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[Shadow Fox]

regarding the Dalish and Orlais thing frankly considering what I know of real life history's conflicts I'd say neither side is completely innocent or blameless who deserves most of the fault is to put it bluntly a matter of who's version you believe more.

[LobselVith8]

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]Faerunner wrote...

Didn't you read the part where I said human and elven history is rife with humans conquering, subjugating, re-conquering and re-subjugating elves every chance they can get?[/quote]
 
History is not rife with anything of the sort.  It's happened twice over the course of at least 3 millenia. [/quote]

The humans of Tevinter conquered the Arlathan elves and destroyed their homeland; the humans of the Andrastian faith conquered the Dales and occupied the Dales, leaving the elves to either become nomadic or submit to human rule, give up their religious beliefs, and live in poverty. Every time the elves have established a homeland, humans have conquered them.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]Faerunner wrote...

Even modern templars try to convert Dalish and take their Keepers to their Circles. The Dalish are small tribes of nomads that try to stay away from humans as often as they can and humans STILL seek them out and try to bend them to their will. The only thing that really protects the Dalish is that they move around too much for humans to catch them. If the Dalish of the world suddenly became sedentary, do you really think the templars would suddenly stop trying to convert them? It would be like the Dales all over again. Humans would send their "peaceful" missionaries to convert the Dalish and then conquer and subjugate them after they refused.[/quote]
 
I was referring to the time of the Dales.  When they were an established military power that managed to whoop Orlais.  Obviously suddenly becoming sedentary now wouldn't help, that window closed a while ago.  However it is still possible to be progressive while nomadic. [/quote]

When the templars are trying to murder your people and the Chantry is trying to force you to convert to their religion with threats of violence, I doubt it.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]Faerunner wrote...

It was their country, they could do whatever they wanted as long as they weren't hurting anyone. The elves weren't hurting anyone, they were minding their own affairs and only responded negatively when humans refused to do the same. If anything, I think the humans were in the wrong for going over and trying to tell elves how to run their country over and over.[/quote] 

Bold - Two things number one it's a little known fact about politics that even if you're not involved in it, you are.  The Dalish and the Dales don't exist in a vacuum they can't just ignore everyone and everything they don't like, the world does not work that way.  You want to continue to exist as a sovereign nation then you've got to play the game.

Next the Dalish were hurting people.  The traders, diplomats, and missionaries violently turned away at their borders, not to mention the people of Red Crossing.. [/quote]

We know the Emerald Guardians turned people away; why do you assume it was violently? And considering that Orlais was actively conquering it's neighbors, the elves seem to have good reason to want nothing to do with the Orlesian Empire - an imperialistic nation that sought to expand its territory and convert it's neighbors to the faith that was established by Emperor Drakon I.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

Italics - The humans did nothing of the sort.  They were trying to be amicable neighbours, offering trade and partnerships.  If all they'd sent were missionaries you'd have a point but they tried a number of times to get along with the Dalish and they were having none of it.  How would you feel if you went over to your new neighbour welcoming him to the neighbourhood and he punched you in the stomach and slammed the door in your face? [/quote]

The Chantry is said to have sent armed and armored soldiers into sovereign territory when the elves refused to convert, but you vilify the elves instead of the transgressors? Orlais was conquering it's neighbors; they weren't being amicable.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]Faerunner wrote...

And that totally makes it okay. Humans want it, therefore humans deserve it.[/quote]

No I"m just saying there are simpler explanations than a vast international conspiracy to take those elves down a peg.  Assuming of course that the Orlesians were the agressors. [/quote]

The elves don't claim it was an "international conspiracy" or anything of the sort; the Dalish explain that it began as a result of the elves' refusal to convert to the Andrastian faith.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]Faerunner wrote...

It doesn't exactly incentivize the Dalish to start trying to open up with their human neighbors.[/quote]
 
Actually it really, really does.  If someone has a false perception of you that causes them to attack you on sight, you have a huge incentive to clear that up. [/quote]

When the religious organization of humanity preaches that you are a "heathen" for worshipping different gods, then it's going to be a bit difficult to resolve.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

Actually, some scholars believe that it was the Arlathan elves who taught Tevinter about blood magic. The elves only retreated from contact with Tevinter when they started losing their immortality, and I don't believe slavery was "inevitable."[/quote]

You really believe they shared everything before they realized that? You really think the power hungry Magisters of Tevinter would believe that? And slavery is always inevitable when you build an Empire on the acquisition of power. Had the elves bothered to check in every now and again they'd have seen it coming. [/quote]

Since you have no evidence to the contrary, we have to go with what we know: that the Arlathan elves did share some of their knowledge with humanity. And you blame the elves because humanity enslaved them? I'd blame the people who enslaved men, women, and children, not the people who were enslaved.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

Given the Orlesian history of conquering other nations since its inception (with Drakon enacting a number of Exalted Marches on his neighbors to create the Orleisan Empire and the Chantry of Andraste), it wouldn't surprise me if the Dales refused to interact with a nation that had a penchant for conquest.

We also know that the Andrastians view others as "heathens" if they don't worship the Maker. The elves worshipped the Creators, and it's clear that the Chantry of Andraste wants to spread its views across all the corners of the world.[/quote]

Which is why I said both were possible. Given the arrogant and hostile attitudes of the Dalish and the fact they placed an elite armed military force on their border to keep people out I could see them attacking Red Crossing as a way of sending the message, "****** off and leave us alone."

Also as you've explained Orlais being the aggressor is entirely possible too. My point was that regardless of who started it either is a foreseeable event. [/quote]

We know how the Dalish are now; having two homelands sacked by human nations, and having my religion outlawed by society, would tick me off, too.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

Kicking out the missionaries was said to have responded with the Chantry sending in templars (according to the Dalish Warden codex).[/quote]

Yeah about that. You notice how the Dalish have one sentence covering the lead up to the war? While the Orlesian have a rather detailed account of missionaries, diplomats, and traders being turned away, obvious hostility being expressed by the Dalish culminating in an attack. The devil's in the details and anybody who keeps their history that vague is hiding something. Alternatively they're so sociopathic as a nation that they just didn't get why what they were doing upset the humans. [/quote]

Considering the "detailed" account slanders the elves of the Dales and their religion, as well as the fact that they have continually conquered other nations since their inception, I'm not inclined to trust their account.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

The Dalish seek to restore what they lost. It certainly seems better than the alternative: living in poverty as second-class citizens in Andrastian society, where your entire Alienage can be "purged" if your people get out of line.[/quote]

Of course because clearly the only alternative to trying to recreate a lost culture is to fall in with an established one. Not like they could start forming their own or anything. [/quote]

Because that worked out so well for the Alienage elves.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

The elves lose their immortality and their magic because of their contact with humanity; I can imagine that isolation plays a role in trying to restore what they have lost.[/quote]

I was speaking specifically of knowledge. Learning about their history and culture is more effectively done through collaboration with other organizations with similar goals. Recreating their history, trying to back track to just before the fall of Arlathan, would be the entire problem since it shows a complete lack of understanding as to what go them here in the first place. As I said, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Isolation has never worked out for the elves, ever, try something else. [/quote]

Being a part of human society clearly hasn't worked out for the elves, either.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

"Not entirely unearned" based on what? Gossip? Heresay? Rumor?[/quote]

Well not sure what info Thedas is working on but let's see. Tamlen's first instinct when encountering 3 terrified humans is to kill them. If you do Marethari is only upset because it inconvenienced the clan (rather than the fact you just killed 3 people for no reason other than you could). Non-Dalish Warden meeting the Dalish, first words out of their mouth is a death threat, Hawke same deal. Dalish that Maric and Loghain encounter in Stolen Throne send them off where they're not only sure they'll die but die painfully, and lastly Genitivi seems rather certain that had he encountered any other Dalish he would have been killed. [/quote]

You mean the three humans who, if spared, form a mob to attack the Dalish camp? The Dalish inquire as to why The Warden and Hawke are encroaching towards their camp; the fact that the Dalish of Marethari's camp tell the templars to back down, rather than ouright kill them after they tortured one of their children for information, shows far more restraint than I would have demonstrated. And Genitivi is a bigot who thinks that humans are the "masters of Thedas."

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

I doubt any human nation would aid a nation of "heathens" against the Chantry of Andraste and the Orlesian Empire.[/quote]

Maybe not but there odds are better than if you actively alienate everybody. [/quote]

When the human religion preaches against the elves, I'm not inclined to agree.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

You really seem to clutch to this idea that the Andrastian nations would have really helped a nation of non-Andrastians keep the Dales. The Dalish already explain that the human nations grew cold towards the Dales because they wouldn't convert to the Chantry of Andraste; I doubt that would have changed if the elves reached out to other nations.[/quote]

You mean the nations grew cold to the Dalish because the Dalish were cold to them. Trade, cooperation, and war alliances transcend a lot of interesting boundaries when push comes to shove. Not to mention I hold to the fact that had the Dalish not been absolute pricks to everybody the whole war might not have happened. [/quote]

The elves of the Dales were living their own lives, while the Chantry tried to convert them with missionaries, and then through force with templars. Yet the elves are to blame because... what, exactly? They weren't warm to the imperialists of Orlais who were invading other nations, and forcing them to worship their religion? Because they didn't capitulate to the demands of the Chantry to convert, and then had to deal with armored soldiers invading their homeland?

You blame the victims for being enslaved and then invaded instead of the transgressors who enslaved them and invaded them.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

The dwarves live in an impenetrable society that has the sole monopoly on lyrium. Even in the Epilogue where the surface nations attack Orzammar, it can't be penetrated. I don't think you can compare the elves of the Dales to the dwarves of Orzammar.[/quote]

And the Elves could have had an impenetrable society (the Dales were able to mop the floor with Orlais they were a military power to be reckoned with and had they not brought the enitre world down on them they probably still would be) and the sole monopoly on iron bark. Stronger and lighter than steel, can't tell me people wouldn't pay for that. [/quote]

This doesn't even make any sense: the dwarves live inside a mountain, with dwarven technology being able to keep outsiders out of their Great Thaig, and a sea of darkspawn in the Deep Roads to dissuade anyone from trying to conquer them through those routes; the elves don't live in the same conditions as the dwarves of Orzammar, so this isn't possible for them.

Modifié par LobselVith8, 20 octobre 2012 - 05:30 .

[SeptimusMagistos]

General User wrote...

The Dalish wander through other people's countries picking fights with virtually everyone just because they're a different race.  The idea that that sort of thing is somehow acceptable due to the fact that the elves who live in the cites are still mostly poor 700 or so years after the fall of the Dales is beyond absurd.

Well, hey, they don't exactly have their own country to wander through, do they? When the humans attacked the Dales, some elves refused to be conquered. And 700 years later they still refuse to be conquered. They're just in the middle of a really long strategic retreat, that's all.

General User wrote...

When a nation has stark racial, cultural, and religious differences with all its neighbors, that nation has a vested interest in being more open than others.  If only to demonstrate that, despite those differences, they mean no harm. 

Banning your neighbors' religion and closing your borders, like the old Dalish did, has got to be just about the most hostile, not to mention stupidest, things one could do.  If one wanted to maintain peaceable relations that is.

The only relation the elves want to maintain with humans is the one where the elves live in their own land and humans stay out. While not exactly neighborly, I don't feel this is an unreasonable stance for any nation to take.

General User wrote...

My point was rather that when in someone else's country, as the Dalish perpetually are, the hosts are within their rights to force the visitors to obey any and all local laws.  Of course there's a practical reason humans don't do this with the Dalish, the status quo would hardly have been permitted to go on this long if there weren't.  It's just that any lord/official/etc. who decided against reigning in the Dlaish had essentially given them a pass they didn't deserve.  The Dalish need to recognize such things and be grateful.

As far as the Dalish see things, they're keeping humans out of their camps with a mixture of maneuvering and the threat of force. They're not grateful to humans for the simple reason that they're the ones who take pains to make sure it's not practical for humans to attack them.

General User wrote...

The main thing I'm suggesting the Dalish do would be - if they ever really want to know who's primarily to blame for all the misfortunes they and the rest of their race have suffered in Thedas - to take a good long look in the nearest mirror.   It needn't even be a magical one. 

No, it was definitely the humans' fault. In this situation the Dalish are like a nerd who just wants to wear his cape to school and the humans are the bully who attacks the nerd over it. Whether or not the Dalish did anything to provoke hostility against them, that hostility is still unjustified.

In more practical terms, what are you suggesting they do about it right now? Stop moving around? Try to engage the humans in trade? Give up and move to the cities? Try to invent a cultural tradition from scratch?

[General User]

SeptimusMagistos wrote...

Well, hey, they don't exactly have their own country to wander through, do they? When the humans attacked the Dales, some elves refused to be conquered. And 700 years later they still refuse to be conquered. They're just in the middle of a really long strategic retreat, that's all.

Bitterly clinging to a war that was over a dozen generations ago does not give the Dalish license to be a menace to the whole of Thedas.

The only relation the elves want to maintain with humans is the one where the elves live in their own land and humans stay out. While not exactly neighborly, I don't feel this is an unreasonable stance for any nation to take.

A nation can be isolated from its neighbors or have peaceable relations with them.  Not both. 

As far as the Dalish see things, they're keeping humans out of their camps with a mixture of maneuvering and the threat of force. They're not grateful to humans for the simple reason that they're the ones who take pains to make sure it's not practical for humans to attack them.

One day you find that a man has broken into your home and has set himself up in the garage or basement, somewhere out of the way.   He doesn't come after you, but every time you get too close to him he pulls a gun, sticks it in your face, and gives you a diatribe about how -{insert whatever race/nationality you personally identify as here}- people are to blame for all his problems.  

Should you shoot this man yourself?  Should you call the police?  If you do neither, how would this man not owe you his gratitude?  Or do you let him go about his business? Comment please.

No, it was definitely the humans' fault. In this situation the Dalish are like a nerd who just wants to wear his cape to school and the humans are the bully who attacks the nerd over it. Whether or not the Dalish did anything to provoke hostility against them, that hostility is still unjustified.

That's nonsensical, not to mention inaccurate.  If hostility is provoked, by definition, it is not unjustified.  If this cape wearing "nerd" was also pushing around the "bully's" kid brother and the "nerd" started the fight by throwing rocks at the "bully", then it would be a good analogy for the Old Dales.   

The Dalish we see in Dragon Age are the town bum who blames his ex-wife/the government/the bank/the police/other races or religions, basically everyone but himself, for the fact he's living on the streets.  I'm sure he did have a hard row to hoe.  But in the end, it comes down to him.

In more practical terms, what are you suggesting they do about it right now? Stop moving around? Try to engage the humans in trade? Give up and move to the cities? Try to invent a cultural tradition from scratch?

I don't have any suggestions like that.  Largely because I don't think they matter.  The Dalish could do any, all, or none of those things, but if they don't change their current attitudes and priorities, they will fail at whatever it is they end up doing.

Modifié par General User, 21 octobre 2012 - 01:46 .

[DPSSOC]

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
History is not rife with anything of the sort.  It's happened twice over the course of at least 3 millenia.[/quote]

Two millennia at most, and both instances of humans and elves coexisting as separate societies ended with humans conquering and subjugating the elves. During the nearly two millennia of elves living in human socities (the thousand years of slavery under the Magisters and the 700 years as the dregs of Andrastian socities), city elves have almost never been allowed any opportunity to rise higher in human society. [/quote]

From the Wiki;

Human arrived in Thedas 4500 FA (Founding of Arlathan) - Present Day is around 8440 that's just shy of 4,000 years.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
That doesn't give the Dalish must reason to want to get involved with humans again.[/quote]

Except they are involved that's what you're not getting.  Short of leaving the continent they'll never not be involved, they're stuck with them.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]I was referring to the time of the Dales.  When they were an established military power that managed to whoop Orlais.  Obviously suddenly becoming sedentary now wouldn't help, that window closed a while ago.  However it is still possible to be progressive while nomadic.[/quote]
They are progressing. They're learning more of their heritage and culture and applying it to their daily lives, which is what they want to do.[/quote]

They are regressing.  They're trying to recreate the past rather than come up with anything new.  What you're arguing is that somebody in modern day wanting to go back to 1800's farming communities is progress.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]Bold - Two things number one it's a little known fact about politics that even if you're not involved in it, you are.  The Dalish and the Dales don't exist in a vacuum they can't just ignore everyone and everything they don't like, the world does not work that way.  You want to continue to exist as a sovereign nation then you've got to play the game.[/quote]
The game being: "Run our nation the way we say or lose your nation."[/quote]

No the game being trade, diplomacy, compromise, and in the worst cases war.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]Next the Dalish were hurting people.  The traders, diplomats, and missionaries violently turned away at their borders, not to mention the people of Red Crossing..[/quote]
There is no indication from either Dalish or Chantry source that the people the Orlaisians sent were "violently turned away," only that they were turned away (according to humans) or tossed out after letting themselves in (according to the Dalish).[/quote]

Turned away and tossed out by a military force.  This isn't some guy at a toll booth politely asking you to turn around this is a farmer with a shotgun screaming, "Get off my land."

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]Italics - The humans did nothing of the sort.  They were trying to be amicable neighbours, offering trade and partnerships.  If all they'd sent were missionaries you'd have a point but they tried a number of times to get along with the Dalish and they were having none of it.  How would you feel if you went over to your new neighbour welcoming him to the neighbourhood and he punched you in the stomach and slammed the door in your face?[/quote]Once again, there is no indication the elves were being as hostile as the humans imply.[/quote]

Closing off your borders, refusing trade and diplomacy, is hostile. 

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
In fact, let's compare both Dalish and Chantry versions of the start of the Fall of the Dales.

"Our people began the slow process of recovering the culture and traditions we had lost to slavery. 

But it was not to last. The Chantry first sent missionaries into the Dales, and then, when those were thrown out, templars."

Pretty straightforward and believable, considering the Chantry's on-going history of religious intolerance. Now let's look at the Chantry version.[/quote]

Straightforward and believable and saying absolutely nothing.  You can accurately describe any side of any war with that statement.

The British first sent fines and collectors, and then, when those went unpaid, bombs.  Germany WWII.  It's accurate, it's straight forward, but it omits other details of what happened between not paying what they were fined under the Treaty of Versaille and the British getting involved.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
"A new era had begun for the elves.

But the old era wasn't through with them. In their forest city, the elves turned again to worship their silent, ancient gods. They became increasingly isolationist, posting Emerald Knights who guarded [at] their borders with jealousy, rebuking all efforts at trade or civilized discourse. Dark Rumors spread in the lands that bordered the Dales, whispers of humans captured and sacrificed to elven gods."

Between all the negative adverbs and purple prose (which I've crossed out), it seems the elves committed the attrocious crime of worshipping their own gods in their own country and resisting conversion from outside forces.[/quote]

And refusing any kind of interaction which, as I pointed out, is a hostile act.  You also crossed out "efforts at" trade or discourse which I question.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
When you compare both accounts, it seems the humans had little interest in elves until they learned they were worshipping their own gods, then suddenly it became imperative to send in their missionaries.[/quote]
 
Explosion in 3, 2, 1.  THEY SENT FRICKING TRADE!!  THEY SENT DIPLOMATS!  YOU CAN'T CLAIM THE HUMANS HAD LITTLE INTEREST WHEN THEY WERE ACTIVELY TRYING TO FORM A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ELVES!  Ok I'm good now.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
According to both versions, the elves turned the missionaries away and the humans wouldn't stop trying to convert them.[/quote]
 
Where in the Chantry version does it say anything about missionaries?  It mentions the elves turned to worship their old gods (the Creators not the Old Gods that'd be weird) and rebuked trade and discourse.  Last I checked missionaries were neither peddlers nor negotiators.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]My point wasn't that it made their actions excusable it was just that your assertion that they were trying to recapture the good old days, that never existed, is inaccurate at best and completely ficticious at worst.[/quote]
Nah, I'm pretty sure you were trying to paint the humans as worse off, which they weren't.

You don't know that the "good old days" never existed. It's likely they did. Tevinter gained the power they needed to conquer the world from the magical techniques they learned from Arlathan. The Dalish live over twice as long as their city elf brethren, and even many humans.[/quote]
 
Gonna stop you right there.  I was referring to the humans "good old days" that never existed.  You know those good old days you suggested the slaves had of lording over every facet of elven life that they wanted to get back so they invaded the Dales.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
I see no harm in rediscovering and reintegrating these treasures of the past, especially if it can improve their quality of life. It's their culture, their prerogative.[/quote]

You don't see the harm?  Ok fair enough I'll explain it to you.  Arlathan and the Dales happening again.  That's the harm.  Because as I pointed out the Dalish only look at half the equation when it comes to looking at their history.  They only look at how the humans got them to this point ignoring their own part in it.  The Dalish are that guy who never gets ahead in life, is constantly broke, and blames everyone else.  His boss doesn't like him, or people are cheating him, or nobody's giving him a fair chance.  It's all everyone else and he never, not even for a moment, thinks about what he's doing that's keeping him down or what he's done that got him there.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]Actually it really, really does.  If someone has a false perception of you that causes them to attack you on sight, you have a huge incentive to clear that up.[/quote]
Not as much incentive as avoiding the hastle by leaving, especially since they don't want anything from humans.[/quote]

Except you know passage through their land, grazing for their halla, fruits, vegetables, and plants for themselves, wild game.  Keep in mind humans own Thedas pretty much.  The Brecillian Forest is property of the Fereldan Crown.  No matter where the Dalish go in Thedas they're in human lands.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]Which is why I said both were possible. Given the arrogant and hostile attitudes of the Dalish and the fact they placed an elite armed military force on their border to keep people out I could see them attacking Red Crossing as a way of sending the message, "****** off and leave us alone."[/quote]
Once again, sources indicate the Dalish didn't start posting armed forces at their border to keep people out until after people started trying to cross their border without consent. If the attack on Red Crossing is true, they wouldn't have to if the humans actually pissed off and left them alone.[/quote]

Or if the Dalish realized complete isolation when literally surrounded by other nations isn't realistic, or feasible, or smart.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
Which is more suspect? The people who're equally frank about both sides of the conflict or the people who go out of their way to paint the other side as villainously as possible and themselves as saintly as they can while trying gloss over actions that are are clearly very horrendous.[/quote]

Again the one that offers no detail.  As I pointed out you can describe any side of any war with as little detail as the Dalish offer and never be inaccurate.  When you have two accounts of the same event, and one is heavily biased but detailed, and the other is 1 sentence saying absolutely nothing, you go with the heavily biased account and accept that it's heavily biased. 

I'm not claiming the Orlesians are blameless, neither was Tevinter, as I said in my OP "Damn Shemlen" is part of the problem, but the Dalish and the elves of Arlathan aren't blameless either.  Arlathan less than the Dalish but they both contributed to what happened, they were both involved in the events leading up to their fall.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
P.S. One can easily turn your last statement around as "they're so sociopathic as a nation that they just didn't get why what they were doing upset the elves."[/quote]

You could, though I'd think it more accurate that the Orlesians knew and simply didn't care.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]Of course because clearly the only alternative to trying to recreate a lost culture is to fall in with an established one. Not like they could start forming their own or anything.[/quote]Not with humans constantly conquering and subjugating them every time they try, they can't.[/quote]

You don't have to settle to form a new culture.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]I was speaking specifically of knowledge. Learning about their history and culture is more effectively done through collaboration with other organizations with similar goals. Recreating their history, trying to back track to just before the fall of Arlathan, would be the entire problem since it shows a complete lack of understanding as to what go them here in the first place. As I said, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Isolation has never worked out for the elves, ever, try something else.[/quote]
It's worked for the Dalish for the last 700 years.[/quote]

And where has it gotten them?  Are they any better off than when they started?

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Well not sure what info Thedas is working on but let's see. Tamlen's first instinct when encountering 3 terrified humans is to kill them. If you do Marethari is only upset because it inconvenienced the clan (rather than the fact you just killed 3 people for no reason other than you could). Non-Dalish Warden meeting the Dalish, first words out of their mouth is a death threat, Hawke same deal. Dalish that Maric and Loghain encounter in Stolen Throne send them off where they're not only sure they'll die but die painfully, and lastly Genitivi seems rather certain that had he encountered any other Dalish he would have been killed.

So yeah based on that.[/quote]

And elves have every reason to distrust humans based on their historical and on-going behavior toward elves, yet you keep advocating for the Dalish to try to reach out and coexist with humans.[/quote]

Indeed they do, and yes I do advocate for the Dalish to be the first to extend an olive branch for the same reason I advocated that the Quarians be the first, they're in the worse position.  What do humans have to gain by dealing with the Dalish?  Far as they know nothing because they don't know much about them.  The Dalish on the other hand have at least one thing to gain, and it can only be gained this way, by dealing with humans; not being harassed.  No guarantees on anything but the won't know unless they try.

Also humans did try to reach out to the Dalish, the Dalish turned them down. 

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
EDIT: Tamlen, as an individual, is a hostile racist that will stay his bow if you ask him, and there's no indication that any other example of Dalish you mentioned would seriously kill the humans they're in contact with besides the humans' own fear and prejudice.[/quote]

And Marethari's reaction?  The fact she's not actually bothered that you killed 3 unarmed people but for the fact it's forced the clan to move.  The complete and utter lack of empathy.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
Neither the Origins clan nor DA2 clan make any immediate death threats that I can remember.[/quote]
 
Than you and I remember those events very differently.  I'll boot up a save of DA:O and DA2 pre-Dalish and review.  Perhaps I'm wrong there.

You also didn't mention Maric and Loghain where the Dalish sent them to what they fully expected to be a slow and painful death.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]Maybe not but there odds are better than if you actively alienate everybody.[/quote]
Which the elves didn't do. They minded their own business and only got defensive when humans started encroaching on their territory and forcing their religion down their throats.[/quote]

They turned away all attempts at contact, missionary or otherwise, and refused entrance into their borders.  That is actively alienating their neighbours.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]You mean the nations grew cold to the Dalish because the Dalish were cold to them. Trade, cooperation, and war alliances transcend a lot of interesting boundaries when push comes to shove. Not to mention I hold to the fact that had the Dalish not been absolute pricks to everybody the whole war might not have happened.[/quote]
No, the nations grew cold to the Dalish because they found out they were worshipping their own gods. Re-read the Chantry version of the codex if you're still not convinced.[/quote]
 
Chantry version doesn't mention anything about the nations growing cold.  I've found mention of increased hostility between the Dales and Orlais because the Dalish kinda sat out the Second Blight and allegedly watched one of their cities get sacked, but other than that nothing.  In fact other than banning it after the war I've found no mention of objection to the elven religion at all.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
And yes, sending away missionaries and increasing border patrol in response to further attempts at unwanted conversion was being absolute pricks to humans.[/quote]

Again you're ignoring all the attempts at contact turned away that weren't missionaries.  All of the traders and diplomats turned away, those were the Dalish being pricks.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...



[quote]And the Elves could have had an impenetrable society (the Dales were able to mop the floor with Orlais they were a military power to be reckoned with and had they not brought the enitre world down on them they probably still would be) and the sole monopoly on iron bark. Stronger and lighter than steel, can't tell me people wouldn't pay for that.[/quote]
Can't tell me they wouldn't use that against the elves once it was safely in their hands or they learned to make it without elven assistence. Dwarves control the monopoly on lyrium because they're the only ones that can physically harvest it and refine it without bleeding out of every orifice and dying a painful, messy death. The elves merely know how to craft iron bark, which the humans could learn from them as Tevinter learned how to enter the Fade from Arlathan. Money from the iron bark wouldn't do jack against actual iron bark weapons and armor being used against them in battle by humans that wanted to take them out anyway.[/quote]

Number 1 it's always easier to buy something than make it yourself.  Number 2 in order for humans to learn how to craft ironbark they'd have to capture a Dalish crafter specifically.  All Arlathan elves knew magic so any one of them could teach it, but crafting ironbark is a skill that only a few among the Dalish have mastered.  Also you're ignoring that the Dales were, at the time, a military super power.  Orlais had been conquering nations left and right and the Dalish pwnd them.  Invading, capturing a crafter, and learning to craft ironbark wouldn't have been worth it.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Chiming in very briefly here, but I have a question for the OP:

Is your issue more along the lines of having a problem not with the pursuit of knowledge, but the ignorance the Dalish display in that pursuit of knowledge?

Meaning how they very rarely -- if ever -- acknowledge that they're not perfect beings either? And that you think the Eluvian would be more of a boon to them if they were willing to say "Well, we shouldn't say we're perfect when we don't know much about who we were"?

Would that sum up your feelings? Certainly seems to be the vibe I'm getting myself.[/quote]

More or less yes. The Dalish want to recreate their past, willfully ignorant of their part in getting to their present circumstances. If they succeed it'll just be Arlathan or the Dales all over again because the elves haven't learned anything. Either they'll isolate themselves and not see the incoming invasion of an imperialist nation, or they'll actively alienate people and breed hostility until eventually somebody goes to war over it.  Then the whole thing starts up again.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
History is not rife with anything of the sort. It's happened twice over the course of at least 3 millenia. [/quote]

The humans of Tevinter conquered the Arlathan elves and destroyed their homeland; the humans of the Andrastian faith conquered the Dales and occupied the Dales, leaving the elves to either become nomadic or submit to human rule, give up their religious beliefs, and live in poverty. Every time the elves have established a homeland, humans have conquered them.[/quote]

Like I said, twice.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Bold - Two things number one it's a little known fact about politics that even if you're not involved in it, you are. The Dalish and the Dales don't exist in a vacuum they can't just ignore everyone and everything they don't like, the world does not work that way. You want to continue to exist as a sovereign nation then you've got to play the game.

Next the Dalish were hurting people. The traders, diplomats, and missionaries violently turned away at their borders, not to mention the people of Red Crossing.. [/quote]

We know the Emerald Guardians turned people away; why do you assume it was violently?[/quote]

You ever seen military border patrols turn people away any other way? We're not talking border guards at toll booths we're talking the armed forces of your nation, in this case the elite.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

Italics - The humans did nothing of the sort. They were trying to be amicable neighbours, offering trade and partnerships. If all they'd sent were missionaries you'd have a point but they tried a number of times to get along with the Dalish and they were having none of it. How would you feel if you went over to your new neighbour welcoming him to the neighbourhood and he punched you in the stomach and slammed the door in your face? [/quote]

The Chantry is said to have sent armed and armored soldiers into sovereign territory when the elves refused to convert, but you vilify the elves instead of the transgressors? Orlais was conquering it's neighbors; they weren't being amicable.[/quote]

They weren't trying to conquer the elves though. Everyone else, not the elves. To the elves they sent trade, diplomats, and yes missionaries, but it was a long time before they sent soldiers. This is part of my gripe with the Dalish explanation there's not sense of time. The Dalish make it sound like it was one day and then the next while the Orlesian accounts give a sense of years.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
No I"m just saying there are simpler explanations than a vast international conspiracy to take those elves down a peg. Assuming of course that the Orlesians were the agressors. [/quote]

The elves don't claim it was an "international conspiracy" or anything of the sort;[/quote]

Faerunner did, that's what I was addressing.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Actually it really, really does. If someone has a false perception of you that causes them to attack you on sight, you have a huge incentive to clear that up. [/quote]

When the religious organization of humanity preaches that you are a "heathen" for worshipping different gods, then it's going to be a bit difficult to resolve.[/quote]

Every religion in history views those who don't follow their faith as heathens. However this has never stopped trade or diplomacy, even in religions who promote violence against them. Christian Europe traded with various nations with different beliefs even durring the worst part of the Dark Ages.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

Actually, some scholars believe that it was the Arlathan elves who taught Tevinter about blood magic. The elves only retreated from contact with Tevinter when they started losing their immortality, and I don't believe slavery was "inevitable."[/quote]

You really believe they shared everything before they realized that? You really think the power hungry Magisters of Tevinter would believe that? And slavery is always inevitable when you build an Empire on the acquisition of power. Had the elves bothered to check in every now and again they'd have seen it coming. [/quote]

Since you have no evidence to the contrary, we have to go with what we know: that the Arlathan elves did share some of their knowledge with humanity.[/quote]

From thewiki

[quote]The first "dreamers" learned the use of lyrium to enter the Fade from elven captives, and these dreamers later became the first of the Imperium's ruling magisters.[/quote]

Not an absolute source, certainly not an official source, but take it for what it's worth.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
And you blame the elves because humanity enslaved them?[/quote]

Partially yes. Elven isolation allowed Tevinter to flourish unchecked, it also left the elves blind to the impending invasion. They are at fault for their own fall. Tevinter holds most of the blame still, but it was something the elves could have prevented.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Yeah about that. You notice how the Dalish have one sentence covering the lead up to the war? While the Orlesian have a rather detailed account of missionaries, diplomats, and traders being turned away, obvious hostility being expressed by the Dalish culminating in an attack. The devil's in the details and anybody who keeps their history that vague is hiding something. Alternatively they're so sociopathic as a nation that they just didn't get why what they were doing upset the humans. [/quote]

Considering the "detailed" account slanders the elves of the Dales and their religion, as well as the fact that they have continually conquered other nations since their inception, I'm not inclined to trust their account.[/quote]

Reviews Orlesian account. Where's the slander? It talks of isolation, which is true, refusal of trade and diplomacy, which is true, and dark rumours. It doesn't espouse those rumours as facts just that they contributed to the environment of hostility between the two nations.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Of course because clearly the only alternative to trying to recreate a lost culture is to fall in with an established one. Not like they could start forming their own or anything. [/quote]

Because that worked out so well for the Alienage elves.[/quote]

They chose to fall in with an established culture, not make their own.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
I was speaking specifically of knowledge. Learning about their history and culture is more effectively done through collaboration with other organizations with similar goals. Recreating their history, trying to back track to just before the fall of Arlathan, would be the entire problem since it shows a complete lack of understanding as to what go them here in the first place. As I said, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Isolation has never worked out for the elves, ever, try something else. [/quote]

Being a part of human society clearly hasn't worked out for the elves, either.[/quote]

Ok is someone editing in and out statements when I'm not looking. At what point did I specify that "something else" had to be joining human society?

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Well not sure what info Thedas is working on but let's see. Tamlen's first instinct when encountering 3 terrified humans is to kill them. If you do Marethari is only upset because it inconvenienced the clan (rather than the fact you just killed 3 people for no reason other than you could). Non-Dalish Warden meeting the Dalish, first words out of their mouth is a death threat, Hawke same deal. Dalish that Maric and Loghain encounter in Stolen Throne send them off where they're not only sure they'll die but die painfully, and lastly Genitivi seems rather certain that had he encountered any other Dalish he would have been killed. [/quote]

You mean the three humans who, if spared, form a mob to attack the Dalish camp?[/quote]

Yeah those three. They're dicks too, so what?

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
The Dalish inquire as to why The Warden and Hawke are encroaching towards their camp; the fact that the Dalish of Marethari's camp tell the templars to back down, rather than ouright kill them after they tortured one of their children for information, shows far more restraint than I would have demonstrated.[/quote]

Probably has more to do with the fact they wouldn't survive an organized assault by the Templars and they know it than any degree of restraint.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
And Genitivi is a bigot who thinks that humans are the "masters of Thedas."[/quote]

Name one race that controls territory anywhere close to that of the humans in Thedas.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Maybe not but there odds are better than if you actively alienate everybody. [/quote]

When the human religion preaches against the elves, I'm not inclined to agree.[/quote]

So you think actively alienating people makes them more likely to help you than if you attempt positive relations with them? I'm not saying the odds are good but they're better if you at least try to be friendly.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
You mean the nations grew cold to the Dalish because the Dalish were cold to them. Trade, cooperation, and war alliances transcend a lot of interesting boundaries when push comes to shove. Not to mention I hold to the fact that had the Dalish not been absolute pricks to everybody the whole war might not have happened. [/quote]

The elves of the Dales were living their own lives, while the Chantry tried to convert them with missionaries, and then through force with templars. Yet the elves are to blame because... what, exactly? They weren't warm to the imperialists of Orlais who were invading other nations, and forcing them to worship their religion? Because they didn't capitulate to the demands of the Chantry to convert, and then had to deal with armored soldiers invading their homeland?

You blame the victims for being enslaved and then invaded instead of the transgressors who enslaved them and invaded them.[/quote]

Firstly Orlais is only the transgressor if you believe hostilities were one sided, they weren't. Secondly the Dalish did nothing, absolutely nothing, to dissuade invasion, I blame them for that. I blame them for harbouring hostile attitudes toward their neighbours from inception, I blame them for sitting by and doing NOTHING while the Second Blight ravaged Thedas, and I blame them for not fostering any kind of relations at all with the outside world and then having the gall to wonder why nobody likes them.

Orlais is not blameless in the Fall of the Dales, neither are the Dalish. If they'd set aside their arrogance and their obsession with recreating a past of failure I hold that the invasion never would have happened. The Dales were a significant enough military power to hold any Orlesian push at bay, they had exactly 1 border from which the Orlesian's could attack (Frostback to the East, Waking Sea to the North, and the Arbor Wilds in the South).

Furthermore you ignore that Orlais, in all the time since Drakon I, hadn't made a move to invade the Dales. You never wonder why? You think maybe their religion, that you despise so much, might have held them at bay until the Dalish were attacking the very seat of it?  Something kept Orlais at bay for nearly 300 years and it certainly wasn't the elves' sunny disposition.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
And the Elves could have had an impenetrable society (the Dales were able to mop the floor with Orlais they were a military power to be reckoned with and had they not brought the enitre world down on them they probably still would be) and the sole monopoly on iron bark. Stronger and lighter than steel, can't tell me people wouldn't pay for that. [/quote]

This doesn't even make any sense: the dwarves live inside a mountain, with dwarven technology being able to keep outsiders out of their Great Thaig, and a sea of darkspawn in the Deep Roads to dissuade anyone from trying to conquer them through those routes; the elves don't live in the same conditions as the dwarves of Orzammar, so this isn't possible for them.[/quote]

Again they shared one border with Orlais, possible invasion from the North by sea but that's it. Two borders to guard and a single mountain pass, had the Dalish not gotten the world to act against them they could have held off Orlais indefinitely.

Modifié par DPSSOC, 21 octobre 2012 - 05:23 .

[SeptimusMagistos]

General User wrote...
Bitterly clinging to a war that was over a dozen generations ago does not give the Dalish license to be a menace to the whole of Thedas.

Arguably true, but what other options do they have?

General User wrote...
A nation can be isolated from its neighbors or have peaceable relations with them.  Not both. 

I don't get this? Why is it okay to attack someone just because they don't want to have anything to do with you? They turn your people away, but they aren't sending out theirs to bug you. They just sit around in splendid isolation.

General User wrote...
One day you find that a man has broken into your home and has set himself up in the garage or basement, somewhere out of the way.   He doesn't come after you, but every time you get too close to him he pulls a gun, sticks it in your face, and gives you a diatribe about how -{insert whatever race/nationality you personally identify as here}- people are to blame for all his problems.  

Should you shoot this man yourself?  Should you call the police?  If you do neither, how would this man not owe you his gratitude?  Or do you let him go about his business? Comment please.

I'll admit that's a good point, if oversimplifying the scenario a bit.

General User wrote...
That's nonsensical, not to mention inaccurate.  If hostility is provoked, by definition, it is not unjustified.  If this cape wearing "nerd" was also pushing around the "bully's" kid brother and the "nerd" started the fight by throwing rocks at the "bully", then it would be a good analogy for the Old Dales.   

Say what? The only thing the Dalish did when they were in Old Dales was refuse all human contact. That is in no way equivalent to attacking anyone.

General User wrote...
I don't have any suggestions like that.  Largely because I don't think they matter.  The Dalish could do any, all, or none of those things, but if they don't change their current attitudes and priorities, they will fail at whatever it is they end up doing.

The way I see it the elves are currently split into two groups: the city elves, who are trying their best to get along with humans and follow human laws and the Dalish elves, who are following only their own laws and want as little to do with humans as possible. Both groups seem to have it about equavally bad. If the city elves start making legitimate strides in society or the humans decide they're ready to treat elves as equals, then I'll agree that the Dalish approach is wrong. Until then they're doing well enough.

[TEWR]

Non-Dalish Warden meeting the Dalish, first words out of their mouth is a death threat, Hawke same deal.

Eh, not really. They just tell you you're not welcome there because you're a non-Dalish -- and that's true, to an extent, but there are other factors at play.

If you start dodging their questions on what your purpose is, then they start issuing death threats. Which I can't blame them for. If you're not going to tell them what you're doing there, then that's very suspicious.

The first "dreamers" learned the use of lyrium to enter the Fade from elven captives, and these dreamers later became the first of the Imperium's ruling magisters.

That doesn't preclude the possibility of Elves teaching the first Magisters. If the nation was tattered and largely not united, some people might've captured Elven traders when the Elves... well... went to trade with Tevinter.

Some would've escaped, possibly with the realization that they were losing their immortality and thus were homeward bound. Others were captured, taught the Humans magic, and gave rise to the Imperium.

Then **** hit the fan.

Really, that could be seen as an argument for just why the Elves shouldn't trade with human nations. They did it once in the past -- Arlathan -- and it bit them in the ass. Hard. While dabbling ketchup on it.

Then the whole thing starts up again.

I can agree, to a point. But even we the players don't know the full story of the Dales. All we know is the bad parts about that, and we have little evidence to suggest those bad parts are true. Even if they are true, there could be other factors at play that contributed to it.

Personally, I'm of the mind that Orlais simply wanted that land back since their fertile land was largely destroyed in the Second Blight and the Dales -- while not completely fertile -- would've still helped them get back on track.

They're trying to recreate their past instead of anything new.

I'd argue that for them to create something new, they have to first understand the old.

Wouldn't it be a boon if they could find some way to get the Varterrals to not be Ax-Crazy against them -- assuming they didn't just go "Yea, this'll show those shemlen!"

I'd say that they do need to understand their past. Mainly because the only way they can do that is to go out and look for this stuff, wherever it survived. Tevinter saw fit to make all traces of their religion be illegal, and the conquest of the Dales did the same thing.

So they not only need to know about their past, but have it as part of their society so they can start moving forward.

Really, the only thing they can do now that wouldn't be chasing "old glory" as Aveline put it -- which makes me think of some sort of stripper name with an America theme -- would be to start making new stories like Velanna did.

But Elven technology or the nature of the Varterrals? That's stuff they need to study. Even Master Varathorn says that what the clans have learned about woodshaping and metallurgy was learned over a great number of generations, and it doesn't even match up with what their ancestors were capable of.

Are they any better off than when they started?

To some of the Dalish, yes. Some actually enjoy the nomadic lifestyle.

The complete and utter lack of empathy.

Well, she will state that Mahariel did the right thing if he and Tamlen didn't kill the Elves. And if you did kill the Elves, she says "So I feared. You have stirred up a hornet's nest, da'len". It seems like she doesn't approve of it, but resigns herself to the fact that little can be done when there are more pressing matters to attend to -- Tamlen, Darkspawn, Duncan, Mirror of Shininess.

She even says that the Humans have simple fears and that they'll leave peacefully so as to not cause a fuss.

I think she did care based on her dialogue, but it was hardly the time or place for her to go "What the hell, hero?".

[DPSSOC]

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...



[quote]Non-Dalish Warden meeting the Dalish, first words out of their mouth is a death threat, Hawke same deal.[/quote]

Eh, not really. They just tell you you're not welcome there because you're a non-Dalish -- and that's true, to an extent, but there are other factors at play.

If you start dodging their questions on what your purpose is, then they start issuing death threats. Which I can't blame them for. If you're not going to tell them what you're doing there, then that's very suspicious.[/quote]

Like I said to Faerunner I'll run a save, I'm pretty sure I recall immediate threats of death if I didn't move along.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...



[quote]The first "dreamers" learned the use of lyrium to enter the Fade from elven captives, and these dreamers later became the first of the Imperium's ruling magisters.[/quote]

That doesn't preclude the possibility of Elves teaching the first Magisters. If the nation was tattered and largely not united, some people might've captured Elven traders when the Elves... well... went to trade with Tevinter.

Some would've escaped, possibly with the realization that they were losing their immortality and thus were homeward bound. Others were captured, taught the Humans magic, and gave rise to the Imperium.

Then **** hit the fan.

Really, that could be seen as an argument for just why the Elves shouldn't trade with human nations. They did it once in the past -- Arlathan -- and it bit them in the ass. Hard. While dabbling ketchup on it.[/quote]

Possible, however the impression seems to be less the Elves gave Tevinter magic than it is Tevinter took magic by force.  Which given how the two populations generally operate the latter fits better.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...


[quote]They're trying to recreate their past instead of anything new.[/quote]I'd argue that for them to create something new, they have to first understand the old.

Wouldn't it be a boon if they could find some way to get the Varterrals to not be Ax-Crazy against them -- assuming they didn't just go "Yea, this'll show those shemlen!"[/quote]

Running mighty slim odds there aren't you?

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
I'd say that they do need to understand their past. Mainly because the only way they can do that is to go out and look for this stuff, wherever it survived. Tevinter saw fit to make all traces of their religion be illegal, and the conquest of the Dales did the same thing.

So they not only need to know about their past, but have it as part of their society so they can start moving forward.[/quote]

I'm all for them trying to learn about and understand their past, that's great, but they're trying to recreate it blind.  They don't just want to know about it they want it to be a reality again, and again it's not one that's sustainable unless they leave the continent, if then.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Really, the only thing they can do now that wouldn't be chasing "old glory" as Aveline put it -- which makes me think of some sort of stripper name with an America theme -- would be to start making new stories like Velanna did.[/quote]

Run with it.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
But Elven technology or the nature of the Varterrals? That's stuff they need to study. Even Master Varathorn says that what the clans have learned about woodshaping and metallurgy was learned over a great number of generations, and it doesn't even match up with what their ancestors were capable of.[/quote]

Agreed 100%.  If you're living in a post apocalyptic wasteland and you find schematics for a coal power plant, or a gun, or any piece of useful technology you study it and learn to build it, you do NOT attempt to recreate the society that brought forth the end of civilization.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...



[quote]The complete and utter lack of empathy.[/quote]Well, she will state that Mahariel did the right thing if he and Tamlen didn't kill the Elves. And if you did kill the Elves, she says "So I feared. You have stirred up a hornet's nest, da'len". It seems like she doesn't approve of it, but resigns herself to the fact that little can be done when there are more pressing matters to attend to -- Tamlen, Darkspawn, Duncan, Mirror of Shininess.

She even says that the Humans have simple fears and that they'll leave peacefully so as to not cause a fuss.

I think she did care based on her dialogue, but it was hardly the time or place for her to go "What the hell, hero?".[/quote]

I didn't get that impression but then I don't kill the humans often because Tamlen is a complete psycho.  I got a sense of, you're standing in the living room holding a severed head and she's upset you got blood on the carpet.

Modifié par DPSSOC, 21 octobre 2012 - 08:46 .

[TEWR]

DPSSOC wrote...

Possible, however the impression seems to be less the Elves gave Tevinter magic than it is Tevinter took magic by force.  Which given how the two populations generally operate the latter fits better.

Well, Tevinter still could've learned that magic by force, by using threat of death. There's a lot of unknown variables that could support the premise of the Elves teaching the original Tevinter people magic.

Running mighty slim odds there aren't you?

On taming the Varterral, or them not using the Varterrals against the shemlen?

I'm all for them trying to learn about and understand their past, that's great, but they're trying to recreate it blind.  They don't just want to know about it they want it to be a reality again, and again it's not one that's sustainable unless they leave the continent, if then.

I'll agree that it does seem to be unfeasible for them to recreate the majesty of Arlathan, but that doesn't mean that they can't understand much of what made it great and then, at some point in time, use the old knowledge of Arlathan and the Dales to create a new homeland that's superior to Arlathan.

I'd like to think that Merrill and Velanna could be inspirational people to try and teach the Elves that type of mindset at the next Arlathvhen.

Run with it.

It is a thing I support, particularly if a Dalish Warden -- or City Elf Warden, mage or non-mage alike -- brings up the idea to her. I'd imagine Velanna would write a story about her fellow Dalish Mahariel having a very notable role in defeating the Blight.

Then she might write about Garahel by studying old Warden records. And then about Zathrian if the Elven Warden talks about him in a positive -- but truthful -- light.

[DPSSOC]

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
From the Wiki;

Human arrived in Thedas 4500 FA (Founding of Arlathan) - Present Day is around 8440 that's just shy of 4,000 years.[/quote]

Which wiki page?[/quote]

This one.  Meant to add in the link guess I missed it.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]Except they are involved that's what you're not getting.  Short of leaving the continent they'll never not be involved, they're stuck with them.[/quote]
Nomadic clans moving around in wildernesses to avoid human settlements doesn't constitute being involved with humans. If they settled down and tried to make their own homeland, they'd end up conquered and subjugated like Arlathan and the Dales. If they voluntarily settled down in human societies, they'd end up in servitude and poverty like their city elf brethren. Being involved with humans always ends in subjugation, which is why they live in isolation. Since the Dalish live better lives than the city elves, I can't say I blame them.[/quote]

You're still missing it.  Whether they want to or not, whether they intend to or not, the Dalish are involved with humans.  By virtue of living on the same continent they are involved.  The Dalish do no exist in a vacuum much as they might like to.  Think of it this way, there is not a nation on Earth that isn't involved with other nations.  No matter what kind of policy they try to set, no matter how isolated they want to be, they will still be involved.  Like I said earlier in the thread it's a little rule of politics, even if you're not involved, you are.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]They are regressing.  They're trying to recreate the past rather than come up with anything new.  What you're arguing is that somebody in modern day wanting to go back to 1800's farming communities is progress.[/quote]
And what kind of society do you suggest they make from scratch?[/quote]
 
Any kind, that's the beauty of starting from scratch.  Every nation, every people, had a point in their history where their culture didn't exist, they all started somewhere.  The Dalish could choose to take where they are now and use that as the foundation of their new culture.  Who are we, what do we value, and where do we want to go?  Right now the answers to those questions are; we don't know, antiquity, backwards.

They are presently stuck in a self destructive outlook that cannot end well, because repeating history will only bring them to the present again, if they're lucky.  I say stop looking to recreating the past and instead seize what knowledge you can from it and use it to form a new future.  That is what I want for the Dalish that is what they need.

Because what's really funny about this is I like the Dalish.  My first avatar was a Dalish Warden and I've never looked back.  I love the Dalish and I was thrilled to see my old clan show up in DA2 and devastated when I ended up killing them.  However as much as I love them I can see where their current path leads and it's not somewhere I want them to go.  I am critical of the Dalish, and downright punitive in my judgements of them because they have it in them to be so much more than they are if they'd just look forward.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]No the game being trade, diplomacy, compromise, and in the worst cases war.[/quote]
Except the humans didn't want compromise, they wanted total capitulation. The elves refused, so they attacked them. If the humans were actually willing to use diplomacy or compromise or tolerance, I might believe them.[/quote]

We don't know what the humans wanted, the Dalish never gave them a chance.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]Turned away and tossed out by a military force.  This isn't some guy at a toll booth politely asking you to turn around this is a farmer with a shotgun screaming, "Get off my land."[/quote]
It was their land, not a public road. If they didn't want missionaries on it, they weren't obligated to let them in.

Not to mention neither account ever mentions elves using of military force to physically force people out, just to guard their borders and turn them away. Said military force being enacted only later when humans kept trying to push on elven land after the elves kept truning them away.[/quote]
 
It's actually never made clear when the Emerald Knights were put in place.  You're right though they were under no obligation to let the missionaries or anyone else into their country.  My point was that when you have an elite military force guarding your borders they are not going to be gentle in turning people away.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]Closing off your borders, refusing trade and diplomacy, is hostile. [/quote]
No, I think tresspassing on someone else's property knowing they don't want you there is hostile.[/quote]

They're both hostile, as I've said numerous times the Orlesians were not blameless.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...

[quote]Explosion in 3, 2, 1.  THEY SENT FRICKING TRADE!!  THEY SENT DIPLOMATS!  YOU CAN'T CLAIM THE HUMANS HAD LITTLE INTEREST WHEN THEY WERE ACTIVELY TRYING TO FORM A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ELVES!  Ok I'm good now.[/quote]
Read. The. Codex. The humans never said they sent in traders or diplomats.  They merely said the elves refused attempts of trade or discourse, after mentioning the humans tried to convert them[/quote]

The Orlesian codex, the one that mentions trade and discourse, makes no reference to missionaries.  None.

[quote]
A great exodus of elves undertook the journey to their new home, crossing ocean, desert, and mountain. Their city, the first elven city since the fabled Arlathan, was called Halamshiral. A new era had begun for the elves.
But the old era wasn't through with them. In their forest city, the elves turned again to worship their silent, ancient gods. They became increasingly isolationist, posting Emerald Knights who guarded their borders with jealousy, rebuking all efforts at trade or civilized discourse. Dark rumors spread in the lands that bordered the Dales, whispers of humans captured and sacrificed to elven gods.
And then came an attack by the elves on the defenseless village of Red Crossing.[/quote]

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
but who did the humans send to try to trade or speak? Since the elves only mention missionaries and templars and the humans don't mention any traders or diplomats at all, it's very likely the humans sent missionarities to try to "trade" and "discourse" and the elves weren't having any of it because they knew it was a thinly veiled attempt to get them to convert.[/quote]
 
The Dalish don't mention a lot of things, like sitting out the Second Blight.  Or the almost 300 years between the founding and fall of the Dales.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
Trying to convert a nation of people against their will can be seen as hostile too. Just saying.[/quote]

Not disagreeing with you.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
[quote]Where in the Chantry version does it say anything about missionaries?  It mentions the elves turned to worship their old gods (the Creators not the Old Gods that'd be weird) and rebuked trade and discourse.  Last I checked missionaries were neither peddlers nor negotiators.[/quote]Clearly you've never read a history book.[/quote]

Actually I have.  Missionaries, the ones sent to the natives of my country anyway, brought bibles and disease.  Other settlers brought alcohol and all in all it was a bad thing for the natives.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]You don't see the harm?  Ok fair enough I'll explain it to you.  Arlathan and the Dales happening again.  That's the harm.  Because as I pointed out the Dalish only look at half the equation when it comes to looking at their history.  They only look at how the humans got them to this point ignoring their own part in it.  The Dalish are that guy who never gets ahead in life, is constantly broke, and blames everyone else.  His boss doesn't like him, or people are cheating him, or nobody's giving him a fair chance.  It's all everyone else and he never, not even for a moment, thinks about what he's doing that's keeping him down or what he's done that got him there.[/quote]
Except that humans subjugate the elves whether they play nice or not. They tried to be friendly to humans in their own country? Arlathan happened.[/quote]
 
What definition of friendly are you using that includes, "Get away from me you filthy wretch you make me sick,"?

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
so why should they try to reach out to them?[/quote]

Because it's better to try and forge an amicable relationship and get nowhere than to just keep hating people.  Following your logic no country should ever attempt to deal with any other country because we've all screwed each other over at one point or another.


[quote]Faerunner wrote...
Imagine if a neighbor you didn't like wanted you to convert to their relgion and to come into your house to "talk about it" and you said no, and they kept trying to get you to invite them in and you kept saying no. Does that give them the right to break down your door, ransack your home and kick you out just because you didn't let them in? Would their claim of "Well, [DPSSOC] wouldn't let me come in to visit, so I saw it as an act of hostility and decided to defend myself by breaking in and kicking [DPSSOC] out" work in the court of law? No? It's your property and you don't have to let them in just because they want to? Then what makes it all right for humans to do it to elves?[/quote]

The funny thing is that's closer to the Dalish account of events than the Orlesians.  Using your example I (the Dalish) say, "Yeah my neighbour came over and asked if I wanted to talk about religion, and I said no.  Then he attacked me and kicked me out of my house."  While my neighbour (the Orlesians) say, "Yeah I went over and offered to talk to him about religion and he said no, so I tried again and he just slammed the door in my face and got a guard dog, but I kept trying.  Then my dog went missing and I heard he might have killed it, and then he set fire to my garage so I went over and kicked his ass and drove him out of the neighbourhood."

Guess which one the police are going to believe, especially if my neighbour's garage did in fact burn down.  My neighbour may come across as pushy and a little irritating but he's not doing anything criminal until he attacks me, and even that can be argued as being provoked.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]Again the one that offers no detail.  As I pointed out you can describe any side of any war with as little detail as the Dalish offer and never be inaccurate.  When you have two accounts of the same event, and one is heavily biased but detailed, and the other is 1 sentence saying absolutely nothing, you go with the heavily biased account and accept that it's heavily biased. [/quote]
The heavily biased one is more credible than the more neutral one?[/quote]

First off it's not neutral, it portrays them as doing absolutely nothing and the Orlesians just attacked.  The Orlesian account may vilify the elves, but it also makes clear what they were doing.  Second it's next to non-existent.  Nearly 300 years of history and it's one sentence.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...

[quote]I'm not claiming the Orlesians are blameless, neither was Tevinter, as I said in my OP "Damn Shemlen" is part of the problem, but the Dalish and the elves of Arlathan aren't blameless either.  Arlathan less than the Dalish but they both contributed to what happened, they were both involved in the events leading up to their fall.[/quote]
And yet you blame the elves for everything the humans do.[/quote]

I blame the elves for their part.  As I said the Orlesians were at fault, but so were the Dalish, and it's really an even split from where I'm sitting.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
[quote][quote]Faerunner wrote...
P.S. One can easily turn your last statement around as "they're so sociopathic as a nation that they just didn't get why what they were doing upset the elves."[/quote]

You could, though I'd think it more accurate that the Orlesians knew and simply didn't care.[/quote]

Nice double-standard.[/quote]

Not really I view that as far worse.  It's one thing to just not understand why what you're doing is upsetting to people and another to know and just not care.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]Indeed they do, and yes I do advocate for the Dalish to be the first to extend an olive branch[/quote]
Why do they have to be the first ones when humans are always the first ones to raise a weapon to attack?[/quote]

I said in that same post, the Dalish are in the worse position, they have the most to gain by fostering good relations with the humans.  Not falling in line but trying to set up an arrangement where they're left alone.  The Dalish have never tried this, they've just expected to be left alone when that's not how things work.  You want people to leave you alone you make it advantageous for them to do so. 

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]Also humans did try to reach out to the Dalish, the Dalish turned them down. [/quote]
Like sending templars to abduct or convert them? Like villagers sending mobs to kill them or drive them out?

Oh, you're talking about the Dales. Like sending missionaries to convert them against their will and templars to invade their land when the elves turned them down?[/quote]

I maintain, they tried trade.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]And Marethari's reaction?  The fact she's not actually bothered that you killed 3 unarmed people but for the fact it's forced the clan to move.  The complete and utter lack of empathy.[/quote]
Almost as much empathy as the three humans whose lives you spared responding by bringing a mob to kill the entire Dalish Clan. That's gratitude for you, and that'll certainly incentive Dalish to spare humans they run into in the future. "We need to kill you so you can't reveal to other humans the whereabouts or bring harm to our clan." "Please let us go!"  "Let them go, you've scared them enough." "... All right, we'll let you go." *proceeds to reveal the whereabouts of and return with a mob to bring harm to the Dalish Clan*[/quote]

Yes they're horrible human beings, but the Warden and Tamlen don't know that.  Even if they do in any cycle of violence somebody has to stand up and be the bigger man and say enoug's enough and like I said the Dalish have the most to gain by doing so.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]You also didn't mention Maric and Loghain where the Dalish sent them to what they fully expected to be a slow and painful death.[/quote]
I said there is no indicattion that any of the humans would actually be killed except their own fear and prejudice. You said Maric and Loghain "expected to be a slow and painful death," but is that what actually happened?[/quote]

I said the Dalish expected them to die, the one Dalish who talks to them flat out tells them they probably will.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...


[quote]Chantry version doesn't mention anything about the nations growing cold.[/quote]
Hey there, you're the one who said "the nations grew cold to the Dalish because the Dalish were cold to the them." If you're going to argue with me, at least keep your own aruments straight.[/quote]

LosbelVith8 said the Dalish explained that the human nations grew cold to the Dales because they worshipped their own gods, I suggested the human nations grew cold to the Dales because the Dales were cold towards them, you suggested it was as Losbel said and suggested I read the Chantry codex on the Dales, to which I responed with my quote.  Either you were referring to another codex entry or we're both very confused.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...

[quote]Number 1 it's always easier to buy something than make it yourself.  Number 2 in order for humans to learn how to craft ironbark they'd have to capture a Dalish crafter specifically.  All Arlathan elves knew magic so any one of them could teach it, but crafting ironbark is a skill that only a few among the Dalish have mastered.  Also you're ignoring that the Dales were, at the time, a military super power.  Orlais had been conquering nations left and right and the Dalish pwnd them.  Invading, capturing a crafter, and learning to craft ironbark wouldn't have been worth it.[/quote]As you said, they were conquering nations left and right. They also had their eyes set on the Dales.[/quote]
 
Yes and the Dalish whooped them rather soundly.  Which is kind of the point I was making.  Had the Dales offered to sell Orlais Ironbark, and Orlais thought it was good stuff and aimed to kidnap a crafter, they would have had to push far enough into the Dales to get one, then push their way out.  Considering the Dalish were beating them in the war that did occur it's unlikely such attempts would be successful making it more cost effective to just buy the stuff.

[quote]Faerunner wrote...
EDIT: Sharing their iron bark crafting technology or weapons and armor would NOT give the Dalish an edge over their neighbors because a) said neighbors could use it against them in battle, they would lose leverage if the humans learned to make it themselves, c) Tevinter historically sank Arlathan with the magical knowledge they gained from elves after they didn't need them anymore. "Keep your best cards close to your chest," and all.
[/quote]

It's not about maintaining an edge it's about forging relations, it's about making your continued existence more beneficial than your conquest.  Hell that's how Canada has kept the US from invading, the only thing they'd have gained that they didn't already have access to was more people, which isn't something they'd really want or need.

[General User]

SeptimusMagistos wrote...

General User wrote...
Bitterly clinging to a war that was over a dozen generations ago does not give the Dalish license to be a menace to the whole of Thedas.

Arguably true, but what other options do they have?

Not to be too obvious, but the alternative to acting like a menace is to not act like a menace.  The alternative to bitterly clinging to old grudges is to let go and move on.

SeptimusMagistos wrote...

General User wrote...

A nation can be isolated from its neighbors or have peaceable relations with them.  Not both. 

I don't get this? Why is it okay to attack someone just because they don't want to have anything to do with you? They turn your people away, but they aren't sending out theirs to bug you. They just sit around in splendid isolation.

When a people isolates itself it creates a climate of fear and suspicion.  When a people embraces isolation with overt militancy, as the Dalish did and do, that is a blatantly hostile stance in and of itself. 

And, once again, by trying to live by their own rules in other people's countries, the Dalish are making HUUUGE asks of their human hosts.  So the idea that the Dalish live in isolation, ie they don't ask anything of humans, is just flat out false.

SeptimusMagistos wrote...

General User wrote...

That's nonsensical, not to mention inaccurate.  If hostility is provoked, by definition, it is not unjustified.  If this cape wearing "nerd" was also pushing around the "bully's" kid brother and the "nerd" started the fight by throwing rocks at the "bully", then it would be a good analogy for the Old Dales.   

Say what? The only thing the Dalish did when they were in Old Dales was refuse all human contact. That is in no way equivalent to attacking anyone.

Not at all!  The Old Dalish were persecuting Andrastians in their country (pushing around the "bully's" kid brother) and the Dalish started the actual war when they attacked on an Orlesian town (throwing rocks at the "bully").  I'll also add that this "cape wearing nerd" had been antagonizing the "bully" for some time (the Dalish expelling merchants, missionaries, and diplomats) and just sat quietly and watched while the "bully" and all the other kids in school formed a partisan band to kill the Cuban paratroopers who randomly invaded one day(the Dalish sitting out the 2nd Blight as a Red Dawn reference).

SeptimusMagistos wrote...

General User wrote...
I don't have any suggestions like that.  Largely because I don't think they matter.  The Dalish could do any, all, or none of those things, but if they don't change their current attitudes and priorities, they will fail at whatever it is they end up doing.

The way I see it the elves are currently split into two groups: the city elves, who are trying their best to get along with humans and follow human laws and the Dalish elves, who are following only their own laws and want as little to do with humans as possible. Both groups seem to have it about equavally bad. If the city elves start making legitimate strides in society or the humans decide they're ready to treat elves as equals, then I'll agree that the Dalish approach is wrong. Until then they're doing well enough.

Do you really think that living as troupes of wandering racists, picking fights and pining for a past that most likely never was, all while clinging to the bitterness left over from wars the rest of the world has largely forgotten, qualifies as "doing well enough"?

Modifié par General User, 22 octobre 2012 - 04:24 .

[LobselVith8]

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

The humans of Tevinter conquered the Arlathan elves and destroyed their homeland; the humans of the Andrastian faith conquered the Dales and occupied the Dales, leaving the elves to either become nomadic or submit to human rule, give up their religious beliefs, and live in poverty. Every time the elves have established a homeland, humans have conquered them.[/quote]

Like I said, twice. [/quote]

History seems to have taught the Dalish that humans will betray them. I can understand their hesitation in opening up dialogue with a race of people who have historically devastated their homeland, outlawed their religion, and actively hunt them down.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

We know the Emerald Guardians turned people away; why do you assume it was violently?[/quote]

You ever seen military border patrols turn people away any other way? We're not talking border guards at toll booths we're talking the armed forces of your nation, in this case the elite. [/quote]

So you're assuming they were violent without any codex entry addressing that it was so? Because the Dalish have tried to turn away The Warden, Hawke, and the templars who tortured one of their children, and they didn't do so violently (with the exception of the templars, if they refuse to leave, although that's a case of self-defense since the templars are trying to kill the Dalish).


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

The Chantry is said to have sent armed and armored soldiers into sovereign territory when the elves refused to convert, but you vilify the elves instead of the transgressors? Orlais was conquering it's neighbors; they weren't being amicable.[/quote]

They weren't trying to conquer the elves though. Everyone else, not the elves. To the elves they sent trade, diplomats, and yes missionaries, but it was a long time before they sent soldiers. This is part of my gripe with the Dalish explanation there's not sense of time. The Dalish make it sound like it was one day and then the next while the Orlesian accounts give a sense of years. [/quote]

Sending armed and armored soldiers into the Dales makes me think the Chantry wasn't invading sovereign territory to get a cup of tea from the elves.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

When the religious organization of humanity preaches that you are a "heathen" for worshipping different gods, then it's going to be a bit difficult to resolve.[/quote]

Every religion in history views those who don't follow their faith as heathens. However this has never stopped trade or diplomacy, even in religions who promote violence against them. Christian Europe traded with various nations with different beliefs even durring the worst part of the Dark Ages. [/quote]

Those nations weren't like the Andrastian nations of Thedas.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

Since you have no evidence to the contrary, we have to go with what we know: that the Arlathan elves did share some of their knowledge with humanity.[/quote]

From the wiki

[quote]The first "dreamers" learned the use of lyrium to enter the Fade from elven captives, and these dreamers later became the first of the Imperium's ruling magisters.[/quote]

Not an absolute source, certainly not an official source, but take it for what it's worth. [/quote]

While we have historical accounts that address that Tevinter had relations with Arlathan for a period of time, and that this may be where the knowledge of magic originated from. Addressing an alternative source is no different than when people dispute the origin of blood magic: one person points to a source that says it originated from demons, another points to the Tevinter claims that Dumat taught them, and yet another points out the scholars addressing that it was likely the Arlathan elves who taught humanity blood magic.

However, even Tevinter doesn't dispute that Arlathan had relations with them for a period of time.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

And you blame the elves because humanity enslaved them?[/quote]

Partially yes. Elven isolation allowed Tevinter to flourish unchecked, it also left the elves blind to the impending invasion. They are at fault for their own fall. Tevinter holds most of the blame still, but it was something the elves could have prevented. [/quote]

If one of them was Doctor Emmett Brown, sure.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

Considering the "detailed" account slanders the elves of the Dales and their religion, as well as the fact that they have continually conquered other nations since their inception, I'm not inclined to trust their account.[/quote]

Reviews Orlesian account. Where's the slander? It talks of isolation, which is true, refusal of trade and diplomacy, which is true, and dark rumours. It doesn't espouse those rumours as facts just that they contributed to the environment of hostility between the two nations. [/quote]

The tales of human sacrifice to the elven gods and the like aren't slander?


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...


Because that worked out so well for the Alienage elves.[/quote]

They chose to fall in with an established culture, not make their own. [/quote]

I'm pretty sure it was established as a consequence of the elves submitting to the rule of the Chantry and the Andrastian nations.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

You mean the three humans who, if spared, form a mob to attack the Dalish camp?[/quote]

Yeah those three. They're dicks too, so what? [/quote]

I guess the point is that the Dalish continually have seen the darkest side of humanity, and I'm sure many of them feel that they have no reason to engage humanity when it's turned out for the worst for them.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

The Dalish inquire as to why The Warden and Hawke are encroaching towards their camp; the fact that the Dalish of Marethari's camp tell the templars to back down, rather than ouright kill them after they tortured one of their children for information, shows far more restraint than I would have demonstrated.[/quote]

Probably has more to do with the fact they wouldn't survive an organized assault by the Templars and they know it than any degree of restraint. [/quote]

Actually, the Dalish warn Hawke because the hunters are going to engage the templars in battle if the templars don't back down.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

And Genitivi is a bigot who thinks that humans are the "masters of Thedas."[/quote]

Name one race that controls territory anywhere close to that of the humans in Thedas. [/quote]

Let's apply the "masters of [insert]" into the real world and use your retort as a defense, and see if that makes Genitivi any less of a bigot.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

When the human religion preaches against the elves, I'm not inclined to agree.[/quote]

So you think actively alienating people makes them more likely to help you than if you attempt positive relations with them? I'm not saying the odds are good but they're better if you at least try to be friendly. [/quote]

I didn't realize the elves living their own lives in their own nation was such an affront to the Andrastian nations.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

You mean the nations grew cold to the Dalish because the Dalish were cold to them. Trade, cooperation, and war alliances transcend a lot of interesting boundaries when push comes to shove. Not to mention I hold to the fact that had the Dalish not been absolute pricks to everybody the whole war might not have happened. [/quote]

The elves of the Dales were living their own lives, while the Chantry tried to convert them with missionaries, and then through force with templars. Yet the elves are to blame because... what, exactly? They weren't warm to the imperialists of Orlais who were invading other nations, and forcing them to worship their religion? Because they didn't capitulate to the demands of the Chantry to convert, and then had to deal with armored soldiers invading their homeland? 

You blame the victims for being enslaved and then invaded instead of the transgressors who enslaved them and invaded them.[/quote]

Firstly Orlais is only the transgressor if you believe hostilities were one sided, they weren't. Secondly the Dalish did nothing, absolutely nothing, to dissuade invasion, I blame them for that. I blame them for harbouring hostile attitudes toward their neighbours from inception, I blame them for sitting by and doing NOTHING while the Second Blight ravaged Thedas, and I blame them for not fostering any kind of relations at all with the outside world and then having the gall to wonder why nobody likes them. [/quote]

I don't blame them for not opening relations with a nation that was conquering its neighbors.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...


Orlais is not blameless in the Fall of the Dales, neither are the Dalish. If they'd set aside their arrogance and their obsession with recreating a past of failure I hold that the invasion never would have happened. The Dales were a significant enough military power to hold any Orlesian push at bay, they had exactly 1 border from which the Orlesian's could attack (Frostback to the East, Waking Sea to the North, and the Arbor Wilds in the South). [/quote]

You hold that a nation that invaded it's neighbors for centuries wouldn't have invaded the Dales? You realize Nevarra and Ferelden contradict this notion entirely?


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...


Furthermore you ignore that Orlais, in all the time since Drakon I, hadn't made a move to invade the Dales. You never wonder why? You think maybe their religion, that you despise so much, might have held them at bay until the Dalish were attacking the very seat of it?  Something kept Orlais at bay for nearly 300 years and it certainly wasn't the elves' sunny disposition. [/quote]

Actually, it's addressed that Drakon tried to conquer the north, but was dealing with issues from the Dales.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

This doesn't even make any sense: the dwarves live inside a mountain, with dwarven technology being able to keep outsiders out of their Great Thaig, and a sea of darkspawn in the Deep Roads to dissuade anyone from trying to conquer them through those routes; the elves don't live in the same conditions as the dwarves of Orzammar, so this isn't possible for them.[/quote]

Again they shared one border with Orlais, possible invasion from the North by sea but that's it. Two borders to guard and a single mountain pass, had the Dalish not gotten the world to act against them they could have held off Orlais indefinitely.[/quote]

The Dales wasn't Orzammar. Let's not pretend it was. The elves weren't inside a mountain, and there isn't an ocean of darkspawn in the Deep Roads to keep their underground borders in check. They were living outside, without an impenetrable door to keep the outside world away from them.

[SeptimusMagistos]

General User wrote...

Do you really think that living as troupes of wandering racists, picking fights and pining for a past that most likely never was, all while clinging to the bitterness left over from wars the rest of the world has largely forgotten, qualifies as "doing well enough"?

Again: the only comparison I can make is with the city elves and compared to them the Dalish maintain at least an equal living standard. Being racist generally works out for them because a lot of humans generally do want to hurt them. Do I think they could benefit from being selectively less aggressive? Yes, of course. But I'm not going to blame them for their suspicions.

More importantly, the part where they're trying to recover their past? Totally a good idea considering there are magical golems and enchanted mirrors lying about that just need a good bit of repair. If the elves manage to get those going again, the benefits would be enormous.

All in all, I'm hoping that the elves manage to let go of their antagonism for past offenses against them and the humans manage to not add any new abuses to the list for once.

[MisterJB]

LobselVith8 wrote...
You hold that a nation that invaded it's neighbors for centuries wouldn't have invaded the Dales? You realize Nevarra and Ferelden contradict this notion entirely?

There are a certain number of things that can help to dissuade a nation from declaring war.
Allies for one. Sharing of resources is another since it helps them rethink if invading is worth the trouble. Diplomacy as well.
Standing at your borders shouting "DIRTY SHEMLENS, YOU ARE ALL INTELECTUALLY AND CULTURALY INFERIOR TO US! GO F*CKS YOURSELVES" and then attack the heart of the religion that the most powerful race in the world holds very dearly is just asking to be massacred.

[DPSSOC]

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
[quote]

Running mighty slim odds there aren't you?[/quote]

On taming the Varterral, or them not using the Varterrals against the shemlen?[/quote]

The second one.

[quote]The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
[quote]
I'm all for them trying to learn about and understand their past, that's great, but they're trying to recreate it blind.  They don't just want to know about it they want it to be a reality again, and again it's not one that's sustainable unless they leave the continent, if then.[/quote]

I'll agree that it does seem to be unfeasible for them to recreate the majesty of Arlathan, but that doesn't mean that they can't understand much of what made it great and then, at some point in time, use the old knowledge of Arlathan and the Dales to create a new homeland that's superior to Arlathan.

I'd like to think that Merrill and Velanna could be inspirational people to try and teach the Elves that type of mindset at the next Arlathvhen.[/quote]

Which is what I'm getting at.  Take what you can learn from the past and move forward don't try to go back in time.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Like I said, twice. [/quote]

History seems to have taught the Dalish that humans will betray them.[/quote]

When? How? In order for the humans to have betrayed the elves there would have had to have been some trust given. Alrathan eventually just shut itself off and the Dales did it from the get go. You can't betray someone who's never spoken to you, they can't claim you owe them anything.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
They weren't trying to conquer the elves though. Everyone else, not the elves. To the elves they sent trade, diplomats, and yes missionaries, but it was a long time before they sent soldiers. This is part of my gripe with the Dalish explanation there's not sense of time. The Dalish make it sound like it was one day and then the next while the Orlesian accounts give a sense of years. [/quote]

Sending armed and armored soldiers into the Dales makes me think the Chantry wasn't invading sovereign territory to get a cup of tea from the elves.[/quote]

We have no indication that armed soldiers were sent into the Dales prior to the start of the war. Even then by all indications the war took place primarily in Orlais, it wasn't until the other nations got involved that they started pushing into Dalish territory.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Partially yes. Elven isolation allowed Tevinter to flourish unchecked, it also left the elves blind to the impending invasion. They are at fault for their own fall. Tevinter holds most of the blame still, but it was something the elves could have prevented. [/quote]

If one of them was Doctor Emmett Brown, sure.[/quote]

No, if they hadn't isolated themselves they'd have seen what Tevinter was doing, surmised they'd come for them eventually, and taken action to prevent it. As I said their failing, and their fault, is that they intentionally blinded themselves and left an imperialist power to grow unsupervised.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Reviews Orlesian account. Where's the slander? It talks of isolation, which is true, refusal of trade and diplomacy, which is true, and dark rumours. It doesn't espouse those rumours as facts just that they contributed to the environment of hostility between the two nations. [/quote]

The tales of human sacrifice to the elven gods and the like aren't slander?[/quote]

Not really since they aren't presented as fact. If the account said that the Dalish did sacrifice humans to their gods it'd be slander (assuming the Dalish didn't actually do that) however they simply state there were rumours of it happening, probably because people were disappearing, it happens, close to the border of a largely unknown entity. When you force people to fill in the blanks about you themselves you shouldn't be surprised what they come up with is largely inaccurate and unflattering.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Name one race that controls territory anywhere close to that of the humans in Thedas. [/quote]

Let's apply the "masters of [insert]" into the real world and use your retort as a defense, and see if that makes Genitivi any less of a bigot.[/quote]

Look, let's say one nationality controlled 90% of the world. Would it be inaccurate to say they are the masters of the world? Humans control the vast majority of Thedas' surface, it is an accurate statement to assert them as the masters of Thedas.

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
So you think actively alienating people makes them more likely to help you than if you attempt positive relations with them? I'm not saying the odds are good but they're better if you at least try to be friendly. [/quote]

I didn't realize the elves living their own lives in their own nation was such an affront to the Andrastian nations.[/quote]

I'll say it again, refusing any and all interaction with people is actively alienating them. You are going out of your way to be unpleasant.


[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
Firstly Orlais is only the transgressor if you believe hostilities were one sided, they weren't. Secondly the Dalish did nothing, absolutely nothing, to dissuade invasion, I blame them for that. I blame them for harbouring hostile attitudes toward their neighbours from inception, I blame them for sitting by and doing NOTHING while the Second Blight ravaged Thedas, and I blame them for not fostering any kind of relations at all with the outside world and then having the gall to wonder why nobody likes them. [/quote]

I don't blame them for not opening relations with a nation that was conquering its neighbors.[/quote]

So don't open relations with Orlais. They had the Free Marches across the sea or the Fereldan tribes just the other side of a mountain pass. Open relations with them. Establish military allies who will come to your aid in the event Orlais does invade, promising them the same, and Orlais is less likely to invade.


[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
Orlais is not blameless in the Fall of the Dales, neither are the Dalish. If they'd set aside their arrogance and their obsession with recreating a past of failure I hold that the invasion never would have happened. The Dales were a significant enough military power to hold any Orlesian push at bay, they had exactly 1 border from which the Orlesian's could attack (Frostback to the East, Waking Sea to the North, and the Arbor Wilds in the South). [/quote]

You hold that a nation that invaded it's neighbors for centuries wouldn't have invaded the Dales? You realize Nevarra and Ferelden contradict this notion entirely?[/quote]

Yes because despite being able to conquer it's neighbours the Dalish demonstrate in the war that they were the superior military power. I hold that Orlais wouldn't have invaded such a military power if they could get what they wanted through trade and diplomacy. Nevarra and Fereldan make sense because they were not superior military powers, it was easier, and they'd get more, to invade.

Not to mention it would have earned them a lot of good will if they hadn't sat on their hands for the entire Second Blight.

Modifié par DPSSOC, 23 octobre 2012 - 02:51 .

[TEWR]

One thing you should note DPSSOC is that the Dalish boon where the Elves got their own homeland resulted in something horrible transpiring, and by Alistair's dialogue it seems to imply that the Elves weren't at fault.

[MisterJB]

I never got that dialogue. What does Alistair say?

[General User]

SeptimusMagistos wrote...

General User wrote...

Do you really think that living as troupes of wandering racists, picking fights and pining for a past that most likely never was, all while clinging to the bitterness left over from wars the rest of the world has largely forgotten, qualifies as "doing well enough"?

Again: the only comparison I can make is with the city elves and compared to them the Dalish maintain at least an equal living standard. Being racist generally works out for them because a lot of humans generally do want to hurt them. Do I think they could benefit from being selectively less aggressive? Yes, of course. But I'm not going to blame them for their suspicions.

I'm not really seeing why you want to make any comparisons at all.  But since you do, why must you only compare the Dalish to the city elves (the trials and tribulations of whom, by the way, are also far from one sided)?  Why not compare the Dalish to any other nation in Thedas, who despite periodic conflict, have still managed to coexist on the continent?  Why not compare the Dalish to the Chasind barbarians or the hill tribes, who maintain their own cultures without shutting out the rest of the world?  Why not compare the Dalish elves to the dwarves of Orzammar, who despite racial, cultural, and religious differences have lived largely in peace with their human neighbors (Andrastian and otherwise) for thousands of years?

More importantly, the part where they're trying to recover their past? Totally a good idea considering there are magical golems and enchanted mirrors lying about that just need a good bit of repair. If the elves manage to get those going again, the benefits would be enormous.

To borrow a turn of phrase form DPSSOC, trying to recover one's past is one thing, trying to recreate it is quite another.  And when, like the elves, one tries to recover and recreate an idealized version of the past that neatly ommits the enormous culpability one's own people have for all the negative events that transpired, the entire enterprise becomes one huge exercise in bigotry and idiocy.

All in all, I'm hoping that the elves manage to let go of their antagonism for past offenses against them and the humans manage to not add any new abuses to the list for once.

Unfortunately it's not so one sided as even that.  The truth is that the elves have been guilty of offenses and abuses themselves.  And they certainly played a prominent role in engineering their own downfall in any case.  Until they recognize those facts, the chances for them to make any serious "progress" are slim at best.  And the chances of the elves repeating the same mistakes their ancestors made again in the future are nigh certain.

Modifié par General User, 23 octobre 2012 - 04:08 .

[LobselVith8]

MisterJB wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

You hold that a nation that invaded it's neighbors for centuries wouldn't have invaded the Dales? You realize Nevarra and Ferelden contradict this notion entirely? 

There are a certain number of things that can help to dissuade a nation from declaring war.

Considering that Orlais was invading it's neighbors for centuries, it doesn't seem that anything has dissuaded the Orlesian Empire from continuing that course of action.

MisterJB wrote...

Allies for one. Sharing of resources is another since it helps them rethink if invading is worth the trouble. Diplomacy as well.

Except the Dalish express that the human nations grew cold towards them because they didn't worship the Maker; the Chantry (and the Andrastians who follow the Chantry of Andraste) see non-Andrastians as "heathens."

MisterJB wrote...

Standing at your borders shouting "DIRTY SHEMLENS, YOU ARE ALL INTELECTUALLY AND CULTURALY INFERIOR TO US! GO F*CKS YOURSELVES" and then attack the heart of the religion that the most powerful race in the world holds very dearly is just asking to be massacred.

The elves of the Dales didn't seem to make that proclamation; they simply sought to be left alone, which is why the Emerald Guardians kept outsiders out of their nation. And the war with Orlais transpired, according to the Dalish, when the templars invaded their sovereign territory. Even the elven protagonist can condemn the Chantry for invading the Dales as a result of the elves' refusal to adopt the religious beliefs (as my Surana Warden pointed out to the priest of Andraste).

[SeptimusMagistos]

General User wrote...
I'm not really seeing why you want to make any comparisons at all.  But since you do, why must you only compare the Dalish to the city elves (the trials and tribulations of whom, by the way, are also far from one sided)?  Why not compare the Dalish to any other nation in Thedas, who despite periodic conflict, have still managed to coexist on the continent?

Mainly because I'm looking at the current situation the Dalish face and what they can do about it. If they get their own kingdom, then the other cultures become relevant. Until then making it clear that they're a distinct culture not subject to human authority is their best bet.

General User wrote...
To borrow a turn of phrase form DPSSOC, trying to recover one's past is one thing, trying to recreate it is quite another.  And when, like the elves, one tries to recover and recreate an idealized version of the past that neatly ommits the enormous culpability one's own people have for all the negative events that transpired, the entire enterprise becomes one huge exercise in bigotry and idiocy.

To be clear:

I support the Dalish effort to recover artifacts and knowledge of their former land.

I don't care for the Dalish attitudes towards other people, even though I understand where they're coming from.

General User wrote...
Unfortunately it's not so one sided as even that.  The truth is that the elves have been guilty of offenses and abuses themselves.  And they certainly played a prominent role in engineering their own downfall in any case.  Until they recognize those facts, the chances for them to make any serious "progress" are slim at best.  And the chances of the elves repeating the same mistakes their ancestors made again in the future are nigh certain.

Again, I don't agree they have any culpability. All the elves ever wanted was to get a kingdom of their own, close the borders tightly enough to let no one in or out, then run it in whatever manner they preferred. Is this neighbourly? No, and I hope the Dalish change it. Is it a valid pretext for an invasion? HELL no. No nation has the right to send traders or missionaries where they aren't wanted and implying that the Dalish deserved to be invaded for refusing those is ridiculous.

I also think that they were completely correct to refuse any engagement with Orlais. When it comes to expansionistic empires, that level of paranoia is completely justified.

I hope the Dalish get their own kingdom and I hope they let go of past hatreds and engage the more friendly of their neighbors. I hope the human nations will accept the elves as equals and don't try to impose their culture on them. I also hope the city elves are able to rise through the society to become an integral part of urban society.

But I'm not holding my breath.

[LobselVith8]

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

History seems to have taught the Dalish that humans will betray them.[/quote]

When? How? In order for the humans to have betrayed the elves there would have had to have been some trust given. Alrathan eventually just shut itself off and the Dales did it from the get go. You can't betray someone who's never spoken to you, they can't claim you owe them anything. [/quote]

Arlathan had relations with Tevinter, then they were enslaved. Shartan and Andraste fought alongside each other to overthrow the Imperium, and the Dales was the reward for the elves; it was taken away as a result of the elves' refusal to convert by the followers of Andraste (according to the history of the Dalish).

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

Sending armed and armored soldiers into the Dales makes me think the Chantry wasn't invading sovereign territory to get a cup of tea from the elves.[/quote]

We have no indication that armed soldiers were sent into the Dales prior to the start of the war. Even then by all indications the war took place primarily in Orlais, it wasn't until the other nations got involved that they started pushing into Dalish territory. [/quote]

Except the elven protagonist can condemn the Chantry for conquering the Dales as a result of their refusal to convert, as it can be voiced even by the Surana Warden. I'd say the Dalish codex supports the idea that templars were sent into the Dales as a consequence of their refusal to convert.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

If one of them was Doctor Emmett Brown, sure.[/quote]

No, if they hadn't isolated themselves they'd have seen what Tevinter was doing, surmised they'd come for them eventually, and taken action to prevent it. As I said their failing, and their fault, is that they intentionally blinded themselves and left an imperialist power to grow unsupervised. [/quote]

We know the Arlathan elves battled the Tevinter mages because of what Merrill tells us about Sundermount, and why Audacity was originally summoned.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

The tales of human sacrifice to the elven gods and the like aren't slander?[/quote]

Not really since they aren't presented as fact. If the account said that the Dalish did sacrifice humans to their gods it'd be slander (assuming the Dalish didn't actually do that) however they simply state there were rumours of it happening, probably because people were disappearing, it happens, close to the border of a largely unknown entity. When you force people to fill in the blanks about you themselves you shouldn't be surprised what they come up with is largely inaccurate and unflattering. [/quote]

The rumors are presented with nothing to counter them in the historical Orlesian account; it's a biased account.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

I didn't realize the elves living their own lives in their own nation was such an affront to the Andrastian nations.[/quote]

I'll say it again, refusing any and all interaction with people is actively alienating them. You are going out of your way to be unpleasant. [/quote]

No, it isn't. It's the elves living their own lives, on their own terms, and worshipping their own gods. That doesn't give humanity the right to send templars into their territory simply because the elves refused to convert to their religion.

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

I don't blame them for not opening relations with a nation that was conquering its neighbors.[/quote]

So don't open relations with Orlais. They had the Free Marches across the sea or the Fereldan tribes just the other side of a mountain pass. Open relations with them. Establish military allies who will come to your aid in the event Orlais does invade, promising them the same, and Orlais is less likely to invade. [/quote]

Why would any Andrastian nation side with the elves against the seat of Andrastian faith?

[quote]DPSSOC wrote...

[quote]LobselVith8 wrote...

You hold that a nation that invaded it's neighbors for centuries wouldn't have invaded the Dales? You realize Nevarra and Ferelden contradict this notion entirely?[/quote]

Yes because despite being able to conquer it's neighbours the Dalish demonstrate in the war that they were the superior military power. I hold that Orlais wouldn't have invaded such a military power if they could get what they wanted through trade and diplomacy. Nevarra and Fereldan make sense because they were not superior military powers, it was easier, and they'd get more, to invade.

Not to mention it would have earned them a lot of good will if they hadn't sat on their hands for the entire Second Blight.[/quote]

Did the Orlesians even ask for the aid of the elves? We have no context for why there was no elven assistance, except from an account by the society that conquered the Dales.

[General User]

SeptimusMagistos wrote...

Mainly because I'm looking at the current situation the Dalish face and what they can do about it. If they get their own kingdom, then the other cultures become relevant. Until then making it clear that they're a distinct culture not subject to human authority is their best bet.

The fact that diverse peoples and cultures have managed to reach various accommodations with each other in Thedas is incredibly relevant.  Namely because the Dalish have failed (or, more accurately: they never tried) to do anything of the sort.  More than anything else,  that indicates that the problem is heavily weighted towards the elves end.

And, to correct you, the Dalish ARE rightfully subject to human authority by virtue of the fact that they live in human lands.  The humans have simply chosen to mostly forego exercising that authority.

To be clear:

I support the Dalish effort to recover artifacts and knowledge of their former land.

I don't care for the Dalish attitudes towards other people, even though I understand where they're coming from.

Do you understand that the attitudes and actions the Dalish take makes enemies for them out of people with whom they would otherwise have no quarrel?

Again, I don't agree they have any culpability. All the elves ever wanted was to get a kingdom of their own, close the borders tightly enough to let no one in or out, then run it in whatever manner they preferred. Is this neighbourly? No, and I hope the Dalish change it. Is it a valid pretext for an invasion? HELL no. No nation has the right to send traders or missionaries where they aren't wanted and implying that the Dalish deserved to be invaded for refusing those is ridiculous.

The pretext for the start of the war with the old Dales was the Dalish attacking an Orlesian town, which most certainly is a valid pretext for war.  Where Dalish culpability comes in is in the context leading up to that attack.  By embracing, with overt and strident militancy, such an extreme degree of isolationism and cultural revanchism, the Dalish were largely (though not exclusively mind you) responsible for creating a climate in which hostilities were all but certain to occur sooner rather than later.

I also think that they were completely correct to refuse any engagement with Orlais. When it comes to expansionistic empires, that level of paranoia is completely justified.

You know what else is justified when it comes to expansionistic empires?  Making allies to stand against them.  The Dalish didn't do that.  They were equally hostile towards the expansionist empire as they were to the mercantile free states, as they were to the non aligned tribesmen, as they were to any potential allies really. The Dalish were antagonistic towards all their neighbors, the Orlesians were just the ones that had it in their heads to do something about it.

I hope the Dalish get their own kingdom and I hope they let go of past hatreds and engage the more friendly of their neighbors. I hope the human nations will accept the elves as equals and don't try to impose their culture on them. I also hope the city elves are able to rise through the society to become an integral part of urban society.

But I'm not holding my breath.

I hope the Dalish don't get their own kingdom.  Because until and unless they accept the truth: that they have been largely responsible for their own misfortunes as a people, and change their attitudes and values accordingly, any new kingdom they get is going to wind up exactly like the last one.

Modifié par General User, 23 octobre 2012 - 07:06 .

[MisterJB]

LobselVith8 wrote...
Considering that Orlais was invading it's neighbors for centuries, it doesn't seem that anything has dissuaded the Orlesian Empire from continuing that course of action.

If this is why the elves were hostile, that still doesn't excuse them for simply assuming the humans would be hostile and turn down any attempts to civilized discourse. That's a self fulfilling prophecy.

Except the Dalish express that the human nations grew cold towards them because they didn't worship the Maker; the Chantry (and the Andrastians who follow the Chantry of Andraste) see non-Andrastians as "heathens."

I do not doubt that is how the dalish view the reasons for the war. I do, however, doubt that any self respecting nation is going to put matters of the faith above that of state.

And if the human nations really did grow cold towards the Dales because of the way they treated any missionaries sent, the smart thing to do would be to allow them entry. And don't tell me the elves didn't have to if they didn't want to. This isn't about what is right, it's about what is smart.

Allow a few missionaries in. They preach a bit, open a Chantry and, suddenly, you are surrounded by friends rather than foes.

The elves of the Dales didn't seem to make that proclamation; they simply sought to be left alone, which is why the Emerald Guardians kept outsiders out of their nation.

Refusing any contact with your neighbours on the grounds that they are untrustworthy and mere contact with them or their culture "curses elves with mortality" is quite hostile.

And the war with Orlais transpired, according to the Dalish, when the templars invaded their sovereign territory. Even the elven protagonist can condemn the Chantry for invading the Dales as a result of the elves' refusal to adopt the religious beliefs (as my Surana Warden pointed out to the priest of Andraste).

And my Human Noble, Aedan Cousland, can point out to the elves of the brecillian forest that it was a war the elves started. Who is right and who is wrong?