169 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

The Dalish have now been demoted to the low life of mage prejudice.   Did you not get what I said above?    In Maevaris' clan they had one too many mages so the solution was to abandon the youngest and leave her to fend for herself at 7 years' old.    I don't care that not every clan does this.   I feel it is inconceivable that any clan does this and it is clearly common enough practice if Vivienne holds it up as an example of how the Dalish "sensibly" believe that mages should be controlled.   And the fact is that it doesn't make any sense at all in view of the fact that the Keeper is always a mage, the Keepers govern the clans and are considered to be closest to their ideal of what an elf should be because of the fact that they can do magic.    If this is done because they fear demons or want to appease the Chantry, why don't they take them to the nearest Chantry and leave them there?   Yes, Zathrian did blood magic and the Dalish are prejudiced against humans: I am not saying they are perfect but on the whole any civilised society condemns those that ill treat children and this is betrayal of children at its worst level, like that of abandoning children who are handicapped or the wrong sex.

 

We've seen Dalish elves (not "the" Dalish, since they don't have a hive mind even if they have a pretty monolithic culture) do some terrible things. Marethari, for example, turned the entire clan against her foster daughter essentially out of spite, and it led to Pol running away from Merrill as if she was poison. That's just as perverse as leaving a young child to die out in the woods. Zathrian, aside from perpetrating his blood curse across innocents for generations, allowed his own people to unwittingly die at the hands of the werewolves he created just to cover up his lie, and to boot tried to take advantage of the blight to cover up his sin. 

 

Regardless of your view of the individuals making up the Dalish clans, their Keepers have not always made the morally proper choice. They've done some terrible things, and in circumstances where there was absolutely no need to do it. Even if the was such a 3-mage rule, what the child-abandoning Dalish did in DA:I could easily be attributable to the same sort of flawed dictator that Marethari and Zathrian were in DA2 and DA:O respectively.

 

 

 

If, as had always been claimed, the Dalish believe that when they remember what it is to be a true elf and recover enough of their culture, their gods will return to them, would they really risk endangering that relationship by effectively killing off their most precious clan members, that according to their beliefs the gods would most approve of?   Granted the writers can do what they like with their lore but at least let the damn lore make sense.    That is why I feel this has been done more to put the Dalish on a par with the Chantry and the Qun concerning how they view magic and mages, so no one comes out as being better than any other and why I find it so hard to reconcile it with the previous games I have played.

 

Even if all of the Dalish abandon every mage child over their quota of 3, they would still be moral paragons compared to the Qunari, whose abuse of mages is by about three inches from satisfying the definition of genocide, and the Chantry/Circles, which depending on which Circle you are talking about starts veering into crimes against humanity territory. 

 

If the intention on Bioware's part was to disparage the Dalish and bring them down to the level of the other factions, they didn't do a very good job of it.

 

But more than that, I think people are confusing the veneration of magic, mage leaders and mages generally. Mages aren't "precious" to the clan in the divine sense. Their precious to them like Ironbark is precious, at least based on the codex about mage trading. 

[TK514]

Yeah, sure because it's working so well for the City Elves, right.

Red Crossing wasn't a b&w issue at all.

I don't blame them for staying out of the second blight but that is just opinion.

 

The City Elves have their own issues that, thankfully, BioWare has also started to address, but they were already in a better position than the Dalish, so they don't need as much work.

 

Red Crossing not being black and white is exactly the point.  The Fall of the Dales is no longer a case of "Those bad humans came in and took our country because they are bad, and we're the victims".  At best, both sides are at fault, at worst, the Dalish started the war.  Either way, the Dalish have lost the ability to support the claim of being the innocent victims of unwarranted aggression.

 

And you are certainly entitled to the opinion that letting a mindless ravaging force that exists to destroy all life kill all your potential allies is a sound strategy, but I'm going to have to disagree.

[In Exile]

And you are certainly entitled to the opinion that letting a mindless ravaging force that exists to destroy all life kill all your potential allies is a sound strategy, but I'm going to have to disagree.

 

They had perfectly racist and spiteful reasons for doing it. I don't see why you're so hard on them. They just wanted to watch a neighbor burn for crimes perpetrated against them centuries in the past by another group of people who happened to be of the same race. 

[LobselVith8]

Pretty much everyone bar the Chantry comes out of DAI with egg on their faces. Not sure what that's about, but I dislike it a lot.

 

There's certainly a bias in favor of the Andrastian human perspective, particularly in Inquisition; we're pretty much surrounded by advisers, companions, and even minor characters who support the existence of the Chantry or believe in the Andrastian faith, while we encounter characters who vilify or condemn the Dalish. In fact, there aren't any pro-Dalish characters in our inner circle, and it's only the main character who can be pro-Dalish.

 

We also have multiple attempts made to convince us that the Chantry controlled Circles aren't that bad (including from Vivienne, who vilifies the men and women who support mage autonomy as terrorists), while we have the Dalish clans being rectonned into only permitting three mages to invalidate them as a counterpoint to the Chantry controlled Circles (even though this contradicts Merrill's codex and the presence of more than three mages within a clan in Origins). It's unfortunate that Inquisition isn't more balanced.

 

We even have Cassandra asking Lavellan if there isn't room for the Maker among the gods he follows, and she even tells Solas he should consider following the Maker. The plot forces the main character into the position of helping the Chantry, while we're never really afforded the opportunity to help the Dalish in a similar capacity.

[Patchwork]

The disposability of dalish elves has always been troubling, in each game there's the chance to wipe out a clan (it's a lot easier to kill clan Lavellan than it is to save it). TME deliberately makes the clan unlikeable so when Michael makes a deal with a demon to let them be slaughtered in exchange for an eluvian key readers either won't care or think that they deserve it.

 

DAI is tough for an elf fan, you are surrounded by people who disregarding your faith, no one has anything good to say about your people, there's an LI who will dump you if you don't renounce even the possibility of elven gods and one who thinks all modern elves are beneath him. Suddenly the few things you thought you knew like mages being treasured and a community that's close and protective of each other is no longer true.

 

DAI goes too far in tearing down the dalish, so much so that it's difficult to swallow it all. The sheer volume makes me wonder what they're being set-up for and from past experience I think we're going to get a TME style mass murder of the dalish. We're being set-up not to care.  

[LobselVith8]

They had perfectly racist and spiteful reasons for doing it. I don't see why you're so hard on them. They just wanted to watch a neighbor burn for crimes perpetrated against them centuries in the past by another group of people who happened to be of the same race. 

 

I would have thought that the problems that the Dales had with Orlais had to do with Drakon conquering his neighbors, forcing them to convert to his particular Cult of the Maker turned nationalized religion, and causing enough trouble with the Dales that it prevented his planned conquest of the Free Marches. Or templars entering the Dales because the elves wouldn't convert to the Andrastian faith, given the symbiotic ties between the Orlesian Empire and the Chantry of Andraste.

 

Of course, these facts would impede your attempts to paint the Dalish as one-dimensional caricatures, so I can see why you left them out.

 

This isn't the first time I've read this from you, but I still remain vexed as to how you blame the Dalish as racists because humans and elves can only have human children together. I realize you think it's racist, but shouldn't your issue be taken with the developers who made this part of the lore, rather than the elves who have no control over how the children of elves and humans come out entirely human?

[leaguer of one]

There's certainly a bias in favor of the Andrastian human perspective, particularly in Inquisition; we're pretty much surrounded by advisers, companions, and even minor characters who support the existence of the Chantry or believe in the Andrastian faith, while we encounter characters who vilify or condemn the Dalish. In fact, there aren't any pro-Dalish characters in our inner circle, and it's only the main character who can be pro-Dalish.

 

We also have multiple attempts made to convince us that the Chantry controlled Circles aren't that bad (including from Vivienne, who vilifies the men and women who support mage autonomy as terrorists), while we have the Dalish clans being rectonned into only permitting three mages to invalidate them as a counterpoint to the Chantry controlled Circles (even though this contradicts Merrill's codex and the presence of more than three mages within a clan in Origins). It's unfortunate that Inquisition isn't more balanced.

 

We even have Cassandra asking Lavellan if there isn't room for the Maker among the gods he follows, and she even tells Solas he should consider following the Maker. The plot forces the main character into the position of helping the Chantry, while we're never really afforded the opportunity to help the Dalish in a similar capacity.

Not really. Every last one of these Advisers tell you the chantry is mucked up and needs changing. Every last one of them. There belief drives them but it does not make them perfect or shown in good light. What makes them better is what they do once they know the truth. The admit they are wrong or at fualt and try to do better. The issue with the chantry in past games is that no one of the faith is shown to do that. And that's the same issue with the dalsh. It's hard to get them to see admit, or even understand there faults or that they are wrong. And that is what lead to the down fall of the ancient elves and the dales.

And the dalish were not retcon. There is not one clan we have met with more then 3 mages,. They even trade mages they don't or can't have.

 

And that bit about the maker in you statement is a player option as a response.

[leaguer of one]

I would have thought that the problems that the Dales had with Orlais had to do with Drakon conquering his neighbors, forcing them to convert to his particular Cult of the Maker turned nationalized religion, and causing enough trouble with the Dales that it prevented his planned conquest of the Free Marches. Or templars entering the Dales because the elves wouldn't convert to the Andrastian faith, given the symbiotic ties between the Orlesian Empire and the Chantry of Andraste.

 

Of course, these facts would impede your attempts to paint the Dalish as one-dimensional caricatures, so I can see why you left them out.

 

This isn't the first time I've read this from you, but I still remain vexed as to how you blame the Dalish as racists because humans and elves can only have human children together. I realize you think it's racist, but shouldn't your issue be taken with the developers who made this part of the lore, rather than the elves who have no control over how the children of elves and humans come out entirely human?

Dude, Orlis was still recoving from a blight...A Blight the elves stood back and watch and did nothing about. Sorry, but they were just being arrogant.

[In Exile]

I would have thought that the problems that the Dales had with Orlais had to do with Drakon conquering his neighbors, forcing them to convert to his particular Cult of the Maker turned nationalized religion, and causing enough trouble with the Dales that it prevented his planned conquest of the Free Marches. Or templars entering the Dales because the elves wouldn't convert to the Andrastian faith, given the symbiotic ties between the Orlesian Empire and the Chantry of Andraste.

 

I didn't gloss over this explanation, because I actually find the racism explanation more charitable to the Dales than this purportedly realpolitik explanation. The darkspawn are an existential threat that hope to wipe out all life in Thedas. What you are suggesting is that the Dales, when faced with an antagonist an expansionist neighbor, hoped that the literal manifestation of evil would exterminate them from the face of the Earth. 

 

It's not only almost tantamount to a declaration of war, it is the intentional condemnation of thousands of innocent people to rape, mutation and death because of, essentially, a desire to get rid of an aggressive military neighbor. The racist would almost be better than this, because at least the racists have the excuse of their racism blinding them from treating others as equal persons. This defence has the Dales saying that humans are of equal moral worth to elves, but they should die anyway because it would be less of a pain in their ass. 

 

Not to mention that this is a bigot explanation anyway, since it's apparently all tied with the spread of the Orlesian Chantry. So in your defence the Dales didn't let Orlais burn because they hated humans, they did it because they wanted to see the Andrastian Chantry crumble. Wonderful. They're not racists, they're bigots. 

 

This isn't the first time I've read this from you, but I still remain vexed as to how you blame the Dalish as racists because humans and elves can only have human children together. I realize you think it's racist, but shouldn't your issue be taken with the developers who made this part of the lore, rather than the elves who have no control over how the children of elves and humans come out entirely human?

 

I can't begin to grasp why you're digging up topics I haven't brought up in this thread. The Dalish are racist because they hold views that are, objectively speaking, clearly racist. Their views on reproduction are one element of it. 

 

Let me try - although I know it is completely futile - to explain this to you one more time. White supremacists will not be owed an apology if they turn out to be right about there being a "white" race that makes interracial marriage somehow a threat to the continued existence of "white" people. It's not the biological fact of there being such a thing as "race" that makes the view offensive, it's the moral value attributed to the preservation of this group above all others and the associated beliefs with xenophobic exclusion of others, rejection of mixed-race relationships, cultural isolation, etc.

 

Humans in the ME setting who frown on human-asari relationships because all the children will be asari are racists. It's the same thing. It will always be the same thing. 

[Generic Guy]

Put me in the camp that feels that the Dalish are actually interesting now. I might actually play an elf in a future installment of a game, something I've never done, because of the revelations from DAI. Elves as thinking multi-dimensional flawed beings, instead of someone's ideal caricature, who would of thought?

[LobselVith8]

I didn't gloss over this explanation, because I actually find the racism explanation more charitable to the Dales than this purportedly realpolitik explanation. The darkspawn are an existential threat that hope to wipe out all life in Thedas. What you are suggesting is that the Dales, when faced with an antagonist an expansionist neighbor, hoped that the literal manifestation of evil would exterminate them from the face of the Earth. 

 

Which has been ignored in the past by other nations, which is why Orlais had to be coerced to help during the Third Blight (and then used it as an excuse to conquer Nevarra), while they sent only a token force during the Fourth Blight; in other words, pretty much ignoring the threat posed by the darkspawn and letting others suffer because it wasn't a direct threat to them. And yet, people like you act like the Dales is the only nation that can be blamed for not putting aside grievances to deal with the darkspawn.

 

It's not only almost tantamount to a declaration of war, it is the intentional condemnation of thousands of innocent people to rape, mutation and death because of, essentially, a desire to get rid of an aggressive military neighbor. The racist would almost be better than this, because at least the racists have the excuse of their racism blinding them from treating others as equal persons. This defence has the Dales saying that humans are of equal moral worth to elves, but they should die anyway because it would be less of a pain in their ass. 

 

It's an example that the Dales didn't help Orlais specifically, and given the issues between the two, that's not remotely surprising. The only society that has consistently taken the darkspawn seriously are the dwarves, which is something they have over humans and elves alike.

 

Not to mention that this is a bigot explanation anyway, since it's apparently all tied with the spread of the Orlesian Chantry. So in your defence the Dales didn't let Orlais burn because they hated humans, they did it because they wanted to see the Andrastian Chantry crumble. Wonderful. They're not racists, they're bigots. 

 

You mean the elves had issues with their Orlesian neighbor for conquering and forcibly converting the rest of their neighbors, with the implication that Drakon had attempted the same with the Dales and failed (given his inability to conquer the Free Marches due to his issues with the Dales), and therefore the elves were wary of this enemy state.

 

I can't begin to grasp why you're digging up topics I haven't brought up in this thread. The Dalish are racist because they hold views that are, objectively speaking, clearly racist. Their views on reproduction are one element of it. 

 

Unfortunately for you, the lore specifies that humans and elves have human children. It's mentioned in "The Calling" and "The Masked Empire". It's not simply a view held by the Dalish.

 

Let me try - although I know it is completely futile - to explain this to you one more time. White supremacists will not be owed an apology if they turn out to be right about there being a "white" race that makes interracial marriage somehow a threat to the continued existence of "white" people. It's not the biological fact of there being such a thing as "race" that makes the view offensive, it's the moral value attributed to the preservation of this group above all others and the associated beliefs with xenophobic exclusion of others, rejection of mixed-race relationships, cultural isolation, etc.

 

Technically, the lore reads that most clans have a history of wanting to be left anyone. I also disagree with your notion of racial purity. You're equating the idea of biologically-motivated racial preserving with an ethnocentric sense of racial purity, which isn't the same thing. Saying "We must preserve the white race because it is better than the brown people so no white people can have children with brown people" is radically different from saying "If elves don't have children with elves, elves will physically cease to exist forever as a species".

[In Exile]

Which has been ignored in the past by other nations, which is why Orlais had to be coerced to help during the Third Blight (and then used it as an excuse to conquer Nevarra), while they sent only a token force during the Fourth Blight; in other words, pretty much ignoring the threat posed by the darkspawn and letting others suffer because it wasn't a direct threat to them. And yet, people like you act like the Dales is the only nation that can be blamed for not putting aside grievances to deal with the darkspawn.

 

No, I'm not. I have never suggested such a thing. Not in this thread, or in any other. 

 

 

 

It's an example that the Dales didn't help Orlais specifically, and given the issues between the two, that's not remotely surprising. The only society that has consistently taken the darkspawn seriously are the dwarves, which is something they have over humans and elves alike.

 

You mean the elves had issues with their Orlesian neighbor for conquering and forcibly converting the rest of their neighbors, with the implication that Drakon had attempted the same with the Dales and failed (given his inability to conquer the Free Marches due to his issues with the Dales), and therefore the elves were wary of this enemy state.

 

It's absolutely morally reprehensible action that certainly makes the Dales the equivalent of Orlais in any purported moral weighing of the two countries, and more importantly undercuts the notion that the Dales were the victims of Orlesian aggression. They took a clearly premeditated risk to have an aggressive neighbor eradicated - in the most horrible way possible - by an army of poisonous rape abominations. It's only less vile than what Orlais did in the Dales because the Orlesians did the ramping and kiling themselves rather than by proxy. 

 

The elves weren't wary of an enemy state. They intentionally condemned innocent people - who just happened to be of a different race and religion - to the worst possible death imaginable to get rid of a political thorn in their side. At the very least that's as bad as the military conquest of the pre-Orlesian city states by Drakon, and given the brutality and terror that the darkspawn inflict (not to mention the threat they pose to the existence of all life on Thedas) both a more brutal and incomprehensible action.  

 

Even if you somehow pretend that your alternative account to racism was not largely based in bigotry (being that the Dalish wanted the Orlesian Chantry to collapse and cease the spread of their religion), we've still got an incredible dark and immoral action that puts the Dales squarely on the same moral tier as Orlais. 

 

 

 

Technically, the lore reads that most clans have a history of wanting to be left anyone. I also disagree with your notion of racial purity. You're equating the idea of biologically-motivated racial preserving with an ethnocentric sense of racial purity, which isn't the same thing. Saying "We must preserve the white race because it is better than the brown people so no white people can have children with brown people" is radically different from saying "If elves don't have children with elves, elves will physically cease to exist forever as a species".

 

You don't get it. White supremacists say "If white people don't have children with white people, white people will cease to exist as a race forever". This is what they believe. IRL racists, as hard as it is for you to seemingly wrap your head around this idea, believe in a biologically based idea of race. 

 

This also ignores the Dalish ethnocentric racism, of course: their view that they were once an race of all-immortal mages who dominated all of Thedas, and their counting the days before all humans die out so they can retake the world. And before you say that they're not gleefully crossing their fingers that all humans will die just like the KKK is hoping all non-whites go away so that they can spread and convert all others to their ideology well: 

 

In time, the human empires will crumble. We have seen it happen countless times. Until then, we wait, we keep to the wild border lands, we raise halla and build aravels and present a moving target to the humans around us. We try to keep hold of the old ways, to relearn what was forgotten.

We call to the ancient gods, although they do not answer and have not heard us since before the fall of Arlathan, so that one day they might remember us: Elgar'nan the Eldest of the Sun and He Who Overthrew His Father, Mythal the Protector, Fen'Harel the Dread Wolf, Andruil the Huntress, Falon'Din the Friend of the Dead, Dirthamen the Keeper of Secrets, Ghilan'nain the Mother of Halla, June the Master of Crafts, and Sylaise the Hearthkeeper.

We gather every ten years for the Arlathvhen, to retell the ancient stories and keep them alive. For when the human kingdoms are gone, we must be ready to teach the others what it means to be elves.

[MoonDrummer]

Darkspawn killing humans are darkspawn that aren't killing elves. It is the primary objective of the dalish army to protect the dales and they succeeded in doing so.

You know until they got shittershattered

[Gervaise]

Patchwork: Thank you for getting the point of this post.   Like you say, in Masked Empire the writer did his best to make you not care that Michel's actions, and Briala's/Fellassan's response, allowed Imshael to wipe out the entire clan, including women and children.    The best we got was Gaspard saying that even elves didn't deserve this.    As another says, it was actually far easier to wipe out your Lavellan clan than save them and nobody cared enough to write in a dialogue that acknowledged your loss.  

 

Then there as the mission of the Weeping Halla.   If you chose to give the information about Red Crossing to the Dalish, as I understood it the Dalish clan were making it as gesture of good will, a bit of bridge building between communities.   The reaction of your advisors was Josephine: I could blackmail he local noble into accepting it but it will cause a great deal of bother; Lelianna: I could trick the villagers into thinking it is a spoil of war; Cullen: If it is that important I suppose we could march the damn Halla into the villager under protection of our soldiers.   None of these seemed to match the spirit in which the halla was being given.    May be that was okay if your Inquisitor wasn't Dalish but to be honest, as a Lavellan I felt insulted, because it was important to me and I saw it as a gesture of good will even if the Dalish clan didn't intend it as such.   That no one from the writing team even considered that might be the case seems to suggest that they really couldn't care less how they've rubbished the Dalish and are setting them up for something bad.     Even the scenario attached to the Lavellan Inquisitor seemed odd since it involved a Keeper in the northern Freemarches sending one of their clan hundreds of miles south for no discernible reason, unless they had some insider knowledge that something big was going to happen.   Mind you, I suppose if the clans regularly dump mage children in the hope they will be picked up by the Chantry, then perhaps they would have an interest in proceedings.

 

I must be stupid or something because I never got the vibe in DAO and DA2 that the clans just considered their members as disposable assets.   The one good thing I felt you could say about the Dalish was that they cared for each other and letting other clans have one of their mage children would be a real wrench and only done out of desire to help them and ensure they were never without a mage/Keeper and the knowledge that the child would be looked after.   

 

As for criticising Marethari for turning the clan against Merrill, it should be remembered that Merrill was indulging in dangerous magic and was ignoring the advice of her Keeper on this issue.   Naturally the clan would side with the Keeper since she is meant to look out for their interests.   That is why at the end they acknowledge that Marethari actually cared more about Merrill than their welfare.    Had Merrill abandoned her fixation with the mirror before Marethari's death, she would have been taken back into the clan again.    In any case, Merrill was a grown women and able to make her own choice on the matter.      It is not the same thing as turning your backs on a defenceless child and leaving them to fend for themselves because they have inconveniently developed magical talent.

[Shechinah]

(to In Exile) I wouldn't call that "gleefully crossing their fingers that all humans will die" as much as the person considering the fall of human empires inevitable, likely caused by the humans themselves.

 

I rather like that the clans differs from each other becaise it'll only make sense. They do not see each other often depending on where they roam and they are likely to experience different things which would culminate in clans with differing views and practices. One clan might put more of an emphasis on one aspect of their past as oppose to another.

 

I'd imaging a clan that lives must more isolated and rarely if ever encounters humans would not worry about the attention drawn of their possible mages and so would likely keep them.  

[In Exile]

(to In Exile) I wouldn't call that "gleefully crossing their fingers that all humans will die" as much as the person considering the fall of human empires inevitable, likely caused by the humans themselves.

 

They can't mean it as a historically claim because they've never seen that happen. Literally their entire recorded history is the repeated ascension of humanity and the subjugation of their people. 

[LobselVith8]

It's absolutely morally reprehensible action that certainly makes the Dales the equivalent of Orlais in any purported moral weighing of the two countries, and more importantly undercuts the notion that the Dales were the victims of Orlesian aggression. They took a clearly premeditated risk to have an aggressive neighbor eradicated - in the most horrible way possible - by an army of poisonous rape abominations. It's only less vile than what Orlais did in the Dales because the Orlesians did the ramping and kiling themselves rather than by proxy. 

 

No source claims that the Dales wanted to have Orlais eradicated.

 

The elves weren't wary of an enemy state. They intentionally condemned innocent people - who just happened to be of a different race and religion - to the worst possible death imaginable to get rid of a political thorn in their side. At the very least that's as bad as the military conquest of the pre-Orlesian city states by Drakon, and given the brutality and terror that the darkspawn inflict (not to mention the threat they pose to the existence of all life on Thedas) both a more brutal and incomprehensible action.  

 

The Emerald Knights being posted to keep out their Orlesian neighbors would suggest that they were wary of the neighboring enemy state, particularly in the wake of Drakon's conquests and forced conversions.

 

Even if you somehow pretend that your alternative account to racism was not largely based in bigotry (being that the Dalish wanted the Orlesian Chantry to collapse and cease the spread of their religion), we've still got an incredible dark and immoral action that puts the Dales squarely on the same moral tier as Orlais. 

 

You mean the elves simply didn't want to convert to the human religion that Drakon imposed on his subjects, as no source claims that the elves wanted to eradicate the Chantry of Andraste.

 

You don't get it. White supremacists say "If white people don't have children with white people, white people will cease to exist as a race forever". This is what they believe. IRL racists, as hard as it is for you to seemingly wrap your head around this idea, believe in a biologically based idea of race. 

 

Your retort entirely ignores the simple fact that humans of any ethnic group are still human, while elves are an entirely different species who happen to co-exist alongside humans, dwarves, and qunari on the same fictitious continent.

 

This also ignores the Dalish ethnocentric racism, of course: their view that they were once an race of all-immortal mages who dominated all of Thedas, and their counting the days before all humans die out so they can retake the world. And before you say that they're not gleefully crossing their fingers that all humans will die just like the KKK is hoping all non-whites go away so that they can spread and convert all others to their ideology well:

 

Elvhenan was a continent-wide society comprised entirely of elves, before humans landed on Par Vollen; there's no evidence that it didn't exist. Also, we have examples of Dalish who have demonstrated a willingness to help humans, from the clans who honored the treaties signed with the Grey Wardens and fought during the Fifth Blight to the heroic Clan Lavellan rescuing the humans of Wycome from red lyrium poisoning.

[Patchwork]

Patchwork: Thank you for getting the point of this post.   Like you say, in Masked Empire the writer did his best to make you not care that Michel's actions, and Briala's/Fellassan's response, allowed Imshael to wipe out the entire clan, including women and children.    The best we got was Gaspard saying that even elves didn't deserve this.    As another says, it was actually far easier to wipe out your Lavellan clan than save them and nobody cared enough to write in a dialogue that acknowledged your loss.  

 

Then there as the mission of the Weeping Halla.   If you chose to give the information about Red Crossing to the Dalish, as I understood it the Dalish clan were making it as gesture of good will, a bit of bridge building between communities.   The reaction of your advisors was Josephine: I could blackmail he local noble into accepting it but it will cause a great deal of bother; Lelianna: I could trick the villagers into thinking it is a spoil of war; Cullen: If it is that important I suppose we could march the damn Halla into the villager under protection of our soldiers.   None of these seemed to match the spirit in which the halla was being given.    May be that was okay if your Inquisitor wasn't Dalish but to be honest, as a Lavellan I felt insulted, because it was important to me and I saw it as a gesture of good will even if the Dalish clan didn't intend it as such.   That no one from the writing team even considered that might be the case seems to suggest that they really couldn't care less how they've rubbished the Dalish and are setting them up for something bad.     Even the scenario attached to the Lavellan Inquisitor seemed odd since it involved a Keeper in the northern Freemarches sending one of their clan hundreds of miles south for no discernible reason, unless they had some insider knowledge that something big was going to happen.   Mind you, I suppose if the clans regularly dump mage children in the hope they will be picked up by the Chantry, then perhaps they would have an interest in proceedings.

 

I must be stupid or something because I never got the vibe in DAO and DA2 that the clans just considered their members as disposable assets.   The one good thing I felt you could say about the Dalish was that they cared for each other and letting other clans have one of their mage children would be a real wrench and only done out of desire to help them and ensure they were never without a mage/Keeper and the knowledge that the child would be looked after.   

 

As for criticising Marethari for turning the clan against Merrill, it should be remembered that Merrill was indulging in dangerous magic and was ignoring the advice of her Keeper on this issue.   Naturally the clan would side with the Keeper since she is meant to look out for their interests.   That is why at the end they acknowledge that Marethari actually cared more about Merrill than their welfare.    Had Merrill abandoned her fixation with the mirror before Marethari's death, she would have been taken back into the clan again.    In any case, Merrill was a grown women and able to make her own choice on the matter.      It is not the same thing as turning your backs on a defenceless child and leaving them to fend for themselves because they have inconveniently developed magical talent.

 

I went with the Cullen option for the Weeping Halla quest, Josephine and Leliana completely miss the point of why the clan want to give Red Crossing this gift. It's an acknowledgment of the part the Dales elves played in their fate and the wrongs done to that town however grudgingly soldiers make sure that's the message that's delivered. 

 

DAI changed a lot of what DAO and DA2 established about the nature of the dalish they were made to be cruel just to make the alternative look better. 

[Gervaise]

I suppose I also feel a bit guilty because I've been ***** footing around Solas not knowing if being too confrontational would finish our romance prematurely.   Also rather ironically I had made her backstory that her city elf parents had asked the Lavellan clan to take her so she could be free rather than shut up in a Circle all her life, so it was just as well I was able to say that the Lavellan clan don't just dump mage children.

 

Now I'm playing with a male Lavellan, so no possibility of temptation, and I'm being much more forceful in defending my culture, which is based on how I perceived it from DAO and DA2.    Solas has said that clans are different throughout Thedas but I'm guessing that the clans of Maevaris, "Dalish" and the ones Vivienne alludes to are all from the immediate area, so I'll assume that they are of a type with the one in Masked Empire as thus Orlesian based.    Since I think Orlesian human culture stinks too, may be it is something in the water.     Anyway, I've decided that so far as my male Lavellan is concerned he does represent the Dalish rather than being the exception but since his clan lives in the northern Freemarches, may be they have lost touch with the way things are done in the south and so he is not aware that in fact they are no longer the norm.

[leaguer of one]

Darkspawn killing humans are darkspawn that aren't killing elves. It is the primary objective of the dalish army to protect the dales and they succeeded in doing so.

You know until they got shittershattered

Sorry, that makes no sense. Darkspawn are a threat to everyone. Darkspawn killing human are just darkspawn that will one day kill elves. Not doing anything about it before it happens is just going to lead to it happening later. Because once the darkspawn get past the human it's coming for the elves and the elves don't have the numbers to stop it. The darkspan are not enemies that weaken or have lesser numbers over time. The horde is always going to get bigger. Not help in the blight was a stupid idea.

[LobselVith8]

I suppose I also feel a bit guilty because I've been ***** footing around Solas not knowing if being too confrontational would finish our romance prematurely.   Also rather ironically I had made her backstory that her city elf parents had asked the Lavellan clan to take her so she could be free rather than shut up in a Circle all her life, so it was just as well I was able to say that the Lavellan clan don't just dump mage children.

 

I've noticed a few people used that as part of their background for their respective Lavellan - originally being from an Alienage or Andrastian family. I imagined mine was from the clan, descended from the Dales and Arlathan - Finn makes this remark about how some of the Dalish have the "purest" blood from Arlathan when he talks about the scrying ritual and using Ariane's blood, and I had decided to use it as part of my Lavellan Inquisitor's background. I thought it helped give a rather different upbringing from my Surana Warden, who was originally from the Denerim Alienage before the templars stole him from his family.

 

Now I'm playing with a male Lavellan, so no possibility of temptation, and I'm being much more forceful in defending my culture, which is based on how I perceived it from DAO and DA2.    Solas has said that clans are different throughout Thedas but I'm guessing that the clans of Maevaris, "Dalish" and the ones Vivienne alludes to are all from the immediate area, so I'll assume that they are of a type with the one in Masked Empire as thus Orlesian based.

 

One could presume that Vivienne's hearsay information is derived from either Minaeve or the mercenary Dalish, and I suppose it's possible either one (or both) could be from Clan Virnehn.

 

Since I think Orlesian human culture stinks too, may be it is something in the water.     Anyway, I've decided that so far as my male Lavellan is concerned he does represent the Dalish rather than being the exception but since his clan lives in the northern Freemarches, may be they have lost touch with the way things are done in the south and so he is not aware that in fact they are no longer the norm.

 

I imagine the last Arlathvenn would have given Lavellan a good idea about how the other clans are like. Velanna and Ariane recognize Mahariel from the last Arlathvenn. I actually think it's possible Lavellan might know Merrill from the last Arlathvenn.

[MoonDrummer]

Sorry, that makes no sense. Darkspawn are a threat to everyone. Darkspawn killing human are just darkspawn that will one day kill elves. Not doing anything about it before it happens is just going to lead to it happening later. Because once the darkspawn get past the human it's coming for the elves and the elves don't have the numbers to stop it. The darkspan are not enemies that weaken or have lesser numbers over time. The horde is always going to get bigger. Not help in the blight was a stupid idea.

It makes perfect sense, it's means that the darkspawn are preoccupied besieging Montsimmard, sieges can last years, given the right conditions. This means that whilst the darkspawn are besieging the city the horde is not entering the dales. This gives time for the elves to levy more troops, or for the grey wardens to get more members. It also means that the main bulk of darkspawn will stay in orlais meaning the dalish only have to mop up stragglers.

We don't know his many men this elven army had either, it's possible that they wouldn't have had the manpower to break the siege anyway.

The took up a policy of defending their own lands rather than driving the darkspawn out of human lands.

It's legit.

[Shadow Quickpaw]

To the racial supremecy arguments: In real life, if two species are able to produce viable offspring (dogs+wolves for example, not ligers which are sterile/barren) they are considered to be scientifically the same species. So by rl scientific standards, humans and elves are the same species.

 

No we know this doesn't work with the current DA lore system as there is magic. A closer approximation of the elf-human offspring would be Mass Effect's Asari, which are quite similar in that an asari+anything else always produces an asari. Thus, human+elf always produces a human. In magical terms, anyway.

 

When the Red Crossing events come to light, if the intel is given to the Dalish they admit to fault and try to make amends as best they can. Give it to the Chantry and they go: "Ha ha, it's the all their fault! Burn the heathens!' When it was a misunderstanding perpetuated by both sides.

 

I occasionally want to get snippy with Dorian when he says: "Tevinter was where Thedas truly began, remember?" And I want to go: "Um, no. Elvhenan was there first, whether or not it was a better moral society." Especially if I'm playing a Dalish elf.

[leaguer of one]

It makes perfect sense, it's means that the darkspawn are preoccupied besieging Montsimmard, sieges can last years, given the right conditions. This means that whilst the darkspawn are besieging the city the horde is not entering the dales. This gives time for the elves to levy more troops, or for the grey wardens to get more members. It also means that the main bulk of darkspawn will stay in orlais meaning the dalish only have to mop up stragglers.

We don't know his many men this elven army had either, it's possible that they wouldn't have had the manpower to break the siege anyway.

The took up a policy of defending their own lands rather than driving the darkspawn out of human lands.

It's legit.

Levy more troops with group with a limited population? Please try agein. Sorry that make no sense. Matching a  darkspawn with numbers is pointless. They would just make more, much much more. Letting the darkspawn stay for any long time is just going to make the problem worse. It a horrible idea simply because it just making the problem of the darkspawn worse in the long run.

 

And yes we do know how many men the elves army has. The fact the elve in general has a way smaller population then human make it a point there is a massive limit to there army numbers.

 

Not helping the humans with the darkspawn to defend their home land is just going to mean they are going to face a larger darkspawn army in the long run when it comes to there home land.