170 réponses à ce sujet

[TEWR]

Looks like Loghain actually had a very good police artist.

Ah, alright then. Fair enough.

[In Exile]

Silfren wrote...
Actually Kylon says he did recognize the Warden based on the wanted poster.  He only says that it doesn't do them justice, not that it doesn't look anything like them.  I doubt customization had anything to do with that.  But not only does Kylon recognize the Warden, he does so instantly, without any hesitation at all.  Looks like Loghain actually had a very good police artist.

A psychic artist, since he somehow has a poster for you from the start despite having no reason or evidence to know that you specifically are alive. 

[Dave of Canada]

Faerunner wrote...

Oh yeah, because the violent race-riots and possible hate-crimes committed by humans if you elect an Elven Bann of the Denerim Alienage CLEARLY shows this.

Elves are allowed to move out of the Alienage, they're allowed to marry, they're allowed to have a job, they're allowed to own property. Know what they're not allowed to do? Become part of the city council. Do you know what you do in Origins? You fix that, you give the Alienage a voice. Hell, Sorin could marry a noble.

Let's see what happens in the aftermath of Origins:
Elves were given a position of power by the King/Queen of Ferelden. Check.
Elves were being treated well because of the new Bann of the Alienage. Check.
Angry protestors killed the Bann. Undesirable.
The position of Bann remains. There's hope.
Elves decide their first course of action is riot. Undesirable.
Guardsmen are forced to pacify the elven riot. Undesirable.
Elves lose all benefits which were instilled by the King/Queen. We're back to square 1.

The human nobles objecting to King Alistair granting the hahren a place in his council CLEARLY shows this.

They object but the King and Queen have the final say. Anora isn't as idealistic as Alistair and she still gives them what they want, player involvement or no. She cracks down on them when they start a riot.

Do you know what they do to riots? They cull them. Every single one. We hear about human riots being culled as well, this is known as equality.

Around 700 years of city elves living in supposedly free Adrastian human socities and still being second-class citizens CLEARLY shows this.

They're given all the same rights as everyone else except for having positions of power which are passed down by lineage. So... yeah, that's pretty great, actually. Far better treated than I'd expect them to be, actually.
 

Elves want to be elves without being enslaved, subjugated, or assimilated into human society.

By seperating themselves from humans to become "immortal" again, looking down on humanity as children who took everything away from them. Some of the Dalish then go around and slaughter humans, breed anti-elf sentiment and use it to justify their actions.

Dalish are causing their cycle of loathing by clinging onto fairy tales.

If humans constantly shove elves under-boot every time the two get into contact (from Tevinter to Arlathan, to Orlais to the Dales, to present-day Andrastian humans to city elves), then, yeah, they're naturally going to want to scoot away. If the choice is between subjugation and segregation, the elves will always prefer the latter.

Except for the Orlais and Dales case isn't clear-cut.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

In Exile wrote...

I know I said I wouldn't go down this road... but the Dalish religion and culture is the thing that's bound up with the racism. Their religion and culture is hard to separate out from their views on immortality - especially their culture and their views on humanity. 

i think you're overestimating the importance of the stories about the Quickening in the Dalish culture. Elves haven't been immortal for over 2000 years (assuming they ever were), it's no longer a part of their day to day existence. There has never once been an elven character who we've run into who expressed disgust at a human specifically because he was disrupting his immortality. The Dalish culture they are interested in preserving has more to do with long lost knowledge and artifacts. And their worship of the Creators has nothing to do with humanity at all. It's not a theological belief that causes them to believe the humans caused them to become mortal. It's not even that central to their set of cultural values.

The Dalish elves' grudge against humans is almost entirely manifested in bitterness about the fall of the Dales and of Arlathan, not stealing their immortality.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 13 novembre 2013 - 06:53 .

[Shadow Fox]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Except Ferelden was tearing itself apart in a civil war and there were only 2 fresh Grey Wardens in the country that were being activly hunted down by Loghain it was suicidal to fight a Blight in those conditions.

You only find that out for certain at Lothering, despite the grounded fears that it'll happen regardless.

Also, it'll be hard for Loghain's agents to track down the Warden, because as Kylon says (for character customization reasons mainly, but it's still lore) the Warden's wanted poster looks nothing like him/her.

And at the very least, having the Elves and Dwarves on your side should Ferelden truly become a sinking ship helps out the Orlesian Wardens if they have to come and save the day.

Also, one could argue that it's the Warden's obligation to do what he can to weaken the Blight, because that's what others would do.

In death, sacrifice.

How exactly? Considering sabotaging that battle would hurt their efforts against the Blight.

It's a lot to say, but suffice to say their secrecy on why they're needed combined with the delay of the beacon until Cailan's forces were not only breaking but the Darkspawn weren't even fully committed to the battle (and the delay was due to an invasion of the tower, but Loghain didn't know that at the time) made him think they were returning to their roots of helping Orlais spread its influence.

That they also didn't take a notable part in advising Cailan to stay off the fields and listen to his general more was also pretty damning, because it suggests they want him on the field of battle.

Then you take in events like the Calling and the Sophia Dryden rebellion against King Arland (a tyrant, surely, but most records of his tyranny were lost so the public isn't aware of the truth) and is it really all that out of hand for him to distrust the Wardens, to view them as trying to undermine Ferelden?

Not really. He's wrong, no doubt, but he's got a crapload of evidence to draw his conclusions upon that make him seem like he's right.

And if the Warden happens to leave Redcliffe to die rather then trying to save them, well, it sort of adds to his reasons to distrust them. Granted, Loghain is partly to blame for the events there (though even that had valid reasons for the incapacitation of Eamon) as are Isolde, Connor, Jowan, and even Eamon himself.

But the Warden could just reinforce the negative propaganda spreading around Ferelden by leaving the place to die.

Well I play the hero so I help Ferelden on principal but it was still suicidally stupid tactically.

Hmm good points that's why I like you you actually give reasonable arguments.

[Silfren]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Is segragation for the sake of segragation necessarily bad? At least when it's requested by the minority in question? The Dalish in general might want to separate from human society because of their religion (just like humans destroyed their homeland in the name of theirs) but the method in doing so will no doubt differ. The idea of seizing land forcibly is very shortsighted, I can't imagine the Dalish, as a whole, support the idea.

The Dalish segregation isn't motivated by religion but the idea that elves were immortals and humans are a literal plague to them, this breeds anti-human sentiments and outright disgust of their peers which choose to live in human civilization.

The fact that this is based entirely off stories which they've been spreading by ear over countless generations and that there's no evidence that segregation does anything (or this "plague" even exists in the first place) leads me to believe this is Dalish propaganda.

Either way is an assumption but one doesn't breed needless hostilities.

You DO realize that one of the Devs is on record as saying that elves who live apart from humans do tend to live noticeably longer than their counterparts?

[Dave of Canada]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

i think you're overestimating the importance of the stories about the Quickening in the Dalish culture. Elves haven't been immortal for over 2000 years (assuming they ever were), it's no longer a part of their day to day existence. There has never once been an elven character who we've run into who expressed disgust at a human specifically because he was disrupting his immortality. The Dalish culture they are interested in preserving has more to do with long lost knowledge and artifacts. And their worship of the Creators has nothing to do with humanity at all.

The Dalish elves' grudge against humans is almost entirely manifested in bitterness about the fall of the Dales and of Arlathan, not stealing their immortality.

It's mostly in the cultural aspect, the fact that they call humans "quick children" and a lot of codex entries mention it from the perspective of modern-day Dalish. They hate humans for losing their homeland but the Quickening is their reasoning for segregation.

For example, the Dales codex:

We could once again forget the incessant passage of time. 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. We were driven from Halamshiral, scattered.

Silfren wrote...

You DO realize that one of the Devs is on record as saying that elves who live apart from humans do tend to live noticeably longer than their counterparts?

And you do realize that no-where in that post did they say it was done because of any Quickening? There's many factors at play here. Magic, lifestyle, environment, etc.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 13 novembre 2013 - 06:53 .

[TEWR]

Well I play the hero so I help Ferelden on principal but it was still suicidally stupid tactically.

Arguable. Straight up going after the Darkspawn is definitely royally stupid, but if you can build up an effective base of power then you can begin to engage in tactical warfare and political maneuvering.

But that's a separate discussion.

Hmm good points that's why I like you you actually give reasonable arguments

Heh, thank you. I try my best to be reasonable.

[In Exile]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

i think you're overestimating the importance of the stories about the Quickening in the Dalish culture.

They're an important part of how they view humans. See this codex passage for example:

The humans first arrived from Par Vollen to the north. Called shemlen, or "quicklings," by the ancients, the humans were pitiful creatures whose lives blinked by in an instant. When they first met the elves, the humans were brash and warlike, quick to anger and quicker to fight, with no patience for the unhurried pace of elven diplomacy.

But the humans brought worse things than war with them. Our ancestors proved susceptible to human diseases, and for the first time in history, elves died of natural causes. What's more, those elves who spent time bartering and negotiating with humans found themselves aging, tainted by the humans' brash and impatient lives. Many believed that the ancient gods had judged them unworthy of their long lives and cast them down among the quicklings. Our ancestors came to look upon the humans as parasites, which I understand is similar to the way the humans see our people in the cities. The ancient elves immediately moved to close Elvhenan off from the humans, for fear that this quickening effect would crumble the civilization.

...

Whatever the case, Arlathan had fallen to the very humans our people had once considered mere pests. It is said that the Tevinter magisters used their great destructive power to force the very ground to swallow Arlathan whole, destroying eons of collected knowledge, culture, and art. The whole of elven lore left only to memory.

Their entire cultural narrative is rife with these references to humanity. 

Elves haven't been immortal for over 2000 years (assuming they ever were), it's no longer a part of their day to day existence. There has never once been an elven character who we've run into who expressed disgust at a human specifically because he was disrupting his immortality.

Every single Dalish elf we've met uses a racial slur to refer to humans. They praise Zathrian for regaining that lost life. They have stories - stories that they share with their children - that there are Keepers and other elves right now gainign that immortality back. It's absolutely part of their existence. 

Modifié par In Exile, 13 novembre 2013 - 06:55 .

[TEWR]

You DO realize that one of the Devs is on record as saying that elves who live apart from humans do tend to live noticeably longer than their counterparts?

Consider the filth Alienage Elves have to live with, as opposed to living alongside nature like the Dalish do.

[In Exile]

Silfren wrote...
You DO realize that one of the Devs is on record as saying that elves who live apart from humans do tend to live noticeably longer than their counterparts?

And another dev is on record saying that the Dalish lifespan is the same as the CE lifespan and the human lifespan, and the only ones that have a longer lifespan are the qunari because of their superiro medicine. 

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Those are all descriptions of the perspective of the ancient elves. It's a summary of history, not a declaration of all their what's central to their current perspective of humanity. They don't view humans as merely pests anymore. Their relationship is much more nuanced and varied now.

I also don't believe "Shemlen" in and of itself counts as a racial slur.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 13 novembre 2013 - 07:00 .

[Dave of Canada]

In Exile wrote...

And another dev is on record saying that the Dalish lifespan is the same as the CE lifespan and the human lifespan, and the only ones that have a longer lifespan are the qunari because of their superiro medicine. 

Ah yes, forgot about that. I remember it angering a lot of Dalish supporters.

[Dean_the_Young]

Xilizhra wrote...

Arcane Warrior Mage Hawke wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Arcane Warrior Mage Hawke wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

How can one move on when one is legally disenfranchised and wholly without any land?

Stop holding onto a fairy tale,living in the past and make a new home.

Where would you suggest?

Outside of Thedas preferably somewhere unconquered.

Maybe the Veil tears will depopulate somewhere they can move into. The whole of Thedas, really, is theirs to begin with.

Only in the 'because somebody's great great great grandpapy killed someone else's' sense. Which is a justification that applies to, well, anyone else who owned the land.

Generally what's considered more important is who is living the lands of Thedas in this age and time... and it certainly isn't the Dalish.

[Shadow Fox]

Silfren wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Is segragation for the sake of segragation necessarily bad? At least when it's requested by the minority in question? The Dalish in general might want to separate from human society because of their religion (just like humans destroyed their homeland in the name of theirs) but the method in doing so will no doubt differ. The idea of seizing land forcibly is very shortsighted, I can't imagine the Dalish, as a whole, support the idea.

The Dalish segregation isn't motivated by religion but the idea that elves were immortals and humans are a literal plague to them, this breeds anti-human sentiments and outright disgust of their peers which choose to live in human civilization.

The fact that this is based entirely off stories which they've been spreading by ear over countless generations and that there's no evidence that segregation does anything (or this "plague" even exists in the first place) leads me to believe this is Dalish propaganda.

Either way is an assumption but one doesn't breed needless hostilities.

You DO realize that one of the Devs is on record as saying that elves who live apart from humans do tend to live noticeably longer than their counterparts?

I think that has more to do with healthier living conditions personally.

[In Exile]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

Those are all descriptions of the perspective of the ancient elves. It's a summary of history, not a declaration of all their what's central to their current perspective of humanity. They don't view humans as merely pests anymore.

They don't have any surviving records of what the ancient elves knew or believed. Their entire historical account is projection.

I also don't believe "Shemlen" in and of itself counts as a racial slur.

It was historically used as a racial slur - that's the original meaning. It's never stopped being used as a racial slur. The elves use it specifically as a demeaning term for human. Merril - if Hawke upsets her enough - uses it as an insult. 

[Silfren]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

i think you're overestimating the importance of the stories about the Quickening in the Dalish culture. Elves haven't been immortal for over 2000 years (assuming they ever were), it's no longer a part of their day to day existence. There has never once been an elven character who we've run into who expressed disgust at a human specifically because he was disrupting his immortality. The Dalish culture they are interested in preserving has more to do with long lost knowledge and artifacts. And their worship of the Creators has nothing to do with humanity at all.

The Dalish elves' grudge against humans is almost entirely manifested in bitterness about the fall of the Dales and of Arlathan, not stealing their immortality.

It's mostly in the cultural aspect, the fact that they call humans "quick children" and a lot of codex entries mention it from the perspective of modern-day Dalish. They hate humans for losing their homeland but the Quickening is their reasoning for segregation.

For example, the Dales codex:

We could once again forget the incessant passage of time. 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. We were driven from Halamshiral, scattered.

Silfren wrote...

You DO realize that one of the Devs is on record as saying that elves who live apart from humans do tend to live noticeably longer than their counterparts?

And you do realize that no-where in that post did they say it was done because of any Quickening? There's many factors at play here. Magic, lifestyle, environment, etc.

Sorry, but in context I think that the Devs point was that there's likely something to the idea of the Quickening.  I don't think they would make statements like that just to give us a "Gotcha!  It was TOTALLY just a question of their environment and living conditions!" 

I also think that beyond the quickening, another very good reason for segregation is the indisputable fact that elf-human pairings result in 100% human offspring.  It's in the elves interest as a people to ensure that they don't risk intermingling with humans to the point that they could breed themselves out of existence.

[TEWR]

Dave of Canada wrote...

In Exile wrote...

And another dev is on record saying that the Dalish lifespan is the same as the CE lifespan and the human lifespan, and the only ones that have a longer lifespan are the qunari because of their superiro medicine. 

Ah yes, forgot about that. I remember it angering a lot of Dalish supporters.

Well, it is problematic when two devs can't keep their lore consistent.

[In Exile]

Silfren wrote...
Sorry, but in context I think that the Devs point was that there's likely something to the idea of the Quickening.  I don't think they would make statements like that just to give us a "Gotcha!  It was TOTALLY just a question of their environment and living conditions!"  

Again, we have another dev on record saying the exact opposite thing. Beyond that, I read DG's post, and it absolutely reads like a coy dodge to keep the situation ambiguous, which is exactly like what they're doing with the Maker. That was a design goal from day one, which they were very public about.

I also think that beyond the quickening, another very good reason for segregation is the indisputable fact that elf-human pairings result in 100% human offspring.  It's in the elves interest as a people to ensure that they don't risk intermingling with humans to the point that they could breed themselves out of existence. 

There are lots of reasons that's abhorent, but I'll go with these three: this rationale justifies (i) forced marriages; (ii) forced childbirthing by elven women; and (iii) is an affirmation of a lot of offensive IRL views of racial supremacist groups. 

Saying racial segregation and moral duties to perpetuate the race are actually OK when the groups are really different races is all sorts of morally problematic. 

[In Exile]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Well, it is problematic when two devs can't keep their lore consistent.

We can account for both perfectly well. It's just that the explanation that accounst for them is "read DGs completely ambiguous statement that in no way talks about the elves ever being immortal as a coy dodge of the issue". 

My own view is that the elves were functionally immortal but they got to that point using blood magic. Which is in keeping with the idea that history has dark secrets that Bioware loves to use in DA. 

That covers how the elves lived for so very long (because they did) while also account for how the elves lifespan isn't "naturally long (because w/o blood magic they do live as much as everyone else). 

Zathrian then is doubly-ironic, because he actually does rediscover his people's immortality... it's just that his people are wrong about what their immortality was. 

Modifié par In Exile, 13 novembre 2013 - 07:09 .

[Jedi Master of Orion]

In Exile wrote...

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

Those are all descriptions of the perspective of the ancient elves. It's a summary of history, not a declaration of all their what's central to their current perspective of humanity. They don't view humans as merely pests anymore.

They don't have any surviving records of what the ancient elves knew or believed. Their entire historical account is projection.

I also don't believe "Shemlen" in and of itself counts as a racial slur.

It was historically used as a racial slur - that's the original meaning. It's never stopped being used as a racial slur. The elves use it specifically as a demeaning term for human. Merril - if Hawke upsets her enough - uses it as an insult. 

How do you know that? There are some accounts of events that far back that survived. Such as the battle between the elves and Imperium at Sundermount. World of Thedas' timeline event has a specific date that supposedly was when the elves were first said to notice the quickening.

"Shem" is a racial slur.  But Shemlen is not. World of Thedas' glossary even specifies that shem is "the derogatory  variant" which implies the regular word is not.

Modifié par Jedi Master of Orion, 13 novembre 2013 - 07:11 .

[Silfren]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

You DO realize that one of the Devs is on record as saying that elves who live apart from humans do tend to live noticeably longer than their counterparts?

Consider the filth Alienage Elves have to live with, as opposed to living alongside nature like the Dalish do.

Well, of course it's a given that any number of factors would explain differences in lifespans, but given the questions of elves once having been immortal and acquiring short lifespans as a result of human interaction, I don't think a Dev would be so intellectually dishonest as to specifically refer to elves living longer when they're apart from humans, just as a "gotcha, sure I said that, but I totally didn't mean it the way you thought I did!"  

I am aware that there's a dispute on this since another Dev said something contradictory, but until we have someone resolve that discrepancy, we can hardly discount it.

[In Exile]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...
How do you know that? There are some accounts of events that far back that survived. Such as the battle of Sundermount.

I haven't run across any in-game Codex that's sourced back to Arlathan. All we have, as I recall, is Merrill talking about it. 

"Shem" is a racial slur.  But Shemlen is not. World of Thedas' glossary even specifies that shem is "the derogatory  variant" which implies the regular word is not.  

The Arlathan codex entry is very clear that the meaning of word can't be taken as anything other than a racial slur. Even if WoT wants to say that the term "shemlen" isn't mean to be derogative, there's no escaping from the fact that (a) it was historically used as a racial slur and ( it is bound up with pejorative meaning. 

Modifié par In Exile, 13 novembre 2013 - 07:11 .

[In Exile]

Silfren wrote...
I am aware that there's a dispute on this since another Dev said something contradictory, but until we have someone resolve that discrepancy, we can hardly discount it.

The logical approach to two entirely inconsistent statements is not to assume (a) they're both true or ( the one I like more is true but © we can't draw any conclusions about this because of the contradiction. 

[Dave of Canada]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Well, it is problematic when two devs can't keep their lore consistent.

In the same Gaider quote, he uses Zathrian as an example of Dalish living longer and we all know that isn't because of his segregation. I think he's just being evasive, he feeds off these arguments and designed Thedas to fit into the real-world knowledge of no-one really knowing in full details how things were long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish Samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is Aku!

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 13 novembre 2013 - 07:14 .