I'm making this thread to discuss what I call the "Tides of Magic" hypothesis, which claims: "Magic and magical phenomena on Thedas are subject to natural fluctuations in strength, with periods of more than a thousand years. These "tides" can provide a unified explanation of some apparently unrelated phenomena. "
[I'm posting this there instead of the Story forum because the story forum is dominated by character threads to an extent that I'm afraid people interested in anything else won't even go there any more]
I can, at this moment, present no systematic body of evidence in support of this hypothesis. Instead, I'll list the facts, both in lore and in the stories we've played or read, that would be connected or explained by this.
(1) Sandal's prophecy:
"One day the magic will come back. All of it. Everyone will be just like they were" - This indicates a return to a state that existed before. So far we have no idea what caused the original "disappearance" of the magic he speaks about, but if it points to anything real it appears more likely this is a natural thing, since we don't have any evidence of some large-scale magical disaster except the Blights, and we know - the evidence has mounted up to the point that I'll treat this as knowledge - what caused them.
(2) The Old Gods so-called "imprisonment"....
...may not have been that. Since I rule out the "Hand of the Maker" as the cause of anything unless someone gives me convincing evidence that he even exists, I find it hard to imagine a power that would be able to imprison them. What if they went into hibernation instead, and their hibernation, which obviously can't be connected to something like variations in the day/night cycle, was connected to variations in the strength of magical phenomena?
(3) Solas referring to his "long slumber". Also, the elven gods.
Why did he go to sleep? Could it be that he had little choice in the matter since the waning magic left him weak? What if the other elven gods were never "banished" but are just sleeping, with Solas being awake early and Mythal, well, since she was somewhat dead maybe special rules apply to her. Regardless, why does he awake now? Of course the reason is "the story needs him" but I suspect that there's a better in-world explanation than "he just happened to awake at this time".
(4) Corypheus' Awakening.
Why now? It could've just been attrition that made his prison weak, but Malcolm Hawke's reinforcements weren't all that long ago when Corypheus takes over the Carta dwarfs to lure Hawke in. A deeper underlying cause like "the magic is returning, strengthening Corypheus" would explain much.
(5) Meta-level: Originally, Thedas as a setting was inspired by "A Song of Ice and Fire", which features a similar scenario of returning magic.
The reason why I'm proposing this hypothesis is that all these things, as far as they have, or need an explanation at all, would need separate explanations, and some of them would need a large explanation. We don't have an explanation for *any* of them, and I find it unlikely that so many unknown mysteries related to the same aspects of the world - gods and magic - are explained by their own, disconnected causative events.
I call this a hypothesis rather than a theory because that is the correct term, in fact, for most of the "theories" which have been posted about Thedas lore. A theory explains how things work in a cohesive, well-structured manner, and is supported by a systematic body of evidence, which supports that things actually do work a certain way rather than "could work". At this point, all that can be said in favor of the "Tides of Magic" hypothesis is that it could explain a few things neatly if it were true. There is no direct and compelling evidence that it actually is true.
However, I find it beautiful, and that's how many successful theories started IRL.
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