@Moirin - Totally fair, asking this question. Hopefully it is some of us remembering correctly, and not just "wishful thinking".
One of my super powers is remembering stuff the devs have said from years back.
I am sworn to only use this power in the service of good.
One of my super powers is remembering stuff the devs have said from years back.
I am sworn to only use this power in the service of good.
I'll blame my husband. And wine. 
I see what you're getting at but I think you may be reading more into what is there than was intended. My own field is literary analysis and I'm always having to be careful to keep what I think the writer should be saying, and what they are saying separate in my head (I'm not the biggest fan of death of the author).
^Totally agree!
You're not crazy! ...or if you are, at least you have company. Conceptually, that parallel is brilliant. It's absolutely there- it fits far too well to brush off as coincidence.
*smacks a hand to her forehead*
And of course, the connection between Fen'Harel and eclipses just dawned on me- the Moon literally overshadowing the Sun.
I feel like an idiot now, but in the best way possible. ^w^
That's a fair point. We definitely have to be cautious drawing on real-world concepts to frame in-game lore, but the relationship between the two sources (and what allows us to use the former at all) lies in understanding that they are fundamentally connected. This gets a little meta, so stay with me, but a myriad of in-game references point to the game world as having, from a certain perspective, the same relationship to our world as the fade has to Thedas itself. Like the fade, it is a world molded by the desires and intent of the sentient minds within it: the players- and where the geography, biology, religions and physics of the "real" world are warped, but never broken. Thedas is, to tie into the larger theme, our own world through a glass darkly.
From a slightly different perspective, the connection can also be understood as that of a sister universe in the context of a multiverse. There are multiple in-game hints of this parallel existence (extensive historic/sociopolitical near-parallels, as well as much of Cole’s “easter egg” dialogue) with the game itself essentially acting as bridge between the two, our computer screens metaphorical eluvian allowing one (the universe of Thedas) to reach out to another (our own) for help.Critically, this connection not only allows the writers to provide indirect hints about the nature of the DA universe by linking it with concepts in our own, but also allows us (in a cautious and far more limited way) to consider the inverse: how known systems of faith, neurology, biology, physics, and other real-world concepts might usefully map back to the world of Thedas.GRAAAH and I am out of time. Thoughts on other posts when back from house-hunting.
it fits far too well to brush off as coincidence. Or it could be coincidence. Without a firm basis, all we have is conjecture. But, it is fun to fiddle with strings and see what music one ends up with! Don't get me wrong! That the twins were rarely seen apart implies they could be one in the same, to be sure. I still think that might be the case. However, I advise remaining open to all possibilities at this point... while drawing on in-game established lore and less so real world lore. There's much too much chaos to be derived from the real world if we open that gate without more concrete in-game reasoning.
Also as is evidenced by the timeline, all elfy stuff happened a long time ago. The best basis of truth we have is anything Solas says. The lore we know now may not be the lore that previously existed nor the history that actually happened.
This gets a little meta, so stay with me Trust me, that particular element is not too hard to follow! But, and I don't mean to pin anyone's balloon and burst anyone's bubble, this is just my take on the theories... while there is a certain wink and a nod, like "Guys, you're the Fade's fade. You make it all happen'... I believe that's about where it stops. Such is the depth of DA's world building, they'd never break that 4th wall. They will find lines and dots to connect that we can familiarize with, to be sure, and I don't disagree... the best tales are those that one can align personal experience with.
Now with Cole, the nature of his character is cunningly used as a writer's tool of clever foreshadowing and hinted history. Just a tool. At the most, the bits and pieces we recognize are a sly red herring or portent. At the least, an easter egg. And that's likely about it.
Having said that, there's nothing wrong with taking your knowledge and awareness and analysing the characters. Like I said, I don't want to burst no bubbles. And it's fun to read. I just think that for substantiality, more in-game evidence would need to be involved. Of course, head canon is fair game! But I reiterate what was said earlier: I see what you're getting at but I think you may be reading more into what is there than was intended. 
I swear I had that power.
.....and then I turned 40.
I still have another decade+ with these powers, then. Do you develop replacement superpowers at 40 or just gain 10+ to 'get off my lawn' and 'yelling at clouds'?
I still have another decade+ with these powers, then. Do you develop replacement superpowers at 40 or just gain 10+ to 'get off my lawn' and 'yelling at clouds'?
(Referring to your 'Get off my lawn!', bit.) Knees and other joints, span a symphonic range - it's all quite musical. *nods!* 
).
hehehe..I love this Zevran comic. Lavellan just got over Solas real fast.
http://alexielapril....aster-533920174
hehehe..I love this Zevran comic. Lavellan just got over Solas real fast.
Fenris and Zev are both alive and single in my Lavellan's worldstate. And Leliana's Divine. I'm just saying, Solas 
^Totally agree!
it fits far too well to brush off as coincidence. Or it could be coincidence. Without a firm basis, all we have is conjecture. But, it is fun to fiddle with strings and see what music one ends up with! Don't get me wrong! That the twins were rarely seen apart implies they could be one in the same, to be sure. I still think that might be the case. However, I advise remaining open to all possibilities at this point... while drawing on in-game established lore and less so real world lore. There's much too much chaos to be derived from the real world if we open that gate without more concrete in-game reasoning.
Also as is evidenced by the timeline, all elfy stuff happened a long time ago. The best basis of truth we have is anything Solas says. The lore we know now may not be the lore that previously existed nor the history that actually happened.
This gets a little meta, so stay with me Trust me, that particular element is not too hard to follow! But, and I don't mean to pin anyone's balloon and burst anyone's bubble, this is just my take on the theories... while there is a certain wink and a nod, like "Guys, you're the Fade's fade. You make it all happen'... I believe that's about where it stops. Such is the depth of DA's world building, they'd never break that 4th wall. They will find lines and dots to connect that we can familiarize with, to be sure, and I don't disagree... the best tales are those that one can align personal experience with.
Now with Cole, the nature of his character is cunningly used as a writer's tool of clever foreshadowing and hinted history. Just a tool. At the most, the bits and pieces we recognize are a sly red herring or portent. At the least, an easter egg. And that's likely about it.
Having said that, there's nothing wrong with taking your knowledge and awareness and analysing the characters. Like I said, I don't want to burst no bubbles. And it's fun to read. I just think that for substantiality, more in-game evidence would need to be involved. Of course, head canon is fair game! But I reiterate what was said earlier: I see what you're getting at but I think you may be reading more into what is there than was intended.
Alright, to curb my enthusiasm and dig out the voice from the realm of reality: I freely admit that all of my theory crafting is hypothetical conjecture and I do realize that it is highly unlikely that Bioware literally dug through thousands of pages worth of mythology just to create lore for DA; though it is true that they just may have drawn inspiration from real life mythology in certain instances where so many parallels can be found (it would definitely not be the first time). I agree that it would be a mistake to "let the horse run away with us" as we say in Hungarian (sorry, my idioms in English are a bit dodgy I'm working in parallel here) and assume that these conclusions are hard fact, yet I merely follow breadcrumbs and inspiration and see how far I can build such a theory; as with any good hypothesis, I aim to prove and disprove it both: I would never claim my arguments are any good unless they can withstand a good debate, they need to be challenged, ultimately.
Yet I must add that within the realm of my fields of expertise, it is exactly this type of conscious/unconscious resurfacing of collective archetypes within mythopoeic works of art that lends such theories weight to begin with, because it highlights a fundamental connection between humanity's history, our understanding of our existence and the works that we create through our Muse, which often has traits of things we have seen before - and those are familiar for a good reason. Thus I think at this stage such things should be nurtured, examined, challenged and rehashed, and I am open to all these stages. Also, as I said in previous posts, I strongly believe that skepticism is the way to go in all things and in that light I try to be as objective as possible and I will always listen to different arguments, regardless of how they tally to my hypotheses. Perhaps in such informal settings I will dispense with providing academic research to prove any of these theories, but I do believe there is something to be said for finding parallels in real life, both within folklore and with regard to different subjects. That is what such art is all about inherently, providing anchors in our own existence as well as specifically within our psyches in the form of invented fantasy; the sheer concept of fantasy is most definitely based on existing mythology. I have studied how it developed into what it is today and Bioware's world is certainly no exception to this. I will say that while I do not necessarily believe that Bioware specifically read up on Rahu and Ketu, for instance, it does lend us a kind of framework of thought within which to examine in-game lore just for the purposes of extrapolation, if nothing else (though I'm not writing it off entirely yet as a more solid source, seeing as I found so many parallels). Plus, there is nothing to say that they didn't get inspired by real life mythology and changed it to suit their purposes, yet this fact simultaneously gives us leeway to consider elements of folklore that we might have otherwise discarded, had they been utterly true to such sources in the past. Simply put, given that we have so many blanks for a lot of the lore, I think it acceptable to try and "think outside the box" in a sense and approach these questions based on what similarities and synchronicities we can discover between game lore and real mythology, because it is a logical place to start with any fantasy that has its mythology.
I realize that the heart of this entire discussion is a simple, sensible caution to not take these things at face value and declare them a done deal, yet all we have been doing so far is tossing up parallels we find/think of and debating its legitimacy as a good comparison. It is less important to figure out whether Bioware actually drew on these sources, or whether they just intuitively created something similar to real sources, than it is for us to understand in a general context these nuggets of lore that fascinate us so. In other words, we may be reading a lot into it, but I support reading into it if it gives us the inspiration we need to reach the right overall conclusions.
Catching up with everything ^^ this is like being addressed to this thread!!
Immortality and the Question of Zathrian and the Lady
So... random thoughts, attempting to apply these conclusions to Solas. Firstly, this article draws similarities between the nature of a spirit and that of an immortal in it's rigid "focus". Secondly, it implies this process is inevitable for an immortal; living so long requires a focus for sustenance to keep going - yet every other concern, one by one, becomes less of a priority and eventually melts away. Perhaps this process, for Zathrian, was an unintentional side-effect of his goal for revenge. However, if Solas is an example of ancient elvhen, spirits may have been an "ideal" form for the elvhen - especially given what we know of the Uthenara practice as a final achievement.
So what if Solas came to fail in this "achievement"? We know when he woke, he was too "weak" to use his orb himself. What if this "weakness" was not "I just woke up and I still have gunk in my eye" - but "I experienced something which detached my focus... made me revert back to being less spirit, more mortal?"
(I am so sorry if this has been talked about, I am so late to the party, trying to piece things together )
Also, more Qun information 
and so much specifically referencing the conflict of focus vs doubt. Man, you would think Solas would pick up on the similarities!
Sample goodies:
To me, it seems the certainty of the Qun can legitimately be one defence against spirit possession - a certainty, or focus, rivalling that of fine-tuned spirits.
Furthermore, I recall a similar story to this last one in the first World of Thedas volume - warning elven children not to stray from the path lest the Dread Wolf claim you!
I got the cliff-notes version a few days ago. This has a lot of extra goodies in it, though.
The Parladians definitely stick out. Grumpy isolationists that even the Qunari haven't tried invading.
Amaranth is definitely going to become important. As is the 'cataclysm' the Voshai are talking about.
Shucks! And yes, my curiosity has not dulled! I am, though, wondering if this "cataclysm" is the veil tearing open, as it did in Thedas - in a place which is unfortunate enough to not have an Inquisitor!
Need to stuff so many pages of thread into my head ~~~
The Qunari fables are quite charming.
What instantly seized my attention was 'until she came to the ruins of a temple from the ignorant times'. The fable is set in the Qunari homeland, and we get our first glimpse beyond 'some kind of animism' of the pre-Qun religion, or the true religion of the kossith.
"Seek the light, and there find safety in me." Now that's interesting, isn't it? It smacks of Corypheus talking about how, "We sought...the Golden light..." back in Legacy. The Maker is associated with light and fire, it seems, as was Elgar'nan the Son of the Sun, and the Sun. Am I missing anything? 
Art break. 
Solas in the rotunda with his painting materials.
Shiny.
Some sketches of Solas and a cute blushing Lavellan.
Solas and an Orlesian/French-speaking m!Trevelyan.
Awesome DA:I artwork by nururuateka.
Showed my friend the screenshots I posted in here that I took at Haven.
Her: "Does Solas have...a bulge?"
The tale of the blessed wind gusts began after that.
I am forever thankful for the gusts of wind at Haven for giving us a chance to catch a glimpse of Solas' glorious bulge.
Just imagine if Bioware stuck with his original clothing design. I'll be forever distracted. 
I showed her the original design afterward in this pic of him :
"COME AND GET IT, VHENAN"
We had a good laugh.
LOL, that pic was actually the very first pic of Solas I ever saw when Bioware first revealed him. TBH it wasn't a very flattering pic in my opinion. xD
It isn't. It always makes me laugh.
Promo pics never did Solas justice at all, IMO. Which made the total blindsiding that much sneakier. 
It isn't. It always makes me laugh.
Promo pics never did Solas justice at all, IMO. Which made the total blindsiding that much sneakier.
Yes, haha!
Imagine going back in time and telling your past self, "You may be laughing at him now, but little did you know, you're gonna fall hard for this egghead nerd. And get your heart broken in the process."
I recently read about how apparently Solas was going to tell the Inquisitor who he was but backed out at the last second. This needs to be in a DLC. It needs to. For the love of Andraste please.
Just gunna leave this here. I feel like it is Lavellan relevant.
I'm just saying, Bioware. The PS4 players I know are pretty scary people.
Hey, I didn't do anything!
Hey, I didn't do anything!
Who said I was talking about you? I know lots of scary people that happen to use Playstation. (Relatively speaking. I am, after all, the opposite of scary. )
I'm on a quoting frenzy!
I recently read about how apparently Solas was going to tell the Inquisitor who he was but backed out at the last second. This needs to be in a DLC. It needs to. For the love of Andraste please.
Yes. I had an inkling when playing the game for a 2nd time... but when I heard it was actually so, it broke my heart. There really needs to be a DLC with further Solas romance content. This thread will likely riot if there isn't.
-snip-
So... random thoughts, attempting to apply these conclusions to Solas. Firstly, this article draws similarities between the nature of a spirit and that of an immortal in it's rigid "focus". Secondly, it implies this process is inevitable for an immortal; living so long requires a focus for sustenance to keep going - yet every other concern, one by one, becomes less of a priority and eventually melts away. Perhaps this process, for Zathrian, was an unintentional side-effect of his goal for revenge. However, if Solas is an example of ancient elvhen, spirits may have been an "ideal" form for the elvhen - especially given what we know of the Uthenara practice as a final achievement.So what if Solas came to fail in this "achievement"? We know when he woke, he was too "weak" to use his orb himself. What if this "weakness" was not "I just woke up and I still have gunk in my eye" - but "I experienced something which detached my focus... made me revert back to being less spirit, more mortal?"
(I am so sorry if this has been talked about, I am so late to the party, trying to piece things together
That line of thinking leads to elves hoping to become spirits themselves one day, right? What was it I read once... the elves who successfully reach perfect uthenara no longer require sustenance of honey and herbs. They are instead sustained by the fade itself. And this is just normal elves. What about the Dreamers -- exactly what does uthenara do for them? Remember Dreamers were (supposedly) the highest class of elven citizen. If this is so, then Solas' comments on the elven gods being nobility would imply they were possibly all Dreamers. We know Mythal's spirit found Flemeth, and we know Mythal was murdered beforehand... so there's seemingly some form of transformation happening there. Transcendence in to a spirit-like form?
The Lady of the Forest thing really stuck out for me in DA:O... so I'm glad you mentioned it. In fact I remember there was a lot of intense theory crafting happening during that time regarding that particular quest.
Alright, to curb my enthusiasm and dig out the voice from the realm of reality: I freely admit that all of my theory crafting is hypothetical conjecture and I do realize that it is highly unlikely that Bioware literally dug through thousands of pages worth of mythology just to create lore for DA; though it is true that they just may have drawn inspiration from real life mythology in certain instances where so many parallels can be found (it would definitely not be the first time). I agree that it would be a mistake to "let the horse run away with us" as we say in Hungarian (sorry, my idioms in English are a bit dodgy
Without a doubt they've done a ton of research in to existing lores, yeah! Mythology geekdom runs rampant amongst a lot of us, I'm sure. No need to apologise for the idioms, haha. And like I said I'm not trying to burst anyone's bubbles. It's fun stuff to read.
In short, you're pinpointing the notion that 'there's no such thing as originality', ie: all ideas are born from pre-conceived ideas. It's a point of debate in the creative field but it's openly accepted. The key is you mutate and change and make something new and unique. The iris and the toe nail and even the tibia of the beast might be from sources A, B and C... but the beast in and of itself is something entirely new altogether. At least, that's how it should be, if they've done their job right. And it's this reason why I hesitate to call upon so many real-world examples and theory without really firm in-game evidence based on established in-game lore. Otherwise, it's really easy to cherry pick from whatever seems familiar... and might just lead in circles. Might. Then again, at the least it might also lead you to the tibia.
The Qunari fables are quite charming.
What instantly seized my attention was 'until she came to the ruins of a temple from the ignorant times'. The fable is set in the Qunari homeland, and we get our first glimpse beyond 'some kind of animism' of the pre-Qun religion, or the true religion of the kossith.
"Seek the light, and there find safety in me." Now that's interesting, isn't it? It smacks of Corypheus talking about how, "We sought...the Golden light..." back in Legacy. The Maker is associated with light and fire, it seems, as was Elgar'nan the Son of the Sun, and the Sun. Am I missing anything?
Ugh. So much information we're missing that would be so much fun to have. The Kossith before the Qun. The Fex. Amaranth. Forgotten Ones. Everything else.
Ugh. So much information we're missing that would be so much fun to have. The Kossith before the Qun. The Fex. Amaranth. Forgotten Ones. Everything else.
And real life is worse. 
WHO ARE THE SEA PEOPLE, HISTORY? WHY WON'T YOU GIVE ME ANSWERS THAT AREN'T FULL OF 'Assuming that', 'This might', OR 'This is the best guess'?
*ahem*
Also, the actual circumstances behind Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin's deaths. While my Shogun II adventures suggest that, all historical evidence to the contrary, Shingen conquered the Uesugi lands and Kenshin committed seppuku, before Shingen himself met his death at the hands of a young Oda Nobunaga and his slightly OP Bow Samurai in a siege in a burned down Ikko Ikki fort in the winter of 1555, I'm not sure if that's a viable primary source. 
Also, I'd like even more concrete evidence to shove into Ancient Aliens faces and gloat.
Iron Bull says that 'we came south', doesn't he? Which would suggest that the Qunari homeland lies in the Boeric Isles or even further north, as opposed to Amaranth. Their weakness to cold in Origins suggests that it isn't too far north that it stops being warm. I wonder if the Parladians have anything to do with it? They're probably just quirky neighbors to the kossith. I'm almost hoping that the Executors are in Amaranth and are something else, so that we have them and the kossith to worry about.
Retour en haut
