Lynata wrote...
]There is also what the Elders of the City Elves - I suppose you could count them as the losers - tell, which coincides with both the Dalish and the Chantry version, basically being the middle ground. Hence me saying all along that this is probably the most accurate account, simply because it makes both sides look bad and doesn't conflict with anything, whereas the Dalish are omitting the attack on Red Crossing and the Chantry omits the pressure by their missionaries - which are exactly the reasons that led to the conflict.
The City Elves' account also confirms that it was indeed a fringe element of the Dalish. Or rather, not exactly fringe but rogue. From what it sounds like it was a band of young elves who just decided that enough was enough and they should send a sign.
It actually doesn't say they were members of the Dalish. Just a raiding party consisting of Elves, their origins unknown.
I think you're reading too much into it by surmising that they wanted the war to happen, which would paint them as affiliated with the Dalish in some way, be it past or present. All we know is that the group consisted of Elven bandits. As such, that's all we can say they definitively were.
We can certainly speculate on their affiliations, but for the sake of discussion it's best to not assert that they were linked to the Dalish. What we know is simple: they were a group of Elven bandits.
I'm more inclined to believe that they were Elves that stopped going along the Long Walk and either went to live in a city for a time before leaving to form a raiding band or when they stopped their long trek to the Dales they immediately formed this group.
We don't know much of the history behind it. For all we know this specific group had been plaguing merchant caravans systematically for months if not years, and Red Crossing fell victim to one of their raids. Maybe a merchant fled to Red Crossing after surviving an attack, and rather then risk their operation being discovered they sacked the village, causing the tensions to boil over.
Speculation mind you, but it's all possible. There are many possibilities on why these Elves attacked Red Crossing, many of them unrelated to the Dalish and Orlais. But given Orlais' history, I wouldn't put it past them to have been involved in some way.
It's a known fact that at this time, the Dalish had preferred isolationism, while the Chantry and Orlais wanted to expand their influence.
I doubt that the Dalish did anything to make the situation worse, given how they really wanted nothing to do with the outside world.
It's a shame really. Everytime they want to isolate themselves from the world, the world ****s them over. First Tevinter and then Orlais and the Chantry.
And arguably, the last one is just a prettied-up name for Tevinter.
Lynata wrote....
Said sign provided the humans with the perfect reason to go to war. An "unprovoked" attack incorporating the slaughter of innocent townsfolk? What more could the rulers hope for?
So, one could debate whether Red Crossing was an excuse to invade or rather the cause of truly righteous anger at coldblooded murder. I would say it was both at the same time. And with the Dalish living in self-proclaimed isolation from the neighboring realms, there weren't even any means to verify whether this attack was a sanctioned act of war or not. I don't think anybody cared. The attackers were elves, and that's that.
That ultimately paints Orlais and the Chantry as rather untrustworthy. Instead of trying to prosecute the culprits responsible for the deed, they opted for full-scale war. They overreacted, punishing the majority for the actions of a few.
Lynata wrote...
To be fair, given Dalish clan structure and tight society, assuming that a Dalish strike team would operate on behalf of their Keeper is the most natural assumption, and since there have apparently already been violent border clashes, the humans had no reason to doubt that the Dalish as a whole might disagree with what happened.
Dalish clan culture also has it so that the Keepers don't have full reign over what goes on in the clan. The Hahrens can decree whether something can happen or not, and the Keeper has to acknowledge that word.
Shadow of Light Dragon pointed this out a while back in a thread in the DAO section:
Hahren is elder, but I'm undecided if it's an endearment or title like 'wisdom' or 'councillor'. The DE origin has it that your mother and father, one the Keeper and the other a great hunter IIRC, were forbidden to become bonded by the clan's elders. What interested me from that is that the Keeper doesn't have ultimate power over the clan, and that these elders, either by virtue or age or something else, could bar something like a marriage and have it stick. Not that the story ends well after that, but yeah...hahren. I dunno. So far I don't think we've seen it used in the context of endearment, unless you count that funeral song.
Lynata wrote...
This is why I like the setting so much, actually. No-one is innocent. Templars, mages, elves, humans - they all have their flaws, leading to (objectively viewed) unnecessary suffering and violence, making Thedas as a whole look much more realistic than your usual cliché fantasy setting.
Agreed. I do like how no one -- person or group, nation or organization -- is perfect. It certainly doesn't stop some of those groups from viewing themselves as such, but ultimately none of them are perfect.
Lynata wrote...
In this case, members of the Chantry began antagonizing the elves by pestering them with missionaries, and in reaction, members of the Dalish clans spilled the first blood. You may argue whether the beginning or the escalation is worse, but in the end, everyone is to blame. At least as far as I am interpreting the available sources.
Again, you're reading too much into it by saying that a group of Elven bandits were affiliated with the Dalish. They may have been, but you're saying that the Elves were definitively Dalish Elves, when all we know is that they were Elves.
I'd also say -- though admittedly it is unlikely and stretching it to make the Elves seem less culpable -- that we don't know if these border skirmishes resulted in the deaths of those the Dalish fought. They could've -- and it's possible, if not probable -- just defeated them without spilling blood and sent them back to where they came from.
Again though, I admit it's straining credulity.
Lynata wrote...
Well, technically, the timeline from the guide is an unbiased source, as it is the only one not written from some character's PoV.
But as I said earlier, it probably uses existing lore and stories because it's not a good medium to introduce new lore. Fans don't like to have new lore introduced in something they have to pay extra money for, when it should be in the games or the books or whatever else that is affiliated with the series.
The guides are written by third party people, with notes from the devs scattered around. At least the DAII one was. If they're buying a game that's supposed to expand on the lore, it should do that. But if a guide that you have to pay money for does that, it's not going to go over well.
It's like saying "You want to know about this? Pay $15 to see it, because it's in this guide."
I would say that the guide is merely using the sources given in the main forms of media to give people that knowledge. It's still biased though.
Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 05 avril 2012 - 04:01 .
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