Do you think the belief in the Herald of Andraste will last?

This conversation has not only made me not like the new leaders of Dragon Age even more, but now I have a whole new thing I have to dread about the Inquisitor being ruined when returning as a NPC.

WHILE Inky is still alive, it is very unlikely their gender, class, and species will fade away into fantasy. We can compare to Ameridan all we want, but we aren't going that far ahead in time.

I don't think you need to fear they will make them a total atheist but you will need to be careful how your choices are recorded in the Keep. Under the section "In Your Heart Shall Burn", which relates to the principles on which the Inquisition was founded, the choices are: Declared for Order; Declared for Faith; or Declared for the Inquisitor. So I assume that if you want it to reflect your Inquisitor as being faithful Andrastrian, you must choose Declared for Faith. Otherwise, even if you generally played them as faithful, if you declared, for example, for the elves or the mages, the Keep will have assumed that meant you declared for the Inquisitor.

Bearing in mind how many different options you had at the time, it is rather disappointing that they are categorised this way in the Keep as it would see a lot of them come under the umbrella of "Declared for the Inquisitor", which presumably means my pro-mage Inquisitor is going to be treated in much the same way as one who declared "I'm doing this for power" or "I'm doing this for elves/dwarves/qunari" (I assume dwarves and qunari got that option). Still, if the main driver of your Inquisitor was to be a faithful Andrastrian, then I think you are actually going to be pretty safe. However, there is likely not to be much distinction drawn between faithful Andrastrian and total believer that you are the Herald of Andraste. These two do not amount to the same thing but don't be surprised if the Keep assumes you are a full on "I'm the Herald" Inquisitor.

Even if we do not see the Inquisitor in person, this likely to affect how other people talk about them. So, far from suggesting they are an atheist, they are more likely to suggest you are intensely devout, even if you aren't. Meanwhile, my Lavellan who declared for the elves is likely to be described as a non-believer.

Lol, given that Inquisitor sees for themselves incontrovertible proof that the elven mythos is actually quite significantly based in actual historical fact, I have trouble believing that even a previously extremely devout one wouldn't at least have their faith somewhat shaken and be questioning it. The only other option is to disbelieve Solas about everything, including dismissing the existential threat that he presents, which isn't going to be happening.

Accepting Solas and his stated plan as a legit threat that needs to be countered means accepting that significant parts of Elven myth are, at least in a broad sense, true. And if significant parts of Elven myth are true, then that inherently spirals into calling into question the human/Andrastian version of events, because they significantly conflict. Either elves made the world, or the Maker did, either Solas made the Veil, or the Maker did. It can't be both.

Even where they don't significantly, directly conflict, there are still questions/inconsistencies to be addressed. For instance, why would the Maker ignore the plight of the Elves suffering under the yoke of the Evanuris, but empower Andraste to free her people just because she do a song gud? Was the Maker racist to elves before humans even existed?

Also, unrelated to Solas, why would humans be the ones who were right about who made Thedas when they weren't even there first? Like, as much as BioWare might say they will never give a "definitive answer", one of these sides always had more weight to it, and it was the elves. Solas just confirmed what the lore had always been strongly hinting at the entire time. There was never anything to give the Chant of Light any credence as an actual historical document, and we know for a fact that it's been deliberately altered more than once to obscure history for political reasons.

Yet there isn't an option in the Keep under the section for Trespasser for you to indicate whether your Inquisitor had their faith shaken by the revelations, or conversely, for an elven Inquisitor, if that actually reinforced their faith in their own lore if not their gods, so they clearly decided to sweep that entire issue under the carpet. Unless they give us the option of fully controlling a returning Inquisitor, with various options for them to say how they feel, I think it is more likely it will just be a case of how other people speak about them.

I think you are right that having a returning Inquisitor would be a programming nightmare for them, what with the variety of races, classes and VA you could have chosen for them. The only reason it is going to happen is if they have devoted a substantial chunk of the game to them independently of the new PC. However, given the trailer made it quite clear it was "time for a new hero", that seems unlikely. The Keep will simply be used to inform the conversation about the Inquisitor or what codices say about them.

In terms of the faith of returning characters, like Dorian and Varric, well they were never devoted to the Chantry line anyway. Dorian has a vague belief in the Maker, which was probably not shaken that much either way, whilst Cassandra says that Varric won't so much as poke his nose inside a Chantry, so he probably doesn't know much of the actual Chant either. I dare say neither of them went anywhere near the Skyhold garden, even if you did make it a Chantry garden.

It was more subtle than that. It was something along the lines of "he started a war that couldn't possibly be won", which is odd if you are talking with an Inquisitor who just gave the mages their complete freedom because clearly it could. The alternative is something about him wanting to change the world and knowing it couldn't be done peacefully, which also turned out to be true. I mean Wynne really tried but in the end the Templars wouldn't allow it. To be honest, I wasn't entirely happy with either option but at least with the second option I was able to acknowledge that I thought the world needing changing. I might not have approved of bombing the Chantry but I was willing to lead a rebellion if that is what it took.

Really, the whole issue with Hawke is that they could never really give enough options for it to feel like your own Hawke when you had no control over their answers. Also the fact that originally their story was intended to be wrapped up in the Exalted March DLC, so they never really belonged in DAI.

I'm pretty much resigned to the Inquisitor not returning. I don't want them back if I do not have full control over them. However, I don't want people saying stuff about them that doesn't fit their character as I played them, which is why I am very wary about how I set up the Keep for my first run.

In fact there were only 2 real choices, since the fate of Iron Bull was determined back in DAI and there was no possibility of altering that outcome by what you did in Trespasser. I seem to recall from You Tube that even if you leave him behind, Hissrad still turns up to confront you. So what exactly was the point in recording it in the Trespasser section at all?

As for the other choices, there is no nuance to the choice about the Inquisition. Whether you were defiant, apologetic or agreeable about the decision you were forced to make, essentially it is just the choices of retain or disband, with a definite sense that they consider retaining it under Divine Victoria is the way to go. It emphasises how the efforts against Solas will be stronger albeit with the risk of infiltration by his agents as opposed to no chance if you disband but with emphasis on being weaker through lack of resources. Having a "risk" does not imply an absolute certainty that this will happen. You can mitigate risk but there is little you can do about lack of resources. In any case, all the associated literature, whether comics or short stories, seem to be working to the premise that the Inquisition was retained, so that would appear the writers' default position. So the likelihood is there will be no negatives to retaining the Inquisition but you may get additional missions or items that you miss out on if you disbanded.

As for the decision concerning Solas, it still annoys me, as it did the first time I played Trespasser, that it is all about how we feel about Solas and whether or not you want to save him from his "tragic" mistake. For me, it was never a case of whether or not I thought Solas beyond redemption but the need to stop him from harming everyone else. That is my number one priority. That does not make me ruthless or mean I have totally written Solas off but anything I feel about Solas, whether good or bad, is secondary to the fate of every living being in Thedas. I have a nasty feeling though that since no distinction is drawn between those people who punched Solas in DAI and those people like myself who simply regard his welfare as secondary to everyone else, that the "Stop Solas at all costs", is going to be portrayed as a brutal, win at all costs, type of Inquisitor, whilst only the "Attempt to Redeem Solas" will show you in a more merciful light. I'm hoping I am wrong about this and the programming will refer back to the section "Judgements at Skyhold" to get some greater nuance about how your character will be portrayed but it does concern me.

It still begs the question, where was the Maker when they did this? I know Giselle burbles on about Corypheus being tainted and evil so his mind and memories have been twisted, but he says both in his memory crystal and in the final confrontation that they found nothing but corruption and an empty throne when they arrived in the Black City. He expected it to be golden but it wasn't.

Also, the elves believed the Golden City to be the Eternal City, home to the Creators and where Fen'Harel shut them away. The Avvar believe the Home of the Gods was once accessible to mortals but then it was shut away in the sky (Fade) by the Lady of the Skies.  The Ancient Imperium believed the Golden City to be the home of their gods and the Magisters Sidereal were going there either to be rewarded or to get help at the invitation of Dumat. The Canticle of Silence (which has actually been rejected by the southern Chantry) maintains that instead they found an angry Maker sitting on this throne. However, Andraste's own version was slightly different in that they were not confronted by the Maker, only his throne, and heard his voice of condemnation without seeing him, whilst every step they took spread the corruption. It is easier to reconcile this version with what Corypheus claimed he found.

Nevertheless, why did the elves, the Avvar and the Imperium believe their gods were to be found in the Golden City? We know the Old Gods were actually imprisoned in the Deep Roads but it is possible that it was necessary to break into the City in order to break the seals on their prisons, or at least the prison of Dumat, who was said to have been the main instigator of the enterprise and was the first Old God to arise as an Arch-demon. If the Golden City was the realm of the Maker, why didn't he put up better defenses? As I've said before, I do not discount the existence of the Maker as the First Cause of the universe but I have my doubts that the Golden City was really his realm or, of it was, he abandoned it long before the Magisters arrived.

I do believe this is probably what happened. The Fade is shaped by the spirits in it but also by the thoughts and dreams of those outside it. If enough people believed the structure in the Fade was a golden city, then that is how it would appear. May be they even did remember a time when it was genuinely golden. However, the moment someone broke in and discovered it wasn't golden, the illusion was broken and it now appeared as they found it, or alternatively it reflected the blackness of their minds and souls, which I think is what Andraste was implying in her version.

So far as Hessarian is concerned, once he decided to embrace the Andrastrian religion, I imagine he consulted with one or more of her disciples to learn what she had said and then embellished it, as the southern Divine suggested, for his own political ends. Since he was the main authority up in Tevinter and the majority of believers were down south, I imagine there wasn't anyone around to contradict him.

The obvious solution is that this is a “black dress city/gold dress city” situation.

“Ah yes, young mage, the Black City does change color in response to people’s perceptions of it, but this is no ordinary dream magic. It’s just... the Fade has weird lighting, and your brain is trying to compensate for that.”

This makes my head hurt.