Dragon Age News Thread

Did you play the Champions of the Just route and actually challenge her with the binding ritual to hand? This is what she says as she turns on Corypheus:

"He made so many promises and every one a lie."
"He was to give Tevinter a true leader. If Corypheus would misuse me. He'd misuse them too. I was blind."

Then when you require clarification that she was doing it for Tevinter, she sets out her vision for Tevinter.
"To see her reborn. Slaves allowed their true potential. Corruption excised. Tevinter was the cradle of civilisation. Imagine what her future could be. A crafter of wonders, standing against the savage Qunari. A beacon for all."

Now if you suggest to her she can be that leader, offer to let her go and Dorian is present, he encourages to accept the offer and actually says that Tevinter could do with more people like her. Clearly he is willing to cut her some slack that she was lied to and was not like the other Venatori whom he had no regrets about killing. You have to remember that she was a slave and Corypheus was the first person (other than Marius who had no power to do anything) who recognised her to be anything other than a slave. The whole of the story arc concerning her is as revealing of her as an antagonist as him. She definitely did not want to destroy Thedas. Clearly she must have had no knowledge of the crazy demon army idea. In fact it was noticeable that in the dark future of Hushed Whispers there is no mention of Calpernia, so presumably she is already dead or bound. Essentially she was betrayed and acknowledges her mistake, unlike every other person working for Corypheus, particularly those like Erimond who still seems devoted to him even in the face of death or simply too bound up in their own importance.   Calpernia did not do what she did for personal glory alone but for the good of Tevinter and Corypheus deceived her about the means he was going to use to achieve this.  

Suggest if you still can't understand her motivations, try reading her short story "Paying the Ferryman." It is probably a good idea because seeing as Dorian approves of her and seeing as you never actually see her dead (and she says she intends returning to Tevinter if Corypheus doesn't kill her after she confronts him), plus the writers are clearly trying to paint her in a more sympathetic light, I think there is a good chance we will be seeing her again, possibly as a companion, but definitely some plot related way and probably not as an enemy.

Hell, people are willing to try and "save Solas from himself" and he does want to remake the entire world to suit himself, likely killing millions in the process.   Calpernia's sins are mild in comparison and she genuinely repented of them (aiding Corypheus).

I agree with Nightscrawl on this one. I think it is highly unlikely the events of the main game could take place in just one year because of the amount of travel time that has to be factored in. Strangely enough, first play through, I tried to make it more realistic in that I wouldn't constantly travel from one area to another on opposite sides of the map unless there was a particularly urgency to do so. After Crestwood, I went to the Winter Palace before travelling to the Western Approach because it was on route and I had been warned Celene was in imminent danger of assassination. So I imagined that you wouldn't waste time travelling all that way and back again when you could have dealt with the assassination problem before even setting out. I also wouldn't return to Skyhold until I had finished in an area (apart from dragons) for the same reason. You'd been spending half your time just traveling if you were really in that world.


However, that really messed things up with regard to War Table missions and the like because restricting the number of times I returned to Skyhold allowed them really to build up and of course they didn't allow you to access the War Table from anywhere else on the map (like the Keeps you established elsewhere) which would have been a help (Descent was a big improvement in that respect). So in subsequent games I ignored the realism of constantly jumping backwards and forwards to Skyhold or, for example, the Storm Coast to Skyhold, to the Hissing Wastes, back to Skyhold, back to the Hissing Wastes (because it was really big and took a lot of time), back to Skyhold again, etc. I imagined that all those trips back to Skyhold didn't really happen in the actual world but you were actually receiving messages and giving instructions from wherever you were (via Raven).


Even so, allowing for this approach, I still say that in reality you would spend a lot of time just travelling between locations. The reason Corypheus effectively conquered the world in one year in Hushed Whispers dark future was that after his attack on the Inquisition at Haven there was no one to interfere with his plans and he was able to proceed with them unimpeded. So whilst Florian was assassinating Celene, Erimond was summoning the demon army, so everything went to hell pretty quickly. Naturally everything had to take longer when the Inquisitor was meant to be involved in all the events in order to prevent them.   

Even the dark future took longer than a year to achieve from the time of the explosion at the Conclave. Dorian says that a year has passed from the time Alexius cast his spell on us. However, we had already spent time travelling from Haven to gain support (power) in the Hinterlands so we could travel to Val Royeaux to meet with Chantry representatives there. Then back from the Hinterlands to Haven to make arrangements to meet the Chantry and actually travelling to Val Royeaux. Then we had to travel back to Haven, on to Redcliffe, back to Haven to discuss the matter with our Advisors, agree to meeting with Alexius and travel back to Redcliffe. That is without factoring in that we may also have travelled to the Storm Coast in the interim to the meeting with the Iron Bull or even across the Forbidden Oasis to start investigating the Temple of Solassan (admittedly not part of the main plot).

Not only that but WoT says that Cassandra was interrogating Varric in Kirkwall in 9:40 and from there took him to meet the Divine at the Conclave, so that means that the explosion must have happened at the beginning of 9:41, yet Fiona tells us the date is Havestmere 9:42, which would be towards the end of the year. So that would suggest it was at least 6 months between the Conclave explosion and the meeting with Alexius in Redcliffe Castle. So a minimum of 18 months.  If we hadn't even arrived at Skyhold until Havestmere 9:41 there is no way we could have wrapped up all the subsequent events in Inquisition to finish it just two months later before the end of 9:41, so  I don't even know why that poster was suggesting that DAI wrapped by the end of 9:41 or Mike Laidlaw was agreeing with him.

I would point out that this is not the first time that it has been pointed out the writers do not seem to have an appreciation of time and often contradict themselves with dates and time spent having not really thought it through. You only have to look at the contradictory dates and years passed in Dorian's personal history in WoT2, compared with that of Alexius, compared with what is actually stated by Dorian in game and in codices about Alexis, to know that having a consistency does not seem to be high on the list of priorities.