I was hoping that if I gave it some time, this monstrous pile of lore would settle into a nice, tidy little pattern. (ಥwಥ) But no. It’s still madness. Massive chunks of exploded pre-Trespasser theory are scattered everywhere, and every time I pull on a new string, something else unravels. Pushing this whole mess out of my head so someone else can point out where I’ve gone wrong and how it all fits together.
First, just to be sure the rest of this makes any sense at all, some quick background theory. If you’re already good to go with Order vs. Chaos -> Faith vs. Magic, the centrality of Choice, and gameworld-as-Fade, feel free to skip down to “Trespasser Rabbit Hole Starts Here!” Otherwise, a quick overview of the important bits.
Game World as Fade: rules that are bent, but never broken.
There are a staggering number of parallels between the world of Thedas and our own. The DA universe is an impressive work of syncretism, made even more so by how neatly the idea ties back into the nature of the game world itself. Put simply, the world of Dragon Age seems to have a relationship to our own reality that parallels that of the Fade to Thedas itself. It is a phantom universe, separated from the physical world by the “veil” of our monitor screens, reflecting aspects of our reality like a funhouse mirror: distorted, warped, exaggerated, but undeniably recognizable. Like the fade, the game world is fundamentally malleable, its form and direction shaped almost effortlessly by the desires and thoughts of the only sentient mind within it: the player.
For the purposes of theory crafting, the relevant point is that the game world seems to share two important conceits with the fade of Thedas. First, it may bend the laws of the world it reflects, but never fully break them. The parallels we uncover are never direct. The warped image of the game world is never completely faithful to the “real world” that it mirrors, and we shouldn’t expect otherwise. Second is the assumption that in its function as a mirror, twisted and splintered though it may be, the broad conceptual underpinnings and structural components of the game world can’t diverge entirely from our reality. A mirror can distort or warp the world it reflects, but it is still a reflection- its contents are necessarily limited by having something to reflect out in the “real world”.
Taken together, these two assumptions allow us (with caution) to draw on an incredibly broad array of real-world analogies and frameworks to add additional context to the lore we find in game, many of which themselves overlap in ways that suggest new paths of exploration, connection, and explanation.
As a quick example, a parallel that randomly fell into place for me earlier today (and I’m sure others are way ahead of me on this) is how aspects of Solas’ character and history run in warped parallel with Doctor Who.
The ‘incarnations’. The two hearts. The Oncoming Storm. The Time War. The Moment. Gallifrey and Arlathan. “The healer has the bloodiest hands.” "What I did, I did without choice, in the name of peace and sanity." His expertise with wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Even the blasted orb-screwdriver, though that starts to feel like a stretch. Ten’s arc might even offer the faintest glimmer of hope-despair for fellow Solasmancers: “I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi gods and would-be gods. Out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing... just one thing... I believe in her.”
“I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired; tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything you love turn to dust. If you live long enough, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone.”
Unfortunately, that’s about as far as I can go with it, because my knowledge of the source itself is limited. (Watched for a bit, disliked Rose, loved Donna, lost interest after Tennant left. Yes, I realize that makes me a bad person.) But someone with enough Who lore to bring to bear might be able to pick out deeper hints or insights in the connection that would otherwise pass unnoticed.
And of course, Arlathan is more than Gallifrey. Arlathan is Olympus. Arlathan is Atlantis. Arlathan is Carcosa. Arlathan is Heaven, Hell, and lost Christian Eden in one. Every connection we discover offers a fresh perspective, a new framework we can use to help sketch the larger picture from the warped and fragmented pieces we find in game.
Moving on to Choice!
This is already getting a bit long, so summary time. Choice is critical. Choice is everything. This is a pretty obvious point to make from a meta-game perspective: choice is the core gameplay mechanic that determines the ultimate outcome of your game. More than that though, the game itself actively engages players in exploring the larger concept. What does it mean to have free will? What drives the decisions we make? How do we deal with the burden of choice when the consequences extend beyond ourselves? Where should my right to act freely end, and your rights begin? How does a society decide on that balance? What happens if they fail? What makes choice difficult? What makes it impossible?
In order to dig into this a bit more, we have to take a quick look at Order and Chaos. The existence of individual free will and the ability to make meaningful choices depends on maintaining a delicate balance between the two. Too much Order in the form of social restrictions, expectations, or outright slavery, and the individual’s ability to truly ‘choose’ is threatened. Too much Chaos, and that choice loses both significance and impact- its effect lost in a tumult of roiling change.
The wide range of cultures we find in Thedas explores this aspect a bit. The Avvar are probably the most “chaotic” people we’ve encountered so far. Their society imposes very few restrictions, so individuals are largely free to do as they please. But as outliers at the chaotic end of the spectrum, the effects of these choices tend to be limited in both duration and significance. Avvar marriage (the most significant social contract most of us will ever enter into) is ensured not to last beyond the number of knots tied in a string. Pacts and treaties last only as long as they’re deemed useful, then discarded without much fanfare. Avvar culture isn’t dysfunctional, but neither is their society likely to produce any great collaborative works, scientific advances or engineering marvels.
The Qunari exist at the opposite end of the spectrum. Though the game suggests it hasn’t always been so, their civilization is dominated by relentless Order in the modern age. They’ve made tremendous strides working as a cooperative unit, outstripping most other cultures in terms of scientific inquiry and technology… but at what cost? How much potential has been stifled for the sake of social order? What possibilities were lost? When a society builds itself around such a rigid structure, can the larger “organism” still adapt and evolve to meet new challenges?
Finally (and fittingly) the core dilemma of striking a balance between Order and Chaos has a parallel in the design of the game itself. Not enough choice and players feel trapped, restricted, like the game is running on rails. Too much and the underlying structure becomes cacophonous and unmanageable, undermining the writers’ ability to grant individual choices significant weight and impact.
Moving back to the abstract, we can conceive of primordial Order as the deterministic, Newtonian universe. You could flip a figurative coin, but the result is governed entirely by the set of static, predictable laws that govern its motion through space: the initial force applied, the drag coefficient of the air, the distance traveled, and so on. “Choice” in this scenario is an illusion, and this is something that modern neuroscience is still grappling with. How do we define free will and choice when our physical brains (and thus thought itself) can be reduced to biochemical processes, as seemingly inevitable and outside conscious control as any other chemical reaction?
Anyway! In the game world, the answer is simple. Individual free will seems to have its source in the same element that frees the universe from determinism: the introduction of Chaos. As noted in my (painfully outdated and totally wrong in spots) earlier post on the nature of magic, Chaos provides an opposing will to Order, an alternative outcome for every theoretical coin flip in the universe. While our earlier universe of Order was bound to mechanically follow a single absolute path from beginning to end (a “song” of creation orchestrated by a single Conductor) the introduction of Chaos shatters that original into the multiverse: the Sundered Song. An infinity of parallel universes, the broadest set of which includes (the game suggests) our own. Uncertainty comes into play, and the fractal way in which the same theme repeats at multiple levels (the fade taking form in response to sentient thought, choice conceived as directed quantum decoherence) is one of the things that makes the DA universe so interesting and elegant. While it may not be how the mind works in our own reality (indeterminacy on a macroscopic scale doesn’t occur neurologically) high five to the writing team for building a universe that makes more sense than ours.
Moving on! We’re given two primary symbols to represent Order and Chaos within the game: the Sun (Chaos) and the All-seeing Eye (Order), which can help us decrypt a ton of subtext within the game itself. The sigil of the Seekers is an obvious example: the two symbols are superimposed upon one another in a visual representation of their critical impartiality, dedication to truth, and the restoration of balance. The Inquisition adds a downturned sword to the sigil, suggesting the restoration of this balance by necessary force. The Templar sigil is interesting in that both the upward and downward pointing versions seem to be accepted as valid- but still, whether the sword represents mercy or execution, the overall effect is clear: the suppression of magic (Chaos, the Sun) by force. The Chantry’s use of the Sun and its lingering connection to a coming “dawn” stems from the origin of the faith. This makes it something of a visual anachronism in the context of modern Thedas, remaining unchanged even as the organization itself has warped in tone and purpose over time. At this point, it might be more accurate to call it a symbol of the False Sun, which is an idea I’ll come back to in a moment.)
Order and Chaos have a number of secondary symbols, and an important one to note in the context of choice is free will as the butterfly, a nod to the real world concept of the “butterfly effect”, linking the idea again to Chaos and the indeterministic universe. In game, we see this connection referenced directly in talking with Erasthenes, who we know Corypheus has stripped of choice. He is a helpless puppet, and describes his state:
"I am a ruin, the jeweled husk when the butterfly leaves."
The butterfly stands in as a direct symbol of what he has lost: his ability to choose- and again its connection to Chaos is an apt fit, given that the Chant marks this as the Maker’s precious gift to his second-born. This element of chaos is the “unquenchable flame” in our blood, driving us to shape the world around us as fractal Makers, the center of our own small universe. It is our individual melody, our tiny piece of the Sundered Song.
Now that we’ve established a connection between the Chaos butterfly and free will, we need to mark the existence of its dark twin. Note the juxtaposition between the above and what we find on page 67 of WoT2:
World of Thedas presents this image with the note "The Magisters face judgement", implying this figure represents the essence of the Maker they encountered. And what is it? Although it's drawn with sun-like beams of light emerging from its crown, its features are unmistakable. This is a moth. A false butterfly. A creature of darkness drawn inescapably to light, but self-negated in its attempt to seize the flame of the Sun.
The idea of a “False Sun” has echoes elsewhere as well. In the Andrastean faith, the Maker described in the early Chant grants individual will to His Children freely, asking nothing but the pleasure of watching them create in turn. But by the time Transfigurations 12 was added to the text, this Maker is utterly transformed, referred to as “the fire at the heart of the World” and demands that His faithful kneel:
For I walk only where You would bid me
Stand only in places You have blessed
Sing only the words You place in my throat
The Maker of the early Chant, the one who cast aside his firstborn because they were mere reflections with no will of their own, has been replaced by a Maker whose aim seems to be the inverse: utter domination and control of His Children. Four distinct Creators seem to be interchangeably referenced behind the mask of the Andrastean “Maker” in the Chant, but the split above is easiest to discern. This is Order in the guise of Chaos: the False Sun, the Moth, the King in Yellow, the Darkness claiming the dominion of Light.
On that topic, a quick note about red lyrium. I think we’re given limited evidence in Trespasser that it may not be blighted by nature. (Though the red lyrium idol, which is the most likely origin of the red lyrium in Ferelden and Thedas, absolutely is. No question there.) Consider Cole’s comment when you come across the Qunari sample at the Darvaarad:
“The song is different, but the pieces fit together”.
Nothing here hints at the discomfort he usually feels around red lyrium, no mention of how “wrong” or “sick” its song is. It’s possible this is a sample of the blood of the Sun in its untainted state, the song of Chaos forming a natural partner to the Song of Order sung by blue lyrium. Cole’s comment that the two pieces “fit together” is an encouraging suggestion that balance is possible.
The important point here is that if this is true, then red lyrium has no innate darkness within it. The Sun is a powerful entity of Chaos, willful and dangerous- but may not be an inherently malevolent entity. This would also mean that the “darkness” that forms the essence of blight must be something else, an unnatural element artificially introduced to his Song. Which brings to mind the following:
"There is strength in absence. Absence of weakness, and of limitation. Absence of caution, and of mercy. The Void has always been within."
If this “void” exists in tangible form, it would make a powerful and incredibly dangerous compound with the innate “fire” of the Sun. Together the two suggest ambition untempered by mercy, rage unchecked by caution- an overwhelming desire to conquer or destroy even if the result is a Kingdom of ash and dust. And there is a worrying angle here that suggests Solas’ inherent duality may stem from the nature of his parallel in our world. We can conceive of “Father Time” as entropy, and thus primordial chaos in isolation- but in our own reality, space and time are inextricably connected. It’s possible the same holds true here: both void and chaos in one. He seems to have mellowed considerably over time (as has Mythal) but his perspective still occasionally evokes the faint, irritating specter of Ayn Rand.
Order vs Chaos, Faith vs Magic
Faith is the confirmation of Order, suppressing change in favor of the Maker’s Plan. It is tacit confirmation that the “World That Is” is as it should, and must be. As we see with both Seeker and Templar abilities, Faith stands in fundamental opposition to change, holding the world in place and preserving its current state. This, I think, might explain why Spirits of Faith are drawn to Seekers during their vigil. By isolation, fasting and other acts of self-abnegation, the trace of chaos that defines the Seeker’s individual will (their song) is muted into near silence. Similarly, they detach themselves from the spirit (fade) world of emotion and memory, existing only in the moment. In deepest meditation, the Seeker exists in a form in which a Maker of Order might recognize His Children: a life force laid bare, the walls that separate sentient beings from the larger universe dissolving as they temporarily rejoin the original Song.
This might also help explain why Seekers seem to possess an innate resistance to red lyrium, as (in theory) that would be the Blood of the Sun, primordial titan of Chaos. Their nature, particularly after their reawakening by a spirit of Faith, stands in fundamental opposition to its effect- possibly suggesting they’re no longer as “harmonic” as someone who hadn’t undergone the vigil would be.
Magic forms the other side of the coin. Though in function it might appear to impose ‘order’ on indeterminate fadestuff, at a more fundamental level it’s an expression of Chaos: the triumph of individual Will over the external world. Where Faith would have choice guided by a Greater Power or ceded entirely, Magic exalts the individual as a Power unto themselves, a Maker within their own domain. And as always, this tends to feel like a good thing from a western progressive perspective until one Maker decides they’d prefer a world with a fireball where someone else’s face was. Conflict is a facet of Chaos, and thus an (almost?) inevitable consequence of the Sundered Song. While harmony isn’t impossible, it becomes more difficult to sustain with each additional melody added to the larger whole.
Shite. This is getting way too long for simple back theory. Summary graphic time.
Trespasser Rabbit Hole Starts Here!
So. Where to start. Ok.
Might as well stick with Order and Chaos, because we get some new symbols in Trespasser that might help us tie some interesting bits together. The most obvious is the new pair of statues we find at the entrance to Fen’Harel’s sanctuary and in the Deep Roads. Given the context, assuming a connection to the Sun and Mythal seems fairly straightforward, and we find the same basic symbols repeated on top of the pair of eluvians we find in the Vir Dirthara.
So the two seem to break down as we might expect: Chaos (the Sun) and Order (Earth/Mythal). The general shape of the statues is intriguing though- particularly the “flipper” appendages. We might be able to shrug these off as aesthetic flair, maybe a stylized interpretation of dragon wings- but unfortunately for the sanity of theory crafters everywhere, this is not the only ancient art that evokes the same bizarre shape. And that starts us down a slippery slope that ends in a cliff.
This is the series of mosaics found in Fen’Harel’s sanctuary, and I think the context we find in each tower is meant to suggest the general era the corresponding mosaic belongs to. (Meaning the statues and murals, not the veilfire codices, which seem to have been laid on top at a later date. Solas is quick to correct the Inquisitor on that point when she describes the ‘truth’ she uncovered in the sanctuary: “You saw another story, written in desperation to give me far more credit than I deserve.”)
So what do we find?
The first seems to associate Fen’Harel with the crossroads ‘trees’ we find throughout the eluvian network. While their function is still unclear (which makes the implication hazy as well) our experience suggests they might gather and store loose, static-like veil energy, possibly drawing it from the surrounding area.
The second tower has two mosaics, and again- in context, I think these imply the continuation of a narrative that diverges sharply from the veilfire codices overlaid on them. The tower is topped and guarded with the archer statue we find throughout Thedas, and the “Robin Hood” parallel feels very intentional. The first mosaic strengthens that suggestion, depicting a band of equals united in purpose: guided, but not controlled, by the wolf that fights at their side. The visual bridge between the balanced top and bottom images further suggests a group whose collective efforts serve to effectively “create” the larger Fen’Harel perceived by the outside world, much like Sera’s band of Red Jennies.
But as the image points out, we’re also given a hint at the first stirrings of Pride here, creeping into the scene from below as a curling pattern of peacock feathers. And as we enter the tower itself, the external murals of civil war and armed conflict take a darker turn: a procession of listless figures drawn with a gaping void where their mind and heart would otherwise be, trudging beneath a relentless Sun.
Previous interpretations of this image (including my own) tended to read these figures as elven slaves, drones utterly dominated by the Sun. The problem being that the more we learn about the nature of red lyrium, the less slavery and control seem like a comfortable fit. What if, rather than being a depiction of the fighters’ adversary, the image was instead meant to evoke the darker aspect of the elves’ newly-won freedom, the unforeseen consequences of the ‘sundered song’?
The idea is shaky, but taking that perspective might cast some explanatory light on the mosaic we discover at the base of the tower, which seems to be a very dark twist on Robin’s Hood’s “robbing from the rich to give to the poor”.
There is a lot to unpack here. The peacock feathers that were only hinted at in the previous mosaic are now fully unfurled, dominating the background to each side of the central figure. This is Pride in full force- and this is where we discover an echo of the statue we found in the Deep Roads.
Having identified the figure in an earlier context, it seems logical to assume a continued connection here, which has staggering implications. That would make this Earth (Mythal), chained and utterly at the mercy of Fen’Harel, being forcibly drained of blue lyrium which the mosaic depicts dripping from her body. The visual parallels with Hathor (and by extension Aoumbla/Amalthea/ Gavaevodata/Kamadhenu/etc-) strengthen the identification.
Also, following the theme of vengeance and Mythal “hunting the hunter”, Cole’s comment that “sometimes the cow takes your gold” takes on a very pointed nuance in terms of the success of Solas’ game “exploits”.
The obvious question is why?
I think we’re given a potential answer from the interplay of two sources. First, our earlier Robin Hood framework would suggest an act of redistribution, sapping the power of a primordial Titan master to be shared among the freed People. Second is the nearby mural’s empty, enervated depiction of elves beneath the Sun. Pulling the two together takes a bit of wrangling, so bear with me. It’s tinfoil hat time.
To keep this from spiraling wildly out of control, I’m going to have to hold off a bit on digging into back theory about the nature of ancient elvhen and how they might relate to the primordial Titans. For now, this is going to take a leap of faith. Start with the assumption that when proto-elves came into being, they were much as the Andrastean Chant depicts the Maker’s firstborn Children. Not simply connected by a shared hive mind, but utterly without individual will - controlled entirely by the greater entity of which they were a symbiotic part. The breaking of these first chains thus came with an equally shattering consequence: an abrupt and terrifying loss of connection, both from each other and from the larger whole. This sensation of individuality and corresponding isolation would have been new and utterly foreign, possibly to the point of being unbearable for some.
And as we move to the central building of the sanctuary, that perspective seems to offer a potential motive for the previous mosaic’s horrifying act of pride. It seems to suggest the creation of a new network for the People: one that would connect, but not control. When the Inquisitor examines the mural in the central cathedral, her immediate assumption is that it depicts Fen’Harel removing the vallaslin of freed slaves. This is a difficult interpretation to defend on closer look.
The central figure’s actions may be ambiguous, but their effect is not. The elves that stand behind the Wolf are markedly desaturated, their temples and cheekbones sunken. They stare ahead, rigid and expressionless, held within the borders of a barrier that stands between them and the larger world.
The figures to the Wolf’s right bear vallaslin, and the transformation is unmistakable. Their colors are brighter, their cheeks full, their skin pink and healthy. Only the faintest suggestion of a barrier remains, and only to underscore what has been erased. They are again connected to the larger world, both the physical and the “ocean” of the fade, and they seem to regard their surroundings with newfound joy and wonder. (Note the blue color of the vallaslin, a hint at the nature of the “blood” being used and its potential connection to the events of the previous mosaic.)
The orb’s placement in the scene is harder to interpret. It’s possible it’s only meant to suggest the fade as a means of accessing the “godlike” powers of their former Master, but this could also be an attempt to visually describe a more nuanced connection- possibly that the orb itself draws its power in some way from the thoughts and dreams of those connected through the fade. It’s uncertain.
What is certain is that this scene was never intended to depict Fen’Harel lifting vallaslin from freed slaves. It seems more likely to be a record of the earliest inception of the practice, long before the discovery that this new network could once again be twisted to control.
As an aside, though this doesn’t lead anywhere solid, it’s at least a little suspicious that there’s an odd crater in the valley so close to where we would otherwise expect a fourth tower to stand. …particularly since the corresponding portal ledge of the tower it would have faced ends in a jagged edge of broken masonry. It gets even more so when you consider that the paired tower also happens to be the one topped by the rebel archer statue, its bow drawn and trained on the (now?) empty spot. To quote Dorian, “That’s something. I don’t know what, but it’s something.”
Before we get to the final mosaic, we need to talk about the elephant in the room: Solas’ plan to drop the veil and restore his People. We’re told outright that this won’t be as simple as merging the two worlds into one- that in taking down the veil, the world of his People would be recovered at the cost of our own “burning in the chaos”. I’m not convinced the destruction he describes would be a direct consequence of simply bringing down the veil, however. My hunch is that doing so is just a required step to power his true objective: rewinding the current timeline to the point when the veil was (last) raised. We have limited exposure to the rules that govern time magic in the DA universe (and my own grasp on it is super weak) but I believe what we do know suggests that the act of raising the veil formed a distinct bubble of time bounded by one end by its creation event, within which a degree of time travel would be possible.
And yes, though this gets more than a little goofy and meta, the real world ‘game’ parallels are definitely there: in this case, time travel as save-game exploit. Solas’ current “playthrough” is ruined, so he’s starting over from an earlier save. Unfortunately, that means our current world- the one that only exists along this particular decision path- will be inevitably lost, the cached/buffered data that defines it eventually flushed entirely from RAM. Our world must burn to give the new one space to exist.
A significant problem in this interpretation (aside from the screams of PLEASE NO JESUS NOT TIME TRAVEL) is that having to account for it as a potential factor blows most of our existing theory base to smithereens. Odd breadcrumbs that were passed over before take on all-new meaning, and one of the more worrying patterns that seems to emerge on a second pass is the likelihood that this is not the first time Solas has jumped back to take a do-over. Or the second. Or the third.
Sera is one of the most significant hints that Solas may have already used a “save point” multiple times. I believe her OGS (as Andruil) is fundamentally bound to the game world, and thus exists outside the ‘RAM’ that defines the current timeline. This, I believe, is the source of her constant episodes of deja-vu as she travels with the Inquisition. To drive home the point, if she’s in a relationship with the Inquisitor in Trespasser, she comes about as close to expressing anxiety about an impending rewrite as she possibly could without having conscious awareness of it.
Taken on its own, we could pass this off as nothing. It’s a proposal completely in line with Sera’s usual impetuous urge to seize the day. (Though that aspect of her character should draw a bit of suspicion itself in this light. “Why change the past when you can own this day?”) But much like the “Nothing” on her fade tombstone invites dual interpretation as a reference to her current search for meaning as well as a deeper ‘inherited’ fear of the Void, it’s hard not to read a layer of heavy nuance lurking underneath the sweet and awkward sentiment.
Cole is another pointer to repetitive time travel as conceptual parallel to save-game exploits. Two of his new comments reference the idea directly:
“If you leave and come back, the chest gives you another. That’s how we know too much.”
“Sometimes the cow takes your gold.”
The idea is worrying enough on its own, but as we continue to pick out related breadcrumbs, the picture gets even stranger. There have always been elements in game that seem strategically placed for the Inquisition to find just as they’re needed. I’m 99% sure Cole actually says as much at some point (Hakkon maybe? When the party comes across boxes marked with the bear/spider seal in the temple?) cheerfully exclaiming that they were put here “for us!” At the time, I thought it was just a clever way to lampshade the kind of compromised realism that functional gameplay demands. (A bit like the War Hounds codex nudges us about reused art assets, or how the use of Lorem Ipsum text isn’t actually ‘filler’ from a thematic perspective.) So I just laughed, gave the writing team a mental high five, and put it out of my mind.
…until now. Now I’m not so sure that this rewrite option is quite as clean as Solas seems to think, though it’s still unclear how aware he himself might be of this fact. Given what the loop might imply about the nature of the Pantheon, it’s possible he hasn’t been able to successfully “fix” much of anything at all- but we’ll leap off that cliff in a bit.
First, take a look at the banners that we find hanging in Skyhold when we first arrive. They’re faded with age and marked with a sigil whose in-game source and meaning remains entirely unknown, though anyone familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos would likely recognize it. This is the Yellow Sign, a glyph of ancient horror tied to lost Carcosa and the implacable King in Yellow. Links between Lovecraftian lore and DA are extensive, from Ghil’s abyssal horrors to statuary of the Thing in the Dark, to paeans to Cthulhu pinned to Helsdim’s wall, to codices on Orlesian theater that seem to be fragments from a version of the King in Yellow play itself. All draw suggestive parallels between members of the Pantheon and the Great Old Ones, as well as Carcosa and Arlathan.
This is Helsdim-level madness -I know- but given that context, and the strong possibility that the Sign heralds the dawn of the False Sun (the arrival of the [Queen?] in Yellow), the banners may have been a warning left by the last Inquisition. …the one that manned Skyhold and defeated Corypheus in the cycle before ours. Yes, I know that doesn’t make sense. Still, the banners have to have been crafted in both the past and the “future”. I can’t think of any other way to explain why or how the sigil seems to depict the scar from the Breach:
And just to push this to the point where nobody’s likely to follow, the idea of an incomplete rewrite opens the door for a very, very drastic reinterpretation of the Pantheon. A ridiculous part of my brain keeps nudging me that it’s now possible Solas and Mythal are the origin of most of the known Gods: that each time Solas loads an earlier ‘save’, a fragment of their being is left embedded in the timeline as a distinct OGS entity. Almost like an echo, but not a mirror image- more like a shard of the previous greater whole, which also continues to exist (though in reduced form) as the timeline once again moves forward. Unfortunately for Solas (and Mythal’s other potential ‘fragments’) it’s also possible that Mythal’s core OGS is the only one that by its nature would retain full access to her original knowledge and memory through each loop- and thus may be the only entity able to fully comprehend the why and how of everything that came before.
As much as the idea gives me a headache, there are some stubborn lore tangles that would straighten considerably in that light (Abelas’ claim that the Dread Wolf had nothing to do with Mythal’s death, for one) and bits of random Cole dialogue would be far more easily wrangled into place.
“He hunts the killer, but he’s the one who killed her. He can’t remember.”
“He was their enemy the whole time, but she made him forget, so he could change.”
“He didn’t kill his father. He was his father.”
*shakes herself*
I don’t know. I’m not convinced it works. But it might. I don’t know how else to reconcile the divide between Mythal and Earth, or how to explain the connection between “Father Time”, Elgar’nan, Dirthamen-Falon’Din, Fen’Harel, and Solas, but this is well beyond Helsdim insanity. There could very well be an alternative or contradiction that I’m just not seeing yet.
Still.
*gives the writing team a long, hard side-eye, hoping to catch someone shift uncomfortably*
Another point that makes the idea hard to shake is that conceptually, this is the only sensible way to “fight” Chaos. It’s raw energy, the id in our psychoanalytic parallel. You can’t destroy it, and you can’t suppress or confine it- that just turns it into a bomb. The best you can do is to spend it. Try to point it in a positive direction, use it up, let it bleed away and diminish in power.
And if this is Order’s game plan, then it’s actually kind of working. The old adage that “evil contains the seeds of its own destruction” has a ring of truth here, even if the dichotomy isn’t accurate. Taking this perspective would also mean Solas was telling us the truth about his nature, though again- it’s still unclear whether he’s aware of the full weight of that claim. He isn’t an echo or fragment of some lost greater whole. He is the original, worn down to almost mortal dimensions. The threat now lies primarily in his disastrous legacy and the pieces he and Mythal have ‘left behind’.
Getting back to the mosaic, we also need to quickly dig into the question of exactly who Solas is talking about when he refers to “his People”.
Various posters have surmised that the Chant’s description of the Maker’s first Children maps to the spirits of the Fade, and I think that’s broadly true- though not the whole story. There’s an obviously tempting parallel to be made between the firstborn of the Andrastean Chant and angels of the Christian bible. I would take the idea a step further and suggest the nature of this subordination was to the point of not truly being independent entities: more accurately described as simple extensions of their “Maker’s” will- a seamless symbiotic part of a greater whole.
Since this early primordial existence, I believe the Elvhen have weathered three major cycles of enslavement, rebellion, and exodus. The first was an awakening to the concept of individuality, the introduction of free will. Cole describes an elven Inquisitor as having “blood that is not blood, a tiny trace of time”- and I think this is a hint at both their lineage and at how very long ago this first ‘rebellion’ took place. The element of chaos in their blood, (which again would be the factor that granted them their own song and thus identity as individuals) is Time. Entropy. Chaos in its most primordial form- long before the creation of the Sun, whose essence would later fill the same role in the creation of other sentient races. Consequently, if we can extrapolate as far as I believe we can from revelations in Trespasser, this trace would be the distinct fingerprint of “Father Time”, a pointer to Solas’ role in what was likely a simultaneous act of emancipation from Order and conceptual “creation” in one.
In their earliest incarnation, I think these proto-elves would have existed as incorporeal patterns of energy- though how we conceive of that existence depends entirely on the broader creation framework we choose to adopt. (A collection of neural impulses in the “universal mind” of Individuation theory, software ‘daemons’ within a vast inorganic behemoth within the Mass Effect timeline, and so on. The important point being no physical bodies yet- these are ghosts in the machine.)
This is heavy tinfoil territory, but I believe the old poem “When waked we walked” recounts the aftermath of this creation/rebellion and first exodus in its opening lines, describing the journey of the ancient proto-elves to Earth by wormhole-eluvian. But this is where overlapping terminology starts to trip us up a bit. In light of “incomplete rewrite” theory, it seems possible that the planet of modern Thedas is a relatively recent ‘echo’ from the perspective of primordial time, and that if we could view the world from a distant point in space we would actually find it dwarfed in size by Luna, the larger of Thedas’ so-called “moons”. This would be the true Earth, seat of the nascent empire of Elvhenan remembered in fragments of Dalish history.
Solas claims he last raised the veil because the Evanuris killed Mythal- and I believe he’s using her name synonymously with “Earth” here, as in theory she would be a fragment of that Titan’s spirit. (Possibly the essential OGS wisp of memory separated from the greater whole when early elves subdued the terrified Earth by making it “forget”. It’s uncertain.) But while proximate blame for her murder is still debatable, I think the nature of elven society itself may have made her death almost inevitable. At its height, ancient Elvhenan was a sprawling empire of marvel and spectacle, every wonder powered by magic whose source was lyrium and fade: the blood and spirit of the behemoth Titan they conquered and occupied.
The story is not a new one, and the parallel to our own reality is easy enough to make. Progress- taken to mean mankind’s mastery of the world around him- necessarily comes at a price. Change requires energy, and the “lyrium” of our own world maps most closely to fossil fuels. (And in that respect, it’s worth noting again how the material of both Solas’ orb and Mythal’s lifeless body resemble anthracite coal: an ancient, condensed, pure version of our real world parallel.)
As “the blood of titans”, lyrium seems to be a potentially endless renewable resource at first, but a quick pass with logic tells us this is unlikely to be true. Conservation of energy is a fundamental law of physics, which (assuming adherence to the rules of the gameworld-as-fade) may be bent, but not broken. A bled entity must either consume energy to replace what has been lost, or die. Drawing on what we’ve theorized elsewhere about the fundamentally interchangeable nature of lyrium and the fade, it’s possible that the primordial relationship between ‘proto-elves’ and Titan might have formed a symbiotic loop, something like the mitochondria that power cells in our own bodies: the elven connection to the fade (their ‘dreams’) a conversion of energy which fueled the larger Titan.
Sentience freed them from the restraints of this natural cycle, and as the ever-increasing demands of society outpaced the ‘natural’ restoration of both fade and lyrium, that balance was quickly overturned. The body of the Titan Earth was slowly and inexorably hollowed by simultaneous expansion of the elven civilization and their quest to recover lyrium. Faced with crisis, history suggests a faction attempted to explore alternatives and found one in red lyrium, the blood of the Sun. The effect of this ‘discovery’ was disastrous, compounding a chain of ever-increasing conflict that ultimately culminated in an apocalyptic cataclysm so devastating and total that the planet’s inhabitants- as well as the primordial Titan Earth herself- perished.
Her corpse endures now as Luna, its surface blasted, pitted, and covered in grey ash. Still, all was not lost. The souls of the dead endured, held “in memory” by the larger spirit (the fade) of the Titan that had granted them. This could be the reference intended by Cole’s banter: "She knows they're going to kill her, can only save what's important. Precious space to remember her smile."
Thus the second exodus of the Elvhen began. Spirits of the dead travelled by eluvian first to the Sanctuary we find in Trespasser, then eventually on to the new world. But this echo was not the same Earth they knew. It was diminished, lesser- and as some attempted to retake physical form, aspects of the histories that endure evoke a level of hardship that suggests drawing on this new fade may have been difficult, possibly purposefully so. Aspects of post-fall mythology seem to suggest that the lessons of Arlathan were not entirely forgotten, and some of the Dalish myths that survived the fall have a significant ‘environmental’ aspect:
“Long ago, when our people were strong and free, we roamed the world and could do as we pleased. But we were taught by Andruil, Mother of Hares, to respect nature and all of the Creator's creatures. Even though the earth was ours, we did not misuse it.”
Similiarly, Koslun is awakened to his revelation by a swarm of locusts that “rises from the earth” devouring all in its path, and comes to the conclusion:
“The world and the self are one.
Existence is a choice.
A self of suffering, brings only suffering to the world.
It is a choice, and we can refuse it.”
Which seems to have a strange resonance with the idea of uthenera: physical beings choosing to return to their original immaterial existence. (As well as potentially "rejoining" their Maker before the paths were closed.)
And while this timeline is obviously sketched from the barest of clues, I think we’re given a fairly pointed hint in conversation with the Spirit of Command we encounter in Crestwood. Her response to the question of whether she’s a demon is outrage: “Those dolts who would suck this world dry?” Helsdim’s conspiracies about “Moon Men” are another obvious pointer, and sound at least slightly less crazy in this context. It also creates a strikingly evocative image of Solas as Fen’Harel: the Wolf howling at the Moon in loss and sorrow.
We have to draw on one more source to complete the picture. Links between Cathaire and the Disciples of Andraste to real-world Catharism have come up in theory-crafting before. The sect’s doctrine and relationship to the early Christian church (and the fact that their existence prompted the first real-world Inquisition) gives us a tremendous amount of potential context for lore we find in game. The interesting potential parallel in this particular context is the Cathar belief that human souls were “the genderless spirits of angels, trapped within the physical creation of the evil god, cursed to be reincarnated until they achieved salvation through a ritual called the consolamentum.” The parallel is warped, as we expect it to always be- but consider the following:
Before the Fall of Arlathan, we have no evidence that human beings were able to use magic.
After the Fall, codices from the time suggest that the ancient Elvhen are now “trapped” in some way, and that “Without the wise to lead them, they will lose what they should have been.”
A cycle of reincarnation seems to underlie sentient life in modern-day Thedas. The Chant holds that human souls escape this cycle by either “crossing the veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky” to rest at the right hand of the Maker (evoking the Sun in the Void of space), or coming to rest “in the warmest places” governed by the “Fire at the Heart of the World” (evoking the False Sun in the Abyss.)
The parallels between the domains of Christian Heaven (the Sun in the Void), Hell (the Abyss of the False Sun beneath the earth) and Purgatory (the Fade) are fairly easy to trace here, and the Chant suggests the fate of the soul is essentially defined by its chosen orientation in life. The faithful of the False Sun are rewarded for their obedience by being subsumed, rejoining the greater whole. (“Seat me by Your side in death / Make me one within Your glory.”) The faithful of the Sun are rewarded for embracing their power as fractal Makers or agents of change by joining the Sun in the sky as a star, a small Sun unto themselves.
The important element here is choice. It is the ability to decide ones’ nature that seems to allow the soul to escape the Purgatory of the fade and pass Beyond, joining their ‘chosen’ Maker. As Cole’s banter with Solas points out, being incarnated /gaining access to a physical body seems to be the only potential path of redemption that the spirits of the Fade have. By being trapped within the fade, they are also trapped within their nature. (“This side is slow and heavy, but here is what can change.”) It’s possible that some spirits’ desire to take human form may not be a hunger for sensation or life, but for redemption.
Cole: “They can only return to the Maker if they become real. Why can't they be forgiven as they are?”
Solas: “People say they lack the ability to learn or grow. But the more contact you have with this world, the more ability you gain.”
Solas also makes it clear in various contexts that he does not identify with the Dalish. He does, however, consistently and emphatically support the plight of mages. Mages have a limited but conscious awareness of the fade, which is the precise factor he uses to define what it is to be “real” in his final conversation with the Inquisitor.
Given the above, in concert with the warped parallel to Cathar belief, it seems plausible that what distinguishes a mage from a non-mage is being born in (now accidental) possession of the reincarnated spirit of an ancient elf. They are what remains of his People, his lost Children: the remnants of an ancient and nearly extinct ‘alien’ race.
With that in mind, we turn to the last mosaic. The icon of the wolf is now complemented by a body whose flippered shape mimics both the earlier statues and the Titan being drained in the previous image. This is Fen’Harel presented as a God. The orb representing his power floats before him, the apparent source of a thick wavy line that passes through the head of the figure below.
And this… is kind of a tough nut to crack. if anything does seem certain, is that this is not a depiction of removing vallaslin. On closer inspection, each half of the face seems to belong to a different type of entity. The shape of the eyes, the ears, and even the angle of the cheekbone all suggest two halves that share similar traits, yet are fundamentally distinct. If this is the raising of the veil, is it pointing out a divide that already existed? The spirits of lost Elvhenan on the left, the mortal elves of Thedas on the right? Or is it meant to suggest the joining of the two, the incarnation of ancient elvhen souls in recreated physical form? I’m not sure.
But while all of this seems plausible in its broadest strokes, it throws some fundamental pre-Trespasser theory into total disarray. One of the worst is having to reinterpret Mythal.
When there was nothing, you were everything.
When there was no earth, you were the Earth.
This is where I start to spin in circles. Mythal has to be the Initial Singularity, has to be Gaia, and yet she can’t be. She has to be Earth, but also not Earth. The new lore seems to stomp all over triad magic theory. She has to be Possibility, but also primordial Order- because there’s no one else to fill the role.
Is she the stump of the Giving Tree, the final scrap that remains after sacrificing everything for her Children? Or is she the eagle, vengefully ripping at Prometheus’ liver as the cycle turns, helping to build hope only to sink the knife deeper as it twists to despair? Trespasser suggests she has more than enough cause, and time echo theory sets the stage for an original cycle of betrayal that would almost precisely mirror Flemeth’s. Parallels that tie Solas to the concept of the Doctor also cast a suspicious light on her self-described role as “a fly in the ointment”. Mythal could be his closest ally and worst enemy, dangling the illusion of redemption and hope only for the satisfaction to be had in ripping it away.
Or can she be both? I can’t shake the sense that her nature is (and perhaps has always been) the mother bird, mercilessly shoving the little ones out of the nest to teach them the power of their own wings. As she hints often, regret is an inescapable facet of choice. It is how we learn. It’s both penance and price in one, and I think Solas is learning an important, though painful, lesson about pride, connection, and balance.
I don’t see a clear path yet. Too many pieces still seem to fit within their own scope but contradict in the larger picture. And though there’s still a whole pile of lore left to sift through, this is getting ridiculously long. Leaving it here for now.
Thoughts, corrections, and counter theory are welcome! It’s going to be a long, long wait for DA4.
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