Yes, it sounds silly, but according to the novel Dragon Age: Last Flight, a Mabari can be inducted into the Grey Wardens, and even experience The Calling. Now, I'm not saying 'Barkspawn' went through The Joining, but how come they haven't been affected by the taint? You could argue that it's because of gameplay reasons, but when you heal him at Ostigar he was affected by Blight Sickness. And if you got him otherwise, he's still most likely mauled a fair amount of darkspawn for you!
Does this mean our faithful poochie warhound is temporarily immune to the Taint? Does this mean he gets to party with the Dwarves after experiencing The Calling and before he dies? Feasting on roasted nugs and baked Mabari Crunch and then charging with the Legion of the Dead in one last valiant fight?
Just a little fun thing to think about, these forums get so crazy you know?
Well something to remember is that "The Joining" is ALOT more then just ingesting darkspawn bodily fluids, the blood needs to be prepared, and if I remember correctly it requires both Lyrium and Archdemon blood as well.
So, even though the "lovely" novels have introduced us to the joys of animal Grey Wardens Barkspawn isn't one of them ... one could argue that the "quantum majority" version of Barkspawn could wind up as a Ghoul from surviving the Blight Sickness, but not a full Grey Warden.
I think the herb plus Darkspawn blood does mean that Arf Howl is a Gray Warden. Which means that Riordan was wrong about the actual number of Gray Wardens in Ferelden by two instead of by one.
Poor Riordan, wrong about almost everything in game...
Akrabra, Broganisity, luna1124 et 1 autre aiment ceci
^^LOL^^ Yes, "Pisser" is a Grey Warden.... The flower from the wilds and biting plenty of Darkspawn makes him one. In my eyes anyway... He does not have a soul so to speak.. so he cannot kill Archy and end the blight as a human, elf or dwarf can.
Well...My Mabari DID fight the Archdemon in a one-on-one duel of the fates...
I like to believe that his induction into the Grey Wardens was made official after the defeat of the Archdemon atop Denerim, and that it took place after he was sent out to stud all the Mabari ladies. You know, Grey Warden Semi-Impotency and all that.
But the Ash Warrior leader is hardly a font of reliable information. He's totally wrong about elves, for example.
What did he say about elves? I only remember him telling a legend about their founder, dialogue about kaddis, what means to be an Ash Warrior and telling Pick to go with some message
I named my Mabari "Barkspawn" because I wasn't feeling original.
And yeah, the Ash Warrior leader talks about dwarves (Scaia) in his story, not elves. I don't recall him mentioning elves in any of the conversation options I had.
Given that Mabari are known for their intelligence, I like to think they could be like Gray Wardens. Perhaps something about them, being animal instead of humanoid,
Spoiler
prevents the Arch-demon from using them as a vessel if they should get the killing blow,
so official Gray Wardens don't refer to them as such because they can't fulfill the primary function? Fun idea, nonetheless.
...I named my Mabari 'Clyde', just for the sake of mentioning.
And yeah, I'm saying that Mabari can and are inducted into the Grey Wardens, at least according to Last Flight, but whether or not they can actually perform the final task one does in a Blight is debatable and probably not possible...Or maybe they can and no one's been crazy/smart enough to try it before?
And Clyde totally is a Grey Warden...now I just need to come up with a Dog-Pun for Grey Warden that I can use to name him from here on ouut...
Whether or not an animal Warden could strike the Final Blow basically boils down to whether or not animals have "souls" in the Dragon Age Universe. --- An answer that I don't think we'll ever get.
Yes, it sounds silly, but according to the novel Dragon Age: Last Flight, a Mabari can be inducted into the Grey Wardens, and even experience The Calling. Now, I'm not saying 'Barkspawn' went through The Joining, but how come they haven't been affected by the taint? You could argue that it's because of gameplay reasons, but when you heal him at Ostigar he was affected by Blight Sickness. And if you got him otherwise, he's still most likely mauled a fair amount of darkspawn for you!
I don't have an answer to your question, but thank you for clarifying this! I've wanted to make a thread for months asking if that were possible, but worried it would get locked down as a troll thread.
I've met dogs who had more of a soul than some humans.
I think the only reason no one has figured out that a mabari can be a full Grey Warden is because no mabari has ever delivered the killing blow on an archdemon before. After all, there have only been four Blights before the one in Origins, and the first one was a lot of trial and error.
Define having a "soul" please as opposed to having a "personality".
"Does this Unit have a soul?" wait I mean <He Barks Argumentatively>
Not to return from egg nog and dog hair (ha! It all cycles back!) to go into deep psychobabble, but the term 'soul' varies enough in the real world: who knows how it's defined in the Dragon Age world!
Well...My Mabari DID fight the Archdemon in a one-on-one duel of the fates...
I like to believe that his induction into the Grey Wardens was made official after the defeat of the Archdemon atop Denerim, and that it took place after he was sent out to stud all the Mabari ladies. You know, Grey Warden Semi-Impotency and all that.
Which is my point exactly Broganisty, claiming that someone has met some dogs with "more of a soul" then some humans is almost as pointless as arguing with Owan whether or not he's still a "person". Especially when said poster was clearly arguing from a Real Life perspective as opposed to a Dragon Age one.
Which is my point exactly Broganisty, claiming that someone has met some dogs with "more of a soul" then some humans is almost as pointless as arguing with Owan whether or not he's still a "person". Especially when said poster was clearly arguing from a Real Life perspective as opposed to a Dragon Age one.
To which I agree. The concept of the 'soul' should be, for the purposes of this discussion, confined to what we know of the world of Dragon Age.
I, for one, believe Mabari have souls though what we know doesn't directly point to a yes or no.
Here's what we know about Mabari: We know that the breed originates from before the Tevinter control over Fereldan, originating somewhere during the Ancient Age, but before 480TE or -715 Ancient, which was the time the Imperium began campaigning through Ferelden and thus introducing the breed to the region. We know that they are a mix of a breed of Mastiff (Their build is somewhat similar to an American Mastiff), Wolves (possibly Direwolves?), and the usage of magic, or at least according to the Kennel Master at Ostagar...and we all know how wonky magic is at the ol' Imperium. If they can, according to the Chant, enter the Golden City and unleash the Taint upon the world, then they can surely create a highly intelligent breed of canines with souls of their own.
Spoiler
It's said Darkspawn have no souls, thus an Archdemon can only be destroyed by a Grey Warden, who is essentially an individual slowly becoming a ghoul. It is the tainted soul of the 'Old God' clashing with the soul of the Grey Warden that causes the destruction of the Archdemon, and the warden who delivered the final blow.
We know that a Mabari can become a Grey Warden and that it has happened before...we do not know if their version of The Joining is serious or just a ceremonial gesture...though if they do experience The Calling, that would point to Mabari actually partaking in an actual Joining Ritual, complete with blood magic...one could go so far as to suggest that the magic used to create the Mabari Breed was Blood Magic, essentially sacrificing lives and possibly even souls so that they were transferred into the canines. By having human souls within the first Mabari and having them breed...a species of souled war hounds was born.
DRAGON AGE INQUISITION SPOILERS BELOW HERE. THE SPOILER CONTAINS SNIPPITS OF PLOT AND COMPANION INFORMATION ON DORIAN AND IRON BULL.
Spoiler
Later on we learn that a group of powerful Tevinter Magisters indeed walked through the fade after a Blood Magic ritual in order to enter the Golden City. We know surprisingly little about how Blood Magic works, and we hear Dorian talk about how his father wanted to use Blood Magic to 'change' him in terms of his sexuality and defiance, and you can even ask Iron Bull's lieutenant if 'he' would use Blood Magic in order to physically change him/herself into a man proper. Whether this is superstition or actually capable is something I am not versed with, forgive me. Magic is not my forte.
If You can enter the fade, change someone's mind, change someone's body, sink an entire city, and who knows what else with Blood Magic...maybe you can transfer souls from sacrifices into canines in order to create a hyper-intelligent breed of war hound?
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I doubt we will ever get a yes or no on Mabaris having souls unless something in the game says 'yes', whether it's a Mabari Warden stopping the next blight or someone just going 'no they don't, stupid'...now part of me wants to start digging into lore to figure out just what a soul is according to the Dragon Age world...
If this were the case, it would open up the option for Morrigan to conceive the demon baby with Dog, which would be gross. Although she can turn into a dog...
Retour en haut
In my eyes anyway... He does not have a soul so to speak.. so he cannot kill Archy and end the blight as a human, elf or dwarf can.
