The Halla Enigma

Too much good stuff. I'll skip some things since I can't give informative comments on everything. First, reaching back a bit.


Actually if you check the Wiki under Ancient Mosaics, you will see they used the Fen'Harel mosaics in each of what I call the 'veilfire' doors the Inquisitor has to dissolve to continue through the Mountain Ruins. The first one does appear first and is linked to the welcome to freedome message. The second image is on the last door and is linked to the removal of the vallesin (if you look at that image closely, there is bright blue 'writing' on the left half of the face and none on the right). The third image group is found on the door exposing the lies of the Evanuris. The figure is almost certainly Mythal. Comparing with the stock Mythal mosaic, you can see three of the globes she usually holds, dropped. You can also see her usual halo is broken and there is a chain around her middle depicting some sort of binding. This fits well with the anger of the message as a tipping point for Fen'Harel to go rogue. The final row of images is seen with a recruitment motif in the door so it is fitting as well. One other thing I thought of with the veilfire doors, it suggests that Fen'Harel placed the Veil sometime AFTER he started leading a rebellion. I say that becuase the tenor of the message is a recruitment poster-type and some "common" elf or associate of Fen'Harel would have had to have taken down the doors with magic that isn't readily available after the Veil is in place (namely, The Anchor).



There's certainly something to the idea that this could have been something precious to the side of Fen'Harel. There's also all the Mythal statues with various forms of the dragon goddess incorporated which would make sense with the two being in close contact. Oh, and a side note, just went back to the Ancient Jail off the Crossroads and saw a couple of interesting things I missed last time. Outside the eluvian is a Mythal's Dragon statue which is interesting because the outside of each eluvian has the characteristics of what's on the other side (the one back to the Winter Palace has Orleasian statuary and architecture, the one to the Deep Roads has dark stone and torches, etc.) Second, there's one of those Mythal statues with a dragon tail in the Jail with all those shattered eluvians. Looks like this may have been a dumping ground for other eluvians Fen'harel located and busted to keep enemies from using them. I doubt the Exalted Plains wolf is relevant here since there are plenty of wolf statues all around the Graves enough. We do probably need to answer the question that came up earlier: why the heck are there all these wolf statues in questionable areas? Not the Temple of Mythal, but the Temple of Dirthamen, all over the Dales and even up into Emprise? The Dalish may have lost much of the lore from the Elves of the Dales, but surely they didn't get the Dread Wolf turned 180 degrees like that? Further, the lore on Fen'Harel in the Temple of Mythal states that the elven word 'Harellan' meaning "traitor to one's kin" didn't appear in any written work until the Towers Age. Yet the Elves of the dales would have had closer contact to stories of Fen'Harel's betrayal than the Dalish. It's a puzzle to me.




What about the fact that the mosaics in the Mountain Ruins, Fen'Harel's rebel bastion, are Dirthamen, Falon'Din, and Mythal? There's too much noise for me to accept much of anything without multiple points of supposition or stronger proof. Just to prove my point by showing the opposite, compare the third figure from the left in those 'discovered' mosaics you posted with the skull that represents June in DA:O. Notice the pair of bull-like horns on both? Another funny thing, for all the idea that Elgar'nan is the chief god, there's precious little pictures, statues, stories about him. Not to say that June couldn't be a 'co-conspirator' and I don't think Fen'Harel was a 'lone' wolf . The next question, though, is what happened to them? Mythal was murdered, we are told, which probably triggered Fen'Harel to rebel, but there's nothing else direct in Lore or hints.



Thanks for the tip. It's been a while since I played Origins so I had to reorient a bit to the controls. Replayed both the Dalish Origin and the Mage Origin to that storeroom. I would agree that taking too much from art from a game 13+ years old and one we know they were uncertain would actually spawn a series like this is dangerous. I picked up the June skull thing in the Dalish Origin. The statue in the ruins there looks some different from the 6-armed one in the Mage Origin, but both bodies are in the same style and both have distinctive wings. Tamlen's statement when looking through the Eluvian was that he saw a city that was underground and black. Probably not a blaze of insight that the Black City is Arlathan whose physical remain are underground and Fade portion is The Black City. Couple of interesting things in the Mage Origin storeroom were the statue that talked and claimed to prophesy (Elini Zinovia) and the "artifact" that magnified the Rod of Fire to blast through the wall looks an awful lot like a wolf. I think at least some of these things were vaguely planned from the beginning but left open to so much interpretation that any path could be taken to get there. One other note that may only be funny to me, the guy who can escort your Dalinsh proto-Warden back to the Eluvian is name Fenarel. Fen'Arel?! They didn't, did they?



When I first saw this I said "Of course it's his!" but I see some deeper nuances of your question. While this set of islands is tied to a particular set of Eluvians that definitely belong to Fen'harel (he tells you so at the end, the Deep Roads section is clearly his and Mythal's, the mural in the Shattered Library is almost certainly his, etc.), the chapel is not necessarily his before he retakes it. The mosaics of Fen'Harel on both sides of the "nave" of the sanctuary are in poor repair to the point of being hard to recognize, while the others are worn but clearly discernable. One thing that jumps out (and the cause of that itch about how much we REALLY know what Fen'Harel is up to even after he "told" the Inquisitor) is that there's no reason for Fen'harel to drag the Inquisitor as deeply into the plot as he does. He demonstrates that his own spies could 'discover' the gattlok barrels on their own and expose the plot indirectly. He has more than enough power, demonstrated over and over and over again, to handle the qunari, the sarebaas, even the dragon without needing your piddly band. He even brazenly monologues right in front of the Inquisitor. Many have pointed out the obvious issues with his plot as an example of bad writing. It certainly could be. It could also be that his plot actually involves some need for interference by someone to succeed in the actual goal (curing/solving the Blight? he certainly seems concerned abot it and also concerned that killing all of the Old God/dragons isn't the answer). Back to considering Falon'Din as a possible co-conspirator, in the Temple of Dirthamen, the mosaics of Dirthamen are all in red stone (color of the Blight) while the ones of Falon'Din are green. Maybe Dirthamen betrayed his 'twin' and that's why the statue appears in Mythal's realm.

Odd theory that fits none of this directly. If vallesin is 'blood writing', does that mean that the Evanuris were possibly using blood magic to control and track their slaves? Is that why removing that is probably so important its depicted twice? Are the Dalish in for the biggest FU surprise in Thedas once the Evanuris get out? I'm outta energy and I still haven't dove into what gervaise had on the mural in the Shattered Library, the mystery inscription at the end of the Forbidden Oasis, or bunches of other data I need to try to pull this together. I'll Textomance more later. Thanks all who got this far.