24 réponses à ce sujet

[catabuca]

After the end of the game, the Inquisitor still has the anchor.Seems it's a permanent kinda deal, there. 

 

So, do you think it will feature in future DLC? You can continue closing any remaining rifts after the game has ended, but beyond any of them still hanging around, do you think there's any other use for the anchor, one no one realises yet? If your Inquisitor isn't a mage, they are in quite a unique position, having access to a type of magic (albeit one they don't really understand and likely can't utilise properly).

 

If we are to have a Solas DLC, I could see there being some kind of further use for it that either Solas already knows about, or that is discovered during the course of the DLC, and we'll be the key - replacing his orb to an extent - to whatever he does next.

[The Baconer]

They can kill people in their sleep! No one is safe!

[Fearsome1]

I sort of hope that the first dlc will at least give us some intimation of what may be in the pipes for the Inquisitor, the Inquisition and/or the anchor?

[Nimlowyn]

Not finished with my canon play through yet, but if given the possibility, she may use the anchor to help Solas with whatever he's up to. Really curious where Bioware is gonna go with this and what kind of choices we'll have.

[catabuca]

Not finished with my canon play through yet, but if given the possibility, she may use the anchor to help Solas with whatever he's up to. Really curious where Bioware is gonna go with this and what kind of choices we'll have.

 

Same here. Presumably Solas still wants to achieve whatever it is that he wants to achieve. Either he has to find a completely different way, or he has to look to what remains of the type of magic needed. That leaves us with (from what we know of at least) the anchor, and those orby-type globe doo-dads he has us activate everywhere.

 

Skyhold is clearly a place of importance - the veil is very old there. If what he wants to do is safely remove the veil (rather than in a big scary breachy kind of way that involuntarily pulls through lots of angry spirits/demons) it might make sense that he'd go to the place where the veil is not only very, very old (and significant, presumably) but where the last remaining vestige of his orb's power is hanging out getting drunk and playing Wicked Grace every night.

[Nimlowyn]

Same here. Presumably Solas still wants to achieve whatever it is that he wants to achieve. Either he has to find a completely different way, or he has to look to what remains of the type of magic needed. That leaves us with (from what we know of at least) the anchor, and those orby-type globe doo-dads he has us activate everywhere.

 

Skyhold is clearly a place of importance - the veil is very old there. If what he wants to do is safely remove the veil (rather than in a big scary breachy kind of way that involuntarily pulls through lots of angry spirits/demons) it might make sense that he'd go to the place where the veil is not only very, very old (and significant, presumably) but where the last remaining vestige of his orb's power is hanging out getting drunk and playing Wicked Grace every night.

You know I was just thinking about this yesterday, how Skyhold seems to be so much more, they can't be done with it. (I mean I suppose they could be, but from my vantage point anyway, it would seem odd to). The talk with Morrigan and Solas' knowledge of it seems to suggest that it could be part of his plans, so what you're saying makes sense to me. Maybe in DLC or whatever it'll be less a Wolf Hunt and more a...Wolf Confrontation. Since you're kicking around with a remnant of the anchor (presuming it is still functional) in a place that is apparently teeming with ancient Elven magic and purpose. 

 

Honestly, I'd love the choice to be able to help him. Personally, I fear it'll be terrible for Thedas but it is a compelling choice and something I think my Lavellan would probably do (for the People, the Creators, all that). At the same time I'm trying to be careful, because they're going to go in the direction they want to, and, particularly as a Solasmancer, I don't want to get my hopes up.

[Aren]

The Inquisitor will be forgotten, just like Hawke and the Warden this is the inevitable route of the series if the protagonist is always new and highly customizable.

The anchor as well as the Inquisitor will continue to exist through the codexes,the companions cameos but nothing more.

[catabuca]

 

The Inquisitor will be forgotten, just like Hawke and the Warden this is the inevitable route of the series if the protagonist is always new and highly customizable.

The anchor as well as the Inquisitor will continue to exist through the codexes,the companions cameos but nothing more.

 

 

Yeah, just like the warden and Hawke were forgotten in their DLC, just like they didn't appear in their DLC...

 

I'm specifically asking about ways in which people think the anchor might feature IN DLC.

 

[SwobyJ]

I sorta expect the Anchor to be heavily involved in at least one DLC.

 

Noooo clue how though. Could be totally out of nowhere.

 

I don't think it may be super important in future games though. Rift Magic may continue, but we don't know in what form. At the very least, the Veil's workings will be researched more and perhaps be a more central field of study and magical practice in Thedas.

 

This may be done to the point of giving mages mini-Anchors, of sorts. Perhaps a whole other field of manipulating the fabric of reality, using the Anchor as a blueprint.

[Drasanil]

I wonder if the anchor makes magequisitors immune to tranquillity given it's a permanent connection to the fade. Kind of similar to how demons/spirits can be used to undo tranquillity. 

[Ser Kilroy]

im guessing somebody else will try to remove the anchor and use it to breach the fade or the quizzy will be become an key npc in DA4 and will use to take the new main char into the for some reason.

[Cha0sEff3ct]

I don't really understand the anchor to be honest. I get that it opens and closes rifts to the fade. Was that always the purpose of Solas's ball? And I don't understand why Cory needed to power it up with Justinia's "essence" or whatever he was doing with her. Besides her being a symbolic sacrifice, was some old lady's essence really all that was needed to power up the orb? 

 

Solas if taken to the fade never imagined he could be in the fade in the flesh. Since he is an elven "god" why would he not (in the past) have had some way of getting there and back(unless he is just lying to keep his identity a secret). Mythal/Flemeth got into the Fade somehow if Morrigan had the god baby to steal Urthemiel's essence.

 

There definitely has to be more with the anchor and the inquisitor. Bioware better not waste another hero. I personally don't want to have a new hero every game. I thought the Inquisitor was the answer to remaining true to the first game of being able to be whatever race/gender you wanted instead of giving us a default hero like Hawke. With Hawke they were sort of giving us another Shephard again. I was thinking the inquisitor with all of their personal character customizations may be part of a trilogy like Mass Effect in a sense only this time it's not a "default" hero like Shephard.

 

The anchor is too important. I feel like in an upcoming game there will be a reason to venture into the veil and into the black city and the inquisitor is the key and the one to do it. The blight is connected to the corruption of the golden city to the black city. Mythal/Flemeth also angrily talks about planning a reckoning to shake the very heavens. If taken literally maybe she means the golden city/black city. Also there are 9 elven Gods. Solas and Flemeth if not one of the 1st four old gods slain(not counting the 5th Urthemiel since we know it can't be either of them), if combined with the 7 old gods/archdemons could they be the 9 elven gods? If the maker is real and the old gods were false gods there might be a bigger war at hand between the 9 gods and the maker. I'm probably wrong on a lot of accounts since I'm only extrapolating from what I know about the mythology in the game. I don't know all the stories and codex entries in depth like that.

[catabuca]

I don't really understand the anchor to be honest. I get that it opens and closes rifts to the fade. Was that always the purpose of Solas's ball? And I don't understand why Cory needed to power it up with Justinia's "essence" or whatever he was doing with her. Besides her being a symbolic sacrifice, was some old lady's essence really all that was needed to power up the orb? 

 

Solas if taken to the fade never imagined he could be in the fade in the flesh. Since he is an elven "god" why would he not (in the past) have had some way of getting there and back(unless he is just lying to keep his identity a secret). Mythal/Flemeth got into the Fade somehow if Morrigan had the god baby to steal Urthemiel's essence.

 

There definitely has to be more with the anchor and the inquisitor. Bioware better not waste another hero. I personally don't want to have a new hero every game. I thought the Inquisitor was the answer to remaining true to the first game of being able to be whatever race/gender you wanted instead of giving us a default hero like Hawke. With Hawke they were sort of giving us another Shephard again. I was thinking the inquisitor with all of their personal character customizations may be part of a trilogy like Mass Effect in a sense only this time it's not a "default" hero like Shephard.

 

The anchor is too important. I feel like in an upcoming game there will be a reason to venture into the veil and into the black city and the inquisitor is the key and the one to do it. The blight is connected to the corruption of the golden city to the black city. Mythal/Flemeth also angrily talks about planning a reckoning to shake the very heavens. If taken literally maybe she means the golden city/black city. Also there are 9 elven Gods. Solas and Flemeth if not one of the 1st four old gods slain(not counting the 5th Urthemiel since we know it can't be either of them), if combined with the 7 old gods/archdemons could they be the 9 elven gods? If the maker is real and the old gods were false gods there might be a bigger war at hand between the 9 gods and the maker. I'm probably wrong on a lot of accounts since I'm only extrapolating from what I know about the mythology in the game. I don't know all the stories and codex entries in depth like that.

 

I think there's still a lot left unanswered about the orb. I expect we'll find out more should there be a Solas DLC of some kind (which I expect there will be).

 

I wonder whether, had Cory not been interrupted, if he'd have been able to harness the full power of the orb anyway, since it wasn't his. Did Solas teach him how to use it? Or did he teach him how to partially use it? Was Cory doing what Solas described should be done? Or did Cory use it in a completely different way than Solas intended? I know Solas said he never meant for any of this to happen -- that could just mean he didn't want whatever Cory was doing to go wrong (because of the Inquisitor blundering in), or it could mean that he thought Cory would use it in a different way.

 

As for 'why Justinia' - well it seems that the Temple of Sacred Ashes was quite an important spot. In the final fight you can see a mosaic on the floor - it's apparently an ancient elven mosaic of Mythal. There's some big connection between Mythal, Andraste and dragons, that's for sure. Skyhold is apparently rather important as well, because of the age of the veil there, and Solas' knowledge of the place. I wonder if they weren't important for similar reasons -- perhaps they both had a connection to the fade, perhaps both sites were important during the creation of the veil, which is why trying to rip through the veil and alter the very fabric of it might be an easier thing to achieve at one of these sites (there are probably other sites like that too).

 

Solas gets incredibly enthusiastic and excited in an early conversation you can have with him, asking you to imagine what it might be like if people and spirits co-existed, if there was no veil, no separate planes of the fade and mortal reality. What if Solas was in some way responsible for creating the veil way back when... what if his plan is to restore what he once knew? That would make his plans for us and the anchor quite interesting indeed. I'm hopeful if this is something that is explored it'll uncover more about Skyhold as well, because as a place it's fascinating. 

[Cha0sEff3ct]

I think there's still a lot left unanswered about the orb. I expect we'll find out more should there be a Solas DLC of some kind (which I expect there will be).

 

I wonder whether, had Cory not been interrupted, if he'd have been able to harness the full power of the orb anyway, since it wasn't his. Did Solas teach him how to use it? Or did he teach him how to partially use it? Was Cory doing what Solas described should be done? Or did Cory use it in a completely different way than Solas intended? I know Solas said he never meant for any of this to happen -- that could just mean he didn't want whatever Cory was doing to go wrong (because of the Inquisitor blundering in), or it could mean that he thought Cory would use it in a different way.

 

As for 'why Justinia' - well it seems that the Temple of Sacred Ashes was quite an important spot. In the final fight you can see a mosaic on the floor - it's apparently an ancient elven mosaic of Mythal. There's some big connection between Mythal, Andraste and dragons, that's for sure. Skyhold is apparently rather important as well, because of the age of the veil there, and Solas' knowledge of the place. I wonder if they weren't important for similar reasons -- perhaps they both had a connection to the fade, perhaps both sites were important during the creation of the veil, which is why trying to rip through the veil and alter the very fabric of it might be an easier thing to achieve at one of these sites (there are probably other sites like that too).

 

Solas gets incredibly enthusiastic and excited in an early conversation you can have with him, asking you to imagine what it might be like if people and spirits co-existed, if there was no veil, no separate planes of the fade and mortal reality. What if Solas was in some way responsible for creating the veil way back when... what if his plan is to restore what he once knew? That would make his plans for us and the anchor quite interesting indeed. I'm hopeful if this is something that is explored it'll uncover more about Skyhold as well, because as a place it's fascinating. 

I really want to find out how exactly this exchange between Corypheus and Solas happened in which Cory obtained the orb. I still don't think Flemeth was as literal as she sounded when she said Solas shouldn't have given Cory his orb. I feel like Cory somehow was able to take it from Solas because Solas was too weak to fight him if he was just waking up from his "slumber". Solas didn't intentionally give it to him. I can't seem him giving some darkspawn looking thing his orb to use. And Cory is no spirit so he can't use the excuse of seeing spirits instead of demons.

 

All this Mythal/Andraste business seems like a new development to the story. It's been a while since I played DA:O but I don't remember anything about Mythal in the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I still think it's cool either way and I want to see where they go with it.

 

If Solas was responsible for the veil he must be the maker. Weren't spirits the Maker's first children? However the maker was unhappy with their creation so he created the races and separated their realms with a veil. I can't picture Solas as the maker. We know the elven "gods" were real but I want to know if there is maker how exactly that plays into it. Also do spirits ever knowledge their creation or the maker? I don't remember if Justice or Cole or other spirits have talked about it in the games. 

[catabuca]

Re Mythal/Andraste: I don't think Flemeth was the first person Mythal possessed. I think Andraste was a previous host for her spirit (and I also think Tyrdda Bright-Axe was as well, but I have less evidence for that, I'm purely going on her song, the fact she was a mage (which I believe Andraste was too), and similarities between the various mythologies).

 

I have quite an in-depth theory of how it all fits together, including what the deal with the ancient elven gods was, what Fen'harel really did, what the Old Gods are, what Solas is trying to do now, how it ties into the Grey Wardens, the dragons, the taint, and the Golden/Black City. It'd take quite a while to type it all out, but part of it draws on the fact that Mythal as elven god could take the form of a dragon (as could the other gods, it seems), we know Flemeth could take that form (presumably having learned it from Mythal), and we know that the disciples of Andraste eventually ended up worshipping a dragon as the reincarnation of Andraste, in the place where there was a mosaic of Mythal.

 

There's been a lot of speculation about who or what Flemeth is, right from the first game. After finding codex entries about her in DA:O, one popular speculation was that she was Andraste in some way or another. That speculation continued through DA2, although it added 'elven god' to the mix after we saw how she acted with the Dalish tribe. I see no reason why both those things can't be true. It might have sounded outlandish before DA:I to say "Flemeth is the elven god Mythal" - and yet here we are.

 

As for Solas being the Maker - I'm not so sure. Let's not take the Chant of Light and other writings by the Chantry as fact. We've had it drummed into us over the course of 3 games now that history belongs to the victor, that stories are rewritten to suit who is doing the telling. Bits of the Chant have been removed, added to, rewritten, reinterpreted, over and over again through history. My personal belief is that if there is a 'Maker' it is a combination of real people/spirits, actual events, and nice ideas that have over time cemented into something both tangible and necessarily ethereal - something people can put their focus in to make sense of what they don't understand, while at the same time being unknowable itself as necessary means of remaining 'true'. (There's a comment by someone you can overhear in Skyhold, who talks about how when we can see and touch a god we are less likely to call it a god, but the less we can prove of a god's existence the more real we consider it to be - very interesting.)

 

BUT, if there is anything 'true' in the Chant, I'd say we look to the one phrase we've been hit over the head with repeatedly since DA:O: Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. That right there sounds to me like something Solas would very much agree with. That, to me, sounds like something someone would say if they had seen the collapse of their civilisation and of the very fabric of reality at the hands of people who wielded magic irresponsibly.

[catabuca]

 

 

If Solas was responsible for the veil he must be the maker. Weren't spirits the Maker's first children? However the maker was unhappy with their creation so he created the races and separated their realms with a veil. I can't picture Solas as the maker. 

 

To address this bit specifically: when Solas asks you to imagine what it would be like to have spirits and people living together harmoniously, with no separation between the fade and the mortal world... to me that sounds not just like the wishful thinking of a Fade-nut, but tinged with nostalgia for something that once was.

 

If we go with the theory that he created the veil, and that he did so in the process of stopping the elven gods warring with each other, yes he was responsible for 'creating' the fade and the mortal world only in so much as he created the barrier between them, but he didn't create spirits and people, nor did he create magic or the world or lyrium or anything else. I think the songs Andraste (with Mythal) sang a) were cautionary tales meant to ward against the abuses of power that happened by elven gods and society; and b ) have been rewritten and interpreted so many times over the years through the prism of a devout Andrastian religion that grew up from her worship that the original intent was lost and the new interpretation became official Andrastian dogma.

[SwobyJ]

Its just a hunch, but one of my ideas about the Maker is that ultimately, in some convoluted way, the Maker is everyone and everything, that whole universal god concept. In all times. We may touch on it much more directly in a future games, but never have it confirmed whether the Maker is a NPC/protagonist, or something else, or doesn't exist at all. But at least enough to go on that the 'Maker' is a larger concept that the Chant seems to state. What is a 'Bride'? What is a 'Maker'? What does 'turning his back' mean? etc etc.

 

I think DAI has basically confirmed that the explicit fully literal view of the Chant in entirety..  just doesn't work (though it inspires everyone, so I suppose it does 'work', hehhh). That's one of the biggest movements forward in the lore, and something that is shrugworthy if we figured that out in DAO, it still means that we can go into more interesting and mysterious concepts for future games.

 

 

EDIT: I also think of 'Solas' for this, but I also wonder if 'Fen'Haral' himself is the result of something larger. We don't know the origins of the Elven Pantheon other than our assumption that they're just powerful spirits. For all we know, they could be the split up consciousness of something else, something even more than they. Just saying I wouldn't be surprised if Fen'Haral ended up being the part of the larger entity (or 'Maker', or whatever) that was focused on stuff like creating the Veil. So it wouldn't be Fen'Haral that did it, but it may have been Fen that ended up securing the Veil into its more contemporary form, 'removing the magic' from the world compared to what once was, but not actually establishing the (weaker form of) the Veil in the first place. Lots of ideas.

[songsmith2003]

Maybe Solas needs it to perfect his plan and will chop off the IQ's hand a la Luke Skywalker.

[SwobyJ]

Maybe Solas needs it to perfect his plan and will chop off the IQ's hand a la Luke Skywalker.

 

lol no that won't work. Anchor is part of Inquisitor now, and only more easily channeled through the hand due to how it was transferred into the Inquisitor. Inquisitor is part Rift Magic.

[The Baconer]

I wonder if the anchor makes magequisitors immune to tranquillity given it's a permanent connection to the fade. Kind of similar to how demons/spirits can be used to undo tranquillity. 

 

To elaborate on my other post, would it essentially give magequisitors Dreamer powers? Can we manipulate people's minds from the Fade?

[fhs33721]

To elaborate on my other post, would it essentially give magequisitors Dreamer powers? Can we manipulate people's minds from the Fade?

If you accidentially stumble over a part of the fade where some dreaming dude's soul happens to be at the moment maybe. As far as I saw it the Inquisitor has no control over where exactly s/he comes out in the fade, so finding the dream of a specific person s/he wants to manipulate in the constantly changing fade might be an impossible task.

[Cha0sEff3ct]

To address this bit specifically: when Solas asks you to imagine what it would be like to have spirits and people living together harmoniously, with no separation between the fade and the mortal world... to me that sounds not just like the wishful thinking of a Fade-nut, but tinged with nostalgia for something that once was.

 

If we go with the theory that he created the veil, and that he did so in the process of stopping the elven gods warring with each other, yes he was responsible for 'creating' the fade and the mortal world only in so much as he created the barrier between them, but he didn't create spirits and people, nor did he create magic or the world or lyrium or anything else. I think the songs Andraste (with Mythal) sang a) were cautionary tales meant to ward against the abuses of power that happened by elven gods and society; and b ) have been rewritten and interpreted so many times over the years through the prism of a devout Andrastian religion that grew up from her worship that the original intent was lost and the new interpretation became official Andrastian dogma.

It fits in with Sandal's crazy talk in DA:2 about everything being as it was.

 

The elven gods and old gods have to be related. I like the whole war of the gods idea.

 

lol no that won't work. Anchor is part of Inquisitor now, and only more easily channeled through the hand due to how it was transferred into the Inquisitor. Inquisitor is part Rift Magic.

Since Cory is technically Darkspawn if he was smarter couldn't he have infected the inquisitor with the blight then jump into their body and steal the anchor?

[Boost32]

It fits in with Sandal's crazy talk in DA:2 about everything being as it was.

 

The elven gods and old gods have to be related. I like the whole war of the gods idea.

 

Since Cory is technically Darkspawn if he was smarter couldn't he have infected the inquisitor with the blight then jump into their body and steal the anchor?

The Inquisitor could have died, and I think the body must be stable for the body jump (a Warden or a Darkspawn).

[catabuca]

It fits in with Sandal's crazy talk in DA:2 about everything being as it was.

 

The elven gods and old gods have to be related. I like the whole war of the gods idea.

 

 

 

Yes, I've always been intrigued about what Sandal meant. At the time I presumed he meant dwarves will regain a connection to the fade. A lot has since been made about 'when he rises' being Corypheus, but it could have been Solas waking up. 

 

As for the elven gods and old gods, I have a whole theory (of course I do!). 

 

*rolls up sleeves*

 

We know elven gods could turn into dragons, and the dragon form was considered sacred. We know there were 7 elven gods sealed away (in the heavens, apparently), and legend has it that there were also an unknown number of 'forgotten ones' sealed away (in the abyss) at the same time. We also know that there are 7 old gods, and they all happen to be sealed away underground, in the void, or the abyss, or whatever you want to call it. These 7 old gods are dragons. 

 

I have 2 theories, and I like the second one the most, but both are possible, imo.

 

1) The 7 old gods were other elven gods whose names were stricken from the elven pantheon (hence being called the forgotten ones) because they went in a different direction ideologically and philosophically to the elven gods we know about. They favoured their dragon form, perhaps a dragon cult of sorts grew up around them, and threatened the power of the other 7 elven gods, who relied on slavery and seemingly ruled quite strictly. The two sides warred, and Fen'harel found a way to seal them all away to stop things getting more out of hand.

 

2) The power responsible for allowing the 7 elven gods to turn into dragons was actually something separate to them, yet inside them. In a way, they had a duality, with their 'normal' elven soul and a dragon aspect, that helped them be as powerful as they were. Andruil it seems had contact with the taint when she would travel into the void, and it seems she was corrupted by it, at least in part. She also seems to have spread that corruption to the world above ground (her mosaic in the Temple of Mythal says her lands were plagued). She used to go into the void to hunt 'the forgotten ones' - which I think was the elven gods in their dragon form, because I don't think she thought it should be reserved for them alone, and she didn't like their abuses of power. Mythal took her knowledge of how to get to the void. I think this kickstarted a war between them. Dirthamen probably was on the side of Andruil (it was one of Dirthamen's disciples who wanted to take on the dragon form), Andruil probably killed Mythal... it was likely a massively f**ked up war, and very messy. I expect a lot of innocent people got caught up in it and used as weapons. I think each of the gods (except Mythal, who was killed, and Fen'harel, for reasons I don't know) eventually contracted the taint, and it was driving them even more mad, fuelling the war further. Fen'harel wanted to stop the fighting before it got out of hand. He found a way to separate out the taint from the elven gods, but it took ripped out the dragon aspect of their soul - which by this time was fully integrated, and meant they were left unwhole. He didn't know how to deal with that, so he sealed them away separately, hoping to find a solution down the line. Hence we have 7 elven gods sealed in the heavens, and 7 old gods (their dragon aspects) sealed in the void/abyss/underground.

 

Now, that means those dragons are already tainted. We've learned a little about dragons and the taint in this game. One thing we learn is that in the Western Approach, the dragons who were studied had bits of the taint inside them, but it was protected, sheathed in something away from the rest of their bodies. I think this is how we can think of the dragon aspects of the gods and why when Fen'harel separated them, the dragons took the tainted parts with them. The old gods/dragon aspects already being tainted also means that we think about blights the wrong way. Darkspawn don't taint the old gods when they find them and trigger a blight; they are drawn to the old gods because they are massive and powerful loci of the taint, and when they find them they're setting free a dragon that is already corrupted, which they then follow as it is now free to rampage across the world, likely fuelled by a blind rage for a war it can't even remember (since it's not a whole being anymore). This is why Solas is so angry and grumpy about the Grey Wardens. For one, they are slowly killing parts of his brethren, stopping him from ever being able to reunite their souls to be whole again. Second, they think that when they've killed the last of the old gods there will be no more blights, but in fact all their death will mean is darkspawn won't have that central figure to follow anymore, and there will be a perma-blight of sorts, as they amble mindlessly in all directions. That might  be easier to control in the long run, or it might make things harder, I don't know. But it won't cure the taint, and it won't remove the threat.

 

I think the Black City is Artlathen, and that it was corrupted, in the same way Andruil's lands were, during the fighting, and that Fen'harel sealed it away when he sealed the gods away. I think all of this is why he created the veil - it was a byproduct of doing such a massive, impactful thing, it was the only way he could ensure it would work. It must have pained him greatly to do that. And it must weigh on him terribly now. But I suppose at the time he thought he had no choice if he wanted to stop the warring before they killed each other and utterly ruined their society, destroyed their history, etc. Well, that whole thing didn't turn out that great for him in the end, which is why he's such a grumpy pants now. But how on earth do you go about solving a problem like that? I suppose having just wakened from his long sleep, and not having enough power to attempt it himself, out of desperation he thought Cory - the only living thing he knows of that has managed to walk in the fade in his physical form - might be the one to help him. He was clearly duped, or at any rate got that whole thing spectacularly wrong. He must feel like hell right now. The breach, on the face of it, might achieve what he wanted - no more veil, the fade and mortal world as one - but it was done in such a violent way it was ripping spirits through without their consent, turning them into demons, and it was done in such a way that would threaten the stability of all of it, fade and mortal world. There's a right way to do it, and that's what he's looking for. Whether he can achieve it or not is another matter - but I suspect the main lead and hope he has for that now lies in the anchor.

[catabuca]

I should add to my theory above that other people's theories about Sera being Andruil and Sandal being June can fit -- perhaps the magic involved in sealing the gods away relies on this duality of their mortal/dragon aspects, and that once one of those ceases to exist the other becomes unstable. It's entirely possible, therefore, that when Andruil and June's dragon aspects were slaughtered at the end of their respective blights, their souls in the heavens (presumably that's just a part of the fade) weren't as securely sealed there anymore, and they could have been drawn back down to the mortal plane.

 

And so we get Sandal, who is clearly very talented, and who clearly has some kind of connection to the Fade despite being a dwarf, but who isn't in the same position as someone like Flemeth because the elven god soul inhabiting him isn't whole, and likely doesn't even know who or what it is.

 

And then we get Sera, who has some very interesting moments in the game with Cole and Solas, as they talk about her connection to the Fade. I think she feels it too, but it scares her because she doesn't know what it is. This is why she's so mortally scared of the Fade when you can take her there. It's why she's scared of magic. Part of the soul of Andruil in her knows, even if Sera doesn't. It's why Sera enjoys killing dragons. It's why she's so amazing with a bow, without ever trying.

 

This means there could be others out there. In fact if this theory is correct then there almost definitely are other broken elven god souls somewhere in the world. Whether they've ended up in people we know I can't say. 

 

(This duality theory is also why Flemeth wanted the old god soul: if she could secure it before it was destroyed by killing the archdemon it means there's a chance it could be reunited with its specific elven god. There is no such hope for the gods whose dragon aspects have been previously slain.)