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[General User]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

But those rituals aren't relatively common in our neighborhood, as there's no legitimate proof of their existence.

If "our neighborhood" is Thedas I don't see how you can claim that.  Somedays it seems like everyone and their sister is using blood magic or summoning demons.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

And they wouldn't offer them the promise of getting ahead in their competition, because they're not competing against anyone.

Being starkly divided along racial and religious lines the Dales and the Andrastian Nations were very much in competition.  For the usual (money, power, territory, prestige) if nothing else.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

And if those things were practiced by the elves of the Dales, why don't the Dalish do the same thing now?

If the elves ever practiced such things in the first place, I would guess that they stopped because an army of Andrastians damn near wiped their people and if they started up again that just might inspire those same Andrastians' descendants to finish the job.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Investigated? Sure.

But I'd also expect to see some proof from it to verify it for the history books. Leaving it at rumors just sounds.... fishy.

Sometimes rumors can't be verified.  Especially if the true events that inspired them were never particularly widespread in the first place.  For example, if the Dalish abducted and/or murdered a handful of human beings (for any purpose), that might be enough to start the rumors.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

There's quite a difference between fresh blood and old blood, and I doubt very much that all of the altars would've been soaked with so much blood that you couldn't tell the difference. But even then, altars wouldn't be the only signs of ritual sacrifice. There'd also be bodies of human origin, or things out of place.

Sorry about that.  I was just trying to be a bit sardonic.  My point was rather that if the eventual conquest of the Dales was as cataclysmic as it would seem to have been, a lot of details could easily have been lost.  In other words, it's hard to notice any particular something "out of place" when everything is out of place!

[IanPolaris]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

Considering the elves wanted to regain their immortality by staying away from humanity (and it's mentioned the Dalish live longer than their city counterparts), I don't see why they would capture humans and have contact with them.

Politics, lust, personal attachments, or scientific study to determine just how or why contact with Humans deteriorates Elfendom, so as to be able to better prevent it.

Take your pick. There are many more available as well.

The one universal thing about the Dalish (and they are otherwise extremely varied) is that human contact is a bad thing.  What's more there is at least some annecdotal evidence that suggests that the Dalish may well be right about that (at least in terms of lifespan and disease).

There is no evidence that the post-Tevinter Dalish wanted anything to do with humanity and plenty that they didn't.

The humans criticized how their Emerald Guardians kept out the humans from the nation of the Dales, so there seems to be a contradiction with the "rumors" from the Orlesians (that, based on our exposure to the clans, seem to have no merit).

That's not a contradiction, because there are other ways for information (and people) to move across the border.

Except no effort was made after the war to verify it.  Even one blood-soaked alter clearly used for human sacrifice would have put the Chanty on the moral high ground for good.  So why didn't they?  The chantry clearly has the archeologists to prove it.

The easiest and simpliest conclusion:  No such thing exists.  It's an easy and time honored tactic to 'dehumanize' those you wish to subjegate/fight whether it is true or not...and by the time fighting breaks out, the truth is sadly far besides the point usually.

In addition to the expansionist mentality of the Orlesian Empire, there is reason to doubt their claims.

Sure. There's also reason to consider it.

Yes, we are considering it.  Considering it doesn't mean accepting it though.  Many of us have logically asked ourselves, given that the Dalish could have started the war, why would they.  What would they have to gain.

Answer;  Not one bloody thing.

That leaves two possibilities:

1.  It was an accident that the Orlesians elevated into a Causus Beli.
2.  It was a false flag attack by the Orlesians.  (Even in our real world, false flag attacks are very common.)

-Polaris

[TEWR]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

That's easy: what wasn't lost during the fall (as much/most was) was suppressed afterwards.

The Elves of the Dales didn't lose their history/culture after the Exalted March, IIRC. What they lost of their history and culture happened many centuries prior when Arlathan fell and Tevinter made it a point to suppress Elven history/lore/everything, to the point where oral tradition was the most used method.

The Dalish themselves hold a meeting of the clans every 10 years, the most recent one being in Halamshiral. If they're going back to the capital city of the Dales to hold a meeting, I'm sure they'd see the signs of altars having been used and find more lore/history about their culture there.

Since Halamshiral is the place they're meeting at now, it's possible they've done it before. Maybe consistently.

Except that knowing what rumors were going around at the time gives context as to what people were thinking of at the time. The Chantry's history makes no claim that the rumors were true, or justified, only that they existed.

Fair enough, though I'd expect Sister Petrine -- who prides herself on ascertaining the truth -- to have stated whether or not they were true in the very thing she penned.

The Chantry claims they existed. I'm not denying that the rumors existed. But I am denying that the rumors were true or had anything to back them up.

We also have an account of the Elves raising a human child amongst them, who grew up to be the first knight of Orlais. Granted, that happened 500 years after Halamshiral's fall, but the Elves took in a human child.

They also took in Feynriel -- possibly -- and he was a human as well, despite the Elven blood in his veins.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Fringe elements would be all that would be needed to validate those rumors.

True, though the act of war against the Dales that followed was overkill -- assuming fringe elments even did do sacrificial rituals, which I hold my doubts about but concede as possible.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Why not? Nations do things that, in retrospect, are really stupid all the time. Check out the Economic Crisis.

Yea, but that brand of stupidity seems a tad much for Thedas. Let's assume that all Elves everywhere weren't practitioners of human sacrifice prior to the rumors having begun circulating, for the sake of discussion.

I can't see the Elves doing anything of the sort, because of the inevitable war that would follow -- thereby jeopardizing their immortality goal and killing many Elves in the process.

Additionally, we know the border guards of the Dales were meant to enforce the isolationist policies the country employed -- making it a point to sever contact with the humans.

Why would they then jeopardize their own goal of immortality by bringing humans into their lands for sacrifices?

Again, fringe elements I can maybe see having done it. The nation itself, not so much.

But I'm more inclined to believe that they were propagandist lies spread by the Chantry/Orlais against a religion they deemed heretical -- as mankind's first sin was apparently not worshipping the Maker, so I doubt the Chantry was very tolerant of the Elven religion -- and possibly made true on their own.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

How can you not, when the Dalish themselves acknowledge it and centuries of incredibly different contexts, historical and political, have passed?

There's a gap between the Dalish Elves and the Elves of Arlathan, but I don't recall them saying there's a gap between their current incarnation and their counterparts from the time of the Dales.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

The Phylactery's memories are indeterminate and vague, and can't be used to give a defining concept one way or the other.

It knew enough to know that the Elves and Humans lived in peace with one another. I'm about to enter the ruins on my Dwarf Noble run, so I'll see what else there is that it says.

[IanPolaris]

General User wrote...

Sorry about that.  I was just trying to be a bit sardonic.  My point was rather that if the eventual conquest of the Dales was as cataclysmic as it would seem to have been, a lot of details could easily have been lost.  In other words, it's hard to notice any particular something "out of place" when everything is out of place!

I'm not buying it.  Given the enormous (and probably permanent) propaganda victory this would hand the Chantry, I find it impossible to believe the Templars and Chantry Scholars wouldn't look (and even try to manufacture) such evidence.  Winners in wars do such things all the time.

However, the fact that even now the Chantry calls it 'rumors' is very telling. Had their been ANY truth to the rumor, it wouldn't be presented as a rumor by the Chantry but a "verified fact" with "proof".  The fact that it's not tells me the practice never really happened.

-Polaris

[General User]

IanPolaris wrote...

General User wrote...

Sorry about that.  I was just trying to be a bit sardonic.  My point was rather that if the eventual conquest of the Dales was as cataclysmic as it would seem to have been, a lot of details could easily have been lost.  In other words, it's hard to notice any particular something "out of place" when everything is out of place!

I'm not buying it.  Given the enormous (and probably permanent) propaganda victory this would hand the Chantry, I find it impossible to believe the Templars and Chantry Scholars wouldn't look (and even try to manufacture) such evidence.  Winners in wars do such things all the time.

However, the fact that even now the Chantry calls it 'rumors' is very telling. Had their been ANY truth to the rumor, it wouldn't be presented as a rumor by the Chantry but a "verified fact" with "proof".  The fact that it's not tells me the practice never really happened.

-Polaris

So... despite having the ample mean and opportunity to do so, and despite the enormous benefits doing so would potentially offer them... the Chantry declined to fabricate evdence of Dalish misdeeds... hmm... 

Sounds like a stand up bunch of gals to me!  I told you they could be trusted.

[IanPolaris]

General User wrote...

So... despite having the ample mean and opportunity to do so, and despite the enormous benefits doing so would potentially offer them... the Chantry declined to fabricate evdence of Dalish misdeeds... hmm... 

Not necessarily.  It is a LOT harder to fabricate evidence than it is to uncover it, and given that Divine Reneta's decision to expunge the Chant of Shartan from the Chant of light was 'contraversial' at best, I think it's very reasonable to think that it was a political hornet's nest she didn't want to stir up.  Divines have been deposed before after all.  Not only that, but even if the Divine were able to get the entire Chantry behind a coverup of this sort, the blowback if the ruse were ever discovered would be.....serious....especially given the shakey moral grounds the Chantry was already one.

Far better to allow (and encourage) a poisonous rumor than take the risk of someone either revealing (or some independant person exposing) an outright fraud.

Sounds like a stand up bunch of gals to me!  I told you they could be trusted.

That's not the chantry I remember reading about.  I'll leave it at that.

-Polaris

[Dean_the_Young]

That's nice, Polaris.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...

That's easy: what wasn't lost during the fall (as much/most was) was suppressed afterwards.
[/quote]

The Elves of the Dales didn't lose their history/culture after the Exalted March, IIRC. What they lost of their history and culture happened many centuries prior when Arlathan fell and Tevinter made it a point to suppress Elven history/lore/everything, to the point where oral tradition was the most used method.[/quote]The Dalish suffered a double catastrophe: the fall of Arlathan was the big one, but when the Dales were made a lot of what was left was brought there. Then that second-best concentration was also smashed, and even more was lost.

[quote]
The Dalish themselves hold a meeting of the clans every 10 years, the most recent one being in Halamshiral. If they're going back to the capital city of the Dales to hold a meeting, I'm sure they'd see the signs of altars having been used and find more lore/history about their culture there.[/quote]Not if the altars were destroyed and/or lost during the fall, as many things were.
[quote]
Since Halamshiral is the place they're meeting at now, it's possible they've done it before. Maybe consistently.[/quote]Or maybe not.
[quote]
Fair enough, though I'd expect Sister Petrine -- who prides herself on ascertaining the truth -- to have stated whether or not they were true in the very thing she penned.[/quote]Stating that something was a rumor is stating a truth, unless you are going to argue that there were NOT rumors of such things at the time.

The existence of a belief can be just as important as whether the belief is true or not. If you choose to ignore things because they can't be proven or disproven, you ignore hugely important concepts like, to pick a low hanging fruit, religion.
[quote]
The Chantry claims they existed. I'm not denying that the rumors existed. But I am denying that the rumors were true or had anything to back them up.[/quote]That's a mistaken approach, because that's an assertion that would require you to prove a negative (that there were no such things), which you do not have the resources for.

The best you can do, from this position, is to argue that the rumors are unsupported.

[quote]
We also have an account of the Elves raising a human child amongst them, who grew up to be the first knight of Orlais. Granted, that happened 500 years after Halamshiral's fall, but the Elves took in a human child.[/quote]That's arguing by the exception, and having said that I don't think there's much left to be said.
[quote]
True, though the act of war against the Dales that followed was overkill -- assuming fringe elments even did do sacrificial rituals, which I hold my doubts about but concede as possible.[/quote]A war itself may or may not have been, but it might not have started as such a war. The Total War aspect may have been a case of events spiraling out of control: the end result need not be the initial intention.
[quote]
Yea, but that brand of stupidity seems a tad much for Thedas.[/quote]Why? The economic crisis of reality was the result of a lot of smart people, many of them well intentioned, trying to advance their own or collective interests.

Let's assume that all Elves everywhere weren't practitioners of human sacrifice prior to the rumors having begun circulating, for the sake of discussion.[/quote]Certainly: you indulged my hypothetical earlier, so fair is fair.
[quote]
I can't see the Elves doing anything of the sort, because of the inevitable war that would follow -- thereby jeopardizing their immortality goal and killing many Elves in the process.[/quote]Let's question this: why would a war be inevitable? Orlesian retaliation could have been a border skirmish, or sacking an equivalent town rather than the whole of the Dales.

And if we don't assume a Total War, why would a limited war jeopardize their immortality goal, while the previous centuries of slavery didn't? A set back, perhapse, but jeopardize?

As for killing 'many' Elves, the casualty predicitons are debatable, but lives sacrificed for greater goals has never been an alien concept.

[quote]
Additionally, we know the border guards of the Dales were meant to enforce the isolationist policies the country employed -- making it a point to sever contact with the humans.[/quote]Or, alternatively, strictly regulate and limit. Think treaty ports of Japan: even isolationist cultures often adopt means to control contact.

[quote]
Why would they then jeopardize their own goal of immortality by bringing humans into their lands for sacrifices?[/quote]Researching the quickening effect would be one.

If you drop your motivation and expand it to 'why incite a border clash', you could easily get to the common one for uneasy neighbors: sometimes when someone is getting too close, punching them in the nose will teach them a lesson. Sure, it might start an immediate fight, but afterwards they might keep their distance.

Or they might pull out a knife. But that's usually less likely.

[quote]Again, fringe elements I can maybe see having done it. The nation itself, not so much. [/quote]I don't think anyone is arguing it as a national policy.

But for fringe groups, fringe groups only work when others recognize them as fringe groups. There are plenty reasons why the distinction might not be made... and that's simply because outsiders might not know the group is actually a fringe because the isolationist power doesn't exactly encourage transparency. Top it with sentiments that the Dales aren't doing 'enough', which is as subjective a position as there ever was, and even a Dale failure to bring perpetrators to 'sufficient' justice can be viewed as complicity.

And that's if the Dales turned on those malecontents in the first place. Many, if not most, tight-nit identity groups will stand by members who are in the wrong rather than turn them over to an outsider. Even if it was a case of 'you're a bad elf, but we won't extradite you to be lynched by the Orlesians,' that can be construed as complicity by outsiders.
[quote]
But I'm more inclined to believe that they were propagandist lies spread by the Chantry/Orlais against a religion they deemed heretical -- as mankind's first sin was apparently not worshipping the Maker, so I doubt the Chantry was very tolerant of the Elven religion -- and possibly made true on their own.
[/quote]Even if it was a baseless rumor, it needn't have been pushed by the Chantry on any deliberate or organizational level. That's assigning a root of all evil mentality when simple plebian suspicion could suffice.

[quote]
There's a gap between the Dalish Elves and the Elves of Arlathan, but I don't recall them saying there's a gap between their current incarnation and their counterparts from the time of the Dales.[/quote] The Dales were a settled civilization of some power, significant population, infrastructure and unified organizations, with a relatively greater amount of historical and cultural knowledge. The Dalish are a the nomadic remnants of a fraction of the conquered population, with no centralized governance or unity, and fewer fragments of the knowledge that was lost during the war.

This is a point at which the outsider perspective is more relevant than the insider subjective opinion. The Dalish would trace their heritage back to the Dales, much like the Dales tracked to the original Elven civilizations, but they have about as much to do with eachother as any given modern national state today had to itsself in 1800. The US of today is culturally far from being the same as the US of the Jeffersonian period.[quote]
It knew enough to know that the Elves and Humans lived in peace with one another. I'm about to enter the ruins on my Dwarf Noble run, so I'll see what else there is that it says.[/quote]It knew enough to know that some Elves and Humans lived in peace somewhere at some time.

It's not an absolutist relic, and shouldn't be taken as such. The racial tensions that bubbled over could have been at a different time, or in a different area, or with different people.

[TEWR]

General User wrote...

If "our neighborhood" is Thedas I don't see how you can claim that.  Somedays it seems like everyone and their sister is using blood magic or summoning demons.

And though it's true Bioware seems to be overusing the whole blood magic/demon summoning schtick, we rarely see Elves using blood magic -- indeed, I can only think of 4 Elves that have done such. Merrill, Zathrian, Huon, and some gang leader on Kirkwall's streets.

Whereas we see it used far more often by humans.

Another tenet of the Elves is that they want to emulate their ancestral focus on patience. I kinda see the Elves of the Dales wanting to earn their immortality back through patience and prayer to their gods rather then being impatient like the shemlen and using the shemlen to further that goal.

But that's just me, really.

Being starkly divided along racial and religious lines the Dales and the Andrastian Nations were very much in competition.  For the usual (money, power, territory, prestige) if nothing else.

Orlais, yes. The Dales, no. The Dales were content with the land they had and set up isolationist policies. They seem to have thrived for 3 centuries without needing to compete against the human lands.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

If the elves ever practiced such things in the first place, I would guess that they stopped because an army of Andrastians damn near wiped their people and if they started up again that just might inspire those same Andrastians' descendants to finish the job.

Fair point, given how Marethari will say to the Dalish Warden that his/her choice to let the humans go was the right one, despite how it still prompted the settlement nearby to come at the Elves.

Sorry about that.  I was just trying to be a bit sardonic.

Don't feel too bad. I've got a bad headache today, so that's interfering with my reading comprehension a bit.

  My point was rather that if the eventual conquest of the Dales was as cataclysmic as it would seem to have been, a lot of details could easily have been lost.  In other words, it's hard to notice any particular something "out of place" when everything is out of place!

But Halamshiral wasn't cataclysmically destroyed, as it's still the site of the Arlathvenns (sp?). It must still be in good shape if the Elves feel content to go there for their meetings.

[TEWR]

Now, due to my headache, I think I shall retire for the evening. I will respond accordingly to other posters in the morning.

Good night folks!

[Dean_the_Young]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Now, due to my headache, I think I shall retire for the evening. I will respond accordingly to other posters in the morning.

Good night folks!

Good night, Ethereal. Always a pleasure.

[Dean_the_Young]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

But Halamshiral wasn't cataclysmically destroyed, as it's still the site of the Arlathvenns (sp?). It must still be in good shape if the Elves feel content to go there for their meetings.

Without butting in too much in the two or yours conversation, I'll just point out that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Total destruction doesn't preclude later settlement, and resettlement doesn't imply intact infrastructure. Good examples of this would be the various cities of Eurasia that have been sacked, razed, and rebuilt over the years.

The Exalted March could very well have razed everything there was to raze, smashed everything there was to smash, salted the earth and left a post-apacolyptic wasteland behind and that still wouldn't prevent a Dalish return for a meeting because, hey, symbolism.

I'm not saying there was that level of devastation, but experiencing such wouldn't stop a return. (And, honestly, non-cataclysmic destruction from war can actually be just as or more damaging from cataclysmic natural disasters. Compare post-Katrina Orleans, for example, with post-Stalingrad Stalingrad.)

[General User]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

But Halamshiral wasn't cataclysmically destroyed, as it's still the site of the Arlathvenns (sp?). It must still be in good shape if the Elves feel content to go there for their meetings.

Without butting in too much in the two or yours conversation, I'll just point out that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Total destruction doesn't preclude later settlement, and resettlement doesn't imply intact infrastructure. Good examples of this would be the various cities of Eurasia that have been sacked, razed, and rebuilt over the years.

The Exalted March could very well have razed everything there was to raze, smashed everything there was to smash, salted the earth and left a post-apacolyptic wasteland behind and that still wouldn't prevent a Dalish return for a meeting because, hey, symbolism.

I'm not saying there was that level of devastation, but experiencing such wouldn't stop a return. (And, honestly, non-cataclysmic destruction from war can actually be just as or more damaging from cataclysmic natural disasters. Compare post-Katrina Orleans, for example, with post-Stalingrad Stalingrad.)

That's an excellent point. 

It brings to mind a passage from a book I read a number of years ago where it was mentioned that, a few years after the collapse of the Roman Empire, one of the most magnificent and extravagant pleasure palaces ever built had become a weed filled ruin where the local peasants grazed their goats.

There may still be somesort of settlement called Halawhatever, but that doesn't mean it's anything near like what it once was.

Modifié par General User, 14 juillet 2012 - 03:40 .

[IanPolaris]

Except it doesn't wash. An archaelogist can take bones centuries old and using just a magnifying glass can tell if those bones were used in ritual sacrifice even if the bones were scattered and the alters destroyed. It is how we have determined that the ancient Minoans did in fact practice ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism.

The point is that IF the rumors had any truth to them whatsoever, it would be very easy to prove even IF the Dales were completely razed (and that doesn't seem to be the case). Not only that but the Chantry would have strong motivations for doing so.

The fact no such proof was ever forthcoming, the fact the same rumors are used against today's Dalish (and we KNOW those are false), and the fact that the elves have never sanctioned blood sacrifice (as distinct from blood magic) and given that Orlais/Chantry had everything to gain in a war and the Dales had everything to lose, tells me that:

1. The bolded line in the OP's post is almost certainly idle propaganda designed to poison the reader agains the Dalish. Positing unproven rumors is a classic (and dirty) propaganda trick that is used and has been used in our own world since there has been civilization.

2. Of the two basic accounts, the Dalish is seems more likely to be true. That's not saying that both sides probably aren't fudging some things, but if you are a human warden and you retort to the Warden, "It's a war you started", the Dalish are willing to at least consider the possibility. The Chantry is not. Of course the Dalish retort that it doesn't really matter since losing a war should NOT result in the genocide of your people and the destruction of your culture (and they would be right about that).

The fact that the Dalish account is vaguer, doesn't make extraordinary claims, and is consistant with the mindset of both peoples at the time, tells me that it's probably the version that's closer to the truth.

Personally, I do think that Orlais attacked Red Crossing themselves in a 'false flag' attack. It might not have been the Orlesian emperor. A rogue nobleman might have done this just as easily.

-Polaris

[dragonflight288]

My personal opinion is that, using in-game events like Zathrian using a powerful blood magic ritual to bind his life to Witherfang while also creating the werewolves, Avernus using blood magic to lengthen his own life despite the taint, and Merrill saying blood magic was part of the old ways, the elves of the Dales did, at least in some respects, practice blood magic.

But because it's been well established in Origins that the Dalish want to avoid the shemlens as much as possible, (and there are a lot of rumors among the humans about them, some that still include blood sacrifices and kidnapping) so they can regain their lost immortality, which is evidenced by their longer life-span as they stay separated from humans, adding in the fact that its made very clear that the Emerald Knights maintained a strict patrol of their borders to keep the humans out of their land, that the very idea of them kidnapping humans for blood sacrifices is unbelievable. The idea doesn't carry much weight.

But when I look at Orlais, I see a different story. I see a country with an entire history built around conquest. It started out as a series of city-states similar to the Free Marches when one guy decided he wanted to be an emperor and chose one of many Andrastian cults to help him conquer everyone and that's how the Chantry came to be.

I see a country that was recently ravaged in the 2nd blight so they would want more land for crops and refugees while their own land recovered from being tainted by the darkspawn. I also see the Chantry and its view that anything outside of its belief is heretical and some (Sister/Mother Petrice) see that alone as worthy of a death sentence.

I can easily see Orlais wanting to spread as many foul rumors as possible and then look for any justification to invade and conquer the Dales for themselves. I can even see them using City Elves to attack Red Crossing and then blame it on the Dalish.

Is that what happened? I have no idea. Is it possible? Yeah. Is it likely? More likely than the Elves kidnapping humans for blood sacrifices. Is it factual? Heck no, just my own supposition based on limited knowledge.

[Ausstig]

I think Orlais needed the recourses of the Dales to rebuild after the Blight, which the Dales had refused to help them with, so they may have tried trade and missionaries to get what they wanted; but as the Dales had a strict isolationist policy you can guess how that went. Then given the resentment of the common people and how weak Orlais is they would want to fight. Although conversely given how weak Orlais is and the fact that it took the sack of the Seat of the Chantry to get an Exalted March, it is possible that the Elves resented Orlais attempting to open up their land and decided to attack them as a form of defense, though given that they also were pushing for a total victory, maybe they were just as imperialistic as Orlais, only isolationist. As in 'leave us alone, you won't quite talking to me fine then I will kill you and take your stuff.

[IanPolaris]

Ausstig wrote...

I think Orlais needed the recourses of the Dales to rebuild after the Blight, which the Dales had refused to help them with, so they may have tried trade and missionaries to get what they wanted; but as the Dales had a strict isolationist policy you can guess how that went. Then given the resentment of the common people and how weak Orlais is they would want to fight. Although conversely given how weak Orlais is and the fact that it took the sack of the Seat of the Chantry to get an Exalted March, it is possible that the Elves resented Orlais attempting to open up their land and decided to attack them as a form of defense, though given that they also were pushing for a total victory, maybe they were just as imperialistic as Orlais, only isolationist. As in 'leave us alone, you won't quite talking to me fine then I will kill you and take your stuff.

The problem with this analysis is that Orlais was not weak.  Quite the opposite.  Orlais was very strong militarily and extremely expansionistic and badly outnumbered the Dalish Kingdom.  It was supposed to have been a walkover by Orlais.  I think everyone was shocked (except perhaps the Dalish) when the Dalish cleaned Orlais' clock, but I strongly suspect that most of that is due to the Dalish integrated use of battlemagic.  At the start, as I recall Orlais figured they'd win the war easily (and so did everyone else).

As for Imperialism, Isolationism and Imperialism don't go together.  Indeed in a lot of respects they are political  polar opposites.  I don't doubt for a moment that once the Dalish found themselves in a war, they went total war and decided to wipe out Orlais, root, stem, and branch so the pesky humans would never bother them again...and I would argue the Dalish were stupid in doing so (anyone with any polical sense should have realized the Chantry would step in to save their pet empire).

However, the Chantry interpretation (really the Orlesian one) of how the war started simply doesn't add up.

-Polaris

[TEWR]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

]The Dalish suffered a double catastrophe: the fall of Arlathan was the big one, but when the Dales were made a lot of what was left was brought there. Then that second-best concentration was also smashed, and even more was lost.

I'll concede this point, because now that I think about it there may have been a mention of the Dalish Elves' knowledge of what the Elves of the Dales knew and practiced being largely unknown.

But I'm not certain on that.

Not if the altars were destroyed and/or lost during the fall, as many things were.

Fair enough, though I still question why the Chantry hasn't authenticated such claims. They've made the knowledge of the rumors known -- as they did exist -- but they haven't done anything to verify those rumors were in fact true.

No stories of friends or families disappearing by certain villagers, no archaeological study of remains, no altars in Halamshiral being studied, etc.

If the rumors were true but all evidence was destroyed, the least the Chantry could do is try and end the rumors about it still going on.

Stating that something was a rumor is stating a truth, unless you are going to argue that there were NOT rumors of such things at the time.

I meant ascertaining the truth on whether the rumors themselves were talking about something true. Meaning did the Elves of the Dales actually sacrifice people to their gods?

The best you can do, from this position, is to argue that the rumors are unsupported.

That's what I meant to say. My bad.

Let's question this: why would a war be inevitable? Orlesian retaliation could have been a border skirmish, or sacking an equivalent town rather than the whole of the Dales.

But we have accounts that immediately after whatever (truly) happened at Red Crossing, Orlais called for a full scale war -- which they then started losing badly, due to underestimating the strength of the Elves.

Or, alternatively, strictly regulate and limit. Think treaty ports of Japan: even isolationist cultures often adopt means to control contact.

Were that the case, wouldn't the Chantry sources make mention of it? They too claim that the Emerald Knights rebuked all form of contact with the humans -- missionaries, merchant caravans, etc.

But for fringe groups, fringe groups only work when others recognize them as fringe groups. There are plenty reasons why the distinction might not be made... and that's simply because outsiders might not know the group is actually a fringe because the isolationist power doesn't exactly encourage transparency. Top it with sentiments that the Dales aren't doing 'enough', which is as subjective a position as there ever was, and even a Dale failure to bring perpetrators to 'sufficient' justice can be viewed as complicity.

And that's if the Dales turned on those malecontents in the first place. Many, if not most, tight-nit identity groups will stand by members who are in the wrong rather than turn them over to an outsider. Even if it was a case of 'you're a bad elf, but we won't extradite you to be lynched by the Orlesians,' that can be construed as complicity by outsiders.

Good point.

Even if it was a baseless rumor, it needn't have been pushed by the Chantry on any deliberate or organizational level. That's assigning a root of all evil mentality when simple plebian suspicion could suffice.

True... but I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that the Chantry/Orlesians started the rumor so easily. It may have simply been village folk acting like a suspicious sack of idiots -- the gossips in Ferelden certainly do this from time to time -- but it may not have been them that created the rumor also.

There's a myriad of possibilities for how the rumor may have started.

[TEWR]

IanPolaris wrote...

The problem with this analysis is that Orlais was not weak.  Quite the opposite.  Orlais was very strong militarily and extremely expansionistic and badly outnumbered the Dalish Kingdom. 

-Polaris

Well, the both of you are right, I think.

During the Second Blight, much of Orlais' farmland was destroyed IIRC. And Orlais itself faced problems when Emperor Kordillius Drakon II took the throne, one of them being that the Anderfels broke away from Orlesian influence and declared their independence.

So it's a bit of both I'd say. They were weakened, but not so much that they were pushovers to other nations -- save for the Dales.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 14 juillet 2012 - 06:12 .

[IanPolaris]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

The problem with this analysis is that Orlais was not weak.  Quite the opposite.  Orlais was very strong militarily and extremely expansionistic and badly outnumbered the Dalish Kingdom. 

-Polaris

Well, the both of you are right, I think.

During the Second Blight, much of Orlais' farmland was destroyed IIRC. And Orlais itself faced problems when Emperor Kordillius Drakon II took the throne, one of them being that the Anderfels broke away from Orlesian influence and declared their independence.

So it's a bit of both I'd say. They were weakened, but not so much that they were pushovers to other nations -- save for the Dales.

Hmm, you're right that Orlais was in a period of relative weakness especially economically because of the second blight, but that is all the more reason why they would covet Dalish land, and I don't recall that ANYONE thought the war against the Dales would be anything other than a walk-over (except the Dalish of course).

-Polaris

[TEWR]

IanPolaris wrote...

Hmm, you're right that Orlais was in a period of relative weakness especially economically because of the second blight, but that is all the more reason why they would covet Dalish land, and I don't recall that ANYONE thought the war against the Dales would be anything other than a walk-over (except the Dalish of course).

-Polaris

I agree that it's all the more reason why they'd want the Dales, as I've said as much in the past. It's untainted, relatively fertile land -- seeing as it lives in the shadows of the Frostback Mountains and doesn't get much rain nor has any major rivers. 

It does however border the Waking Sea, providing the opportunity for coastal settlements -- indeed, that's what happened after the Dales were conquered by Orlais. Humans set up settlements along the coastal region.

Oh also IanPolaris, this might interest you a bit:

1192 TE: Having conquered several neighboring city-states and forced others to submit to his overlordship, Kordillus Drakon is crowned in Val Royeaux as emperor. His ambitions to spread farther north into the Free Marches are confounded by constant pressures from the Dales to the east, so Emperor Drakon formalizes the Maker's cult into the Chantry and commands that missionaries be sent forth into the other lands

This was 3 years prior to the Divine Age -- the first Age of the Chantry Calendar -- happening and a little over a 100 years before the incident at Red Crossing.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 14 juillet 2012 - 07:00 .

[LobselVith8]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

There's a myriad of possibilities for how the rumor may have started.

There doesn't seem to be anything to substantiate the idea that the Dalish sacrifice humans - only the rumors from the Chantry. Given that Alistair mentions that the Qunari are nothing like the stories the Chantry told about them, I wouldn't be surprised if it was done to demonize the elves, but I suppose anything is possible. It could started as a joke, like Merrill's jest to Anders...

Anders: Do the Dalish ever have fancy parties? I always imagined they celebrated most big occasions by eating mushrooms and acorns. And maybe dancing naked around a campfire.

Merrill: You know, I was wondering when the naked dancing was going to start. And the human sacrifice. I mean, you just can't throw a decent party without kidnapping a human child and offering her entrails to the sky gods.

Anders: Really?

Merrill: No.

Had Anders not asked, he would have gone on thinking Dalish dance naked around a campfire and sacrifice humans to sky gods.

[DPSSOC]

LobselVith8 wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

There's a myriad of possibilities for how the rumor may have started.

There doesn't seem to be anything to substantiate the idea that the Dalish sacrifice humans - only the rumors from the Chantry. Given that Alistair mentions that the Qunari are nothing like the stories the Chantry told about them, I wouldn't be surprised if it was done to demonize the elves, but I suppose anything is possible. It could started as a joke, like Merrill's jest to Anders...

Anders: Do the Dalish ever have fancy parties? I always imagined they celebrated most big occasions by eating mushrooms and acorns. And maybe dancing naked around a campfire.

Merrill: You know, I was wondering when the naked dancing was going to start. And the human sacrifice. I mean, you just can't throw a decent party without kidnapping a human child and offering her entrails to the sky gods.

Anders: Really?

Merrill: No.

Had Anders not asked, he would have gone on thinking Dalish dance naked around a campfire and sacrifice humans to sky gods.

Merrill's playing off a well known misconception however, the Dales wouldn't be (if that's how it started).  It's similar to me making a joke based on Canadian stereotypes before Canada was even a nation.

I'm thinking there's a simple reason the rumour started.  The Emerald Knights would kill trespassers, because as we've seen in both games it takes remarkably little to make the Dalish want to kill you, and hang their bodies along the border as a warning.  People who saw them simply didn't get it and thought they'd been victims of ritualistic sacrifice.

One thing I don't get about the Dalish and their history is that they seem determined to maintain policies and practices that have only ever harmed their people.  Take their isolationist policies for example.  Arlathan isolated itself to maintain their immortality and as such didn't see and weren't prepared for the Tevinter invasion.  The Dales isolationist policy is, in all versions of the events, at least partly responsible for the tensions between them and Orlais that led to the war.  Now the Dalish want to continue this policy, but what makes them think anything will be different?  Third times the charm?

[dragonflight288]

DPSSOC wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

There's a myriad of possibilities for how the rumor may have started.

There doesn't seem to be anything to substantiate the idea that the Dalish sacrifice humans - only the rumors from the Chantry. Given that Alistair mentions that the Qunari are nothing like the stories the Chantry told about them, I wouldn't be surprised if it was done to demonize the elves, but I suppose anything is possible. It could started as a joke, like Merrill's jest to Anders...

Anders: Do the Dalish ever have fancy parties? I always imagined they celebrated most big occasions by eating mushrooms and acorns. And maybe dancing naked around a campfire.

Merrill: You know, I was wondering when the naked dancing was going to start. And the human sacrifice. I mean, you just can't throw a decent party without kidnapping a human child and offering her entrails to the sky gods.

Anders: Really?

Merrill: No.

Had Anders not asked, he would have gone on thinking Dalish dance naked around a campfire and sacrifice humans to sky gods.

Merrill's playing off a well known misconception however, the Dales wouldn't be (if that's how it started).  It's similar to me making a joke based on Canadian stereotypes before Canada was even a nation.

I'm thinking there's a simple reason the rumour started.  The Emerald Knights would kill trespassers, because as we've seen in both games it takes remarkably little to make the Dalish want to kill you, and hang their bodies along the border as a warning.  People who saw them simply didn't get it and thought they'd been victims of ritualistic sacrifice.

One thing I don't get about the Dalish and their history is that they seem determined to maintain policies and practices that have only ever harmed their people.  Take their isolationist policies for example.  Arlathan isolated itself to maintain their immortality and as such didn't see and weren't prepared for the Tevinter invasion.  The Dales isolationist policy is, in all versions of the events, at least partly responsible for the tensions between them and Orlais that led to the war.  Now the Dalish want to continue this policy, but what makes them think anything will be different?  Third times the charm?

Because they're elves! They're superior to us by virtue of being elves. I am merely a dregenlan. You are merely a Shemlen. We can never hope to match the skill of their hunters.

Joking aside, that's exactly their attitude. In Origins when we try to recruit the Dalish, the storyteller is offended and apalled that an outsider can succeed where their hunters failed. And is almost willing to deny the Warden's aid because they are not Dalish.

In DA2, the Dalish maintain those same beliefs. A sarcastic Hawke can make a comment to the crafter about the skill and renown of Dalish hunters. The crafter misses the sarcasm and admires how Hawke holds their hunters to such a high regard (Hawke pretty much said he  cannot possibly match up to their skill sarcastically.)

Then there's this off topic comment that popped into my head that is funny.

Hawke: I seem to have forgot my pointy ears and self-righteousness.
Hunter: You....Shemlan!!!!

[LobselVith8]

dragonflight288 wrote...

Joking aside, that's exactly their attitude. In Origins when we try to recruit the Dalish, the storyteller is offended and apalled that an outsider can succeed where their hunters failed. And is almost willing to deny the Warden's aid because they are not Dalish.

The storyteller is upset because his wife died. And we see Merrill and Marethari as examples if Dalish elves who don't behave this way.

As for Orlais and the Dales, when your religion expects you to spread your beliefs to the four corners if the world, it's going to be a problem for those who don't share those views.

[Dean_the_Young]

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...

]The Dalish suffered a double catastrophe: the fall of Arlathan was the big one, but when the Dales were made a lot of what was left was brought there. Then that second-best concentration was also smashed, and even more was lost.[/quote]

I'll concede this point, because now that I think about it there may have been a mention of the Dalish Elves' knowledge of what the Elves of the Dales knew and practiced being largely unknown.

But I'm not certain on that.[/quote]It would make sense: the loss of information in times of catastrophe is pretty much a given, and the fall of the Dales was anything but orderly.

I'd like to make clear I'm not saying that all information was lost... but when you consider the nature of the end of the Dales, and the interim period between, and information loss would result even in modern societies with far better record keeping abilities.

[quote]
[quote]
Not if the altars were destroyed and/or lost during the fall, as many things were.[/quote]

Fair enough, though I still question why the Chantry hasn't authenticated such claims. They've made the knowledge of the rumors known -- as they did exist -- but they haven't done anything to verify those rumors were in fact true.[/quote]There are two answers that come to mind that, while not contradictory, go on different paths.

The first is: a farsighted/political evaluation at the time with the future of the elves (particularly the city eleves) in mind. While you could make a case for writing the losers to be worse than they were for domestic political reasons (they're pure evil), when you intend to live with them for the indefinite/permanent future that's not necessarily a bright idea. Consider the US treatment of Germany and Japan in the post-war: both nations did indisputably epic evil acts and policies, but the post-war relations was not a litany of blood-guilt forever. Seventy years later and we barely care: give it another few hundred and how relevant would it be?

The second is: Who says they didn't? You're demanding an omnibus out of a summary, when 'The Archeological Record of the fall of the Dales, Abduction Edition' could be a separate work we haven't seen. We've hardly had unlimited access to all the books of history in Thedas.

[quote]
No stories of friends or families disappearing by certain villagers, no archaeological study of remains, no altars in Halamshiral being studied, etc.[/quote]This is demanding a bit too much detail for a pretty brief summary of a conflict that is, in in-game terms, ancient history and which is, in out-of-game terms, not very important backstory. The lore of the game doesn't go into that much detail for any topic unless its directly and incredibly relevant to the game, which the fall of the Dales and ancient elvish history are not.

If the rumors were true but all evidence was destroyed, the least the Chantry could do is try and end the rumors about it still going on.

[quote]
[quote]
Stating that something was a rumor is stating a truth, unless you are going to argue that there were NOT rumors of such things at the time.[/quote]

I meant ascertaining the truth on whether the rumors themselves were talking about something true. Meaning did the Elves of the Dales actually sacrifice people to their gods?[/quote]For a history summarizing the climate of the times, the objective reality is irrelevant to the perceived reality by the actors.

[quote]
But we have accounts that immediately after whatever (truly) happened at Red Crossing, Orlais called for a full scale war -- which they then started losing badly, due to underestimating the strength of the Elves.[/quote]You're missing the point: what Orlais actually did, in history, isn't the same as what they'd be judged likely to do at the time. Orlais is not required by some fundamental law of nature to respond with disproportionate force, and as you say here their immediate strength wasn't overwhelming. That could factor into the Elvish policy thinking for whatever relevant groups cared: they could judge elvish strength vis-a-vis Orlais, rather than Chantrydom.

[quote]
Were that the case, wouldn't the Chantry sources make mention of it? They too claim that the Emerald Knights rebuked all form of contact with the humans -- missionaries, merchant caravans, etc.[/quote]The short answer is maybe, the longer answer is that the codex entry is broad enough to allow for such a thing already.  The Emerald Knights and the contact issues could be in reference to those unsanctioned areas... which merchants and missionaries and such always have reasons to want to bypass.

[quote]
[quote]
Even if it was a baseless rumor, it needn't have been pushed by the Chantry on any deliberate or organizational level. That's assigning a root of all evil mentality when simple plebian suspicion could suffice. [/quote]

True... but I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that the Chantry/Orlesians started the rumor so easily. It may have simply been village folk acting like a suspicious sack of idiots -- the gossips in Ferelden certainly do this from time to time -- but it may not have been them that created the rumor also.

There's a myriad of possibilities for how the rumor may have started.
[/quote]Certainly! The Chantry could stand to benefit from such, and so they are a perfectly valid subject of suspicion. I just prefer open recognition of the possibilities, rather than it being worded as an accussation or assertion of fact.