- Dragons - The titular creatures of this world are perplexing. Clearly, they are flesh-and-blood creatures. We see their hatcheries, we see their stages of life, their sexual dimorphism. They are organic, living and dying animals. Yet, perhaps given their power, they are equated with the divine. As will be discussed, they are the forms the Tevinters worshipped when they praised the Old Gods. They are the form that the inhabitants of Haven attributed to their risen Andraste. It struck me that the Warden and his/her party reacted incredulously at this, even when they were worshipped as gods by the Imperium - clearly dragons were throught of as a purely biological organisms by the population at large.
- Old Gods - We know very little about this group. They are regarded as false gods by the Chantry. They were active in the time of the Imperium. After that, they assumed a dormant state for an unknown reason (perhaps related to the fall of the Tevinter Magisters). We know that they are connected to the darkspawn in some way, and that the darkspawn were drawn to them. And we know that they appear as dragons in both their corrupted and uncorrupted states. But are they dragons, proper? Or simply a form they choose? I find the latter option more likely. Firstly, we know that the aforementioned dragons are biological. Fauna. Exotic fauna, but fauna nonetheless. A supernatural, immortal being would have no need for a breeding cycle - especially one that can continue without the involvement of the supernatural being. Secondly, we encounter the ghost of a dragon in the Blackmarsh, and since there is no reference by any of the participants that this was an Old God, I think we can assume that, like everything but dwarves, dragons have spirits of their own that connect them to the Fade - and are not that of an Old God's. Thirdly, Riordan tells us that if an Old God is slain by a non-Grey Warden, their soul simply flies into the nearest darkspawn and reassumes it's dragon-shape. It transforms.
- Flemeth - Some people may know where I am going with this at this point - I would like to postulate that Flemeth is an Old God that never entered the state of dormancy that the other ones did. Like the Archdemon, she has the ability to transfer her soul into another's body should her own body fail her (in the Archdemon's case, due to injury, in Flemeth's, due to age [this may also explain her altered appearance in DA2]). Like the Old Gods, she has a preference for assuming the form of the powerful dragon. And perhaps most tellingly: she is attempting to liberate the soul of an Old God from the corruption of the Darkspawn.
What follows is pure speculation, but I think we're going to see a huge conflict between the forces of Flemeth and the forces of (out of left field here) The Architect. I didn't touch on him before, but I believe him to be one of the first Tevinter Magisters cursed with the darkspawn taint. Whether or not he is aware (although I suspect he would be) and whether or not he is currently occupying his first body (soul transferrence seems to be a theme in Dragon Age, and would explain a difference in story if you killed him) is up for debate. But his tact, his scientific and alchemical experiments... it all seems too civilized, even for a "free" darkspawn. I sense pre-existing knowledge here. Perhaps he blames the Old Gods for his current condition. We know that he is seeking the Old Gods in order to kill them rather than to corrupt him so that he might "free" his people. Perhaps that would end the curse?
On the other side of the spectrum, we have Flemeth. Who I believe to be an Old God, and who, at the very least, is trying to save them from the darkspawn. A confrontation seems unavoidable.
So what do you guys think? I touched on quite a few topics here. Is the Architect a Tevinter Magister? Flemeth an Old God? Are dragons purely biological or something more? Your guess is as good as mine, but there's a few talking points.
Modifié par Berkilak, 20 février 2011 - 07:37 .
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