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Read the links. It's a trope. If they trope was called something else, the OP would still have linked it.
It's still based off some concept that it's wrong to make Humans superior to the Elves, even though all evidence and lore proves that they indeed are superior. These aren't Tolkien Elves. Newsflash. They're a much-diminished and greatly-weakened race on the verge of annihilation.
It's still based off some concept that it's wrong to make Humans superior to the Elves, even though all evidence and lore proves that they indeed are superior. These aren't Tolkien Elves. Newsflash. They're a much-diminished and greatly-weakened race on the verge of annihilation.
I wasn't even arguing for or against the OP's statement, just that you were wrong for interpreting it as them comparing the cultures directly. Anyway, it all comes down to what you consider superior, and I'm not even getting into that.
Not that I don't sort of sympathize with the point you're trying to make, but there's a reason Finn can reconstruct knowledge of the Eluvian better than Ariane. He has access to Circle knowledge in the Library. The Chantry's scholars gained knowledge that once belonged to the elves after the Exalted March conquered Halamshiral. The fact that he has information she does not is a direct consequence of the Fall of the Dales.
In fact, even the elven lore book that she wants to reclaim from Morrigan is something that used to reside in the Circle Library and was delivered to their clan by an elven mage who defected.
Bioware wants to tell a very simple story with the Dalish: an obsession with a past you can barely (if at all) remember and a hostile attitude tied together with a desperate need to capture an idealised past is self-destructive and untenable. Every single ill that befalls the Dalish - as a people - comes from this inability to let go of hatred and from an inability to face the harsh truth that their knowledge of themselves is fragmented and possibly wrong.
This is, of course, not an idea anyone who IRL wants to preserve some culture will find sympathetic. But it's not about imposing some majoritarian viewpoint.
Not that I don't sort of sympathize with the point you're trying to make, but there's a reason Finn can reconstruct knowledge of the Eluvian better than Ariane. He has access to Circle knowledge in the Library. The Chantry's scholars gained knowledge that once belonged to the elves after the Exalted March conquered Halamshiral. The fact that he has information she does not is a direct consequence of the Fall of the Dales.
In fact, even the elven lore book that she wants to reclaim from Morrigan is something that used to reside in the Circle Library and was delivered to their clan by an elven mage who defected.
Finn is actually a great example of Bioware's moral with the Dalish. He's not special. He shouldn't be able to do what he does - he has no connection with the Dalish. He does it simply because no other elf has ever tried to do it before him, despite having the means and opportunity.
But the Dalish venerate their past in bizarre ways - we see this with how Marethari refuses to aid Merrill in re-creating the Eluvian because of - well, whatever reasons she has for thinking her people abandoned them - despite the fact that she had the means and knowledge to do it.
Merrill's story is all about how she wants to capture the truth of the elves' past. Not what their Keepers say the Eluvians meant, but what they do mean, in practice. The people in the wrong in that story are the obstinate traditions of the Dalish, which push her away.
I appreciate the post, OP. I don't agree with all of it, but I do think Junebug is right that people might be misinterpreting your point. I know that visiting the Temple of Mythal with Morrigan was extremely frustrating for a lot of Elven players. I found it hard to get into the spirit of the encounter myself on an Elven play through, and I mostly prefer to play humans.
I primarily disagree on one specific point: I think Bioware is more aware of what they're doing with the Elves than you think they are.
But I actually think the Merrill/Morrigan parallel was one of your stronger points. We can rationalize that Morrigan would be more adept at understanding Elven magic than most due to her training under Flemeth, but I think it's established that Flemeth kept Morrigan's perspective very limited and narrow. Also, while a lot of Merrill's rivalry path is focused on her use of blood magic, it isn't the blood magic she eliminates at the end. She shatters the mirror, whether or not working on that was what Hawke was protesting in the first place.
In the same breath, I think Morrigan is depicted as being in over her head in a similar way--if not to as much a degree. She seems to regret her arrogance if she drinks from the well. I think Morrigan's relative success with her Eluvian is as much a matter of having better luck and slightly better resources than Merrill has.
...I still think her knowing so much more than an Elven Inquisitor about Elven lore at the Temple is pretty annoying.
I appreciate the post, OP. I don't agree with all of it, but I do think Junebug is right that people might be misinterpreting your point. I know that visiting the Temple of Mythal with Morrigan was extremely frustrating for a lot of Elven players. I found it hard to get into the spirit of the encounter myself on an Elven play through, and I mostly prefer to play humans.
I primarily disagree on one specific point: I think Bioware is more aware of what they're doing with the Elves than you think they are.
But I actually think the Merrill/Morrigan parallel was one of your stronger points. We can rationalize that Morrigan would be more adept at understanding Elven magic than most due to her training under Flemeth, but I think it's established that Flemeth kept Morrigan's perspective very limited and narrow. Also, while a lot of Merrill's rivalry path is focused on her use of blood magic, it isn't the blood magic she eliminates at the end. She shatters the mirror, whether or not working on that was what Hawke was protesting in the first place.
But, in the same breath, I think Morrigan is depicted as being in over her head in a similar way--if not to as much a degree. She seems to regret her arrogance if she drinks from the well. I think Morrigan's relative success with her Eluvian is as much a matter of having better luck and slightly better resources than Merrill has.
...I still think her knowing so much more than an Elven Inquisitor about Elven lore at the Temple is pretty annoying.
Solas one ups Morrigan and berates her ignorance at every opportunity, however. I don't think we're meant to see her as some ultimate authority. And don't forget that she stole a time from the Dalish in WH and had more than a decade to study old Elvhen magic in the interim.
Bioware clearly didn't implement enough race specific reactions for an elven PC but that's more a feature of their inability to have an active, agent PC. IMO.
I agree with you completely. I've been told it was some sort of bug that made an Elven PC unable to cite Dalish lore without the history perk, anyway.
Most of my sympathy with OP's point comes from little things about Merrill's characterization as opposed to Morrigan's. I believe Merrill, whether one sympathizes with her methods/goal or not, is depicted as more naive and unrealistic about the consequences of her actions that Morrigan is.
I agree with you completely. I've been told it was some sort of bug that made an Elven PC unable to cite Dalish lore without the history perk, anyway.
That wasn't the main problem, though it is one. It's that as soon as you start the mission, it goes something like this (paraphrase since I forget exact words):
Morrigan: I believe this is the Temple of Mythal.
Inquisitor: And that is?/That's important?/So what?
That's auto-dialogue that even elves say, and can't be avoided, period. Ideally, instead of auto-dialogue I'd have a normal interrogative on the left with the addition of a history option if you have it for non-elven Inquisitors, and a race icon for elves. Rinse and repeat with other moments in the mission. Now you've solved the race problem, and allowed the Inquisitor to not sound like the least informed person in Thedas at every turn.
Good discussion. Here are my thoughts.
The Dalish are as they are. No reason to blame BioWare for anything. If that's how they want to portray the Dalish, then so be it. Even if this is something you don't like, it might be possible for the player to change this in a future storyline, where the Dalish are set on the right path by the player.
The Dalish are so far behind in everything they do because of their own choices. They are behind in technology because they stick to the wilderness. They are behind in knowledge because they only pass stories on to those in their own clan. They never pool their resources or share with all the clans. Meaning, humans have libraries and universities where knowledge is secured and shared with all those who seek it. The Dalish only pass along fragmented and often incorrect stories. They are behind in magic because their clans can't have any more than 2 or 3 mages at a time, and they cast the rest out, even if they are children. They are behind in elven lore because they lack the numbers or the means to search old ruins or cross examine information.
In short, elves are so far behind because of how they choose to live. Until that changes, they won't advance. They will only continue to die out.
Why does Mythal keep taking human form? That's simple. Flemeth was the one who reached out to her, and Flemeth is human. Any child created between a human and an elf will always be human. So each new daughter to be birthed for eventual possession will always be human.
Also keep in mind that the same thing that makes the average human more intelligent than the most learned Dalish, is again, how they were brought up. Humans learn about a variety of subjects, and this variety of study is what makes them more capable of learning new things. The Dalish only learn a few limited subjects related to everyday Dalish life. This is why a teenage Dalish boy in DA:I can run off to a shack to try and summon a demon (and get killed), while the human boy is taught how to resist demons and that they should never be summoned in the first place. That Dalish boy was breaking new ground for his clan. No one there knew anything about that, other than the fact they didn't know anything about it and that's why they shouldn't tamper with such things. And so the boy was killed from something he didn't understand or have any hope of defending against.
Again, Ariane and Finn illustrate my above points perfectly. Ariana is trained as a warrior, not a Keeper. So her knowledge of the lore would be limited to begin with, and for a meaningless reason. Finn on the other hand is a beneficiary of hundreds of years of knowledge being compiled by various sources.
In all fairness to Morrigan, she spent like 8 years straight researching the Eluvians. The Dalish don't even know where to look.
Gatlok is a qunari's people's technology. But you wouldn't let a qunari child play with gatlok, would you? The point is that Merril was messing with something she didn't fully understand, whether it was her people's something or not. In human society, such an artifact would be taken to a safe place where many people could work on it, study it, for years perhaps, and test it safely under a controlled environment. Besides, Merril was also messing with blood magic and a powerful demon. It's likely that had it not been for Marithari, Merril would be dead.
I think Dorian's reason was more of what it would say about Tevinter rather than anything he thinks about the elves. Everything he does is to clean up Tevinter's act.
I tend to agree, OP.
In general, I'd like to see more fantasy games where humans are not the majority and viewed as less talented than the other species. Even in DA, the only thing that seems to make humans powerful is that humans breed fast like bacteria, so humans are able to win wars simply by sheer numbers.
I would like Bioware to portray elves as capable, willing and able to recapture their own heritage rather than needing humans to do it for them. To me, it's always a more powerful story when someone helps him or herself rather than requiring a rescue from a third party. "Damsel in distress" comes to mind.
I'm sure dwarf fans would be annoyed if another human came to the rescue and discovered the secret of the stone and lyrium, while keeping Dagna in the dark about her own heritage.
Humans don't need to be the hero of everything, and if humans of DA were more like real life humans, they'd be more like the cause of all the world's ills.
The Dalish are a nomadic people whose only source of history is oral tradition. Of course they got everything wrong. It's not some sort of "code" for how white people are smarter than those darn "gypsies" or something.
Interesting post OP, I don't agree with all of what you said particularly about Flemythal and Morrigan but still interesting.
I've pretty much written off DAI as a bad game to play an elf, everything is just so bloody negative. I used to have some hope that a DLC would change that not so much now this is after the game that gave us Dalish elves abandoning their kids in a forest.
The Dalish are a nomadic people whose only source of history is oral tradition. Of course they got everything wrong. It's not some sort of "code" for how white people are smarter than those darn "gypsies" or something.
Everything is a huge overstatement, they got some things wrong- detail and nuance have been lost over time - but considering the circumstances they got a surprising number of things right.
The Dalish are a nomadic people whose only source of history is oral tradition. Of course they got everything wrong. It's not some sort of "code" for how white people are smarter than those darn "gypsies" or something.
Dalish oral history is freakishly accurate if we go by IRL standards. Hell, our actual history is probably not that good half the time.
Interesting post OP, I don't agree with all of what you said particularly about Flemythal and Morrigan but still interesting.
I've pretty much written off DAI as a bad game to play an elf, everything is just so bloody negative. I used to have some hope that a DLC would change that not so much now this is after the game that gave us Dalish elves abandoning their kids in a forest.
I just have such a hard time with this idea. To me, DA:I is the first DA game that's so overwhelmingly elf-positive that it actually makes me a little sad I don't like the elf models at all to be able to finish a PT. In DA:I, absolutely everything that the elves believe made them glorious - magic beyond the comprehension of mortals, immortality, the existence of godlike beings, their role and dominance of Thedas - is outright confirmed.
DA:I continues the general negative portrayal of the Dalish, but as I feel obliged to point out in almost every elven thread, the Dalish =/= "elves".
On the other hand, In Exile, DAI does show the elves screwed themselves over, and their society was no better in terms of equality than Tevinter.
This actually pleases me, unlike some; for a long time, I felt the elves were idealizing Arlathan.
Bioware wants to tell a very simple story with the Dalish: an obsession with a past you can barely (if at all) remember and a hostile attitude tied together with a desperate need to capture an idealised past is self-destructive and untenable. Every single ill that befalls the Dalish - as a people - comes from this inability to let go of hatred and from an inability to face the harsh truth that their knowledge of themselves is fragmented and possibly wrong.
This is, of course, not an idea anyone who IRL wants to preserve some culture will find sympathetic. But it's not about imposing some majoritarian viewpoint.
Actually this is how most historians, including myself, view the past. It is something that need to be first and foremost understood before being preserved or followed or recreated.
Dalish oral history is freakishly accurate if we go by IRL standards. Hell, our actual history is probably not that good half the time.
I just have such a hard time with this idea. To me, DA:I is the first DA game that's so overwhelmingly elf-positive that it actually makes me a little sad I don't like the elf models at all to be able to finish a PT. In DA:I, absolutely everything that the elves believe made them glorious - magic beyond the comprehension of mortals, immortality, the existence of godlike beings, their role and dominance of Thedas - is outright confirmed.
DA:I continues the general negative portrayal of the Dalish, but as I feel obliged to point out in almost every elven thread, the Dalish =/= "elves".
I understand what you're saying but our character is a dalish elf and I find the relentless negativity very wearing.
Really tried to support this OP but despite a lot of good examples, other people provided great counter examples and explanations to justify your examples.
I don't see the mighty whitey still.
I understand what you're saying but our character is a dalish elf and I find the relentless negativity very wearing.
Really tried to support this OP but despite a lot of good examples, other people provided great counter examples and explanations to justify your examples.
I don't see the mighty whitey still.
The whole "mighty whitey" thing's justified either way you look at it anyway, especially in DA:I.
The Elves admit they screwed themselves over. Humans and human empires have always been more powerful, more successful, more knowledgeable, and more triumphant in the end because humans are, indeed, superior to the elves in many ways.
Baffles me why "mighty whitey" is seen as so bad and false in real life too. It's not like the majority of the world's strongest empires and kingdoms were majority-white. No, not at alllll. That's just racist.
The Elves shouldn't be retconned into being stronger than ever before just because Elf players are offended that their chosen race is weak.
Well, they weren't. Europe was the ass-backwards backwater of humanity for most of its history. After the around the Enlightenment Europe slowly moved to the forefront of the world, but before that you need to go back to antiquity to find a time where Europe had more than one "empire" of note.Baffles me why "mighty whitey" is seen as so bad and false in real life too. It's not like the majority of the world's strongest empires and kingdoms were majority-white. No, not at alllll. That's just racist.
Well, they weren't. Europe was the ass-backwards backwater of humanity for most of its history. After the around the Enlightenment Europe slowly moved to the forefront of the world, but before that you need to go back to antiquity to find a time where Europe had more than one "empire" of note.
A backwater plague-stricken society that went from having its entire population almost wiped out by a disease to controlling almost all of the world's landmass collectively a few centuries later.
But nah, that's just racism. Everyone knows whites are a patriarchal myth.
Well, they weren't. Europe was the ass-backwards backwater of humanity for most of its history. After the around the Enlightenment Europe slowly moved to the forefront of the world, but before that you need to go back to antiquity to find a time where Europe had more than one "empire" of note.
For most of our history Asia is where you found the cradle of human achievement, and by today's standards that's largely non-white.
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