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[AlanC9]

What's the evidence for that?

[In Exile]

No.  It isn't.  Those texts on blood magic used to be in the library until he pulled them out because of Jowan.  

 

That doesn't like up at all with what Irving says to you if you side with him. 

[Bayonet Hipshot]

It's not that he wanted to distract them. First of all, it's obvious he works with Gregoire to tempt idiots into blood magic, like Jowan. The hints are there (remember, he has forbidden texts on blood magic around him). This allows him to quickly purge the Circle of problem elements and avoid annulment. With how little power a First Enchanter has, really, this is cunning of him. Second, by showing that a Chantry Sister was corrupted, he again insulates the rest of the Circle from an accusation of widespread blood magic, and undercuts the power of the Chantry by undercutting their narrative. 

 

He's one of the only politicians ever portrayed by Bioware that isn't an idiot. 

 

That is why I like him over, say, Vivienne. He is a decent mage politician that ultimately still cares about his charges, especially the Hero of Ferelden, who is his star pupil.

[GoldenGail3]

That is why I like him over, say, Vivienne. He is a decent mage politician that ultimately still cares about his charges, especially the Hero of Ferelden, who is his star pupil.

That is one of the many reasons I made a Mage Warden.

[KaiserShep]

That is one of the many reasons I made a Mage Warden.

 

I'd probably favor a mage Warden more if stupid Jowan wasn't the emotional anchor used at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Like "Oh man, why do YOU have to show up? Why couldn't it be someone else at the Circle??"

[GoldenGail3]

I'd probably favor a mage Warden more if stupid Jowan wasn't the emotional anchor used at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Like "Oh man, why do YOU have to show up? Why couldn't it be someone else at the Circle??"

I headcount my Amell was too nice to say that to Jowan though she'd probaly be thinking it.

[vertigomez]

I think Bioware needs to develop elven culture further. Or, really, at all. At this point, we have two amphormous masses of elves that should have distinct cultures - the Dalish and the CEs - but that don't. Thus far, the Dalish are just defined on a spectrum of seeming hostility to humans, and CEs, to the degree they appear, seem to have uniform (and barely existent) customs.

I think it would help if we had an alienage elf companion who was proud of where they came from. In the vein of Shianni, I guess, who acts as the CE's alienage-elf-culture-exposition-person, advocates change and isn't shy about busting heads or her mistrust of interlopers.

Fenris and Zevran are dismissive of alienage culture (Zevran less so). Solas is... Solas. Sera was born in one but actively despises the culture that rejected her (and was ultimately raised outside of it anyway). And Merrill resides in one but is still culturally Dalish. So we end up having lots of city elves but no alienage elves.

[Dean_the_Young]

I think Bioware is absolutely right to do it. I just don't think they've thought through the implication of it. 

 

I don't think they thought through the implications of Cole as a whole.

 

If they had, I doubt they would have conflated someone who can accurately be called a mind rapist with the effects and intent they were clearly going for. Ignore the mental tampering, memory wiping, ignoring open distress and requests for him to stop, and all the other violations of consent- Cole just wants to help.

 

You'll thank him when he's gotten his fun with you- if he lets you remember it.

[In Exile]

I don't think they thought through the implications of Cole as a whole.

 

If they had, I doubt they would have conflated someone who can accurately be called a mind rapist with the effects and intent they were clearly going for. Ignore the mental tampering, memory wiping, ignoring open distress and requests for him to stop, and all the other violations of consent- Cole just wants to help.

 

You'll thank him when he's gotten his fun with you- if he lets you remember it.

 

So he's the Purple Man, but with added roofie-based powers?

[ComedicSociopathy]

I don't think they thought through the implications of Cole as a whole.

 

If they had, I doubt they would have conflated someone who can accurately be called a mind rapist with the effects and intent they were clearly going for. Ignore the mental tampering, memory wiping, ignoring open distress and requests for him to stop, and all the other violations of consent- Cole just wants to help.

 

You'll thank him when he's gotten his fun with you- if he lets you remember it.

 

And that's why Cole always goes human in my playthroughs. 

[Gervaise]

Just one of many where I don't really think they thought through how something might appear to people on the outside of the writing team, rather than how they personally imagined it.

 

With Cole it is clear you are being pushed in the spirit direction because of Solas in particularly going on about how spirits are real people and you should respect them for what they are.    So it makes you look as though you are prejudiced and narrow minded in wanting Cole to be human.    However, many of Cole's interactions with people do seem overly intrusive and blurting out their innermost thoughts is a violation, not to mention distressing to the victim.   Not that his interaction with your companions does change if you make him human.   I certainly didn't notice any difference between the two in the main game.   The most marked difference is in the café scene; you only realise just how creepy his actions as a spirit are if you can contrast it with his behaviour when he is more human.

[DebatableBubble]

The writers do seem to push us towards feeling or thinking a certain way all the time. Case in point, the Mage/Templar/Chantry debacle.

[myahele]

Come to think of it, I'd love a normal Elf companion. Preferably a city elf

[Bad King]

You're just reiterating my point.  Previous to DA:I, and thus previous to Abelas telling us what happened, the story was that the humans attacked Arlethan and destroyed the elven empire and somehow were responsible for the loss of their immortality.  Now we know none of those things are true.  So instead of the best the elves had to offer being powerless to stop an aggressive humanity, we now know that the elves are responsible for their own downfall, and humans just scraped up what was left.

 

It changes the narrative of the elves from 'inherently inferior' to 'made some bad decisions that cost them everything'.

 

The elves didn't wipe their own society out. Whatever Solas did by creating the Veil, there were still elven nations left and those were destroyed and their people mass-enslaved by a highly expansionist Empire that went on to colonise other human societies further south. It's laughable to blame elven enslavement on the elves and not on the Empire that enslaved them!

[In Exile]

The elves didn't wipe their own society out. Whatever Solas did by creating the Veil, there were still elven nations left and those were destroyed and their people mass-enslaved by a highly expansionist Empire that went on to colonise other human societies further south. It's laughable to blame elven enslavement on the elves and not on the Empire that enslaved them!

 

We don't know what happened after the Veil collapsed. Abellas says the elves destroyed themselves, but apart from being vague, he's also an outspoken racist (just see how he treats the Dalish PC). What Tevinter did is a quite large unknown for us. 

[In Exile]

Just one of many where I don't really think they thought through how something might appear to people on the outside of the writing team, rather than how they personally imagined it.

 

With Cole it is clear you are being pushed in the spirit direction because of Solas in particularly going on about how spirits are real people and you should respect them for what they are.    So it makes you look as though you are prejudiced and narrow minded in wanting Cole to be human.    However, many of Cole's interactions with people do seem overly intrusive and blurting out their innermost thoughts is a violation, not to mention distressing to the victim.   Not that his interaction with your companions does change if you make him human.   I certainly didn't notice any difference between the two in the main game.   The most marked difference is in the café scene; you only realise just how creepy his actions as a spirit are if you can contrast it with his behaviour when he is more human.

 

They have fan favourite Varric arguing with Solas. I'm not really seeing how you're being pushed in that direction. 

[Bad King]

We don't know what happened after the Veil collapsed. Abellas says the elves destroyed themselves, but apart from being vague, he's also an outspoken racist (just see how he treats the Dalish PC). What Tevinter did is a quite large unknown for us. 

 

If you take Dorian to that conversation, Abelas specifically states that there was a war (of carrion on a corpse) and triumphalist Tevinter narratives suggest that the elven civilisation of the time was shattered by them and the people enslaved. We know for certain that Shartan played an important role in Andraste's war when he mobilised large numbers of elven slaves to fight the Tevinters. So we know for sure that mass-enslavement happened happened at some point, and unless the elves sold themselves into slavery en-masse, it's absurd to place the blame on them and not on the expansionist Empire next door that kept them as slaves. 

[In Exile]

If you take Dorian to that conversation, Abelas specifically states that there was a war (of carrion on a corpse) and triumphalist Tevinter narratives suggest that the elven civilisation of the time was shattered by them and the people enslaved. We know for certain that Shartan played an important role in Andraste's war when he mobilised large numbers of elven slaves to fight the Tevinters. So we know for sure that mass-enslavement happened happened at some point, and unless the elves sold themselves into slavery en-masse, it's absurd to place the blame on them and not on the expansionist Empire next door that kept them as slaves. 

 

That's the line I'm talking about here. It doesn't mean what people think it necessarily means, because Abelas is a racist who predates the Veil. The "People" he knew where the Elvhen at the absolute height of their power. Their nation, broken by the creation of the Veil and weakened by decades/centuries/millennium of infighting could still have been the single greatest empire in post-Veil Thedas until Tevinter. 

 

I'm not saying the elves are at fault. That would be a silly conclusion even if the popular interpretation of what Abelas says is true. All I'm saying is that both narratives could be true depending on your perspective.

 

To Abelas, what the Tevinters ruined was a broken wreck of a once mighty society destroyed by its own infighting. 

To the Tevinters, what they broke and enslaved was the greatest empire known to humanity. 

 

Both can be true. 

[Bad King]

That's the line I'm talking about here. It doesn't mean what people think it necessarily means, because Abelas is a racist who predates the Veil. The "People" he knew where the Elvhen at the absolute height of their power. Their nation, broken by the creation of the Veil and weakened by decades/centuries/millennium of infighting could still have been the single greatest empire in post-Veil Thedas until Tevinter. 

 

I'm not saying the elves are at fault. That would be a silly conclusion even if the popular interpretation of what Abelas says is true. All I'm saying is that both narratives could be true depending on your perspective.

 

To Abelas, what the Tevinters ruined was a broken wreck of a once mighty society destroyed by its own infighting. 

To the Tevinters, what they broke and enslaved was the greatest empire known to humanity. 

 

Both can be true. 

 

But both narratives end in the same way: with Tevinter mass-enslaving the remaining free elves. Regardless of what civil wars the elves fought, it cannot be said that they were responsible for their own destruction when their state(s) would have endured had the Tevinter Empire not marched in and crushed it.

[nightscrawl]

Just one of many where I don't really think they thought through how something might appear to people on the outside of the writing team, rather than how they personally imagined it.
 
With Cole it is clear you are being pushed in the spirit direction because of Solas in particularly going on about how spirits are real people and you should respect them for what they are.    So it makes you look as though you are prejudiced and narrow minded in wanting Cole to be human.    However, many of Cole's interactions with people do seem overly intrusive and blurting out their innermost thoughts is a violation, not to mention distressing to the victim.   Not that his interaction with your companions does change if you make him human.   I certainly didn't notice any difference between the two in the main game.   The most marked difference is in the café scene; you only realise just how creepy his actions as a spirit are if you can contrast it with his behaviour when he is more human.

They have fan favourite Varric arguing with Solas. I'm not really seeing how you're being pushed in that direction.

 
Yeah, I've never gotten that vibe either. IMO it's up to the player whether they want to give Solas's words more weight. I think both he and Varric make compelling arguments in that particular scene. Also, the game UI makes it clear that Cole will be fundamentally changed either way. You cannot opt to instead keep him as he currently is, you MUST make a choice. So who is to say that either path is correct? Solas has his own view, which is itself prejudiced, as does Varric.

[In Exile]

But both narratives end in the same way: with Tevinter mass-enslaving the remaining free elves. Regardless of what civil wars the elves fought, it cannot be said that they were responsible for their own destruction when their state(s) would have endured had the Tevinter Empire not marched in and crushed it.

 

Absolutely. That's not the line I'm contesting here. Rather, it's "The elves didn't wipe their own society out". I think there's a plausible argument they did exactly that, just in the events that led Solas to create the Veil alone. 

 

Whether or not the elves basically destroyed their own society, though, has no bearing on Tevinter's moral standing. As you say: "It's laughable to blame elven enslavement on the elves and not on the Empire that enslaved them!"

[In Exile]

 
Yeah, I've never gotten that vibe either. IMO it's up to the player whether they want to give Solas's words more weight. I think both he and Varric make compelling arguments in that particular scene. Also, the game UI makes it clear that Cole will be fundamentally changed either way. You cannot opt to instead keep him as he currently is, you MUST make a choice. So who is to say that either path is correct? Solas has his own view, which is itself prejudiced, as does Varric.

 

And it's all a microcosm for Solas's own story. He and Varic argue about moving on elsewhere, with Solas always really and ultimately refusing to do it. That he thinks Solas has been tained and can only be saved by being restored to his "true" state, and denying that there's value in his evolution...

 

 

... Well, that's exactly his view on Thedas. 

[sandalisthemaker]

But both narratives end in the same way: with Tevinter mass-enslaving the remaining free elves. Regardless of what civil wars the elves fought, it cannot be said that they were responsible for their own destruction when their state(s) would have endured had the Tevinter Empire not marched in and crushed it.

 

If they were as powerful as the lore implies them to have been, Tevinter may not have been able to conquer and enslave the elves had they not weakened themselves first.

 

In a sense, humanity may have been able to rise to power because of the Evanuris's folly. 

[Bad King]

If they were as powerful as the lore implies them to have been, Tevinter may not have been able to conquer and enslave the elves had they not weakened themselves first.

 

In a sense, humanity may have been able to rise to power because of the Evanuris's folly. 

 

Sure (though it was more likely Solas creating the Veil that led to the severe weakening of the elves) but the ultimate reason for their demise was Tevinter expansionism - they're the ones who swung the axe.

[sandalisthemaker]

Sure (though it was more likely Solas creating the Veil that led to the severe weakening of the elves) but the ultimate reason for their demise was Tevinter expansionism - they're the ones who swung the axe.

 

Yeah, but Solas created the Veil to to stop the Evanuris.  

 

The psycho Evanuris are ultimately responsible for everything that happened to the modern day elves.

 

Yeah, Tevinter enslaved them, but the elves only became weak enough to be enslaved because of the depravity and infighting of their own leaders.