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[Gairnulf]

Hi all,

 

I've been reading "The World of Thedas Vol. 1" and I've made some notes of things that seemed curious or unrealistic (in the sense of the setting's realism). Let's see what you think.

 

1. On page 21, on the bottom-right it says "The years-long siege of Arlathan ends when Tevinter is said to sink the city into the ground using blood magic." If Arlathan was a huge city it's highly unlikely it would have endured a "years-long siege" without its inhabitants resorting to cannibalism and without suffering from epidemics, when the attackers would catapult diseased corpses of animals into the city. A siege of a large city would have hardly lasted more than a few months, especially if the city was completely cut off from food and water supplies. A side question - given that the elves hadn't met hostile civilizations before, would their cities even be surrounded by walls to begin with?
    
2. On page 76, it says "Powerful, noble mages form a legislative body known as the Magisterium" and also "Archons rule by divine right, a tradition that predates the imperium" -- The common meaning of "by divine right" is "deriving a right to rule directly from the will of a deitiy/deities". If this is truly so, then the Archon shouldn't need a "legislative body" at all, and the Magisterium shouldn't function as more than a king's council with final authority sitting with the Archon.
    
3. On the same page, from the description of the Magisterium it follows that its members are no more than 20-30 people (7 coming from the Circles of Magi, plus every grand cleric plus the Imperial Divine, plus whomever the Archon has appointed). Doesn't the Archon's prerogative to appoint new magisters allow him to manipulate the Magisterium's contents and its decisions at will? From the described rules it follows that if he wants a certain move passed, he can simply appoint enough of his own cronies to ensure the move has enough votes.
    
4. On page 78 - "Liberati can join a Circle of Magi or serve as an apprentice in a trade. Liberati may also own property, but they cannot join the military and rarely have a say in governance." -- this puts the Liberati in a position similiar to that of Jews in medieval and early modern Europe, with the exception that Jews in most places weren't allowed to own land either. If a Liberatus is exempt from holding any public office or military rank, the only venue remaining for him/her would be amassing wealth. I wonder if there isn't a thin layer of Liberati who have become superbly rich.

That's all I have for now. What are your thoughts?

[Kieran G.]

Hi all,

 

I've been reading "The World of Thedas Vol. 1" and I've made some notes of things that seemed curious or unrealistic (in the sense of the setting's realism). Let's see what you think.

 

1. On page 21, on the bottom-right it says "The years-long siege of Arlathan ends when Tevinter is said to sink the city into the ground using blood magic." If Arlathan was a huge city it's highly unlikely it would have endured a "years-long siege" without its inhabitants resorting to cannibalism and without suffering from epidemics, when the attackers would catapult diseased corpses of animals into the city. A siege of a large city would have hardly lasted more than a few months, especially if the city was completely cut off from food and water supplies. A side question - given that the elves hadn't met hostile civilizations before, would their cities even be surrounded by walls to begin with?

Well we don't know much about that ancient history, but we do know for fact they had the Eluvian network which they could use to travel through. 

 

And we know it wasn't so nice in Arlathans since there were riots and servants slaughtering nobles. the city was starving, and the had no defense, just somehow the tevinter forces weren't able to get into the city.

 

 

Hi all,

 

I've been reading "The World of Thedas Vol. 1" and I've made some notes of things that seemed curious or unrealistic (in the sense of the setting's realism). Let's see what you think.

 

2. On page 76, it says "Powerful, noble mages form a legislative body known as the Magisterium" and also "Archons rule by divine right, a tradition that predates the imperium" -- The common meaning of "by divine right" is "deriving a right to rule directly from the will of a deitiy/deities". If this is truly so, then the Archon shouldn't need a "legislative body" at all, and the Magisterium shouldn't function as more than a king's council with final authority sitting with the Archon.

The first archon was a magister and they tend to do a lot of the governing like magna carta england. and i believe they vote in the next Archon. 

 

 

Hi all,

 

I've been reading "The World of Thedas Vol. 1" and I've made some notes of things that seemed curious or unrealistic (in the sense of the setting's realism). Let's see what you think.

 

1. On the same page, from the description of the Magisterium it follows that its members are no more than 20-30 people (7 coming from the Circles of Magi, plus every grand cleric plus the Imperial Divine, plus whomever the Archon has appointed). Doesn't the Archon's prerogative to appoint new magisters allow him to manipulate the Magisterium's contents and its decisions at will? From the described rules it follows that if he wants a certain move passed, he can simply appoint enough of his own cronies to ensure the move has enough votes.

Well that's tevinter for you, its a mad dash for power and all the powerful are mage's, and world of thedas isn't that in depths into the inner working of there government so we don't quite know, once we have a game in the Imperium we will find out more.

 

 

Hi all,

 

I've been reading "The World of Thedas Vol. 1" and I've made some notes of things that seemed curious or unrealistic (in the sense of the setting's realism). Let's see what you think.

 

1. On page 78 - "Liberati can join a Circle of Magi or serve as an apprentice in a trade. Liberati may also own property, but they cannot join the military and rarely have a say in governance." -- this puts the Liberati in a position similiar to that of Jews in medieval and early modern Europe, with the exception that Jews in most places weren't allowed to own land either. If a Liberatus is exempt from holding any public office or military rank, the only venue remaining for him/her would be amassing wealth. I wonder if there isn't a thin layer of Liberati who have become superbly rich.

 

It's possible but the Liberati are still seen as Second class citizen's even if they are magic users, they are above slaves but that's about it.

[Gairnulf]

Well we don't know much about that ancient history, but we do know for fact they had the Eluvian network which they could use to travel through. 

And we know it wasn't so nice in Arlathans since there were riots and servants slaughtering nobles. the city was starving, and the had no defense, just somehow the tevinter forces weren't able to get into the city.

What's the source for the riots info, I guess I've missed it? I hadn't thought about the eluvian network. It must have made the siege very different but still, I'm not sure if they would have been able to transport all the food and water needed through this means.
 
 

The first archon was a magister and they tend to do a lot of the governing like magna carta england. and i believe they vote in the next Archon. 
 
Well that's tevinter for you, its a mad dash for power and all the powerful are mage's, and world of thedas isn't that in depths into the inner working of there government so we don't quite know, once we have a game in the Imperium we will find out more.

I think there are unanswered questions remaining about the structure of Tevinter institutions. The Archon, as described, has absolute authority over the Magisters, for resons of the magister appointment loophole described, and at least to me this doesn't make a lot of sense, because it turns the assembly of magisters into a sharade where the Archon can get any vote passed.
 

It's possible but the Liberati are still seen as Second class citizen's even if they are magic users, they are above slaves but that's about it.

Yep, that's what the book says. I was just curious what eir role in society is if they are basically excluded from participating in public life.

I'm not sure why, but it was only the Tevinter description that provoked me into imagining what it must have looked like in more detail than offered I guess because the others are more or less typical feudal societies. Or are they?

[Kieran G.]

What's the source for the riots info, I guess I've missed it? I hadn't thought about the eluvian network. It must have made the siege very different but still, I'm not sure if they would have been able to transport all the food and water needed through this means.

The riots and some stuff about the Arlathan society is talked about in the novel "The Masked Empire" and you learn a lot about the Eluvians as well, i would suggest picking it up for a read, 

 

And in the novel Asunder High Seeker Lambart was at one point a Tevinter Templar so you can learn some stuff about tevinter there.

[Mistic]

On page 21, on the bottom-right it says "The years-long siege of Arlathan ends when Tevinter is said to sink the city into the ground using blood magic." If Arlathan was a huge city it's highly unlikely it would have endured a "years-long siege" without its inhabitants resorting to cannibalism and without suffering from epidemics, when the attackers would catapult diseased corpses of animals into the city. A siege of a large city would have hardly lasted more than a few months, especially if the city was completely cut off from food and water supplies. A side question - given that the elves hadn't met hostile civilizations before, would their cities even be surrounded by walls to begin with?

 

That's a typical case of "reality is unrealistic". The Siege of Candia, for example, lasted 21 years. There are other examples in history too. 6 years of siege doesn't look too much compared to them. If you are looking for a modern case of a very big city under siege, we have the famous Siege of Leningrad. Hell, the attackers, the Tevinter Imperium, are known to have a capital prepared to face any kind of siege, so why not the elves?

 

As for the walls, if you have WoT, you can see in the timeline that 1819 years passed since the elves started retiring because of the Quickening (or whatever the real reason was) until the siege. In those long centuries there were wars among humans, and probably among elves too (as suggested by the tales about the Brecilian forest in DA:O). Even if Arflathan didn't have walls at first (also an assumption; who says elves didn't make war against one another too in the old days?), it's more than enough time to build new walls for the city.

 

On page 76, it says "Powerful, noble mages form a legislative body known as the Magisterium" and also "Archons rule by divine right, a tradition that predates the imperium" -- The common meaning of "by divine right" is "deriving a right to rule directly from the will of a deitiy/deities". If this is truly so, then the Archon shouldn't need a "legislative body" at all, and the Magisterium shouldn't function as more than a king's council with final authority sitting with the Archon.

 

Yes and no. The divine right of kings is just a source of political legitimacy for the rulers. Since nobody cared about the people's will, legitimacy had to come from another source. Of course, that doctrine was developed from the 15th century onwards to justify the rule of the king as a despot... but that caused problems, specially in England.

 

Legislative bodies have existed for centuries in many countries, with more or less limited powers depending on the case. In Tevinter's case, it seems the Archon has the right of vetoing. Since it's based on the Roman Empire, let's not forget that the famous Roman Senate outlasted the very emperors that limited its power and liked to be deified after death.

 

On the same page, from the description of the Magisterium it follows that its members are no more than 20-30 people (7 coming from the Circles of Magi, plus every grand cleric plus the Imperial Divine, plus whomever the Archon has appointed). Doesn't the Archon's prerogative to appoint new magisters allow him to manipulate the Magisterium's contents and its decisions at will? From the described rules it follows that if he wants a certain move passed, he can simply appoint enough of his own cronies to ensure the move has enough votes.

 

Of course it's a very important advantage. But it's based on real-world parliaments. For example, the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. In fact, it's the same: you have members from the church/chantry, hereditary members, and members appointed by the ruler. Tevinter just adds Circle representatives.

 

"Unlike the elected House of Commons, most new members of the House of Lords are appointed^. Membership of the House of Lords is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. There are currently 26 Lords Spiritual who sit in the Lords by virtue of their ecclesiastical role in the established Church of England. The Lords Temporal make up the rest of the membership; of these, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission; the rest are hereditary peers."

 

On page 78 - "Liberati can join a Circle of Magi or serve as an apprentice in a trade. Liberati may also own property, but they cannot join the military and rarely have a say in governance." -- this puts the Liberati in a position similiar to that of Jews in medieval and early modern Europe, with the exception that Jews in most places weren't allowed to own land either. If a Liberatus is exempt from holding any public office or military rank, the only venue remaining for him/her would be amassing wealth. I wonder if there isn't a thin layer of Liberati who have become superbly rich.

 

Before medieval, Tevinter is Roman. Not Jews, the class you are looking for is that of the freedmen, called liberti or libertini (pretty similar to liberati, isn't it?). And yes, even if they had a limited participation in public affairs, some freed slaves managed to become very wealthy in Rome.

[Hydwn]

This is what redeems that BSN.  It can downright creepy sometimes in some of its stranger corners, but then you wander into a thread where there's erudite, well-researched posts connecting the story to real-life history, and it's worth hanging out here

 

But yeah, as others have pointed out, the Masked Empire does an excellent job of stripping away some of the romanticism about Arlathan.  As one of the characters pointed out, before elves knew about humans and dwarves, who do you think scrubbed the chamber pots and the floors...?

 

And Mistic did an excellent job connecting the Tevinter classes to Rome.  I have to admit, I actually thought that in the spite of the name the Freedman were more analogous to the non-magic class (somnari, I think they're called?) because Freedman had fewer rights than a full citizen.  But I guess somnari are more like, say, Gauls and other foreigners who were neither citizens nor slaves?

 

I think it would go something like this then, for Roman and Tevinter classes:

 

• Emperor/Princeps/Augustus - Archon
• Senator - Magister
• Equus/Equestrian/Knightly - Altus
• Freedman - Liberati
• Peregrini/Free foreigners - Somnari
• Slaves

I suspect this association even works down to other things, like the army ranks.  That's likely why you can loot a centurion's cuirass off Denarius in Fenris's last companion quest.  Centurions mean legions, most likely, and prefects and tribunes and such.

 

The manipulation by the archon of the magisterium is quite likely, given that the Roman emperor did the same with the Senate.  The emperor still had to keep the Senate happy, though, because powerful Roman familes had a habit of offing emperors they disapproved of.  There are enough codex entries and conversations in the Dragon Age world to know that Archons tend to have short lives

 

As for Liberati who were supremely rich, there were Freedmen who did become that.  The ancient Roman comic novel the Satyricon has a famous scene where the fabulously wealthy Freedman Trimalchio gives an absurdly ostentatious dinner, to show off his wealth.  The implication is that he's compensating for the lack of a title.

[Mistic]

And Mistic did an excellent job connecting the Tevinter classes to Rome.  I have to admit, I actually thought that in the spite of the name the Freedman were more analogous to the non-magic class (somnari, I think they're called?) because Freedman had fewer rights than a full citizen.  But I guess somnari are more like, say, Gauls and other foreigners who were neither citizens nor slaves?

 

It's Soporati, not somnari (that is suspiciously similar to somniari, the name the Tevinters use for the Dreamers). And no, you are right; soporati and liberati seem to have a similar standing in Tevinter. It's just that the soporati can join the military ranks, so I suppose the army might provide an outlet for the lower classes in the Imperium.

 

Joining the army is a big deal when it's the only way to earn some much needed money. For example, the Marian Reforms in the Roman Republic allowed the capite censi, those who didn't own anything or that had so few money or lands that it wasn't recorded in the census, to join the army. Before that, only owners could become soldiers. It was based on the old Roman society, where independent land owners were the basis of the army, and they paid for their own weapons and armour (remember, RPG PCs having to pay for everything is real-life!). But after large states with slave workers became the norm, the now impoverished peasants had to live among the poor of the city. Those reforms, which included weapons and equipment paid by the state, allowed Rome to build larger armies than ever... but also gave a lot of power to the generals.

 

The main difference between Rome and Tevinter is their kind of social mobility. For the Romans, ownership, money and census were the most important thing (although with limits; that was only for Roman citizens wanting to change class). However, for Tevinter, magic blood is more important. Nevertheless, in both cases old families that can find their ancestors in the ancient times of the empire have more power and influence than the new upper-class citizens.

 

The riots and some stuff about the Arlathan society is talked about in the novel "The Masked Empire" and you learn a lot about the Eluvians as well, i would suggest picking it up for a read,

 

But we don't have any evidence of riots. It was said that Arlathan was Elven Orlais, true, but there isn't anything about servants revolting in The Masked Empire. In chapter 15, Briala and company find another room filled with dead elven nobles. They find a coprse with a cut at the throat. Then they start guessing the cause. First, Briala suggests that it was for mercy, so that they wouldn't starve to death. The Dalish mage says that Dreamers didn't need to eat. Felassan agrees, but in the end suggests that it might have been a folk tale. Then Briala thinks it could have been revenge. Later, Felassan jokingly says that the Dreamers might have been put in those chambers so that servants wouldn't kill them in their beds (or maybe they wanted to cook in those rooms ).

 

And that's it. The truth is that neither Briala and company nor the reader learns what happened centuries ago in that tomb.

[Hydwn]

It's Soporati, not somnari (that is suspiciously similar to somniari, the name the Tevinters use for the Dreamers). And no, you are right; soporati and liberati seem to have a similar standing in Tevinter. It's just that the soporati can join the military ranks, so I suppose the army might provide an outlet for the lower classes in the Imperium.

 

[...]

 

The main difference between Rome and Tevinter is their kind of social mobility. For the Romans, ownership, money and census were the most important thing (although with limits; that was only for Roman citizens wanting to change class). However, for Tevinter, magic blood is more important. Nevertheless, in both cases old families that can find their ancestors in the ancient times of the empire have more power and influence than the new upper-class citizens.

 

 

From Latin sopor for "sleep" and somnus which is also sleep, I guess.  Interesting that something as revered as Dreamers and as low as the low classes would both basically mean the same thing.  They're both sleepers.

 

I also was thinking of the patricians and the old-magic bloodlines.  The Tevinter version seems to me a bit like the first Roman families who traced their ancestors to the first 100 senators of Rome, mixed with the Malfoys from Harry Potter

[Gairnulf]

The riots and some stuff about the Arlathan society is talked about in the novel "The Masked Empire" and you learn a lot about the Eluvians as well, i would suggest picking it up for a read, 

 

And in the novel Asunder High Seeker Lambart was at one point a Tevinter Templar so you can learn some stuff about tevinter there.

 

Thanks, I'll look those novels up. The truth is, I tried reading the first novel, The Stolen Throne, and I just didn't find it good writing. Its style was boring most of the time, and I usually had to force myself to read it, because of the lore info. A matter of taste I guess. I hope I find the other novels better.

 

 

That's a typical case of "reality is unrealistic". The Siege of Candia, for example, lasted 21 years. There are other examples in history too. 6 years of siege doesn't look too much compared to them. If you are looking for a modern case of a very big city under siege, we have the famous Siege of Leningrad. Hell, the attackers, the Tevinter Imperium, are known to have a capital prepared to face any kind of siege, so why not the elves?

 

Re Candia, the siege was never completely closed for more than 28 months, which lead to the fortress' surrender, and even when it surrendered it was not starved out. The siege began in May 1648, then was lifted in the first months of 1649 and was not resumed until June 1649 and even then only lasted for another two months. From then on, the situation went from a siege to a loose blockade. Ottoman control of the sea was also not permanent throughout the period 1648-1669. As late as June 1667 it was possible for a French contingent of reinforcements to arrive at Candia, which tells you that the siege was never completely closed from the sea.

 

In my post I have said "A siege of a large city would have hardly lasted more than a few months, especially if the city was completely cut off from food and water supplies.". I emphasize the word "completely". This requirement makes your example of the siege of Candia invalid.

 

Re your "other examples", they are all examples of sieges which were not completed, or are too poorly documented for us to say anything definitive: 

 

• Skipping Candia, Philadelphia (1378-1390) is too much lacking historical sources to make any comments on it anything more than an educated guess. We don't know the strength of the sieging/besieged forces, we don't know how long did the city spend in conditions of a closed siege, all we know actually is two dates. 
   
• Ishiyama Honganji -- I am sure you have read the article before posting the link to it, so you have also read the sentences "Attempts to starve the fortress failed, as it was supplied from the sea by enemies of Nobunaga." and "In 1578, a fleet was finally able to cut supply lines to the castle. By 1580, the defenders had run out of food and ammunition and were forced to surrender." So again, the siege wasn't closed, and once it was, the ~30 000 strong garrison still held out for a remarkable two years.
   
• Thessaloniki was also not closed off from the sea, and the Venetians had no problems supplying it. What they did ultimately have problems with was manning it
   
• Drepana's siege was broken from the sea by Carthage relatively quickly and was only renewed by the Romans around the end of the war - 241 BC. It takes the Romans 5 years to build another fleet of 200 quinquiremes which was dispatched towards Drepana no sooner than "the beginning of the summer" (Polybius) of 242 BC.
   
• The Solovetsky Monastery siege was also not complete and the siege only ended as a result of threachery from whithin (it was not starved out). I checked the Russian Wikipedia article on the siege. It goes into much more detail than the English article, and it seems that as a rule the siege was broken during winter, because of the cold and because of insufficient forces, and then renewed in the warmer parts of the year.
   
• The Siege of Tripoli - I didn't research this one much, but this sentence from Wikipedia was enough to show me the siege was again more of a loose blockade than a real siege: "The nobles of the city, who had betrayed the city to the Franks by showing them how it was being resupplied with food, were executed in the crusader camp.". Apparently it was a practice to resupply the besieged city
   
• Harlech Castle was readily supplied by sea. Wikipedia - "After a month's siege, the small garrison surrendered on 14 August.". The reference given is "Taylor, Arnold (2007). Harlech Castle. Cardiff, UK: Cadw. ISBN 978-1-85760-257-9." So much for this "7 years" siege.
   
• The 6 years long siege of Xiangyang is actually legitimate, altough it was made possible by the accumulation of a great amount of supplies, the availability of drinking water, and the 200 000 civillian population must have had means of producing food.
   
• The last example remaining is the siege of Gibraltar 1799 - February 1783. This one is also the best documented. It was broken three times, with the garrison being reinforced and resupplied, before it was finally lifted. Read all about it in Wikipedia.

Lastly, Leningrad, which you propose as an example is famous, among other things, with the fact that the siege was never closed. The city was resupplied over the Ladoga lake: http://en.wikipedia...._the_defenders.

 

In conclusion, I guess I can agree to the version of a few-years-long siege of Arlathan on the condition that it was incomplete and/or broken from time to time. A well conducted and complete siege that would last more than a year though, I don't believe to be possible.

 

Please note I haven't intended this thread to do nitpicking on the DA setting. It's just a collection of questions which sparked my curiosity and wanted to see how other people imagine them, or things that seemed inconsistent the way I understood them.

 

As for the walls, if you have WoT, you can see in the timeline that 1819 years passed since the elves started retiring because of the Quickening (or whatever the real reason was) until the siege. In those long centuries there were wars among humans, and probably among elves too (as suggested by the tales about the Brecilian forest in DA:O). Even if Arflathan didn't have walls at first (also an assumption; who says elves didn't make war against one another too in the old days?), it's more than enough time to build new walls for the city.

 

Ok then, I guess they must have had fortifications.

 

Re the Tevinter discussion, I wouldn't go so far as to make parallels between the Roman society and Tevinter. All of my questions about it remain, and I'd love to get to chat about it with someone from Bioware who's relevant to the topic. What did their body of laws look like, did they have anything resembling checks and balances, who held the legislative authority, etc.

 

I don't agree with your remarks on Divine Right, but that's a different subject altogether, so I won't go into specifics.

 

Regarding the Jews, I said "a position similiar to that of Jews in medieval and early modern Europe". Similiar in the restrictions on holding public office, and owning land. I agree there are similarities between the freedmen and the liberati, and I think they (the liberati) look realistic in the context in which they are described.

[Mistic]

In my post I have said "A siege of a large city would have hardly lasted more than a few months, especially if the city was completely cut off from food and water supplies.". I emphasize the word "completely". This requirement makes your example of the siege of Candia invalid.

 

Fair enough, but then let me emphasize another of your words: "especially". It made me understand that you didn't think any city could last that long, and then added another bad condition that made it even more difficult. Important point, because no official source claims the second part: that Arlathan was completely cut off from food and water supplies. That was only an assumption you made. And taking that assumption out, yes, large cities can endure long sieges.

 

In conclusion, I guess I can agree to the version of a few-years-long siege of Arlathan on the condition that it was incomplete and/or broken from time to time. A well conducted and complete siege that would last more than a year though, I don't believe to be possible.

 

I think that's the safest bet, yes. After all, we don't know the disposition of Arlathan and its defenses, so maybe a complete siege was out of the question. Ironically, it may also explain why the Magisters used such destructive magic to bury the city. Having to endure a long siege (it's hard for the attackers too), they might have opted for nuking the city... after they wasted their forces for years.

 

 

Please note I haven't intended this thread to do nitpicking on the DA setting. It's just a collection of questions which sparked my curiosity and wanted to see how other people imagine them, or things that seemed inconsistent the way I understood them.

 

Believe me, I understand. I love history and sometimes BSN provides good discussions You should check posts about history written by Eirene.

 

Re the Tevinter discussion, I wouldn't go so far as to make parallels between the Roman society and Tevinter. All of my questions about it remain, and I'd love to get to chat about it with someone from Bioware who's relevant to the topic. What did their body of laws look like, did they have anything resembling checks and balances, who held the legislative authority, etc.

 

Well, the similarities were there before WoT appeared, and now that they use Latinesque words for Tevinter lore, I'm pretty sure that they adapted old Roman history books. Because even if their medieval analogue should be the Byzantine Empire, their society looks more Roman than Byzantine to me (however, I admit that I don't know enough about the Eastern Romans to claim that for sure).

 

As for more lore, maybe in WoT 2? They will publish the new lore book in 2015

 

I don't agree with your remarks on Divine Right, but that's a different subject altogether, so I won't go into specifics.

 

Fair enough.

 

Regarding the Jews, I said "a position similiar to that of Jews in medieval and early modern Europe". Similiar in the restrictions on holding public office, and owning land. I agree there are similarities between the freedmen and the liberati, and I think they (the liberati) look realistic in the context in which they are described.

 

Indeed, you said that, but my answer was and is that the Liberati have more in common with the freedmen in Roman society. Not only fits the definition much better, but medieval Jews were already an inspiration for another group in Thedas: the elves.

[Master Warder Z_]

And in the novel Asunder High Seeker Lambart was at one point a Tevinter Templar so you can learn some stuff about tevinter there.

 

Lord Seeker Lambert*

 

He's the HEAD of the Seeker organization, not a "high seeker" which seem to be the organization's officers.

[Hydwn]

 

In my post I have said "A siege of a large city would have hardly lasted more than a few months, especially if the city was completely cut off from food and water supplies.". I emphasize the word "completely". This requirement makes your example of the siege of Candia invalid.

 

 

There is one other relevant detail from the games, which is that the mage Avernus mentioned that the siege ended because they had "too many mouths to feed... [and] Magic can only go so far."  

 

That suggests there's at least some possibility of conjuring limited amounts of food during a siege.  And Avernus was a lone mage, while Arlathan sounds like it ran off magic.

[Mistic]

Lord Seeker Lambert*

 

He's the HEAD of the Seeker organization, not a "high seeker" which seem to be the organization's officers.

 

I know you love Lambert, Master Warder_Z, so don't worry: according to Gaider, both titles are right, so calling him High Seeker doesn't diminish his importance. In fact, "High Seeker" is the official name for his post, while "Lord Seeker" is a style of reference.

[Gairnulf]

I agree I shouldn't have used "especially" there, it adds some ambiguity on whether I'm considering the realism in a years-long complete siege, or in a less than complete one.

 

Agreed on the fact that the way the siege ended may be telling us something about difficulties endured by the besiegers. They must have lost a lot of loot by sinking the city, and to sink it after years of siege sounds like something done contrary to initial plans.

 

In the broadest terms (the only terms I can use right now ), Byzantium got rid of its last pretense of being "Roman" with the beginning of the 7th century, with the Heraclian dynasty. What I meant with "I wouldn't go as far as..." was that it's difficult to establish what someone means when they say "Tevinter is Roman". "Roman" as in "similiar to the ancient Roman state", but the Roman state in which period, and in which aspect of the Roman state in that period?

 

I would say that Tevinter in DA shows similarities in its described constitution (used in the more general meaning, as in its set of institutions) to the Roman Empire, but I wouldn't risk going further than that. My guess is that the parallels with Latin in Tevinter names and terms are intended to give us "a feel of" the Roman Empire, but what this feel translates as, is up to the player to decide, at least until we have more canonical info.

 

Personally, I think the better parallel can be made with the Roman Empire in the last half-century BC to the first century AD. Byzantium is more complex as an identity than Tevinter seems to be for now, as it (Byzantine identity) is that of the more viable part of something previously whole, which has split in order to live on. It also maintains contact with a fundamentally different culture that's at its borders (although come to think of it the Qunari wars kind of fit this description). In my view, Tevinter has the image of a corrupt and ailing society whereas Byzantium was more associated with the rebirth and the attempt (ultimately unsuccessful, because history only happens once) to return to the roots of something that was seen as a lost state of perfection (the Roman Empire in its ancient glory). Anyway, such analogies are more or less just a means to pass the time, as the DA team is certainly not aiming to make the DA societies direct correspondents of historical ones. The attitude is more "it's based on" than "it's modeled after". But I'm sure you knew that anyway.

 

I myself am also very curious about the second volume of WoT.

[Master Warder Z_]

I know you love Lambert, Master Warder_Z, so don't worry: according to Gaider, both titles are right, so calling him High Seeker doesn't diminish his importance. In fact, "High Seeker" is the official name for his post, while "Lord Seeker" is a style of reference.

 

But...never mind.

 

Inconsistency with DOTS.

 

I'll take Gaider's word over the film.

 

But in the film several "high seekers" are mentioned in passing, presumably all still alive and holding their post.

[Hydwn]

I agree I shouldn't have used "especially" there, it adds some ambiguity on whether I'm considering the realism in a years-long complete siege, or in a less than complete one.

 

Agreed on the fact that the way the siege ended may be telling us something about difficulties endured by the besiegers. They must have lost a lot of loot by sinking the city, and to sink it after years of siege sounds like something done contrary to initial plans.

 

In the broadest terms (the only terms I can use right now ), Byzantium got rid of its last pretense of being "Roman" with the beginning of the 7th century, with the Heraclian dynasty. What I meant with "I wouldn't go as far as..." was that it's difficult to establish what someone means when they say "Tevinter is Roman". "Roman" as in "similiar to the ancient Roman state", but the Roman state in which period, and in which aspect of the Roman state in that period?

 

I would say that Tevinter in DA shows similarities in its described constitution (used in the more general meaning, as in its set of institutions) to the Roman Empire, but I wouldn't risk going further than that. My guess is that the parallels with Latin in Tevinter names and terms are intended to give us "a feel of" the Roman Empire, but what this feel translates as, is up to the player to decide, at least until we have more canonical info.

 

Personally, I think the better parallel can be made with the Roman Empire in the last half-century BC to the first century AD. Byzantium is more complex as an identity than Tevinter seems to be for now, as it (Byzantine identity) is that of the more viable part of something previously whole, which has split in order to live on. It also maintains contact with a fundamentally different culture that's at its borders (although come to think of it the Qunari wars kind of fit this description). In my view, Tevinter has the image of a corrupt and ailing society whereas Byzantium was more associated with the rebirth and the attempt (ultimately unsuccessful, because history only happens once) to return to the roots of something that was seen as a lost state of perfection (the Roman Empire in its ancient glory). Anyway, such analogies are more or less just a means to pass the time, as the DA team is certainly not aiming to make the DA societies direct correspondents of historical ones. The attitude is more "it's based on" than "it's modeled after". But I'm sure you knew that anyway.

 

I myself am also very curious about the second volume of WoT.

 

Part of the strategy the writers of Dragon Age have used when it comes to real-life parallels in Thedas has been a strategy of "merge and simplify."  Tevinter is part ancient Rome and part Byzantium - it serves both functions.  Antiva is both Spain and Italy.  Nevarra is like some of the monarchies of the northern Empire (nowadays called the Holy Roman Empire) with elements of ancient Egypt.  Orlais is the core of the Holy Roman Empire mixed with medieval France.  Both Minrathrous and Val Royeaux fill the functions of Rome in our world, depending on the situation.

 

Orlais brings us to another aspect of their use of real-life history - anachronisms are okay, as long as they're cool.  And that's okay because it's not a history book

 

That Great Game and the court  of the Empress belong to the 17th-century France of Louis XIV, not the roughly 14th century that informs 99% of medieval fantasy and most of Draggon Age.  The Antivan Crows feel like a reference to the mafia, but it's too early for a mafia.  A lot of Tevinter borrows from late Imperial Rome, fastforwarded into the middle ages.

 

Then there's the existence of an Empress at all.  Both Rome and Paris were had a rule that no woman could take the throne.  

 

Real life provides a jumping-off point, but let's face it - we're all there for the fantasy

[Gairnulf]

Sure thing, but I prefer it when I can see a rationality behind decisions and actions in a fantasy setting, and see a familiarity between the "logic" of development of processes in the fantasy world and the logic I've observed in the real world. No matter how much liberty an author can take in constructing a fantasy world, one of the hardly ever (at least I can't think of an example) questioned tenets of the real world, carried over to the fantasy is that in politics, there are always rulers and ruled. This "axiom" (probably the only axiom) of political science is the foundation of much of the political process and subsequently the history of the fantasy world.

 

I'm just sayng I prefer it this way, not that it's necessarily better. I think it's this kind of realism, often displayed in the A Song of Ice and Fire is what made this series so interesting. However far into the fantasy you go as an author, you can't get over the fact that the audience will judge the quality of your works according to, among other things, how much can they empathize with the world and its characters.

[Mistic]

But in the film several "high seekers" are mentioned in passing, presumably all still alive and holding their post.

 

Is that so? I can't remember right now. I thought Aldren was the only High Seeker who was mentioned.

[TTTX]

I think there are unanswered questions remaining about the structure of Tevinter institutions. The Archon, as described, has absolute authority over the Magisters, for resons of the magister appointment loophole described, and at least to me this doesn't make a lot of sense, because it turns the assembly of magisters into a sharade where the Archon can get any vote passed.

The Archon does have unlimited power, as Fenris told us that was an Archon decades ago who got ride of slavery, but he was also quickly assassinated because of it.

the other magisters are pretty much the governors of Tevinter and who also can become Archon if they play their cards right.

[Hydwn]

Sure thing, but I prefer it when I can see a rationality behind decisions and actions in a fantasy setting, and see a familiarity between the "logic" of development of processes in the fantasy world and the logic I've observed in the real world. No matter how much liberty an author can take in constructing a fantasy world, one of the hardly ever (at least I can't think of an example) questioned tenets of the real world, carried over to the fantasy is that in politics, there are always rulers and ruled. This "axiom" (probably the only axiom) of political science is the foundation of much of the political process and subsequently the history of the fantasy world.

 

I'm just sayng I prefer it this way, not that it's necessarily better. I think it's this kind of realism, often displayed in the A Song of Ice and Fire is what made this series so interesting. However far into the fantasy you go as an author, you can't get over the fact that the audience will judge the quality of your works according to, among other things, how much can they empathize with the world and its characters.

 

True enough, but the approach to adapting history is fairly easy to see.  For purposes of writing fiction, they've condensed and simplified European history.  Most nations in Thedas have at least two analogues in the real world, and all contain anachronisms from earlier or later periods.  It's interesting to see the parallels, but I understand as an aspiring fantasy novelist myself how they wouldn't want to be locked into them when writing fantasy.

 

One place where the writers' knowledge of history really shines are in what I call the "reversals" - where they reverse something that happened in actual history in a way that shows they knew that history.  Like how in the Hundred Years' War, France invades England instead of the other way around.  Or how their Christianity-analogue was founded by a warrior woman at one side of their empire instead of a pacifist man at the other.  And their church is all woman, except for male monks.

 

 Things like that are neat because they both demonstrate the devs' knowledge of history, and their skill as fantasy writers at crafting "what if" scenarios.  

[Gairnulf]

I think Gaider had mentioned explicitly that the reversal of the Orlesian conquest of Ferelden is a what-if scenario of the English reversing William the Conqueror's conquest, and not based on an alternative history of the HYW. Anyway, as I said, these parallels are not of much consequence for me, because they are just used as starting points by the fantasy setting. What I care about more is that there is an intristic logic, and events in the fantasy world don't transpire because the author grabbed flavor from this or that commonly known historical event, but because of this intristic logic. I'd prefer if this rule extended to the cultural development of the fantasy world, so that it really lives its own life, culturally as well as politically, but engineering a convincing living fantasy world like that is quite a serious task I admit.

[Mistic]

I think Gaider had mentioned explicitly that the reversal of the Orlesian conquest of Ferelden is a what-if scenario of the English reversing William the Conqueror's conquest, and not based on an alternative history of the HYW. Anyway, as I said, these parallels are not of much consequence for me, because they are just used as starting points by the fantasy setting. What I care about more is that there is an intristic logic, and events in the fantasy world don't transpire because the author grabbed flavor from this or that commonly known historical event, but because of this intristic logic. I'd prefer if this rule extended to the cultural development of the fantasy world, so that it really lives its own life, culturally as well as politically, but engineering a convincing living fantasy world like that is quite a serious task I admit.

 

So you are saying that you prefer a Watsonian approach to Thedosian lore, rather than a Doylist approach, aren't you? Well, both of them are equally valid, but I must admit I find the Watsonian approach more enjoyable.

[Hydwn]

So you are saying that you prefer a Watsonian approach to Thedosian lore, rather than a Doylist approach, aren't you? Well, both of them are equally valid, but I must admit I find the Watsonian approach more enjoyable.

 

Not the OP, but as a would-be fantasy writer, I like them both

 

I like learning why authors do things out of universe, and I go out of my way to learn them.  But it's probably a minimum requirement of good fiction to have a Watsonian reason ready to explain every Doylist decision.

[Aimi]

I think Gaider had mentioned explicitly that the reversal of the Orlesian conquest of Ferelden is a what-if scenario of the English reversing William the Conqueror's conquest, and not based on an alternative history of the HYW.

Which indeed makes a good deal more sense than a 'reverse Hundred Years War', especially in terms of subsequent Fereldan popular and political reaction to the occupation. If this were some kind of reverse Hundred Years War, Ferelden ought to be rampaging through Antiva and the Free Marches right about now, instead of engaging in dagger-eyed isolation and retrenching.

[Xilizhra]

But yeah, as others have pointed out, the Masked Empire does an excellent job of stripping away some of the romanticism about Arlathan.  As one of the characters pointed out, before elves knew about humans and dwarves, who do you think scrubbed the chamber pots and the floors...?

Minor spirits/golemlike automatons? Hell, animated brooms? If WoW has more imagination in this regard than Dragon Age, we may be in trouble.