Silfren wrote...
I gotta say, TEWR, I've heard your OGB Andraste-Flemeth theory before, and while it's creative, it's a little too contrived, to me. Sounds more like the kind of deliberately cheesy plot one would find on a daytime soap opera. Sorry.
Nah it's fine. With such scant information to really go on regarding Flemeth, all I can really do is create some sort of theory like this.
I'm not a Flemeth expert -- and really, who is? =P -- so my two main theories on her are that she's the Andraste OGB, or that she's a Dalish God. All we really know about her is that she's connected to the Elves in some way and that she's not mortal.
Well, we know a few other things, but in terms of stuff that backs up my two theories I think that's about it.
Both have very little to back them up I will admit, but it's all I have to go on at the moment.
The thing about mages and lyrium, though, is that we do know that lyrium is kept at the Circles for mages to use, and we know that they DO drink it, though it really isn't ever said how much or how often. I would imagine, yes, based on one of the codices that I unfortunately can't recall, that it's intended only for use when a mage's native supply of mana isn't sufficient to a given task. So its true that a Warden roaming the countryside and anticipating many long, protracted battles with darkspawn would feel the need to guzzle lyrium the way--well, the way I drink coffee, and that this is an unusual situation most mages don't find themselves needing that much lyrium for everyday spellcasting.
I find that it's an issue of how poorly the Circles are visualized. In both games we have very limited exposure to the Mages of the Circle. In both games we only see... what.... a dozen or so mages maximum inside each Circle?
That's definitely a factor in why we don't see lyrium-addicted mages.
But the game--and the books, for that matter--go well out of their way to drive home how insidiously addictive lyrium is. That's why people see it as bizarre that there's so much focus on the templars being addicted, but little to no mention of mages facing similar problems. I know I've always been under the impression that one of the reasons it is so dangerous is because it simply doesn't take that much exposure to create a permanent addiction to it, and I'm under this impression because again and again and again and again I hear about how addictive lyrium is and how it will inevitably drive its addicts insane.
As I said, the codex on lyrium says that prolonged use makes one addicted to it.
So while it's dangerous to touch certainly, it seems it isn't immediately addictive when imbibed.
I seem to recall that its considered so dangerous that non-dwarves are strongly advised not to let lyrium come in contact with their bare skin. That lyrium-addled Dwarf merchant, in addressing the Wardens question about dwarven immunity, says, "Yes. Only not too much and not every day and not breathing the dust and not direct in the blood." That sounds like a very dangerous substance that even mages would want to be wary of, unless something about being a mage protects them. But the Mage Warden just puts her hand right in the stuff without even blinking. Yes, gameplay/story segregation or no, I find that weird.
I think there are two reasons for this:
1) Raw lyrium is what's immediately dangerous to interact with.
2) Lyrium potions consist of diluted raw lyrium and as a result aren't as potent as raw lyrium is. I think that was said somewhere in the games, though I can't quite recall.
Bartrand force-fed his guards raw lyrium in the hopes that they'd "hear the song", so it seems that raw lyrium will immediately cause insanity if ingested.
Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 01 mars 2012 - 07:01 .
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