Blood Magic Blocked forevermore because writers don't want their Heros sullied by it

gervaise21

Fans have historically said that DA tends to reflect politics around it. War, and the increase in security, is often pointed towards as chipping away at citizen rights. At least in the US, 9/11 got us "The Freedom Act" which ironically infringed on a lot of civil liberties.

I wonder if the inherently corrupt Tevinter Magisters have leaned into this as the Qunari war has waged on several years now- is literally the only thing I can think of to explain it.

It is more the fact that we have never seen anything similar in game or mentioned by anyone from Tevinter or referenced in the lore books. It is rather odd that in the section of WoT about Minrathous they mention the giant golems at the gates, the enormous catacombs under the city, the Proving Grounds in the centre of the city, a giant triangular prism (that could be relevant), the exterior decorated with hanging gardens, described as one of the wonders of the world and the ancient Circle of Magi, but not a peep about the floating security system. It is just another of those things that you would think someone, sometime would have mentioned, yet they never did.

Then there is the codex on the limits of magic. Of course, they would probably argue this was based off the knowledge of the southern Circles, not magic generally but it does seem amazing just how many of these limitations on magic we were told about in DAO have been broken:

Physically enter the Fade: Only done once in history with disastrous consequences. Actually quite simple, you just need the right magical doodad or a correctly aligned eluvian.
Travel great distances: Cannot teleport (apparently the mages in DA2 were just running very fast) or travel great distances using magic (you can so long as you have an eluvian at your disposal)
Mundane tasks: Mages should use magic only when necessary not for trivial activities. In Tevinter Nights a Mortalitassi was using a bound spirit to stir her tea/coffee. if that isn't a trivial use of magic, I don't know what is. Also the Venatori using blood magic for a beauty treatments and growing wigs (Okay I know that wasn't in game and the Venatori are evil but still).
Restoring Life: A truly great healer can bring someone back from the brink of death but cannot restore life. The only way to keep a dead person alive is with spirit possession, which is rare and dangerous. Actually it turns out it is not as rare as we thought, enough that it would appear to be a possibility with anyone we encounter, so long as they are important enough to the narrative. Also, soul splitting to cheat death (which Solas thought only the Evanuris knew how to do - clearly not such a know it all eh?). The Avvar believe it is even possible to be reincarnated in a new body, although the memory may be a bit fuzzy.
The Veil is a permanent division between the Waking World and the Fade. According to what the Maker told to Andraste it was his creation when he made the material world to keep it separate from the Fade. It was created by Solas to shut away the evil gods. Clearly the Maker was lying to Andraste or she wasn't communicating with the person she thought she was.
All-powerful Artifacts: Enchanted items are unable to break the rules of common magic. They cannot be used to resurrect the dead or physically enter the Fade. They are rare and difficult to reproduce. At this stage I would say that if can think of something you would like an artifact to do, someone, somewhere (probably an ancient elf) has already created it or enough research will allow modern mages to do so. So far we have had items in the games or associated media that allow us physically to enter the Fade (anchor in DAI and ? in DAV), strengthen the Veil to prevent demons coming through, produce a magical blade that can channel magical power (from the Idol from DA2) enable enhanced physical feats and animate metal statues (blade made from idol in DA2) stop magical anomalies (halla statue in short story) restore the dead (ongoing Netflix series), turn the whole world into darkspawn (luckily destroyed in the novel), mind control the whole world (again also destroyed in the comic series), deflect sunlight onto an ice wall and melt it (Jaws of Hakkon). In addition, there may be the Crucious Stone from the Missing, although we never discovered what that can do. Also Bellara has a magical Swiss army knife type gadget - probably of ancient elf origin. Hmm, have I missed anything?  Oh yes, time travel - that one really broke the setting for me in DAI.  Shouldn't have been possible and didn't make any sense whatsoever in the way they explained it.

So, it is not so much that magic can do the things we saw in the prologue to DAV but it no longer has any limits at all. So essentially we are in a setting far removed from the one we were in in DAO when it comes to consistency. One was a medieval fantasy world with definite limits to what you can do. The other seems more akin to the setting in Mass Effect, where the modern races were only catching up with what previous civilisations had been able to do before they were wiped out, occasionally uncovering artifacts that advanced their knowledge and expertise. In this analogy the ancient elves are the equivalent of the Protheans and no doubt we shall discover that perhaps Solas is the equivalent of the Reapers, except instead of destroying the current civilisation to prevent their advance to the level where it will destroy itself, he wants to destroy it to restore the old one because he liked that better.

Y'all Minrathous haters seem to be forgetting this image: static0.gamerantimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/minrathous.jpg from I think the 2020 trailer? We've known for years Minrathous was Magical-Neon-Floating-Building stylistically.

Dorian describes the south as 'quaint'. Ferelden is a barbaric backwater compared to the likes of Orlais and Antiva. Orlais, while powerful is seen by Tevinter as provincial. Of course the ancient capital of the Roman Empire-with-Mage-Patricians of this setting is going to look High Fantasy and advanced in comparison to that. I'd imagine Byzantine Constantinople or Abbasid-Era Baghdad would look much the same to a person from Viking-era/pre-Norman Britain.

'laser beams'= Fire and lightning magic bolts. 

strobe light= Fire and lightning magic focussed through some sort of a crystal, they emit light afterall. 

Magically amplified voices= we have seen, well 'heard' beings amplify their beings with magic before one way or another. Namely the Nightmare in Inquisition. 

Plus we aren't exactly dealing with technology here, we are dealing with magic. As long as its consistent or can grow from things we have already seen throughout the series, and it has, then its not really that big of a problem. We don't have to hear about every single thing in Thedas to imagine it can exist if similar things like it exist. The Sha-bratol crossbows make sense since we have seen Bianca build...well Bianca. 

And from what I saw of the 'magical defense system' while it might've looked impressive it really wasn't doing anything to stop the demons, close the Fade rifts, or dent the shield that was containing Neve. Sure it might be impressive against Terrestrial invaders like the Qunari, it might've well been firing blanks against what we saw in the gameplay trailer. 

Another thought I had on the 'magic defense system'. I realized there was some incredulity in what I said last time. Afterall magic of this nature has been shown to be effective against demons before and yet they were really running wild. But then I realized like any large artillery they were large bolts which moved slowly and didn't have a high rate of fire. Good siege weapons but not against opponents that can easily maneuver.

Kinda strange article, tbh, considering that you couldn't be a blood mage in DAI as well.

blood magic itself isn't going anywhere.

The 1984-like state in Minrathous makes sense to me as something that’s happened within the last decade due to the war with the Antaam. We know there are many among the Ben-Hassrath that work with them, and they’ve had a decade to convert new ones. Plus I doubt Tevinter believes the Arigena and Ariaun that the Arishok is acting on his own.

So to Tevinter, anyone could be an agent of the Qunari. They would’ve heard about what happened in Trespasser, how a few agents almost helped the Quinn destroy Southern Thedas’s leadership, and will not take any chances. They also must know at least something of Solas’s movements, seeing it as at least a planned slave rebellion or something. So they see all these potential avenues for spies and saboteurs, and will keep vigilance.

I agree, the action they are taking makes sense, it was just the way it was introduced that was jarring. Still, hopefully we will get an explanation as to when it occurred. After all, there was no mention of it in Tevinter Nights, yet two of the stories were set in Minrathous, but they did mention the floating aqueduct in Vyrantium, so I don't have a problem with the structure floating in the sky but the strobe lights, etc, need explaining as to their origins.

Hanako is going to hate this idea. However, it was connected in some way to what was happening in Arlathan Forest, so it does seem as though the technology could have been elven. Someone also suggested it might be connected to corrupt Magisters in some way and I realised that Corypheus achieved his feat with the Temple because of channeling magic with the orb into the red lyrium littering the place. The Qunari were very anxious to stop red lyrium reaching Tevinter but they failed in this, so who knows what it may have been used for in the last 10 years. If there is enough going spare for Fortex to use it to create fashion items that suggests it is fairly widespread and plentiful.

I just hope Tevinter and its capital in particular isn't portrayed as comically evil dystopian with no redeeming features. Because slave society is eviiiil and we need to be hit over the head with how awful everything is about that society constantly.

I'm not too fond of the 1984 vibes tbh. I'd rather the city was more gothic but with some beautiful color too. A mix of charming and horrifying. Floatinf stuff might be fine but the search light cyberpunk style is off putting at first glance to me.

I'd rather the society was quietly oppressive and dystopian through a rigid and rigged society you unravel as you interact with people rather than flashy searchlights. That's so... unsubtle.