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[MWImexico]

Note that if you pick the right options in DAII she tells you that she initially went to Marethari for aid on the Eluvian.

 

Marethari refused because of the Taint and they argued about it, prompting Merrill to go for blood magic (the only viable route since Marethari won't team up with her to pool their healing magic and she has no lyrium) to cleanse the shard. When it works, she tells Marethari of this and how they can now work on it safely, to which Marethari asks her how she came to do so. She tells her, they argue some more, and this ultimately leads to her choosing self-exile.

 

Merrill's always gone by the rules. She's always followed protocol which is to go to the Keeper first about any new information about Dalish lore (I think that was stated in the DE origin). But she firmly believes the Eluvian is too important to ignore and that you can't just toss out history because you don't like it. So she tried to find a balance between the two.

 

It's not open rebellion against the Keeper. It's more trying to find a middle ground that Marethari staunchly refused to go near for stupid reasons and Merrill decided she wasn't going to get anywhere.

 

I've gone over this before a year ago on my blog... and I probably should start Part 2 on my Dire Bunnies thing sometime.

 

But alas, I have so much to do and not enough time to do it.

 

Well, that's a good question. I wonder why Marethari refused to help Merrill, was it because she thought that the Eluvian was too dangerous? But, she loved Merrill and was ready to sacrifice her life for her, so it doesn't make sense to allow Merril to go away with an artefact she thinks is dangerous in the first place.

Perhaps she knew that Merril will not be able to fix it so she was hoping that ,with time, Merril will give up and come back to the clan? But that doesn't explain why she refused to help her in the first place, I mean if she truly thought that the mirror was harmless, why toss away a potentially valuable elvish artifact since she's a Keeper?

Or maybe Marethari knew already (more or less) how to fix the eluvian and she thought that the price to pay was not worth it? Perhaps she knew/thought that only spirits could bring an effective answer and that she totally refused to bargain with them? If this was her reason then I can imagine why she didn't talked about that to Merrill, I mean, if Merril had known from the start that the only way to fix the eluvian was by coercing a spirit for its help, then she probably would have started with that.

[TEWR]

Marethari said in DAO that she's never even heard of the Eluvians before, so no... she didn't have any knowledge about them. To say nothing of how for years, both in DAO and DAII, she adamantly refused to do even a scrap of research on them.

 

Marethari grasps at straws to justify her fear of the Eluvian. First it was "They're evil! They tainted two of our clan!" but that was only the Taint in the artifact, not the artifact itself. Merrill removes this and then Marethari goes "It led you to blood magic! Will you let it twist you further from who you are?" (prompting philosophical Merrill to come out briefly, which I wish was done more).

 

It didn't "lead" Merrill to do anything.

 

Next, after she's possessed, she expects us to take her word on the Eluvians being a portal for Demons... and this is assuming she was even there at all as you can plainly see the Demon is skilled enough to replicate her voice and mannerisms. Being a Pride Demon, it'd be natural for it to try and say such things when we first see it as a means to get under Merrill's skin.

 

Yet she's (Marethari) done no research in the past! How can we believe her if it is her? Surely the Demon must've told her this. But if we cannot trust Merrill's judgement because she's had only 2 encounters with Audacity (and one of them was just by proxy of being there, but they never interacted) as many people like to say (not me personally) why can we trust Marethari's when she's been sitting at the base of a mountain and open to Audacity's subtle (albeit weakened given the nature of being exiled from the Fade, trapped in a demonic Buddha statue, and so on) manipulations? The short story makes it evident that Audacity's power (what's left of it) can only affect those in a certain proximity to him. And the farther one goes, then the safer they are.

 

At the base of the mountain, Merrill and Marethari were constantly hearing a faint whispering as they slept. As they moved closer, the whispering became louder and louder. Merrill self-exiles herself and moves to Kirkwall, which is miles and miles away from Sundermount. And as she tells you, she has had no contact with the Demon since she left. Gaider himself stated that Merrill's work on the Eluvian was based on what scraps of lore she could find and extrapolations therein.

 

Treating it as some sort of sentient object capable of thought and action is silly, much less when The Masked Empire already shows there's nothing at all dangerous about them.

 

Besides, the nature of Demons supports the argument that Marethari was the intended target all along. Demons like people with power, whether figurative or literal. Marethari was a Keeper, a Dalish Mage of great power. She was also respected and influential in the gathering of the clans which occurs every 10 years (and is bound to happen again soon as DAII tells us). She was also prideful, unable to accept any other opinion other then her own. She can't admit when she's wrong (which Merrill can do and does).

 

Marethari was the person the Demon directly spoke with... and Marethari seemed to be the one most affected by the Demon's whisperings. Whereas Merrill had only a deep sense of loneliness upon waking, Marethari was sobbing.

 

I have an immense hatred for the old hag because of everything she does, to say nothing of the emotional manipulation she tries to do by slandering Merrill and trying to guilt her into returning to the clan shortly afterwards.

 

EDIT: Technically, Merrill has 3 total interactions with the demon, but the third is when we're with her.

[MWImexico]

Marethari said in DAO that she's never even heard of the Eluvians before, so no... she didn't have any knowledge about them. To say nothing of how for years, both in DAO and DAII, she adamantly refused to do even a scrap of research on them.

 

Marethari grasps at straws to justify her fear of the Eluvian. First it was "They're evil! They tainted two of our clan!" but that was only the Taint in the artifact, not the artifact itself. Merrill removes this and then Marethari goes "It led you to blood magic! Will you let it twist you further from who you are?" (prompting philosophical Merrill to come out briefly, which I wish was done more).

 

It didn't "lead" Merrill to do anything.

 

It's been a while since a played the dalish origin so I might have forgotten a few things or two but, even if in the beginning of DAO Marethari said that she's never heard of the Eluvians before, that doesn't prove that she didn't learn news things about the eluvians later (as Merrill did). What makes you think so adamantly that Marethari didn't care to the point of make no research?

Because, when I think of it, that doesn't make sense, how could a keeper be that scared of an old elvish artifact? Shouldn't she on the contrary be thrilled by that discovery?

[TEWR]

Because that's what she says. She says she wouldn't go near the Eluvians repeatedly in DAII. She says in DAO not only that she hasn't heard of them, but that although she is curious a bit about them she doesn't want to do research on them as a result of what happened. She was interested at first, but that was then. As of DAII, her arguments with Merrill have led her to become a fearful old woman. In fact, Marethari originally sent Merrill not just to use the healing magic on Tamlen should they find him, but also to look around the ruins and at the mirror, saying she has "a sense for these things", though she isn't being sent to actually collect anything. Merrill will say she knows less about their lore as she would like to.

 

Merrill even says that it'd be worth the risk if they could find (beyond Tamlen) something valuable.

 

Marethari did ask if Merrill brought anything of the mirror back, but upon being told by Duncan that he destroyed it and being informed of why he did so, her opinion shifts. She becomes the Marethari we see in DAII, scared of the Eluvian, thinking them evil and something that should not be among them. Yet all the same, Duncan is not infallible. He can be wrong (and in-game, is wrong a few times). He cites the Eluvians as being Tevinter in origin, when really they're only Tevinter by conquest. The Masked Empire shows us how the Eluvians are not dangerous (and are in fact beneficial), to say nothing of Morrigan's statements on them which prove Marethari's stupid statements wrong.

 

She says in DAII she wouldn't restore them if she could and that she doesn't want to do research on them. And because she hasn't heard of them, that means they don't have anything on them in the tomes Merrill and Marethari studied from. And their attempts to reclaim a bit of Elven lore from the Varterral ended in 4 dead Elves.

 

So it's not just that Marethari didn't know about them. She didn't want to research them and even if she did she didn't have the resources necessary to research them. Merrill, when she was living in Kirkwall, used what scraps of lore she could find and made extrapolations.

 

Marethari's paranoid, scared by the past rather then trying to work towards reclaiming it. Merrill calls her out on this. Perhaps she was reasonable once, but over the years the Demon played on her pride and her fears and caused the gap between her and Merrill to widen.

 

Some quotes from DAO:

 

"A mirror? And it caused all of this? I have never heard of such a thing in all of the lore we have collected."

 

Note that Eluvian literally translates to seeing-glass. So mirror.

 

"And Tamlen is still missing. He is more important then any lore in these ruins. If he is as sick as you were, his condition is grave."

 

In fact, have a video of the DE origin.

[TEWR]

As an aside, a lot of Merrill's DAO dialogue strikes me as stilted... rough, as if social interaction really isn't her forte. Though she says Mahariel was the only one in the clan she was actual friends with (as there is a difference between being friends with someone and being friendly with them) and her comments and codex talk of how she had a very sheltered and rigid upbringing by Marethari (even by Dalish standards), her dialogue with Mahariel still comes off as stilted as I said. Which fits her character, though she's also blunt and sarcastic and confident around other members in DAII like Paivel and Ilen.

 

So people going "Her personality changed" doesn't really mesh well with me.

[MWImexico]

In fact, have a video of the DE origin.

 

Thx for the video. Frankly, after watching it I can only but think that this eluvian in particular is dangerous, I mean, look at what Tamlen says about it, he saw an underground city behind the glass and a silhouette. Add to that the comment that Ducan made about all those eluvians who either self-destroyed simultaneously or either self-tainted simultaneously and the only thing that came to my mind is that those mirrors he's talking about where all connected to dangerous or tainted places. So what's the point of fixing an eluvian who leads to a potentially hellish place?

Also, I'm disappointed to see that the only thing I thought Merrill learned on her own (that the eluvian were communication devices) was in fact an information she learned from Duncan.

(I think I'll stop here cause I'm derailing this thread)

[TEWR]

Yeah, that particular Eluvian was arguably dangerous, but only because of the Taint. Especially since in Witch Hunt, a group of Elves (implied to be Dalish) were tainted when they stumbled upon the remains of the mirror. Funnily, Ariane and Finn are fine despite their contact with it. Plot armor I guess.

 

The Eluvians themselves are fine. The one Merrill made was a brand-spanking new one (per Gaider) so it's not dangerous. Though unfortunately Marethari uses the plural, citing all Eluvians as being dangerous. That's not the case, as Morrigan demonstrated. Her Eluvian was fine and led her to a place "beyond Thedas and beyond the Fade", as she told us.

 

I think that underground city Tamlen saw was Arlathan, personally.

 

As for Duncan's comment on the Eluvians, bear in mind he says that the Grey Wardens have seen artifacts like the mirror before. He doesn't say they all break at the same time or all get tainted at the same time. He just says that over time some (operative word) break and become filled with the same taint as the Darkspawn. Though whether that's an innate thing because of their breaking or if it's because of contact with the Darkspawn... who knows?

 

As for Merrill, well... she was able to figure out their true history, that they were Elven in origin and the Imperium took them in their conquest. That's still something, when you can find a nugget of truth.

[MWImexico]

As for Duncan's comment on the Eluvians, bear in mind he says that the Grey Wardens have seen artifacts like the mirror before. He doesn't say they all break at the same time or all get tainted at the same time. He just says that over time some (operative word) break and become filled with the same taint as the Darkspawn. Though whether that's an innate thing because of their breaking or if it's because of contact with the Darkspawn... who knows?

 

Ooops I didn't meant to imply that all the eluvians are dangerous, it's just bad english here, I meant "some" (those which Duncan was talking about, the tainted ones). But you are right, he doesn't say that they all break at the same time or all get tainted at the same time. As for whether that's an innate thing because of their breaking or if it's because of contact with the Darkspawn, I was thinking of the second option but as you said, who knows? Still, I suppose it's more likely that they were contamined by proximity to darkspawn (or in a worst case scenario, by proximity to the original source of the taint if they are connected to some forgotten magic place).