Did the writers of WoT2 forget Rinna was an elf?

 Zevran says she was "an elven lass".

How many people actually know Fiona is Alistair's mother?

Maric? Loghain? The Inquisitor, possibly? Fiona? Anyone else?

I don't think Alistair is gonna have a problem because literally noone knows his real mother is an elf.

Thus his situation can't really be compared to Antiva, and the Antivan throne should be considered on it's own.

You seem to be missing something, which is where I think the confusion comes in for Gomez's question.

For the moment, let's just take for granted there are no lore discrepancies or errors between the games and the books. We know that human + elf = elf-blooded human who looks human, as Alistair. If Zevran refers to her as "an elven lass," that seems to suggest that she has the appearance of an elf, which would mean that she is not a mix.

In Alistair's case, as well as Michel de Chevin, who is also a mix, they can pass because they look fully human.


vertigomez , I admit I haven't actually read Zevran's entry in WoT, so keep that in mind with this question. Is it possible that they're not the same? Does the entry also refer to Rinnala as "Rinna" (that is, the shortening of a nickname)? Is it clear from the wording and other facts that they're the same person?

It's also possible that they did forget, or if they did remember, simply went with a new, more favored thing instead. I have two such examples. The first is a sort of unfortunate circumstance. The magister who once "owned" Fiona as a slave was named Dorian. So of course if you ally with the mages, she has to see another damned Tevinter named Dorian every single day. They're not the same person, of course, but I'm sure it's not a pleasant reminder and that it took her a bit to get used to our Dorian's presence because of it. It seems that DG either forgot that bit, or decided to ignore it because he liked the idea of naming his character Dorian.

The second is relating to Duncan, which I discovered in my current DAO play where I'm making an effort to read the codices. For him, the DAO codex says, "His mother was from the Anderfels, his father from Tevinter." And yet WOT2 has his mother from Rivain (explaining his darker complexion as being more in-keeping with the Rivainis we've met). So they either forgot the initial information, or they chose to revise it in favor of a something that is now preferred for the character, considering his appearance. This latter seems to make more sense, as they will now have a more solid footing relating to cultures and related appearances than they did when DAO was made. While they did a TON of world-building for DAO, they likely have done more since that time, updating some initial things along the way.

There are even inconsistencies for some characters in DAI and WOT. There are several confusing bits about Dorian that don't quite match up. It IS frustrating. What I've done is to look at ALL the information as a whole, from all sources, and sort of put it together in my own mind the way it makes the most sense to me.

Stuff like this is why I don't consider anything outside the games canon.

I'd probably suggest tweeting either Mark or Mike to see if they have an answer to this. It probably is just another lore inconsistency. There's a lot of 'em, especially in regards to elves.

It is possible that a "merchant prince" could be an elf because the origins of their position are somewhat different to standard nobility. After all, according to the Last Flight, the royal family of Antiva perished at the beginning of the 4th Blight. If the Crows favour using elves for their trainees it is entirely possible that one of those elves in the past rose through the hierarchy to eventually become a merchant prince in their own right.

That said, it is more likely that the writers of WoT2 were just unaware or ignored the previous history given by Zevran. It certainly can't be explained away as differing interpretations of history considering it came from Zevran's own mouth and the other source was the Crows themselves.

One of the most annoying things I find about the source books and WoT2 in particular is how they do contradict previously established character histories from DAO. Apart from the origins of Duncan I would say one of the most glaring examples is the history given for Marethari in WoT2. This has her becoming Keeper of Sabrae Clan back in 8:82. However, in DAO the Dalish Warden is told that their father was Keeper of the clan before Marethari and their mother came from a different clan. Now for both WoT2 and the Dalish origin to be correct it would mean that the Dalish Warden was around 48 years of age at the beginning of the 5th Blight. There is no way it was suggested that we were that old. On the contrary we were only considered just old enough to be told the truth about what happened to our parents. So it would seem that the writers of WoT2 simply ignored the previous history contained in the Dalish Origin or they gave the wrong date for when Marethari took over the clan. I leaning towards the latter and it is possible that if another lore book is produced in the future then there may well be an addendum correcting the "mistakes" by the historian in the previous book.

So you never know, if enough people query the history of Rinna then some clarification may be given in a future lore book as well.