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∯ Oh Loredy...
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gervaise21
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Post by gervaise21 on Mar 6, 2019 19:50:44 GMT
note, that he still approves if the inquisition sides with briala. Yes but that is for reasons other than she is an elf. One of the funniest (looking back on it) but oddest reactions by him at the time was when my Lavellan said that he must be pleased that it helped his/our people (I'm don't recall my exact words) and he looked totally blank for a moment before replying "Oh you mean the elves." My reaction (in my mind) was "Of course, who did you think I meant?", but as usual I was not actually able to respond as I would have liked. To be honest, for the majority of DAI I felt that "his" people were spirits and it was only after we encountered Abelas that he finally seemed to identify with a group of elves. i suggest you play inquisition again, pay attention to the way he react and speak with other elves (non dalish). also his exact qoute when the inquisitor asking about city elves: "they cling to memories of a better past and practice few rituals to distinguish themselves from humans", seem to me when speaking to abelas he definitely does talking about modern city elves when he says "some yet still linger".
Believe me, I've played it lots and watched other people's versions on You Tube and I never got the sense that he was talking about city elves to Abelas. When you enter temple with Solas in your party, Abelas definitely mentions how we have come with one of their own kind in our party, which he does not say if you leave Solas out. By contrast he totally rejects the claim of Lavellan to be one of their kind. Abelas has likely never even met a city elf so why would he accept one of them as kindred to him and yet not a Dalish? It was that reaction from Abelas that immediately seemed to confirm that Solas was not some simple apostate as he claimed. Then in that later exchange it would make no sense for Abelas to ask "Elvhen such as you" and Solas to confirm this if he was meaning city elves. In fact it would be a bare faced lie.
Have also found the dialogue he has with an Inquisitor he dislikes if they kill Abelas and the sentinels. He says: "After observing you strike down some of the few true elves left for the crime of defending their temple?" Note that he refers to there only being a few true elves left but that the sentinels were only "some" of them. Now you cannot by any stretch of the imagination say that city elves are "few". In fact I would say their numbers far outstrip those of the Dalish. After all we are told in DAO that there are 10,000 in the Val Royeaux alienage alone. So when he confirms to Abelas that there are still elvhen such as he still lingering in the world he is clearly referring to the "true elves" not the city elves.
What you are implying is that when Solas tells Lavellan that restoring his people will mean an end of theirs, he is only referring to the Dalish and not all modern elves. It is just some arbitrary decision of his, based off the fact that he doesn't like their politics/religion, rather than something fundamentally different about their physiology. Remember he says this to every Inquisitor regardless of their race. If he approves of them he seems to be at pains to emphasise he is not a monster for doing this, whereas if he does not he makes no apology and tells them to make the most of the time remaining to them, but he doesn't deny it is going to result in death and destruction for the modern races. Bearing in mind he can say he admires the elven Inquisitor and approves of their clan, it seems strange to me that he would say this to them unless it was simply a case that it is unavoidable.
Still, your interpretation of his words, does explain how he has managed to hoodwink so many modern elves into following him. I'm still adamant that he is tricking them and using them and I will continue to believe that until I see evidence to the contrary.
However, you have given me pause for thought over how Patrick Weakes represented the Dalish in Masked Empire. Back in DAO in the Dalish origin, our storyteller made it quite clear that what the Dalish was doing was for all elves. They were keeping their culture going in the hopes that eventually they would be able to have another homeland. He even said that once we had a homeland again, may be the city elves could teach the Dalish how to live alongside human neighbours. Any contempt for city elves was for the fact they stayed being bullied and mistreated in the cities instead of leaving but city elves who sought refuge with the Dalish were welcomed. The elven storekeeper in the alienage also recounted a story about Dalish raiders out in the wilds leaving him alone and not taking his goods when they realised he was an elf. Zathrian for all his faults was perfectly willing to take in a city elf child and eventually make her his First over other mages (yes there were more than three in his clan) who had been born Dalish.
Then in Masked Empire the Keeper of the Dalish clan there was in total contradiction of this. He said that the city elves were lost to them, implying they were too polluted by contact with humans and that those clans who took them in were misguided and in the minority. I thought this had been done simply to make Briala and her companions look less like dicks for leaving them to be torn apart by a demon. However, if you are correct then the writers as a whole have deviated from how the Dalish were represented in DAO and this has probably been done to make Solas look less reprehensible because he is trying to save the poor city elves, unlike the Dalish who have rejected them. I have always been more inclined towards playing a city elf myself and was disappointed not to have been able to do so in DAI, particularly considering they would have more reason to have been at the Conclave than a Dalish, but if Solas were to come to my character and maintain he was acting on behalf of the city elves in destroying everyone else, I would tell him to stick his idea where the sun don't shine.
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Post by Iddy on Mar 27, 2019 19:44:22 GMT
note, that he still approves if the inquisition sides with briala. Yes but that is for reasons other than she is an elf. One of the funniest (looking back on it) but oddest reactions by him at the time was when my Lavellan said that he must be pleased that it helped his/our people (I'm don't recall my exact words) and he looked totally blank for a moment before replying "Oh you mean the elves." My reaction (in my mind) was "Of course, who did you think I meant?", but as usual I was not actually able to respond as I would have liked. To be honest, for the majority of DAI I felt that "his" people were spirits and it was only after we encountered Abelas that he finally seemed to identify with a group of elves. i suggest you play inquisition again, pay attention to the way he react and speak with other elves (non dalish). also his exact qoute when the inquisitor asking about city elves: "they cling to memories of a better past and practice few rituals to distinguish themselves from humans", seem to me when speaking to abelas he definitely does talking about modern city elves when he says "some yet still linger".
Believe me, I've played it lots and watched other people's versions on You Tube and I never got the sense that he was talking about city elves to Abelas. When you enter temple with Solas in your party, Abelas definitely mentions how we have come with one of their own kind in our party, which he does not say if you leave Solas out. By contrast he totally rejects the claim of Lavellan to be one of their kind. Abelas has likely never even met a city elf so why would he accept one of them as kindred to him and yet not a Dalish? It was that reaction from Abelas that immediately seemed to confirm that Solas was not some simple apostate as he claimed. Then in that later exchange it would make no sense for Abelas to ask "Elvhen such as you" and Solas to confirm this if he was meaning city elves. In fact it would be a bare faced lie.
Have also found the dialogue he has with an Inquisitor he dislikes if they kill Abelas and the sentinels. He says: "After observing you strike down some of the few true elves left for the crime of defending their temple?" Note that he refers to there only being a few true elves left but that the sentinels were only "some" of them. Now you cannot by any stretch of the imagination say that city elves are "few". In fact I would say their numbers far outstrip those of the Dalish. After all we are told in DAO that there are 10,000 in the Val Royeaux alienage alone. So when he confirms to Abelas that there are still elvhen such as he still lingering in the world he is clearly referring to the "true elves" not the city elves.
What you are implying is that when Solas tells Lavellan that restoring his people will mean an end of theirs, he is only referring to the Dalish and not all modern elves. It is just some arbitrary decision of his, based off the fact that he doesn't like their politics/religion, rather than something fundamentally different about their physiology. Remember he says this to every Inquisitor regardless of their race. If he approves of them he seems to be at pains to emphasise he is not a monster for doing this, whereas if he does not he makes no apology and tells them to make the most of the time remaining to them, but he doesn't deny it is going to result in death and destruction for the modern races. Bearing in mind he can say he admires the elven Inquisitor and approves of their clan, it seems strange to me that he would say this to them unless it was simply a case that it is unavoidable.
Still, your interpretation of his words, does explain how he has managed to hoodwink so many modern elves into following him. I'm still adamant that he is tricking them and using them and I will continue to believe that until I see evidence to the contrary.
However, you have given me pause for thought over how Patrick Weakes represented the Dalish in Masked Empire. Back in DAO in the Dalish origin, our storyteller made it quite clear that what the Dalish was doing was for all elves. They were keeping their culture going in the hopes that eventually they would be able to have another homeland. He even said that once we had a homeland again, may be the city elves could teach the Dalish how to live alongside human neighbours. Any contempt for city elves was for the fact they stayed being bullied and mistreated in the cities instead of leaving but city elves who sought refuge with the Dalish were welcomed. The elven storekeeper in the alienage also recounted a story about Dalish raiders out in the wilds leaving him alone and not taking his goods when they realised he was an elf. Zathrian for all his faults was perfectly willing to take in a city elf child and eventually make her his First over other mages (yes there were more than three in his clan) who had been born Dalish.
Then in Masked Empire the Keeper of the Dalish clan there was in total contradiction of this. He said that the city elves were lost to them, implying they were too polluted by contact with humans and that those clans who took them in were misguided and in the minority. I thought this had been done simply to make Briala and her companions look less like dicks for leaving them to be torn apart by a demon. However, if you are correct then the writers as a whole have deviated from how the Dalish were represented in DAO and this has probably been done to make Solas look less reprehensible because he is trying to save the poor city elves, unlike the Dalish who have rejected them. I have always been more inclined towards playing a city elf myself and was disappointed not to have been able to do so in DAI, particularly considering they would have more reason to have been at the Conclave than a Dalish, but if Solas were to come to my character and maintain he was acting on behalf of the city elves in destroying everyone else, I would tell him to stick his idea where the sun don't shine.
At the same time, we got clan Lavellan which is portrayed as a shining beacon of perfection in the war table missions.
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∯ Oh Loredy...
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Apr 26, 2024 12:12:44 GMT
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August 2016
gervaise21
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights
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Post by gervaise21 on Mar 27, 2019 20:22:25 GMT
At the same time, we got clan Lavellan which is portrayed as a shining beacon of perfection in the war table missions. Solas explained this discrepancy. Apparently there is no consistency to the Dalish or uniformity of culture apart from worship of the elven gods. Essentially it was the writers way of saying that we shouldn't think we know the Dalish at all, even if we played the Dalish origin in DAO, so not to be surprised at any new developments (like the DAI version of the 3 mage rule) because that just reflects how much they have "grown apart" over the years. To be honest I think they have quietly ditched the idea of the Arlathvhen gathering of the clans, which was specifically for the purpose of exchanging knowledge and keeping a unified culture. I had questioned how clans as far apart as Antiva, the Freemarches and Orlais could come together even every 10 years when the logistics of travel with the entire clan whilst avoiding hostile humans would be well nigh impossible. So now may be it is just those in each individual region that hold the Arlathvhen and thus the DAO Dalish origin reflected the customs and ideas of Dalish in Ferelden only.
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wright1978
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Post by wright1978 on Mar 27, 2019 20:58:49 GMT
How can you say that the Dalish culture is not very different? The very act if living without the veil was different. Living in large cities with magical technology as we saw in the library was different. To my knowledge, the Dalish don't even speak fluent elvish. The Dalish are a nomadic people, roaming from site to site in smallish clans, living off the land. The ancient elves had a fully functional organized society in permanent settlements (cities). The Dalish admit that a lot was lost over time but they were trying to rebuild in permanent settlements in the Dales. It is true that what is now their nomadic culture is not a true reflection of ancient elven life but there are many other aspects that are. The fact that they don't even know that their vallaslin are slave markings makes that pretty clear. I actually take issue with this. Solas says they are slave markings because that is consistent with how he views the Evanuris. However, the memories of Abelas in the Temple of Mythal make it quite clear that he chose to serve Mythal and that is why he has her vallaslin. I'm pretty sure if you said to Abelas that he was a slave, he would be offended at the idea. It should also be pointed out that no one forces the Inquisitor to drink from the Well of Sorrows if they do, despite the warning that it will impart an obligation to serve on the drinker. The Dalish teach that taking a particular god's vallaslin shows allegiance to them and a wish to base their lives around what they understood that god represented. The codices in the Temple of Mythal would seem to endorse this and it would seem that the sentinels still honour the various gods within the temple complex. For all we know, the rite of passage into adulthood element of taking vallaslin may have had genuine grounding in the culture of the past. The fact that Solas removed the vallaslin of his followers was a sign that they had rejected the rule of the Evanuris. I just find it a bit annoying that we are meant to swallow whole everything that he asserts simply because he claims it is the absolute truth. It annoys me that bioware seems to have gone with a really heavyhanded real life slavery angle in trespasser for what to me seems a much more complex relationship between demigods and their subjects. Like you i hope it'll turn up to be just his point of view and we'll get presented with a equally high profile contrary one in DA4.
Also if the markings truly gave some kind of omniscient control over the subject how were they able to run off to solas in the first place.
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