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[Gervaise]

On the whole I have tended to look on the Dalish faith and the Andrastrian faith as incompatible.   However, I was looking at the elven myths about their Creators again and I realised that they say the sun and the land were already there  when the Creators started to do things, so who created that?

 

I'm a big fan of Shartan.   Now up until World of Thedas I thought it was left ambiguous whether he accepted Andraste's message or not.   In the Gauntlet he states he joined her crusade because they were "the enemies of my enemy".      Then I was told that in WoT the timeline specifically says he converted to faith in the Maker.    So my assumption was that either he never followed the Creators or had abandoned them in favour of the Maker.     However, it has occurred to me that he could have accepted Andraste's message and the Chant of Light but still followed the Creators as well.

 

The Chant says the Maker created the Fade and then the material world out of disappointment in the lack of action of the spirits in the Fade.    I've always thought of the Creators as some sort of powerful Fade spirits that interacted with Thedas dwellers.    So it seems to me that you can believe the Maker created Thedas and then left people to get on with it, at which point the Creators started interacting with them.   It was the relationship between these powerful Fade spirits and the elves that gave them their immortality and their magical abilities.  

 

Now I realise that the Chantry might not necessarily approve of this interpretation and point up that the Maker condemned the worship of false gods, but that was specifically directed at the old gods of Tevinter, who were different from the Creators, so it is not impossible that Andraste might have been able to accommodate the sort of belief that I have described, particularly as the Creators like the Maker seem to have withdrawn/been driven away as a result of the worship of the old gods, or that this could have been what Shartan believed.

 

Any thoughts on this?

[Dabrikishaw]

It's all about as possible as it is impossible.

[Spaghetti_Ninja]

I'm still running with the Fen'Harel = the Maker theory. He's the only God left in the world, and he really doesn't give a fig about it's inhabitants.

[Gervaise]

I'm not so bothered about the identity of the Maker or even if the belief is actually true, just if it seems plausible that someone in the past could have reconciled the two faiths.   I generally play as an elf.   In DAI this means I must be Dalish.   I personally would like to make Shartan my role model of the ideal elf, even though the Dalish seem to have side lined him, which I put down to the embarrassment of him being effectively a city elf and having converted to the Andrastrian faith.   I'm not a great devotee of the Chantry but I do like the mortality of the Chant of Light.    There were a lot of different cults around after Andraste's death and the Chantry only really became the accepted version because of Drakon's support and the spread of the Orlesian Empire.    So I'm trying to come up with a way of reconciling what World of Thedas says about Shartan's conversion with the beliefs of a Dalish who wishes to revere him and model themselves on him.

[Jazzpha]

I'm still running with the Fen'Harel = the Maker theory. He's the only God left in the world, and he really doesn't give a fig about it's inhabitants.

 

Fen'Harel/Flemeth 2016.

 

But seriously, Fen'Harel is an awesome god. I've always been partial to the tricksters of myth myself, because in spite of their moments of cruelty they've always seemed the most... human, in a way, and therefore the most relatable.

 

I'd love to see how the Chantry's PR squad would react to tangible proof that the Elven Pantheon and the Maker exist side-by-side, though. That would be awesome. My guess is they'd try to moonwalk back from the Shartan heresy with hilarious quickness.

[TK514]

I'm still running with the Fen'Harel = the Maker theory. He's the only God left in the world, and he really doesn't give a fig about it's inhabitants.

 

I'm ok with this.  I like the idea of the Maker fooling the elven gods into abandoning their people.  Then later trolling Andraste to the point she helps destroy the most successful human empire.

[LobselVith8]

I'm not so bothered about the identity of the Maker or even if the belief is actually true, just if it seems plausible that someone in the past could have reconciled the two faiths.   I generally play as an elf.   In DAI this means I must be Dalish.   I personally would like to make Shartan my role model of the ideal elf, even though the Dalish seem to have side lined him, which I put down to the embarrassment of him being effectively a city elf and having converted to the Andrastrian faith.

 

I don't think the Dalish sidelined Shartan, the developers simply focus too much on a human-centric point of view and sideline elven perspectives, so he doesn't get mentioned as a result (which is also an issue with other aspects of elven culture, like the fact that the Dalish view all spirits as dangerous was sidelined to companion banter between Anders and Merrill instead of dialogue that was addressed to the protagonist). The historical entry about Andraste addresses that the elves of that era viewed her as a secular leader, and Velanna voices she has a high opinion of the shemlen prophet, so I don't think Shartan's possible faith would have embarrassed the Dalish; it's not as though he's vilified or marginalized in their history, after all.

 

I'm not a great devotee of the Chantry but I do like the mortality of the Chant of Light.    There were a lot of different cults around after Andraste's death and the Chantry only really became the accepted version because of Drakon's support and the spread of the Orlesian Empire.    So I'm trying to come up with a way of reconciling what World of Thedas says about Shartan's conversion with the beliefs of a Dalish who wishes to revere him and model themselves on him.

 

I don't find the two faiths as reconcilable; they're entirely different religions. Even Merrill noted to Sebastian that the two simply aren't the same.

[Xilizhra]

I'm not so bothered about the identity of the Maker or even if the belief is actually true, just if it seems plausible that someone in the past could have reconciled the two faiths.   I generally play as an elf.   In DAI this means I must be Dalish.   I personally would like to make Shartan my role model of the ideal elf, even though the Dalish seem to have side lined him, which I put down to the embarrassment of him being effectively a city elf and having converted to the Andrastrian faith.   I'm not a great devotee of the Chantry but I do like the mortality of the Chant of Light.    There were a lot of different cults around after Andraste's death and the Chantry only really became the accepted version because of Drakon's support and the spread of the Orlesian Empire.    So I'm trying to come up with a way of reconciling what World of Thedas says about Shartan's conversion with the beliefs of a Dalish who wishes to revere him and model themselves on him.

Shartan wasn't of such great help to the elves in the end... and the Chant of Light's morality is horrendously broken, extolling the Maker as good when he unleashed the darkspawn on the world.

 

 

I don't find the two faiths as reconcilable; they're entirely different religions. Even Merrill noted to Sebastian that the two simply aren't the same.

It's quite possible both of them are wrong and the truth is somewhere in between.

[Jazzpha]

Shartan wasn't of such great help to the elves in the end... and the Chant of Light's morality is horrendously broken, extolling the Maker as good when he unleashed the darkspawn on the world.

 

 

It's quite possible both of them are wrong and the truth is somewhere in between.

 

Honestly, I prefer the Tevinterian (is that a word? It is now) take on the Black City-- it was always Black, and Dumat duped the Magisters into becoming corrupted without giving them the promised payoff. I can totally see an Old God delighting in that sort of manipulation.

[LobselVith8]

Shartan wasn't of such great help to the elves in the end... and the Chant of Light's morality is horrendously broken, extolling the Maker as good when he unleashed the darkspawn on the world.

 

There's also what the Chantry preaches about mages and magic, and how they use the fable of the darkspawn to condemn mages as a whole. I've never been able to reconcile the idea of playing as a mage who believed in the Andrastian faith, considering what it preaches about mages and magic; we got see how that negatively impacted the self-worth and self-esteem of Keili and Bethany first-hand. I greatly appreciated Origins allowing me the opportunity to play my Surana Warden as an atheist, while I intensely disliked how Hawke was limited to expressing only a belief in the Andrastian faith, and not an opposing point of view.

 

At least Inquisition offers the opportunity to play as a non-Andrastian main character.

 

It's quite possible both of them are wrong and the truth is somewhere in between.

 

I don't pretend to know what "the truth" is, but between the Andrastian faith and the elven religion, I prefer the latter. Rather than playing as a mage who inexplicably follows a religion that vilifies magic as a curse and a god who voluntarily abandoned humanity multiple times, there's an avenue to play as a mage who follows a religion that says magic is a gift of the Creators.

[Gervaise]

I wish people would distinguish between what is actually in the Chant and the interpretation the Chantry puts on it.    I stressed I like the morality of the Chant.    By this I mean not harming those weaker than yourself just because you can, using magic for the good of society, etc.    It makes me fume that the Chantry claims to follow the Chant of Light and yet the Chantry never seems to publically condemn nobles who commit atrocities and abuse their power but concentrates entirely on the activities of mages.

 

The Chant of Light is a collection of different sayings written down by her followers after Andraste's death and they do actually differ quite markedly at times.    Some read like sayings and proverbs whereas others seem more lyrical and poetic, yet all are meant to have come from Andraste.    The moment I was told in DAO that some bits had been dropped from the Chant due to political expediency (Shartan), it immediately made me wonder whether it was all genuine sayings of Andraste and what other bits might have been lost over the years.    The original Inquisition was running around hunting mages, cults and heretics in the years between her death and the creation of the Chantry, so may be they edited it to suit their convenience.

 

I fail to see why Shartan wasn't a help to the elves.   It was his initiative that led them to throw in their lot with Andraste's crusade.   He died trying to defend her but her surviving followers did honour the agreement to give the elves a homeland.    Without him as such a high profile disciple, would anyone have bothered about providing the elves with a homeland?  I very much doubt it.      After all they gave them very little assistance getting there.   It was basically, we've honoured our agreement, the rest is up to you.   

 

Also Shartan was not a mage.   He and his people had suffered for years at the hands of mages.    Was it so inexplicable that he would follow a religion that criticised their excesses?     The Chant of Light does not condemn magic, it condemns the abuse of magic.    It was the Inquisition and then the Chantry, 200 years after his death, that vilified magic and called it a curse.     The Chant of Light specifically states that it is a gift of the Maker.   "Vile and corrupt are they who have taken his gift and used it against his children."   It is a condemnation of the Tevinter Magisters, not mages as a whole.     The way in which the Dalish have viewed magic is entirely compatible with the Chant of Light.

 

As for the Maker abandoning humanity, well what about the Creators abandoning the elves in their hour of need, twice?    The Dalish have come up with a convenient excuse for the failure assist Arlathan, they were tricked and locked away.    Then they contradict themselves by saying that those elves who made it to the end of the Long March were rewarded by the Creators with a homeland.    How did the Creators do that if they are locked away and unable to act?  They also teach that if the elves remember what it is to be true elves, the Creators will return.   Hard to do that if you are locked away.     Then apparently after giving them this homeland and the elves faithfully adopting the old ways, even to the extent of antagonising their human neighbours, the Creators apparently let them lose it again.

 

The Chantry teach if everyone adopts the Chant of Light then the Maker will return.   There doesn't seem much difference there, except that the Chantry have hamstringed us by removing versus from the Chant, so may be the Maker will not recognise the adoption of a truncated Chant.        However, looking back to the time of Andraste, if the elves believed their gods were locked away and unable to act, why not adopt the faith of a god whose earthly representative had such success, particularly when they were opposing your oppressors and promised you a homeland?   There was some definite agreement and debt of honour between Andraste and Shartan.   That is why he is such an embarrassment to the Chantry.

 

Shartan was a significant historical figure.   Honest Chantry scholars admit that without him intervening with his elven followers, Andraste and Maferath might well have lost the Battle of the Valarian Fields, in which case there would be no Chantry or Orlais and Tevinter would still be riding high.   (I realise that some people think this would be a good thing because they think Tevinter is wonderful, slavery, blood magic sacrifices and all).   Without his initiative and subsequent promises that he obtained regarding his people, the elves would never have been given the Dales.      It is even possible to argue that had the elves adopted the faith of Shartan they would never have lost it again.     Certainly if they had maintained better relations with their human neighbours they might not have made themselves such a target.

 

To be honest, I'm hoping Solas is going to be able to throw some light on all of this.    That gap between the death of Shartan and the fall of the Dales, during which the Dalish culture was established is a period I would like to learn a great deal more.     If I can learn more about Shartan himself, so much the better.

[Xilizhra]

I wish people would distinguish between what is actually in the Chant and the interpretation the Chantry puts on it.    I stressed I like the morality of the Chant.    By this I mean not harming those weaker than yourself just because you can, using magic for the good of society, etc.    It makes me fume that the Chantry claims to follow the Chant of Light and yet the Chantry never seems to publically condemn nobles who commit atrocities and abuse their power but concentrates entirely on the activities of mages.

A religion is nothing more than the sum of its believers.

 

 

I fail to see why Shartan wasn't a help to the elves.   It was his initiative that led them to throw in their lot with Andraste's crusade.   He died trying to defend her but her surviving followers did honour the agreement to give the elves a homeland.    Without him as such a high profile disciple, would anyone have bothered about providing the elves with a homeland?  I very much doubt it.      After all they gave them very little assistance getting there.   It was basically, we've honoured our agreement, the rest is up to you.   

 

Also Shartan was not a mage.   He and his people had suffered for years at the hands of mages.    Was it so inexplicable that he would follow a religion that criticised their excesses?     The Chant of Light does not condemn magic, it condemns the abuse of magic.    It was the Inquisition and then the Chantry, 200 years after his death, that vilified magic and called it a curse.     The Chant of Light specifically states that it is a gift of the Maker.   "Vile and corrupt are they who have taken his gift and used it against his children."   It is a condemnation of the Tevinter Magisters, not mages as a whole.     The way in which the Dalish have viewed magic is entirely compatible with the Chant of Light.

If there's no conflict, why do you have any doubts about the Dalish religion being followed by the original Dalish?

 

 

As for the Maker abandoning humanity, well what about the Creators abandoning the elves in their hour of need, twice?    The Dalish have come up with a convenient excuse for the failure assist Arlathan, they were tricked and locked away.    Then they contradict themselves by saying that those elves who made it to the end of the Long March were rewarded by the Creators with a homeland.    How did the Creators do that if they are locked away and unable to act?  They also teach that if the elves remember what it is to be true elves, the Creators will return.   Hard to do that if you are locked away.     Then apparently after giving them this homeland and the elves faithfully adopting the old ways, even to the extent of antagonising their human neighbours, the Creators apparently let them lose it again.

Firstly, I didn't talk about the Maker abandoning the world. I talked about him unleashing the gorram darkspawn. In this scenario, every last Blight, every last broodmother, the slaughter of the dwarves and the near-slaughter of the entire surface world, was all the Maker's idea.

As for the Creators, the fact that they're locked away and can't do things like kill the sun doesn't mean they can't have indirect and limited influence.

 

 

The Chantry teach if everyone adopts the Chant of Light then the Maker will return.   There doesn't seem much difference there, except that the Chantry have hamstringed us by removing versus from the Chant, so may be the Maker will not recognise the adoption of a truncated Chant.        However, looking back to the time of Andraste, if the elves believed their gods were locked away and unable to act, why not adopt the faith of a god whose earthly representative had such success, particularly when they were opposing your oppressors and promised you a homeland?   There was some definite agreement and debt of honour between Andraste and Shartan.   That is why he is such an embarrassment to the Chantry.

Because they're disinclined to barter their faith for worldly success, especially given clear mage issues?

 

Shartan was a significant historical figure.   Honest Chantry scholars admit that without him intervening with his elven followers, Andraste and Maferath might well have lost the Battle of the Valarian Fields, in which case there would be no Chantry or Orlais and Tevinter would still be riding high.   (I realise that some people think this would be a good thing because they think Tevinter is wonderful, slavery, blood magic sacrifices and all).   Without his initiative and subsequent promises that he obtained regarding his people, the elves would never have been given the Dales.      It is even possible to argue that had the elves adopted the faith of Shartan they would never have lost it again.     Certainly if they had maintained better relations with their human neighbours they might not have made themselves such a target.

Possible, but repulsive victim-blaming.

[Tevinter Rose]

Fen'Harel/Flemeth 2016.

 

But seriously, Fen'Harel is an awesome god. I've always been partial to the tricksters of myth myself, because in spite of their moments of cruelty they've always seemed the most... human, in a way, and therefore the most relatable.

 

I'd love to see how the Chantry's PR squad would react to tangible proof that the Elven Pantheon and the Maker exist side-by-side, though. That would be awesome. My guess is they'd try to moonwalk back from the Shartan heresy with hilarious quickness.

 

I agree. I think the inside of the City was black but the outside looked golden, a trap set by an Old God. I think the Chantry would respond by calling it heresy and then escalate it from there 

[Gervaise]

I am not victim blaming.   I am just putting forward one of several arguments that could be made.   There is a view that states that only by understanding the past can we avoid making the same mistakes in the future.   I want to know what we so horribly wrong that we have a united army of humans and elves standing up to an Empire that had existed unchallenged for hundreds of years and succeeding in gaining their emancipation from it, so that it never wields such total power over Thedas again, yet relations have deteriorated to such an extent by the time of the 2nd Blight that the elves just stand and watch.     Clearly the Dalish are not averse to assisting the fight against the darkspawn, as evidence by the Grey Warden agreement.   When was this obtained, before the fall of the Dales or after it?   Presumably the latter as if it was before the fall then effectively that would have been with the Dales as a nation and nullified by their destruction.  

 

To my mind, the problem does seem to be between the Dales and Orlais.    And I'm not saying the elves are to wholly to blame.    I think Orlais would have targeted them eventually anyway.      Were the religious issues just a smoke screen?    However, I think there is some connection between the lack of action during the 2nd Blight and what subsequently occurred.     Also if they elves had left Red Crossing alone, not burnt Montsimmard and marched on Val Royeaux, the Chantry could probably have whistled for its Exalted March however much they disapproved of the Dalish faith.    Orlais was still recovering from the Blight.   Not the best time to start a crusade, but the Chantry called in the help of other nations by calling it a religious rather than a secular battle.  

 

As for the Maker unleashing the darkspawn, I think effectively it was the Magisters breaking physically through into the Fade which caused the problem, coming into contact with something with which they never should.   That is the whole point of the story.   You have brought doom on yourselves and the world.  And it was the old gods who encouraged them to do this.   I've never thought it as simply the Maker enacting some sort of revenge.     It just happened.   Anyway that is probably all going to be turned on its head in DAI because there is going to be a big tear in the veil and demons pouring through and I don't think the Maker has anything to do with that but you never know, anything's possible.

[Xilizhra]

As for the Maker unleashing the darkspawn, I think effectively it was the Magisters breaking physically through into the Fade which caused the problem, coming into contact with something with which they never should.   That is the whole point of the story.   You have brought doom on yourselves and the world.  And it was the old gods who encouraged them to do this.   I've never thought it as simply the Maker enacting some sort of revenge.     It just happened.   Anyway that is probably all going to be turned on its head in DAI because there is going to be a big tear in the veil and demons pouring through and I don't think the Maker has anything to do with that but you never know, anything's possible.

So you'd be saying, in that case, that the Maker was unable to prevent the magisters from leaving the Black City?

[Hellion Rex]

I believe the 3 pantheons, Tevinter, Elven, and Maker all exist in some form or fashion, and the Maker "won" out, so to speak. Plus, I think Fen'Harel has trolled the living hell out of all 3 groups pretty much.

[Spicen]

Although im going to weaken or destroy the templars, the chantry wud hope fully be strenghtened. People forget that the original templars wanted to annihilated the mages and the chantry stopped them and signed an accord which called the templars to watch over the mages.

[Reznore57]

The way I see it , there must be a hint of truth in all those myth.

So there is no "right" faith in DA.

 

We  have a set of "good" gods who have disappeared and may come back The creators/The Maker.

And some bad gods , The Old Gods/The Forgotten Ones.

 

The Dalish have a neutral god Fen Harel , but some myth about him are close to some story about the Maker.

[Spicen]

I believe the 3 pantheons, Tevinter, Elven, and Maker all exist in some form or fashion, and the Maker "won" out, so to speak. Plus, I think Fen'Harel has trolled the living hell out of all 3 groups pretty much.

Fen'harel is probably the lord of demons. The rest of em creators were spirits.

[Spicen]

A religion is nothing more than the sum of its believers.

Me thinks you are bringing your hatred for religion in real life into teh forum

[Samahl]

People forget that the original templars wanted to annihilated the mages and the chantry stopped them and signed an accord which called the templars to watch over the mages.

 

If this is true, the Chantry decided to place mages under the supervision of a group originally set on massacring them?

[Hellion Rex]

If this is true, the Chantry decided to place mages under the supervision of a group originally set on massacring them?

It's not true. The original Inquisition tried to calm the chaos that had beset Thedas. They were most definitely massacring mages. They tried to put an end to the witch hunts performed by the common people.

[Spicen]

Well lets look at some facts: the old dragons(i cringe when ppl call the gods) sang or whispered to the magisters in tevinter giving them the means to rule the world, dumat promised the magisters the golden city, notably cory said they were lied to and the city appeared to be black from the beginning, the magisters turned into the first darkspawn.
Verdict: the chantry version is mostly true.
Theory: the reason why the fade was made was probably bcoz of some catastrophic event in the golden city. he imprisoned whatever evil was there and left and also made it very hard to reach it(the distance from every point of the fade is equal from the black city). Maybe the elven creators were there in the city and they became evil.
Question: How do old dragons, flemeth, forbidden ones, forgotten ones, morrigan and the child come into all of this

[Spicen]

If this is true, the Chantry decided to place mages under the supervision of a group originally set on massacring them?

The original templars wud hav refused and kept on killing.