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[Cosmia]

I didn't get the Inquisitor Edition so I haven't seen all the art in the deck, but does anyone know if Abelas has a tarot card? I need to know... for reasons...

 

I bought the tarot deck for way too much money on Ebay, so once it arrives I can post any art that is relevant to our elf love if y'all are interested!

 

[awesome history stuff]

 

 

Thanks so much for posting this! So gosh. Solas is old. Abelas is also very old, but not quite. Interesting, interesting. So many attractive bald elf men.

[Cadiwen]

I bought the tarot deck for way too much money on Ebay, so once it arrives I can post any art that is relevant to our elf love if y'all are interested.

*raises hand*

Omg yes please! Interested!

*slinks back to semi-lurking*

[Aimi]

But, then again, as another poster postulated, Abelas and his fellow Sentinels could be elite slave warriors similar to the Janissaries.

Describing the yeniçeri as "slave warriors" is kinda like calling the US Marines "shipboard security officers". That was how they started out, but they became famous as something else entirely.

Only the first few generations of yeniçeri were slaves; then, for a few centuries, they were conscripted from the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire as young boys. (Some people refer to this conscription, the devşirme, as slave recruitment. This is definitionally incorrect: at no point were the men who served actually enslaved. They were abducted, conscripted, converted, and reeducated - all of which were Bad Things - but they were legally distinct from slaves.) By the late sixteenth century, even this conscription was dying out in favor of enlistment by Muslim subjects as a sort of militia. Christian conscription was finally outlawed in 1648, and the entire formation was abolished in 1826 in the Auspicious Incident. (Which was like a real-life version of the simultaneous assassination scene at the end of The Godfather, except with armies.) So out of four and a half centuries of yeniçeri, they were only "slave warriors" for a few decades.

Most of the time, people who are thinking of Muslim slave warriors mean the mamluks. Stratified warrior social groups - the word "caste" is often used, and although it is technically incorrect it is a decent simile for the situation - were common in the history of the Muslim world for a long time. The 'Abbasid khilafa is supposed to have begun the mamluk system, training units from Central Asian slaves as an alternative power base to the unreliable formations that predominated in the previous century (which led to military revolts such as the one that brought the 'Abbasid khalifas to power in the first place).

Unsurprisingly, the fact that mamluks were recruited from slaves did not make them significantly more loyal to specific rulers. The system persisted anyway, faute de mieux. (I'm only being slightly facetious here.) Mamluks eventually became an entrenched group that could serve as a power base for ambitious military or political leaders, and after awhile those leaders began to come from the ranks of the mamluks themselves. Mamluks set up their own monarchies across the Muslim world: they were sultans of Egypt from 1250 to 1517, they ruled Iran and Central Asia in the twelfth century, they ruled northern India from Delhi in the thirteenth century, and mamluks in Iraq even achieved a measure of autonomy under the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century.

[Cosmia]

@Eirene: Despite it being offtopic, I loved your post! That's a topic I'm not familiar with at all, and it's always fascinating to learn something new like that. To stay on topic- could you see a system like that applying in Ancient Elvhen society to Abelas and his comrades? 

[TheLastArchivist]

It would be cool to see a fanfic where Abelas meets one of the Dalish clans -maybe even the one where the Hero of Ferelden grew up - and convinces them little by little the other clans should come together and build a new elven civilization.

[prosthetic soul]

Man I don't care about the character.  I just want to know if I can get that armor for my Inquisitor.

[Cosmia]

It would be cool to see a fanfic where Abelas meets one of the Dalish clans -maybe even the one where the Hero of Ferelden grew up - and convinces them little by little the other clans should come together and build a new elven civilization.

Definitely! In general I'm really interested in seeing if BW can bring him back just to see how he interacts with modern elves. We all know he's grumpy, but will he be rebuffed like Solas was given that he doesn't have to worry about revealing who he is?

[Lorien19]

Describing the yeniçeri as "slave warriors" is kinda like calling the US Marines "shipboard security officers". That was how they started out, but they became famous as something else entirely.

Only the first few generations of yeniçeri were slaves; then, for a few centuries, they were conscripted from the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire as young boys. (Some people refer to this conscription, the devşirme, as slave recruitment. This is definitionally incorrect: at no point were the men who served actually enslaved. They were abducted, conscripted, converted, and reeducated - all of which were Bad Things - but they were legally distinct from slaves.) By the late sixteenth century, even this conscription was dying out in favor of enlistment by Muslim subjects as a sort of militia. Christian conscription was finally outlawed in 1648, and the entire formation was abolished in 1826 in the Auspicious Incident. (Which was like a real-life version of the simultaneous assassination scene at the end of The Godfather, except with armies.) So out of four and a half centuries of yeniçeri, they were only "slave warriors" for a few decades.

Most of the time, people who are thinking of Muslim slave warriors mean the mamluks. Stratified warrior social groups - the word "caste" is often used, and although it is technically incorrect it is a decent simile for the situation - were common in the history of the Muslim world for a long time. The 'Abbasid khilafa is supposed to have begun the mamluk system, training units from Central Asian slaves as an alternative power base to the unreliable formations that predominated in the previous century (which led to military revolts such as the one that brought the 'Abbasid khalifas to power in the first place).

Unsurprisingly, the fact that mamluks were recruited from slaves did not make them significantly more loyal to specific rulers. The system persisted anyway, faute de mieux. (I'm only being slightly facetious here.) Mamluks eventually became an entrenched group that could serve as a power base for ambitious military or political leaders, and after awhile those leaders began to come from the ranks of the mamluks themselves. Mamluks set up their own monarchies across the Muslim world: they were sultans of Egypt from 1250 to 1517, they ruled Iran and Central Asia in the twelfth century, they ruled northern India from Delhi in the thirteenth century, and mamluks in Iraq even achieved a measure of autonomy under the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century.

Exactly,while the population where they were conscripted from was in fact enslaved as in subjugated,the yeniçeri being conscripted and reeducated were not considered slaves,far from it in fact.In school we were told various tales about families having their young boys dressed as girls so that they weren't conscripted.

[Lorien19]

@Eirene: Despite it being offtopic, I loved your post! That's a topic I'm not familiar with at all, and it's always fascinating to learn something new like that. To stay on topic- could you see a system like that applying in Ancient Elvhen society to Abelas and his comrades?

It is possible that individuals originated from the slave caste,were elevated in status if they chose or were chosen in order to serve a member of the elven pantheon,in the way Abelas and the sentinels do.
However,I don't know how flexible the elven society was.Perhaps the elves were more flexible than the dwarves.

[Aimi]

@Eirene: Despite it being offtopic, I loved your post! That's a topic I'm not familiar with at all, and it's always fascinating to learn something new like that. To stay on topic- could you see a system like that applying in Ancient Elvhen society to Abelas and his comrades?

Maybe! Thing is, we know almost nothing about Arlathan, and what little we do know is regularly contradicted. But there's nothing about slave warriors that makes them improbable for the ancient elves to have used. Arming slaves to fight isn't a new or unrealistic idea. It all depends on why the slaves were enslaved in the first place.

If there's no bizarre social-Darwinist-racial component, no slave ideology, then it's probably easy to justify slave warriors. They've appeared in several societies across the real world, not just Muslim ones. In the American South during that country's civil war, however, white male identity was constructed around racial superiority that was in large part demonstrated and performed through disciplined military service. White men were not slaves because they could fight in a civilized fashion; black men were slaves because, according to the slaveholding ideology, it was impossible to get them to fight in a civilized fashion - they were, supposedly, intrinsically savage and uncivilized. Permitting slaves to fight would have undermined the entire ideological justification for slavery in the first place, along with the South's entire conception of (white) masculinity. That was why the Southerners of the Confederacy had so much trouble with the idea of slaves fighting - an example that has disproportionate weight to the Americans who make up the majority on this forum. (And hence why I mention it.)

Anyway, long digressions aside, I think it's very possible to explain Abelas' vallaslin as slave markings for a slave warrior, the member of a sort of mamluk caste. Or he could just be a slave who ended up serving in the military. Or it could be a bizarre example of "slave chic" in Arlathan society. (I'm not joking, by the way. Late Roman aristocrats and soldiers were known to adopt "barbarian" mannerisms, accents, slang, clothes, etc. Never mind that these people were born inside the Empire and rarely had any idea about what barbarians actually were like. Eventually, it got weird: "barbarians" were associated with savagery, so the actual imperial army started adopting barbarian chic to emphasize its own fitness for war. Kinda like white New Zealanders doing the haka.)

Tl;dr: it's possible, but it could mean other things.

[PorcelynDoll]

Oh I knew I could be the only one who fell instantly in love with him! Since I found out about the tattoo's from Solas' romance, he's more endearing to me. I totally support him as a romance in DA4.

[Tielis]

Well, I see the sentinels as sort of monk-like characters.  Yes, they may be slaves when it comes right down to it, but they served their goddess.  Sure, their goddess may have simply been a very powerful mage, but they did see her as their "pharaoh", so to speak.

[Cosmia]

Well, I see the sentinels as sort of monk-like characters.  Yes, they may be slaves when it comes right down to it, but they served their goddess.  Sure, their goddess may have simply been a very powerful mage, but they did see her as their "pharaoh", so to speak.

The question on everyone's mind, then, is if they have to take a vow of chastity... Amiright. 

[Tielis]

The question on everyone's mind, then, is if they have to take a vow of chastity... Amiright. 

 

My headcanon is that there is no vow beyond devoting one's entire existence to protecting the temple.  That's pretty hardcore right there.  I wonder at what age they were inducted?

 

In any case, he's got nothing now.  Poor thing must be so flipping lost and confused.  

[PorcelynDoll]

My headcanon is that there is no vow beyond devoting one's entire existence to protecting the temple.  That's pretty hardcore right there.  I wonder at what age they were inducted?

 

In any case, he's got nothing now.  Poor thing must be so flipping lost and confused.  

and horny.............ok I'll leave now

[Cosmia]

We are so classy.

[Birdy]

http://artemorte.tum...utthole-way-too

[Violet Carson]

We are so classy.

Welcome to the Abelas Appreciation Thread, where conversations range from talks about how life as a sentinel under Mythal's rule was to ermagerd, hawt elf!

New slogan lol

[Birdy]

Welcome to the Abelas Appreciation Thread, where conversations range from talks about how life as a sentinel under Mythal's rule was to ermagerd, hawt elf!

New slogan lol

Have you seen the Solas Recovery Wing?    Just can't help it with those Ancient Elves.

[Violet Carson]

Have you seen the Solas Recovery Wing?    Just can't help it with those Ancient Elves.

Actually I haven't. I'll check it out though.

[Birdy]

Actually I haven't. I'll check it out though.

Lol. Well AAT developed from there and well, this describes it best.

http://kreebby.tumbl...nal-frick-frack

 

I'd say Abelas comes under that.

[Birdy]

GAH! Why is there so little fanart?!  DX

[Mr.House]

Hell, I'd wear that armor myself. That sh*t looks so freaking cool!

Someones getting tired of the qunari pjs

 

Ok I just made my self sad...

[PorcelynDoll]

Abelas would just look at those hideous beige pj's and shake his head.

[Cosmia]

GAH! Why is there so little fanart?!  DX

Hopefully we start to see a bit more over the next few months :'( Becoming obsessed with DAI has made me really wish I could draw.