17 réponses à ce sujet

[berelinde]

From the way characters speak of it, it seems to be a kind of suspended animation rather than literal sleep. I mean, a person's metabolism drops when they sleep, but it doesn't stop. Unless a person woke up periodically to take food and water, they'd die. Even hibernating animals wake up long enough to take a few mouthfuls of water every now and then.

 

So, assuming that uthenera is a kind of suspended animation where the body's vital functions stop (presumably the person's consciousness enters the Fade), they would leave a highly vulnerable body behind. I understand how this might be the origin of Dalish funeral customs. You wouldn't want to burn a body whose owner might be in uthenera, would you? But these bodies must exist somewhere, gathering dust. Do they take turns waking up to fend off scavengers? Do they dust off their friends, spritz them with water so they don't dry out, or replace items of clothing that have rotted away?

 

Wouldn't it be creepy to walk into some ancient ruin somewhere and find a room full of elves on biers, all dozing away while spiders weave gossamer silk curtains around them?

[Treacherous J Slither]

I never paid Uthenera much attention honestly. I'll look it up and get back to you.

[Treacherous J Slither]

According to the wiki, the sleeping elves are tended to by family members or servants. They are bathed and given water.

Eventually they die anyway but some can learn to draw sustenance from the Fade and no longer require tending to. They just sleep indefinitely and can return to the waking world anytime they wish.

[Serza]

Uthenera. Waking sleep. Eternal sleep. The translation can mean both, really.

 

'Tis a magical thing, as all the Elvhen of Elvhenan ("Place of the Elves") have been Mages to some extent.

 

Thus it is vastly different (as others have said) from a regular sleep.

 

Pride, for example, being equally powerful as the Evanuris, is unlikely to have required any sort of tending.

[Treacherous J Slither]

What I find interesting though is the fact that no one bumps into these ancient elves in the Fade. Why would that be?

[Evil Asch]

What I find interesting though is the fact that no one bumps into these ancient elves in the Fade. Why would that be?

Well it's often described as a waking sleep so maybe that's the waking portion. They aren't dead / awake/ or asleep since they aren't interacting with or in the Fade. Maybe that's why it's a deeper rest.

[Ashagar]

Hmm they could be resting in a speically prepared location in the fade or it could be the reason nobody has encountered them is because the demons ate most of them and any remaining elves are in remote locations of the fade.

[SwobyJ]

The concept of 'The Beyond' goes far beyond what most humans regard as 'The Fade'.

 

The Fade is normally the realm where the unconscious minds of humans (and now more mortal elves) visit - and mages are able to travel and actually remember it (lucid dream). This realm is not necessarily where elves go in uthenera. One of DAI's bigger points on this is that the 'Fade' is made of very subjective perspective.

 

We may use the Fade as a word for all these Beyond realms, but that's a limitation of language and understanding. In one realm, there is one thing, and in another realm, there is another. It is all the Beyond of Thedas. It exists based on the expectations of the 'dreamer', and so, the ancient elves would enter the Fade with much different expectations than almost all mortal humans. Since this is all related to magic, it means the Fade can be worked as a tool, and realms like the Eluvian network can be created to interact with Thedas.

 

Most elves who practiced uthenera are apparently dead, but there may be the rare one still dreaming, somehow retaining mortal sustenance from the Fade itself.

 

Uthenera is sleep that does indeed potentially work as a suspended animation. Still a sleep though.

[SwobyJ]

There may be elves around, powerful Dreamers, that haven't been seen in millennia. Indeed, the Sentinels of DAI were that, but they also had a system to ensure they would wake up and protect their area. However, even these elves have a younger generation(s) that remember relatively less of the ancient elves, regardless of whatever historical-oriented journeys they could make in the Fade/Beyond. They may have retained their ability to be Dreamers due to their connection to the Well of Sorrows/Mythal.

[SwobyJ]

Well it's often described as a waking sleep so maybe that's the waking portion. They aren't dead / awake/ or asleep since they aren't interacting with or in the Fade. Maybe that's why it's a deeper rest.

 

Basically my point of my last posts is that the Fade mortals travel knowingly/unknowingly in their sleep, is still but a shallow version of the full wonders of the Fade. If elves are in uthenera, they're not going to be in the kiddie pool and they're not going to be splashing in such muddy water.

[Treacherous J Slither]

The Beyond and the Fade are one and the same. I just looked it up.

Whatever ancient elves that are still alive should be there somewhere. How none of them are attempting to communicate with descendants or return to the waking world seems a little hard to believe.

[SwobyJ]

The Beyond and the Fade are one and the same. I just looked it up.

Whatever ancient elves that are still alive should be there somewhere. How none of them are attempting to communicate with descendants or return to the waking world seems a little hard to believe.

 

The Beyond and the Fade are the same, but (especially Chantry-based) human and (especially ancient) elven understandings that they take into it, and out of it, are often VERY different.

 

Human understandings of 'The Fade' tend to stop at it being a realm of slumber that was attempted to be physically entered. Elven understandings go so, so much further (not typically to the level of 'being physically entered', but certainly a thing that is much more malleable and natural). What the elves, specifically Solas, know is probably more than such a simplistic interpretation as "Why can't they just communicate?"

 

If elves can play with such realms as the eluvian network, I have faith that they had tools available to do things with the Fade that were more than (relatively) mindless wanderings of it.

[Treacherous J Slither]

I think the developers have created room for a lot of possibilities within the DA world but so far haven't properly implemented much of it.

No elf character ever mentions attempting to contact dreaming elves. You'd think the Dalish would be all over something like that as a means to learn more about their past let alone convincing the sleepers to wake up.

That's just one example. How blood magic is handled is another.

[SwobyJ]

I think the developers have created room for a lot of possibilities within the DA world but so far haven't properly implemented much of it.

No elf character ever mentions attempting to contact dreaming elves. You'd think the Dalish would be all over something like that as a means to learn more about their past let alone convincing the sleepers to wake up.

That's just one example. How blood magic is handled is another.

 

My understanding of the Dalish is that in this iteration of elven society, they've been beat down (both internally and externally) enough that magic/Fade-originated knowledge is just not something sought. Maybe in the time of the Dales but not the clans today. Keepers are now considered like a necessary tool to cherish what does remain of the elvhan culture, but they wouldn't be encouraged to magically seek out anything. They're there to remember things and keep Fen'Harel away, and have oriented so far towards Thedas that their magic is about its nature, not travels of the Fade. They do retain some knowledge, but its only knowledge.

 

Basically I think maybe the Dalish (of the Dales, pre clans) might have done what you suggested, at least eventually, but not these clans that largely try to mind their own business and not attract attention of Templars that DO watch what they're doing.

[Treacherous J Slither]

Nah man.

These guys are searching for elven history right? Well how do you think they go about it? Searching elven ruins? Talking to other dalish? Surely it had to occur to someone that there might be some knowledge that can be gleaned from the Fade.

I mean, what are these guys doing all day while they sit alone in the woods? Surely their imagination wanders right? Not everyone is out hunting and whatnot.

The Keepers walk the Fade every single night. I'm sure that someone said to themselves "Hey, I wonder if I can find my sleeping great great great grandmother in here somewhere?". They know of Uthenera and that some ancients achieved a kind of pseudo immortality through it so it seems likely that someone would attempt to contact these individuals.

[SwobyJ]

Nah man.

These guys are searching for elven history right? Well how do you think they go about it? Searching elven ruins? Talking to other dalish? Surely it had to occur to someone that there might be some knowledge that can be gleaned from the Fade.

I mean, what are these guys doing all day while they sit alone in the woods? Surely their imagination wanders right? Not everyone is out hunting and whatnot.

The Keepers walk the Fade every single night. I'm sure that someone said to themselves "Hey, I wonder if I can find my sleeping great great great grandmother in here somewhere?". They know of Uthenera and that some ancients achieved a kind of pseudo immortality through it so it seems likely that someone would attempt to contact these individuals.

 

My impression (especially now after playing Emerald Graves again) is that the elves of the Dales did care more about this, but if the Dalish clans of today did it, it would have been personal projects of specific Keepers. And that if they did it, we either don't know yet in the lore (as you said, "didn't properly implement it"), or it hasn't successfully been done yet.

 

Considering the state of mind of an ancient elf vs the state of mind of a Dalish Keeper, I don't consider it easy for the latter to come across the former if the former doesn't will it. Solas' description of the Fade applies.

 

Keepers are rather few in number and they do not coordinate attempts at anything. Again, maybe in the old Dales, but not today.

 

There's a reason why ancient elves regard the Dalish as not much more than scroungers looking for crap in the dirt (more or elss).

[SwobyJ]

Reminder: The Dalish Keepers have nearly as paranoid views on blood magic and the Fade as the rest of southern Chantry Thedas, even if they don't treat it with as much prejudice. Characters like Merrill that may go the extra mile, are not the norm. Most Keepers are content to dream mostly 'normally' (for a mage) and do 'normal' magic (just with Nature focus). It is part of the story that they've been driven to such relatively anti-magic submission. There may be some who did try to contact elves in Uthenera, but I think by this point, most Keepers themselves are sure that there are no longer any in Uthernera remaining. Again, maybe in the time of the Dales.

[Treacherous J Slither]

If they've searched extensively and came to this conclusion then fine.

If not? Well they better get a move on.