My opinion is pretty simple. The Dalish elves are self-righteous and arrogant. They and the chantry both are responsible for the sacking of the Dales...although I blame the chantry more than I do the elves...a lot more. Both sides hide their dirty laundry after all.
When I play as a Dalish warden or talk to the Dalish as an outsider, I see the dalish having a threefold mission.
The first is the restoration of Arlathan and everything associated with it. This means the revival of the language, the culture, the gods, the knowledge, and the technology. So that means magical knowledge, like the eluvians, blood magic, arcane warriors, in addition to the technology a crafter can supply his people.
The second is to restore their homeland. Which means finding a land to call home. Set up their findings, each clan learning all they can from the others as one clan may find information another lacks.
The third is teaching the lost ones...the city elves, the old ways.
Essentially they want to rebuild their empire and unite the elves.
Now moving on to Merrill, Merethari, and the dalish elves near Kirkwall. They had just escaped the blight and are camping dangerously close to Kirkwall and its templars. The clan knows that the Keeper has a debt to pay to Ashbelennar (Flemeth) so they expect to stay there for Hawke to show up. Only they were expecting an elf, as the watch outright admits.
While they are there, Merrill and Merethari encounter a demon sealed within a statue. Merethari refuses to even listen to it, while Merrill is more open. Both are knowledgeable about the Fade and the dangers of consorting with demons. Merrill is also holding a piece of the eluvian, likely stashed safely away because of the corruption from the darkspawn.
She learns blood magic from the demon and how to purify the tainted shard. The fact that she stays in close proximity to the shard for over a decade without becoming tainted, or tainting anyone around her is proof that she succeeded.
Merrill uses her blood magic very carefully, only believing in herself when dealing with demons, taking their knowledge as they offer it, but not their deals.
Merethari fears the darkspawn taint, having lost two hunters to the eluvian before it was potentially destroyed by Duncan. She is also afraid of blood magic and what it may lead Merrill too.
So the first time that Hawke meets the Dalish, only a few are suspicious of Merrill, but some, like the crafter mourn her leaving. Merethari even tells Merrill it's not too late to reconsider her path.
On my first playthrough, I'm just wearing a blank look with question marks in my eyes. So I decide to see what's happening as the game progresses.
We come to act 2, and I see the city-born Pol running from Merrill, even more terrified of her than he is of the Varterral. I am absolutely shocked by that happening.
When we get back to camp, Merethari admits she told the clan that Merrill could bring back the taint and that she was a blood mage...then had the audacity to ask her to return. I literally face-palmed at that.
Pol was city-born, and when he greets Hawke, he's all "Praise Andras....the CREATORS!" leading me to believe he was still a believer in the chantry, but didn't want to return to the alienage. So his views are colored by andrastian beliefs regarding blood magic.
But the very moment he ran to his death rather than be rescued by Merrill, I felt it was too late for Merrill to return to the clan, as they all now hated her guts and distrusted her, based entirely on Merethari's opinion, which has no evidence supporting it.
For one thing, Merrill does not control anyone's mind throughout the game, she does not get the taint, or infect anyone else with it. And in Witch Hunt, elves who had gone into that ruin with the eluvian were corrupted by the taint, so we prove that Merrill succeeded in purifying it.
We also have a clear distinction concerning their differing opinions on the eluvian. Merrill is constantly researching a scrap of lore, using a single shard, and is in the process of rebuilding an eluvian from scratch. Merethari believes that such knowledge belongs to another time and should be left well enough alone. She doesn't even want to touch the lore saying it is far too dangerous. She even tries to renege on her deal with Merrill.
Merrill asks for the tool in Act 2, and Merethari says she'll give it to her in exchange for defeating the Varterral. Well, we defeat the varterral but she gives the tool to Hawke and asks he/she NOT give it to Merrill. She broke her deal, and an important dalish rite invoked by Merrill.
In Act 3, the Dalish are pretty fed up with Kirkwall. They want to leave, but have no Halla. They are fed up with Merethari who is keeping them there as she is constantly asking Merrill to return. And because Merrill is a blood mage and may bring back the taint, she becomes an easy target for their hatred and malcontent, to the point that they refuse to even listen to an opinion that isn't theirs.
Granted, the dalish generally do that regardless of Merrill, and the Chantry...and every other culture. Getting off track.
Merrill, knowledgeable about the eluvians, having done a butt load of research and hard work into rebuilding the mirror, is at a dead end. She doesn't know enough to complete it. She recognizes the demon does. She asks Hawke to accompany her up...and should the worst come to pass, kill her.
Up to this point, I have a pretty clear idea of what's going on. Merrill is discovering the lost knowledge, she is trying to rebuild a very large part of the Dalish heritage (and even if they only manage the long distance communication, that would benefit all the clans and the people as a whole). She invoked the rite to obtain a tool, and honored her end of the bargain.
Merethari on the other hand, was doing nothing to help the clan leave. She stuck around asking Merrill to return to a clan that hated her...courtesy of Merethari warning them of blood magic and the taint. She tried to break the deal with Merrill, and she didn't research or even look into any lore on eluvians.
What it came down to for me was simple. Merrill is a world authority of Eluvians, possibly only Morrigan surpassing her in knowledge for getting one started. She is working at a goal to benefit her people worldwide, she is restoring a part of their heritage. Merrill was following the mission of the Dalish.
Merethari was thinking too much like a mother and less a keeper. I don't doubt she cared for Merrill, but I doubt her (un)common sense. She and the Dalish had an opinion, and no amount of evidence would change it.
And since I didn't warn Merethari that Merrill was planning on dealing with the demon, that means that Merethari had become an abomination BEFORE we showed up at the camp. Which means that she believed so much that her way was the right way that she put her entire clan at risk because she couldn't even consider she was wrong about the eluvian.
Merrill says when we first meet her than when a Keeper becomes an abomination, it is the clan's duty to kill him or her.
We show up at the cave, and Merethari reveals herself as an abomination. She says the demon planned to escape from the eluvian and Merrill would be the first victim, so she (Merethari) willingly paid the price she feared Merrill would pay.
Again, I facepalmed. Someone who has steadfastly avoided dealing with demons, wouldn't listen to what they say, didn't do ANY research at all eluvians, she seemed to assume a lot. And she was so self-righteous that she wouldn't even consider that Merrill could be correct...and she practically abandoned her duty as a Keeper because of Merrill.
So we have to kill Merethari, and therein any chance of completing the Eluvian because a leader without any facts but a very strong opinion felt her way was the best way.
After we leave the cave, we are confronted by the dalish elves. They didn't know that Merethari was an abomination, so that shows me that Merethari thought it fit to warn them about Merrill but not about herself. And when we tell them that Merethari was an abomination, they, having spent a decade blaming Merrill for them staying there, Pol's death, fearing her because she was a blood mage and could potentially bring back the darkspawn taint.
And having spent so long blaming Merrill, they won't even consider that Merethari made her own choices, that Merrill did the duty of the clan by killing an abomination. All they see is Merrill driving Merethari to desperation...despite the fact that Merrill left the clan roughly a decade earlier and no longer had any claim to them.
They are angry, prejudiced against Hawke as a shemlen, prejudiced against Merrill as a blood mage, afraid of the taint, that they won't even consider the fact that Merrill is helping her people. We are forced to kill them, because I won't take responsibility for Merrill when Merethari was also a completely rational adult who could make her own decisions.
They attack en mass because of hatred and self-righteousness. There is no way they can be in the wrong, it has to be all their fault, the shemlen and the outcast.
Essentially Merrill was accomplishing what Dalish are supposed to do, and she was hated because of it.
Merethari was not doing her duty, unwittingly sowed the seeds of hatred and distrust, because she was thinking more of a witless mother with no long-term plan. In addition to her endangering the clan by becoming an abomination without warning anyone, and abandoning the mission of the dalish by denying any research into the eluvian, and breaking her deal with merrill in act 2.
That's essentially my rant about Merrill and the Dalish. I always romance Merrill as well. She's just so dang cute and intelligent...just naive. Of course, she seems much more sarcastic later in the game than innocently naive. Another trait I like because she pulls it off well.
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