757 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

Certainly the peasantry would be unaware of what the university does.  But the peasantry would be more likely to believe what the Chantry has been telling them about elves and to be slow to change their viewpoint if it turns out that their new priest is an elf.  

 

What the Chantry tells them is also divided- enough so that there's a political, rather than popular, block to internal Chantry reforms on the subject. And what is said- at least what we here- is also hardly 'thou must riot if elves gain rights.'

 

 

So- still

 

*Ciation needed

[Qun00]

It's better because she doesn't actually feel warm and fuzzy about murdering people.

Where is the evidence of that?

[Dai Grepher]

It's self-evident. Even you identified the sarcasm of the statement. Obviously murdering people doesn't make her feel "warm and fuzzy". She said that to Nathaniel to shut down his prodding.

[Vanilka]

I play a Dalish Warden and I've got to say that Velanna is literally THE WORST the Dalish have to offer. I had my Warden call her out on her behaviour because going on a killing spree and killing humans indiscriminately is no answer to anything and she was just making the situation worse for both sides (The Dalish have bad enough reputation without idiots like her.) while solving absolutely nothing and her response, after finding out the truth, was something along the lines of "So I made I mistake, so what? I don't care." I don't remember the exact line, but I was done with her as a person at that point. Where is her remorse? Because I certainly didn't see it in this person that my Warden was supposed to call "sister". This creature is beneath my Dalish Warden. She is beneath the Sabrae clan. And she is very obviously beneath her own clan, as well.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Yeah Velanna was always one of the worst examples of a Dalish elf, even if she can become better in some epilogues. She was exiled from her clan for being too aggressively hateful, but worst of all I can't even really blame her attacks on being tricked by the darkspawn. Even if everything she was tricked into believing was true, she still gruesomely murdered a bunch of innocent traders that had nothing to do with her sister's abduction. Like Sten, I could never justify permanently accepting her into my party with my canon Wardens.

[GoldenGail3]

I play a Dalish Warden and I've got to say that Velanna is literally THE WORST the Dalish have to offer. I had my Warden call her out on her behaviour because going on a killing spree and killing humans indiscriminately is no answer to anything and she was just making the situation worse for both sides (The Dalish have bad enough reputation without idiots like her.) while solving absolutely nothing and her response, after finding out the truth, was something along the lines of "So I made I mistake, so what? I don't care." I don't remember the exact line, but I was done with her as a person at that point. Where is her remorse? Because I certainly didn't see it in this person that my Warden was supposed to call "sister". This creature is beneath my Dalish Warden. She is beneath the Sabrae clan. And she is very obviously beneath her own clan, as well.

That is why I made a Male Dalish Elf who's sole purpose in life is to troll Velena.

[Vanilka]

That is why I made a Male Dalish Elf who's sole purpose in life is to troll Velena.

 

Hah, you've got a lot of patience then. I hope it was worth it.

 

In my case, she left the party after I refused to make her a Grey Warden when she demanded it. Because she wasn't interested in our cause. She just wanted it for her personal benefit. I didn't believe she would stay with the Wardens after she got what she wanted and so I didn't see a reason to waste the ritual on her and shorten her lifespan. I was absolutely up to saving her sister because her sister would probably be with our target anyway, but I would not make her a Warden just because she told me to. So she threw a hissy fit and I never saw her again.

[GoldenGail3]

Hah, you've got a lot of patience then. I hope it was worth it.
 
In my case, she left the party after I refused to make her a Grey Warden when she demanded it. Because she wasn't interested in our cause. She just wanted it for her personal benefit. I didn't believe she would stay with the Wardens after she got what she wanted and so I didn't see a reason to waste the ritual on her and shorten her lifespan. I was absolutely up to saving her sister because her sister would probably be with our target anyway, but I would not make her a Warden just because she told me to. So she threw a hissy fit and I never saw her again.

No, I'm not. I made him, then immedately dropped him into Awakening, which I did. My Dalish is gonna be such a nice guy who trolls her so hard, it's not even funny. He's gonna get all sorts of disapproval from him becuase her becuase he's gonna bring her back with him once he's done with his current quests.

[Tidus]

My Elf warden understands Velanna after all he/she killed a Arls son for raping Shianna and he/she never regrets doing so and as my warden told Wynne he/she would do it again.

 

Vengeance is a powerful weapon that can turn a demoralize army into a killing machine or a person into a killer.

[berelinde]

I play a Dalish Warden and I've got to say that Velanna is literally THE WORST the Dalish have to offer. I had my Warden call her out on her behaviour because going on a killing spree and killing humans indiscriminately is no answer to anything and she was just making the situation worse for both sides (The Dalish have bad enough reputation without idiots like her.) while solving absolutely nothing and her response, after finding out the truth, was something along the lines of "So I made I mistake, so what? I don't care." I don't remember the exact line, but I was done with her as a person at that point. Where is her remorse? Because I certainly didn't see it in this person that my Warden was supposed to call "sister". This creature is beneath my Dalish Warden. She is beneath the Sabrae clan. And she is very obviously beneath her own clan, as well.

I understand Velanna. She feels that she always has to be on the defensive, that she believes that unless she is completely hateful to all things not Dalish, she is being disloyal to her heritage. It's sign of a tragically insecure personality, a weakness in her character. I like weak characters (in fiction), characters who are allowed to have flaws, so I value her for that reason. That doesn't mean I enjoy her company in the game or that I would enjoy interacting with someone like that in real life. But I do appreciate what the writers were trying to do with her.

 

Yeah Velanna was always one of the worst examples of a Dalish elf, even if she can become better in some epilogues. She was exiled from her clan for being too aggressively hateful, but worst of all I can't even really blame her attacks on being tricked by the darkspawn. Even if everything she was tricked into believing was true, she still gruesomely murdered a bunch of innocent traders that had nothing to do with her sister's abduction. Like Sten, I could never justify permanently accepting her into my party with my canon Wardens.

Yeah, Velanna is precisely the reason the Dalish have such a hard time of it. She doesn't understand how her belligerence makes life harder for her people, not easier. But that's the thing. She doesn't care about what benefits her clan or her people. She cares about what makes her feel better about herself. When I recruit her (and I don't always, because there are times I don't want to do that much hand holding), I try to be supportive of her as a person, but I won't agree with her when she dumps hate on other races.

 

That is why I made a Male Dalish Elf who's sole purpose in life is to troll Velena.

I'm going to have to try that one of these days. I understand Velanna and I appreciate her, but there are a lot of times I want to smack her. Having even one character who doesn't put up with her BS would be cathartic.

[Medhia_Nox]

@Dean the Young:  If that's not in Chantry doctrine it should be. 

 

Elvish rights are an affront to the Maker!

[Walter Black]

Except that Abelas, an actual ancient elf, chooses to refer to a dalish as shemlen when he is looking down at this dalish

And then there is this video.

 

That dalish struggles to come up the biggest insult he can throws at Hawke and what does he use? Shemlen.

 

Now, personally, I don't care what people call each other. Knife ear, shemlen, humans and elves are just not meant to be sharing the same living space.

But facts are fact. Every single incarnation of elves uses "shemlen" as a derrogatory term.

 

 

 

Not meant? By whom, The Maker? It has been proven time and time again that the Chant has been altered to suit whatever agendas of those in power at the time. More importantly, the devs have already stated they will allow The Maker to remain ambiguous, so any stances invoking Him remain speculation and not fact.

 

Genetics as applied to the Fade? According to Felassan, Elves were the only sentient race within their empire, but was he actually there, or was he only parroting what Solas told him? The ancient ruin in the Dalish Origin points to Elves and Humans coexisting, but not under what context, or if said coexistence took place pre- or post Veil. We have no clue whether the Fade covered the entire world, or was simply local to Thedas. Most tellingly, there are yet no indications whether or not the creation of the Veil changed humanity from what they might have been before, as it did the Elves. Until these questions are answered, no one can say for certain what Human-Elvhenan intereaction might or might not signify.

 

There is one way this statement is objectively fasle, though: when Mike Laidlaw, David Gaider and all the rest created Thedas, they obviously did mean for Humans and Elves to share the same space.

[Vanilka]

I understand Velanna. She feels that she always has to be on the defensive, that she believes that unless she is completely hateful to all things not Dalish, she is being disloyal to her heritage. It's sign of a tragically insecure personality, a weakness in her character. I like weak characters (in fiction), characters who are allowed to have flaws, so I value her for that reason. That doesn't mean I enjoy her company in the game or that I would enjoy interacting with someone like that in real life. But I do appreciate what the writers were trying to do with her.

 

I don't think she's a bad character. I didn't mean to make it sound like she was. I have a problem with her on the personal level. I believe my Warden would, as well, because the Sabrae clan wasn't hostile to humans, Marethari also discourages this behaviour, the Dalish Warden's father was strongly in favour of the elves and humans trying to understand each other. I like to think that while humans might make the Dalish Warden nervous (She's very young and barely came to contact with them before the Blight after all.), it means that she wouldn't grow up to be a "shemlen"-hunting maniac. My Warden went through the Blight with human allies at her side, as well. Some of them became best friends she's ever had. One of them became her lover. She also strongly believes in the Way of Three Trees. She believes that applies to all creatures, not just hares and deer - life, in general, deserves respect. That's at least how I play mine. (I admit I have a thing for goody two shoes as boring as it might sound.) Then comes Velanna who kills every human in sight just because she thinks some of them might be guilty. How are they supposed to get along? They have dramatically different views. They can't.

 

It's interesting because at first I thought that because Velanna was Dalish, my Warden should automatically accept her. But they ended up bickering pretty much all the time. I would love to keep Velanna in the party to see where her character development goes and I liked how Nathaniel started slowly wrapping her around his little finger, lol, but I can't see my Warden accepting her demand to become a Warden just to help her find her lost sister. (As Duncan said, making somebody a Warden is not an act of charity. You become a Warden, you dedicate your life to killing darkspawn.) Maybe with another Warden.

 

I see your point, however. When you put it that way, her actions may be somewhat understandable. Which doesn't make them acceptable. But it's always good when a character makes sense and I admit I love over-analysing BW characters. I'm of course not trying to say that all characters should act kind or sensible. That would certainly make the character palette very boring if we didn't have any irrational or (semi-)evil characters. (For example, I really hate Isabela as a person in DAII for what she did at the end of the second act BUT I think she's a great, well-written character and I certainly wouldn't want her gone. It would surely hurt the game. I detest Anders as a person towards the end of DAII, but the game would suffer without him and his slow descent into madness is rather interesting.) Anyway, I admit I never looked at it from this point of view - that Velanna felt pressured into being "aggressively Dalish". You may be right. It's definitely one way to look at it and something to ponder. Thanks for that!

 

Eh, I'm rambling.

[MisterJB]

Not meant? By whom, The Maker? It has been proven time and time again that the Chant has been altered to suit whatever agendas of those in power at the time. More importantly, the devs have already stated they will allow The Maker to remain ambiguous, so any stances invoking Him remain speculation and not fact.

 

Genetics as applied to the Fade? According to Felassan, Elves were the only sentient race within their empire, but was he actually there, or was he only parroting what Solas told him? The ancient ruin in the Dalish Origin points to Elves and Humans coexisting, but not under what context, or if said coexistence took place pre- or post Veil. We have no clue whether the Fade covered the entire world, or was simply local to Thedas. Most tellingly, there are yet no indications whether or not the creation of the Veil changed humanity from what they might have been before, as it did the Elves. Until these questions are answered, no one can say for certain what Human-Elvhenan intereaction might or might not signify.

 

There is one way this statement is objectively fasle, though: when Mike Laidlaw, David Gaider and all the rest created Thedas, they obviously did mean for Humans and Elves to share the same space.

 

Well, that is a bit of a philosophical question, no?

 

Let's see, human and elven interaction over the millenia has been characterized by conflict and opression with elves being, generally, on the losing side.

 

This has, of course, lead to the collapse of original elven culture and identity and the suffering of untold generations with no prospect of it changing anytime soon.

Even at the genetic level, the two races appead determined to destroy each other since human/elven pairings lead to human offspring which further contributes to the extinction of elves as a whole. Which, of course, leads to people like Vaughan existing.

 

Knowing all of this, it seems elves and humans both would be far happier and safer if the other group plain and simply was very far away. Thus, are they meant to share a living space? I think not.

 

[Walter Black]

Well, that is a bit of a philosophical question, no?

 

Let's see, human and elven interaction over the millenia has been characterized by conflict and opression with elves being, generally, on the losing side.

 

This has, of course, lead to the collapse of original elven culture and identity and the suffering of untold generations with no prospect of it changing anytime soon.

Even at the genetic level, the two races appead determined to destroy each other since human/elven pairings lead to human offspring which further contributes to the extinction of elves as a whole. Which, of course, leads to people like Vaughan existing.

 

Knowing all of this, it seems elves and humans both would be far happier and safer if the other group plain and simply was very far away. Thus, are they meant to share a living space? I think not.

 

If you take this arguement to it's logical extreme,  no one should share living space. Every sentient race, real or fictional, competes for land and resources. As far as seperating Elves and Humans, I have to ask: and then what? Exploration and expansionism would eventually put everyone right back where they started. Exterminating the Elves altogether? To satisfy some player God Mode fetish*? Forgetting the moral, or even practical considerations of such an option, what could it possibly bring to the table from a narrative standpoint? Do you really think Bioware would write two completely separate Theodosian campaigns, with and without Elves, thus straining already limited resources and angering a large portion of the fanbase? This isn't like the Geth, Quarians, or Krogan in Mass Effect, this a Player Race**. It's possible that the lands beyond Thedas do not contain Elves in significant number, but that is years down the line. Besides, even if this is the case, in all likelyhood Elves will still be a Player option as "The Explorer" or some such.

 

Sorry, but to me this just sounds like "I don't want fantasy in my fantasy roleplaying game".

 

*Count me among those becoming leary of the growing Player Entitlement movement. I agree that the Player Character should reflect whatever personality the player chooses for them, and they be completely competent and proactive. I do not however, equate competance with mind raping NPCs into following their every whim or warping time and space just to get a preferred outcome.

 

**While I'll admit that my knowledge of Mass Effect: Andromeda is sketchy at best, I know we will have at least one Krogan NPC, squadmate or no. Yes, Krogan are long lived, and it's possible there could more than a few Quarians who accompanied the Andromedan expedition while still giving the illusion that their races are more or less extinct. I also find it extremely hard to believe Bioware will be able honor the wildly devergent ME3 endings without coming up with an alternate canon.

[MisterJB]

If you take this arguement to it's logical extreme,  no one should share living space. Every sentient race, real or fictional, competes for land and resources. As far as seperating Elves and Humans, I have to ask: and then what? Exploration and expansionism would eventually put everyone right back where they started. Exterminating the Elves altogether? To satisfy some player God Mode fetish*? Forgetting the moral, or even practical considerations of such an option, what could it possibly bring to the table from a narrative standpoint? Do you really think Bioware would write two completely separate Theodosian campaigns, with and without Elves, thus straining already limited resources and angering a large portion of the fanbase? This isn't like the Geth, Quarians, or Krogan in Mass Effect, this a Player Race**. It's possible that the lands beyond Thedas do not contain Elves in significant number, but that is years down the line. Besides, even if this is the case, in all likelyhood Elves will still be a Player option as "The Explorer" or some such.

 

Sorry, but to me this just sounds like "I don't want fantasy in my fantasy roleplaying game".

 

*Count me among those becoming leary of the growing Player Entitlement movement. I agree that the Player Character should reflect whatever personality the player chooses for them, and they be completely competent and proactive. I do not however, equate competance with mind raping NPCs into following their every whim or warping time and space just to get a preferred outcome.

 

**While I'll admit that my knowledge of Mass Effect: Andromeda is sketchy at best, I know we will have at least one Krogan NPC, squadmate or no. Yes, Krogan are long lived, and it's possible there could more than a few Quarians who accompanied the Andromedan expedition while still giving the illusion that their races are more or less extinct. I also find it extremely hard to believe Bioware will be able honor the wildly devergent ME3 endings without coming up with an alternate canon.

I am quite unsure how you made a connection between my personal beliefs that humans and elves can't live together with me feeling entitled to an option to even affect their lives in the sligthest.

[Walter Black]

I am quite unsure how you made a connection between my personal beliefs that humans and elves can't live together with me feeling entitled to an option to even affect their lives in the sligthest.

 

Fair enough. The whole "Player Entitlement" thing has been on my mind of late in a general sense, not necessarily specific to your post. I suppose I should have clarified that instead of rambling.

 

That said, I do remember in one thread (the name currently escapes me) where you expressed preferrence that in DA4 Elves fight Humanity for the right to exist in Thedas, instead of enough of them uniting with the other races against Solas. As if everyone would be railroaded into such an extreme, with no one having the sense to seek alternatives. I don't see how that would affect Elves in the slightest at all  .

[DebatableBubble]

My Elf warden understands Velanna after all he/she killed a Arls son for raping Shianna and he/she never regrets doing so and as my warden told Wynne he/she would do it again.
 
Vengeance is a powerful weapon that can turn a demoralize army into a killing machine or a person into a killer.

Or it could consume you until you care about nothing else (like Anders).

[Tidus]

Or it could consume you until you care about nothing else (like Anders).

Let's see then.. Tidus or Kamine save Ferelden from the blight and saved Virgil's Keep and Amaranthine. So, yeah neither one cares.

 

 Neither one is a cold stone murderer nor do they kill their kind unless there is no other way. Nor have they forgotten Shems attack and kill Elves for sport simply because no one cares.

 

The first time I played DA:A I thought the Shem bandits killed the Elves.

[berelinde]

 

 

 

The first time I played DA:A I thought the Shem bandits killed the Elves.

Of course you did. Guilty until proven innocent, right?

 

That's why peace is impossible.

 

The elves are going to continue to assume that all humans are out to get them and they'll continue to attack first, ask questions later never ask questions. They'll whittle down the human population a little, but you can't go around killing innocents forever without repercussions. Eventually, the humans are going to strike back, and there are more of them. And once they do, if any elves survive, they'll tell their children about how the cruel humans hunted them almost to extinction, ignoring the fact that they started it in the first place. Kind of like Red Crossing. For a group who allegedly cherishes their history, they're remarkably bad at learning from it.

[Donquijote and 59 others]

Or it could consume you until you care about nothing else (like Anders).

In that case i would say that it wasn't entirely genuine as it was influenced by a spirit of the fade, it was more justice than Anders.

[Tidus]

If you read the stories in the ending of DA:A you will find Shems killed a Dalish child in the woods.

 

The humans need to take equal responsibility and stop killing Elves as a sport. Until that time Shems should be fair game in response to the needless killing of Elves.  

[Gileadan]

I see that the deconstructing of elf hate is coming along quite well.

 

You know, if you want someone to hate you *less*, trying to insist that it's fine and dandy that your people kill their people indiscriminately (ideally without any repercussions) is likely not the way to go.

[Medhia_Nox]

@Gileadan:  But some human in the distant past did something to some elf in the distant past!  OUTRAGE!

[Vanilka]

This is why we can't have nice things.