Article: Why Dragon Age's Readiness to Break With Canon Makes its Lore Much Richer

Personally, I've always felt this was one of the strengths of the DA setting, and it adds another layer of depth we don't often find in other games. They've handled the world's mysteries very well I thought.

We're presented with information/beliefs that are considered "common knowledge", and they wisely gave it time to settle in, often repeating these beliefs over several games (and therefore several years to stew over them ). So when you do finally unravel one of the world's mysteries, a hidden truth behind the dogma, and so on... it has impact. And then they'll follow up by giving you 2 new mysteries to chew on.

But here's the thing: The things she discusses are actually NOT contradicted by the world's lore.

To use her example, we're told that the Dalish blood writing is a mark of adulthood among their culture and they believe it to show fealty to the gods. Solas, by contrast, reveals they were actually slave markings. Both of these are true, and these are congruent because it is also established in Dalish culture that they do not, in fact, know their lore from ancient times, they've forgotten most of it.

As such, the changes and evolutions fit together in a coherent mold. By contrast, changing something in the present day that's already established, like that stupid Aqun-Athlok thing, was just a cheap grab.

BEGONE HERETIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm assuming it refers to the dialogue from Sten in Origins where he talks about the various roles within the Qun and that 'a woman cannot be a man' and that sort of thing.

I agree - I'm not convinced there is a contradiction, either - although, it has been a fair while since I heard the dialogue in Origins.

Regardless, whether there was a retcon/contradiction or not, a certain segment is always going to be up in arms about 'this kind of thing'.  And the rage it causes them is reason enough to do it, in my view 

I'm not sure I remember either. I haven't played DA:O since shortly after Inquisition came out. But maybe Tamlen said something about not realizing their people ever lived underground?Yeah. I mean, the Cardinal Rules of Magic codex has this set of rules regarding what magic absolutely cannot be used to do, and I don't think there's a single one there that we haven't seen someone or something (most notably the surviving Elvenhan mages and artifacts) bend or break yet. In fact the Eluvians start breaking the first one as early as the Dalish Origin (or at least I think that's what we're meant to conclude from Tamlen vanishing,) the second one has already been broken by the time the first game starts, and Flemeth, Urthemiel, and Wynne bend the third one so far that they might as well be breaking it before the first game's original campaign even ends.

Transplanting some OT stuff from the Twitter thread:

I think we had this discussion recently? I seem to remember saying something similar.

I get why the history buffs like that Codex entries have been made suspect, just like real sources in real history, but in a game with rich lore, we need something to anchor our beliefs in, something with authority. Making *all* Codex entries suspect was a mistake, imo.

Otherwise there is no basis for a shared experience with other players. Lore devolves into each individual's interpretation, allowing me to reasonably argue that Sandal is the Maker, because no one can argue against me with anything more than opinion. My opinion is no more right or wrong than any other.

That diminishes dramatic appeal, not enhances.

I agree, with the added proviso if used sparingly. I think the writers of DA have gone way too far.

It would have been fine if only those Codices about the elves were made suspect -- that's congruent to the recent history of oppression of the elves and Churchill's, "History is written by the victors." And I'd even allow any Codices about Andrastianism to be suspect as well, because that whole thing is clearly another set up for a big PSYCH! reveal.

But I'd stop there. Why must the Codices about the dwarves and Qunari also be suspect? About the Blights? About the history of Fereldan and Orlais? Mages and Templars? About dragons? About Fennecs and Nugs, for Maker's sake?

And even if you say those are reliable, how can I tell? How can you guarantee to me that the writers won't suddenly decide it would be cool to fuck with the history of, I dunno, the Gray Wardens, and overturn something that was established in DAO codexes years ago? Pulling that trick even once, even if it was planned from the very beginning, calls everything in established lore into question. The reliability of everything is degraded with each application of that storytelling tool.

I'm sure we've had this debate before but here is my take on it. When talking about ancient history then I am happy to allow for new lore to be revealed that contradicts or confirms what we already know.

As others have said, though, it is somewhat frustrating when it appears that every race has been struck with amnesia at some point because no one seems to remember anything beyond a certain point. At present I am having to assume the raising of the Veil did this to them. Otherwise we are given to understand that two races for whom remembering the past is very important, the elves and the dwarves, have apparently forgotten a lot of very important information, like the Titans. Yet in the case of the elves they remembered other things quite accurately. They remembered they could all do magic at one time, they were all immortal at one time, their gods were imprisoned by Fen-Harel, yet they forgot that Mythal was murdered by the other gods or that it was when Fen'Harel imprisoned the gods they lost their magic and immortality. In fact no race seems to remember that the world was once Veil-less. I find this rather hard to believe unless someone or something has been altering their memories (a possibility that may yet be revealed).

Then we have other annoying aspects of "differing interpretations" of the lore. In DAI we had some jumped up university scholar saying that they thought the meaning of Fen'Harel might be different to what the Dalish teach.   How did they arrive at that conclusion? The Dalish barely have an understanding of ancient elven, so where did the scholar get their information from? Then in Trespasser it seems confirmed that Fen'Harel means exactly what the Dalish have always maintained, so what was the point of the scholarly doubt apart from a clumsy way to prepare us for the later reveal of why Solas took his action, which is why his enemies, the Evanuris, called him the Dread Wolf.

I also find it not very convincing that people are still swallowing the Chantry version of history when apparently it seems well known that there is a completely different sequence of historical events surrounding Andraste. We are not talking thousands of years here but only around 800 years which in the real world does tend to be remembered quite accurately down to the present. Take the Battle of Hastings. The detail of how exactly Harold died may be up for debate but no one denies the battle happened in that particular location. By contrast, the history of Andraste given by scholars would suggest that the Valarian Fields are in a completely different part of Thedas to where they are shown on the map. Not only that but Andraste's army never reached the gates of Minrathous at all and it would seem never really entered Tevinter proper. Every barbarian clan must have known this was the case, so even if Drakon wiped out all the variants in Orlais, why was the Chantry's version of events accepted elsewhere? He certainly didn't conquer everywhere and Ferelden in particular had steadfastly resisted Orlais advances against them down the years. Why then would the majority tamely accept the Orlesian religion? (The Ash Warriors apparently never did because they clearly knew the truth but the writers killed them all off at the beginning of DAO so the significance of their differing belief about the Andrastrian faith could conveniently be forgotten)

So, no, I do not find such divergence from what we were previously told either convincing with regard to the religion of Thedas or anything like the real world.

This is how I feel.

As far as contradicting something we experience, the only thing I can think of is pretending Hawke was never a Blood Mage, but honestly it was weird that we were ever able to be one in the south anyway. 

Retcons are always bad.

These were not retcons.