When asked about the timeline of Inquisition Gaider coughed awkwardly and said that unlike Origins or 2, it hadn't been settled yet.
I saw that. I was wondering if something else had come up that had Ren convinced it was less than a year. I haven't been keeping close tabs on information these days. 
http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm
Chapter 80
Small country, few people
Let them have many weapons but not use them
Let the people regard death seriously
And not migrate far awayAlthough they have boats and chariots
They have no need to take them
Although they have armors and weapons
They have no need to display themLet the people return to tying knots and using them
Savor their food, admire their clothes
Content in their homes, happy in their customsNeighboring countries see one another
Hear the sounds of roosters and dogs from one another
The people, until they grow old and die
Do not go back and forth with one another
Thanks
is there something about this that is relevant to the point you were making though? does it differ from how i defined the 'way'?
when i read it the book - which might have been a different translation, i wanted to expand my way of seeing things. It was interesting, but a lot of it was very metaphorical, until i started reading other interpretations on the tao, and also read those who practice and try to teach zen buddhism.
**edit
ah- based on this excerpt you've given, i still think it is very qun like. There's no inherent need or attachment to things. Like tossing excess.
very cool. i want to re-read it. i have a list of other books though.
Is it weird that I like the way Iron Bull says "Solas"? 
I need a life.
When asked about the timeline of Inquisition Gaider coughed awkwardly and said that unlike Origins or 2, it hadn't been settled yet.
Well, if it's more than a year then Lavellan definitely had sex with Solas. I mean it's hard to believe that Solas can hold back for so long considering how he kisses lol.
Well, if it's more than a year then Lavellan definitely had sex with Solas. I mean it's hard to believe that Solas can hold back for so long considering how he kisses lol.
After the barkeep makes a comment about me "bedding my allies", I just assume they caught Solas and my Levellan humping on the balcony. *shrug*
Guest_Faerunner_*
I saw a theory on tumblr I was really digging for the whole rebirth scenario, but I'm unsure If I can find it..
Here It is. It seems plausible enough, atleast to me. But we all have our own Headcanon/theories of course.
Wow. Of all the "tinfoil hat" theories I've seen trying to discern Solas' motivation, this one seems the most spot-on. It fits with the conext of the universe, because we see words and actions similar to it. It also fits with how BioWare likes to present major conflicts. We see a small version in one game, and then it escalates in the next game, or a similar but bigger conflict shows up.
For example, the Blight. The first game, darkspawn are mindless monsters until an Archdemon awakens them. Then DAA came, and suddenly there are intelligent darkspawn, and we learn the Archdemon was awakened by one of them. Even if you kill the Architect, it's implied (and not outside the realm of possibility) that some of his lackeys survived and are out there.
DAO, the Broken Circle quest. Tensions between Circle mages and Templars erupting into an explosion of blood mages, abominations, and Annulment. However, it's all contained in a Circle Tower. DA2 comes around, and the same tensions and erruptions blow up over a whole city, then spreads over the whole world.
Corypheus: the villain of a relatively small DLC - one of the magisters that created the Blight, who wakes feeling confused and disoriented and lost since the world he remembers was Ancient Tevinter at the height of its power. DAI rolls around, and he's the Big Bad of a massive MMO world conflict, seeks to tear open the fabric of reality, ascend the heavens as a god, and recreate the mighty Tevinter Imperium that he remembers. And his whole "Archdemons can't be killed because their souls jump into the body of the nearest blighted creature" is played much more scarily and dramatically than previous games.
Likewise, this game introduces the concept of time travel. The PC is thrust forward into a future so awful that letting it stay this way doesn't feel like an option. The time-jumpers feel this world "isn't real," it's just a hypothetical that must be prevented from happening. But to those inside it, it is real. Except for Solas, who immediately guesses and jumps on board with the whole "Go back and prevent this from happening!" And he'd be in the best position to know this could happen, since it was his Orb. I wouldn't be surprised if this was subtle foreshadowing of what Solas will do next game, or the one after that. To him, all of Thedas is such a horrible future (compared to the time he lived in) that it must be reversed... even if he's fallen in love with someone here.
Dang. While I still want Solas and Lavellan to have a proper reunion and closure, I don't think she could help him erase untold millennia. =/
I read news of a single-player DLC in the making. Not sure if it is true, and I don't know about its would-be content, but could we please keep DLC information under spoiler tags? 
I'd like to visit this thread, though I don't want to know much about future content before playing it.
Thanks in advance.
They are, eastern religions are very syncretic I think... There's a lot of Taoism in certain sects of Buddhism, and in a lot of cases that will be practiced along side folk religions, like Shinto in Japan. Confucianism deals with the more mundane and practical aspects of life..governing, family, relationships, etc. I don't know where the writers got their inspiration for the Qun, but there are some parallels in western philosophy as well, like in Gnosticism or Stoicism. I think whatever the case, it does sound like the modern Qun has been twisted away from it's original teachings, just like the Chantry. The Qunari are imperialist, and imperialism seems to crush any spirituality anywhere. I think the Quanri kind of set up to represent everything westerners fear and find alien about the east/middle east.
Wait, what? I'm still catching up, but I'm totally confused about where people are picking up on the Qun = eastern philosophy vibe. It seems like a pretty direct and pointed mirror of Marxist socialism, doesn't it? Or am I off here?
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." This is the absolute dead-center heart of the Qun, philosophically. The individual's place in society is literally dictated by what she contributes to it. They go so far with this concept that your role stands in for your "self"- it is what -and all- that you are within the Qun. Individuals don't have names. They have titles, descriptors of what they Do.
Also, "Every citizen will make his particular contribution to the activities of the community according to his capacity, his talent and his age; it is on this basis that his duties will be determined, in conformity with the distributive laws" sounds to me like a word-for-word description of Iron Bull's upbringing.
No? Am I missing something?
As for his particular hatred of what it has become, well... that's pretty self-explanatory. Pretty much every attempt at socialism or communism in history has twisted to fascism or authoritarianism in practice, and the Qun is clearly no exception. Given what I think Solas' likely role was in trying to build the thing, I think there's an enormous degree of self-recrimination and personal disappointment in "human nature" when he talks about it.
It was a system that he really, really hoped would work... but like so many others, it backfired horribly.
Thanks
is there something about this that is relevant to the point you were making though? does it differ from how i defined the 'way'?
when i read it the book - which might have been a different translation, i wanted to expand my way of seeing things. It was interesting, but a lot of it was very metaphorical, until i started reading other interpretations on the tao, and also read those who practice and try to teach zen buddhism.
It was just related to your comment about being apart from society. You probably know this already, but there are so many translations on the Tao Te Ching and most of them are pretty terrible so becareful of which translation you read. I also recommend the Chuang Tzu by Burton Watson if you haven't read it already. http://terebess.hu/e.../chuangtzu.html
The way has a different meaning depending on which school of thought you believe in. Some Buddhist beliefs are compatible with Daoism, but a lot aren't.
RE: Time travel is now impossible because it was the Breach that allowed it
I don't like it, but the Breach was created by Fen'Harel's orb going haywire. I'm sure it can be duplicated with other elven artifacts.
Well I'm assuming to keep Solas alive, you have to sacrifice yourself so he can have the key back. You've been borrowing it for far too long, inquisitor.
Nooooooooooooooooooooo
I don't get how the blight came to be. Was it something that existed since the beginning of time or was it blood/lyrium that somehow became corrupted through experimentation.
Edit: Somehow I think understanding the blight is the key to everything.
I guess blight is always there, since it was "released" according to Solas's comment on Grey Warden.
And the release of blight might link to the event that Mythal as well as the world was betrayed....
RE: Time travel is now impossible because it was the Breach that allowed it
I don't like it, but the Breach was created by Fen'Harel's orb going haywire. I'm sure it can be duplicated with other elven artifacts.
The thing is though- it could only work in timelines while the breach was open. So, if he opened a new breach. He could only travel to any point when that breach was open. Alexius was trying to reach a timeline where his son hadn't been infected with the Darkspawn. But he could never go beyond a time when the breach was active.
I read news of a single-player DLC in the making. Not sure if it is true, and I don't know about its would-be content, but could we please keep DLC information under spoiler tags?
Thanks in advance.
SP DLC?! WHAT NEWS IS THIS? GIMME GIMME
I read news of a single-player DLC in the making. Not sure if it is true, and I don't know about its would-be content, but could we please keep DLC information under spoiler tags?
Thanks in advance.
Read where ????
The thing is though- it could only work in timelines while the breach was open. So, if he opened a new breach. He could only travel to any point when that breach was open.
OH. Yes, good. Thank you for getting that awful possibility out of my head.
I leave for a couple of hours and miss the whole dragon
I've been thinking about that, To be honest, It looks like whatever Solas is planning to do is going to royally screw up Thedas. So I think my Lavellan would probably NOT give the Mistake-God the key to open the Potentionally-Evil-And-Or-Blight-Riddled Elvhen.
Some of my Lavellans would
#1 would go down with Solas and make him heart shape sandwiches while he prepares to ignite the super breach to swallow Tedas
#2 would slap him silly and not let him do it
#3 would try to change his mind
Hahah XD I am probably the only one who finds him better looking without any hair XD it is cool to think he had hair as younger but yet I find it attractive that he has none later.. I love you my eggie<3
Not only you a lot of baldie Solas fans here, me included
Forgive me if something like this has been brought up before, but I was hoping someone could clarify a thing about the nature of mortal spirits and interacting with the Fade.
I just got to Ostagar and talked to Wynne about the darkspawn. She mentions that a person's spirit leaves their body either when dreaming or when they die. that got me thinking about ancient elves and modern dwarves and how they interact (or lack thereof) with the Fade.
Ancient elves were immortal and so tied to magic that it was like breathing. They had extremely strong ties to the Fade, which is the source of all natural magic. Would ancient elves have dreamed in the same way that modern people do, or is a facet of their being tied to their spirit not leaving their body while dreaming? Ancient elves couldn't die via age and would go into Uthenera to hibernate/dream for an unspecified amount of time. If their spirits never left their bodies, then they would have to be magically nourished by the Fade connection. They would be kind of like a spirit. Peaceful semi-existence, if you will.
If something like that were true, then after the quickening the elves lost the connection between body and spirit that had them tied so tightly together. Would something about the Veil cause it? Or is there something else that contributed to the quickening, other than "humans had cooties?"
Dwarves are just as interesting because they lack the Fade connection and cannot dream. That means that their spirit (if they have one...?) either does not leave their body until death, or the spirit of the individual dwarf does not reside within their body at all. That probably has something to do with the Stone and how dwarven spirits return to it after death. If their spirits don't reside within their bodies fully, but only a piece does that is "borrowed" by the dwarf until death, then it could explain why they can't go into the Fade. In a way. A soul repository doesn't need to sleep, and soul pieces may not have as much of the "self" to provide a proper connection to dream.
Dwarves can be forced into the Fade (see Sloth demon in Origin, or in Awakening), which means that there must be a link somewhere. Like...opening or closing a floodgate in a dam. The floodgate for dwarves is closed, or only has an itty bit of water going through a crack. If a dwarf is forced into the Fade, the floodgate opened to allow their "spirit piece" or their whole spirit to be aware and wander around in the Fade. How does this relate to what we know about the dwarves at this time?
The Solas and time travel theory is interesting and seems to fit well into some of the lore and dialogue. However, I think that if Solas' intention the whole time was to turn back time, I think he would have NEVER started a relationship with Lavellan. I mean, I think he would really keep his distance and not even befriend anyone. I can't imagine him to be THIS irresponsible. I guess it only makes sense if the current Lavellan is a reincarnation of his lover in Arlathan and he wants to go back to that time and save her from dying or something so that they can be together in the past.
OH. Yes, good. Thank you for getting that awful possibility out of my head.
Haha. I mean, they could still retcon it. But I really think the whole 'only works while the breach is open' was so that they could enjoy a time travel plot...without needing to deal with the fact that every single mage would be trying to time travel if word of it got out. Alexius would have done anything to save Felix. But he couldn't because of that limitation.
Haha. I mean, they could still retcon it. But I really think the whole 'only works while the breach is open' was so that they could enjoy a time travel plot...without needing to deal with the fact that every single mage would be trying to time travel if word of it got out. Alexius would have done anything to save Felix. But he couldn't because of that limitation.
Yeah, it seems like they tried to keep the time travel contained so that it wouldn't mess too much with the universe.
Guest_Faerunner_*
The thing is though- it could only work in timelines while the breach was open. So, if he opened a new breach. He could only travel to any point when that breach was open. Alexius was trying to reach a timeline where his son hadn't been infected with the Darkspawn. But he could never go beyond a time when the breach was active.
What if it's like the Eluvianen?
You walk through an eluvian, you go nowhere unless there's another one out there to walk through. If an eluvian is broken, you could theoretically fix it and create yet another door to walk through.
Maybe the orbs are similar? He could search for another one, or create another one; find some other opening in time to walk through?
Maybe Alexius could only go so far with that Breach because it was the only one he knew about, or it's the only one available now. It's pretty clear Alexius does not know too much about it (as Dorian snarks, "Using magic we barely understand to gain power - that always works!"). However, Solas does. It's ancient elven magic from his time, so he would probably know how to find or create other types of space-time openings and travel between them.
I don't know, just trying to keep things in perspective.
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