Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

My theory is that it's like, elven beliefs mixed with Thedas cosmology, and one of the setting's themes. Like:

Sun: self-explanatory. left hand side. interesting in that in elven lore Elgar'nan is supposed to be Eldest of the Sun. the All-Father. god of the sun, fatherhood, vengeance. he was born of the sun and the sun was his father. he later overthrew his father. Pools of the Sun, spilling the sun's lifeblood, etc. he is associated with light, heat, fire, and lightning, and burns his enemies to ashes. the shape of the constellation Solium may have originally been a representation of him. 

Moon: self-explanatory. right hand side. opposite the sun in the sky is the moon, opposite each other on the card are the sun symbol and moon symbol, and opposite the leader-god of the elven pantheon is its leader-goddess, Mythal. the All-Mother, goddess of motherhood, justice (an attribute which can be read as the flipside of vengeance). Mythal was born of the sea, possibly implying a lunar connection via the tides. the legends also say that she created the moon. 

On the bottom -

also on the left-hand side, below the sun symbol, is the four dots. I read them as rocks, stones. while Elgar'nan's father was the sun, his mother was the earth, the land. earth and land is the other half of this side. 

also on the right-hand side, below the moon symbol, is the wavy lines. I read them as waves, water, the sea. opposite stone and land on Earth is water and the seas.

but it's not just that, since this is Dragon Age. thematically we have things going on like templars vs mages. metaphysically (nowadays) there is a contrast between the waking world and the dreaming world, the magical world, of the Fade. dichotomies: reality and unreality, the mundane and the magical, dwarves (can't use magic) and elves (are closer to magic and implied to have perhaps come from spirits). the former on those lists is immutable whereas the latter is changeable and flowing. and stone is not just "stone", it's Stone, the Stone. it's the Titans, who are the "pillars of the earth", whom the elven magic-gods made war against in the distant past. in contrast the Fade is loaded with watery imagery; "the sea of dreams", the "emerald waters of the Fade", "vast oceans" containing not water but memories, a "well" of souls. it's also called the "Sky", and the sky is something which is also the opposite of land/earth. the Veil "held back the sky", like a dam holding back water.

Templars consume lyrium, the blood of the Titans, and it allows them to "reinforce" reality. meanwhile, the wavy lines pattern has been used to denote when magicky things are going on (magic being manipulation of the fabric of reality), like on the Well of Sorrows portion of Solas' paintings in Skyhold. connection (to finish the 'square') there being that Mythal "gives you dreams", "my little stones/little dwarves, never yours the sun". 

I think it's less that the sun and moon symbols on the card are literally Elgar'nan and Mythal and more just that those gods came to be linked to the celestial bodies and what's associated with them. but like Sun, Moon, Stone/Titans/reality and Fade[waters]/spirits/dreams/magic. these aspects of the universe used to be in balance as they are on the Hermit tarot card, but due to what Solas did, they are no longer and modern Thedas is a craphouse. an alternative reading is that these 'realms' used to 'touch' (before the creation of the Veil, the waking world and the dreaming world weren't so physically separate, apart from one another due to a barrier. and for example, when Elgar'nan was 'born' in the legends, it came of the Sun touching his head to the earth, and Elgar'nan was born in the place where they touched), but now each is 'locked' behind many circles, separate and apart from one another in the four 'spheres' on the Hermit. and now he wants to bring these 'realms' back together again by taking down the Veil.

just my speculative thoughts