118 réponses à ce sujet

[Xilizhra]

Marethari couldn't kill Merril and it was obvious that the girl would never stop her attempts at contacting the demon and when a mage talks to a demon, there is a very good chance s/he will be possessed.
Marethari preferred to let herself be possessed than let it happen to Merril.

Idiotic if true, which I have some doubts of; I suspect she didn't know she'd be possessed. Regardless, she should have informed Hawke, at least, of the alleged use of the Eluvian for Audacity to escape... if that ever existed, which I don't buy in the slightest, since Eluvians don't even link to the Fade directly and we have only Audacity's own word on the matter.

Merril's actions led to theirs.

They made their choices. It's entirely on them.

Merril placed herself and everyone around her in danger the moment she started going to demons for help.

Allegedly. It never materialized, and Marethari offered herself to the demon first.

And why not simply pretend everything was fine from the beginning? Invent some story of how Marethari destroyed it. It would be smarter than letting your foes know exactly where you are.

Audacity is a demon of pride.

No, Merril was the manipulated one and was building a back door for the demon to escape its prison. She should never have gone to the demon for advice in the first place.

Again, you're completely trusting Audacity's word on this why?

She is wiser and older than Merril and had an unique insight into the demon's mind at that point so, yes, I am more more willing to believe in what she says than the girl who thinks asking a demon for help is a good idea.

I see no evidence of wisdom in any of her dealings with Merrill, just overwhelming pride and a burning urge to not be proven wrong by an apprentice.

Your suggestion that Marethari was subtly manipulated for seven years would require evidence of her having spoken to it more than once. At worst, the demon could whisper into her dreams but if it did do so, it could have convinced her to free it much sooner, it didn’t need to wait until Merril had nearly finished the mirror.

Hardly, if one of its goals was to betray and kill Merrill and make her believe everything was her own fault, as revenge for Merrill not being a suitable vessel. Or for simple sadism, really.

Nothing would force the demon to live peacefully with the dalish waiting for Merril if it had already possessed a mage.

All it would need to do is lie in wait.

[TEWR]

MisterJB, allow me to say that my previous post that you responded to as well as parts of this post are kinda douchey, and I want to apologize for that. So, I apologize for anything that may have come off as unnecessarily harsh.

Now, on with my post:

[quote]MisterJB wrote...

The notion that any demon that attempts to help any mortal is simply doing so in order to help himself is as real as that that demons prefer to possess mages in stations of power.[/quote]

Of course. But what you were trying to assert as fact with absolutely zero reliable evidence ot back it up was that the Demon's intended target was Merrill.

[quote]
Not talking to it in the first place was the right thing to do. [/quote]

Then blame Marethari for that, as she was the one that took Merrill to that place and talked to it first. If you're argument is going to be saying "Her actions led to their actions", then this all began with Marethari and she's originally the creator of the problem situation and didn't bother to appropriately fix it.

Merrill was never at fault. Not in the beginning, the duration, or the end.


[quote]
Marethari couldn't kill Merril and it was obvious that the girl would never stop her attempts at contacting the demon and when a mage talks to a demon, there is a very good chance s/he will be possessed.
Marethari preferred to let herself be possessed than let it happen to Merril.[/quote]

Good thing it wouldn't have happened to Merrill.









[quote]You are attempting to disprove an entire arc of the game based on a single observed behavior that was evidenced by a demon who was in a completely different situation from that in Sundermount.[/quote]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that the post I quoted specifically said "access to the halls of power in Redcliffe".

It's talking about Mages with influence, period. Marethari had influence over the clan and was living near an entire city.

I distinctly recall a post by David Gaider saying that one of the reasons Uldred was possessed by such a powerful demon was because of the influence he held amongst his peers. It's noted in-game that he has a lot of influence and is a very powerful Mage.

One of the reasons anyway. The other being that Uldred couldn't control said demon of Pride and it forcibly possessed him.

[quote]
That demons might prefer someone influential is true but that it was Merril and not Marethari who conversed with the demon is also true[/quote]

To learn blood magic. After that, she didn't have any more contact with the Demon until Act 3. David Gaider himself has said that Merrill rebuilt the Eluvian using what scraps of lore she could find and extrapolating information from them.

Translation: Aside from learning blood magic to amplify the healing spell Merrill already knew, Merrill didn't talk with the Demon for years. Because she didn't need him during those years and because she was so far away he couldn't whisper to her.









[quote]; that it was Merril that started using blood magic and communicating with other demons is also true[/quote]

Blood Magic isn't tied to the Fade. It's tied purely to the physical realm:

Nothing inspires as much wild-eyed terror as the Blood Mage. Mages of this type take the raw energy of life and twist it to their own purposes. They can corrupt and control, and sustain their power by consuming the health of others, willing or not. The effects can be vile, but this specialization isn't limited to madmen and monsters. Many see it as the only form of magic that is truly free, because it's tied to the physical, not favors to spirits or demons.

Which suggests that Demons are the quickest source to learn blood magic -- due to the arcane being eternal in the Fade, as Torpor proves with his comments -- but not the only means.








[quote]; that we are flat out presented with the demon's plan[/quote]

By an Abomination that when she wasn't possessed refused to do any research into the Eluvians. As a result her credibility amounts to less then ****.







[quote], a plan that Merril (so far as I remember) does not claim was impossible, is also true.[/quote]
And yet Morrigan will flat out state in Witch Hunt where the Eluvians lead. The woman who has done much research into the Eluvians, with a tome dedicated to the Eluvians. A tome that Ariane's clan treasured.

So... yeah. The demon lied. We have valid proof of where the Eluvians lead.

[quote]
I don't buy that Marethari was its plan all along, it's too far-fetched.[/quote]

Let's back up a minute:

1) Marethari was the most affected by the demon's whispering, as the short story tells us. She woke up sobbing on the second night.

2) She spent 7 years at the base of a mountain, with a Demon that could whisper to her -- no doubt saying things to make her motherly pride and pride as a Keeper swell up.

3) Merrill left the mountain for the city, relying on bits of lore in the real world to build the Eluvian and was so far away that the Demon couldn't talk to her.

4) Marethari is the Keeper: She's prideful, influential, and powerful.

Yea... it's far-fetched alright.[/sarcasm]

[quote]
The fact that was imprisoned only assured that it would do everything in its power to manipulate Merril into freeing it. And lo and behold, that safer course of action ended up destroying Merril's clan.[/quote]

And yet you see fit to believe an Abomination's words when we have proof that the Eluvians do not link to the Fade. And they can only communicate with other Eluvians in Thedas.

And it's their own damn fault for getting themselves killed. They chose to attack Hawke and company. Marethari chose to become an Abomination.


[quote]
Merril's actions led to theirs.[/quote]

So you're saying Merrill held a gun to their head and ordered them to jump on Hawke's blade, one by one? No? Oh okay, then Merrill's not at fault.

They weren't forced to do it. They chose to do it.

[quote]
Merril had already endangered all you mentioned the minute she started repairing the Eluvian on the words of a demon.[/quote]

Morrigan worked on an Eluvian as well. I suppose that means Morrigan was wrong too, despite Morrigan having done her research. 

[quote]
It's obvious that somehow factors into the demon's plan to be freed.[/quote]

Only if you ignore how Morrigan also worked on an Eluvian.









[quote]Oh, her actions were dangerous, no doubt about it. But more dangerous were Merril's who thought she could play with a demon.[/quote]

People in Thedas can trick a Demon. Hawke can play the Hunger Demon in the Deep Roads and Torpor, the Warden can play Kitty, Duncan, and Mouse.

That proves that it's possible. And Merrill is a master of the arcane -- far better then Marethari -- so I see no reason to believe that she would've fallen prey to a demon's plan -- especially since said "plan" has been proven false by Morrigan's testimony.

[quote]
As I've said before, Marethari's only crime was placing her daughter above everything else. I won't blame her for it.[/quote]

And I do, because it's not love. It's wanting to be right because of her pride, as both a Keeper and an adoptive parent.

Know the saying "Mother knows best?" Marethari warps that to being "Only your Keeper-Mother knows best. You're wrong, I'm right."



[quote]
Merril was fooling around with a mirror that had already kill two people on the words of a demon. Thinking she might bring doom upon all who surround her is not a lie; it's a very reasonable assumption.[/quote]

They thought that doom would be brought by the taint, when it's been proven by Marethari and Duncan -- a blasted Grey Warden who can sense the taint in Mahariel and the Eluvian -- that the Keeper's magic was able to combat the taint in its unamplified form.

Merrill amplified the magic through her blood magic to basically nuke the taint out of the shard. She says she could've done the same thing had she had lyrium.

That the clan still believes it's tainted and that she'll be tainted by it even after knowing what spell she used -- one that can fight the taint when unamplified -- and knowing that she could've achieved the same end result through different means, had she the means in the first place is fear getting the best of them.










[quote]Hence why it was paramount she rid herself of the thing. Besides, the taint wasn’t the only danger inherent to the mirror.[/quote]

I'm curious, if the mirror can let demons escape, then why the hell didn't Audacity just escape through it when Mahariel found it? Or when Morrigan used it to go beyond the Fade and Thedas -- the former of which Audacity can't access, the latter of which he's stuck in a demonic Buddha statue, unable to be freed?

Oh right, because that's a crock of bull****.


[quote]

Blood magic is not some incurable disease. It's a choice and Merril chose to use it despite the inherent danger.
[/quote]

Point, it went so far over your head.

You're falling under the same delusions Marethari fell to. That if Merrill had abandoned blood magic and the Eluvian, the clan would welcome her back with open arms and be so damn nice to her that rainbows would fall from the sky and puppies would bring baskets of flowers to them.

They're still going to revile her for what she did, even if she was no longer doing it. They're still going to be afraid of her, because of the lies they've been fed.

To think things would go to being perfect and Merrill would feel at home again is not only folly, it's delusional.


[quote]
She was wrong. It is my firm belief she should not be supported. [/quote]

So you'd rather torment her to emotional abuse, making her unable to trust anyone in the world, possibly leading her to become very depressed because she can't trust anyone? And you think you're justified in doing that because an arrogant Abomination told you something that has no proof to back it up anywhere in game?

Wow....









[quote]The clan was right to be cautious[/quote]

That's not caution. That's fear.









[quote]; the mirror was tainted by means unknown and had already killed two people. It is part of a forgotten past, who knows what it could do.[/quote]

Then it's a good idea to find out through research rather then making assumptions, now isn't it? Morrigan did her research and found out more about it then Merrill did, because Morrigan had an entire book on the subject.

And the Dalish mantra is that they find and study all things relating to the past of the Elves. Merrill was adhering to it. Marethari wasn't.

All knowledge is potentially dangerous. Morrigan says this and I'm certain Merrill says it too.

[quote]
I won’t support fear getting in the way of research but maybe the clan would be more willing to listen hadn’t Merril consorted with a demon, thus increasing the danger by tenfold.[/quote]

Or you know, they could've realized that in all of 7 years she hadn't gone back to Sundermount's mountaintop again to converse with the Demon, since that's the only way to do it because it's sundered from the Fade completely.

She may have dealt with a demon once, but that was only to deal with the present danger. She wasn't relying on it. She was using it to her own ends.

[quote]
And, as it turned out, they were right. There was danger inherent to the Eluvian, even if they couldn’t have known.[/quote]

No they were wrong.

Have you even played Witch Hunt? Are you really going to ignore the evidence Witch Hunt gave us on the Eluvians, because it defeats your argument entirely?


[quote]

Magic built the Tevinter Imperium, sunk Arlathan, births Abominations. Magic IS more dangerous.[/quote]

Fear will drive villagers and Templars alike to murder Mages because of what they might become, condemning innocent people to death.

There's a massive difference between caution and fear. Fear will drive people to do asenine and sometimes outright immoral things. Caution just means recognizing a potential threat and dealing with it accordingly, whilst being wary of it.









[quote]They could be a mating pair. I’m more willing to believe than that a Varterral is some fort of elven golem that can resurrect out of duty alone but still attacks dalish,[/quote]

I don't buy it.

It was told to us that Varterrals will protect things and be reborn to keep protecting it, as that's their duty. Merrill said that not in a tone of voice of uncertainty or it being a tale of folklore, but as undeniable fact because they know it to be true.

And why didn't it attack Zevran, hmm? It seems that was one of the very things it was protecting, as Zevran set up traps all along the passageway we traverse -- telling us that he had to move past the Varterral, which if it was so animalistic would've attacked him as well. But it didn't.









[quote]She gains rivalry points if Hawke refuses the deal which proves her preferred course of action is making a deal with a demon.[/quote]
Not if you ask her to kill it.

And her preferred course is to try to play a demon before it plays you. Not actually doing what a Demon wants.








[quote]So, Merril has just sown she doesn’t have the willpower needed to defend herself against a Demon of Pride [/quote]

One moment of weakness in the Fade led her to being mind-controlled in the Fade, where Demons are at their most powerful.

That doesn't mean she'll always be manipulated. It's not favorable to her being safe, I'll admit that much. But I find it hard to blame her under the circumstances, more so if Hawke's an idiot for believing Torpor because Torpor doesn't have the ability to mind control people.









[quote]. And we are supposed to trust her to defend herself against Audacity?[/quote]
Yes, considering Audacity has no presence in the Fade. He's sundered from it and trapped in the mortal world, where his power has gone down considerably. 

And also because you'll have probably taken Merrill on quests where you take down many enemies, including Dragons, Abominations, Demons, scores of Darkspawn, a Varterral, Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, Templars, gangs, Elven spectres, etc.

Dragons are sentient creatures. Abominations are sentient creatures. Demons are sentient creatures. Qunari are sentient creatures. A Varterral is intelligent -- and the lore on them doesn't state that they're just animalistic. Codexes on it in fact state it was upset, for unknown reasons. -- and so on and so forth.

You could've even taken her on a Wyvern Hunt -- cousins to Dragons, possibly just as intelligent -- or killed an ancient Magister-turned-Awakened Darkspawn.

She's possibly wracked up a massive body count, so I think one Pride Demon that's severely weakened isn't going to be much of a problem if she's got people she can rely on.

[quote]
Despite the fact we don’t know how strong it is[/quote]

Oh but we do. Marethari in the short story herself says that it wasn't a threat due to being bound in the statue. We have lore that tells us when a Demon is in the mortal world and hasn't possessed a host, their power falls considerably.

[quote]
, if it can force her to the Fade[/quote]

It can't. It doesn't have that much power. 

[quote]
or even just convince her through words alone.[/quote]

She goes there with the express purpose of not freeing it, but simply talking to it.

And I really doubt Hawke would even have let her free it, if that's what it was trying to do. You'd have to cast a spell on it, and it'd be obvious if it was trying to ask for its freedom.










[quote]Merril placed herself and everyone around her in danger the moment she started going to demons for help. [/quote]

So then why in the hell couldn't the clan have destroyed the Demon after Merrill cleansed the shard? Why couldn't they have gone "Hmmm... the shard's cleansed, but the demon's a threat" and killed the thing?

Take in the whole clan, the First, and the Keeper along with Hawke and friends and take the thing down. Why didn't they do that?

Oh right... that'd make too much sense. That'd actually be the logical course of action if you wanted to deal with the Demon.









[quote]She would never have freed it If Merril hadn’t walked right into the demon’s trap and was about to free it herself.[/quote]

Alright, give me undeniable, irrefutable fact the Eluvians are gateways for Demons to escape from.

Give me some proof. Not speculation, cold hard facts. Because I can hand you proof -- that you have constantly ignored because it defeats your argument -- that the Eluvians aren't gateways for Demons to use.


[quote]
Wouldn’t she? I’m not so sure, she herself says recovering that piece of lore is worth any risk[/quote]

So long as the price paid was her life. She says that the risks and consequences were to fall on her, no one else. If someone did end up dying from her research, it was to be her.

Her purpose on researching the Eluvian was always to save her clan. Killing them to save them is a massive flaw in logic that it's the same level as Marethari's flawed reasoning.

Additionally, she's very reluctant to even kill the Keeper. And if you say any one of the two options that prompts the clan to choose to attack you, I'm pretty sure she tries to get them to stand down because she doesn't want them to fight her and she doesn't want to fight them.

Never mind, she doesn't say anything -- which I consider to be a pretty big flaw, because it's obviously going to affect her. She cared for the clan a great deal, as Mirror Image shows us.

But I noticed that Ineria sees fit to blame Merrill for the Demon's presence entirely, saying "There would never have been a Demon if it weren't for this little flat-eared ****". That completely ignores how Marethari was the one that investigated the Demon in the first place and how the Demon has always been there.

Never mind that the clan sees fit to blame Merrill for all their misfortunes, despite Merrill not being the one that kept them there for 7 years -- as that was Marethari's doing -- and also having left the clan, thereby having no ties to them anymore.






[quote]. Placing guards wouldn’t have been enough, anyway. Merril would just keep trying to get in or attempt other methods of communication.[/quote]

There were only two methods of communication with it -- and I use the word communication loosely, as there's only one method a Mage could talk back to it:

1) When asleep, where the Demon will contact a Mage if said mage is close enough to the demon. Merrill was miles away from the demon, and when she was at the base of the mountain in the short story she could just barely hear it -- but the farther up she went, the louder it got.

2) Up close and personal with it, talking to it while it's trapped in a statue.

As it was sundered from the Fade, talking to it there wasn't an option.

[quote]

Blood Magic tends to corrupt, however, that was not what I referring to. Merril was on the verge of releasing a demon that was going to possess her.[/quote]

Which wasn't anywhere in that part of the post you quoted, so why you saw fit to mention it there boggles the mind. Here's what I wrote:

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Oh? I'd argue that the phylacteries as a subset of the Circle system helped to breed the very fear Mages will have and the very desperation that some Mages will go to, in order to stay away from oppressive Circles.

Not saying they shouldn't be used -- they should be. They're useful -- but I am saying that I don't think they're being properly used.[/quote]

And your reason for disagreeing was irrelevant to this.


[quote]
Jowan practiced blood magic inside the Circle and then left books detailing how to summon demons around a mage child[/quote]

Um... no. Jowan didn't leave any books on how to summon a demon near Connor. That is never stated in-game. In fact, it's the complete opposite. Connor contacted the Demon in his dreams, hence why the option to go into the Fade -- where it's said the Demon first made contact with Connor and controls him from -- is there.

And I'm sorely tempted to believe Uldred manipulated Jowan into practicing blood magic, so as to snitch on him -- as he did often -- and not only improve his own standing amongst the Circle but hide his own status as a maleficar from them. There's evidence to support this theory, though not enough to prove it as such.

[quote]
. The man is an idiot[/quote]

Not really. Origins says differently.


[quote] ]
Being intelligent does not preclude being naïve. Her naivety is her belief that she could play a demon.
[/quote]

Intelligence more often then not does preclude naivete. Intelligence relies on wisdom, which is based on experiences in the world.

Or that's been my experience, really. So I'm either lucky or right. I'll go with lucky.

And Merrill's seen many times that you can in fact play a demon.

She even knows how to safely protect herself from them -- saying in the Fade when recognizing Torpor as a Sloth Demon to think active thoughts -- and knew full well how to play Audacity, considering his predicament was one easily dealt with.


[quote]
Clearly, there was. Demons can use it as a pathway to the physical world.[/quote]

Um, first off, no they can't. Morrigan proves this assumption wrong.

Secondly, Audacity's already in the physical world. And he's trapped there.

[quote]
More on Marethari’s research later.[/quote]

No, I'd like to see it now please.








[quote]I never claimed Merril was unintelligent. But the Eluvians are a forgotten piece of lore. Researching it wouldn’t have been easy and we know for sure she didn’t know everything since she couldn’t complete it. Merril never denied the possibility the demon could use the Eluvian for its purposes. She simply argued she had taken precautions.[/quote]

But Morrigan's statements prove that Demons can't use Eluvians for their purposes, because Morrigan did in fact research the Eluvian.


[quote]
Not only is Urthemiel a god[/quote]

An untrained god infant, whose powers have not yet come into being. Morrigan will say she needs to train him. And he's still a baby -- just with the soul of an Old God. He needs to be fed, changed, cared for, etc.

And you can sleep with her and she'll have a normal kid -- assuming you sent someone else to die and imported your Warden -- and she'll still have tossed him into the other side of the portal.

So... yea. The place beyond the Eluvians must be safe if Morrigan felt content to send a baby that isn't an OGB across to the other side.








[quote], we don’t know what precautions Morrigan took while using the mirrors[/quote]

And you also don't know that Merrill didn't know these same precautions. But we know that Demons didn't start pouring out of Morrigan's Eluvian, supporting that Demons have no part in the Eluvians as gateways and supporting Morrigan's comments on the subject.


[quote]
. She is deliberately vague about it and we cane extrapolate much from her words.[/quote]

No you can't. She's pretty clear on the Eluvians.

[quote]
So, the Eluvian leads to a place beyond Thedas and the Fade? Do all Eluvians point in the same direction (Arlathan?) or was that one simply focused on that particular place?[/quote]

Considering that the Tevinter Magisters used blood magic on the Eluvians and could only use them as fancy telephones -- as Finn tells us -- and Morrigan says many things to point to them all being only able to act as portals beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade, I'm inclined to say they all point in the same direction, as that was their purpose beyond the communication aspect.

I assume you know what this is. I have gone to great lengths to find this portal -- Morrigan

She says she found "this portal". Not "I have gone to great lengths to make this portal". That says that they all lead to the same place -- beyond Thedas and the Fade.

The Warden then asks...
 
Warden: The Eluvians are portals? To where? (note the plural usage)
Morrigan: To another place, beyond this world and beyond the Fade.

She doesn't deny the question that they all lead there. By her comments, she confirms they all lead there.

She then says "But this portal can only be used once more", telling us that the particular Eluvian she had been near only had enough strength to be used... well... once more.

She's not claiming what she's done is unique by saying "my portal" or anything of the sort. By saying this, that says that the other Eluvians are portals beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade.











[quote]Does it go through Thedas and the Fade to reach that place?[/quote]

She says it goes beyond Thedas and the Fade, indicating that it bypasses them entirely. She didn't say it goes through them to reach another plane. 









[quote]And later she claimed that the demon could have used the Eluvian to escape. Your are willing to believe her only when it suits your vision of what happened.[/quote]

And you're willing to not believe other people when it suits your vision of what would happen.

If there was any truth to Marethari's claims, it should've been presented in any of the 7 years prior. If there was truth to her claims, she wouldn't have told me after she became an Abomination, and instead would've told me when I informed her of Merrill's intentions in Act 3.

Instead, her comments are "Hawke, please keep her busy."

She couldn't have said "Hawke, I need to have a word with you. I found this out earlier this week"

There are literally dozens of ways the information she says in Act 3 could've been presented better and actually made her seem credible, but she chose to go with the one way that actually makes her information unreliable at best.











[quote]This is a fair point. However, at which point did Marethari claim that they couldn’t even study the Eluvians? The impression I got was that she considered rebuilding the one that killed Tamlen too dangerous.[/quote]

In both DAO and DAII she labels them all as evil and needing to be set aside.


 







[quote]You can’t kill a statue. But if you killed Marethari, the demon would die with her.[/quote]

You can leave it in the statue. Or you can bind it to a wolf. Or better yet, a bug. Then crush the damn thing under your foot.

If Zathrian could bind a spirit of the Forest to a wolf and folklore states that Rage Demons will possess wolves and/or trees, I see no reason why binding a demon to a bug and crushing it underfoot isn't a viable option.



[quote] I never denied what she did was dangerous. I simply believe Merril’s action forced her down this path.
[/quote]

Merrill didn't hold a gun to Marethari's head and force her to become an Abomination. That was an act of Marethari's choosing.









[quote]Oh no, Merril herself makes the claim demons are just spirits who embody a different emotion[/quote]

Well, I wasn't refuting that. She says Demons are spirits just as much as Spirits are spirits, 'tis true.


[quote]. Anders and Justice count. Most abominations are exactly talkative.
Anders became one with Justice and was able to feel everything the spirit felt and know its thoughts. When Marethari became one with the demon, she could have learned its plan.[/quote]

That's exactly why I said "Not Spirits who possibly became Demons". Anders is a very different type of Abomination.

For the record, Wynne is the same type of Abomination as Anders -- more or less -- and she can't tell what the Spirit of Faith inside her is thinking.

Unless Asunder said differently.

Oh and as Xilizhra pointed out, Audacity is fully capable of imitating the Keeper's body, voice, speech, and mannerisms perfectly. So that's another reason why Marethari the Abomination is unreliable.

Claiming to still be in control doesn't mean Marethari really was in control.









[quote]I would argue that “Don’t consort with demons” fits into the same category as “Don’t stick your hand in a fire.” Either way, you’re only going to get burned.[/quote]

She only met with Audacity twice, and talked with him once or twice.

Anyway, had she gone into specifics on why that was a bad idea -- instead of just basically saying her argument is "common sense". Because when dealing with demons, situations are always different so specifics are always useful -- before going full blown Abomination, that'd have been better.










[quote]And why not simply pretend everything was fine from the beginning? Invent some story of how Marethari destroyed it. It would be smarter than letting your foes know exactly where you are.[/quote]

Wouldn't work. Mages can sense if a Demon is in someone. Merrill says that Keran's blood has no traces of demons in it because she's a blood mage -- meaning a sulphur smell -- and Anders says that any possessed person would defend itself against attacks.




[quote]
No, Merril was the manipulated one and was building a back door for the demon to escape its prison. She should never have gone to the demon for advice in the first place.[/quote]

Your only evidence to support your "Eluvian trap" theory is an Abomination, whose credibility is... well... not reliable.










[quote]Nothing would force the demon to live peacefully with the dalish waiting for Merril if it had already possessed a mage.[/quote]

Oh? Perhaps it was influencing the clan. Or perhaps it was secretly building an army of corpses using Sundermount's graves and acting as if it was still the Keeper.

There are a myriad of reasons why it would feign to be the Keeper and live peacefully, if it meant increasing its chances of succeeding at what it wanted.


[quote]

She was schooled into blood magic and (partially) Eluvian lore by it.[/quote]

Actually no. Blood magic's fundamentals yes. The Eluvian, no. That much was Merrill.


[quote]
Your suggestion that Marethari was subtly manipulated for seven years would require evidence of her having spoken to it more than once. At worst, the demon could whisper into her dreams but if it did do so, it could have convinced her to free it much sooner[/quote]

First, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Second, We know the Demon can whisper to Mages at the base of the mountain, and the farther away a person is the harder it is to hear it. Merrill was miles away, while Marethari remained in the same place for years and years.

Third, Marethari was the only Mage in a position of power, influence, and pride on Sundermount.

Fourth, there's a reason subtle manipulation is subtle. It's not a blatant "Come free me you old harpy!". It's leading up to it. That demon has been trapped for centuries and centuries. I'm certain if he had to wait a few more years to free itself by subtly manipulating an old crone that's powerful, influential, and prideful then he'd be content with that.


[quote], it didn’t need to wait until Merril had nearly finished the mirror.
Unless the mirror was its way out.[/quote]

Except Merrill's mirror wasn't finished. And it still got its way out.



[quote]
She is wiser and older than Merril and had an unique insight into the demon's mind at that point so, yes, I am more more willing to believe in what she says than the girl who thinks asking a demon for help is a good idea.
[/quote]

She's 115 years old by the time of her death. I'm inclined to believe her mental faculties started deteriorating, given that she went Abomination without even doing anything sensible prior to it.

Age does not make someone right. I've had people older then me tell me things that were so incredibly wrong I wanted to do a headdesk.

Only I lacked the desk at the time.

And again, as Xilizhra stated Audacity was able to perfectly imitate Marethari -- and so could "Uldred" and the Baroness to their respective possessees -- so I see even more reason to believe that what was told to us isn't true at all.

Interestingly enough, all of the demons that could perfectly mimic their victim were Demons of Pride. Whereas other Abominations we see -- like Connor, or Evelina, or the Sloth Abomination -- happen to have distorted voices and/or distorted bodies.

Oh and this:

[quote]Xilizhra wrote...

I see no evidence of wisdom in any of her dealings with Merrill, just overwhelming pride and a burning urge to not be proven wrong by an apprentice.[/quote]

I agree with this a lot.


[quote]
It happened and proves Merril has had contact with demons beyond Audacity.[/quote]

Or it was Audacity, since blood magic is tied to the physical realm and not the Fade and Audacity exists purely in the physical realm now, sundered from the Fade and with severely diminished power.

But even then, it still seems to be breaking lore. Blood magic's very description in DAII says it's tied to the physical and not Demons, so why a Demon was involved is... mind boggling.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 21 juillet 2012 - 05:57 .

[DPSSOC]

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


[quote], a plan that Merril (so far as I remember) does not claim was impossible, is also true.[/quote]
And yet Morrigan will flat out state in Witch Hunt where the Eluvians lead. The woman who has done much research into the Eluvians, with a tome dedicated to the Eluvians. A tome that Ariane's clan treasured.

So... yeah. The demon lied. We have valid proof of where the Eluvians lead.[/quote]

Can lead.  To be fair Morrigan never states that the Eluvian can't be made to go elsewhere.  There are plenty of reasons she wouldn't say all the places an Eluvian can go.  Then there's also the possibility of retconning, never underestimate the retcon.  When Tamlen looks into the Eluvian in Origins he sees the black city which we know to be in the Fade.  Unless it's a universal constant, a single point existing simultaneously in all layers of reality, which would make me wonder where it is in the Prime Material for lack of a better term.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
[quote]
Merril had already endangered all you mentioned the minute she started repairing the Eluvian on the words of a demon.[/quote]

Morrigan worked on an Eluvian as well. I suppose that means Morrigan was wrong too, despite Morrigan having done her research. [/quote]

Again in the interest of fairness it's never suggested Morrigan worked with a demon on her Eluvian, and she had a lot more to work with.  Also Morrigan seems a bit brighter than Merril.  Also Morrigan wasn't putting anyone at risk but herself (and the child I suppose who would be motherless if she perished).

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


[quote]Oh, her actions were dangerous, no doubt about it. But more dangerous were Merril's who thought she could play with a demon.[/quote]
People in Thedas can trick a Demon. Hawke can play the Hunger Demon in the Deep Roads and Torpor, the Warden can play Kitty, Duncan, and Mouse.[/quote]

Can we really claim to have "played" Mouse or Duncan?  We didn't fall for their tricks but it's not like we tricked them in turn.  Mouse's plan was always to help you beat Rage and then try and hitch a ride out, you just didn't fall for it.  Simillarly Duncan's plan was to keep you placid until you die and when you don't fall for it he attempts to outright murder you.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
[quote]
or even just convince her through words alone.[/quote]

She goes there with the express purpose of not freeing it, but simply talking to it.[/quote]

And can you say in all certainty that if the demon said, "Free me or no dice." she wouldn't have done it?  At least considered it?

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
And I really doubt Hawke would even have let her free it, if that's what it was trying to do. You'd have to cast a spell on it, and it'd be obvious if it was trying to ask for its freedom.[/quote]

Hawke?  Stand by while someone does something obviously stupid or evil?  Never

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
[quote] ]
Being intelligent does not preclude being naïve. Her naivety is her belief that she could play a demon.
[/quote]

Intelligence more often then not does preclude naivete.[/quote]
 
As an observer of people there's actually no direct correlation between intelligence and naivete.  Naivete comes from a lack or world experience and/or a trusting nature, both of which Merril has in spades.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Intelligence relies on wisdom, which is based on experiences in the world.[/quote]

As someone who lives within spitting distance of two Universities and has worked with numerous PHD's no it really doesn't.  I've met a tonne of really smart morons.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


[quote]And why not simply pretend everything was fine from the beginning? Invent some story of how Marethari destroyed it. It would be smarter than letting your foes know exactly where you are.[/quote]Wouldn't work. Mages can sense if a Demon is in someone. Merrill says that Keran's blood has no traces of demons in it because she's a blood mage -- meaning a sulphur smell -- and Anders says that any possessed person would defend itself against attacks.[/quote]

Yeah I wouldn't mention Anders test it's kinda stupid.  Especially considering Cullen was beating the crap out of Wilmod for a considerable amount of time before he went demony.  Also Merril needed to take Kerran's blood to tell if there was a demon, I don't see that as being a regular thing among the Dalish, "Hello Marethari, how are you doing, let me smell your blood."  So one test is really dependent on the demon being an animalistic or instinctual entity and the other requires you to bleed somebody, I'm pretty sure Audacity could have flown under the radar if it wanted to.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
[quote]
It happened and proves Merril has had contact with demons beyond Audacity.[/quote]

Or it was Audacity, since blood magic is tied to the physical realm and not the Fade and Audacity exists purely in the physical realm now, sundered from the Fade and with severely diminished power.

But even then, it still seems to be breaking lore. Blood magic's very description in DAII says it's tied to the physical and not Demons, so why a Demon was involved is... mind boggling.[/quote]

Perhaps the power needed to lower the barrier was more than she could draw from herself safely so, not wanting to impose on her guests, she used blood magic to funnel a demon's (not necessarily Audacity) power through the fade without letting the demon through.

[TEWR]

DPSSOC wrote...

When Tamlen looks into the Eluvian in Origins he sees the black city which we know to be in the Fade

He actually sees an underground city.

DPSSOC wrote...

Also Morrigan wasn't putting anyone at risk but herself (and the child I suppose who would be motherless if she perished).

And Merrill wasn't putting anyone at risk but herself (and Hawke and friends). The clan chose to stay in that exact spot for years and years, never moving even inches away from the mountain.

DPSSOC wrote...

Can we really claim to have "played" Mouse or Duncan? We didn't fall for their tricks but it's not like we tricked them in turn. Mouse's plan was always to help you beat Rage and then try and hitch a ride out, you just didn't fall for it. Simillarly Duncan's plan was to keep you placid until you die and when you don't fall for it he attempts to outright murder you.

Duncan I'll concede, but I'll say that for Mouse you could have told him you'd help him escape -- knowing full well who he was -- but actually lied to him, thus gaining his support against the Rage Demon without being a ******.

DPSSOC wrote...

And can you say in all certainty that if the demon said, "Free me or no dice." she wouldn't have done it? At least considered it?

Yes. Merrill was going there with the purpose of not freeing it to further her own project. We don't even know if she knew the particular spell needed to free Audacity. All we know is that the Keeper knew it and that Merrill knew a powerful spell was needed, as it was the only way.

I trust in Merrill's assertions, because she's shown time and again that she's willing to do the research on matters of importance.

DPSSOC wrote...

Hawke? Stand by while someone does something obviously stupid or evil? Never

LOL.

Surprisingly though, when his companions are at risk he will demonstrate some actual intelligence. Or can, depending on what choices are available.

Main plot wise, then he becomes a person with the intelligence of a pile of bricks, where even Sandal is more intelligent then him.

DPSSOC wrote...

Also Merril needed to take Kerran's blood to tell if there was a demon, I don't see that as being a regular thing among the Dalish, "Hello Marethari, how are you doing, let me smell your blood." So one test is really dependent on the demon being an animalistic or instinctual entity and the other requires you to bleed somebody, I'm pretty sure Audacity could have flown under the radar if it wanted to.

Ah, but do we know that Marethari came out completely unscathed before the battle, with no blood dripping at all? Becoming an Abomination seems to be a painful thing for people -- Uldred screamed after all, as did the people he tortured -- so there's no reason we can't think that Marethari's becoming an Abomination was painful to her.

Indeed, Keran will say that the Desire Demon they tried to put into him was clawing at his back.

Additionally, Merrill says she can sense the statue feels empty. If she can sense the Demon's presence -- or lack of it -- then there's no reason she can't also sense it's presence in its new prison -- the ****** Keeper.

DPSSOC wrote...

Especially considering Cullen was beating the crap out of Wilmod for a considerable amount of time before he went demony

Actually, when you arrive it seems that Cullen hasn't hit Wilmod at all yet. It's only when Hawke steps in on the scene does Wilmod take a beating, where he then turns into his Shade form.

DPSSOC wrote...

Also Morrigan seems a bit brighter than Merril

I consider them both to be equal in intelligence. Both have little to no experience with the outside world -- Morrigan, despite her protests saying otherwise, doesn't understand society -- and both are expert practitioners of the arcane.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 21 juillet 2012 - 04:37 .

[DPSSOC]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...
When Tamlen looks into the Eluvian in Origins he sees the black city which we know to be in the Fade

He actually sees an underground city.

I always heard underground as a question, he couldn't place where it was it just didn't look like outside.  Add to that the sense of a pressence looking at him and being unable to look away (blasted fool of a Took) and the sudden explosion of the taint and I always concluded he was looking into the Black City, the source of it.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...
Also Morrigan wasn't putting anyone at risk but herself (and the child I suppose who would be motherless if she perished).

And Merrill wasn't putting anyone at risk but herself (and Hawke and friends). The clan chose to stay in that exact spot for years and years, never moving even inches away from the mountain.

And what about the city a few miles away?  Merril acknowledges that the demon getting out and possessing her, when she goes to meet it, is a possibility.  Not to mention all the time she spent working on it inside Kirkwall where if something had gone wrong, as things are want to do in Kirkwall, she was smack dab in the middle of a population center.

Say what you will about Morrigan's callousness towards other people she kept her work far away from anybody.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...
And can you say in all certainty that if the demon said, "Free me or no dice." she wouldn't have done it? At least considered it?

Yes. Merrill was going there with the purpose of not freeing it to further her own project. We don't even know if she knew the particular spell needed to free Audacity. All we know is that the Keeper knew it and that Merrill knew a powerful spell was needed, as it was the only way.

I trust in Merrill's assertions, because she's shown time and again that she's willing to do the research on matters of importance.

I know she wasn't going there to free it, and in fact had no intention of doing so, but keep in mind what that mirror means to her.  It's literally all she has, unless romanced, and on a friendship path at least she's refusing to leave her home because of it.  She's desperate to get it to work, to prove that the clan was wrong and do something good for them even if she can't go back.  Can you honestly say that if the only way to get the knowledge to make the mirror work was to free Audacity she wouldn't do it?

[Xilizhra]

I always heard underground as a question, he couldn't place where it was it just didn't look like outside. Add to that the sense of a pressence looking at him and being unable to look away (blasted fool of a Took) and the sudden explosion of the taint and I always concluded he was looking into the Black City, the source of it.

If it is the Black City, there's no proof of it actually being in the Fade. You can see it, of course, but you can never actually reach it; it's entirely possible that it's the visible representation of a different entity entirely.

And what about the city a few miles away? Merril acknowledges that the demon getting out and possessing her, when she goes to meet it, is a possibility. Not to mention all the time she spent working on it inside Kirkwall where if something had gone wrong, as things are want to do in Kirkwall, she was smack dab in the middle of a population center.

That's why she begged Hawke to come along and said "I can't do this on my own." It's not like she was just going to let the risk dangle there. And in Kirkwall itself, the Eluvian is completely inert; also, things only go seriously wrong once every three years, and none of them have been about inanimate objects going bad.

I know she wasn't going there to free it, and in fact had no intention of doing so, but keep in mind what that mirror means to her. It's literally all she has, unless romanced, and on a friendship path at least she's refusing to leave her home because of it. She's desperate to get it to work, to prove that the clan was wrong and do something good for them even if she can't go back. Can you honestly say that if the only way to get the knowledge to make the mirror work was to free Audacity she wouldn't do it?

I will honestly say so, yes. I suspect another reason Hawke is there is to provide a balancing influence in case of another shot of mind control like with what happened in the Fade.

[Plaintiff]

We can argue all day about whether Merrill would've or could've freed Audactiy from his prison, but that doesn't really matter, surely? The fact that she placed her trust in him was foolish enough to begin with.

All these arguments are predicated on the presupposition that a) Audacity even knows what an Eluvian is and how to fix it and that he's been honest with Merrill in all their prior dealings.

Merrill could very well have wasted seven years of her life and taken countless stupid risks repairing a mundane mirror that possesses none of the properties of an Eluvian. Or worse, the blood magic Audacity has taught her in fact converts the Eluvian into a portal for powerful demons to cross over into the material world.

Merrill has no real knowldge of what an Eluvian is or does, how would she ever know if it was working or not? She's done no research on the Eluvian. How could she possibly have? Marethari is just as ignorant as her. The only two known books dealing with the subject are far away from her: one with Ariane's clan, the other in the Ferelden Circle Tower. Even if Merrill had them in her possession, she can't read them. Even Dalish elves know only a very little of the language of their ancestors.

Best case scenario, Merrill has a new looking glass. Worst case scenario, she unleashes unspeakable horror through a tear in the fabric of space/time.

I fully support Merrill's pursuit of lost knowledge, I think her goal is worthy. I take issue with her ill-considered shortcut that may have sent her down the wrong path completely.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 21 juillet 2012 - 03:49 .

[dragonflight288]

Plaintiff wrote...

We can argue all day about whether Merrill would've or could've freed Audactiy from his prison, but that doesn't really matter, surely? The fact that she placed her trust in him was foolish enough to begin with.

All these arguments are predicated on the presupposition that a) Audacity even knows what an Eluvian is and how to fix it and that he's been honest with Merrill in all their prior dealings.

Merrill could very well have wasted seven years of her life and taken countless stupid risks repairing a mundane mirror that possesses none of the properties of an Eluvian. Or worse, the blood magic Audacity has taught her in fact converts the Eluvian into a portal for powerful demons to cross over into the material world.

Merrill has no real knowldge of what an Eluvian is or does, how would she ever know if it was working or not? She's done no research on the Eluvian. How could she possibly have? Marethari is just as ignorant as her. The only two known books dealing with the subject are far away from her: one with Ariane's clan, the other in the Ferelden Circle Tower. Even if Merrill had them in her possession, she cant' read them. Even Dalish elves know only a very little of the language of their ancestors.

Best case scenario, Merrill has a new looking glass. Worst case scenario, she unleashes unspeakable horror through a tear in the fabric of space/time.

Or Merrill could restore a part of Arlathan. If that happens all the clans could easily communicate with each other. The clan on sundermount probably could've gotten halla from another clan quickly because they could communicate almost instantaneously.

You have a point that we don't know. But what we do know is that Merethari got possessed, told no one about it, and became a threat to everyone around her. Merrill did not.

[Plaintiff]

dragonflight288 wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

We can argue all day about whether Merrill would've or could've freed Audactiy from his prison, but that doesn't really matter, surely? The fact that she placed her trust in him was foolish enough to begin with.

All these arguments are predicated on the presupposition that a) Audacity even knows what an Eluvian is and how to fix it and that he's been honest with Merrill in all their prior dealings.

Merrill could very well have wasted seven years of her life and taken countless stupid risks repairing a mundane mirror that possesses none of the properties of an Eluvian. Or worse, the blood magic Audacity has taught her in fact converts the Eluvian into a portal for powerful demons to cross over into the material world.

Merrill has no real knowldge of what an Eluvian is or does, how would she ever know if it was working or not? She's done no research on the Eluvian. How could she possibly have? Marethari is just as ignorant as her. The only two known books dealing with the subject are far away from her: one with Ariane's clan, the other in the Ferelden Circle Tower. Even if Merrill had them in her possession, she cant' read them. Even Dalish elves know only a very little of the language of their ancestors.

Best case scenario, Merrill has a new looking glass. Worst case scenario, she unleashes unspeakable horror through a tear in the fabric of space/time.

Or Merrill could restore a part of Arlathan. If that happens all the clans could easily communicate with each other. The clan on sundermount probably could've gotten halla from another clan quickly because they could communicate almost instantaneously.

You have a point that we don't know. But what we do know is that Merethari got possessed, told no one about it, and became a threat to everyone around her. Merrill did not.

They wouldn't be able to communicate, because no other clan possesses an Eluvian.

I'm not defending what Marethari did. She was a fool. But Merrill was not much better in that regard, and she could've spared herself a lot of pain simply by not 'cheating'.

She could've gone about fixing the Eluvian in a legitimate way. It would've been incredibly painstaking work, and she might never have completed it, but it would be preferable to the current situation, where we'll likely never know whether she was on the right track, or if Audacity had led her up the garden path.

[Fallstar]

Plaintiff wrote...
t possessed, told no one about it, and became a threat to everyone around her. Merrill did not.
They wouldn't be able to communicate, because no other clan possesses an Eluvian.

I'm not defending what Marethari did. She was a fool. But Merrill was not much better in that regard, and she could've spared herself a lot of pain simply by not 'cheating'.

She could've gone about fixing the Eluvian in a legitimate way. It would've been incredibly painstaking work, and she might never have completed it, but it would be preferable to the current situation, where we'll likely never know whether she was on the right track, or if Audacity had led her up the garden path.

It'd be interesting if we knew how Morrigan fixed her Eluvian. Whatever Morrigan did to it, she didn't fully restore it, just enough for a single use. And she noted that however she did it, it took a lot of effort to do so. 

For Merril, is the only 'legitimate' way not acquiring large amounts of lyrium? Which has just been established to highly unlikely to impossible for an elf, never mind a Dalish? There is no practical way Merril could have done so without using blood magic.

Modifié par DuskWarden, 21 juillet 2012 - 09:56 .

[Xilizhra]

Audacity was not, IIRC, directing the reconstruction of the Eluvian; it just gave Merrill the ability to use blood magic to cleanse that shard, and Merrill didn't return to it until years later for the final piece. Merrill did assemble the Eluvian through her own knowledge, and the shortcut was only a once-used, twice-considered emergency measure.

[LobselVith8]

Plaintiff wrote...

We can argue all day about whether Merrill would've or could've freed Audactiy from his prison, but that doesn't really matter, surely? The fact that she placed her trust in him was foolish enough to begin with.

Except we know that Merrill studied the lore and extrapolated information from the shard, so it isn't as though Merrill was working from Audacity's blueprints or anything like that; she clearly did plenty of research on her own in her attempt to build an Eluvian from a single shard. All we know is that Audacity taught her blood magic, because she lacked the sufficient amount of lyrium necessary to cleanse the shard with standard magic.

Plaintiff wrote...

All these arguments are predicated on the presupposition that a) Audacity even knows what an Eluvian is and how to fix it and that he's been honest with Merrill in all their prior dealings.

The fact that Merrill acknowledges that "all spirits are dangerous" already addresses that she isn't unaware of the danger that any denizen of the Fade poses. It was a risk, and Merrill made that abundantly clear to Hawke. However, Audacity showed Merrill and Marethari that it was there during the early days, when Arlathan was a kingdom and the Eluvians were used by the ancient elves, so it was a risk. Since spirits would be the only sentient lifeforms capable of living that long, there was a chance that Audacity did see the construction of an Eluvian by Merrill's ancestors.

Plaintiff wrote...

Merrill could very well have wasted seven years of her life and taken countless stupid risks repairing a mundane mirror that possesses none of the properties of an Eluvian. Or worse, the blood magic Audacity has taught her in fact converts the Eluvian into a portal for powerful demons to cross over into the material world.

Merrill was building an Eluvian from the cleansed shard she took from the Elven Ruins in Ferelden, and she did plenty of research about them.

As for building a portal, there doesn't seem to be any indication that any spirit can bestow knowledge to a mage for the creation of a portal into the Fade (for spirits to enter the mortal plane). There's no indication that an Eluvian's construction could be manipulated or altered from its original destination into entering the Fade. There is no precedent for this in the lore. There are no mages in Thedas trying to construct Stargates into the Fade.

Furthermore, what purpose would it serve the imprisoned Audacity to create a doorway into the Fade when it is sundered from the Fade and imprisoned in a totem in the mortal plane? I honestly don't see this as a likely scenerio, especially since blood magic is about the physical plane (as the lore points out), which is why some mages turn to blood magic.

Plaintiff wrote...

Merrill has no real knowldge of what an Eluvian is or does, how would she ever know if it was working or not? She's done no research on the Eluvian. How could she possibly have?

The developers - Gaider included - have said that Merrill "studied the lore" and "extrapolated information from the shard," so she clearly does possess knowledge about this elven technology because the developers acknowledged that she did.

Plaintiff wrote...

Marethari is just as ignorant as her. The only two known books dealing with the subject are far away from her: one with Ariane's clan, the other in the Ferelden Circle Tower. Even if Merrill had them in her possession, she can't read them. Even Dalish elves know only a very little of the language of their ancestors.

If the developers mentioned Merrill studied the lore about the Eluvian, there was clearly some books about the subject for her to puruse.

Plaintiff wrote...

Best case scenario, Merrill has a new looking glass. Worst case scenario, she unleashes unspeakable horror through a tear in the fabric of space/time.

Best case scenerio, the Eluvian becomes a doorway "beyond this World, and beyond the Fade." Worse case scenerio, Marethari does something incredibly foolish that endangers her entire clan.

Plaintiff wrote...

I fully support Merrill's pursuit of lost knowledge, I think her goal is worthy. I take issue with her ill-considered shortcut that may have sent her down the wrong path completely.

Merrill is the most informed person about the Eluvian in the narrative of Dragon Age II, and probably only second to Morrigan in all the games. Marethari's arguments are all about her assumptions; Merrill wants to pursue a course of action based on her research and study of the ancient technology in question.

[TEWR]

DPSSOC wrote...

I always heard underground as a question, he couldn't place where it was it just didn't look like outside.  Add to that the sense of a pressence looking at him and being unable to look away (blasted fool of a Took) and the sudden explosion of the taint and I always concluded he was looking into the Black City, the source of it.

I always got the impression that the Black City wasn't covered in darkness, but was just blackened. Meaning you can tell the difference between a blackened city and a city devoid of light, which the Fade has. Though Tamlen does say he sees a great blackness. Then again, he also says he's being shown places -- plural usage, indicating that he's seeing a great many places.

Additionally, if it was the Black City then what was the presence? Is the Taint a living entity? Perhaps so, given Malvernis. But I'm not so certain that's the case.

I got the feeling that what he saw was Arlathan, the great Elvhen city that was cast into the bowels of the earth by the Magister Lords of the ancient Imperium.

And what about the city a few miles away?  Merril acknowledges that the demon getting out and possessing her, when she goes to meet it, is a possibility.  Not to mention all the time she spent working on it inside Kirkwall where if something had gone wrong, as things are want to do in Kirkwall, she was smack dab in the middle of a population center.

Say what you will about Morrigan's callousness towards other people she kept her work far away from anybody.

That's why Merrill brought Hawke to the mountaintop. If she were to get possessed by meeting with him there -- something she considers possible, however unlikely it may have been -- Hawke was supposed to kill her to prevent any damage from being done.

Additionally, I'm sure if Merrill saw a demon coming through her Eluvian -- something that has no real basis towards it -- she'd be smart enough to smash the mirror because she saw what was happening.

Or Hawke would conveniently show up.

I know she wasn't going there to free it, and in fact had no intention of doing so, but keep in mind what that mirror means to her.  It's literally all she has, unless romanced, and on a friendship path at least she's refusing to leave her home because of it.

As you said, it's only all she has if she isn't romanced. If she's romanced, Hawke becomes the most important thing to her.

That said, she's also not foolish. Remember after Night Terrors -- the quest that mind controls the companions into doing things that are out of character -- she immediately says that Demons' words are rarely upheld.

She's in the advantageous position with Audacity. He's trapped. She's not. If she freed him, there's nothing stopping him from reneging on his deal. But if she refuses to free him without getting the information first, there's a chance -- a good chance -- that he might tell her, because if it meant his freedom would be earned he might do it.

And then she'd leave him there, because her mantra when dealing with Demons is to trick them before they trick you.

Plaintiff wrote...

Merrill could very well have wasted seven years of her life and taken countless stupid risks repairing a mundane mirror that possesses none of the properties of an Eluvian. Or worse, the blood magic Audacity has taught her in fact converts the Eluvian into a portal for powerful demons to cross over into the material world.

This is wrong on a few counts:

1) We know Merrill was working on a true Eluvian, as she tells us -- and WoG confirms -- that she picked up a shard from the Eluvian in the Dalish Elf Origin's ruins. Those same ruins were seen again in Witch Hunt, where it was also confirmed that they were Eluvian fragments.

2) We know that Merrill was taught the same healing magic Marethari knows -- per DAO -- and that this same magic was proven to be able to combat the Taint when in an unamplified state. Merrill simply used the power in her blood to amplify the power of her healing magic to cleanse the shard -- which game evidence proves to be right. As a result, we know Audacity only taught her the basic concepts of blood magic and not any particular spell, as Merrill says she could've achieved the same result through lyrium.

3) We know the Tevinter Magisters used blood magic on the Eluvians and were only able to unlock the communication aspect of it.

Plaintiff wrote...

Merrill has no real knowldge of what an Eluvian is or does, how would she ever know if it was working or not? She's done no research on the Eluvian.

Wrong. She has done her research -- Word of God confirms this -- and has used scraps of lore to help her in her efforts. She then extrapolated from said lore. She never used Audacity to help her repair the Eluvian, save for learning blood magic to cleanse the shard.

And she knows what most people who know about them know: they function as communication devices. She also says that she can sense the power in it, but the power in it isn't doing anything. So we can logically assume that she'd also be able to know when she got it to work.

Plaintiff wrote...

They wouldn't be able to communicate, because no other clan possesses an Eluvian.

She could work on building another one -- which would take less time to make, as she'd know how to do it -- and then send it to Hawke's Estate and give him a ring-a-ding-ding on the mirror to see if it'd work.

Then at the next Arlathvhen, she could hand some out to the clans.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 21 juillet 2012 - 09:34 .

[Plaintiff]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

This is wrong on a few counts:

1) We know Merrill was working on a true Eluvian, as she tells us -- and WoG confirms -- that she picked up a shard from the Eluvian in the Dalish Elf Origin's ruins. Those same ruins were seen again in Witch Hunt, where it was also confirmed that they were Eluvian fragments.

Right, but what I meant was that all we see is Merrill putting the pieces together gradually. There may be any number of spells and rituals needed to restore the Eluvian to its proper function that have not been performed (or at least, that we have not seen performed). An Eluvian that does not work as an Eluvian is just a mirror.

2) We know that Merrill was taught the same healing magic Marethari knows -- per DAO -- and that this same magic was proven to be able to combat the Taint when in an unamplified state. Merrill simply used the power in her blood to amplify the power of her healing magic to cleanse the shard -- which game evidence proves to be right. As a result, we know Audacity only taught her the basic concepts of blood magic and not any particular spell, as Merrill says she could've achieved the same result through lyrium.

That first part could've done with some in-game clarification, since Merrill doesn't display any knowledge of healing magic in DA2.

Blood as a power source is still dangerous and unstable, and we know it attracts demons. There's no telling how it would affect the construction of the Eluvian.

3) We know the Tevinter Magisters used blood magic on the Eluvians and were only able to unlock the communication aspect of it.

Do we? Well, that would be something, at least. But as I recall, that didn't turn out great for them either.

Wrong. She has done her research -- Word of God confirms this -- and has used scraps of lore to help her in her efforts. She then extrapolated from said lore. She never used Audacity to help her repair the Eluvian, save for learning blood magic to cleanse the shard.

That's... not really good enough. I'd need a direct quote from the writers explaining how Merrill acheived this in some detail. You can't just 'extrapolate' centuries of lost knowledge, that doesn't make any sense. You especially can't extrapolate accurately from myths which may not even be true.

And she knows what most people who know about them know: they function as communication devices. She also says that she can sense the power in it, but the power in it isn't doing anything. So we can logically assume that she'd also be able to know when she got it to work.

'Most people' out of the half-dozen who have ever heard of or encountered an Eluvian?

I don't think we can logically assume anything of the kind. The Ancient Tevinter magisters had vastly more knowledge than her and were only able to use them as communication devices, and even then something went wrong with at least one, and unleashed the Darkspawn Taint on that area. Merrill is working with much less than they had, it is not likely that she will fare much better than any of them. She will likely fare much worse.

She could work on building another one -- which would take less time to make, as she'd know how to do it -- and then send it to Hawke's Estate and give him a ring-a-ding-ding on the mirror to see if it'd work.

And if it doesn't? What then?

Modifié par Plaintiff, 22 juillet 2012 - 02:25 .

[TEWR]

Plaintiff wrote...

Right, but what I meant was that all we see is Merrill putting the pieces together gradually. There may be any number of spells and rituals needed to restore the Eluvian to its proper function that have not been performed (or at least, that we have not seen performed). An Eluvian that does not work as an Eluvian is just a mirror.

Ah, okay.

Yes, you have a point. That said, her being able to sense the power within it -- as she'll tell Hawke -- points to her having done things right. It needs activating and is still just a mirror -- something she'll jest about even -- but it seems she's on the right track.

Plaintiff wrote...

That first part could've done with some in-game clarification, since Merrill doesn't display any knowledge of healing magic in DA2.

I agree. As you only find out about it in DAO, it should've been mentioned in DAII as it's still applicable as lore and very much pertinent.

That said, the only aspect of healing magic she knows deals with her Dalish Pariah tree, which heals herself. Still, Marethari in DAO says that Merrill knows the same healing magic that helped Mahariel stay alive, so this should've been mentioned at some point in DAII. 

So I definitely agree that it needed a mention in DAII too.

Plaintiff wrote...

Blood as a power source is still dangerous and unstable, and we know it attracts demons. There's no telling how it would affect the construction of the Eluvian.

It only really attracts demons if you use particular spells that summon demons -- those that tear the Veil and summon them. Blood Magic itself doesn't rely on Demons or the Fade to power it, aside from Veil-tearing spells.

See the description of blood magic in DAII on the previous page.

Plaintiff wrote...

Do we? Well, that would be something, at least. But as I recall, that didn't turn out great for them either.

You recall incorrectly. The Eluvian in the Dalish Ruins isn't proven to have ever been in the possession of the Tevinter Imperium -- indeed, Duncan only says its a Tevinter artifact because of the history that the Tevinters did own them. -- and the ruins themselves point to Elves and Humans living in harmony with each other, just like the Arcane Warrior's phylactery indicates for the ruin we explore at Zathrian's behest.

So while some Eluvians were owned by the Tevinter Imperium after the fall of Arlathan, it's never stated in-game that the one in the ruins was ever one of those Eluvians.

Just as much, there's nothing in-game saying that owning the Eluvians was bad for them either. It's simply stated by Finn in Witch Hunt that the Magisters of the Imperium could only unlock the communication aspect.

Plaintiff wrote...

That's... not really good enough. I'd need a direct quote from the writers explaining how Merrill acheived this in some detail. You can't just 'extrapolate' centuries of lost knowledge, that doesn't make any sense. You especially can't extrapolate accurately from myths which may not even be true.

Who says that lore can only be a collection of myths? The Elves know the tale of Iloren, leader of a clan of Elves that managed to take down a large group of Darkspawn by using nature as his weapon.

And even if they were myths, you can extrapolate information from them, depending on just what they say. If it's simply fanciful prose, then you might not be able to. But if it's a myth on how they were built -- even fragmented -- you can take some information from it.

She has actual writing on the subject in her grasp. It's not stories she's extrapolating from. It's actual writing on the matter.

Here's the exact Gaider quote:

David Gaider wrote...

She just has the one shard. She incorporates it into the mirror she builds, extrapolating its construction both from the shard itself and what lore she's been able to collect.

Plaintiff wrote...

Most people' out of the half-dozen who have ever heard of or encountered an Eluvian?

I imagine that since Finn knew about them -- due to having a book on Elven phrases -- that a great deal of the Circle Mages know about it too.

Finn also knew a great deal about their history, indicating that the Circle has access to books that contain knowledge on the subject.

Basically, that we only meet a few people who know about it doesn't mean more people don't know about it. 

Certainly Tevinter would know about their communication aspects, considering their ancestors used them. The Circle Tower probably knows about them, given they have books on the matter. Ariane's clan is sure to know more about them, after the events of Witch Hunt.

Merrill and Morrigan -- as well as the Warden -- discover them and research them.

So we meet only 6 who know about them, but we can logically deduce that more people then we meet know about them.

Plaintiff wrote...

I don't think we can logically assume anything of the kind. The Ancient Tevinter magisters had vastly more knowledge than her and were only able to use them as communication devices, and even then something went wrong with at least one, and unleashed the Darkspawn Taint on that area

First: The ancient Magisters destroyed much of Arlathan's knowledge and society. Buildings, lore, history, mythos, magic, etc. Game evidence tells us this, as they suppressed much of the Elves' culture -- even making it illegal IIRC -- and thus the Elves had to rely on oral tradition or secretly writing down things.

They took some of the Eluvians without even an understanding of what they were, and thought that they could use their blood magic as well as the bones of dragons to unlock their power.

And they only got so far.

Second: That's only if you assume the Eluvian in the Ruins belonged to the Magisters of the Imperium, which is never stated to be true in-game for that particular Eluvian.

In fact, I'd say it's the opposite, given that Elven artifacts were found in the ruins and the Tevinter Imperium made it a point to suppress Elven culture. That Elven culture survived in those ruins in more ways then just the Eluvian -- the statue of Falon'Din, for example -- points to it having not been in the possession of the Magisters of the time.

Third: That's only if you assume the taint in the Eluvian originated from the other side and didn't originate from Darkspawn that may have found the area and tainted it. And even so, Merrill cleansed the shard of the taint, rendering it safe now.

Plaintiff wrote...

And if it doesn't? What then?

Keep working? There's an Arlathvhen coming up in Halamshiral. Merrill could go there and meet with Ariane's clan -- who would no doubt be talking about the Eluvian found in Witch Hunt -- and then she and Ariane's clan's Keeper could converse on the subject.

I imagine Finn might even be there, given that he's an expert at translating Elven words and would be instrumental in deciphering the tome Ariane's clan had.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 22 juillet 2012 - 03:35 .

[MisterJB]

We really need to find a better way of debating. I've seen you mention Morrigan several times in this post before you actually reached the part where I mentioned her.
We are repeating the same points over and over again. I’m going to try to reduce the size of this debate so we only use the same argument once.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Of course. But what you were trying to assert as fact with absolutely zero reliable evidence ot back it up was that the Demon's intended target was Merrill.[/quote]
The simple fact that Audacity taught Merril blood magic and how to rebuild the Eluvian; yes, you will say that Merril did a great amount of research and this might even be true, however, Audacity claimed to have witnessed the forging of the Eluvian so it would be logical for Merril to ask it questions regarding the Eluvians; proves that the demon wanted something from her.

Later Marethari, who had an unique insight into the demon’s mind at that point, claims Audacity would have used the Eluvian as a portal to escape its prisons. This is supported by Morrigan who confirms the Eluvian are, in fact, portals and Merril herself does not discount this possibility.
More than enough reliable evidence to claim it is fact.


[quote]
Then blame Marethari for that, as she was the one that took Merrill to that place and talked to it first. If you're argument is going to be saying "Her actions led to their actions", then this all began with Marethari and she's originally the creator of the problem situation and didn't bother to appropriately fix it.

Merrill was never at fault. Not in the beginning, the duration, or the end. [/quote]
Marethari’s action of checking the nearby cave for demons after hearing whispers in her dreams was a sound decision. Merril’s action of asking a demon for help, on the other hand…
Merril was always at fault.

[quote]I'm sorry, I didn't realize that the post I quoted specifically said "access to the halls of power in Redcliffe".

It's talking about Mages with influence, period. Marethari had influence over the clan and was living near an entire city.
[/quote]
A small clan. Marethari was no Arl commanding a mighty army. The clan certainly wasn’t big enough that the demon wouldn’t be willing to turn its attentions towards Merril if she proved easier to be manipulated. Which she did.

[quote]

To learn blood magic. After that, she didn't have any more contact with the Demon until Act 3. David Gaider himself has said that Merrill rebuilt the Eluvian using what scraps of lore she could find and extrapolating information from them.

Translation: Aside from learning blood magic to amplify the healing spell Merrill already knew, Merrill didn't talk with the Demon for years. Because she didn't need him during those years and because she was so far away he couldn't whisper to her. [/quote]
In Sundermount, Merril proved she either had contacts with other demons beyond Audacity or that she could contact it from outside the cave. This is supported by her later comment on how Audacity is not answering her attempts at communication. This creates the possibility; not certainty; that she spoke to it over the seven years it took to rebuild the Eluvian. After all, Audacity witnessed its forging, it could be a great source of lore.



[quote]
So you're saying Merrill held a gun to their head and ordered them to jump on Hawke's blade, one by one? No? Oh okay, then Merrill's not at fault.

They weren't forced to do it. They chose to do it. [/quote]
Merril’s actions drove them to desperation to the point where they resorted to extreme measures.
That is what most mage supporters claim happens most of the time, correct?




[quote]People in Thedas can trick a Demon. Hawke can play the Hunger Demon in the Deep Roads and Torpor, the Warden can play Kitty, Duncan, and Mouse. [/quote]
The Warden and Hawke are not Merril. She can’t trick a Demon.


[quote]And Merrill is a master of the arcane -- far better then Marethari [/quote]
No, definitely not. Merril is not a Keeper, she couldn’t help Feynriel, she couldn’t break the spell on the statue without an Eluvian or Audacity would have talked her into it, etc.
 

[quote]-- so I see no reason to believe that she would've fallen prey to a demon's plan --[/quote]
Despite the fact she has fallen prey to a demon’s plan before.

[quote]
And I do, because it's not love. It's wanting to be right because of her pride, as both a Keeper and an adoptive parent.

Know the saying "Mother knows best?" Marethari warps that to being "Only your Keeper-Mother knows best. You're wrong, I'm right." [/quote]
Merril WAS wrong. And Marethari protected her out of love.


[quote]I'm curious, if the mirror can let demons escape, then why the hell didn't Audacity just escape through it when Mahariel found it? Or when Morrigan used it to go beyond the Fade and Thedas -- the former of which Audacity can't access, the latter of which he's stuck in a demonic Buddha statue, unable to be freed?

Oh right, because that's a crock of bull****.[/quote]
Or because it was broken? And maybe because Morrigan knew enough about Eluvians to keep it safe from demons?
It’s actually quite simple to find explanations if we are not being biased.


[quote]
Point, it went so far over your head.

You're falling under the same delusions Marethari fell to. That if Merrill had abandoned blood magic and the Eluvian, the clan would welcome her back with open arms and be so damn nice to her that rainbows would fall from the sky and puppies would bring baskets of flowers to them.

They're still going to revile her for what she did, even if she was no longer doing it. They're still going to be afraid of her, because of the lies they've been fed.

To think things would go to being perfect and Merrill would feel at home again is not only folly, it's delusional. [/quote]
Merril is reaping what she sowed. Had she never resorted to blood magic, the clan would never have feared her. Marethari just wisely warned them of the danger she represented.
And it is never suggested Marethari believes things will be just as they were before as soon as Merril returned. But if she simply gave up on her “work”, the clan would accept her and things would improve with thime.


[quote]
So you'd rather torment her to emotional abuse, making her unable to trust anyone in the world, possibly leading her to become very depressed because she can't trust anyone? And you think you're justified in doing that because an arrogant Abomination told you something that has no proof to back it up anywhere in game?

Wow.... [/quote]
You mean I’d rather incentive her to stop working on something that is likely to blow up in her face and will endanger both herself and Kirkwall than support her?
Shocking. I don’t need Marethari to tell me that using blood magic to achieve something supported by a demon is a recipe for disaster.





[quote]That's not caution. That's fear.[/quote]
Caution stems from fear.



[quote] Then it's a good idea to find out through research rather then making assumptions, now isn't it? Morrigan did her research and found out more about it then Merrill did, because Morrigan had an entire book on the subject.

And the Dalish mantra is that they find and study all things relating to the past of the Elves. Merrill was adhering to it. Marethari wasn't.

All knowledge is potentially dangerous. Morrigan says this and I'm certain Merrill says it too.[/quote]
We can agree on this particular topic.
However, doing something with blood magic on the bid of a demon is idiotic. She was clearly being led into a trap.
[/quote]
The number of times you consort with demons should not have any significance.



[quote]She may have dealt with a demon once, but that was only to deal with the present danger. She wasn't relying on it. She was using it to her own ends. [/quote]
A pity then that the demon used her for its own ends like the clan predicted.

[quote]
Fear will drive villagers and Templars alike to murder Mages because of what they might become, condemning innocent people to death.

There's a massive difference between caution and fear. Fear will drive people to do asenine and sometimes outright immoral things. Caution just means recognizing a potential threat and dealing with it accordingly, whilst being wary of it. [/quote]
And sometimes dealing with something accordingly involved doing outright immoral things. Fear spawns caution.
There is something called irrational fear but that was not what drove Marethari’s or the clan’s actions. Their fear was very much justified.





[quote]It was told to us that Varterrals will protect things and be reborn to keep protecting it, as that's their duty. Merrill said that not in a tone of voice of uncertainty or it being a tale of folklore, but as undeniable fact because they know it to be true.[/quote]
Certain Andrastians would present their claim that Andraste was the bride of the Maker as an undeniable fact.




[quote]And why didn't it attack Zevran, hmm? It seems that was one of the very things it was protecting, as Zevran set up traps all along the passageway we traverse -- telling us that he had to move past the Varterral, which if it was so animalistic would've attacked him as well. But it didn't. [/quote]
Maybe he hid. He is a rogue, after all.



[quote] Not if you ask her to kill it.

And her preferred course is to try to play a demon before it plays you. Not actually doing what a Demon wants. [/quote]
Sure, but the problem is that she ends up doing exactly what the demon wants.



[quote] One moment of weakness in the Fade led her to being mind-controlled in the Fade, where Demons are at their most powerful.

That doesn't mean she'll always be manipulated. It's not favorable to her being safe, I'll admit that much. But I find it hard to blame her under the circumstances, more so if Hawke's an idiot for believing Torpor because Torpor doesn't have the ability to mind control people. [/quote]
It sets a dangerous precedent.




[quote]Yes, considering Audacity has no presence in the Fade. He's sundered from it and trapped in the mortal world, where his power has gone down considerably.[/quote]
But it would have been freed after Merril completed the Eluvian.

[quote] And also because you'll have probably taken Merrill on quests where you take down many enemies, including Dragons, Abominations, Demons, scores of Darkspawn, a Varterral, Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, Templars, gangs, Elven spectres, etc.

Dragons are sentient creatures. Abominations are sentient creatures. Demons are sentient creatures. Qunari are sentient creatures. A Varterral is intelligent -- and the lore on them doesn't state that they're just animalistic. Codexes on it in fact state it was upset, for unknown reasons. -- and so on and so forth.

You could've even taken her on a Wyvern Hunt -- cousins to Dragons, possibly just as intelligent -- or killed an ancient Magister-turned-Awakened Darkspawn.

She's possibly wracked up a massive body count, so I think one Pride Demon that's severely weakened isn't going to be much of a problem if she's got people she can rely on.[/quote]
The intelligence of dragons and varterrals is still very much up to debate.
She has proven that, along with Hawke, she is a remarkable mage on the battlefield. She had, however, also proven she is quite subjective to manipulation.

[quote]
Oh but we do. Marethari in the short story herself says that it wasn't a threat due to being bound in the statue. We have lore that tells us when a Demon is in the mortal world and hasn't possessed a host, their power falls considerably. [/quote]
And Marethari also claims that if the Eluvian is complete, it will free the demon. A considerably weaker Pride Demon can still be an incredibly dangerous foe.

[quote]

It can't. It doesn't have that much power. [/quote]
We don’t know that. It appears to have the abilities to pull souls from the fade.

[quote]

She goes there with the express purpose of not freeing it, but simply talking to it. [/quote]
And she could have been manipulated into freeing it. Or Marethari was right and completing the Eluvian would grant it its freedom.



[quote]And I really doubt Hawke would even have let her free it, if that's what it was trying to do. You'd have to cast a spell on it, and it'd be obvious if it was trying to ask for its freedom. [/quote]
Hawke can be fooled. He just lets Corypheus walk away.


[quote] So then why in the hell couldn't the clan have destroyed the Demon after Merrill cleansed the shard? Why couldn't they have gone "Hmmm... the shard's cleansed, but the demon's a threat" and killed the thing?

Take in the whole clan, the First, and the Keeper along with Hawke and friends and take the thing down. Why didn't they do that?

Oh right... that'd make too much sense. That'd actually be the logical course of action if you wanted to deal with the Demon. [/quote]
You can’t kill a statue. And binding the demon to anything would be dangerous since even bound on the body of a wolf; the Lady of the Forest retained her magical capabilities. And there was always the danger of it possessing Marethari in the middle of transfer.
It would be safer for everyone if Merril stopped her studies, even if that would mean sacrificing a piece of elven magic.




[quote] Alright, give me undeniable, irrefutable fact the Eluvians are gateways for Demons to escape from.

Give me some proof. Not speculation, cold hard facts. Because I can hand you proof -- that you have constantly ignored because it defeats your argument -- that the Eluvians aren't gateways for Demons to use. [/quote]
No, you can’t. The Eluvians are portals, capable of taking people to a place beyond Thedas and the Fade. However, if people from Thedas can use it, I don’t see any reason a denizen of the Fade would be utterly incapable of catching a ride with it, especially since so much of elven lore is lost and we do not know for a fact everything about Eluvians.


[quote]
So long as the price paid was her life. She says that the risks and consequences were to fall on her, no one else. If someone did end up dying from her research, it was to be her.

Her purpose on researching the Eluvian was always to save her clan. Killing them to save them is a massive flaw in logic that it's the same level as Marethari's flawed reasoning. [/quote]
Kill one clan. In return, complete a mirror that could return a piece of elven magic to ALL clans. It seems like a fair trade to me.




[quote]But I noticed that Ineria sees fit to blame Merrill for the Demon's presence entirely, saying "There would never have been a Demon if it weren't for this little flat-eared ****". That completely ignores how Marethari was the one that investigated the Demon in the first place and how the Demon has always been there. [/quote]
If Merril hadn’t talked to it alone, there would be no danger of it being set free.



[quote]Never mind that the clan sees fit to blame Merrill for all their misfortunes, despite Merrill not being the one that kept them there for 7 years -- as that was Marethari's doing -- and also having left the clan, thereby having no ties to them anymore. [/quote]
This is true. Marethari placed Merril above the clan.




[quote] There were only two methods of communication with it -- and I use the word communication loosely, as there's only one method a Mage could talk back to it:

1) When asleep, where the Demon will contact a Mage if said mage is close enough to the demon. Merrill was miles away from the demon, and when she was at the base of the mountain in the short story she could just barely hear it -- but the farther up she went, the louder it got.

2) Up close and personal with it, talking to it while it's trapped in a statue.

As it was sundered from the Fade, talking to it there wasn't an option.[/quote]
We don’t know everything there is to know about demons or magic. Merril hints that she could contact it from outside Sundermont. “I’ve called to the Spirit but it doesn’t answer”

[quote]
And your reason for disagreeing was irrelevant to this. [/quote]
No, what I originally quoted was:


[quote]Merrill also finds the darker aspects of blood magic to be ghastly throughout the 7 years we know her. Profaning the dead is ghastly to her. Sacrificing people as fodder for spells is ghastly to her. [/quote]
And I then said that if not for Marethari, she would have been possessed and the demon would force her to perform all of these ghastly actions.



[quote]
Um... no. Jowan didn't leave any books on how to summon a demon near Connor. That is never stated in-game. In fact, it's the complete opposite. Connor contacted the Demon in his dreams, hence why the option to go into the Fade -- where it's said the Demon first made contact with Connor and controls him from -- is there. [/quote]
Connor does state that he read some books regarding demons that belonged to Jowan.

[quote]
Intelligence more often then not does preclude naivete. Intelligence relies on wisdom, which is based on experiences in the world.

Or that's been my experience, really. So I'm either lucky or right. I'll go with lucky. [/quote]
Intelligence relies on knowledge. A child could be tutored at home and be incredibly intelligent but without having contact with the outside world, it would be naïve.




[quote] An untrained god infant, whose powers have not yet come into being. Morrigan will say she needs to train him. And he's still a baby -- just with the soul of an Old God. He needs to be fed, changed, cared for, etc.

And you can sleep with her and she'll have a normal kid -- assuming you sent someone else to die and imported your Warden -- and she'll still have tossed him into the other side of the portal.

So... yea. The place beyond the Eluvians must be safe if Morrigan felt content to send a baby that isn't an OGB across to the other side. [/quote]
Or she took incredible precautions before sending anything through it.




[quote]And you also don't know that Merrill didn't know these same precautions. But we know that Demons didn't start pouring out of Morrigan's Eluvian, supporting that Demons have no part in the Eluvians as gateways and supporting Morrigan's comments on the subject. [/quote]
She didn’t even know how to finish it so, I am not confident with Merril’s ability to stop a demon from coming through.


[quote]
She says it goes beyond Thedas and the Fade, indicating that it bypasses them entirely. She didn't say it goes through them to reach another plane. [/quote]
If I built a road from Portugal to France, I would be correct to say that this road goes to a place beyond Portugal and Spain. However, such a road would have to go through Spain and what would stop people native to Spain from using my road unless I placed some precautions there?
Basically, teleportation is said to be impossible in the DA universe so, any portal that went to a place beyond Thedas and the Fade would, invariably, require going through these two realms to reach it. And if inhabitants of Thedas can use it, why not Spirits and Demons?


[quote]If there was any truth to Marethari's claims, it should've been presented in any of the 7 years prior. If there was truth to her claims, she wouldn't have told me after she became an Abomination, and instead would've told me when I informed her of Merrill's intentions in Act 3.

Instead, her comments are "Hawke, please keep her busy."

She couldn't have said "Hawke, I need to have a word with you. I found this out earlier this week"

There are literally dozens of ways the information she says in Act 3 could've been presented better and actually made her seem credible, but she chose to go with the one way that actually makes her information unreliable at best. [/quote]
I don’t disagree that some source for her information would be nice, even if we can fill in the holes for ourselves. However, her words make sense with what we know of Eluvians and justify the actions of Audacity.





[quote]In both DAO and DAII she labels them all as evil and needing to be set aside. [/quote]
Believing that something is evil, dangerous and shouldn’t be rebuilt doesn’t preclude researching it, even if only to evaluate on just how much danger the clans was.



[quote]You can leave it in the statue.[/quote]
Merril was building a way out of the statue for it.
[quote]  Or you can bind it to a wolf. Or better yet, a bug. Then crush the damn thing under your foot.

If Zathrian could bind a spirit of the Forest to a wolf and folklore states that Rage Demons will possess wolves and/or trees, I see no reason why binding a demon to a bug and crushing it underfoot isn't a viable option. [/quote]
Even as a wolf, the Lady was still a dangerous opponent and I imagine the possibility exists that the demon could possess Marethari mid ritual.
Or maybe the demon’s prison made it impossible to bind it into anything but oneself.


[quote]

Merrill didn't hold a gun to Marethari's head and force her to become an Abomination. That was an act of Marethari's choosing. [/quote]
She might as well have.

[quote]

That's exactly why I said "Not Spirits who possibly became Demons". Anders is a very different type of Abomination. [/quote]
Anders is actually quite similar to Uldred in that the two personalities merge to become one. Only Anders was the dominant one as opposed to Uldred who was dominated by the demon.
We must, of course, question how similar this is to Marethari’s case? Did the two personalities merge thus enabling her to know the demon’s plan? And if so, was Marethari the dominant one for enough time to tell Merril what had happened? I believe this to be so.



[quote]For the record, Wynne is the same type of Abomination as Anders -- more or less -- and she can't tell what the Spirit of Faith inside her is thinking. [/quote]
Unlike Anders and Uldred, Wynne is being kept alive only because of her spirit. Maybe that is what stops her from knowing its toughts?


[quote] Oh and as Xilizhra pointed out, Audacity is fully capable of imitating the Keeper's body, voice, speech, and mannerisms perfectly. So that's another reason why Marethari the Abomination is unreliable.

Claiming to still be in control doesn't mean Marethari really was in control. [/quote]
It doesn’t make sense for a demon to reveal its exact location and its weakness to his foes. This leads me to believe Marethari was in control up until the moment her body shapes to that of the demon.






[quote]Wouldn't work. Mages can sense if a Demon is in someone. Merrill says that Keran's blood has no traces of demons in it because she's a blood mage -- meaning a sulphur smell [/quote]
That would require a blood extraction which the demon could avoid if it was convincing enough. It’s a better plan that revealing its location.


[quote]and Anders says that any possessed person would defend itself against attacks. [/quote]
That would imply demons are instinctive creatures which we know they aren’t. A demon should be able to take a beating if that is what it takes to remain concealed.

[quote]
Actually no. Blood magic's fundamentals yes. The Eluvian, no. That much was Merrill. [/quote]
In Act 3, Merril tell us the demon knows much of Eluvians and taught her how to rebuild it.


[quote]
First, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.[/quote]
That goes both ways. The demon could have whispered to Marethari but Merril could have contacted it or other demons. She hints during Act 3 that it is possible though, admittedly, she did fail.




[quote]Third, Marethari was the only Mage in a position of power, influence, and pride on Sundermount. [/quote]
Marethari is not so influential that the demon couldn’t change its target if Merril proves easier to manipulate.
And Merril is very prideful herself or she wouldn’t have tought she could fool a demon.



[quote]Fourth, there's a reason subtle manipulation is subtle. It's not a blatant "Come free me you old harpy!". It's leading up to it. That demon has been trapped for centuries and centuries. I'm certain if he had to wait a few more years to free itself by subtly manipulating an old crone that's powerful, influential, and prideful then he'd be content with that. [/quote]
So, it’s just a coincidence that its manipulation finally worked just as Merril was close to finishing the Eluvian. It couldn’t be because the mirror always was its way out.



[quote]
She's 115 years old by the time of her death. I'm inclined to believe her mental faculties started deteriorating, given that she went Abomination without even doing anything sensible prior to it.

Age does not make someone right. I've had people older then me tell me things that were so incredibly wrong I wanted to do a headdesk. [/quote]
Marethari shows no signs of mental deterioration. Anyone she meets agrees she is wise.


[quote]

Or it was Audacity, since blood magic is tied to the physical realm and not the Fade and Audacity exists purely in the physical realm now, sundered from the Fade and with severely diminished power.
[/quote]
Which would just be another hint that Merril can communicate with it from outside the cave if true.

Modifié par MisterJB, 23 juillet 2012 - 01:57 .

[Xilizhra]

The simple fact that Audacity taught Merril blood magic and how to rebuild the Eluvian; yes, you will say that Merril did a great amount of research and this might even be true, however, Audacity claimed to have witnessed the forging of the Eluvian so it would be logical for Merril to ask it questions regarding the Eluvians; proves that the demon wanted something from her.

Merrill didn't ask directly until Act 3.

It doesn’t make sense for a demon to reveal its exact location and its weakness to his foes. This leads me to believe Marethari was in control up until the moment her body shapes to that of the demon.

What kind of demon is Audacity? Pride. It's not always an intelligent force.

I would reply more, but debates on this particular topic tend to leave me boiling with incoherent rage, and so I'll let Ethereal continue in my stead.

[TEWR]

[quote]MisterJB wrote...

The simple fact that Audacity taught Merril blood magic and how to rebuild the Eluvian[/quote]

Um, no we have Word of God saying she didn't rely on Audacity's help to actually rebuild the Eluvian.

[quote]MisterJB wrote...
; yes, you will say that Merril did a great amount of research and this might even be true[/quote]

It is true. Gaider himself confirmed it.

[quote]
, however, Audacity claimed to have witnessed the forging of the Eluvian so it would be logical for Merril to ask it questions regarding the Eluvians; proves that the demon wanted something from her.[/quote]

Except there's no evidence that she was contacting it for assistance. In fact, most of her ideas on how to fix it -- the Arulin'holm -- were entirely her own thoughts on the matter.

She knows it witnessed its forging yes, but that's not indicative of her having been told that in all the time we've known her. Considering she's only just now trying to re-establish contact with the demon -- something she'll tell Hawke -- then she obviously didn't ask it questions in all the time she's been working on the mirror.

[quote]MisterJB wrote...
Later Marethari, who had an unique insight into the demon’s mind at that point, claims Audacity would have used the Eluvian as a portal to escape its prisons. This is supported by Morrigan who confirms the Eluvian are, in fact, portals and Merril herself does not discount this possibility.
More than enough reliable evidence to claim it is fact.[/quote]

Except, there isn't enough reliable evidence:

1) The demon can perfectly imitate Marethari, so assuming that what you talked to was indeed Marethari isn't necessarily true.

2) Morrigan says they are portals beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade, and doesn't refute the Warden's thoughts that they all go there -- when she could've said they can go there, but are not always directed there -- and doesn't say they go through the two. She says they go beyond them, bypassing them entirely.

3) In order to use the Eluvians as a portal, you also need... well.. an Eluvian on the other side. It's going to be hard for a Demon that's trapped purely in the physical realm in a demonic Buddha statue to use an Eluvian as a portal without him having access to another Eluvian.


[quote]
Marethari’s action of checking the nearby cave for demons after hearing whispers in her dreams was a sound decision. Merril’s action of asking a demon for help, on the other hand…
Merril was always at fault.[/quote]

Your entire argument has been "These actions led to their actions, so it's entirely her fault"

Merrill will tell a Hawke in Act 3 that tells her to talk to Marethari first that she first went to Marethari for help on the Eluvian, and Marethari outright refused to help her find a way to make it no longer bear the taint. That's what drove Merrill to seek out the Demon.

She didn't just go there as her first option. It was her last option. She was hoping Marethari would help her make the Eluvian fragment no longer bear the Taint so they could both research it together, but when Marethari refused Merrill was forced to go to the demon.

Because in DAO, IIRC Marethari or Duncan states that while the unamplified healing magic fought the taint within Mahariel, it wouldn't be able to do so forever if used repeatedly as it was -- unamplified that is.

Logically, we can assume Merrill placed the shard in a box or something and placed a protective healing ward over it that did much the same thing -- kept the Taint from spreading -- but because of what DAO told us that same ward would gradually weaken in effectiveness. Thus the only way to cleanse the mirror was to amplify her healing spells through either blood or lyrium.



[quote]A small clan. Marethari was no Arl commanding a mighty army.[/quote]

But she was a Keeper who could command the Elves. And let's examine Sundermount's area for a minute shall we?

1) Sundermount is filled with corpses. Pride Demons -- per the lore -- like to bring other demons over and place them in corpses or other people, so as to command them. Meaning Audacity could've easily built an army of corpses and people, had he possessed Marethari.

2) We don't know the size of the clans, but we can assume based on the cinematic excerpt showing the Elves marching towards Denerim that each individual clan is bigger then 20-40 people. I'd say that their are a few hundred people at most in each clan, making it a small army. It's hard enough for Elves to contact other clans outside of Arlathvhens, because they're so scattered and don't have the powers of an Eluvian. 

The Qunari were able to practically dominate Kirkwall with only 100 men -- 20 of whom were just Elven converts -- so yea.

Add into that how Kirkwall is boiling over from Meredith's dictatorship, the Guardsmen having been killed a great deal at the climax of Act 2, Abominations and malicious apostates terrorize the city (some having been driven to those positions by the Circle, and the fact that the city's only just now getting back to order... then things are a bit... well... ideal for a demonic invasion.

3) Marethari's a mage with pride, influence, and power in a very isolated area. That would make it the ideal target to Audacity, especially with ready access to people and corpses in an area with a  thin Veil. Merrill on the other hand is smack dab in the middle of a city populated with people, Templars, Mages, and guards, which would make it hard for it to remain unnoticed -- doubly so when Mages can sense the presence of a Demon in creatures, as Hawke, Anders, and Merrill demonstrate.

[quote]
The clan certainly wasn’t big enough that the demon wouldn’t be willing to turn its attentions towards Merril if she proved easier to be manipulated. Which she did.[/quote]

Proximity affected how well a person could even hear him. We know Marethari and Merrill could hear him in their dreams when staying at the base of Sundermount, and only just barely so. And as they progressed up the mountain, it got louder and louder.

Reversely, the farther away you move that makes it harder to hear him.

Because Marethari could hear him, we have ample evidence to support the claim that she was being subtly manipulated by him. And all that would take is feeding her motherly pride and pride as a Keeper, saying things like "She doesn't understand the risks, but you do. Yes... you do. She's a fool and you must protect her" on a consistent, day-by-day and night-by-night basis.

Subtle manipulation by feeding her ego. And considering she freed the Demon, it seems like it worked.

[quote]

In Sundermount, Merril proved she either had contacts with other demons beyond Audacity or that she could contact it from outside the cave. This is supported by her later comment on how Audacity is not answering her attempts at communication.[/quote]

Her attempts to re-establish communication, as she hasn't talked to him in 6 years. Word of God clearly states that when she was working on her Eluvian, she used solely what scraps of lore were in her possession. 

[quote]
This creates the possibility; not certainty; that she spoke to it over the seven years it took to rebuild the Eluvian. After all, Audacity witnessed its forging, it could be a great source of lore.[/quote]

Then why would she have used other pieces of lore, if Audacity knew everything? We know that she used bits of lore and research that were in her possession. If Audacity knew everything about it, then she wouldn't have needed to extrapolate information from the research and the shard in order to get it to work.

In fact, she consistently comes up with ideas on how to repair it that are her own.



[quote]
Merril’s actions drove them to desperation to the point where they resorted to extreme measures.[/quote]

Except if they had examined the situation -- which would've been easier to do, had their stance on Merrill not been poisoned by Marethari's baseless lies -- they'd see that Merrill wasn't at fault and that Marethari was.

1) Merrill left the clan so as to be able to continue her research but also not have them be affected should anything bad happen

2) Marethari chose to keep them there, against the best interests of the clan and against Merrill's wishes. This ended up causing them to lose more and more hunters as well as face threats by Templars and Chantry priests.

3) Marethari fed the clan baseless lies about Merrill, further severing the connection and possibility of things going back to normal.

4) Marethari chose to become an Abomination, endangering the welfare of her clan, Merrill, Hawke, Hawke's companions, and potentially Kirkwall itself.

In fact, you actually see some Elves -- Ilen and his apprentices -- talking about leaving because Marethari's kept them there. Others are lamenting that they've been there too long.

[quote]
That is what most mage supporters claim happens most of the time, correct?[/quote]

Except the circumstances are entirely different.

If you're being raped, abused, tortured, and Ancestors know what else then you are being into a desperate situation where your hands are forced.

If you're being brought back to an oppressive place and you decide to go Abomination because even that seems preferable to being tortured and raped, then your hands are forced.

The Mages are being abused by the Templars. The clan wasn't being abused by Merrill.





[quote]The Warden and Hawke are not Merril. She can’t trick a Demon.[/quote]

Says you.



[quote]No, definitely not. Merril is not a Keeper, she couldn’t help Feynriel,[/quote]

She didn't have access to books on the subject. I'd hardly hold that against her. 

[quote]
she couldn’t break the spell on the statue without an Eluvian or Audacity would have talked her into it, etc[/quote]

Except we know that Audacity could only be freed by powerful magic, and Marethari just happened to know this spell. Which renders the whole "Eluvian is an escape route" argument null and void, as Audacity got exactly what he wanted.

Maybe Merrill didn't know it because she didn't want to know it. That doesn't make her less experienced in matters of the arcane. I'd argue that it makes her more experienced, because she doesn't want to be able to free trapped demons.
 

[quote]Despite the fact she has fallen prey to a demon’s plan before.[/quote]

No she hasn't.


[quote]
Merril WAS wrong. And Marethari protected her out of love.[/quote]

Marethari was wrong. Merrill did her best to protect the clan out of love and Marethari continuously sabotaged that plan-- which she'll tell you after Marethari's dead (the leaving out of love part).




[quote]Or because it was broken?[/quote]

The one in the ruins wasn't broken until Duncan broken it. It still functioned. 

[quote]And maybe because Morrigan knew enough about Eluvians to keep it safe from demons?
It’s actually quite simple to find explanations if we are not being biased.[/quote]

Except you're ignoring a few crucial details that makes it hard for you to use that as an argument:

1) Morrigan had a kid -- possibly an OGB.

2) She had a book devoted to the Eluvians written entirely in Elven

3) She had to find an Eluvian that wasn't broken.

You really think she could take care of a kid and herself, decipher an all Elven book, find an Eluvian when they're hard to find, and make it safe against demons if they actually were portals for demons to use?

That's stretching it. It's going to be hard to do all that.


[quote]
Merril is reaping what she sowed. Had she never resorted to blood magic, the clan would never have feared her[/quote]

Had Marethari helped her in the first place, Merrill wouldn't have resorted to blood magic.



[quote]. Marethari just wisely warned them of the danger she represented.[/quote]

"She'll bring back the taint!"

*clan hates her even more. Pol runs into a Varterral rather then be around Merrill*

Merrill will say that they've been over it before, indicating that she told Marethari that the shard wasn't tainted in the past. This is supported by the fact that Anders -- a Grey Warden -- doesn't say anything of the sort claiming that the Eluvian bears the taint, when he wants Hawke to side against Merrill's research.

If he could've sensed it -- as he could sense the taint in Carver/Bethany and as Duncan could sense the taint in Mahariel/the Eluvian when it was tainted -- he would've told Hawke.

But he didn't.

Further supporting that she isn't tainted is that she's... well... healthy when she goes back to the clan. So fearing her because she might bring back the taint when she's not only healthy but has gone over how the shard is cleansed in the past -- and hasn't been told otherwise by a former Grey Warden -- is asenine.

More so when Hawke will say there's no reason to fear Merrill, and Hawke has been with Merrill for 3 years. As opposed to Pol who's only been around her for.... less then a year.


[quote]
And it is never suggested Marethari believes things will be just as they were before as soon as Merril returned. But if she simply gave up on her “work”, the clan would accept her and things would improve with thime.[/quote]

Things are never that simple. Merrill has no friends within the clan save for Mahariel, they view her with suspicion and ire, and she's lived a sheltered life that consisted of Marethari making her study constantly and remember the ways of the Dales.

If Merrill had no friends in the past and the clan hates her now, thinking things would magically improve just because she came back is foolish. More so if you think the clan would honestly follow her, after they've been fed lies, don't trust her, and aren't friends with her.

She may have been friendly with the clan, but she was never close with them as she was to Mahariel.


[quote]
You mean I’d rather incentive her to stop working on something that is likely to blow up in her face and will endanger both herself and Kirkwall than support her?[/quote]

By destroying her self-esteem, confidence, and ability to trust in anyone?

That seems like it'd do more harm then good. She may be alive, but at the cost of being a normal person.

[quote]

Caution stems from fear.[/quote]

It isn't ruled by it.





[quote]We can agree on this particular topic.[/quote]

I should certainly hope so! We've been disagreeing a lot!

[quote]
However, doing something with blood magic on the bid of a demon is idiotic. She was clearly being led into a trap.[/quote]

Except she makes it a point to say that lyrium would've also sufficed, had she enough of it. And she'll tell Hawke that she originally went to Marethari for aid and not the demon.

So it wasn't on the bid of a demon.



[quote]MisterJB wrote...

A pity then that the demon used her for its own ends like the clan predicted.[/quote]

A pity that's all based on assumptions and not concrete fact.





[quote]And sometimes dealing with something accordingly involved doing outright immoral things. Fear spawns caution. There is something called irrational fear but that was not what drove Marethari’s or the clan’s actions. Their fear was very much justified.[/quote]

Their fear was irrational.






[quote]Maybe he hid. He is a rogue, after all.[/quote]

Considering that Hawke and company are immediately attacked by the creature upon just walking in and we know Zevran had to go the same route Hawke and company went to get to his spot, I'm inclined to say he was the protected, rather then the hidden.





[quote]Sure, but the problem is that she ends up doing exactly what the demon wants.[/quote]

Funny, considering Marethari gave Audacity exactly what he wanted: freedom.





[quote]It sets a dangerous precedent.[/quote]

All it does is tell you be wary about bringing Merrill with you to trips to the Fade, where Demons are at their strongest.





[quote]But it would have been freed after Merril completed the Eluvian. [/quote]

Considering Eluvians act as gateways and more then likely require one on both ends -- one in Point A, the other at Point B -- it's going to be hard for a Demon that's trapped in a statue to use an Eluvian to his advantage, considering the lack of a second one.


[quote]
The intelligence of dragons and varterrals is still very much up to debate.[/quote]

Not really. Dragons are the lifeblood of Thedas according to The Silent Grove, and cultists are allowed to live alongside them because of the Dragon's intelligence.
 
They're intelligent.

[quote]

She has proven that, along with Hawke, she is a remarkable mage on the battlefield. She had, however, also proven she is quite subjective to manipulation.[/quote]

Only when you take her to the Fade, where Demons are at their strongest.

[quote]
And Marethari also claims that if the Eluvian is complete, it will free the demon. A considerably weaker Pride Demon can still be an incredibly dangerous foe.[/quote]

But she has no evidence to back it up. She doesn't even state that she has access to the Demon's thoughts like you want to believe to even lend it some credibility. She just comes in with what she believes would happen after going full blown Abomination, but doesn't even give us enough reasons to take that seriously due to us knowing that she refused to do any research into the matter.


[quote]

We don’t know that. It appears to have the abilities to pull souls from the fade.[/quote]

I doubt those were the actual souls of the clan's dead members, considering Marethari's was there and by the lore Abominations made by a bargain struck -- like that of Connor and Marethari -- still have their souls.

Additionally, Audacity has been proven to be able to weave illusions.

Finally, that's after he's freed and in a powerful Mage's body. I'm talking about his level of power when he's in the demonic Buddha statue, as we know his power was greatly diminished there.

[quote]
And she could have been manipulated into freeing it.[/quote]

With Hawke there? Unlikely. 

[quote]
Or Marethari was right and completing the Eluvian would grant it its freedom.[/quote]

Shame there's no real proof to lend her any credibility, but ample evidence to point to her being wrong.





[quote]Hawke can be fooled. He just lets Corypheus walk away.[/quote]

Different circumstances. Hawke knows absolutely nothing about the Taint, and as far as anyone in Thedas -- including the Wardens -- knew only the Old Gods could pull a switcheroo.

Hawke can only be fooled on matters he's ignorant of or when the plot paints him as an incompetent idiot.

When it comes to his companions, he can surprisingly demonstrate some intelligence (like with Isabela's Act 3 quest, where he comes up with the plan. Or in Fenris' Act 3 quest, where he can talk Fenris down. Or in Varric's Act 2 quest, where he can ask for Anders' input).




[quote]You can’t kill a statue. And binding the demon to anything would be dangerous since even bound on the body of a wolf; the Lady of the Forest retained her magical capabilities[/quote]

Of course you can't kill a statue. I wasn't saying kill the statue. I was saying kill the demon. And Zathrian was easily able to immobilize the Lady of the Forest -- as well as other Werewolves -- into being unable to fight.

Additionally, the Lady of the Forest is a spirit of nature, as opposed to a Demon of the Fade. They're similar entities, but vastly different in terms of what they can do.

Indeed, when a demon is trapped in a tree they have to mold the tree to being movable. And the demons die when the tree dies, so there's no reason to not bind it to a tree and strike as it's trying to make itself not seem like an easy target.





[quote]MisterJB wrote.... And there was always the danger of it possessing Marethari in the middle of transfer.[/quote]

I wouldn't claim to know the intricacies of magic in Thedas, as we've never had an example of any Mage trying to bind a demon into something only to fall victim to the demon itself.

We've had cases of people summoning demons out of the Fade and losing control, but that's different.



[quote]It would be safer for everyone if Merril stopped her studies, even if that would mean sacrificing a piece of elven magic.[/quote]

And what happens if Ariane's clan researches the Eluvians and finds out that Merrill was right and Marethari was wrong? What then?

I highly doubt they will put the research aside, given the significance it has to them.






[quote]No, you can’t. The Eluvians are portals, capable of taking people to a place beyond Thedas and the Fade. However, if people from Thedas can use it, I don’t see any reason a denizen of the Fade would be utterly incapable of catching a ride with it, especially since so much of elven lore is lost and we do not know for a fact everything about Eluvians.[/quote]

They were built in Thedas, so of course people in Thedas can use them.

They weren't built in the Fade and they don't even exist in the Fade -- as the Fade is a realm of thoughts, not material objects -- and the Demon is trapped in a statue, unable to move. His power has severely diminished and he's sundered entirely from the Fade.


[quote]
Kill one clan. In return, complete a mirror that could return a piece of elven magic to ALL clans. It seems like a fair trade to me.[/quote]

To you maybe.

To Merrill, only she was to die in research of the Eluvian, if anyone needed to die at all. Otherwise, she'd be a callous **** who would've been giddy that she no longer had to worry about demonic possession or a meddling clan after what Marethari and the clan chose to do.

She's upset at their loss, saying that if anyone was to die it was to be her and her alone. She never wanted them to die and never instigated any conflict with them ever.





[quote]This is true. Marethari placed Merril above the clan.[/quote]

And the clan suffered for it, but were unable to see that was what caused all of their misfortunes.



[quote]
And I then said that if not for Marethari, she would have been possessed and the demon would force her to perform all of these ghastly actions.[/quote]

All you said was that if not for Marethari, she would have been possessed. You didn't say what you just said now following that bit.

But I digress, now that you've elaborated I understand your point, despite how I still think she wouldn't have been possessed ever.


[quote]
Connor does state that he read some books regarding demons that belonged to Jowan. [/quote]

Source please.



[quote]
Intelligence relies on knowledge. A child could be tutored at home and be incredibly intelligent but without having contact with the outside world, it would be naïve.[/quote]

Not necessarily. If you have an understanding of how the world works but aren't actually a part of it, you may not be naive.

It all depends on the topic really, and possibly the person.

But really, there's not much else that can be said on this.





[quote]She didn’t even know how to finish it so, I am not confident with Merril’s ability to stop a demon from coming through.[/quote]

Inability to get it to work does not negate the possibility of knowing how to prevent it from being used by Demons, were that even possible, which it isn't.


[quote]

Basically, teleportation is said to be impossible in the DA universe so, any portal that went to a place beyond Thedas and the Fade would, invariably, require going through these two realms to reach it. And if inhabitants of Thedas can use it, why not Spirits and Demons?[/quote]

Except that codex was written by a Mage with no knowledge of what the Eluvians can really do, beyond the communication aspect which is all anyone knows.

That he says it's impossible doesn't mean it's truly impossible.





[quote]Believing that something is evil, dangerous and shouldn’t be rebuilt doesn’t preclude researching it, even if only to evaluate on just how much danger the clans was.[/quote]

It does when you vehemently deny researching it all.


[quote] ]
Even as a wolf, the Lady was still a dangerous opponent and I imagine the possibility exists that the demon could possess Marethari mid ritual.[/quote]

As a wolf, all the Lady of the Forest could do was shift between her two forms: her ladylike incarnation and that of a wolf. But as a wolf, her powers only included transferring a curse to those she bit. Her other power was that of soothing the curse itself.

Her powers were actually very limited. Dangerous, but not so dangerous that they couldn't be dealt with.

Again, I wouldn't claim to know the possibilities and intricacies of magic when we haven't had any previous depiction of a person trying to bind a demon into something only to have themselves fall victim to it.

[quote]
Or maybe the demon’s prison made it impossible to bind it into anything but oneself.[/quote]

Doubtful.


[quote]
Anders is actually quite similar to Uldred in that the two personalities merge to become one.[/quote]

Except Uldred was forcibly possessed and is gone, no longer existing. Anders was a willing possession between Spirit and Human. 






[quote]Unlike Anders and Uldred, Wynne is being kept alive only because of her spirit. Maybe that is what stops her from knowing its toughts?[/quote]

Doubtful, as she can still sense its power so there's clearly a link between the two. And it's still in her, so she should know what it's thinking.

Justice could sense Kristoff's memories and the traces of what he left in the world, indicating that so long as a denizen of the Fade is in a living -- or once living -- person they can sense what their memories are.

And yet, I don't see enough reasons to believe your belief that Marethari had access to Audacity's thoughts. I just... don't see enough evidence to make that seem credible for Marethari's case. All I know is that it's possible for a denizen of the Fade to know the thoughts of its host, but I don't see much evidence of the host knowing the thoughts of its mental apartment buddy.

Indeed, Anders is very wishy-washy on how his possession works, saying his thoughts are his and Justice's are Justice's and that they're separate, but then saying in banter with other people -- sometimes with Hawke -- that their thoughts are one.

So he's not very reliable on that, because he's never consistent.
 
Audacity may have witnessed its forging, but that doesn't mean he witnessed it being used.

Indeed, he claims to have witnessed its forging, but never told Merrill how much he knew, indicating that he was hiding something -- whether it be actual knowledge on its forging or the knowledge that he didn't know jack **** is unknown, though I lean towards the latter.

And if he knew a lot about its forging, then Merrill would have relied on him and known just how much he knew. But she didn't, as WoG proves.





[quote]It doesn’t make sense for a demon to reveal its exact location and its weakness to his foes[/quote]

It's a Pride Demon. They're arrogant sons of ****es. I think it revealed it because it was confident that it could defeat them all, and only when it was beaten senseless did he go "****... better come up with a Plan B."

Then if you foolishly think it is Marethari again, it stabs Merrill -- which really should've incapacitated her gameplay-wise -- and remarks on how it just got a Pride boost by everyone thinking they succeeded at saving Marethari and killing the Demon.

It probably thought -- due to being a Pride Demon -- that it was now powerful enough to a second round and turn the tides of battle towards its favor.




[quote]That would require a blood extraction which the demon could avoid if it was convincing enough. It’s a better plan that revealing its location.[/quote]

Hawke can sense a Hunger Demon in the Ancient Rock Wraith, who by all accounts -- including a Legion of the Dead report remarking on its intelligence -- are former Dwarves.

So it's not required to have a blood sample.





[quote]That would imply demons are instinctive creatures which we know they aren’t. A demon should be able to take a beating if that is what it takes to remain concealed.[/quote]

And yet Wilmod defends himself after being attacked.

Demons aren't very smart, due to being so fervently focused on only one aspect of the human psyche.

[quote]
In Act 3, Merril tell us the demon knows much of Eluvians and taught her how to rebuild it.[/quote]

No, she doesn't. She says the Demon knows much of the Eluvians yes, but she doesn't know how much and that he wouldn't tell her.

She says that he told her how to cleanse it of its corruption -- which was by using blood magic to amplify the healing magic she already knew.

That's all she says.


[quote]
Marethari is not so influential that the demon couldn’t change its target if Merril proves easier to manipulate.
And Merril is very prideful herself or she wouldn’t have tought she could fool a demon.[/quote]

By Act 3, much of her pride has diminished greatly.

And yes, Marethari is that influential. Because the more of a wedge that's driven between the two of them, the easier it becomes to manipulate Marethari.





[quote]So, it’s just a coincidence that its manipulation finally worked just as Merril was close to finishing the Eluvian. It couldn’t be because the mirror always was its way out.[/quote]

Except Merrill wasn't close to finishing it. She was at a standstill, and remarks that though she tried to re-establish contact with the Demon -- as she hadn't been relying on it to build the Eluvian -- she couldn't get an answer, pointing to Audacity being free already -- supported by the fact that if you don't talk to Marethari she's still possessed and the statue is empty.


[quote]
Marethari shows no signs of mental deterioration.[/quote]

1) Sending your First to go after a vicious Varterral that's already killed 3 of your hunters,
2) failing to inform you of Pol being in the caves as well (because I doubt they'd fail to notice the only city Elf in their clan missing, especially when the woman that was interested in him was... well... dead by Varterral),
3) poisoning the clan against Merrill,
4) freeing the demon in the worst possible way when there were other and better methods of doing so,
5) failing to warn the clan of what she was doing, 
6) placing a person that left the clan over the welfare of dozens of people under her command,
7) and placing Merrill, Hawke, the clan, and Kirkwall at risk once becoming an Abomination.

Marethari thinks Merrill can't handle a weakened Pride Demon but thinks she can handle a Pride Abomination, who have access to a Mage's full powers and can summon other Demons to help them in battle? And could bind them to the bodies of their enemies?

Yes, she shows absolutely no signs of mental deterioration. Nor does she show any signs of failing at logic. [/sarcasm]



 [quote]
Anyone she meets agrees she is wise.[/quote]

The clan is biased. They're obviously going to think she's wise, considering she's their Keeper.

Actually, that's not true. Some of the clan -- Ilen -- remark on how remaining on Sundermount is foolish and that they're leaving.

So yes, she does show signs of mental deterioration.


[quote]Xilizhra wrote....

I would reply more, but debates on this particular topic tend to leave me boiling with incoherent rage, and so I'll let Ethereal continue in my stead.[/quote]

I'll admit, sometimes I have the same thing happen to me and it's hard to actually not shout from the rooftops while pulling out my hair.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 23 juillet 2012 - 07:40 .

[dragonflight288]

Connor does state that he read some books regarding demons that belonged to Jowan.



Source please.

Nizaris brought this to my attention in the game, and I was there so I played it myself, and here's how it goes.

In Redcliff, if you go up to Connor, you can ask him how he summoned the desire demon, or made contact with it. Connor admits that after Jowan was arrested, he was desperate to help his father so he stole some of Jowan's books that Connor was never allowed to touch. After going through those books, the desire demon made contact with him.

For Connor, it was a complete accident (although the demon never left the Fade, but manipulated him through his dreams and controlled him from the Fade) but he did take books on summoning spirits from Jowan after Jowan wasn't in a position to stop him.