Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

Aug 2, 2016 19:38:07 GMT midnight tea said:

Question is why and the IN-STORY reasons why. Like you said - it could have been written any other way. According to you, the quest could have been written without its assistance (though I'm not sure where do you have such intimate knowledge of rules of the Fade or that universe from to confidently claim that something in-universe wouldn't have to happen... when a considerable portion of discussions between fans till this day center around trying to figure out how that stuff even works) yet it was written so she would be there.

I really have no idea what you are going on about here. I'm not claiming "intimate knowledge" of anything other than my own impressions while playing the game. And those are, the spirit wasn't helpful, only spouting vague nonsense like almost every other spirit we've come across in 3 games. As for her relevance/importance for the future, I'm guessing she'll have as much as Kieran did in this game. Which is to say, NONE, since he could very well not even exist.

Aug 2, 2016 19:38:07 GMT midnight tea said:

Oh, but one more thing - I'd laugh quite hard  if it turned out that Minrathous... is actually Arlathan.

I will actually be very surprised if it doesn't turn out to be connected with Arlathan in some way. It may be that all the cities founded by Mythal were collectively "Arlathan". In the text in the Temple of Mythal about Sylaise, each god has something particularly associated with them. Elgar'nan is light (possibly lightning as this is specifically mentioned in his own text), Andruil is her spear, June it is his craft and Mythal it is cities, which Sylaise's temples are claimed to rival. It was when the Earth shook the cities that Elgar'nan and Mythal went to war against it/them. In the Dalish legends Arlathan is the centre of elven civilisation and that would have been the functional of Mythal's cities on earth. If these were widespread, it is quite possible that the commoner elves (slaves) in the individual cities might have thought their city was Arlathan and this is why the later survivors of the city conquered by Tevinter thought that was the original Arlathan.

The alternative might be that each of Mythal's earthly cities contained a portal (eluvian) connecting to the Eternal City (Arlathan), the Dalish remember as the home of the gods in the Fade. This construct which was probably part of the Crossroads network was a bridge between the various realities so one part was more in the Fade and the other more in Thedas. Then when the Veil was raised, the Eternal City split apart with the Golden/Eternal city left floating in the Fade and the earthly part being destroyed. I've always found it curious that in the song by Maryden (Mercy for the Elves) she speaks of Arlathan falling "deep beneath the ocean floor". This is contrary to everything in Dalish legends, which you would think was the source of her songs, so why did she sing this? However, it did make me wonder if the majority of earthly Arlathan now lies beneath the Nocen Sea. If you look at the shape of it, even if you push Seheron back into place as formerly part of the mainland, it still leaves a big space where the sunken city could lie. It should also be remembered that whilst Minrathous seems to be shown on the mainland in maps, it is actually an island off the coast connected by a bridge/causeway, which again gives me reason to think that if Arlathan is a sunken city, Minrathous was originally part of it and survived because it was on the fringes or has some particularly powerful magic that preserved it. Another Temple of Mythal perhaps?

A further thought to support this theory is that all the major human kingdoms that arose in the period immediately following the fall of the elven empire were positioned in the area around the Nocen Sea.   Now I realise that the Neromenians were a sea faring people so it made sense they would stay close to the coast but if their rise to power was also associated with co-opting the ruins of elven cities and building on them, then the positioning also makes sense.     The only exception to this would appear to have been Barindur, which would seem to have been further inland to the south and subsequently destroyed, human legends say by the god Dumat but according to Solas it would seem a volcanic eruption or something similar.    In one of the legends surrounding Barindur it is said they had fountains that granted eternal youth.   May be they had found a lyrium pool or the fountains were originally part of a Temple to Mythal (she is associated with water), in which case perhaps they disturbed a Titan and that is what destroyed them.