163 réponses à ce sujet

[Lumix19]

I am more of the opinion that the sedentary City Elves and the nomadic Dalish are for the most part not capable of integration with each other beyond their current complex relationship, they are both elves proud of their own very different cultures and religious beliefs that they are not likely going to give up no matter what one side demands or wants.

Precisely. I wouldn't expect that the Dalish and the City elves would sit down and declare themselves one people "because they're elves" anymore than I would expect the Chasind and Avvar to do so "because they're human".

[leaguer of one]

That's a good point, the Dalish WERE the victims they claimed to be, they just didn't know who really abused them.

What? They are at fault for their down fall the most.

[Cyberpunk]

I highly doubt the Dalish elves in the lore can ever win an independent state and have it last long. The only way is for all the clans to come together. And you can bet that they'll have to fight hard for it. 

[dragonflight288]

Why do they need to be Dalish if the point is to not be Dalish? Again- are cultures equal in intrinsic worth, or not?

 

Moreover, why would we assume that a 'new elven identity based on a truthful understanding of their history' would avoid the whole victim narrative? The revelations of the elven gods don't remove victimhood- they add to it. The Dread Wolf cut the heart out of their civilization, leaving them easy pickings for Tevinter. And before that, the Elven gods tyranized them. They can claim to be even more of the victims than before.

 

Mostly because the racism and culture of humans and the chantry or the qunari largely destroy or absorb and then destroy anything that disagrees with their beliefs. 

 

The elves have no culture to call their own outside of the Dalish clans. The City Elves are andrastian, the elves who join the Qun are qunari, and there are no other elves out there besides the Dalish, and the Dalish, while having a largely wrong narrative of their history, is the only group that has it. 

 

The recent discoveries need to be shared and it'll be up to them to accept it, but until the Chantry and the human nations are willing to be tolerant and let the elves develop a land and culture of their own that is strictly elven, let alone one that does or does not reflect the Dalish beliefs, there will be almost no opportunity for the elves to move forward. 

 

The very racism and religious fervor outside the clans keep them as nomads, and they can barely advance as a result. 

 

I think the elves in general deserve a land to call their own and the true history of the elves to be taught, but I don't think it needs to be one that has to be built up on the humans own terms, which will be join the chantry and move into an alienage and deal with the racism of humans, or the qunari's which is join the qun or perish or have your mind destroyed and be a minor laborer. 

[dragonflight288]

What? They are at fault for their down fall the most.

 

Arlathan...possibly yes or you can just blame Solas. The Dales would be debatable. 

 

The racism of humans and the dominance and demands of the Chantry cannot be excluded as parts of the elves fall during and after the Dales. 

[straykat]

The only way is for all the clans to come together. And you can bet that they'll have to fight hard for it. 

 

And then lose.

 

The best thing to do is make peace with the Chantry, as people tried before. There are more people willing to do it on both sides than the past. It doesn't mean anyone changes, but at least the two sides can exchange more, talk more, and one side doesn't throw itself at a meaningless fight. This is a point to grow from at least.

[Gervaise]

Making peace with the Chantry largely seems to involve accepting their beliefs.    During the course of my latest run through my elf has denied faith in the Maker at every opportunity but people won't accept it.    At best they simply pat me on the head and say, surely isn't there room in your pantheon of gods for one more dear?

 

My problem as an outsider looking in and as an elf within the story is that whilst the Dalish got some of their history distorted, quite a lot of their fundamental beliefs did turn out to be correct.   There was an all powerful magical elven empire in the past.    Elves were effectively immortal because of their direct link to the Fade.    Their "gods" were locked away by Fen'Harel and this did occur around the time of the fall of their empire.   Coincidentally the rise of early Tevinter did occur only a few short years after the raising of the Veil, so it is hardly surprising that elven memory confused the two and then added in the later racial memory of a now established Tevinter destroying the last remnants of old Arlathan.  

 

By contrast everything I have learnt about the Chantry and their beliefs both in game and from WoT2, point towards it being a big fraud.    The true history of Andraste bears no relation to what is contained in the Chant.    Hardly any of what is in the Chant likely reflects what Andraste truly taught.    Those bits that probably did come from her, like the moral teaching, are steadfastly ignored by those in power, preferring instead the idea that the Maker has given them Divine Right to rule over lesser folk, which I find no mention of anywhere in the Chant.     Celene came to power because she was willing to sacrifice her entire household of servants to impress another noble; I wonder what the Maker thought about that?      Time and again the nobility give scant regard to the moral obligations of their religion.  The Chantry ignored the promise made their own prophet to the elves and must know that Ameridan thought it quite compatible with his faith to respect both the Maker and his own gods, leading me to suspect that was also the case with Andraste.  If submitting to the rule of the Chantry had in any way benefitted the city elves, then you could say to the Dalish, put aside your beliefs and integrate but it quite plainly has not.     This is why the most I would be willing to concede as a Dalish would be a situation like in Wycombe.   If that is not possible then may be they will have to stay forever as wandering nomads.    It has worked for the last six hundred years.    It worked for the gypsies in our world until modern developments made their nomadic life too difficult; the Dalish will have no such problems in the eternal medieval world of Thedas. 

 

Dalish cultural identity goes beyond simply their religious beliefs.   They have also been trying to recover their language (which minority cultures often see as a way of retaining their identity).    They have a system of governance that is different from the humans around them.    Until DAI came up with that ridiculous belief about the number of mages in a clan, they were the one non human group that had a positive attitude to mages.    Now, outside of Tevinter, only the human Rivani and Avaar have an alternative to the southern Chantry's attitude to magic.    They have traditions relating to the halla and likely other wild creatures as well.    The beliefs about home, family, craftsmanship and traditions that are reflected in their beliefs about their gods are positive values.   Above all they have this spirit of independence, an unwillingness to submit to outside influences out of expediency, because they do have something unique and valuable that should be preserved.     This is why I find it disturbing how much negativity people have towards them and in how they have been depicted in recent books and games.    They are not perfect and they have their fare share of jerks among them but having immersed myself in their culture to play my Inquisitor (and to a lesser extent my Dalish Warden) I would hate to see them simply absorbed into human culture or wiped out by the writers because they make for easy fall guys plot wise.

[straykat]

I'm simply saying they'll survive if they're practical. Learn to coexist. Even the Chantry is learning that. Maintaining some pure identity or being an idealist would do no good. Let alone the stubborn kind.

 

Like the trailer Inquisitor says... "All of this happened because of fanatics and arguments about the next world. It's time we start believing in this one." It's probably a good lesson for everyone. If I got anything out of this game, it's probably that.

[SgtSteel91]

@Gervaise

 

Another thing about the Chantry is that it was created almost 170 years after Andraste's death by the newly created Orlesian Empire.

[Ashagar]

I think you mean the southern Chantry there, Tevinter formed its own chantry very shortly after her death which was led by the Tevinter Archons founded by the very Archon who gave Andreste the mercy blow which latter merged with the southern chantry to avoid conflict but kept its own traditions including male priests who could marry and teaching that Andreste was the makers prophet not his bride.

[Vit246]

I'm simply saying they'll survive if they're practical. Learn to coexist. Even the Chantry is learning that. Maintaining some pure identity or being an idealist would do no good. Let alone the stubborn kind.

 

Like the trailer Inquisitor says... "All of this happened because of fanatics and arguments about the next world. It's time we start believing in this one." It's probably a good lesson for everyone. If I got anything out of this game, it's probably that.

 

In order to "survive", the "practical" thing to do currently is keep moving and never submit. Thats how they survive as a people and a culture. Any "peace" and "coexistence" with the Chantry would probably involve basically turning the Dalish into City Elves, a pitiful people who surrendered everything Elven and who now live in segregated ghettos in perpetual poverty and misery at the mercy of humans who can abuse them with impunity and nothing about that has changed for centuries.

Why does the burden always seem to be put on the Dalish?

[Vit246]

Arlathan...possibly yes or you can just blame Solas. The Dales would be debatable. 

 

The racism of humans and the dominance and demands of the Chantry cannot be excluded as parts of the elves fall during and after the Dales. 

 

The human factor always seems to be whitewashed somehow.

[Steelcan]

The human factor always seems to be whitewashed somehow.

except the elves try and blame it all on humans despite it being objectively wrong

[Gervaise]

We have yet to be told the definitive version of what exactly happened after the Veil was raised.    From what Abelas said, Tevinter might not have been responsible for the destruction of the Empire, the elves did that themselves either before or after Solas took his action, but they did fall upon what remained like scavengers on a corpse.   So essentially whatever elves survived the civil war (which likely occurred before the Veil went up) and then the sundering with magic, were easy pickings for the rising human power.    Tevinter seem to have mopped up a lot of elven artefacts, which helped consolidate their power, and then enslaved the elves that were wandering around in dazed fashion (according to Solas).    I'm pretty sure that when the full truth comes out, the humans aren't going to be blameless in the matter of the total fall of the elves from grace.

 

Ameridan admits that many of his countrymen were becoming increasingly isolationist, which he saw was a bad thing, but at the same time, when listening to his memories, he reflects that Drakon wants to keep things simple with just one religion for everyone, which of course his good friend Ameridan is against.   So 2nd Blight not withstanding, I do wonder just how earnest were Drakon's attempts to find out what happened to Ameridan.    After all, it hardly took us any time at all.   Even allowing for the fact that the Avaar may have been stronger and more hostile in those days, you'd think that he would want reassurance that Ameridan had been successful in dealing with the threat.    The fact is that Orlais had a debt of honour to the elves twice over; the first for the help Shartan gave Andraste, without which her crusade would have failed (so they'd still be part of Tevinter) and the second for the sacrifice of Ameridan (without which Drakon's fledgling state would have been destroyed either by an ice dragon, rampaging Avaar or, if they were successfully repelled, by darkspawn falling on the weakened remnants of the army.

 

Then the Dalish have only to look at the plight of the city elves to have their prejudices reinforced; humans are not to be trusted and simply want to subjugate the elves and force them into adopting their ways.    Those elves in Tevinter are still slaves, or highly impoverished serfs, after millennia of living there.    Why wouldn't the elves, but particularly the Dalish, believe that humans are responsible for their current state in the world?

[ComedicSociopathy]

Making peace with the Chantry largely seems to involve accepting their beliefs.    During the course of my latest run through my elf has denied faith in the Maker at every opportunity but people won't accept it.    At best they simply pat me on the head and say, surely isn't there room in your pantheon of gods for one more dear?

 

My problem as an outsider looking in and as an elf within the story is that whilst the Dalish got some of their history distorted, quite a lot of their fundamental beliefs did turn out to be correct.   There was an all powerful magical elven empire in the past.    Elves were effectively immortal because of their direct link to the Fade.    Their "gods" were locked away by Fen'Harel and this did occur around the time of the fall of their empire.   Coincidentally the rise of early Tevinter did occur only a few short years after the raising of the Veil, so it is hardly surprising that elven memory confused the two and then added in the later racial memory of a now established Tevinter destroying the last remnants of old Arlathan.  

 

By contrast everything I have learnt about the Chantry and their beliefs both in game and from WoT2, point towards it being a big fraud.    The true history of Andraste bears no relation to what is contained in the Chant.    Hardly any of what is in the Chant likely reflects what Andraste truly taught.    Those bits that probably did come from her, like the moral teaching, are steadfastly ignored by those in power, preferring instead the idea that the Maker has given them Divine Right to rule over lesser folk, which I find no mention of anywhere in the Chant.     Celene came to power because she was willing to sacrifice her entire household of servants to impress another noble; I wonder what the Maker thought about that?      Time and again the nobility give scant regard to the moral obligations of their religion.  The Chantry ignored the promise made their own prophet to the elves and must know that Ameridan thought it quite compatible with his faith to respect both the Maker and his own gods, leading me to suspect that was also the case with Andraste.  If submitting to the rule of the Chantry had in any way benefitted the city elves, then you could say to the Dalish, put aside your beliefs and integrate but it quite plainly has not.     This is why the most I would be willing to concede as a Dalish would be a situation like in Wycombe.   If that is not possible then may be they will have to stay forever as wandering nomads.    It has worked for the last six hundred years.    It worked for the gypsies in our world until modern developments made their nomadic life too difficult; the Dalish will have no such problems in the eternal medieval world of Thedas. 

 

Dalish cultural identity goes beyond simply their religious beliefs.   They have also been trying to recover their language (which minority cultures often see as a way of retaining their identity).    They have a system of governance that is different from the humans around them.    Until DAI came up with that ridiculous belief about the number of mages in a clan, they were the one non human group that had a positive attitude to mages.    Now, outside of Tevinter, only the human Rivani and Avaar have an alternative to the southern Chantry's attitude to magic.    They have traditions relating to the halla and likely other wild creatures as well.    The beliefs about home, family, craftsmanship and traditions that are reflected in their beliefs about their gods are positive values.   Above all they have this spirit of independence, an unwillingness to submit to outside influences out of expediency, because they do have something unique and valuable that should be preserved.     This is why I find it disturbing how much negativity people have towards them and in how they have been depicted in recent books and games.    They are not perfect and they have their fare share of jerks among them but having immersed myself in their culture to play my Inquisitor (and to a lesser extent my Dalish Warden) I would hate to see them simply absorbed into human culture or wiped out by the writers because they make for easy fall guys plot wise.

 

And? Who cares?

 

You think that logic and blatant evidence matter in a discussion about religion and faith? For Chantry and the members of the Inquisition it sure doesn't. The flaw in your logic is that your looking at things as a objective historical debate founded upon recent facts and revelations, when really you should looking at as a high school student council election. If doesn't matter how many facts or merit your side has when the other side has popularity, friends and power. The Dalish's beliefs and the merits of their culture don't matter when and aren't worthy of tolerance and equality when the Chantry's got enough money and clout to ignore that and as you say pat your Dalish Inquisitor on the head and call you Herald all day long. It's Sera Syndrome and most of the Inquisition has it. Cassandra, Leliana, Cullen, Josephine, Varric, Dorian, Sera, Giselle and most of the Inquisition's servants all have it. Regardless of what happens at the adventure in the Fade, Mythal and especially after Trespasser their beliefs about the monotheism of the Chantry and you being the Herald never really change. They believe what they were taught to believe and there's no reason why they should accept your beliefs on any real level since the Dalish have no power to force equality. Add that to the very likely conclusion that the Dalish nomadic lifestyle isn't sustainable with human expansion, lack of representation in Thedosian politics, small numbers and disorganization as a people, and you see why Bioware treat the Dalish like world's biggest joke. 

 

Oh, well. 

[Vit246]

 

except the elves try and blame it all on humans despite it being objectively wrong

*EDITED*

So the elves share some fault in what happened. That doesn't mean the humans were entirely blameless. 

What I'm trying to say is that it never ever seems to be the humans' fault even when they did do something. Its always all the elves' fault. If the elves did something to humans or themselves or if something bad happened to elves, then that somehow erases all the human factor and accountability. That it somehow justifies the human response.

So Arlathan fell due to civil war, that doesn't erase the part where Tevinter still conquered the elves into a slave race and stripped them of their knowledge. So the Dalish as one people and nation fell apart because they killed humans and because of the Red Crossing Disaster which became the Orlesian rallying cry. That doesn't erase the part where Orlesians also killed elves, spread rumors of heathen elves sacrificing human babies, wished to proselytize the human religion at the expense of the elven religion, had obvious imperialist ambitions toward Dalish territory, and finally reduced the elves into wandering nomads and assimilated impoverished urbanites.

[ComedicSociopathy]

 

 

So the elves share some fault in what happened. That doesn't mean the humans were never at fault. 

What I'm trying to say is that it never ever seems to be the humans' fault even when they did do something. Its always all the elves' fault. If the elves did something to humans or themselves of if something bad happened to elves, then that somehow erases all the human factor and accountability. That it somehow justifies the human response.

So Arlathan fell due to civil war, that doesn't erase the part where Tevinter still conquered and enslaved the elves for centuries. So the Dalish Kingdom fell because they killed humans and because of the Red Crossing Disaster which was the last straw. That doesn't erase the part where Orlesians also killed elves, spread rumors of heathen elves sacrificing human babies, tried to proselytize the human religion at the expense of the elven religion, and finally reduced the elves into wandering nomads and assimilated impoverished urbanites.

 

 

But is the game actually trying to justify all the terrible actions that occurred to the elves after the Dales fell. The war itself could be argued to be justified (I really don't think so, Red Crossing was just one village after all) but everything you state is never really forgiven. 

[SgtSteel91]

But is the game actually trying to justify all the terrible actions that occurred to the elves after the Dales fell. The war itself could be argued to be justified (I really don't think so, Red Crossing was just one village after all) but everything you state is never really forgiven. 

 

No, it more like people on these forums.

[ComedicSociopathy]

No, it more like people on these forums.

 

Their trolls. Or racist against a fictional people. Ignore them. 

[congokong]

I've always found the compulsion to preserve tradition for the sake of tradition to be an idiotic trapping mentality. Only follow what your ancestors did if you want to; not just for the sake of following.

[Dean_the_Young]

Mostly because the racism and culture of humans and the chantry or the qunari largely destroy or absorb and then destroy anything that disagrees with their beliefs. 

 

The elves have no culture to call their own outside of the Dalish clans. The City Elves are andrastian, the elves who join the Qun are qunari, and there are no other elves out there besides the Dalish, and the Dalish, while having a largely wrong narrative of their history, is the only group that has it. 

 

You're dodging the question I posed before: are cultures intrensically equal in worth, or not?

 

If cultures are equal, then voluntary assimilation within one, or willing adherance to one in which you are raised, is not a flaw.

 

Racially-exclusive cultures have no exceptional merit unless cultures are not equal- that there are better cultures, and worse cultures.

 

 

 

The recent discoveries need to be shared and it'll be up to them to accept it, but until the Chantry and the human nations are willing to be tolerant and let the elves develop a land and culture of their own that is strictly elven, let alone one that does or does not reflect the Dalish beliefs, there will be almost no opportunity for the elves to move forward. 

 

The very racism and religious fervor outside the clans keep them as nomads, and they can barely advance as a result. 

 

 

Why outside the clans? Why not the very racism and religious fervor inside the clan?

 

Moreover, why infatalize the Dalish as so? The Dalish prove they do not need land to hold a culture- why do they need one to change it? Are they children

 

 

 

I think the elves in general deserve a land to call their own and the true history of the elves to be taught, but I don't think it needs to be one that has to be built up on the humans own terms, which will be join the chantry and move into an alienage and deal with the racism of humans, or the qunari's which is join the qun or perish or have your mind destroyed and be a minor laborer. 

 

 

Will this nation of elfyness allow other equally valid cultures to mingle and possibly convert, or will it suppress and seek to expel them to the borders as wrong and/or inferior?

 

And what is the 'true' history, anyway? That the elves were impotent and victims of their fate? That they were strong and brought tragedy upon themselves? That the conversion to Andrastianism was a horrible crime against elves? That the Dales were the cause of their own fall?

[Dean_the_Young]

In order to "survive", the "practical" thing to do currently is keep moving and never submit. Thats how they survive as a people and a culture. Any "peace" and "coexistence" with the Chantry would probably involve basically turning the Dalish into City Elves, a pitiful people who surrendered everything Elven and who now live in segregated ghettos in perpetual poverty and misery at the mercy of humans who can abuse them with impunity and nothing about that has changed for centuries.

Why does the burden always seem to be put on the Dalish?

 

Because their wandering around everyone else's backyards after losing their own in a war they started and lost. Kinda relevant.

 

Also, because they're the sort of people who look down at the City Elves and inferior while holding up the great virtue of living a lie about what it means to be 'Elven.' City Elves aren't the only ones deserving of pity.

[Dean_the_Young]

We have yet to be told the definitive version of what exactly happened after the Veil was raised.    From what Abelas said, Tevinter might not have been responsible for the destruction of the Empire, the elves did that themselves either before or after Solas took his action, but they did fall upon what remained like scavengers on a corpse.   So essentially whatever elves survived the civil war (which likely occurred before the Veil went up) and then the sundering with magic, were easy pickings for the rising human power.    Tevinter seem to have mopped up a lot of elven artefacts, which helped consolidate their power, and then enslaved the elves that were wandering around in dazed fashion (according to Solas).    I'm pretty sure that when the full truth comes out, the humans aren't going to be blameless in the matter of the total fall of the elves from grace.

 

Who denies it?

 

If anything, Dorian tells us that the issue is learning that they weren't fully responsible for it. Being the cause for the Elve's fall is the Tevinter founding myth- they're proud of it, to the point that learning that the elves destroyed themselves first takes away a good deal of the blame already assumed.

 

 

 

Ameridan admits that many of his countrymen were becoming increasingly isolationist, which he saw was a bad thing, but at the same time, when listening to his memories, he reflects that Drakon wants to keep things simple with just one religion for everyone, which of course his good friend Ameridan is against.   So 2nd Blight not withstanding, I do wonder just how earnest were Drakon's attempts to find out what happened to Ameridan.    After all, it hardly took us any time at all.   Even allowing for the fact that the Avaar may have been stronger and more hostile in those days, you'd think that he would want reassurance that Ameridan had been successful in dealing with the threat.    The fact is that Orlais had a debt of honour to the elves twice over; the first for the help Shartan gave Andraste, without which her crusade would have failed (so they'd still be part of Tevinter) and the second for the sacrifice of Ameridan (without which Drakon's fledgling state would have been destroyed either by an ice dragon, rampaging Avaar or, if they were successfully repelled, by darkspawn falling on the weakened remnants of the army.

 

 

 

 

And how were they not honored? The first debt was repaid when the Dales were granted. The second was matched when Orlais fought and suffered against the Second Blight while the Dales stood by and deliberatly did nothing as a world-threatening (and not just country-threatening) threat played out.

 

At best, Drakon's Orlais and the Dales were even. At worse, the Dales owed Orlais- Ameridan wasn't representing the Dales, but the Inquisition, while Orlais as a nation fought a threat to all of Thedas, including the Dales.
 

 

 

 

Then the Dalish have only to look at the plight of the city elves to have their prejudices reinforced; humans are not to be trusted and simply want to subjugate the elves and force them into adopting their ways.    Those elves in Tevinter are still slaves, or highly impoverished serfs, after millennia of living there.    Why wouldn't the elves, but particularly the Dalish, believe that humans are responsible for their current state in the world?

 

 

 

History and perspective. Which, admittedly, they lack, but it's perfectly possible to believe wrong things.

[Qun00]

Because their wandering around everyone else's backyards after losing their own in a war they started and lost. Kinda relevant.

Also, because they're the sort of people who look down at the City Elves and inferior while holding up the great virtue of living a lie about what it means to be 'Elven.' City Elves aren't the only ones deserving of pity.

Velanna (about the city elves in Amaranthine):

"What, just because they have a delicate bone structure and pointed ears? How are they my people?"

_______Years later___________

Abelas to the Dalish Inquisitor: "The ones we see living in the forest? Shadows wearing vallaslin?

You are NOT my people!"

There is a little justice in that.

[ComedicSociopathy]

Velanna (about the city elves in Amaranthine):

"What, just because they have a delicate bone structure and pointed ears? How are they my people?"

_______Years later___________

Abelas to the Dalish Inquisitor: "The ones we see living in the forest? Shadows wearing vallaslin?

You are NOT my people!"

There is a little justice in that.

 

*cough* Solas is planning to kill the Dalish because their not elfy and magicky enough. *cough* *cough*