135 replies to this topic

[straykat]

All that said, sometimes it feels like it may be more important to stand with Merril against her clan's hatred. The way Marethari makes all of them believe she is a monster is taking it too far.

I'm sure that Mahariel would be disappointed if he were there to see his own clan mates acting like such fools, even if he wouldn't like to see the mirror that killed Tamlen restored.

 

That depends, I guess, on your Mahariel. Most of my characters hate demons and blood magic.

 

My Dalish in particular felt the mirror was a curse (not that it necessarily is). And probably blamed himself too much. He's also dead.

[Bardox9]

I do help her fix it. I wouldn't say I'm supportive exactly. I'm just a sucker for those wounded puppy eyes. The fate of her clan is a toss up though.

[springacres]

All that said, sometimes it feels like it may be more important to stand with Merril against her clan's hatred. The way Marethari makes all of them believe she is a monster is taking it too far.

I'm sure that Mahariel would be disappointed if he were there to see his own clan mates acting like such fools, even if he wouldn't like to see the mirror that killed Tamlen restored.

Mine would be more disappointed to see Merrill acting so differently from the Merrill she grew up with.

[GoldenGail3]

All that said, sometimes it feels like it may be more important to stand with Merril against her clan's hatred. The way Marethari makes all of them believe she is a monster is taking it too far.
I'm sure that Mahariel would be disappointed if he were there to see his own clan mates acting like such fools, even if he wouldn't like to see the mirror that killed Tamlen restored.

Too bad mines dead then.

[vertigomez]

This is one of the most difficult decisions in the game for me, both from Hawke's perspective and a narrative one. Much ado about Merrill. It's been five years and I still can't decide which I prefer.

[Catilina]

My spirit healer Hawke (romanced with Merrill)  yes.

My blood mage Hawke (romanced with not Merrill) not.

[Iakus]

I believe in her desire to restore elven culture and history.

 

But not at the cost of blood magic or deals with demons.

[ThePhoenixKing]

I'd support her efforts: not only is her heart in the right place, but the capacity for rapid communication/transportation is the sort of advantage that the elves could certainly use to improve their lives. Her use of blood magic is, arguably, as ethical as she can make it, as she's not mind-controlling people, using anyone else's blood but her own, or actively summoning demons in existence. That said, if my Hawke had a choice, she'd also remind her that there are other ways to help the elves besides the Eluvian, so there's no need to put all her eggs in one basket, as it were.

[diaspora2k5]

Didn't Laidlaw specifically say that Merrill fixing the thing was a bad call?

[sniper_arrow]

Didn't Laidlaw specifically say that Merrill fixing the thing was a bad call?

 

It might be retconned along the way or he's foreshadowing what may happen in DA4.

[ThePhoenixKing]

Didn't Laidlaw specifically say that Merrill fixing the thing was a bad call?

 

Ehh, Word of God mostly exists to muddy the waters these days. Without something specifically in-game to substantiate it, I'd just take it with a grain of salt.

[Qun00]

Too bad mines dead then.

Why would that be a bad thing?

[GoldenGail3]

Why would that be a bad thing?

My Dalish elf would be in awe of Flemeth... If he found of she was Mythal.

[JJ Likeaprayer]

Pardon me if I didn't remember very clearly...but there's a mission in the fade where she will attack Hawke and the other party members 'coz a demon told her to...right? I really don't remember.....but I definitely think she's not mentally strong enough. She has been dealing with couple of demons so far,and she's been fooled by them every time...if Hawke is not there to watch her a(zz) 24-7,I really don't think she can handle it on her own,so no. Fixing the Eluvian is not the problem,but the demons on the way will get her.

[Aren]

I don't support the goal ,with an eluvian you can never know if it will lead to a dark hole or a stranger's bathroom.

[Aren]

I don't see Merrill using blood magic for bad things necessarily.. it's more that blood magic will use her. She directly deals with demons and she doesn't seem to have the willpower to resist them multiple times. The Eluvians are interesting, but it doesn't revolve around her efforts. Especially now that Briala and other plots have come up.

 

On that note, it's kind of sad how little of a role Merrill was relegated to on these things. A freaking City Elf knew more about the Eluvians than she did. And not only that, both Celene and Gaspard get to see beyond it before poor Merrill does. Wtf. And then since they canceled the DA2 expansion because PEOPLE ARE DUMBASSES, Bioware had to rethink the whole Mythal plot and reconfigured it for DAI. That whole quest with the Well of Sorrows was going to be in DA2's add-on. No doubt Merrill would have had a role in it... I bet a similar one as Morrigan or the Inquisitor. /rantoff

Exactly that,to this point i have yet to understand what poor Corypheus wanted from  the well of sorrow ,he didn't even seem interested into it until the last of the Inquisitor fetch quests......

[TEWR]

I do support her. Most emphatically so. You're not enabling her, in fact you can still try and reason with her to which she responds, and if she's romanced the mirror doesn't become the most important part of her life anymore.

 

I do believe that you can go years and years without becoming corrupted by blood magic. Merrill has a strong sense of justice and compassion and would never betray those virtues by becoming like the Tevinter elite.

 

Agreed about the goal and the method, and that DA2 Merrill shouldn't be the one doing it.  Origins Merrill, maybe.  DA2 Merrill... no.

 

DA2 Merrill and Origins Merrill are the same and internally consistent. Origins Merrill is someone who believes in operating protocol first before doing something -- consult the Keeper before Fenarel can tag along. DAII Merrill did the same thing -- she consulted Marethari first so they could pool their magic and cleanse the shard together -- before she felt strongly about it that she went to learn blood magic to amplify the healing magic she knew, thinking then Marethari would work with her after it was cleansed (to which the Keeper made her confess on how she was able to cleanse it, and then their arguments began that drove them apart).

 

I really don't get why people look at the two incarnations as if they're two different characters. They're really not.

[TEWR]

 

 

she doesn't have the willpower to resist them multiple times

 

LOL "multiple times". It was ONE time and she was being mind-controlled as Pride Demons are capable of doing as a last resort -- they and Desire Demons deem it a crude way to get what they want -- which afterwards has her shore up her mental defenses.

 

****** hell she'll tell you how to resist a Sloth Demon for ****'s sake.

[TEWR]

Didn't Laidlaw specifically say that Merrill fixing the thing was a bad call?

 

Laidlaw's not really an authority on the lore. He has no part in the writing process of it, just the executive functioning of the team or such.

[Qun00]

I do support her. Most emphatically so. You're not enabling her, in fact you can still try and reason with her to which she responds, and if she's romanced the mirror doesn't become the most important part of her life anymore.
 
I do believe that you can go years and years without becoming corrupted by blood magic. Merrill has a strong sense of justice and compassion and would never betray those virtues by becoming like the Tevinter elite.
 

Merril may never become as bad as a Tevinter magister, but....

"Anders: So, when you first did blood magic, it was... just an accident, right?

Anders: You cut yourself and realized the power? You didn't actually deal with a demon?

Merrill: Oh, no. I did.

Anders: Why would you do that?

Merrill: I needed his help. He was really very nice about it.

Anders: Of course he was! He's using you to get a foothold in a mortal brain!

Merrill: He's a spirit. He offered me his aid. I hardly think you're one to criticize."

C'mon! She can't be serious.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 I supported it, but also believe what Marethari says about the demon playing her for its own escape. It makes total sense.

 

 

LOL if you think the demon was helping Terribl for free or that she would have been able to recognize its trickery in time.

[Reznore57]

Nope with what information we got , it was a fool's errand.

First the mirror had the taint , yes Merrill cleaned it great , thing is she didn't know where the taint came from and how this mirror got tainted in the first place.

Duncan , a grey warden , destroyed the mirror.

Second the mirror killed one or two people (depending if the warden is Dalish ) , we don't know if Hawke got the information but Tamlen and the warden saw a dark city and something scary and Tamlen couldn't look away.

Merrill says she thinks it's some kind of telephone but mostly it's old , elven and magical so she wants it to work even if she has no clear idea what that thing is supposed to do.

 

Even with what we learn in DAI ,her mirror could still be dangerous actually if it's still linked to that dark underground place where something is lurking .

[Illegitimus]

1. Human sacrifices aren't necessary for blood magic. They're just convenient. Did Merrill ever sacrifice anybody?

 

2. The whole demon thing with blood magic has never been really consistent. At times, the lore seems to indicate blood magic can merely mean using blood as raw mana. How are demons involved in that? And then you have cases where blood magic is used supposedly through a demon yet there's no demon in sight. Ex: Merrill taking down that barrier when first meeting her. 

 

I thought the demon being sensed was just the bound one.  I mean that was what the barrier for, right?  

[TEWR]

To be honest yeah there have also been some really weird things about Blood magic in the past because BW isn't really that consistent. We're told it "thins the Veil" the more it's used in one place. Okay, that makes sense. Then Solas tries to tell us "it makes it harder to enter the Fade".

 

I'm sorry but how does that last one work if what it does is literally make the barrier between worlds thinner and easier for things to pass through?

[Fehria]

I found it very difficult to separate my knowledge of the eluvian from playing the Dalish origin from Hawke's limited knowledge of elven artifacts. I just saw the mirror and was like, "Why is this a thing, don't you remember what it did to Tamlen????" And the same when it magically popped up again in Inquisition. I have a hard time repressing the memory of the darkspawn corruption pouring out of the thing and the soul-tainting tragedy that resulted from it. So no, I never supported Merril's goal to fix it, and real-life me kept screaming at her for making terrible decisions.

 

Granted, taking a moment to separate player and character knowledge and looking at it from a fresh perspective, the opinion isn't necessarily a static choice. Without any real context on the eluvian, other than Merril's insistence that studying it will help her uncover mysteries of elven history, it doesn't seem that bad and I might have been able to go along with it. But the combination of her clan's collective skepticism of the eluvian, her use of blood magic, and the way the game bashes us over the head with the idea that blood mages are bad and do horrible things and are out of their minds... supporting her quickly starts to feel like a bad idea. And I still scream at her to stop making stupid decisions (which basically summarizes the entirety of my DA2 experience...)