44 réponses à ce sujet

[Jack Druthers]

@ Maria I am going to be polite here, because that is how I talk to ladies.   I cannot see the connection between me quoting from a comic (the image of which has been put up by the OP in the previous page) and your comment.  Maybe we ought to leave it there.

[Aimi]

@ Maria I am going to be polite here, because that is how I talk to ladies.   I cannot see the connection between me quoting from a comic (the image of which has been put up by the OP in the previous page) and your comment.  Maybe we ought to leave it there.

She was saying that the mere fact that Yavana said something does not make whatever she said true. There is no context surrounding the witch that argues strongly in favor of believing her description of the way things supposedly used to be.

It makes little sense to hang so much about one's understanding of Thedosian cosmology on the unverifiable statements of an arguably loony mystic character.

[Maria Caliban]

Yes, it also gives you tighter pores.

You've heard this as well! I wonder why this truefact is not on wikipedia already?

She was saying that the mere fact that Yavana said something does not make whatever she said true. There is no context surrounding the witch that argues strongly in favor of believing her description of the way things supposedly used to be.

It makes little sense to hang so much about one's understanding of Thedosian cosmology on the unverifiable statements of an arguably loony mystic character.

Got it in one.

[Jack Druthers]

@ Eirene If you have the opinion that Alistair did not have the same blood line as Calenhad and you also have the opinion that there could not have been a time when Dragons were more plentiful in ancient Thedas, than they were in the Dragon age, then I suggest we respect the other's opinion and not go off topic.

[Aimi]

@ Eirene If you have the opinion that Alistair did not have the same blood line as Calenhad and you also have the opinion that there could not have been a time when Dragons were more plentiful in ancient Thedas, than they were in the Dragon age, then I suggest we respect the other's opinion and not go off topic.

One of the first assumptions that this thread's OP makes is that Yavana's comment is correct, that there was a time when the Veil did not exist and when dragons blah blah blah. It's not off-topic to question that assumption. Nor is it off-topic to not have an alternative explanation. It's a mistake to theorize before one has data - and in this case, we have data, only it's extremely spotty and extremely unreliable.

[Maria Caliban]

One of the premise of the setting is that the people understand Thedas about as well as medieval people understood their world. What that means is that a great deal of questionable information is floating around that may only peripherally resemble the truth.

'There was a time when the Veil did not exist' may be accurate. Or, it may be similar to mythological statements about a time when all humans used the same language, and men and women were joined together in a single body. Many creation myths hold that everything was once one until a divine being came along to separate heaven from earth, land from water, and night from day.

Why then should I hold one character's belief as a statement of fact? She wasn't there. She has no evidence that it's true. It sounds a lot like a religious story.

[Aulis Vaara]

Questioning the assumption of a time before the veil is fine. However, there is no evidence that Yavana was lying, nor any reason for her to lie about this matter. And we already know this stuff may not be true, that's why it's a theory.

 

What we do know for a fact is that Flemeth and her daughters know more about Thedas than the average scholar. Or did you think that saving the Old God's soul was just a lucky guess?

[Dean_the_Young]

Questioning the assumption of a time before the veil is fine. However, there is no evidence that Yavana was lying, nor any reason for her to lie about this matter. And we already know this stuff may not be true, that's why it's a theory.

 

There is also no evidence that Yavana was correct, nor any reason for her to be an absolute authority figure. She could simply be wrong while being convinced she is right. Or she might interpret a veil in a way you do not, making the OP's conclusion invalid.

 

 

 

What we do know for a fact is that Flemeth and her daughters know more about Thedas than the average scholar. Or did you think that saving the Old God's soul was just a lucky guess?

 

About Thedas or about certain obscure magics? Morrigan couldn't even answer Alistair's basic history question about the most famous figure in Thedasian history.

[Aulis Vaara]

Drawing conclusions based on the available data: productive, fun.
 

Not drawing conclusions because you might be wrong: nothing happens, boring.

 

 

 

About Thedas or about certain obscure magics? Morrigan couldn't even answer Alistair's basic history question about the most famous figure in Thedasian history.

 

 

Well, a physics major is not a history major. Also wondering what "basic history question" you are talking about.

[azarhal]

About Thedas or about certain obscure magics? Morrigan couldn't even answer Alistair's basic history question about the most famous figure in Thedasian history.

 

I suspect Asha'bellanar knows a lot, but doesn't tell everything to her daughters. She let them learn by themselves. (edit: Flemeth knows about Andraste, she make interesting comments about how a woman changed the world because of revenge in DAO).

 

I personally though there was something wrong in Yavana's speech personally. She sounded like a cultist to me, but Flemeth doesn't sound like one.

[Corker]

It would be entirely in keeping with what we've seen of Flemeth's MO to fill her daughters' heads with whatever will make them most useful to her.  Maybe Yavana is correct.  Maybe Flemeth fed her a long line of BS to get her invested in her job of "sit in a swamp and watch sleeping dragon eggs."  (FWIW, Flemeth-the-mortal lived in the Tower Age, well after this mystic before-time; I concede that Flemeth-the-Immortal may have access to any knowledge the devs want her to.)

 

Dragon Age has, I think unfortunately, pulled the 'unreliable narrator' card a bit too often.

[azarhal]

Dragon Age has, I think unfortunately, pulled the 'unreliable narrator' card a bit too often.

 

Unreliable facts is one of the theme of the series. DAO show it everywhere: Chantry bias historical teaching, Dalish russian telephone history, the Dwarves Shaperette that erase records they don't like, people forgetting about the danger of the Blight, etc. DA2 is all about it: I'm not interested in stories. I came to hear the truth.

 

The entire thematic is based on people forgetting things and doing stupid things because of it. The only character that brings that up is Flemeth by the way.

[Dean_the_Young]

Drawing conclusions based on the available data: productive, fun.
 

Not drawing conclusions because you might be wrong: nothing happens, boring.
 

 

Fully agree. But arguing that unsupported claims are established facts: foolish and pretentious.

 

 

 

 

Well, a physics major is not a history major. Also wondering what "basic history question" you are talking about.

 

 

The mortal husband of Andraste, who herself is certainly a relevant topic of importance for any metaphysics major interested in Thedas given her extreme importance to Human understanding of the magical vis-a-vis the divine.

 

Mind you, claiming Flemeth's daughters are (meta)physics majors is also a bit of a stretch: they know only what Flemeth wants them to know, and little else. Flemeth herself isn't exactly a proven authority figure either: we don't know what she knows, or what she doesn't, so her knowledge of obscure and largely forgotten things is not the same as her knowing The Truth.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Drawing conclusions based on the available data: productive, fun.
 

Not drawing conclusions because you might be wrong: nothing happens, boring.

 

 

 

Well, a physics major is not a history major. Also wondering what "basic history question" you are talking about.

 

Alistair asks her if she knows the name of Andraste's husband. Apparently she couldn't even name Maferath. In Thedosian and Ferelden history that is pretty basic.

[Wolfen09]

if you brought anders with you in the dlc to the vinmarck mountains (cant remember dlc name)  he comments multiple times that he believes the stuff in the chant of light isnt real... until you meet coriphyus where he seems surprised to hear it....

 

this to me hints that most of the stuff in terms of lore is just that, lore....  there are no cold hard facts and everyone has their own beliefs in this thing, so maybe this is just one yavana's beliefs and not truth

[Ieldra]

@OP:
Interesting read. I have my own hypothesis, written out in my thread On the nature of the Fade - a unifying theory. I am approaching this from a completely different angle, though. For one, I don't presuppose the existence of any gods. I'll go over your stuff in some detail and come back to you once I've analyzed the consequences.

[Aulis Vaara]

if you brought anders with you in the dlc to the vinmarck mountains (cant remember dlc name)  he comments multiple times that he believes the stuff in the chant of light isnt real... until you meet coriphyus where he seems surprised to hear it....

 

this to me hints that most of the stuff in terms of lore is just that, lore....  there are no cold hard facts and everyone has their own beliefs in this thing, so maybe this is just one yavana's beliefs and not truth

What? If anything, this proves that there is at least some truth to the whole mythology!

[Ieldra]

Hmmm....I've read your whole document, but - I'm sorry to say so, but quite a few things don't appear to make any sense. Comments and questions (or rather, the one question I'd ask about most of these things is: what brought you accept mythology as reality?):

 

(1) We don't know that "someone thought it was a good idea to separate the realms". That the Veil came into being does not imply intention or agency. I do suspect there is agency, but not intention, but I cannot claim that I know that.

 

(2) I see no reason to assume the existence of a realm you might call "the abyss". So far, there is no evidence of a third realm at all.

 

(3) I don't place any importance in mythology as a believable source for cosmological speculation. First, myths usually work with allegories - that's where the realms come in, they're realms of ideas rather than dimensions, based on the classic philosophical idea that ideas can be entities. Second, acts of gods don't have any explanatory power unless you can present the gods in question. We can speculate about the Old Gods since apparently they do (or did) exist, but even there I'd be careful to ascribe any agency to them. It's all too common for believers to claim that their god told them to do this or that.

 

(4) In a more general sense, we must distinguish between believers' beliefs and reality. There is no necessary connection of any kind between them. If a religion is historically correct in some way, it usually proves later to be a convenient but accidental fact. The instructive role of a religion or ideology always takes precedence over historical accuracy, and if proven false, the religion usually switches its stories' meaning from the literal to the allegorical rather than change it.

 

(5) There appears to be some evidence that humans, dwarves, elves and Old Gods have some non-material aspect you might call a soul. However, there is conflicting evidence as to whether or not this essence carries identity. After all, Morrigan appears to indicate that the child conceived in the ritual child will not be the Old God reborn but rather a human carrying its essence. We also know nothing, absolutely nothing, about its origins or eventual destination. We don't know if it usually survives the death of the individual, we don't know if it *has* any outside origin or is simply some amorphous aetheric essence a person collects or connects to at some time betwee conception or birth.

 

(6) I see no reason to assume the existence of any kind of "secret of life". So far, life is what it is, nobody knows how it came into being but that just shows that the origin is unknown rather than metaphysical. There is no reason to believe a metaphysical explanation just because no other type exists.

 

(7) If elven immortality was based on a strong connection to the Fade, mages would be longer-lived than non-mages and dreamers would likely be immortal. This hypothesis does not appear plausible at this time. There is also no other evidence that connects the Fade with a longer lifespan.

 

(8) I would not presuppose the applicability of any creation myth concept to the origin of any race.

 

So much for now. I think all in all, you depend far too much on the validity of certain very specific sources and interpretations whose accuracy you not only can't take for granted, but would be well-advised to not take for granted. The only part we have any sort of reliable evidence about is the magisters' attempt to gain entry in the Golden City. Since Legacy we know they actually attempted this, and that they believed they did so at the behest of Dumat. That doesn't indicate that Dumat was involved in any way.

[Wolfen09]

What? If anything, this proves that there is at least some truth to the whole mythology!

 

in reference to what the characters and people of dragon age believe is what i meant...  you're going to have non believers, but things that happened many years ago into the past tend to get lost in translation or severely misinterpreted.  It doesnt surprise me to find these people out there that think of the chant as nothing more than a song somebody wrote cause they were bored one day.  like how everyone believes cormac won a war against flemeth and the chasind, where morrigan says it never happened....  in reference to yavana, she may just believe the legends of calenhad and his line to be dragonborn, but it doesnt make it true

[azarhal]

in reference to what the characters and people of dragon age believe is what i meant...  you're going to have non believers, but things that happened many years ago into the past tend to get lost in translation or severely misinterpreted.  It doesnt surprise me to find these people out there that think of the chant as nothing more than a song somebody wrote cause they were bored one day.  like how everyone believes cormac won a war against flemeth and the chasind, where morrigan says it never happened....  in reference to yavana, she may just believe the legends of calenhad and his line to be dragonborn, but it doesnt make it true

 

The Qunari believes Calenhad drank dragon blood as well...

 

As for Yavana, you realize that she is probably over 300 years old. She said that she called the dragons to the Hall of the Sleepers and that could only happen before 6:15, the year set for the dragon extinction -World of Thedas date -.