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[Shari'El]

Warning, spoilers below as well as bad humor.

 

The news of the upcoming DLC caught me with my pants down, I was devastated, to say the least. For I, was not prepared!

For months I've been postponing reading my Dragon Age books, and now, a DLC about the Deep Roads shows up and I'm scared, scared I'll miss things, I won't understand...

So I decided to put off the DLC for now, and binge-read all of my unread Dragon Age books (Asunder and The World of Thedas volume 1 & 2).

I dusted off my books and started working, Asunder was interesting but irrelevant, WOT 1 didn't have anything I didn't know but was refreshing (although by the end of it I filled my phone's gallery with photos of important texts).

And then, I started reading the second volume... My mind was blown! All my suspicions, written there, in text, in front of my eyes!

I couldn't handle this information on my own, it was too much for a mere human, I started googling "Andraste was insane", "Andraste hallucinating"... But found nothing.

So now, I stand before you, in hope of finding an ear (or eye) and a mouth (or hands) to debate with.

 

TL;DR

I found some interesting shizz in the World of Thedas 2 and wanted opinions.

I'm aware I may be pointing out something very obvious, and if so, I apologize.

 

I'll start with the texts

Elderath [Andraste's father] sired anither daughter, Halliserre... Halliserre would die young in events not properly recorded.

Andraste, still a youth, awakened, unquiet to a storm... She glimpsed her sibling following lights into a wood. Our Lady pursued, and event of some violence occurred, followed by fires throughout the forest.

Andraste was found pale and uncertain of what she had seen. The remains of Halliserre were lying in a burned clearing, her body having suffered wounds beyond weapons.

 

So Andraste had a sister, Hallidsdsafd, who died in front of her eyes. By the description we can determine she was lured by a Wisp Wraith (quote from WOT 1 "it is said that wisp wraith will maliciously trick the living into thinking they're lanterns and lead them into dangerous areas.") and was attacked by either a Pride Demon or Rage Demon.

Rage would make sense because of the fact the forest was burning but Pride demon also makes sense because (by WOT1) they can burn their victims with magical flames.

It was obviously a demon because the body of Hallisfdsdsa suffered "wounds beyond weapons", so, unearthly wounds.

 

Andraste was scarred in many ways by the event. The storm's cold left her with a sickness in the lungs that persisted for years... It would be a decade before she recovered enough to bear children.

As a young woman, she would become still for long moments, unable to move or roused. After, she would report voices...

Physically weak in her early life, she spent a great deal of time searching for meaning in what she had seen, and this slowly became a search for the Maker Himself. She sought and found his influence everywhere.

By separate account, visions and periods of immobility troubled her.

 

So... Andraste became mentally unstable and very ill (so ill that it lasted for years and prevented her from bearing children). Mental illness affects the immune system, makes you more susceptible to catch diseases as well as slows down recovery.

So I think, and it's my personal opinion, is that Andraste was traumatized by what she saw (a demon tearing at her sister? pretty horrifying), and suffered from panic attacks along with her severe illness that caused paralysis and hallucinations. 

People with severe anxiety can suffer paralysis, and can suffer from hallucinations, even though it's extremely rare. Maybe she even suffered from depression, and sought something to bring her faith, and thus created the Maker.

 

Years later, Andraste and Maferath marched to assault the Tevinter Empire, assisted by the Maker.

The Maker, seeing the will of Our Lady, struck mighty Tevinter with drought, wildfires, and the weakening of the very earth beneath them.

 

But it seems that it was less "the Maker" more "circumstances".

When the hordes of darkspawn carved their way to light during the Blight, they didn't dig with careful eye. The bludgeoned the earth, and in the years following, the effects continued even though their scrabbling claws were gone.

It is suspected many rivers were diverted as natural caverns and water found new path.

Alamarri found the earth had shifted beneath a legendary fortified pass, making it useless as a barrier... So convincing was this, that when later they crossed another area where the land had recently shifted, it was also hailed as divine act, even though it made no difference in the defenses of nearby Tevinter holdings.

We can now draw on the records that Tevinter was suffering civil unrest over the Blight and the silence of the Old Gods. The barbarian menace was a real threat. but while some magisters were committed, the full resources of the empire were not.

 

So a few facts:

The first blight began at -395 Ancient, that's when darkspawn started showing up.

Andraste was born at -203 Ancient, and Maferath's horde began the assault on the Imperium at -180 Ancient.

That's 215 years apart, 215 years in which the darkspawn were active, tunneling their way beneath the Imperium, creating caverns, diverting water sources and causing the earth to even collapse and shift.

 

The Maker saw "the will of Our Lady" 215 years after the darkspawn first showed up, so did he plan 215 years ahead that the earth will shift the way he wants so it will give Maferath the advantage he will need?

Let's assume, that yes, since he IS the Maker, so why did the earth shift unnecessarily at places that didn't give the barbarians any advantage? Just to show off?

 

Another thing that gave Maferath an edge is the fact that Tevinter still didn't get over the fact their Old Gods betrayed them, Dumat rose as an Archdemon to wreck havoc in Thedas, their beliefs were shaken. Many of the civilians probably lost faith, this kind of thing can lead to general disquiet, violence and possibly rise of crime.

I have no idea why the Imperium didn't see the barbarians a real threat (perhaps mage-vanity) but that was their biggest mistake which led to their downfall.

So, circumstances.

Circumstances are what gave Maferath his victory, that alongside the fact he was an excellent tactician.

 

Another thing to take into consideration is what Corypheus says at Haven

 

I once breached the Fade in the name of another to serve the old gods of the Empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers.

 

In which he speaks of the fact the Golden City wasn't golden to begin with and that he found nothing in there, so even in the Fade there was no proof of the Maker.

Of course, the Maker can still be a real thing (in Thedas) and Andraste's visions could've been legit, it's not definite, and I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be definite.

[Iakus]

Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane

[Yaroub]

I started googling "Andraste was insane", "Andraste hallucinating"... But found nothing.

 

[dragondreamer]

Andraste was showing signs of being a Dreamer.  The section in WoTv2 about Feynriel describes how he would "freeze", it sounds similar to Andraste's symptoms.  Everything is pointing towards Andraste being a mage.

[Ashaantha]

All of that description before getting to the blight dates/darkspawn stuff is pointing and laughing at me saying "Andastre was a mage after all" . of course we have no proof, it's just a theory. I always had the feeling Andraste accidentally killed her own sister with magic . Note the sentence "Andraste, still a youth" was used, magic starts when person is still a child/youth generally (6-10 years old range seems the norm), and this affected her badly in the end. But the freezing and unable to be roused, the hearing voices etc that sounds like Dreamer stuff or just powerful mage exploring the Fade (for "visions/hallucinations" part) from what I've stumbled upon in the games etc.

 

Bored 3am musing time

The Maker could very easily be a Spirit of Faith that Andraste stumbled upon during her search for a meaning to the world etc, and being one of those more helpful/thoughtful spirits rather then a hostile, greedy, power-seeking one, it tried to help her in the only way it could. Giving her something to put her Faith in.

[dragondreamer]

All of that description before getting to the blight dates/darkspawn stuff is pointing and laughing at me saying "Andastre was a mage after all" . of course we have no proof, it's just a theory. I always had the feeling Andraste accidentally killed her own sister with magic . Note the sentence "Andraste, still a youth" was used, magic starts when person is still a child/youth generally (6-10 years old range seems the norm), and this affected her badly in the end. But the freezing and unable to be roused, the hearing voices etc that sounds like Dreamer stuff or just powerful mage exploring the Fade (for "visions/hallucinations" part) from what I've stumbled upon in the games etc.

 

Yeah, I got a similar impression.  Mages usually manifest around puberty, but it can happen much sooner.  Jowan was the youngest I've heard of at 5 years old.  I think it usually doesn't happen that young unless a fight or flight response forces it.  If Andraste's sister was being lured by a demon, it may have killed her.  Leaving Andraste faced with it...maybe she manifested, somehow managed to kill it, but burned the forest in the process.  The trauma may have caused her to suppress the memory of what happened.  She may not have really understood what happened either way.

 

If she was a mage, I don't know why they don't just say it.. or why everyone around her is suddenly idiotic about what magic is, when magic rules everything in the Imperium. It's less mysterious and out in the open then than it is now. And if she was a slave, it's also strange that her own Tevinter masters couldn't recognize it. She even lived within the main Empire before she escaped back to the southern region.

 

The Imperial Chantry does say Andraste was a mage, they don't consider her divine.  But the Southern Chantry is the same that erased all trace of Inquisitor Ameridan being both an elf and a mage.  And Andraste was a cult figure, it's possible no one would believe she wasn't anything other than divine even if she said so.  My own Inquisitor is constantly telling people she isn't Andraste's herald, but no one listens.

[Shari'El]

 

 

All of that description before getting to the blight dates/darkspawn stuff is pointing and laughing at me saying "Andastre was a mage after all" . of course we have no proof, it's just a theory. I always had the feeling Andraste accidentally killed her own sister with magic . Note the sentence "Andraste, still a youth" was used, magic starts when person is still a child/youth generally (6-10 years old range seems the norm), and this affected her badly in the end. But the freezing and unable to be roused, the hearing voices etc that sounds like Dreamer stuff or just powerful mage exploring the Fade (for "visions/hallucinations" part) from what I've stumbled upon in the games etc.

 

She could be a mage, it's plausible she killed her own sister, but it doesn't really explain the wraith wisps her sister followed.

In the Imperium it is believed she is a mage (by what Dorian said) so there is that...

It can be that she suffered emotional trauma because she killed her own sister and her way of coping is through all that Maker and things like "Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him"...

 

Also, before I saw these things I considered the idea that she was a dreamer who met a spirit (or a demon), though the entire Maker falls in love with her, she sings him a song, he agrees to help etc. seems too complex for a spirit or a demon. Since we know dreamers can meet other dreamers while lucid/regular dreaming it could be that someone's manipulating her...

 

After a quick look at Dreamers I didn't find anything concerning just freezing at place all of the sudden, dreamers need to sleep in order to enter the Fade.

Felassan was a dreamer, he used herbs to fall asleep and enter the fade, Solas just went to sleep (I think), Feynriel wasn't aware he is a dreamer until Marethari finds out, he just experiences really bad nightmares.

 

Maybe it's because she's a hedge mage? I don't know.

 

Edit:

No, wait, Feynriel:

 

More alarmingly, on rare occasions he would freeze while awake and occupied, as though his mind suddenly stopped working.

 

So yeah, sounds a bit like Andraste, too bad it doesn't say anything about what he experienced during that time.

 

She may have been manipulated instead then, I feel like her meeting a spirit isn't likely, though it still could be panic attacks, you can't be too certain. At some point she started even to dismiss her sister's death, 

 

... she began to recall the events of Halliserre's death as a matter of heresy, suggesting the alchemist consort whispered of the Old Gods

 

Which is kind of weird, it lacks rational thinking, dismissing the death of her sister just because her mother (who wasn't her own) MAY have believed in the Old Gods.

Modifié par Shari'El, 15 août 2015 - 07:21 .

[Shari'El]

That's another thing (about your herald). It all runs on the assumption that everyone has the mentality of a retarded peasant.... like something out of a Monty Python movie. They're simply incapable of listening.

 

Spoiler

 

XP

[dragondreamer]

 

After a quick look at Dreamers I didn't find anything concerning just freezing at place all of the sudden, dreamers need to sleep in order to enter the Fade.

Felassan was a dreamer, he used herbs to fall asleep and enter the fade, Solas just went to sleep (I think), Feynriel wasn't aware he is a dreamer until Marethari finds out, he just experiences really bad nightmares.

 

WoTv2, pg178 :
 

 

"There were times when she could not wake him from his sleep.  More alarmingly, on rare occasions he would freeze while awake and occupied, as though his mind had suddenly stopped working.  When that happened, it could take up to an hour for Feynriel to come back to his senses."

 

[Master Warder Z_]

Tears of Andraste explains what could be misinterpreted as "Magic" or illness before she swayed the Maker through song she underwent extreme mediation.

She would do it for days, only sipping water and her husband went in and collected a single tear every night.

So...if she did this as the wife of a general why not before? It already admits she sought the Maker's influence.

The cause of the mobility issues simply could be muscle atrophy, a long recorded risk of deep long term mediation.

[dragondreamer]

Something to consider is that being a mage, even a Dreamer mage, doesn't mean there isn't a Maker, or that she had no contact with him.  Even the Imperial Chantry believes in the Maker, even though they don't believe Andraste was divine.

[Shari'El]

WoTv2, pg178 :
 

 

Yeah, I already edited my comment above after I read the part in the book XP

Thanks anyhow

 

Something to consider is that being a mage, even a Dreamer mage, doesn't mean there isn't a Maker, or that she had no contact with him.  Even the Imperial Chantry believes in the Maker, even though they don't believe Andraste was divine.

 

I didn't say anything about that, I just said it seems there isn't any proof

[dragondreamer]

 

Which is kind of weird, it lacks rational thinking, dismissing the death of her sister just because her mother (who wasn't her own) MAY have believed in the Old Gods.

 

I forgot about that bit.  Not really sure what to think of it, but it reminds me of the theories about Andraste being an OGB. 

[Shari'El]

Tears of Andraste explains what could be misinterpreted as "Magic" or illness before she swayed the Maker through song she underwent extreme mediation.

She would do it for days, only sipping water and her husband went in and collected a single tear every night.

So...if she did this as the wife of a general why not before? It already admits she sought the Maker's influence.

The cause of the mobility issues simply could be muscle atrophy, a long recorded risk of deep long term mediation.

 

Hmmm I only remember the part Maferath collected her tears in a vial when he came to comfort her as she despaired over the fate of humanity or something.

I don't remember anything about meditation.

[Yaroub]

 

 

 

On topic, if Andraste was a mage wouldn't her soldiers notice so?, she had her war against the Imperium with no account of her using any kind of spells.

 

And how she could beat the magisters at their own game, when they had all the lyrium and sacrificing rituals to enhance their powers.

 

If she has been a mage it will be a whole different matter for the chant, and would contradict the maker has guide her theme.

[Shari'El]

I forgot about that bit.  Not really sure what to think of it, but it reminds me of the theories about Andraste being an OGB. 

 

Yeah, that's a popular theory since she was speculated to be born the same year Dumat was defeated and hears voices like Kieran...

There isn't a lot of info about her mother so we can't know if she carried the taint and her father just died in battle.

We are just missing too much information to either dismiss or support this theory...

[dragondreamer]

 

 

On topic, if Andraste was a mage wouldn't her soldiers notice so?, she had her war against the Imperium with no account of her using any kind of spells.

 

And how she could beat the magisters at their own game, when they had all the lyrium and sacrificing rituals to enhance their powers.

 

If she has been a mage it will be a whole different matter for the chant, and would contradict the maker has guide her theme.

 

Who knows.  A big repeating theme in DA:I has been that history is very often recorded incorrectly.  And even if there are people who know and speak of those things, they're dismissed.  Again, the Imperial Chantry believes Andraste to be a mage, it's the Southern Chantry that does not, and they have a history of erasing things they find inconvenient to their version of the chant. 

 

http://dragonage.wik...he_True_Prophet
 

 

"The search for the true prophet:" This tattered tome explores the possibility that Andraste was a powerful mage, not the Maker's Chosen. It seems this book was saved from a fire at some point.

 

 

 

Andraste being a mage doesn't really change the possibility that she knew the Maker.  If anything, it might have made her more accessible.  If Andraste was a hedge mage, she may have been using abilities in ways that did not resemble normal spell casting.  She's normally portrayed as a warrior, but we know it's very possible for someone to run around using a sword and shield and still be a mage.  If she also happened to have some strong connection to the Maker, or some very powerful spirit, or even whatever OGB soul she possessed, maybe she was also capable of making things happen without spell casting.  Even normal mages can do that to a lesser extent, without some greater force helping out.  If she believed she was being divinely guided, she may not have believed she was a mage either, regardless of the truth. 

 

She also didn't quite beat the magisters in the end, since they did execute her. 

[Yaroub]

Who knows.  A big repeating theme in DA:I has been that history is very often recorded incorrectly.  And even if there are people who know and speak of those things, they're dismissed.  Again, the Imperial Chantry believes Andraste to be a mage, it's the Southern Chantry that does not, and they have a history of erasing things they find inconvenient to their version of the chant. 

 

http://dragonage.wik...he_True_Prophet
 

 

Andraste being a mage doesn't really change the possibility that she knew the Maker.  If anything, it might have made her more accessible.  If Andraste was a hedge mage, she may have been using abilities in ways that did not resemble normal spell casting.  She's normally portrayed as a warrior, but we know it's very possible for someone to run around using a sword and shield and still be a mage.  If she also happened to have some strong connection to the Maker, or some very powerful spirit, or even whatever OGB soul she possessed, maybe she was also capable of making things happen without spell casting.  Even normal mages can do that to a lesser extent, without some greater force helping out.  If she believed she was being divinely guided, she may not have believed she was a mage either, regardless of the truth. 

 

She also didn't quite beat the magisters in the end, since they did execute her. 

 

Still. Most of the events regarding Andraste exalted marches are solid , the Andrastian chantry which is the chantry of all of Thedas except the imperium is more valid than the imperial one, i mean surely after what Andraste did to them don't make them view her so fondly, also portraying her as a mage give an excuse to the magisters and the Imperium citizens to go on with their everlasting practices.

 

The search of the true prophet gift being "saved from fire", and locked up in Orzammar shaperate hall sounds more like a conspiracy theory. A gift for Wynne to bring her some comfort while she embrace it in sleep.

 

The unusual phenomenons during her war against the Imperium were famines, droughts and flooding, that seems more like miracles rather than magic, it fits the description of godly punishment, the OGB possession is a far shot, very powerful spirit perhaps, but still speculations.

 

And she did beat quite the number of magisters, in the end it was her husband who betrayed her, and the archon who killed her.

[dragonflight288]

If she was a mage, I don't know why they don't just say it.. or why everyone around her is suddenly idiotic about what magic is, when magic rules everything in the Imperium. It's less mysterious and out in the open then than it is now. And if she was a slave, it's also strange that her own Tevinter masters couldn't recognize it. Doesn't that add to the "product value" or something?

 

If they want to basically just have a story of a badass general and mage rebelling against the Imperium, then that would be fine in the first place. There's a lot of story there. Why drag it into the realm of mystery, create a religion for milennia, and perhaps finally come out with some "DLC revealing a hidden mystery" that just makes people feel like they wasted their time caring about another faction (this is sort of the case with the new state of the Dalish too.. and the Seekers). Pretty soon you have less factions and lore to even care about in the setting. Everyone's deceived and actually "something else". The version 2.0 of the faction may not get as many fans, so I'd be careful if I were them.

 

If she were a mage, it would essentially destroy the Chantry's narrative of her, or at least be a bludgeon to the faithful as it would provide severe implications to a lot of the "divine miracles" that followed her march. 

 

If she is a mage, it could be argued that it was not the Maker that helped their armies, it was magic. But the people were rebelling against a magocracy and Tevinter. 

 

There is a book in Orzammar that can be gifted to Wynne that outright suggests Andraste was a mage, but the book survived a burning and the description says as much. 

 

 

 

 

On topic, if Andraste was a mage wouldn't her soldiers notice so?, she had her war against the Imperium with no account of her using any kind of spells.

 

And how she could beat the magisters at their own game, when they had all the lyrium and sacrificing rituals to enhance their powers.

 

If she has been a mage it will be a whole different matter for the chant, and would contradict the maker has guide her theme.

 

On a related topic, Ameridan was an elf AND a mage, AND the best friend of Emperor Drakon, a man as honored as Andraste is. 

 

The records were altered for political reasons. 

 

The Chantry has done this repeatedly on other occasions with the Dissonent Verses. 

[Snowy-Ninja]

Basically, don't believe the chantry its lying. It had been shown to be corrupt, it has changed historical accounts or destroyed them completely to make sure that the "chant of light" is the dominant religion in Thedas. It started out as a small cult but gained more and more followers and soon became what we see now, I think they just liked the story of Andraste and repurposed it to suit the chant of light. For all we know what they tell us Andraste said may actually all be false or mostly false. 

 

It seems that the more we learn the more it seems Andraste was a mage and possibly a dreamer, this of course would be removed from all accounts because the chantry doesn't seem to like mages. Shartan is suspected to be her lover and if she heard the voice of the maker we just don't know, it could have been a spirit / demon, an elven god/goddess, old god or something else. It could also be said she has a lot in common Tyrdda Bright axe or at least I think so. 

 

I think its sort of clear by now that the Maker does not (if he is real) live in either the "real" world, Fade or Void he'd be something beyond all that. 
 

[Yaroub]

On a related topic, Ameridan was an elf AND a mage, AND the best friend of Emperor Drakon, a man as honored as Andraste is. 

 

The records were altered for political reasons. 

 

The Chantry has done this repeatedly on other occasions with the Dissonent Verses. 

 

I don't get it, are you referring to the codex entries in joh?

 

Those weren't chant texts right?