Dragon Age: The Missing (Comic Miniseries)

I’m well aware of all that. I’m also well aware than when it comes to the Venatori they utterly failed at every attempt to do so. Please, give me examples where they succeeded without anything involving Corypheus’s actions being a factor.

This is why I don't believe that they are going to be anything other than a problem we have to deal with on the path to Solas. It would be frustrating and disappointing if they suddenly became capable and powerful after the fall of Corypheus when by rights that should have done the opposite to their prospects. I would also be rather disappointed in Solas if he underestimated them a second time after the debacle with his orb. He clearly has been watching them because of what happened after Dark Fortress in Tevinter Nights. I assume he allowed that ritual to go ahead because he knew how he was going to counter it and to send a warning to the Mortalitasi about meddling in affairs about which they had only superficial knowledge. I was surprised he allowed the idol to be removed from the area though, unless that was deliberate in order reveal more members of the Venatori to him. However, according to his story, he now has the idol, unless that is what he wanted Charter to believe and he is in fact still looking for it. In which case, finding the idol could well involve the Venatori.  In view of how it powered up a non-mage like Meredith, I imagine it could be very dangerous in the hands of fanatics like the Venatori.

I think its really on the one hand a combination of historical curiosity, profit motive, and opprotunity with on the other hand a need for neccessity. 

On the first point the Elves have always had an interest in recovering historical artifacts and learn from the past, along with Mythal and Morrigan. It isn't too known why they had to wait until the present day to be too successful but maybe it was the opprotunity presented by the Fifth Blight being in a region where Flemeth could get to the Old God soul for the first time which you also had the discovery of the Eluvian which spuirred on the discovery of the next. The Dwarves likewise had to wait for a Blight to clear out the Deep Roads in order to begin their historical research, likely motivitated by the return of Kal Shirok to modern society, but they didn't have the opprotunity until the Fifth Blight cleared out the Deep Roads. This led to the reclamation of Kal Hirol, the discovery of the Harvester, and Bartrand's Expedition which led to the discovery of the idol, Red Lyrium, and its growth on the surface. Meanwhile Humans don't really seem to have that much historical curiosity unless it could directly benefit them and their efforts...

Meanwhile for neccessities sake you had Branka's expedition to find the Anvil of the Void to help restore the Dwarves and most of the Inquisitor's activities against Corypheus and the ancient history they discovered was only as a direct result of what he the Venatori and the Red Templars were up to. 

Though discovering ancient history has always been a bit of a thing for Dragon Age.

Far as artifacts go there is another from the Tallis web-series that was going to open up the fade and let out a lot of spirits.

Thinking about it, kind of surprising the Dalish haven't had some super-mage/artificer come up with some plan that could destabilize things and cause problems. Don't like society, humans etc....all that much and are constantly looking around for old artifacts and history ala Merrill and so forth.

There's also all the main characters of the games, considering it's been what a decade and half over the course of the games....the fact that there's been 3 heroes capable of going through swath's of epic and legendary monsters, champions, semi-divine entities is kind of a bit much, especially factoring in all of their OP companions as well.

Which from what I recall was called the Mask of Fen'Harel, which made sense in view of what we now know about him but her series occurred way before DAI and Trespasser, so was that just lucky coincidence?

I have to put it down to the possibility that most of their more powerful mages died during the Exalted March on the Dales. I mean we had the example of Ameridan who had the knowledge to create a time bubble in which he entrapped himself with Hakkon, which was pretty powerful magic, of which we had another example in the Western Approach by Tevinter mages, yet apparently manipulation of time magic was lost to both the Dalish and Tevinter until Alexius started to research it. As we now know from this latest comic series, weird magical warping of time and space would seem to be linked to the ancient elves, so Ameridan had managed to revive at least a small part of his race's ancient knowledge.

Actually, that was curious because Duncan claimed he had seen examples of eluvians in Tevinter but he thought they were for communication, not travel. Now Dark Fortress showed they can be used for such a purpose, so perhaps the ancient Vints managed to unlock that aspect without discovering the more important travel one. It also seems to some extent that people discovering these artifacts have to rely on spirits/demons for information about them. Now according to WoT, the Dalish are very wary about having much to do with spirits, which I have put down to Keepers having had some nasty run ins with Fen'Harel in the Fade and taking his threats seriously, which probably limited their knowledge about the purpose and operation of artifacts they discovered. I rather suspect the only reason Thelhen summoned Imshael in Masked Empire is that Felassan suggested it to him and didn't want to do so himself. Also Imshael suggested to Michel that the network had been active during the time of the Dales but was shut down again at their fall, presumably to stop the humans getting control of them. Still, that suggests there was someone during that time who had the requisite knowledge to use them, possibly the source of the book that later came into the possession of Morrigan. I always thought that it was a bit odd a Dalish clan had that book but had never thought to use it but it would make sense if it was written in ancient elven and the author/translator was killed before passing on their knowledge to others. Either that, or they were an agent of Fen'Harel who had awoken in that earlier period, aged and died.

Another artifact we should not forget about is the strange book mentioned in the short story Ruins of Reality that apparently started to write itself around the same time as the weird magic appeared, together with the halla statue that appeared to give some localised control over it. Since we were given no specific time frame for the Missing, there is no way of knowing if it was set before or after the events in the short stories, although I'm guessing the latter. If so, that would mean the Veil Jumpers were set up in response not only to the magical phenomena but also likely using information from that book. I would definitely be interested to know where exactly the Morlin clan acquired it.

I know that Harding/Varric assumed that Solas was responsible but was there any definitive evidence to say it was him? It could equally have been someone else using an ancient elven artifact, as happened when Corypheus opened the Veil at the end of DAI. We know, from Horror of Hormack, that strange stuff is happening in the Deep Roads and I'm pretty sure Solas is not responsible for that. In fact, given the smell of the sea associated with it, I suspected the Executors of activating the magic there. Even if they are not responsible, those strange areas seem to have some connection with Ghilan'nain and since the halla statue was connected with the magical weirdness in Arlathan, I think there is probably a link between the two.

Solas continually warns people against messing with magic they do not understand. He told the Mortalitasi that their meddling threatened the world and given they were involved in a ritual using the idol, I can well believe it, because we didn't need Solas to tell us that it is a very dangerous item in the hands of the ambitious and ignorant. That, of course, holds true of the Venatori too, particularly when it comes to red lyrium. Given one of their number was using it for the trivial purpose of creating fashion items, they clearly are not using it either responsibly or sparingly.  There were weird magical anomalies occurring in that house in Kirkwall as a result of a small piece of red lyrium, so who is to say that a larger amount, say immediately under the forest, couldn't have caused the oddities they encountered.  Solas warned Charter that the Executors are dangerous and whilst that was rather rich coming from him, I think it is a warning she should have taken seriously. Then we have the Viddasala's magical research on behalf of the Qun, which went horribly wrong when it came to powering up their Saarebas. Who is to say that her successor didn't try using some magical item to control the magic of Arlathan but instead it had the opposite effect? To be honest, whilst Solas admits his original action in ancient times didn't go entirely to plan, unlike those examples already mentioned, nothing he has been involved in during the present has given the impression of magic running out of his control. He has now promised he will try to minimise the damage his plans might cause, which seems a bit odd if he has already caused the strange phenomena of Arlathan Forest where magic is clearly running out of control.

So, I do hope the writers aren't laying a false trail by having characters make assumptions that others should challenge in the light of experience and much later on have our PC discover they were wrong.  Varric and Harding have, either together or separately, witnessed all those examples I have mentioned (with the exception of Horror of Hormack) or could have heard about them via their network of contacts, so their rather simplistic assumptions in the comic series were rather disappointing, not simply with regard to the strange magic in Arlathan but also things like the identity of the person following them or how much Solas was involved in laying the trail for them to follow.   Why did they go to Minrathous after Arlathan?   There seemed no obvious reason to think that Solas had been headed that way and, if it was based on reports of seeing him, how did they get them?

Do the Veil jumpers have any particular abilities? Based on the comic I thought that they were just skilled dalish mages and hunter plus non dalish that work together to deal with the stuff going down in arlathan, Strife didn't seem to be using one of those magic bows from the concept art and teaser trailer, or anything else special. Unless I missed something.

So I just finished the 4th issue last night and in a word: Underwhelmed.

A big nothingburger. Change my mind?

I wasn't expecting this comic to be that important in the grand scheme of things, indeed it might've been too much of a something burger based on the mural in issue three. Far more critical of the inconsistencies between issues and overall world.

Think this is an instance of marketing first, story second.

Oh shit, I better go re-read it then! 

I'm not too concerned. Like it's more concerning that they'd let this be attached to the DA name without more quality control on their part but as far as I know no one from bioware was involved in this from a writing staff perspective. As I've theorized probably just gave them a list of things to introduce then left them to their own devices. Which is more annoying but not really concerning to me since, from what I've seen, the comics are basically the red headed step child of the Dragon Age extended universe.

More telling, for me, was the recent project that did have BioWare's direct involvement with John Epler serving as executive producer Absolution felt both very well written and a proper Dragon Age story.

Now it COULD be concerning, though this is reaching for something to be conce3ned about, that since they didn't coordinate (likely) then that's more evidence they didn't have the time, so more evidence of crunch rather then bad writing.

This is why I think the Dalish reluctance to engage in any magic connected with spirits, that was stated in World of Thedas and demonstrated in the attitudes of the clans we have encountered in game, was likely a good thing both in terms of their own survival and that of Thedas itself. As they freely admit so much knowledge had been lost to them down the years, it follows that using ancient relics without fully appreciating what they can do or how to limit their effects would be extremely risky. An example of this can be found in the story of Zathrian. He was using an ancient non-Fade spirit to enact a curse on his perceived enemies and ended up creating something that impacted everyone, including his own people. When the other Keepers discovered the truth about his "immortality" they condemned what he had done as a crime against nature, clearly intending to deter anyone else from attempting something similar in the future.

I also think it a possibility that Fen'Harel could have influenced their thinking on spirits through them encountering him in the Fade. Again, World of Thedas says they believe he stalks the Fade, preying on unwary souls, and given the experience of the Mortalitasi in their binding ritual, I think it is entirely possible that at some point in the past a Keeper or group of Keepers may have attempted some sort of binding ritual and ended up having a similar sort of encounter and warning against attempting anything like that again. This is why I would find it interesting to know exactly how the Dalish view the return of Fen'Harel. According to the comic series, this was a revelation to Strife's group. Now whilst I am not entirely convinced the Morlin clan are regular Dalish, it nevertheless seems strange to me that they had no knowledge of this. According to Tevinter Nights his agents had been pretty active recruiting elves to their cause and, even if they steered clear of the Dalish, you would think some rumour of this would eventually make its way back to them, even if they initially dismissed it as unlikely to be true. After all, the Morlin clan had apparently heard of the Inquisition and would seem to have enough confidence in their agents that they immediately believed what they asserted about Solas. Yet, this was a total surprise to them?