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[AlexRD]

I finished reading the dragon age: The Calling book, and i have many doubts

Is alistair the same illegitimate child maric and fiona had?
If so, how does alistair have a sister? Did Fiona and maric  do it twice? are they twins??

[Miri1984]

I think the idea is that she's not his real sister, but the daughter of the woman they use as "cover" for the fact that he's the son of an elf. Remember Fiona wants him to believe he's fully human, so they would have had to have an alternative mother for him.

[jpdipity]

AlexRD wrote...

I finished reading the dragon age: The Calling book, and i have many doubts

Is alistair the same illegitimate child maric and fiona had?
If so, how does alistair have a sister? Did Fiona and maric  do it twice? are they twins??

Is Alistair Fiona/Maric's child?
Perhaps.  No one has confirmed or denied this.  I personally believe that he is.

If so, how does he have a sister? 
If Alistair is Maric's son, as mentioned, Goldanna is likely a cover story.  Fiona did not want her child to know that he was part elf; so, a new mother would need to be fabricated.

[Forst1999]

And poor Alistair had do deal with this awful person even though she propaply isn't even his real sister. Makes the quest even more bitter, don't you think? Especialy if you gave her money...

[Sarah1281]

Forst1999 wrote...

And poor Alistair had do deal with this awful person even though she propaply isn't even his real sister. Makes the quest even more bitter, don't you think? Especialy if you gave her money...

She's not that bad, she just believes her mother died giving birth to him and Alistair's all 'oh, I wasn't as pampered as you think and people didn't want me and I had to go live in the Chantry' and she actually had to live as a poverty-stricken child on her own once her mother died. People are too hard on her. Would they have prefered that she started pretending to care about the baby that she's convinced resulted from Maric forcing himself on her mother to get his money? 

[ejoslin]

Goldanna is bitter and not very bright. I don't hate her either -- I understand her anger completely. It's targeted at the wrong person, yes, but she had many years to hone that anger too.

[Sarah1281]

That's part of why I always give her the money and have him promise to take care of her. Well, that and the fact that if you don't give her money or promise to take care of her then instead of sounding lost and 'I'm not sure I should have done that' or 'I'll keep my promise' then you get him calling her a shrew which instantly makes me less sympathetic towards him since I'm clearly more sympathetic to her than he is. He'll need to get a better idea of her life and why she reacted that way before he can hope to really improve his relationship with her...although if he makes no promises and she tells him to get out, thus prompting the shrew comment then I doubt he'll bother.

[Quicksilverk]

If you read the Alistair codex, in game it says that he was kept at Redcliffe to be a secret from Rowan, Maric's wife. But in The Calling, Rowan is dead for a number of years even before the adventure begins, when the Fiona+Maric baby is conceived.



I seem to recall a retcon of the timeline being made between the book's publishing and the game being released but I'm not sure it would account for Rowan being alive, or alive long enough for Alistair to be kept a secret. Can anyone shed any light on this?

[Sabariel]

I don't understand why they chose a "cover story" who already had a child. Why not just tell Alistair his mother was a servant at the castle and that she died? Why was there a need to pick out an actual servant? Why not just make up a servant? I doubt Alistair would dig that deep if he thought it was only his mother and she was dead.



And what made Goldanna think Alistair was the King's anyway? Surely Eamon or Duncan or Maric or whoever wouldn't be stupid enough to put the idea in her head so she somehow came to the conclusion on her own...

[CalJones]

Quicksilverk - that's the problem I had with it as well. Loghain even says that Maric didn't acknowledge Alistair because it would have ruined Rowan - something that would not have been relevant had she been dead when he was born.



On the other hand, why would Duncan conscript Alistair if he wasn't Fiona's child? A lot of pro-Fiona's child people also insist that Maric wouldn't have been unfaithful to Rowan while she lived, but on the other hand, even nice people can cheat under certain circumstances.



Either way, Alistair's parentage has neither been confirmed nor denied so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Quicksilverk]

I love the lore of Dragon Age, it will just be a little mystery to ponder until it's confirmed one way or another.



As for the cheating thing, you're correct even nice people can cheat under certain circumstances. What's important to consider as well that if you take A) Alistair is Maric and Fiona's child (with retconned timeline to allow Rowan to still be alive) or Alistair is Maric and Serving Girl's child (without retcon) - Maric still cheated. The only way he didn't is if we go with The Calling child as Alistair, without retconning the timeline.

[Lara Denton]

 The timeline in "The Calling" is wrong, but I don't have a link right now with the confirmation. If somebody else does, please post it. Anyway, with the new timeline, makes even more sense for Alistair to be Fiona's son. So does his age, around 21, I don't have a link for that either, sorry; otherwise it would mean that Maric had the affair with the maid pretty much right after getting out of the Deep Roads. 

This has been discussed before with more in depth information and I tried searching the forums for the relevant links, but I couldn't find them...

[pudi0072000]

Is this the one you're thinking of?



http://social.biowar...index/1054532/1

[Lara Denton]

pudi0072000 wrote...

Is this the one you're thinking of?

http://social.biowar...index/1054532/1

Yes. Thank you!

ETA: It helps shedding some light on some issues.

Modifié par laradenton, 13 juillet 2010 - 12:57 .

[Quicksilverk]

David Gaider wrote...

emynii wrote...
9:00 - Start of the Dragon Age
9:02 - Death of Meghren,
9:03 - Maric Crowned King (Age 24)
9:05 - Cailan Born
9:08 - Queen Rowan Dies
9:10 - The Calling (Cailan age 5, Maric age 31)
9:25 - Maric Dissapears (Age 46), Cailan takes throne (Age 20)
9:30 - Modern Dragon Age Game

I'm gun-shy of confirming any timeline at this point, and I don't have my notes from the novel on hand -- but at a glance this doesn't look too far off.

The timeline in that post you linked pudi is nice to have. It does however go along the lines of what I was thinking, Fiona and Maric's child was still conceived two years after Rowan died. I know David Gaider doesn't go so far as to confirm it but he does say "but at a glance this doesn't look too far off." As it was posted five months ago and DA:O was well established then, it would suggest that the timeline is more solid now. Meaning that the codex is still wrong in game, there's still some discrepancies in the overall timeline OR Fiona and Maric's son is not Alistair. Still just musing becuase it's something easier to ponder than if the Chantry is right about the origin of the Darkspawn. 

EDIT: Typo

Modifié par Quicksilverk, 13 juillet 2010 - 01:03 .

[Lara Denton]

Quicksilverk wrote...

The timeline in that post you linked pudi is nice to have. It does however go along the lines of what I was thinking, Fiona and Maric's child was still conceived two years after Rowan died. I know David Gaider doesn't go so far as to confirm it but he does say "but at a glance this doesn't look too far off." As it was posted five months ago and DA:O was well established then, it would suggest that the timeline is more solid now. Meaning that the codex is still wrong in game, there's still some discrepancies in the overall timeline OR Fiona and Maric's son is not Alistair. Still just musing becuase it's something easier to ponder than if the Chantry is right about the origin of the Darkspawn. 

EDIT: Typo

Everything it's up to interpretation, because the codex entries come from personal perspectives, they are not facts.

[Quicksilverk]

The codex entry for Alistair is not credited to an in-world source. It is updated the more you learn about Alistair and appears to be a catalogue of knowledge made by your playthrough. Granted, that knowledge is what Alistair himself tells you, which may indeed be incorrect but it's not written by say Brother Genitivi or someone else. If Alistair says he was kept at Redcliffe to be kept secret from Rowan, Maric's wife, then it is reasonable to imagine that Rowan was alive for at least a part of Alistair's life. As there would be no Rowan to keep him secret from if he was Fiona and Maric's son as she was already dead when that child was conceived. Fiona says she wants their child to be kept away from court and out of politics. That could neatly put him in Redcliffe, certainly, but he isn't exactly away from court and politics there.



Still more musing from me, as you say it's up to interpretation but it's interesting to discuss, which is what forums are for anyway.

[Lara Denton]

Quicksilverk wrote...

The codex entry for Alistair is not credited to an in-world source. It is updated the more you learn about Alistair and appears to be a catalogue of knowledge made by your playthrough. Granted, that knowledge is what Alistair himself tells you, which may indeed be incorrect but it's not written by say Brother Genitivi or someone else. If Alistair says he was kept at Redcliffe to be kept secret from Rowan, Maric's wife, then it is reasonable to imagine that Rowan was alive for at least a part of Alistair's life. As there would be no Rowan to keep him secret from if he was Fiona and Maric's son as she was already dead when that child was conceived. Fiona says she wants their child to be kept away from court and out of politics. That could neatly put him in Redcliffe, certainly, but he isn't exactly away from court and politics there.

Still more musing from me, as you say it's up to interpretation but it's interesting to discuss, which is what forums are for anyway.

Alistair never tells you about Rowan. What he says is that he was kept secret so he won't be a threat to Cailan's rule and that's it. The codex updates come from... err... a demon from the Fade?

[Sarah1281]

Loghain says that Alistair was kept secret so as not to make Rowan look like a concubine but since this is Loghain, if Alistair's real mother was an Orlesian elven GW mage then of course they're going to fudge the truth and maybe even the timeline so he doesn't have to find out about it and fly off the handle. And he may have just assumed Rowan was involved when he found out about the kid since a lot of things in his life centered around Rowan.

[CalJones]

Well, Fiona's child was kept secret from Loghain, at least as far at The Calling goes. It could be that he found out later and was fed some bull, as Sarah suggests.

Or it could be that there was an earlier bastard that he knew about, which turned out to be Alistair.

Damn it's annoying not knowing, isn't it?

[jpdipity]

Quicksilverk wrote...

If you read the Alistair codex, in game it says that he was kept at Redcliffe to be a secret from Rowan, Maric's wife. But in The Calling, Rowan is dead for a number of years even before the adventure begins, when the Fiona+Maric baby is conceived.

I seem to recall a retcon of the timeline being made between the book's publishing and the game being released but I'm not sure it would account for Rowan being alive, or alive long enough for Alistair to be kept a secret. Can anyone shed any light on this?

 
The timeline is only wrong if you assume that the codex entry is accurate. The codex entry about Rowan is based on Loghain’s knowledge which may or may not be the truth. At the end of The Calling, Fiona/Maric/Duncan decided not to tell Loghain about the child. It makes sense that at a later date, Loghain discovered the child and is fed a lie about protecting Rowan as an excuse why the child was hidden from him. It would have had to be a very good reason (Rowan being Loghain’s soft-spot) or it would not have made sense for Maric to keep the child’s existence a secret from Loghain. Loghain likely already viewed Maric as a person who would cheat on Rowan because of Katriel; so, the story would fall right into place for Loghain who would then drop any further investigation into the child which would help protect the identity of his true mother.
 
 

Sabariel wrote...

I don't understand why they chose a "cover story" who already had a child. Why not just tell Alistair his mother was a servant at the castle and that she died? Why was there a need to pick out an actual servant? Why not just make up a servant? I doubt Alistair would dig that deep if he thought it was only his mother and she was dead.

And what made Goldanna think Alistair was the King's anyway? Surely Eamon or Duncan or Maric or whoever wouldn't be stupid enough to put the idea in her head so she somehow came to the conclusion on her own...

 
They needed to make a story that would be hard to refute. Picking a fictional servant would easily be uncovered as a fabrication by anyone who decided to look into the child’s past. It was a chance that I wouldn’t think they would want to take given the stakes. Choosing a servant who dies giving birth to a child offers an opportune situation to create a concrete story with real facts to back up the lie.
 
Goldanna says in her conversation with Alistair how she knows that her mother gave birth to a boy. I don’t recall exactly what she said – something like she saw the infant after her mother’s death. My impression was that she doesn’t know that the child is Alistair - she assumes that Alistair is the infant she saw after her mother’s death once he comes into her home. She does not know or recognize Alistair at all when he walks in the door.
 

CalJones wrote...

Damn it's annoying not knowing, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

Modifié par jpdipity, 13 juillet 2010 - 07:57 .

[Sarah1281]

Goldanna didn't see the child, she was just told that the baby was dead by the people at Redcliffe although she may have seen her mother or she may not have. If she did see the dead baby then she'd be able to say 'yeah, you're not my brother. I saw his body' which she doesn't, instead she blames him for killing her mother.

[jpdipity]

Sarah1281 wrote...

Goldanna didn't see the child, she was just told that the baby was dead by the people at Redcliffe although she may have seen her mother or she may not have. If she did see the dead baby then she'd be able to say 'yeah, you're not my brother. I saw his body' which she doesn't, instead she blames him for killing her mother.

Thanks!  I knew she said something about a baby boy, but I couldn't recall exactly what. 

The fact that Goldanna was told initally that the baby was dead makes an even bigger case that Alistair's story is a cover and perhaps Goldanna was initally told the truth that her baby brother died along with her mother. 

[Sabariel]

jpdipity wrote...
They needed to make a story that would be hard to refute. Picking a fictional servant would easily be uncovered as a fabrication by anyone who decided to look into the child’s past. It was a chance that I wouldn’t think they would want to take given the stakes. Choosing a servant who dies giving birth to a child offers an opportune situation to create a concrete story with real facts to back up the lie.

But who would did that deeply? And why?

 

Goldanna says in her conversation with Alistair how she knows that her mother gave birth to a boy. I don’t recall exactly what she said – something like she saw the infant after her mother’s death. My impression was that she doesn’t know that the child is Alistair - she assumes that Alistair is the infant she saw after her mother’s death once he comes into her home. She does not know or recognize Alistair at all when he walks in the door.

"I told them the babe was the King's and they said he was dead." So again, I wonder how she came to the conclusion that "the babe" was the King's. Maric can't seem to keep the royal scepter to himself so did he impregnate Goldanna's mum too? How did she find out about it? Would her mother really have told her such a thing?

I find the whole "cover story" very confusing and illogical in some areas...

[Sarah1281]

Sabariel wrote...

jpdipity wrote...
They needed to make a story that would be hard to refute. Picking a fictional servant would easily be uncovered as a fabrication by anyone who decided to look into the child’s past. It was a chance that I wouldn’t think they would want to take given the stakes. Choosing a servant who dies giving birth to a child offers an opportune situation to create a concrete story with real facts to back up the lie.

But who would dig that deeply? And why?

If they need a cover story and Eamon just happens to have a maid that just died in childbirth, it's too perfect not to use, isn't it?