The HN origin is evil and terrible. I'm not biased because I can't figure out how to write something not boring for my Duncanless version.
Now the Dalish ... I figure it was the shortest, sure, but to me it had the most interesting possibilities. To me it was, frankly, cool. You go and explore a cave which turns out to be ruins, see all these freaky things that you flex your bad assery at and kill. Then when some centuries old magical artifact tries to kill you, you're like o HELL naw, and get back up. Now despite being "mostly dead" (which we all learned about quite nicely in Princess Bride, so I won't go into detail about) you truck yourself back to this cave. Seeing a darkspawn/the exertion of killing it makes you pale, but you truck on. Because you're bad ass.
Now, here's where it derails. Instead of some cool, poetic, "you're already Joined! Master it, and be stronger!" thing, you still have to go through the railroaded Joining Ceremony. Something way cooler could have been done with all that.
Regrettably I wasn't sure what that "way cooler" thing was, without getting too loose with canon, so even I eventually railroaded into a Joining Ceremony for Artana... But, the possibilities were there!