23 réponses à ce sujet

[andy6915]

I played through that part again recently, and it really is interesting. A forest that was planted by elves holds a temple that isn't built like a typical ancient elves ruin is used by immortal elves for their "long sleep" rituals, a great battle between elves and humans and then something that wiped both sides out at once which left so many dead that the veil was pretty much torn wide open, a mage specialization largely lost to time that I assume was one of the main things used by said elves against the humans, a battle so horrible that one of them thought that sealing themselves inside a little blood globe was better then whatever was going on...

There's just so much mystery. I know mystery is nice, but I truly do want to find out just what the heck was going on there. What exactly was the arcane warriors, and how widespread were they among ancient elves? Was the ancient elven armor set the silver armor that you read about in the spirit's memories (it would add up)? What sparked the battle?

You know, I somehow have the feeling that it's somehow tied to the greater history of how the elves lost their second homeland. In that same area is the place where the eluvian was too, in a nearby and similarly designed ruin. That lends support to the forest actually being very significant to the elves history. Almost as if it was once a city, fallen into ruin to the point where it's just a few scattered temples left. It can't be the Dales because that is west of the Frostback mountains, so what it could be I have no idea. Arlathan was apparently destroyed utterly, sunk into either the ground or the sea (forget which), so I doubt it's that either. And what were the arcane warriors? There's no mention of elves ever using that magic style in anything the Dalish have rediscovered, but it was definitely used by ancient elves against whatever human army attacked the place... Only for their entire sect to be wiped out to the point that no mention of the style made it into history. Considering it was clearly an elven style, it was pretty cruel of the Warden to not tell the Dalish about the possibly huge piece of their history you stumbled on.

That was a long last paragraph. Anyway, I hope this is all touched upon someday. Bioware left a subtle but significant thing they could focus on later if they so choose. I say subtle because I doubt anyone has truly thought about just how big a deal the forest and ruins in it could be later. Until now, that is. If they ever do an elven focused game (they should, after 2 human focused one with DA2 and DA3), this could very well play a role. I don't think the mysteries of the ancient elves will be totally solved without figuring out that forest and temples role in their history.

Modifié par andy69156915, 28 janvier 2013 - 03:22 .

[Heimdall]

I think Bioware likes leaving the ancient history of Thedas largely ambiguous.

[andy6915]

bump

[Daralii]

sunk into either the ground or the sea (forget which)

Lanaya specifically says that the Imperial magi sunk it into the ground.

[andy6915]

^
See? I said it was either the ground or the sea. Doesn't matter either way, it confirms that whatever that forest is, it's not Arlathan.

...Of course, that does lead me to wonder something. Is Arlathan some lost underground city now, possibly smashed into an unknown part of the Deep Roads and could be found and a quest made out of it in a later game? If they do an elven-centric Dragon Age, an underground "lost city of Arlathan" quest would be awesome.

[Sweawm]

Indeed. I remember in the Dalish Origin, the Mirror showing Tamlen a city underground before exploding into light.

[Neoleviathan]

I'd been thinking about that the last few days, been replaying origins again. To me the tale of how man entered the Elven world & corrupted the elves seemed too similar to how the Dark Spawn came about. The elven city was sunk beneath the ground, the old God's were trapped beneath the Earth. Mages being responcible for the catastrophies in both tales. That mirror from the Dalish origin was of ancient Elven origin, but it corrupted the life around it with the Taint. Flemmeth has ties to the Dalish, & can transform into a Dragon like the old God's.
I'd like to think the Darkspawn were born out of the war between ancient elves & men, the lost elven city waits in the fade.

[NUM13ER]

Neoleviathan wrote...
I'd like to think the Darkspawn were born out of the war between ancient elves & men, the lost elven city waits in the fade.

I like this idea. The notion that the black city itself may infact be the lost eleven city would be pretty cool. It also ties into notions that whilst there's some may be some truth to the chantrys version of how the dark spawn came to be, it is somehow connected to the fall of the elves and there is much more to it.

[mickey111]

It's good to have some mystery. I don't think I know lots a bout story telling, but pretty much anyone who has written any of the classic fantasy stories leave unanswered questions in them.

[JaegerBane]

Neoleviathan wrote...

I'd been thinking about that the last few days, been replaying origins again. To me the tale of how man entered the Elven world & corrupted the elves seemed too similar to how the Dark Spawn came about. The elven city was sunk beneath the ground, the old God's were trapped beneath the Earth. Mages being responcible for the catastrophies in both tales. That mirror from the Dalish origin was of ancient Elven origin, but it corrupted the life around it with the Taint. Flemmeth has ties to the Dalish, & can transform into a Dragon like the old God's.
I'd like to think the Darkspawn were born out of the war between ancient elves & men, the lost elven city waits in the fade.

+1. One of the things that annoys me most about the direction DA is going is that its moving away from the whole Darkspawn/Grey Wardens origin (about the closest we got was DA2: Legacy) and focusing more on the Mage/Templar thing, which by the end of DA2 was done to death.

I'd much rather find out about what precisely happened back during the Tevinter experiment, whether it really was the origin of the Darkspawn, etc, rather than more Anders/Meredith-esque whining.

Modifié par JaegerBane, 28 janvier 2013 - 07:17 .

[HSomCokeSniper]

mickey111 wrote...

It's good to have some mystery. I don't think I know lots a bout story telling, but pretty much anyone who has written any of the classic fantasy stories leave unanswered questions in them.

^
This.

Also if you think about what ME3 did to reapers one could think that it's better to leave some motivations/mysteries unanswered. At least if the reveal is wastly dissappointing. (Of course this is debatable)

[andy6915]

I didn't say I needed to know every last detail. But that place got me metaphorically salivating. Denying me even a taste after wafting it under my nose would be horrible. There's a big gap between barely giving any info and telling everything, and they could fit a lot in that gap without ruining it. I mean, what do we know about the place right now? Nothing really, we don't know what the forest used to be, who was fighting, or what the battle was even vaguely about.

And what do we know about the arcane warriors? Ancient elves apparently used it and... Come to think of it, that's actually about it as far as what we know about that subject. Elves used it, the end. Lots of potential to be made interesting later, but right now we don't even know enough for it to even be a mystery (more like a big blank spot of info then a true mystery). I want to at least more then we know now, and what we know now is a whole lot of nothing at the moment. With how specializations are going to have more story role now, DA3 could very well fill in some gaps if they bring it back.

[Thasinta]

Neoleviathan wrote...

I'd been thinking about that the last few days, been replaying origins again. To me the tale of how man entered the Elven world & corrupted the elves seemed too similar to how the Dark Spawn came about. The elven city was sunk beneath the ground, the old God's were trapped beneath the Earth. Mages being responcible for the catastrophies in both tales. That mirror from the Dalish origin was of ancient Elven origin, but it corrupted the life around it with the Taint. Flemmeth has ties to the Dalish, & can transform into a Dragon like the old God's.

Well, that might be a thing: Tevinter sinks Arlathan into the earth, and then some time later, we get the first Blight, with Darkspawn erupting from beneath the ground. There's a bit of a gap between the two events, but that works fine. The Darkspawn need some centuries to multiply and be fruitful, give the dwarves a good kicking and dig up an Old God, before pouring out of the earth and attempt to destroy the Tevinter Imperium. That sort of thing takes time, right?

I read in some other thread another but similar theory, that the Golden City was Arlathan's "twin" or "mirror image" in the Fade (I think NUM13ER mentioned it above). The magisters had already destroyed the physical portion of it, but needed to destroy its Fade counterpart as well. Which just might explain why that mirror-thing is so bad. Okay, I'm maybe grasping at some flimsy straws here (or possibly, I've read this somewhere already but am now deluding myself into thinking I've for once had an original idea, in which case the original thinker was the grasper), but these mirrors may have been a portal for the elves to their Fade-Arlathan (and maybe other parts of the Fade, too). Physical Arlathan destroyed, but elves can still go to the Fade-portion of it, and the magisters decide to destroy that too, to finally and completely crush the elves.

They destroy the Golden City/Fade-Arlathan (and some of them, at least, get hit by friendly fire, thus creating the Darkspawn). These mirrors still function, however, but now, with that corruption going on, using them, at least the ones that are portals to the now Black City corrupts the user. I can't remember at the moment, but isn't that more-or-less what happened in the Dalish Origin?

But well, I guess we'll never really know. So we'll just have to amuse ourselves with some theories. Same as with the ruins in the Brecilian forest. Well, unless a PC will get to either i) do a bit of time-travelling or ii) have a chit-chat with the Maker. They both seem rather unlikely. I suppose a third option would be to meet an Old God before the Darkspawn manage to reach it, but I suppose that's not too likely, either. I just don't think archaeology, as a science, is all that advanced in Thedas, and I really doubt it'd be easy, were we to get to play a scholar who doubts the Chantry's version, to get in touch with other similar-thinking scholars.

[legbamel]

I always thought the cured werewolves who lived in the ruins would have told the clan about them. Clearly the lovely curse creator knew it was there already. (His name escapes me at the moment.) But wasn't the spirit that taught the Warden the Arcane Warrior specialization human? Or was that not specified or I'm misremembering?

[Lenimph]

The spirit's race was not specified.  Also I agree, I do want to find out about ancient elven history, like really badly.

Modifié par Lenimph, 28 janvier 2013 - 05:39 .

[JaegerBane]

Lenimph wrote...

The spirit's race was not specified.  Also I agree, I do want to find out about ancient elven history, like really badly.

Indeed, but I think it's a bit of a stretch for the spirit to have been anything but an elf. I mean, why would it have been human? Aside from the fact that you're in a chamber of a lost elven ruin, human mages of the time were normally racist medieval romano-fascists that had bigger (fire)balls than elven mages did.

Modifié par JaegerBane, 28 janvier 2013 - 06:04 .

[andy6915]

Not only that (about what race the AW spirit was), your party members comment that the soul container it's in is clearly elven. It would be more then a little strange for a human to be in an elven container. That is why I assume its race to be that. We know from its memories that it put itself in there (something about how it didn't expect it would need to wait so long for someone to find it and release it) which means that no one else put it in there. It found an a soul container for elves and knew just what to do to put itself in there intentionally. That doesn't sound like something a human would have done, or even known how to do.

No solid proof, but all the circumstantial and contextual evidence points to it being an elf. And if it was an elf, so were the other AWs in the memories of it.

[legbamel]

Ah, I don't remember comments about the container. It certainly does sound like it's an elf, then!

[andy6915]

Proof:



Around 6:40, he asks it how it ended up in the gem. It says-

"the presence fled the destruction by using the life gem, fleeing its body. It was sure someone would come to rescue it, but no one did. Not until now."

Zevran at 4:38 makes the statement about it being elven too.


Also, watching that video just told me something VERY interesting. Around 7:40, it says that the temple was BUILT BY HUMANS. What the?! Humans built it, but elves used it for their long sleep ritual, and then humans came back and tried to kill them. This gets more interesting the more I look at it.

Modifié par andy69156915, 28 janvier 2013 - 09:24 .

[andy6915]

Um... Sheepish bump?

[Neoleviathan]

Interesting, hadn't heard the mirror city theory. Demons & Fade Spirits do seem attracted to anything related to Elven & Old God relics.

Spent most of my original play throughs with Elf & Circle origins, but this time I'm going with the Dwarves to see if I can find out more about how the Deep Roads might tie into it all. Partly, I think it'd be funny if the Maker had actually been some Elf king(also I'd guess part of stopping Templar/Chantry aggression in Inquisition might be found with the option of invalidating them). Mostly, enjoyed digging up all that back story & I'm looking forward to seeing what else they might reveal in Inquisition.

The story has been more involved with the Templar/Mage conflict, but Bioware likes to do those big reveals. Wouldn't be too suprised if at somepoint in Inquisition some of that backstory comes back to haunt Thedas. Also, its probably unrelated. But I remember a thread short while back questioning why Ogres were present in the blight before the qunari had travelled out that way in any substantial numbers. Gaider said there was a reason, but didn't reveal it. If the mirrors were portals, could be they have one.

Modifié par Neoleviathan, 29 janvier 2013 - 07:51 .

[Sibu]

Elfs were the bad guys of the past, humans fought them and destroyed their sacred city to prevent something very evil to rise in Thedas... then, they tried to get into the Golden City to destroy that evil... they failed. That evil is the Maker/Dread Wolf.

[Milan92]

 Everytime I read Brecilian forest I can't help but think that its from Pokemon 

[Heimdall]

Neoleviathan wrote...

Interesting, hadn't heard the mirror city theory. Demons & Fade Spirits do seem attracted to anything related to Elven & Old God relics.
.

Well, that's probably because both the elves and the Tevinters made liberal use of demons and spirits in their magic compared to modern mages.  There's a reason the veil around Sundermount, where there was a great battle between the two, is so torn to shreds.