing it at the two interlopers.
“Tell me who you are,” she said, trying her best to sound intimidating, “how did you - !”,
She lowered her staff and she surveyed their faces, trying and failing to hide her shock. Both of them were marked with vallaslin, the marks of Elgar’nan and June. They were her People. More importantly, she knew them enough to know they were friends.
Well, friend might be a strong word for the Inquisitor, she thought. Maybe she should say ‘ally’ or ‘enemy of Fen’harel’ instead.
“Keeper Davhalla! And the Inquisitor?!” she said, helping them both to their feet, “Anetha ara, Keeper, I thought you were still with your clan.”
“I was,” Davhalla said. “But this fight needs me more than the clan does. And it needs you too, Merrill. Why did you leave Kirkwall so suddenly?”
“I’ve had too much to do here!” Merrill protested, “I’ve gotten myself in far too much trouble chasing history before but -”
Merrill paused and took a deep breath.
“But when I found out about the eluvians and Fen’harel, I had to come back to do something, of course,” she said, twisting her fingers, “Protecting the People from the Dread Wolf is a Keeper’s place. You know that, of course and well, I’m not a Keeper - I would have been terrible at it - but you understand. But I know it wouldn’t hurt for me to try again. At least, I don’t think so. But maybe I could -”
Before either of them could interrupt her, Merrill’s voice trailed off as she walked past them towards the eluvian. She placed her hand against the mirror and closed her eyes, sensing the magic that still lingered.
‘Manehn and Davhalla’s eyes darted towards the collapsed stone walls when they heard a rustle in the vegetation. Both readied their weapons...and relaxed them while a deer bounded across, turned and walked away.
‘Manehn and Davhalla looked at each other with amusement, and Merrill ignored them both, until ‘Manehn heard the whistle of arrows.
“Barrier!” she screamed at Davhalla as she backed towards the eluvian. Davhalla readied her staff and erected a barrier seconds before the volley of arrows came down, bouncing off the erected wall of force magic.
Four elves jumped from the walls and barreled towards them, while another six elves perched on a collapsed pillar high above them readied another volley.
“Dread Wolf take you all!” they heard Merrill shout behind them as a stonefist flew between them and crashed into the pillar, knocking several of the elves to the ground. ‘Manehn unsheathed both her blades and lunged forward as the elves drew near the barrier, whirling fast as she cut into two of them. She turned and barely dodged a heavy hammer’s blow.
“They seem awfully cross!” Merrill yelled at both of them.
“Ya think?!” ‘Manehn yelled back as she lunged forward to parry another blow. Davhalla held steady but muttered a few words. ‘Manehn felt a new, cleansing power surge within her and felt her feet lighten and her blows land faster.
Merrill hurriedly drew a dagger and cut her arm. The small streams of blood began to levitate and surround her within a sinister aura. The rest of the archers and the fighters dropped their weapons and shrieked as their blood began to boil and their limbs twisted under Merrill’s control. They turned bright red and crumpled to the ground, gruesomely bloated and limbs twisted.
Davhalla lowered her barrier and shot Merrill a withering glare. Merrill pretended not to notice, calmly sheathing her blade and avoiding Davhalla’s gaze. ‘Manehn looked at macabre display of men, unsettled yet unwilling to contend against magic that, at this moment at least, had saved their skins.
“I don’t know why I keep getting attacked,” Merrill said, “I don’t think I’ve done much of anything, really. I’ve only helped the elves in the Alienage and then all of a sudden, I’ve got intruders trying to set me on fire and -”
“He thinks you’re a threat and that’s enough for him.” ‘Manehn said, “You must know enough to be dangerous.”
“Well, I guess I do know things. About the eluvians, I mean. I spent 7 years working on restoring one. You don’t learn how to do that without picking up a thing or two,” she said, scratching her head. “I felt the power when it opened, and I can feel the power behind it even with it closed, just like the eluvian I worked on. I’m still stuck on how you open it.”
“A witch said some magic words and it opened. These eluvians need passphrases,” ‘Manehn said as she sheathed her daggers .
“An incantation...” Merrill said, eyes widening. “Just a simple spell! Really, was that all I needed this whole time? Elgar’nan, but how did I not figure that out before! I guess the spirit could have told me but....” her voice trailed off as a profound sadness began to grip her but she shook her head and snapped back to attention. “...if that’s true, then for someone without the gift to open it, you would need an artifact. Some sort of a - a reservoir of magic like -”
“Like a keystone...” ‘Manehn said, pausing briefly as she realized the implications. “That’s how Briala could use the eluvians in the first place!”
Her voice grew excitedly, “And that means mages can unlock the networks independently, like Solas! Couldn’t we simply do that? Have a mage find the center of the network and just...change the code?”
“Not so simple,” Davhalla stopped her. “Remember? It’s a very specific passphrase. And there isn’t just one that unlocks all the eluvians. You would need to acquire a dizzying array of incantations. You only knew the first one because of luck.”
Merrill folded her arms. “If Briala did it the first time but if Solas can override it, then it’s pointless to try changing it back because he would just override it again. You need very powerful magic to tap into that sort of power. But, just how much would you need? Oh! Let me try to find out...”
She rushed past them to grab her book. ‘Manehn and Davhalla, who was still fuming, watched her pace around the eluvian for some time, muttering about misplacing things in between frustrated sighs and self-directed admonishments.
“What are you looking for?” ‘Manehn finally asked.
“This!” Merrill finally said triumphantly, holding up a quill and small earthen jar of ink. “Thank the Creators it didn’t spill over during all that fighting. Just imagine what a mess that would make on such beautiful tiles.”
She sat down near the eluvian,on the stone tile, crossed her legs, and rummaged through the papers within the book. Most pages were barely held in their binding, and some pages were completely loose. She dipped the quill in her ink and began scribbling some calculations and diagrams on an empty sheet, staining her hands and leaving streaks of pooled ink on the page while she muttered to herself some more.
“Well, I don’t have paper on hand to check my math but I know you’d need at least enough lyrium to kill every mage within a 5 mile radius,” Davhalla quipped between gritted teeth.
“You don’t need piles of lyrium at all, actually,” Merrill said without looking up, “there’s more power in blood magic, but... ” she paused sheepishly, “you could bleed yourself dry. That is, if I’m not messing up my calculations, of course. Let me see, did I use the right formula here?”
“Absolutely not!” Davhalla erupted with such fury that her almost-onyx skin turned hot. “Every blood mage eventually perverts magic to suit their whims!” She whirled around to face ‘Manehn, pleading. “You can’t possibly -.”
“Blood magic is just magic, like any other magic,” Merrill calmly replied with the slightest glare, repeating a tired line she had stated countless times to combat a tired misconception. “Everyone who uses it doesn’t turn into a demon, you know.”
“I can’t even believe you, of all elvhen, would succumb to such a thing!” Davhalla said, inching closer to her.
“I didn’t ‘succumb’”, Merrill snapped. “I’m not a child. I chose this path.”
“Enough!” ‘Manehn stood between the both of them with her arm outstretched towards Davhalla, “Right now, I don’t care right now about the morality of it. Let’s find out what we need to do to take back the network and worry about it later. We might be able to find a different way.”
Davhalla pressed her lips together in stony silence.
‘Manehn turned back to Merrill.
“Will you help us?”
“Well,” Merrill paused, tapping her index finger to her chin, “I’ve been doing this alone for so long, I never even thought to ask for help. Well, not from anyone who would know anything about it. Though I guess Fen’harel knew. And the Qunari. And Briala. Actually - ”
Her lips curled into a small smile as she closed her book and rose from the floor.
“I think I can, actually. I don’t know how helpful my assistance would be. But, of course, any assistance at all would be appreciated, right?”
“Yes, it would.” ‘Manehn said while shooting a quick glance at a still smouldering Davhalla, “Thank you.”
“But I don’t think I can join you directly. I just...” Merill paused for a moment, her voice lowered to a whisper, “Did you like her, when you met her? Hawke, I mean?”
“I did.”
“I did too. She had that effect on people.” Merrill said, her vivid green eyes beginning to glisten as she reminisced.
“She was always joking, always wanted to laugh,” she said as a wistful smile spread across her face. “She always wanted to make sure you were laughing too. She really cared. She might have been wrong about the eluvian in the end, but it wasn’t out of maliciousness. She cared about me. About everyone. How they were treated. How she was treating them. She has...she had a good heart.”
She paused for a moment, then looked directly into ‘Manehn’s eyes. ”I hope you don’t forget her.”
“I haven’t,” ‘Manehn said, biting her lip, looking away from Merrill’s intense, almost accusing gaze. “I can’t bring her back, but I can kill the man who was responsible for all of it.”
Merrill paused as she pondered her words, her brow wrinkled and a small frown on her face.
“I’ll accept that,” she finally said, still clutching her book. “I can’t join you, and I’ve been away from my People in Kirkwall too long now. I have to check on them. And help them. But I can share everything I know and everything I’ve found.”
She thrust her book into Davhalla’s hands.
“Dareth shiral for now,” Merrill said with a nod as she left the ruins. “You’ll hear from me again, of course, I’ll find out as much as I can. I have notes - more notes - I can work on and, well, let me stop blathering on.”
“But I do have one other thing to ask of you, Inquistor,” she turned back to look at ‘Manehn, a cold anger in her voice.
“Send Fen’harel to the Void where he belongs.”
‘Manehn nodded as Merrill disappeared out of sight.
“I will.”
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Mythal’s Mark
“And about— About where I come from—”
“Please don’t tell me,” Lavellan whispered. “Not if it’s not the truth.”
Solas thought about it, for a moment, narrowing his eyes, looking grave. “The truth, lethallin, is… complicated.”
“Yes,” Lavellan said. “And lies are very simple, are they?”
“No,” Solas murmured. “I suppose not.
My Ask | My Ko-Fi | My Ao3 | Requests always welcome!
It was grating, in a way.
Morrigan explained element after element: the depictions in the mosaics, the puzzles, even the statues. It was well enough for the benefits of Iron Bull and Dorian, but she kept catching Lavellan’s eye, as if she thought he needed explanation himself.
“Strange that Fen’Harel should be depicted here,” she said. “It’s like… I don’t know, like depicting Andraste naked in a Chantry.”
“Your ignorance becomes you,” Lavellan said tightly, and Morrigan turned to glare at him, surprise glinting in her amber eyes. “Fen’Harel is depicted everywhere. No, we don’t worship him, not as we do the general pantheon, but he is everywhere.” Lavellan took a step closer, and Morrigan kept his gaze, not flinching. “The god of misfortunes, a trickster, and yet the one we ever offer to. Why? Because we seek his protection. Because he offers protection that other gods will not, would not.”
“I thought the ancient elves above such quaint superstition,” Morrigan said.
Lavellan laughed. It was jagged to his own ears: he was exhausted. When would Corypheus come? Did they have time for this? The puzzles were making his headache, and he only wanted to lie down and rest, but they didn’t have time, not at all. When would it end?
He thought of the diary of the Grey Warden, the Hero of Ferelden. Morrigan was the daughter of Flemeth – Asha’Bellanar, Witch of the Wilds. She was a powerful witch, always wanting more, and the eluvians… Lavellan hadn’t allowed himself to let on that he knew what they were already. He’d asked Varric about them, too, about Merrill of the Sabrae’s attempt at restoration…
“You should know as a mage,” Lavellan said softly, “that superstition comes from myth – myth from history, lost long before. The context goes, but we cannot possibly know how Fen’Harel was viewed, precisely, in the time when this temple flourished. You ought show more caution. You know not where you tread.”
“And you do?” Morrigan asked, arching her eyebrows. “Tis a wonder I missed it, the staff on your back – or has that mark of yours made you an expert in all things magical?”
Lavellan landed on the last stone, and the thrum of magic in the air sung directly through his core, making his skin tingle, making the mark give an answering rush of heat that ran up his arm. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it wasn’t pleasant, and he exhaled.
“Come,” he said, and led the way back toward the petitioner’s entrance.
He didn’t let himself flinch as he heard the elves come up behind them, and he put up his hand in a silent gesture for the others not to react either, not to lash out. He could feel Solas on his left, Morrigan on his right: behind him, Bull and Dorian.
“Lift your hood,” said the elf standing at the outcrop in Mythal’s Temple, and Lavellan hesitated, one hand still on his daggers, ready. The weapons were trained on them, but the elves didn’t even move from their places even minutely: they were utterly still in their rows, their armour not even clinking against itself. “That I might see your face.”
“I’ll lift mine if you lift yours,” Lavellan said. He spoke quietly, but his voice carried in the room, and he saw the other elf’s eyes narrow underneath the shadow of it, but he pushed back his hood. In the same moment, Lavellan copied him, and his hair, loose beneath the hood except for two braids to keep it in place, came half-free about his shoulders.
“You wear Mythal’s vallaslin,” the elf said slowly. “Why?”
“Why?” Lavellan repeated. “We still wear vallaslin – this hasn’t changed.”
“Yes,” the elf said impatiently, “but why hers? Does all your clan wear Mythal’s vallaslin?”
Lavellan glanced to Solas, silently looking for the ideal answer to give, but his lips were pressed tightly together, and his gaze was on the foreign elf, not Lavellan himself. Lavellan inhaled, raising his chin.
“We pick our vallaslin, based on the qualities we seek to embody, to pledge ourselves to. Care was always high in my regard; justice, wisdom. When I took my vallaslin, I sought to be my clan’s protector. I wanted to be the clan’s keeper of lore, as a hahren.”
“You’re a hahren?” the elf asked, tilting his head.
“No. I’m too young, I— I left my clan because greater things are at stake – Corypheus marches now, as you kow. We need to stop him. What is this place? What…?”
“We guard Mythal’s Temple,” the elf began to explain. Always the explanations, and yet…
--
“Sounds rather like destiny,” Dorian said, as Lavellan stared down at the smooth surface of the Well of Sorrows, feeling as if he was about to vomit. “Mythal’s Temple, Mythal’s wisdom, you with Mythal’s ink on your face.”
“There is something in what he says,” Abelas said. “Destiny, here—"
“No,” muttered Solas, and Lavellan took a step forward.
When Morrigan tried to catch his arm, he lashed out with the mark’s power, and gritted his teeth when she hissed in pain. It didn’t make him feel better. Why should it have? Hurting people was never the way to satisfaction. He wished, sometimes, that it was.
--
At Skyhold, Lavellan held a pack of ice against the side of his head, and tried to keep his breathing even. The whispers were constant at the edges of his consciousness, but they were beginning to settle into place. It was like he was digesting them, he supposed, allowing himself to understand them better – it was an overlap of languages, of elvish and the common tongue alike, and even pieces of Tevene, of Orlesian, of Antivan, of Nevarran… So many languages, criss-crossing over one another, and the scant words he knew in one language overlapped with others, clumsy, complicated.
He’d make sense of it.
He’d have to.
“You foolish child,” snapped the voice coming into the room, and Lavellan pressed the ice harder against his temple, not looking up to meet Solas’ gaze. He’d never heard the other man sound so angry, his voice cracking with desperate fury, and he watched Solas’ wrapped feet pace on the ground.
No one ever told Solas to wear boots.
“I told you!” he growled. “And you ignored me. Has my advice meant nothing to you? You’ve given yourself to the service of an elven god!”
“I couldn’t let Morrigan do it,” Lavellan said lowly, trying his best to keep his breathing even. The whispers grew quieter, at least – that was some mercy. “She’s power hungry. You can see it in the way she is, radiating from her, she—”
“And you aren’t?” Solas demanded. Lavellan looked up at him. “You scarcely hesitated! You’re so curious about everything, so eager for knowledge, and that’s respectable, lethallin, but you were so blinded that you—”
“You think,” Lavellan whispered, astonished by how coldly angry his own voice was, “that I wanted this? How dare you?”
He stood on shaky feet, dropping the ice to the side, and he took a step forward. Solas was taller than him, but Lavellan didn’t let that stop him, moving forward and shoving his hand hard against the other elf’s chest, and Solas stared at him as if it was something baffling for another person to touch him.
“Every time,” Lavellan said. “I don’t know why I bother. I don’t know why I bother with you! I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this mark on my hand, I didn’t want to drink from the Well of Sorrows, I didn’t want any of this! Do you know why I drank from the Well of Sorrows? Because I knew I couldn’t let Morrigan! I knew she was untrustworthy, and when I asked you, you said no – so what else was I to do? Ask Bull to drink? Dorian?”
“Your imagined destiny—”
“I didn’t say that!” Lavellan snapped. “Dorian did! And he can’t fucking tell a halla’s brow from a mabari’s backside, so don’t attribute his enlightened elvhen commentary to me! Must you always be like this? Everything I do, you pick me apart, everything, everything! You remind me to be vigilant when I couldn’t be moreso if I had eyes in the back of my head – you are so concerned with the Fade it sometimes seems you can’t even see the trees in front of you!”
Lavellan exhaled hard, rubbing his hand over his eyes.
“You treat me like such a child, Solas, and what is it, I beg of you, that I’ve done to earn it? Every time I think I have your respect, you turn around and remind me I’m not worthy! Every time you say my people, Solas, instead of ours, it cuts me like a blade!”
Solas was staring at him, stunned, his mouth open, and Lavellan wished he could stop his own tongue moving, but it wouldn’t. It was like everything was pouring out at once, and the whispers were loud again, now, drowning out the sound of his own voice so that he only heard the roar of it all in his ears.
“Do you really think so little of me?” he asked, all but shouted the question. “Do you really think I wanted this wisdom, this power, when it came with such a price? When it hisses in my ears like I have my head beneath a waterfall, and makes my head ache like someone’s driving an axe into it?
“It’s not like it is for you, for me. I wasn’t born with this, I didn’t grow with this, I got this crammed into my body with no warning, had my memories ripped out of my head, and now I’ve had a few hundred other voices crammed in as well, and you have the audacity to act like it’s something I’ve done on a whim for a bit of weekend fun!”
The room felt like it was shaking. Was it? Was the ground quaking under his feet, was that him…?
“Lethallin—”
“And you must think I’m so fucking stupid,” Lavellan went on. His hand was aching, the mark burning, rippling up his arm. “You, whose name is pride – you tell me you were just an elf, wandering around, not a city elf, not a Dalish elf. What, you expect me to believe that? You expect me to think you just came into existence in the middle of the woods, got trained in magic by some mysterious travelling elves that are neither Dalish nor otherwise, and just existed in the Fade? Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“What you think—”
“I don’t want an explanation,” Lavellan snapped impatiently. “I’m not asking you to tell me lies, if you fled your clan or avoided your vallaslin or even left a Circle, because I know that’s what you’ll do if I press, you'll lie – it’s none of my business, and perhaps you don’t trust me well enough to tell me, and that’s alright. That’s why I don’t press. Because I try to respect you, and you, you treat me like a… You’re not my keeper!” His own voice was roaring above the noise in his ears, and there was so much green—
“Calm down,” Solas said, his hands clapping down on Lavellan’s shoulders, and it was like it all stopped at once. Silence hit him like a lightning strike, leaving him dizzy: the whispering stopped abruptly, the green glow fizzled away, and he realized how he’d been holding his fist, the room had been shaking—
“I’m so sorry,” Lavellan whispered.
A little dust shook down from the rafters, and he heard the noise on the stairs as Dorian and Fiona ran down from the library on one side, Vivienne running in from the balcony on the other. They were all staring at him, held tightly in Solas’ hands as if Solas thought he was about to explode, and he needed to keep his palms on the fuse.
“We heard the shouting,” Dorian said, looking between the two of them. “Bit of a tiff?”
“So rude of you to do all that in elvish, dear things,” Vivienne said softly, looking alarmed, although not much of it showed in her face – only a little in the wideness of her eyes, the set of her jaw. “How ever will Varric make his notes?”
“Debating literature, I take it?” Dorian asked.
Lavellan’s mouth felt as if it was sizzling. He didn’t say anything, breathing heavily.
“We’re fine, thank you,” Solas murmured. “Arguing about history, in fact, not literature. It was my fault – the Inquisitor has a headache, and I oughtn’t have so needled him when he needs to rest.”
“The Temple of Mythal?” Dorian asked.
“Mmm,” Solas said.
Hot humiliation burned up Lavellan’s spine. Losing his temper, screaming like a child, but worse than that – with all this power, Gods, his hand ached, his arm ached, as if he’d shot something molten through his veins.
“We’ll leave you be, then,” Fiona said.
“Quite,” Vivienne said, from the other side of the room, and when they retreated, Solas gently took his arm, leading him across the room. Lavellan went easily as Solas led him to the door to his quarters, hesitated for a moment, and then began to walk with him up the stairs.
“I’m sorry,” Lavellan said again, when Solas brought him into his bedroom, gently pushing him to sit on the padded chest at the end of his bed. “I’m so sorry, Solas, I didn’t mean… That was so— I hope you understand I don’t think—”
“Peace,” Solas said. “You…”
He dropped into a crouch in front of Lavellan, holding Lavellan’s hands very gently between his own, and Lavellan pressed his lips together, staring down at him. He wasn’t prone to crying, really. Bull brought him to tears sometimes, and at times he was so frustrated his eyes watered slightly, but he wasn’t naturally tended toward crying, not really…
He wished he could cry, now. There’d be a catharsis in it.
“I’ve been unfair to you,” Solas murmured, keeping his gaze. “I’m sorry. Is the mark causing you much pain?”
“Only some,” Lavellan said. “It happens when I overtax myself. S’my fault. I didn’t mean those things I said to you.”
“You did,” Solas said softly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t think of myself as being very hard on you. But you’re right – often, it must seem I think the worst of you, when I only mean to help you. And what good is help from someone you feel doesn’t respect you?” Solas sighed, squeezing Lavellan’s hands, and he looked so ashamed, so ashamed that Lavellan actually felt awkward about it, he couldn’t possibly have made Solas look so… “And about— About where I come from—”
“Please don’t tell me,” Lavellan whispered. “Not if it’s not the truth.”
Solas thought about it, for a moment, narrowing his eyes, looking grave. “The truth, lethallin, is… complicated.”
“Yes,” Lavellan said. “And lies are very simple, are they?”
“No,” Solas murmured. “I suppose not. But I worry for you, lethallin, pledged to one of these gods…”
“You don’t even believe in them,” Lavellan said, indignant, desperate.
“Do you?” Solas asked. “You were praying, weren’t you, after the business at Adamant – to Mythal, I imagine. Did she answer?”
“It isn’t about answering,” Lavellan said. “Our prayer isn’t like the prayer the Andrastians do – it may as well be a focus for meditation. You know that, you know…”
“I worry for you,” Solas repeated. There was something desperate in his eyes, and Lavellan looked away from it, uncomfortable with the depth of the feeling he saw there. It was upsetting, to think that Solas didn’t care, but seeing him care this much was overwhelming. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t want any of this, I know that, I… Please, Mahanon, believe me when I tell you that if I am impatient with you, if I am… It is no personal slight. I am too much in my own head, as I’ve heard some of you say, and in the Fade – you’re correct.”
“I shouldn’t have shouted at you,” Lavellan said. “I’ve never… I’ve never shouted at anybody like that before, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Solas murmured, giving him a small smile. “I’ve weathered far worse than a bit of shouting in my lifetime. You should sleep, you look exhausted. Shall I send for the Iron Bull?”
“If Bull comes, I won’t sleep at all,” Lavellan murmured, and he was slow about moving to lie down, not even removing his clothes – he drew off his jacket and kicked off his boots, and that was it. He watched, silent, as Solas hung up the jacket. “Do you have children, Solas?”
“No,” Solas said. “Once, I…” He trailed off. He didn’t say anything, for a long moment, and then, “Your vallaslin, lethallin. Do you know why they wore the same, at the Temple of Mythal? Do you know what it represented, in times past?”
Lavellan didn’t answer. His eyes felt so heavy, and the whispers were soothing, somehow, like waves beneath a boat.
“Never mind,” Solas murmured, his voice distant. “Do you still dream, sometimes, of the Dread Wolf?”
The whispers overtook him, and Lavellan slept like a stone.
4 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Dragon Age: The Dread Wolf Rises, Bioware Teaser by Nick Thornborrow
Breakdown
Time for me to take an indepth look at this image, now that I have a little free time. First of all, I’m super excited to finally have some DA news from the DA team. And I’m even happier that the fandom is showing them so much love, making it known how much we love this game and appreciate the devs.
Also shoutout to John Epler, father of the Iron Bull romance scenes, who is now the Narrative Director at DA Bioware.
Now to the image by Nick Thornborrow, Concept and Storyboard artist at Bioware.
The Background
In the very, very back of the image you see the peaks of craggy mountains. A setting that we haven’t seen a whole lot of in the vast, forested world of Thedas. Thedas only has 4 major mountain ranges. The Sundermount, the Vimmark Mountains, the Hunterhorn Mountains, and the Frostback Mountains.
Two of those mountain ranges, the Vimmark Mountains and Sundermount, were important to Hawke and DA2. Which for obvious reasons, I’ll touch on later, might be important to the new setting. While DAO and DAI spent a lot of type in the Frostbacks. Now as far as the mountains go: the Vimmark Mountains are very arid and mostly rock fields, which makes it unlikely to be the craggy mountains (plus we already had Corypheus from there). While the Frostbacks and Sundermount have the craggy, rocky look of the mountains in the background; and I’d venture a guess that it is the Sundermont given other information. Though we don’t know much about Hunterhorn’s mountain range, so we can’t rule it out.
I don’t know much about the tree, there is probably some great symbolism there. For the most part, I don’t know what it is. There is a tale of Andruil tying Fen’Harel to a tree, but I’m not sure that pertains to this picture in that way.
Also in the background (and some of the foreground) is a blazing fire, which could be many things. Fire is very symbolic in Thedas itself, being a cleansing force. Most of Thedas’ humans and city elves perform pyre rituals for their dead, derived from when Andraste was placed on a pyre. It also has been an indicator of destruction, such as: the fires set in DAO during the Darkspawn attack on Denerim, the fires said to burn in Kirkwall after the Chantry Explosion, and even the fire raging around the Inquisitor as they first faced off against Corypheus. So the fire here could be cleansing, destructive/confrontational, or both.
The Figure
The figure is clearly an ancient elf, faced towards the large shadow on the opposite side of the frame. The most obvious answer would be that it is Solas, given the end of DAI and the context of the teaser. I can’t say for certain that it is, however. For starters, the body of the figure is nothing like we’ve seen on Solas in an artwork. The figure being very cone shaped and thick-bodied. They are wearing some kind of robe or dress/frock, which is covered in small white stars/sparkles. Almost as if it is shining or glittering.
Though at the same time, it’s furred coat is similar to what Fen’Harel has been known to wear, with ribbed sleeves. Even a design, not quite but almost, like the sparkles show up on Fen’Harel’s old wolven outfit.
The staff the figure carries is also similar to the one pictured in Solas’ The Hermit Tarot Card.
The most interesting part about the figure though, is the red. The figure’s top half is contained within a red orb, it’s hand outreached so it looks like it is pressed or pushing against the orb to some degree. Though also as if to tell the Shadow to heel. And if you look close enough, the figures eyes are glowing a red too.
There is a lot of argument and evidence that lean towards the figure, in fact being Fen’Harel and it appears he is in a struggle against either himself or the other entities in this image. Though if the image is not Fen’Harel, it is probably safe to assume it is instead Mythal or even a combination of them both.
The Shadow
The shadow creature is actually the most easy to identify, as it is a symbol we’ve seen before. It represents the Dread Wolf, a symbol Solas and others have used for Fen’Harel. As seen in the image of Fen’Harel above, wearing his wolf head with three eyes. The Dread Wolf is seen here with it’s mouth open and tongue hanging out. Though it seems aggressive at first glance, looking at it closely in this position makes it seem more at ease and obedient even.
The pose of the Dread Wolf is almost the same to the one in Solas’ Post-Game Tarot Card.
However, unlike in the Post-Game Card, the figure is stand opposite and opposing the Dread Wolf. While the original card has the figure consumed and walking away from the Dread Wolf. And while it might not be important, the Dread Wolf in the new image takes up quite a bit of space in the image. It is almost as if it is consuming or overtaking the landscape, but being pushed back by the figure. Though I might be looking into the story in the image too much.
The Dread Wolf still sport the three red eyes and mangled facial features, which is reminiscent of a Pride Demon.
The Idol
The most compelling part of the whole picture happens to be the idol, as we’ve seen this idol before. However, some Dragon Age 2 fans will know that the idol we ran into, the one used by Meredith in the final battle, shattered and transformed Meredith into a red lyrium statue that sits in the Black Emporium. So either, the idol will appear in another way or there was/is more than one.
This idol is made of red lyrium and caused all the symptoms of red lyrium, as further explored in Inquisition. It causing Bartrand and Meredith to become paranoid, destructive, violent, and obsessive. We know now, from Inquisition, that this is because it (and the Titan it comes from) is infected with the Blight.
We also see that this idol (both in the teaser and in DA2), has a depiction of a figure quite similar to Andraste and to a lesser extent Flemeth (host of Mythal). Though it is a gaunt, sickly depiction.
Perhaps of Andraste on the pyre? If you take a really close look at the DA2 idol, the exact pose of it: A gaunt woman is backed against what seems to be the Circle symbol (think the back of the Mage Throne in Inquisition) with a man wrapped around her side and her arm wrapped around his head, they appear to rise out of kind of strange, spike opening.
In the image this idol sits in a cracking, white orb; which is surrounded by a thick, lined gold ring followed by two more gold rings. Lines like this have been used to represent the Veil before and portals/rifts into it. So it seems there is something happening between the red lyrium idol and the Fade.
The last thing I want to touch on are the seven scallop pieces surround the thick gold ring. There are seven of them, as there are seven Old Gods/Archdemons. Five of these Seven have gone dark, while the other two are still golden. Which it should be mentioned, five blights with five archdemons have taken place and two still remain. What’s curious though, is the order of the scallop pieces. The first three from the top are dark, then the fourth one is lit. The next two are dark, followed by the last lit one. It could simply be a stylistic choice, but it is a strange grouping.
I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with the Conductor and Architect though. Both having been part of the Tevinter Magisters (supposedly, the Architect never hard confirmed as such) made the first darkspawn. Corypheus having been one the Priest of Dumat (the first blight), and the Architect having been a Priest of Urthemiel (fifth blight). This is a very long reach though, and I’m not sure that was taken into any consideration at all.
I’m so ready for this game otherwise! And constantly thinking over what The Dread Wolf Rises maybe, here’s hoping for a worthwhile wait as Bioware finished out Anthem and begins on the next step of the Dragon Age series.
#The Dread Wolf Rises#TheDreadWolfRises#DA News#Teaser#Dragon Age#dragonage#Solas#Fen'Harel#Fenharel#Speculation#long post
125 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ok so I've been thinking on this for a long time and I think my tinfoil theory is coming together. I don't know if any of this is old news to anyone or whether it's all garbage but thought I'd post anyway! This is just a mess of thoughts but hear me out!! I'm excited about this one!
Ok so my theory: Solas is the symbiotic single entity of a spirit of wisdom inhabiting the body of an elf slave. Spirits kept elves as slaves and used their bodies to inhabit as physical vessels. Perhaps they created the elves to serve as physical vessels, similar to how Ghilan'nain created the halla. The nature of this inhabitation meant that the mind of the person inhabited by the spirit was changed in the process. I think that this is due to the mind and spirit becoming one symbiotic whole, and that spirits aren't just spirits (aka ghosts/spectres) but actual spirits (aka souls). The spirits before the Veil didn't see non-inhabited elves as being actually real, because they have no souls, the same way that, now, inhabitants of Thedas don't see spirits as being actually real, because they have no bodies.
This is why Solas didn't see the inhabitants of Thedas as being actually real once he left Uthenera. He saw them as soulless husks, as he alludes to a few times which we all fairly see as condescending and arrogant, but if we take this LITERALLY he sees them as empty vessels for spirits! Abelas also refers to them as such to an elven Inquisitor, "shadows wearing vallaslin".
I can only speak for romanced!Solas here, but once Solas falls in love with the Inquisitor (who he keeps referring to as a spirit throughout the entire game as we solavellans know) his dawning realisation that she's real (ie has a soul) meaning everyone is real (everyone has souls) instills abject terror in him! Cole says: "He hurts, an old pain from before, when everything sang the same. You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't". We take this to mean it changes the fact that he can't tear down the Veil or it will kill actual real people, but in the alternate future Solas doesn't see himself as not being real, which is a cognitive dissonance on his part. Or so we think? It could ALSO the bodies that the spirits will try to inhabit once the Veil comes down already have souls, which DOES change everything. It means if he tears down the Veil, the inhabitants of Thedas (humans, elves, possibly qunari, but not dwarves!) will immediately be inhabited by spirits possibly destroying their souls in the process.
This theory explains why the ancient elves were immortal - because the spirits inhabiting them were immortal. Perhaps the humans caused elves to stop being immortal by preventing them from becoming inhabited by spirits. In Origins, Zathrian is said to be the oldest known elf, being attributed to the Dalish working hard to restore their former immortality by staying away from humans/shemlen. But Zathrian several times refers to retribution/vengeance/justice in a way that is extremely reminiscent of Anders/Justice. Zathrian being inhabited by a justice spirit seems extremely likely and might explain his longevity. Perhaps spirits can only safely inhabit (cohabit?) elves and not humans, which is why Justice was slowly killing Anders but Zathrian seems unaffected. Or perhaps something that occurs in the Circle prevents spirits from safely inhabiting them, since Anders was Circle trained and Zathrian wasn't. It's worth mentioning at this point the Avvar woman in the Jaws of Hakkon DLC who is inhabited by a spirit - a usual practice for the Avvar but who take great care to get the spirit removed after a time, perhaps due to the eventual fatality to the body that Anders experiences. Which means that in DA4 we might start seeing elves working for Solas being inhabited by various spirits!
Which brings us to Flemeth. If this theory is true, then Flemeth is/was inhabited by the spirit of Justice named Mythal. This spirit is what we see leaving Flemeth at the end of Inquisition, meaning that in DA4 Solas will be inhabited by TWO spirits, one of Justice and one of Wisdom/Pride.
The teaser for DA4 also showed Solas the elf fighting with the Dread Wolf, reminiscent of his tarot card where he's stalked by the Dread Wolf. Perhaps the six-eyed wolf is the spirit form of Pride, which wants the Veil to be torn down, whereas his physical form and mind are fighting against this spirit in order to prevent it from happening. So DA4 might involve, for the Inquisitor that chose redemption, a concerted attempt to purge Solas of the symbiotic spirit that was inhabiting him for so long - "save him from himself".
#long post#da4 speculation#tinfoil#dragon age fan theory#if this is too long please say something and ill put in a cut
34 notes
·
View notes
Note
11, 12 & 20 ;)
Wow, okay! I ended up going on and on (and on and on and on…) for these, so I’ve posted ‘em under the cut!
Thank you for the ask!
((From this post!))
11. Top 5 favourite female companions?
5. Velanna: It’s rare that we get to see angry elves. Elves who are sick and tired of humans burning them out of their homes, sick of racism and human policies, and just sick of everything the world’s thrown at their people. Velanna, despite her “abrasive” (or worse, “bitchy”) personality, is, at her core, a wonderful person. Sure, pride was a part of the reason she stood against the humans trying to burn her clan out, but, if anything, it was her overwhelming resilience and defiance that made her take a stand, even if it was against what many considered better judgement. I love angry elves, especially Dalish ones. I think that the Dragon Age series needs more elves that won’t just play to the narrative of “elves were weak and violent against The Righteous Humans so they deserved what happened to them” because they didn’t deserve any of that. Nobody oppressed deserves to be oppressed. Velanna knows that. She’s incredibly talented and strong-willed and it’s wonderful to see. But, almost above that, is the fact that she’s still a young woman, naive to the world outside her clan. And, honestly, I find that adorable. She believes Oghren’s obviously false stories about dwarvern babies, and can’t handle being flirted with. And her ears are adorable. The bigger the ears the better.
4. Sera: Okay, my love for Sera’s a little tougher to describe than Velanna. On one hand, I adore her character. I absolutely love her design, her openness of and love for sexuality, and her chaotic-neutral-with-a-guarded-heart-of-gold personality. I just… hate how she was handled. So, therefore, I have taken Sera as my own. I love her obvious neurodivergence, and how it’s the opposite of all the more widely-loved neurodivergent characters we usually get. She’s loud and unfiltered, she’s impulsive and often reckless, and she gets angry when she’s sad or angry or confused. I think, personally, that her character is a type we should see more, and that, more importantly, we should sympathize with more. Sera, at her core, just wants to help the people that have been spat on by society, the “little guy” at the bottom of the social ladder. She’s fueled by a love of adventure and want to do the good thing. And I really do admire that. I love characters who aren’t afraid to get in trouble for doing what they believe to be right. And her romance is so cute, she’s so obviously smitten by her Tadwinks and it’s downright adorable. And her friendship with a male PC can be just as cute, really. It’s all the fun of the romance without the sexy-bits. And I love how close you can become with her, living life after the Inquisition with someone who likes you for you, not because you’re the supposed prophet of someone. I think that Sera is one of the few characters that genuinely couldn’t care less about where you’re from or what you do, so long as you make an effort to understand her and her feelings, and don’t work against what she works for. Not to mention, she’s got a stupid sense of humor that I just love. Her banter always makes me laugh and I so appreciate everything about it.
3. Merrill: I’ll start this out by saying, unapologetically, that I am completely in favor of blood magic. I love blood magic. I think it’s an unharnessed force of magic that could be used in so many unexplored aspects of magical fields, and that it’s use in healing could revolutionize the art if only people would get over it’s taboo. That being said, I adore Merrill. Not only is she connected to the Dalish Warden, but her connection to them ends up leading her to becoming one of the most intelligent characters in the series. Not only is she a Dalish mage somehow surviving in human civilization (even if she does get lost sometimes…), but she’s working to undo Darkspawn corruption of an ancient elven artifact. That takes not only immense skill, but the upmost patience and dedication to discovering knowledge lost for Creators-know-how-long. And, being completely honest here, Merrill is one of the cutest characters in the series. Her absolute adorable-ness is one of the most prominent in the series. You can’t argue me on this. I’m right. I adore her voice actress, and could listen to her banter for hours upon hours. And her face is just… pure adorable. Those big green eyes just make my heart melt, honestly. Anyway, like with Velanna, I really appreciate having elves that take immense pride in their cultures, and do whatever they can to protect their people. With Velanna, it was standing alone against humans trying to attack her clan. With Merrill, it’s calling upon “forbidden” magic to restore not only parts of her people’s past, but (even if this part was… in vain) to cure the people she loved, Mahariel and Tamlen. There’s so much goodness trapped inside this tiny elf, it’s a miracle she doesn’t burst at the seams.
2. Leliana: Okay, I know I go on and on here at a-gay-bloodmage about how much I hate the Chantry and every single thing that comes out of it, but Leliana is an exception. As much as people like to claim that she’s annoying, that she’s too forward, that she falls in love with the Warden no matter what they do, I can’t help but believe that this is not only wildly exaggerated, but part of why she’s such a good character. First off, the claim that she’s annoying. If anything, her enthusiasm toward saving the world only makes me love her even more. Also, she never forces her beliefs on anyone who tells her they don’t believe in her god. She had a vision, she believes in it, and she wants to help. Whether or not you believe her is up to the player. Her forwardness is just another part of her charm to me, as well. I think that there’s something so wonderful about a woman who is just so in love with all the good things in the world that she can set aside the bad in their favor, that she can look to where people see an absentee god and see a loving, embracing figure. That warmth is so beautiful to me, and I love to shape my thinking after hers, preferring to believe in a good force in the universe instead of fire and brimstone and all the nonsense. And when people complain that she keeps ninja-mancing the Warden? So what? Again, I love that. Sure, it can mess with some relationships in-game, but she accepts a no if you give it to her. I think her love toward the Warden is so sweet and pure, to be honest. She loves the person she’s following out of actual admiration for once, and not out of manipulation, like how she was with Marjolaine. I’m an absolute sucker for characters with love too big for their heart, and Leliana fits the description quite perfectly.
1. Morrigan: Fuck you. I love Morrigan. Okay, that started off a little strong. I just really love her. I not only think she’s breath-takingly gorgeous, but her personality just draws me to her. Of course, if she were an actual person I had to interact with on a daily basis, well, maybe I’d have a different opinion, but we’re talking about video game ladies here, fellas. They can be abrasive and petty and prideful, but eventually, we get to see behind the proverbial curtain. And… God, I can relate to the serious case of mommy issues in this one. I do think that if I weren’t such a passive person, I’d be quite like Morrigan. Pushing people away before they can get too close to see why you’re hurting inside. I find it easier to deflect while she prefers to simply shove and jab and bite until you give up trying. I empathize with her, and I only wish I could’ve done more to convince her that staying with the Warden, romance or not, would’ve been welcome. That she didn’t have to run away, to take on the burden of an (at the moment) unwanted child alone. She’s secretly so caring and kind, but she just doesn’t understand that people can be loving due to the abuse Flemeth put her through. I know she wouldn’t appreciate the physical contact, but I just want her to lie her head in my lap and talk about her feelings. Poor little witch never learned how to express herself in a positive manner… And yet I love her regardless. And when it comes to her role in Inquisition, I hate a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. On one hand, she showed just how much she’s grown to care for Kieran, and it makes my annoyingly-baby-loving-heart just melt into a gushy pile of love. The fact that she refuses to be the mother Flemeth was to her? I cried. (“I am many things, but I will not be the mother you were to me.”). On the other hand, I wish she wasn’t the “expert” on elven lore. I blame bad writing. But one thing Inquisition really got right? Yeah, I’m back on the Kieran relationship again. I just love it so much… Her desire to be a better mother than her mother was to her is one I hold dear as well, and the reason why she’s my favorite female companion in the entire Dragon Age series.
12. Top 5 favourite male companions?
5. Alistair Theirin: First of all, I unashamedly love Fiona and Maric. Just going to put that out there. I love and actually admire Alistair for a lot of his qualities. As someone who went through years upon years of horrible abuse from the people who were supposed to be taking care of him (Fuck you Eamon and double fuck you, Isolde), was sent to a Chantry against his will and forced to become a Templar, and someone who promptly quit the order after seeing what it did to mages, Alistair’s proven himself time and time again to be a resilient and compassionate person. I think that most of my love for him comes from the fact that despite seeing how much bad was in the world, Alistair still worked to be a good person and to create something positive in the world. I personally make him King in most of my worldstates, not because I think it’s where he “belongs” or anything, or because I somehow am delusional enough to think Anora would be a bad ruler, but because he’s shown to have a lot more compassion than any other ruler. He’s sympathetic to the plights of the mages and the elves, despite not (knowingly) having any connection to them. He’s a solid, overall good boy who covers up emotional pain with humor, and I love him one hundred percent.
4. Dorian Pavus: Dorian is one of the characters that I think gets a lot of fandom love for reasons other than my own. He’s beautiful, and charming, and unique, and a wonderful gay man in a video game (an unfortunately rare thing), but I love him because I can relate to him on a deep level. That fear of disappointing those you love because you’re not what they think you could be, that hiding away your issues behind a veneer of “it’s alright” is best because then you’re not a burden and people don’t see how damaged you are. It’s hard for me to open up to people, and Dorian really is just one of those characters I can’t help but love, despite the fact that he reminds me so much of myself. And, another thing I love about him is that he’s not pale. I know that can be seen as a stupid thing to love someone over, but coming from an Italian family, seeing a character from a place modeled after Rome not being pale makes me so happy. I, myself, am pale as hell, but knowing that finally, finally, we’ve got someone from a Southern-European modeled country that doesn’t look Scandinavian makes me so incredibly happy.
3. Thom Rainier: I think that this is going to be a common theme in my explanations, but I love Thom because he’s not perfect. As like with Dorian, Thom hides behind a facade that makes him feel like he’s something better than he believes himself to be. And he’s a character that fucked up in the past, and fucked up badly, and he bleeds for redemption. He suffers and works and suffers even more in order to prove himself to really be the man he’s become. Very rarely do we get treated to a redemption arc that makes characters actively work for their redemption, face the consequences of their actions, and stick to the principles they claimed they’d stick to. He’s self-deprecating, believing himself to be damn near worthless, his only reason for existing being to help others and work to repent for what he did in the past. Believing you’re undeserving of love is a thing I know a little to well, and having a character genuinely believe themselves to be so without being seen as attention-seeking was great, if not a call-out for my self-loathing ass. Thom is a severely underappreciated character in this fandom, and I really wish that wasn’t the case. He’s an older character, but honestly, he’s about the same age as other characters like Cassandra or Varric. Just because he isn’t conventionally attractive doesn’t mean he should be pushed aside for other characters. I love my big bear husband so much.
2. Anders: Oh, Anders. My lovely, beautiful Anders. My bisexual, mentally ill, selfless, revolutionary, darling Anders. I can’t help but love him. Of course, I love him both before and after Justice, but for differing reasons. In Awakening, Anders was simply someone who just wanted to escape, to be free for once in his life, and to enjoy what the world had robbed him of. There’s something heart-wrenching about seeing a character so obviously hurt being cheerful like he was in Awakening, especially when you see more into his backstory in Dragon Age: II. He, much like Alistair, used humor to distract people from his true feelings. He was a hopeful spot amongst some other companions who wore their pain on their sleeves. In Dragon Age: II, Anders became even more of a favorite for me, simply because I could understand a lot of his pain. I, too, am someone who exhausts myself caring for others, putting the needs of others far above myself. Of course, I know I could never even hope to have mental fortitude like him, but seeing someone so intent on tearing down institutions that have ruined so many lives helps me work to do so myself. Besides, I’m an extremely anti-institutionalized religion person despite being decently religious. Seeing someone who believes in the Maker but not the Chantry was refreshing. It was welcome and wonderful. And, as someone who struggles with mental illness (in my case, things along the lines of ADD, chronic stress, anxiety, dysmorphia, etc.) seeing someone who struggles from mental illness (”possession” that covers a whole lot of shit I’m not really one to put labels to) not overcome but co-exist with his mental illness and find love and purpose was really good for me. I don’t believe for a second that Anders was overly controlled by Justice, only pushed to do things he was to scared to do before Justice came along. In every worldstate of mine, Anders is spared and stood behind. His actions are justified and supported. Fuck the Chantry and Fuck Me Anders. (Sorry, I had to)
1. Zevran Arainai: Zevran was the first character in the Dragon Age series I fell in love with, so of course he’s at the top of this list. And my love for him isn’t just because he’s handsome (even if that is quite an attractive reason), but because he’s a good person who both tries to hide/downplay his goodness and does all he can to do what he knows is right. First of all, once again, like with Dorian, I love seeing Mediterranean-coded characters as non-white. Seeing someone come from a Spanish/Italian-coded country not look British is so beautiful. Of course, I would never say someone claiming that he’s Latino is invalid. There’s one hundred percent reason to believe that, and I support their headcanons. But to me, I relish in the fact that someone from a darker-skinned area of Europe is seen as a beautiful character. He was one of the first darker-skinned European characters I’d ever seen, and that certainly guarantees him a place in my heart. Moving on, I also see a lot of myself in him, though that isn’t exactly a good thing for him. Of course, bisexuality is a huge part of both our existences, and words can’t really express how much I love a canonically bisexual man. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, in all honesty. I thought it was a headcanon until I read that you could romance him as a male PC. So, of course I made my first character and romanced the hell out of him. Though, on a bit of a darker note, I could really sympathize with his reasoning for leaving Antiva. As someone who’s struggled with suicidal thoughts and certainly suicidal idealization (that whole “I wish I could just stop existing” bullshit), having someone not only deal with the problem of depression but actually get better was incredible. The idea that with enough love and compassion and understanding the pain would ease was a wonderful message I really took to heart. In addition to all of this, which is already a whole lot but I just can’t stop talking about him, Zevran is empathetic. He’s compassionate and understanding. He advocates where other companions stay silent. He’s got one of the most in-depth arguments against allying with the Templars, and his anger towards the Warden, while thinly masked as calm, when the mages are slaughtered in compelling and just compassionate. Not many “ordinary” people are willing to fight for those they don’t know or understand. But Zevran does. And when slavers attempt to sell people in the Alienage into slavery, Zevran does his best to convince the Warden to do the right thing, despite owing them a blood debt. He could be putting his life on the line once more if they don’t agree with him, but he does it anyway. And, you know what? Fuck it, he’s beautiful. He’s goddamn gorgeous and I want all 5′2″ of him.
20. Favorite fantheory?
Andraste was a mage. I absolutely adore this theory and I can’t help but throw my entire support behind it. I find no reason else why a somehow ordinary woman would be chosen by the Maker in the Fade (“World fell away then, misty in mem'ry, / ‘Cross Veil and into the valley of dreams / A vision of all worlds, waking and slumb'ring, / Spirit and mortal to me appeared.” -Andraste 1:10, “Long was his silence, ‘fore it was broken. / For you, song-weaver, once more I will try. / To My children venture, carrying wisdom, / If they but listen, I shall return.“ - Andraste 1:14) because she had a wonderful singing voice (magic is often referred to as a song, and this page on the wiki is quite informative) and could somehow make natural disasters occur in her favor to drive out Tevinter (“The air itself rent asunder, / Spilling light unearthly from the / Waters of the Fade, / Opening as an eye to look / Upon the Realm of Opposition / In dire judgment.” -Exaltations 1:2). Magic, in itself, is never said to be evil in the Chant, only that those who takes the Maker’s gift of magic and turn it against one another are evil (“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. / Foul and corrupt are they / Who have taken His gift / And turned it against His children.” -Transfigurations 1:2) Personally, canon aside, I believe that if Andraste could see the current state of the Chantry, she would be appalled. Especially the Chantry in Tevinter, seeing as it endorses slavery (“At Shartan’s word, the sky / Grew black with arrows. / At Our Lady’s, ten thousand swords / Rang from their sheaths. / A great hymn rose over Valarian Fields gladly, proclaiming: / Those who had been slaves were now free.” -Shartan 10:1) and prohibits the mages from using their magic to their full potential (Once again, magic exists to serve, not to be enslaved). Sorry if this is a little messy, but Lord Do I Have Opinions.
#holy shit i went on for a WHILE THERE#asks#dragon age#dragon age origins#dragon age ii#dragon age inquisition#da velanna#da sera#da morrigan#da merrill#alistair theirin#dorian pavus#da blackwall#da anders#zevran arainai#original content#headcanons#andraste#THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU I LOVE RANTING
29 notes
·
View notes
Text
Andraste: Part III
Theories and Questions
Now the speculation begins
Andraste’s behaviour regardless of which version you read is... odd, for your average human woman. So to look a little closer at some of the conclusions drawn...
Was Andraste an elf?
Verdict: Probably not.
Andraste’s lineage is pretty concrete, if interesting, but definitely human. The likelihood of elven erasure here is pretty low. Could she have elven blood? Also kind of unlikely, certainly in her immediate bloodline. Though there isn’t much information about the distribution of elves between the periods of the creation of the Veil and the First Blight, it seems unlikely those in the south of Thedas would have been enslaved by the emperium. There’s also few (more on that later) written records of the elves involving themselves with the Alamarri.
Was Andraste a Mage?
Verdict: Possibly
While the Chantry has maintained the position that Andraste was a warrior and prophetess, many of her visions and experiences, as well as abilities and imagery, can be better explained if she had some magical talent. In the Tevinter side of the story (admittedly about as reliable as the Chantry’s), she is indeed a mage, though it’s hard to say who is telling the truth of it. The chant of light describes her as having a sceptre of redemption, though this is potentially more symbolic than anything. Timing wise, the events which lead to her sister’s death and the beginnings of voices / visions would align with when children first show signs of magic (around eight years old).
Was Andraste a Dreamer?
Verdict: Very Possibly
Perhaps more convincing than the suggestion she was a mage in the traditional sense, comes the question of whether Andraste was a dreamer. She didn’t really exhibit many feats that could easily be associated with traditional magic, however, she did with what would be described as a textbook dreamer case. Her trances, visions and memories all fall under the dreamer banner. Worth noting in the modern age the trait is associated with being elf blooded, though it has (apparently) cropped up in human mages in Tevinter as well - the kicker being it’s often hard to determine if someone is actually elf blooded or not.
Was Andraste possessed?
Verdict: Probably not
In the traditional sense anyway, she doesn’t exhibit the behaviours usually associated with demonic possession. Spiritual bonding seems more plausible, and while we only know of the Avvar pairing with spirits, it is unclear whether the practice was widespread throughout the Alamarri tribes. While this would explain the voices, it seems equally unlikely that Andraste herself would not know / recognise this kind of partnership as it is entered into willingly. That being said, we do know the Avvar see spirits as gods / souls of the dead, though whether they would raise an individual one up as the god is uncertain. Given the cultural sensitivity to this, it seems unlikely she was possessed or shared headspace with a spirit or demon.
Was Andraste talking to something?
Verdict: Without a doubt
Whether that thing was ‘The Maker’ or not is less clear. She received clear orders and inspiration from somewhere, perhaps best evidenced by the changes in behaviour and reasoning throughout her life. While it seems apparent that she spoke of The Maker prior to her capture and subsequent siege on Tevinter, the tone and fervour of her convictions changes once they become involved, inevitably to her personal detriment. This indicates she truly believed what she was being told to a fault, and that whatever was speaking with her seemed to take specific (potentially personal) issue with Tevinter. While the obvious candidate for this seems to be the ancient elves / the evanuris, the Alamarri weren’t big fans either. It’s the ‘heretical’ part associated with worship of the Old Gods that is most telling (and not something the Alamarri seem to have had issue with previously).
Was Andraste Mythal / A Descendant of Flemeth?
Verdict: Maybe
Logic and symbolism leads people here eventually, but it deserves its own post because it’s complicated. Read about it here.
#dragon age meta#andraste#dragon age theories#dragon age history#character discussion#andraste and the chant of light
12 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
idntrllycre101
idntrllycre
filmievent-blog
Filmievents.com
crookedmouth-mountainbones
crooked
kucingpkrofficial
KUCING POKER OFFICIAL
businessblog121
Business Blogs