And even though Merril may believe that she cleansed the taint from the mirror, there's no guarentee that she succeeded. And Hawke is perfetly entited to doubt that claim should the player choose.
Actually, there is evidence.
Anders, a Grey Warden, does not say anything about the Taint being in the Mirror when he's two feet away from it. He is opposed to that project and if he could sense it, he would tell Hawke right away.
Duncan was able to sense the taint in the mirror. That Anders cannot is proof that the shard was successfully cleansed.
Furthermore, Merrill used blood magic to amplify the healing magic she already knew and was taught by Marethari. In its unamplified state, it was proven to combat the Taint temporarily. In its amplified state, the shard/mirror was Taintless for seven years.
Whereas when other Elves began to explore the ruins Tamlen found 2.5 years after the Blight, they were tainted immediately.
I will not argue with your second point though. You can say that her obsession with helping her clan would lead her to her downfall in that end. However, it is fair to assume that their minds(the companions in general i am refering to) were being influenced by the demons as well since they were in their domain. Few of the party members refer to not really thinking clearly. And from what we have seen from Sloth back in DA:O that is a likely chance of them being influenced to side with the demons and being manipulated by their wants
In the Fade, Demons of Desire and Pride are capable of mind control as they're at their most powerful. The codex entries on Demons tells us this, and that quest cemented that those two Demons performed mind control over the companions' minds.
I don't think it'd be wrong to say that was a learning experience for Merrill where her pride began to diminish greatly afterwards. As we see in Act 3, her pride has indeed gone down a great deal. So I'd say that her mind being controlled, while not something we can hold against her because Demons are at their most powerful in the Fade, did affect her certainly in a beneficial way.
Not that Audacity posed that same threat to her. Audacity wasn't that dangerous when he was trapped in the statue. All he was capable of were a few things: weaving illusions to people in front of him, whispering to people which grew louder the closer they got to him, and manipulating people based on how close they were to him -- as the short story tells us his diminished powers only work up to a certain distance.
It's my belief that Marethari was his true target all along and he manipulated her to free him, using Merrill's voluntary exile to drive a bigger wedge between the two of them. This is supported by dev comments stating that Demons seek to possess ideally powerful Mages who hold influence over people, but aren't adverse to settling for the latter -- as we see with Connor.
Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 27 octobre 2012 - 07:19 .
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