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Post by arvaarad on Apr 12, 2017 20:30:27 GMT
As I've stated above, I could go with the biased views of outsiders interpretation of the lore explanation if I didn't have Minaeve actually say to me "you know how it is in the clans". It also came after I suggested that her magic would have been valued among the Dalish, to which I get her scathing indictment of them. This was clearly emphasising that the majority of clans did as Minaeve experienced and thus it should come as no shock to Lavellan to hear this. If this was not the general rule among the clans, then instead of saying that my clan didn't do that or simply expressing sorrow at what she had to endure, I should have been able to condemn her clan for their actions as not being typical of the Dalish culture and that they were wrong to have made her believe that their actions were the norm. She did get kicked out when she was 7. She might think that their behavior was typical Dalish behavior, because kids think whatever they experienced is normal, even if it really, really wasn't. It wouldn't have helped that she was immediately surrounded by humans, with all their weird ideas about the Dalish. The Inquisitor doesn't know what the norm is either, having only lived in one clan. I assume any clan doing such a thing keeps it quiet in the Arlathvhen. So the Inquisitor can't make definitive statements that "the Dalish are this way" or "the Dalish are that way", and they know that. Unfortunately, that leaves non-Dalish as the ones who make sweeping, definitive statements about ALL Dalish, because they don't know any better. It stinks for the Dalish in-universe, but oh boy is it realistic.
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Post by gervaise21 on Apr 13, 2017 13:24:15 GMT
I quite agree that any clan would keep quiet about it if it wasn't general practice but that is why Lavellan should have been able to state it is not their cultural norm. It is also perfectly true that outside of the Arlathvhen individual clans might not be entirely faithful to what they are supposed to do as part of their culture. However, if anyone outside of the clans asserts that something is "typical" Dalish, then they would set them straight based on what they have been taught is meant to be the case.
The treatment of mages, the practice of magic and the correct training of mage children would be an important enough issue that the Keepers would get together at each Arlathvhen to agree on these matters. Actually I think in reality that there is never one big Arlathvhen that all Dalish attend from across Thedas because the logistics of it would be a nightmare. What actually happens is that the clans in a particular region get together on a ten year cycle. This would then fit with the assertion that clans are gradually growing apart because those living in Ferelden have had little contact with those of Orlais, Nevarra or the Freemarches. The clans from further north probably have little contact with the others at all.
All the clans we dealt with in DAO and DA2 were from Ferelden. It is entirely possible that Minaeve was from an Orlesian clan. Certainly the extremely bigoted clan Virnehn was living in southern Orlais in the region of the old Dales and I take it that Thelhen was one of the elders who condemned Gisharel at their gathering of the clans for wishing to share his culture with the humans to aid better understanding. As most of Bull's work was in Orlais and western Nevarra, it is likely Dalish's clan was from there too. That would make a plausible explanation for the discrepancies in behaviour and cultural expectations that we encounter. Lavellan's clan was from the Freemarches so historically were likely an offshoot from the Ferelden clans, which would account for any similarities between them and those we encountered in the earlier games.
I must admit I find some of the lore and storylines (and game mechanics) do rather ignore the enormous distances that must be involved in travelling around Thedas from region to region. A gathering of clans living in Ferelden and southern Orlais just about makes sense but involving those to the north of the Waking Sea just doesn't seem possible, unless they do just send the odd representative. I never really understood how Lavellan's clan even knew about the Conclave let alone why the Keeper thought it necessary to send one of their clan all that distance to spy on it. If wasn't as though they could influence the outcome and really a Dalish ought to have stuck out like a sore thumb the entire route, considering they would have had to cross the Waking Sea by some means (presumably requiring money for the passage), then travel to Haven, likely in the company of pilgrims and invitees to the Conclave, before convincing those who were meant to be policing the whole thing that they should be allowed anywhere near it. Now a city elf would have made more sense, because they could have been there as a servant and thus effectively invisible, but the vallaslin did rather give us away as not belonging there. Given how the Chantry has historically blackened the reputation of the Dalish, you'd think you would have a particular problem being seen in the vicinity of numerous adherents of the faith. I did manage to explain it to myself through a convoluted back story but that was one area where I did think my clan was unusual (as Solas said they were) for getting involved, particularly considering all the clans that lived nearer to it, took no interest whatsoever.
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Post by Iakus on Apr 26, 2017 16:23:25 GMT
Yeah, at very at least Dalish Inquisitors (and all the races, really) needed more opportunities to at least state that things in their clan are different or at the very Bioware needs to firmly establish that the Dalish are not a monoculture by any means and is very much divided on certain ideas on what is elven identity. I resent Bioware's implication that clans like Lavellan and Mahariel are "an exception to the rule" or "a credit to their race" or "one of the good ones"Kinda late to this but.. yeah those clans are exceptions to the rules. How BIG an exception we don't know. But those are Dalish who are still willing to treat with the humans, however reluctantly. Others avoid humans entirely. And there are those who attack humans on sight. Remember: most Dalish blame contact with humans for the loss of their immortality. So from a human point of view, elves that are willing to deal with them and not try to kill them just for being shems makes them "one of the good ones" Kinda like from a Dalish's point of view, a human village that doesn't try to kill them or drive them away, or cheat them just for being "knife ears" would make them "the good ones"
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Post by gervaise21 on Apr 26, 2017 19:45:31 GMT
The interesting thing about the loss of immortality that the Dalish associate with human contact is that they never thought of it as a sudden thing. There was a plausible explanation initially for withdrawing from contact.
Firstly, elves were vulnerable to human diseases that caused them to sicken and die, which they had never experienced before. It was perfectly reasonable that they would want to avoid this.
Second, there seemed to be a change in attitude among the elves that had a lot to do with humans, which I think was the lore keepers way of saying that they were losing their culture. The human tribes basically had a different way of doing things. Also it likely also included the fact that these elves who had dealings with humans often ended up in relationships with them and the resulting children were human, which was effectively changing them. So the story was that the elves withdrew from contact in order to preserve their identity but to a large extent all this seems likely to apply to the time after the Veil was raised. Even the destruction of the city in Arlathan Forest was 2,000 years after the raising of the Veil and the loss of the real Arlathan.
Whilst a muddling of lore is understandable with the passage of years, it still seems hard to explain why the elves would specifically blame the humans for their loss of immortality and total destruction of their empire, when this was a sudden, cataclysmic event that everyone at the time seemed to know was the work of Fen'Harel. So why was the only memory left to the Dalish one of him locking the gods away and not the means of doing so or the effect it had on the elves at the time?
I'd say that Fen'Harel using the Veil to do this was a recent invention but for the knowledge I have just received from another thread that "Dread Wolf" is an anagram of "Fade World", so it would seem this aspect of him was always there.
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Post by vit246 on Apr 28, 2017 23:53:44 GMT
Kinda late to this but.. yeah those clans are exceptions to the rules. How BIG an exception we don't know. But those are Dalish who are still willing to treat with the humans, however reluctantly. Others avoid humans entirely. And there are those who attack humans on sight. Remember: most Dalish blame contact with humans for the loss of their immortality. So from a human point of view, elves that are willing to deal with them and not try to kill them just for being shems makes them "one of the good ones" Kinda like from a Dalish's point of view, a human village that doesn't try to kill them or drive them away, or cheat them just for being "knife ears" would make them "the good ones" I can possibly see your point BUT it has more to do with this being used as one more potshot against the Dalish and I'm so tired of of it.
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Post by Iakus on Apr 29, 2017 0:01:57 GMT
The interesting thing about the loss of immortality that the Dalish associate with human contact is that they never thought of it as a sudden thing. There was a plausible explanation initially for withdrawing from contact. Firstly, elves were vulnerable to human diseases that caused them to sicken and die, which they had never experienced before. It was perfectly reasonable that they would want to avoid this. Second, there seemed to be a change in attitude among the elves that had a lot to do with humans, which I think was the lore keepers way of saying that they were losing their culture. The human tribes basically had a different way of doing things. Also it likely also included the fact that these elves who had dealings with humans often ended up in relationships with them and the resulting children were human, which was effectively changing them. So the story was that the elves withdrew from contact in order to preserve their identity but to a large extent all this seems likely to apply to the time after the Veil was raised. Even the destruction of the city in Arlathan Forest was 2,000 years after the raising of the Veil and the loss of the real Arlathan. Whilst a muddling of lore is understandable with the passage of years, it still seems hard to explain why the elves would specifically blame the humans for their loss of immortality and total destruction of their empire, when this was a sudden, cataclysmic event that everyone at the time seemed to know was the work of Fen'Harel. So why was the only memory left to the Dalish one of him locking the gods away and not the means of doing so or the effect it had on the elves at the time? I'd say that Fen'Harel using the Veil to do this was a recent invention but for the knowledge I have just received from another thread that "Dread Wolf" is an anagram of "Fade World", so it would seem this aspect of him was always there. Because this all happened more than two thousand years ago (assuming the timeline is anywhere near accurate). During which they spent several centuries enslaved to Tevinter. How long would it take us to lose our history and culture if a massive EMP destroyed all our electronics, the Internet, transportation, phones, tv, etc. Followed by forced relocation and living under the boot of another nation. I'd say we'd be unrecognizable within 2-3 generations. let alone centuries.
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Post by indrexu on Apr 29, 2017 0:20:34 GMT
Whilst a muddling of lore is understandable with the passage of years, it still seems hard to explain why the elves would specifically blame the humans for their loss of immortality and total destruction of their empire, when this was a sudden, cataclysmic event that everyone at the time seemed to know was the work of Fen'Harel. So why was the only memory left to the Dalish one of him locking the gods away and not the means of doing so or the effect it had on the elves at the time? Why not? Horrible muddling of events is a commonplace in history. Even when there's ample documentation, there are often deliberate efforts to distort the truth; other times, each retelling imparts a different meaning to the story because the way anybody tells the story changes it, from word choice to points of emphasis. There are events crucial to modern world history that are still shrouded in myth two thousand years after they happened, despite an extremely high amount of common interest in knowing the precise truth of their occurrence. There are, obviously, religious examples, like the alleged appearance of Athene at the Battle of Salamis, the ostensible sign of the Christian God at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, or the claims of the ascension of Muhammad. There are examples that do not seem to have much to do with religion, either. The history of entire regions of the world has vanished into thin air. If not for coin finds and a few contradictory passages in the histories of other lands, we would know nothing whatsoever about Baktria, the kingdom that stretched across Central Asia and India from what is now Afghanistan. What used to be Roman Britain vanished from historical record for centuries after 410; the only things to replace history were the legendary tales of a supposed King Arthur. Actually, Arthur is a pretty good starting point for all this. There is no reference to Arthur whatsoever until at least three centuries after he supposedly died; most of the material is obviously fictional and dates from closer to seven hundred years after the fact. All the stories about him are closely connected to preposterous myths in a way that make it hard to give any credit to their usefulness as historical documents. And yet if those stories are to be believed, Arthur ruled the whole island, waged war on a variety of foes, and became the icon of proper monarchy for a nation. We have no way of knowing whether Arthur really did rule Britain, or a part of Britain, or didn't exist at all. There is simply no good evidence one way or another, despite a very large amount of people who lived in that time and place and who could have told us in no uncertain terms if they were still alive. Closely connected to Arthur is a whole host of patently untrue assertions about the basic structure of British history. This isn't just about Hengist, Horsa, and all that being a myth, but about the whole origin, advent, and actions of the "Saxons" being dramatically different than what centuries of English and Welsh national myth have claimed they were. The fifth century is actually closer to 2017 than the fall of Elvhenan is to the Thedas of 9:44 Dragon. Yet most of what we thought we knew about fifth-century Britain has been exposed as totally wrong over the last forty years. I see no reason why the Dalish would necessarily have any clearer a picture about Elvhenan.
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Post by Iakus on Apr 29, 2017 0:37:07 GMT
Whilst a muddling of lore is understandable with the passage of years, it still seems hard to explain why the elves would specifically blame the humans for their loss of immortality and total destruction of their empire, when this was a sudden, cataclysmic event that everyone at the time seemed to know was the work of Fen'Harel. So why was the only memory left to the Dalish one of him locking the gods away and not the means of doing so or the effect it had on the elves at the time? Why not? Horrible muddling of events is a commonplace in history. Even when there's ample documentation, there are often deliberate efforts to distort the truth; other times, each retelling imparts a different meaning to the story because the way anybody tells the story changes it, from word choice to points of emphasis. There are events crucial to modern world history that are still shrouded in myth two thousand years after they happened, despite an extremely high amount of common interest in knowing the precise truth of their occurrence. There are, obviously, religious examples, like the alleged appearance of Athene at the Battle of Salamis, the ostensible sign of the Christian God at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, or the claims of the ascension of Muhammad. There are examples that do not seem to have much to do with religion, either. The history of entire regions of the world has vanished into thin air. If not for coin finds and a few contradictory passages in the histories of other lands, we would know nothing whatsoever about Baktria, the kingdom that stretched across Central Asia and India from what is now Afghanistan. What used to be Roman Britain vanished from historical record for centuries after 410; the only things to replace history were the legendary tales of a supposed King Arthur. Actually, Arthur is a pretty good starting point for all this. There is no reference to Arthur whatsoever until at least three centuries after he supposedly died; most of the material is obviously fictional and dates from closer to seven hundred years after the fact. All the stories about him are closely connected to preposterous myths in a way that make it hard to give any credit to their usefulness as historical documents. And yet if those stories are to be believed, Arthur ruled the whole island, waged war on a variety of foes, and became the icon of proper monarchy for a nation. We have no way of knowing whether Arthur really did rule Britain, or a part of Britain, or didn't exist at all. There is simply no good evidence one way or another, despite a very large amount of people who lived in that time and place and who could have told us in no uncertain terms if they were still alive. Closely connected to Arthur is a whole host of patently untrue assertions about the basic structure of British history. This isn't just about Hengist, Horsa, and all that being a myth, but about the whole origin, advent, and actions of the "Saxons" being dramatically different than what centuries of English and Welsh national myth have claimed they were. The fifth century is actually closer to 2017 than the fall of Elvhenan is to the Thedas of 9:44 Dragon. Yet most of what we thought we knew about fifth-century Britain has been exposed as totally wrong over the last forty years. I see no reason why the Dalish would necessarily have any clearer a picture about Elvhenan. Arthur and Camelot are an excellent example of parallels between Arlathan and modern elves. Avalon. Arlathan. Coincidence?
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Post by gervaise21 on May 2, 2017 19:05:31 GMT
Actually there is not much of a parallel between the legends of Arthur and the history of the Thedas elves. Practically everything that people think they know about Arthur actually comes from historical fiction written centuries after he existed if at all. There was not a long history of oral traditions concerning him as there are with the Dalish and furthermore, as you point out, everything that was claimed about him in those fictional accounts has proven to be untrue, whereas the vast majority of the Dalish lore has in fact proven to be remarkably accurate despite the passage of time. That is why the link between humans and the loss of immortality stuck out as running contrary to the rest of their memories.
However, I realised the answer today. The reason the Dalish equate the arrival of humans, the loss of immortality and the fall of Arlathan is that for the elves of Arlathan Forest, from whom they are descended, they didn't actively live through 2,000 years between the two events but entered Uthenera, so of course it would appear to them that events were sequential.
Let me explain. When we meet Abelas, he states that his group have been sleeping on and off for the previous millennia, only wakening to repel intruders in their general area. These intruders were never more than small groups, who they kill off, so they never returned to report to people what they found and their disappearance merely added to the idea that the Arbor Wilds was somewhere you just didn't want to go to. Even the Dalish accepted that fact when they were in the Dales. So the number of intrusions to their area would have been infrequent and of a brief duration, so the sentinels didn't age much while they were awake, allowing them to survive down to the modern era even though they were no longer immortal.
By contrast, what happened with Arlathan Forest is that the newly formed Tevinter Imperium started to spread. Previously the forest had acquired a reputation with the kingdom of Qarinus as haunted with spirits, which seems to have been sufficient to keep the early humans at bay. However, the Imperium was a larger and more confident enterprise. Even so, it was around 40 years from the Imperium first being made aware of the presence of hostile humanoids in the forest until they finally went to war against them and another 6 years before their defeat. During this time the elves had killed envoys sent on behalf of the Imperium, who initially responded by building a fortress on the edge of the forest to protect their citizens trying to settle the area. It is reported that the elves continued to make attacks whenever people strayed too far into the forest. So from this I would guess that the elves never had the luxury of being able to return to Uthenera once first contact was made. Decades of being out of Uthenera would have allowed some of them to start aging and dying before the war began in earnest and then of course, as the Dalish remember, after their capture the rest would have aged and died as well. Hence the connection made between the arrival of the humans, the disappearance of their gods and their loss of immortality. The elves of Arlathan Forest just weren't aware of the 2,000 years that had passed from Fen'Harel's action and so it seemed to them that the events were almost contemporaneous. Which is why it was handed down to their descendants that the humans were responsible for both the fall of the empire and the loss of their immortality.
As for why the elves withdrew originally, there seems to have been some sort of belief that the gods would eventually return. There was an idea among the Dalish that this would occur when we "remember what it is to be true elves". They thought that they had to make themselves worthy of their gods again. Which could have been an idea encouraged by the surviving priesthood in Arlathan Forest after the end of the elven civil war. After all it was the rejection of the rule of the Evanuris by the slaves that ran away, that encouraged Fen'Harel in his rebellion. It may even be that some humans joined forces with them (Andruil was hunting them as well) and that also led to the idea that the humans were in some way to blame for the change in attitude among the elves who had contact with them. Of course, in reality, they can only remember what it is to be a true elf when Fen'Harel drops the Veil, but according to Solas that will result in the gods returning, so in a way that belief is correct as well.
Anyway, it seems to me that it is the passage of time in Uthenera that largely accounts for why two separate events, millennia apart, have been combined in the minds of the descendants of the elves who lived through those events.
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Post by gervaise21 on May 2, 2017 20:09:27 GMT
Okay, new question. Anybody have any theories why the name of one of the Forgotten Ones, Anaris, is part of the secret phrase used to identify you to the spirits guarding Fen'Harel's sanctuary? It is possible that like Solas, the word simply means something else in elven, an attribute maybe, that was linked to the person in the same way that Solas probably was. I also know he is meant to have been seen as an ally by the Forgotten Ones.
However, the only reason we know the name Anaris is because Felassan used it in one of his stories about Fen'Harel. In that story Anaris was looking to kill the Dread Wolf and Felassan also states that Anaris was one of the "dark gods". Now since Briala is a city elf, this would mean nothing to her and even the Dalish have never known the actual names of the Forgotten Ones (for the pure reason I would imagine that they are meant to be "forgotten"). So PW was deliberately introducing a name in the book that had not previously been part of the lore and then the same word crops up in Fen'Harel's password. Surely there has to be something to this.
The precise phrase is: "Revas Vir-Anaris." (Freedom by the way of Anaris) Any ideas?
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Post by xerrai on May 3, 2017 17:27:09 GMT
Okay, new question. Anybody have any theories why the name of one of the Forgotten Ones, Anaris, is part of the secret phrase used to identify you to the spirits guarding Fen'Harel's sanctuary? It is possible that like Solas, the word simply means something else in elven, an attribute maybe, that was linked to the person in the same way that Solas probably was. I also know he is meant to have been seen as an ally by the Forgotten Ones.
However, the only reason we know the name Anaris is because Felassan used it in one of his stories about Fen'Harel. In that story Anaris was looking to kill the Dread Wolf and Felassan also states that Anaris was one of the "dark gods". Now since Briala is a city elf, this would mean nothing to her and even the Dalish have never known the actual names of the Forgotten Ones (for the pure reason I would imagine that they are meant to be "forgotten"). So PW was deliberately introducing a name in the book that had not previously been part of the lore and then the same word crops up in Fen'Harel's password. Surely there has to be something to this.
The precise phrase is: "Revas Vir-Anaris." (Freedom by the way of Anaris) Any ideas? Short answer? We don't know. Even the Dalish recognize that they don't know much about the forgotten ones aside from the mere fact that they were opposed to the evanuris. Supposedly the two sides were at war with each other at one point, but no one knows why this war began or how long it lasted. But while many would try to paint it as "Creators god, Forgotten Ones bad", it is much more likely that was it was caused over something like ideological differences. If these 'differences' were something Fen'Harel sympathized with, such as the treatment of lower class slaves or an non-god system of government, then it is possible that that the two parties would aid each other. In fact, they did not necessarily have to agree with each others ideologies to help each other. The Forgotten Ones likely wanted to destabilize Arlathan and the Evanuris, and as far as many were concerned, Fen'Harel and his slave rebellion would do just that. So I don't think its hard to believe that the two parties may work together from time to time. The only real smidgen we know about Anaris is in the tale "Fen'Harel and the Tree". Which is interesting because it was not told by just a Dalish elf reciting legend, or a City elf recounting a tale he once heard--but by Felassan. An elf that is all but confirmed to be an agent of Fen'Harel. While I would not go so far as to say that the tale was completely true (or it may be but who knows), it is telling that the Anaris in this story was apparently angry at Fen'Harel for crimes against the Forgotten Ones. If we assume that Felassan was telling even a partially truthful story, then it is possible that while Fen'Harel at one point was acquainted with the Forgotten Ones, he did not necessarily abide by their rules all the time. Sort of like a double agent. But personally I wouldn't put it beyond Solas for him to play both sides for the sake of his cause. It would match what we know of Fen'Harel being aligned with both groups, while he himself remains separate.
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Post by Iddy on May 3, 2017 17:34:03 GMT
On an unrelated note, I really appreciate the way Briala sees all elves as her people and fights for their common well being. Meanwhile, there is a certain egg who only cares about the True Elven Master Race.
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Post by gervaise21 on May 3, 2017 18:54:05 GMT
Well Solas is like Abelas in that respect. As I say above, they have been snoozing away in Uthenera whilst the survivors of the war with Tevinter kept their race going by actually having babies. I sort of get the fact that countless generations now lie between the modern elves and people like Solas and Abelas, so they are effectively a different race. A bit like dogs and wolves; they come from the same origins and they have a lot of characteristics in common but they are no longer the same race.
That said, I think Solas actually owes it to the modern elves to be a bit more understanding of them, since he was the one who abandoned them to their fate after he shut away the gods. It would seem that they probably continued to be ruled over by the priesthood of the Evanuris and they were responsible for instilling their devotion in them, keeping them isolated from the world and then launching the attack against the friendly overtures from Tevinter. So how many slaves did he actually free by his actions? Then he is contemptuous of the Dalish, because of their flawed devotion to the Creators and their half remembered lore about them, and pitting of the city elves without wishing to give them any hope for the future.
Incidentally, back in DAO, the Dalish thought they were keeping their culture going on behalf of ALL elves as well. They hoped to one day have a new homeland that they would share with their city elf cousins and even acknowledged that the latter might have something to teach them about how to get on with their humans neighbours. Then Masked Empire came along and the typical Dalish are suddenly like Thelhen, who considers city elves are lost to them for ever and there can be no co-operation with their human neighbours since he would gladly see them all dead, whilst Felassan and Briala are the heroes for wanting to aid all.
Briala wanting to fight for her people is admirable but I did resent the character assassination that PW did to the Dalish in order to destroy her belief in them and make her look good in comparison.
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Post by lordofwar on May 3, 2017 23:24:59 GMT
Okay, new question. Anybody have any theories why the name of one of the Forgotten Ones, Anaris, is part of the secret phrase used to identify you to the spirits guarding Fen'Harel's sanctuary? It is possible that like Solas, the word simply means something else in elven, an attribute maybe, that was linked to the person in the same way that Solas probably was. I also know he is meant to have been seen as an ally by the Forgotten Ones.
However, the only reason we know the name Anaris is because Felassan used it in one of his stories about Fen'Harel. In that story Anaris was looking to kill the Dread Wolf and Felassan also states that Anaris was one of the "dark gods". Now since Briala is a city elf, this would mean nothing to her and even the Dalish have never known the actual names of the Forgotten Ones (for the pure reason I would imagine that they are meant to be "forgotten"). So PW was deliberately introducing a name in the book that had not previously been part of the lore and then the same word crops up in Fen'Harel's password. Surely there has to be something to this.
The precise phrase is: "Revas Vir-Anaris." (Freedom by the way of Anaris) Any ideas? Thinking about the Forgotten Ones, I think they were other mages near Solas's or the Evanuris's level that also resented the system they found themselves under. Could Solas really have been the only great against Arlathan? It seems unlikely, and if these other god-tier rebel mages did exist, they probably needed each other to effectively fight against the Evanuris, but that doesn't imply that they trusted one another or shared any goals beyond toppling the gods. Anaris and Solas may well have been allies within the rebellion before a falling out (possibly over Solas's Veil plan?). That these mages existed is most explicitly supported by Geldauran's Claim, but also the texts you can pull out of the Temple of Mythal if you use the Well of Sorrows. A mage here "takes the form of the gods" (ie a dragon) and is punished, but if this one can, and if it is an established crime, surely other renegades could and did do it too, having reached that level of power? The Forgotten Ones are usually mentioned as being imprisoned somewhere separate from the Creators too, so this might explain why Solas is upset about the killing of Archdemons-they might have been his old allies, and if they were anything like Gelduaran, they would have had no problem masquerading as gods to the Tevinter. Solas and the Evanuris weren't the only ones, and that is terrifying.
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Post by gervaise21 on May 4, 2017 18:01:23 GMT
I just found it interesting that the first ever mention of a Forgotten One by name was in Masked Empire and the one that PW chose to use was Anaris. Then the same word crops up in Fen'Harel's password, which I assume was also written by PW or done with his approval. I never doubted the Forgotten Ones have some big part to play in future revelations and likely had something to do with Solas' original plan. In fact I always felt it unlikely that he succeeded in doing this entirely alone.
Whilst the Forgotten Ones were likely given a bad press by the followers of the Creators, I agree it is terrifying that they must also be a reality. Felassan called Anaris one of the "dark gods", the Dalish have always believed them to be gods of, among other things, malice, spite, disease and decay and believed that those who worshipped them had effectively "sold their souls" for power, and it was hinted in the Last Court that the strange, violent elves in the Tirashan may well have been a remnant of their worshippers. If Solas did team up with them, I rather bet they had an ulterior motive. At present, I still think they had something to do with releasing the Blight and even if Andruil was responsible through entering the Void hunting them, well may be they provoked her into doing so. They probably engineered the murder of Mythal (though Solas may not be aware of it) and I'm pretty sure if he drops the Veil something pretty bad is going to emerge from the Black City.
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Post by lordofwar on May 4, 2017 19:31:35 GMT
I just found it interesting that the first ever mention of a Forgotten One by name was in Masked Empire and the one that PW chose to use was Anaris. Then the same word crops up in Fen'Harel's password, which I assume was also written by PW or done with his approval. I never doubted the Forgotten Ones have some big part to play in future revelations and likely had something to do with Solas' original plan. In fact I always felt it unlikely that he succeeded in doing this entirely alone. Whilst the Forgotten Ones were likely given a bad press by the followers of the Creators, I agree it is terrifying that they must also be a reality. Felassan called Anaris one of the "dark gods", the Dalish have always believed them to be gods of, among other things, malice, spite, disease and decay and believed that those who worshipped them had effectively "sold their souls" for power, and it was hinted in the Last Court that the strange, violent elves in the Tirashan may well have been a remnant of their worshippers. If Solas did team up with them, I rather bet they had an ulterior motive. At present, I still think they had something to do with releasing the Blight and even if Andruil was responsible through entering the Void hunting them, well may be they provoked her into doing so. They probably engineered the murder of Mythal (though Solas may not be aware of it) and I'm pretty sure if he drops the Veil something pretty bad is going to emerge from the Black City. I don't know if we should assume that the Forgotten Ones are exactly what the Dalish describe them as, though. If they were Solas's revolutionary confederates, then the Evanuris-worshiping Dalish have every reason to vilify them, just like those tribes in the Tirashan, who are probably descended from their rebel followers, have every reason to worship them. While they might have had an ulterior motive (definitely in at least Gelduaran's case), they could have simply been idealists with plans different from Solas's. We all know how Solas handles disagreement, and if his allies wouldn't help him take down the Veil, I can see how he might react. Anaris may have just been too much of a moderate for Solas.
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Post by gervaise21 on May 5, 2017 19:33:55 GMT
So why does Felassan call him a "dark god" and suggest he is even more murderous than Andruil? Remember he is telling a story to Briala, who is not Dalish and for whom the Forgotten Ones mean very little, much less Anaris. Why not tell the story with one of the other Creator gods arguing with Andruil over Fen'Harel? Alternatively, why not say that Anaris wanted to do something else to Fen'Harel other than kill him? The description Felassan gives plays into the dark god stereotype of the Dalish without any real justification for it, unless Anaris was like that.
I'll find it just too convenient a plot device if it turns out that the Forgotten Ones were really okay and champions of elven freedom, compared with the villainous Creators. I hope that the Dalish legend is closer to the mark and particularly Merrill's version. Both sides were at war with one another and Solas managed to trick them into his trap by suggesting to each side that he knew the location of a secret weapon that would give them the edge in the war. They all rush off trying to get to it first and wham, he succeeds in locking them all away simultaneously.
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Post by Iddy on May 8, 2017 17:45:51 GMT
So why does Felassan call him a "dark god" and suggest he is even more murderous than Andruil? Remember he is telling a story to Briala, who is not Dalish and for whom the Forgotten Ones mean very little, much less Anaris. Why not tell the story with one of the other Creator gods arguing with Andruil over Fen'Harel? Alternatively, why not say that Anaris wanted to do something else to Fen'Harel other than kill him? The description Felassan gives plays into the dark god stereotype of the Dalish without any real justification for it, unless Anaris was like that. I'll find it just too convenient a plot device if it turns out that the Forgotten Ones were really okay and champions of elven freedom, compared with the villainous Creators. I hope that the Dalish legend is closer to the mark and particularly Merrill's version. Both sides were at war with one another and Solas managed to trick them into his trap by suggesting to each side that he knew the location of a secret weapon that would give them the edge in the war. They all rush off trying to get to it first and wham, he succeeds in locking them all away simultaneously. I'm really curious about how Solas managed such a feat. Successfully locking up several powerful beings at once is something that likely exceeds his own strength, so he must have used some exterior magical device or source of energy to aid him.
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Post by gervaise21 on May 8, 2017 19:31:07 GMT
I assume that's where his orb came in and why it so drained him that he needed millennia to recover. In fact Felassan also mentions how when the gods were wounded they needed to sleep to recover their strength, so I think it likely that the effort required to entrap the gods very nearly killed him and that is why he needed to be asleep for so long.
Given how powerful the Evanuris appeared to be, I am also intrigued to discover exactly how he did it. To my mind it is hardly surprising that the majority of surviving elves should remember him as a master trickster because that is what he needed to be in order to fool them all at the same time. I always feel it is significant that he is very good at chess and it is possible that he was so absorbed in planning his intricate set of moves to entrap the gods that is why he failed to consider the possible side-effects of his plan.
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Post by Iddy on May 8, 2017 19:41:15 GMT
I assume that's where his orb came in and why it so drained him that he needed millennia to recover. In fact Felassan also mentions how when the gods were wounded they needed to sleep to recover their strength, so I think it likely that the effort required to entrap the gods very nearly killed him and that is why he needed to be asleep for so long. Given how powerful the Evanuris appeared to be, I am also intrigued to discover exactly how he did it. To my mind it is hardly surprising that the majority of surviving elves should remember him as a master trickster because that is what he needed to be in order to fool them all at the same time. I always feel it is significant that he is very good at chess and it is possible that he was so absorbed in planning his intricate set of moves to entrap the gods that is why he failed to consider the possible side-effects of his plan. Yeah, but the energy stored in the orb is his own power. It isn't an extra source.
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Post by gervaise21 on May 9, 2017 19:12:18 GMT
You say that but we really don't know what he had to do to create the Veil. Dorian mentions similar looking orbs in ancient pictures of Tevinter Dreamers and these were known as foci, which suggested they focussed power, possibly drawing it from elsewhere. Notice with Fen'Harel's orb that it starts off emanating red light and then when the Inquisitor yanks it away from Corypheus, it changes to green, the same as the anchor. That would suggest it was drawing its power from somewhere else, otherwise surely its colour would have been constant. I wonder if Corypheus was a conduit to the Void via his taint, so it was drawing Void/Blight magic (hence the red colour), and then when the Inquisitor gets it, the anchor links it into the true Fade once more (hence it being green). It was the wrenching between the two sources of power that proved too much for it and why it broke in two.
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Post by Iddy on May 12, 2017 11:25:02 GMT
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