32 réponses à ce sujet

[Heimdall]

I agree the Dalish religion sounds like it was mostly reconstructed through half-remembered stories. However, much as I love the Dalish, I always thought the nobility narrative sounded... a little too self-flattering. A good way to retroactively say, "Yeah, we were always special. It's in our blood." Or "While our weak-willed brethren converted, we remained faithful to our culture. How could we not? We were the Dales nobility." And how convenient there are no records that prove otherwise? Society falls, a few remnants escape, then they can say afterwards, "Oh yeah, we were nobles," and who's gonna contradict them?

Besides... peasants tended to be just as, if not more, pious than the nobles in ancient and medieval times because their lives sucked and religion gave them hope. BioWare just spent a whole game exploring this concept in Inquisition.
 
Also, do we really believe that after years of war with the humans and then Halamshiral being under siege and then elves everywhere being held at swordpoint, where they were basically told to convert or die, that ONLY the nobles said, "Never!" and fled into the woods? That there were no random peasants from small villages too small to be marked on any map, and thus beneath human notice, didn't slip quietly into the night?

No (And the City Elves obviously did hold on to part of their culture), but its worth noting that the nobles would have had the most to lose and would have had the easiest time gathering the resources necessary to flee (Relocating isn't something to be done at the drop of a hat, its very difficult). And as with the real middle ages, they would have had the best access to mounts, namely Halla. The Dalish story holds up on that point, there's no reason to think it a lie.
 

I wouldn't be so quick to call it a "fact." The Dalish claim they were Dales nobility, but since the Elven Dales was destroyed we have no proof. (Then again, they claimed they were once immortal and that turned out to be true, so who can say at this point?)
 
No offense, but it always seems so self-flattering to me when Andrastian fans say that. Like the elves were just clamoring to convert to Andrasteism (a human religion to a human god, after they spent centuries trying to get out from under their human yokes), but those tyrannical Dales priests forced them to remain with their horrible, false elvish gods.
 
No offense, but the whole world outside the Dales was converting to Andrastiansm at that point. If they wanted to convert, they knew exactly where to go. If they wanted to bow to a human god and live alongside humans, they had the whole freaking continent outside the Dales available to them. (Hell, one Emerald Knight slipped away from his post and went to the border village of Red Crossing and converted to Andrastianism to marry a woman he loved. Who knows how many lesser elves from lesser stations went and did the same?) The Dales was the one country in the world where they could be an elven nation with an elven religion and elven leaders and elven gods, without humans telling them, once again, what they could and couldn't do, who they could and couldn't worship.

Don't be so quick to jump on the elven/human divide. I took pains to point out that the animosity towards elves in Andrastianism and among its human converts originates with the war with the Dales, not before. Old Andrastianism was very welcoming to elves and frankly there's precedent in real world history of people adopting the religion that appears to be more "effective" in the real world. Passing down stories of the elven gods hadn't done them much good. Andraste wasn't just a human, she was a fellow slave taken from her home by the Tevinter Imperium when she was just a child. The Maker chose a slave as his prophet and her words led an army to many triumphs over the Imperium that had enslaved her and the elves both. There's a reason even the Dalish respect her today, its far from inconceivable that many would have taken taken that admiration further.

And they probably didn't want to abandon their home just because of the religion they preferred.  We have elves like Ameridan that didn't think believing in Andraste's Maker and maintaining an elven culture were incompatible, though his outright syncretism was probably unusual.

Whoa, Bessie! I never saw any proof of that.
 
Shartan's (supposed) spirit in the Temple of Sacred Ashes only had this to say: "It was my dream for the people to have a home of their own, where we would have no masters but ourselves. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and thus we followed Andraste, against the Imperium. But she was betrayed, and so were we." Not a single mention of faith or conversion; and that would be the place to mention it if it had happened!
 
It seems to me that Shartan fought for the freedom of his people, not the god of his human allies. It's possible he could have come to regard Andraste as a trusted ally, friend, or even lover. (Rumors circulated that they were lovers.) He could have been killed alongside her because they were close allies, or just because he was one of her top generals (and the general of her elven armies) to break the spirit of her followers. But no one ever said he wholeheartedly converted to her religion or fought for her god.

Whether he converted wholeheartedly or as a matter of political expediency is irrelevant to my point, my point is that Shartan was a celebrated figure in the Chant before the conflict with the Dales, a martyr and trusted champion of Andraste wielding a magic sword she gave him (One that had belonged to her mother). Elven liberation from Tevinter was all wrapped up in the Andrastian faith. This is the faith that elves at the time saw.  The idea that the vast majority of elves at the time found "human" religion so unpalatable simply because it was human is absurd.

And technically speaking, there's no strong reason the elves should trip over themselves to worship her. Various Dalish characters in DAO mention that they think Andraste was a brave, noble, admirable woman, a respected general, and they're forever grateful for what she did for the elves; they just don't believe she was the Bride of the Maker and/or they just don't want to worship her. (Expressed in this codex.) (It's like many real-world Jews who'll say, "Jesus was a cool guy/prophet; we just don't believe he was the Son of God.")
 
And again, I'm gonna defer to Merrill here: "Your 'Maker' is just a story you humans use to explain the world. We have our own stories. I don't need to borrow yours."

I'm not saying elves "should" worship the Maker, just that its likely many of them saw an appeal to the idea.  As to you analogy, well, the first Christians were Jews, so that doesn't really counter my point.

Let's remember that elves had spent centuries living as slaved to humans, and only recently won their freedom. After centuries of following orders from humans, they were now free to live however they wanted. Why would they use that new freedom to just bow to another sect of humanity? Sure, these humans had helped them gain freedom, but the same holds true for the elves. Just because elves helped Southern Thedas humans win their freedom from Tevinter doesn't mean the humans were eager to worship elven gods, so why should elves be eager to bow to a human god? The two mortals Andraste and Shartan gave them the gift of freedom, and most of them honored that gift by using it as soon as possible, as seen here in the Long Walk Codex.

No, the elves were enslaved to Tevinter for centuries. Tevinter enslaved other humans too, especially the Alamarri. Kirkwall was called the City of Chains because it was the nexus of importing newly captured slaves from the Ferelden valley to the rest of the Imperium. Andraste was one such slave. You're assuming that the elves saw following a human prophet as submitting to humans. The elven gods were just half remembered stories at this point, stories that hadn't been of any help to the elves recently. Andraste was real in front of them, and she tore down their common oppressor.

 

The point of my post was that the state religion of the Dales was geared toward legitimizing the ruling class, the Mage Keeper hailing ruling class.  They have a vested interest in keeping other faiths out, especially one that vilifies mage rule.  The commoner however might have a different view, especially considering the elves' latest experience with mage rulers.  Then along comes the religion of their liberator...  I don't think the elves would have seen missionaries as such a threat if they found no significant converts.

[Gervaise]

This is something that had always troubled me too.   We had elves coming from across Thedas to the sanctuary of the Dales but particularly those trying to escape the servitude of Tevinter, where mages ruled.    The key saying of Andraste "magic was made to serve, not to rule over", would ring true to them as much as to humans.     Then we gradually get a ruling class of priests and nobles where the ones in charge are mages.    This is still the case in the Dalish.    Now I know the legends speak of all elves having once been magical but it always seemed a bit too convenient that this lore reinforced the idea that mages are closer to the ideal that the gods were looking for before they would return.   Then to discover that the ancient elven empire was ruled over by Magister elves and a noble class of favoured followers, while lesser elves (with weaker magic) were merely servants or slaves, makes you feel like the nobility of the Dales got it spot on when recreating their old customs but not necessarily in a good way.     There were meant to have been cults to the Forgotten Ones in the old Dales that were suppressed (although I do wonder where they got their ideas from) but might there not equally have been cults to Maker, just as there were throughout the south among the humans?     There was also a branch of the Emerald Knights known as Fade Hunters who tracked down and protected against demons and maleficarum, which clearly had to be around in sufficient numbers to warrant a particular group to deal with them.     That seems like an elven Inquisition, so it hardly seems surprising there was a cross over with Dalish like Ameridan becoming part of the actual joint race organisation.   It is clear now that the chief reason they were subsequently given such a bad press is that they treated everyone equally whether noble or commoner, which wouldn't have gone down well with the ruling class (whatever the race) who always seem to think they are above the law.

 

What I have also wondered is how the Dalish noble houses escaped, while so many of the ordinary folk did not.   The Emerald Knights were said to have fought to their last breath in defending the Dales, even though it was obviously a lost fight. However, where were the nobles who should have been there leading the fight as well?   So was their determination to keep going actually buying the nobles the time to escape?  Did the nobles save their own skins, leaving the ordinary elves to their fate?  Or were many of the elves who surrendered glad to see them go but misjudged how they would be treated by their human conquerors?     

 

I also wonder why the elves went so far as to attack not only Montsimmard on the edge of the Dales but even went around as far as Val Royeaux.   That went way beyond mere defence of homeland and left them vulnerable to counter attack behind their lines, which seems likely what did happen.   Overall the war lasted 10 years, with initially the elves having the upper hand but it was only after the march on Val Royeaux that the Exalted March was called.  Why didn't they stop at the strategic site of Montsimmard and then reinforce all along the border?   What did they hope to achieve by attacking Val Royeaux?   Other nations had been occupied by Orlais during the 2nd Blight and then managed to gain their independence again (the Anderfels springs to mind) even though they must have been greatly weakened.    So considering the Dalish hadn't wasted their resources on the Blight, surely all they needed to have done was defend their borders to keep themselves free of Orlais?   Why take the risk of invading deep into enemy territory?

 

I would point out here that I have a tendency to play "devil's advocate" on these things but these rather cynical ideas originally came to me when I was more of a city elf mind set and have been re-emerging of late even though I have become a lot more pro-Dalish through role playing my Inquisitor.  

[Ghost Gal]

No (And the City Elves obviously did hold on to part of their culture), but its worth noting that the nobles would have had the most to lose and would have had the easiest time gathering the resources necessary to flee (Relocating isn't something to be done at the drop of a hat, its very difficult). And as with the real middle ages, they would have had the best access to mounts, namely Halla. The Dalish story holds up on that point, there's no reason to think it a lie.

 

As with real middle ages, the nobles (and mages, though you think they're one and the same) would have been the ones leading the charge in battle, they would have been the most easily spotted because they were the most resplendent, and (depending on the nature of the battle and/or the time and location) they would have been the first slain and/or the first taken hostage in order to break the morale of their troops. (In fact, that's exactly how the final battle was won.)

 

Little nobody farmers from small villages beneath notice could have just as easily (if not more easily) slipped away in the chaos, and/or felt just as passionate that they weren't going back to bowing to humans after their ancestors had fought so hard to escape the human yoke.

 

I love the Dalish, but I doubt that only the nobles would have had both the opportunity and desire to slip away. 

 

Don't be so quick to jump on the elven/human divide.

 

Don't be so quick to dismiss it. Early Elves and early codex entries from that period point time and time and time again to that divide.

 

Tevinter might have enslaved humans too, but all Tevinter's ruling class were humans, while all Tevinter elves were slaves. Human ruling class > human citizens > human slaves > elves. In city elf and Dalish culture, elves remember their history as "elves were slaves to humans, until Andraste freed us." (And it's on account of the elves all being slaves that they were the first to answer Andraste's call, since they had everything to gain and little more to lose, while humans weren't universally slaves and thus hedged their bets at first because they had more to lose if they joined her and she lost.)

 

Tevinter might have been ruled by mages, but their ruling mages were also (again) all humans. Elves were enslaved by humans, and so it would make sense for them to console themselves with stories of their own history, kingdom, culture, religion, etc. (A way to differentiate themselves from and silently stick the finger to their oppressors.) And those stories all say, "We were once beautiful and immortal and magical, with a beautiful kingdom and religion of our own, until we experienced the Quickening (which we think was caused by humans, but we can't test that theory because humans won't let us leave) and Tevinter conquered and enslaved us. We'd called to our gods for help, but there was no answer. They had been tricked and imprisoned by Fen'Harel. Now we're mortal and muggle and slaves to humans." When all their stories say, "Everything was great when we were our own people with our own nation and our own gods were around; then humans came along and everything's sucked since," which do you think they'll value more? Bowing to another human god in another human land, or wanting their own land with their own religion so they can recreate the great society told in their stories that they lost to human conquest?

 

Besides, the aforementioned stories of Elvhenan and Arlathan said the elves were all magical and immortal until the Quickening, which they think were caused by humans. The argument that elves should only dislike magic and not humans just because Tevinter's ruling class were mages doesn't hold water when you remember Tevinter's magisters were all human, while some Tevinter elven slaves were mages too. As far as elves knew at the time, Arlathan didn't conquer and enslave itself; human mages conquered and enslaved them, and they could all become mages and their own masters again if they could get away from humans and reverse the Quickening.

 

Not to mention commentary from elves (and humans!) at that time always mention friction with humans, and point to a desire to be their own masters rather than bowing to Andraste.

 

Again, Shartan: "It was my dream for the people to have a home of their own, where we could have no master but ourselves. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and thus we followed Andraste, against the Imperium. But she was betrayed, and so were we."

 

The Long Walk Codex: "When our people left Tevinter, we had nothing except the knowledge that for the first time in centuries, we were free.

 

"It was Shartan's dream that one day we would have our own homeland, where we could live as we chose. After the long struggle that claimed the lives of many, even Shartan himself, we were granted the Dales. And though the Dales were to the south of the land of Orlais, and a long way off from Tevinter, it mattered little. We were going home. And so we marched.

 

"... Many perished along the way. Some died of exhaustion, others simply gave up and fell by the wayside. A great number were set upon by human bandits, though we had few possessions."

 

(While that codex entry was in-universe written by a Dalish Keeper, that account is confirmed in The World of Thedas 2 by a journal entry written by a former Tevinter elven slave who participated in the Long Walk. He had been a slave to a magister who, while rather kind and treated him well, often performed blood magic rituals on him that scared him to death. When he got word that the elven slaves were now free, he took to the rode immediately. He confirms that the walk was long and hard, with the old, sick, and young elves dropping like flies from exhaustion, starvation, and illness. He confirms that they were frequently attacked and killed by human bandits, just because they were easy targets. Of the original band of five he traveled with, only one or two made it to Halamshiral. When he made it though, he was so overcome with joy and relief (after all his suffering) that he wept and kissed the ground. However, he never mentioned that he praised Andraste or wanted to worship her for it; he was just happy to be free.)

 

The Dales Codex: "You will hear tales of the woman Andraste. The shemlen name her prophet, bride of their Maker. But we knew her as a war leader, one who, like us, had been had been a slave and dreamed of liberation. We joined her rebellion against the Imperium, and our heroes died beside her, unmourned, in Tevinter bonfires."

 

The Exalted March of the Dales Codex: It is easy to see on any map how large the Dales are. More importantly, they stand between Orlais and the rest of the south and would likely have represented a significant obstacle to the empire's expansion into Ferelden. Naturally, we stood to benefit from propagating the narrative of a hostile, unreasoning people attacking innocent missionaries... The likely truth is that the elves merely wished to maintain sovereignty over lands promised to them by Blessed Andraste herself, when the humans showed clear intent to undermine their autonomy."

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, and humans also viewed elves differently. This and this codex entry show that humans at the time did discriminate against elves on a racial basis too, not just on a "different religion" or "magic-friendly" basis.

 

So, yeah, there was a human/elf divide. It wasn't just "mage vs non-mage" or "mage nobility vs non-mage majority," like you want to believe. There was a race factor involved in all the elves' interactions with humans, from earliest contact to present day.

 

I took pains to point out that the animosity towards elves in Andrastianism and among its human converts originates with the war with the Dales, not before.

 

And I took pains to point out that the animosity between the Dales elves and Andrastian religion started long before the war with the Dales. It didn't just spring up overnight on the eve of the war, or just after the war was over. Centuries of mutual dislike and distrust boiled under the surface until it finally blew its top at Red Crossing. (Detailed here, written by an elf from that time.)

 

Old Andrastianism was very welcoming to elves

 

Andrastianism always wants converts, so of course they're welcoming. They want to gain new followers, so of course they're accepting of potential converts. They're all sugar, spice and everything nice when they want you to join their religion, but then bare their bile and their blade when you say "no thanks" (as the Dales elves learned the hard way).

 

Andraste wasn't just a human, she was a fellow slave taken from her home by the Tevinter Imperium when she was just a child. The Maker chose a slave as his prophet and her words led an army to many triumphs over the Imperium that had enslaved her and the elves both. There's a reason even the Dalish respect her today, its far from inconceivable that many would have taken taken that admiration further.

 

Whether he converted wholeheartedly or as a matter of political expediency is irrelevant to my point, my point is that Shartan was a celebrated figure in the Chant before the conflict with the Dales, a martyr and trusted champion of Andraste wielding a magic sword she gave him (One that had belonged to her mother). Elven liberation from Tevinter was all wrapped up in the Andrastian faith. This is the faith that elves at the time saw.  The idea that the vast majority of elves at the time found "human" religion so unpalatable simply because it was human is absurd.

I'm not saying elves "should" worship the Maker, just that its likely many of them saw an appeal to the idea.

 

I feel like you're projecting your own like of Andraste onto the elves. You think, "Oh, isn't she grand? Of course the elves would want to worship her!" without any evidence pointing that they did. Evidence suggests she was a mortal woman who claimed to receive visions from the Maker, but whether she did is up for debate in-universe and out. (For example, the rather popular in-universe theory that she was secretly just a very powerful mage who conversed with a powerful spirit.) While her human followers ate it all up, there's no indisputable evidence that she was definitely  divine or that all her followers believed her claims to divinity one hundred percent.

 

Regardless, most evidence points to pre-Dales elves respecting this mortal woman as a fellow former slave (mortal) and war leader (mortal), and feeling grateful to her for her help in freeing them; but not of "many" elves seeing her as any more divine than Shartan (whom they celebrated just as much), nor having any strong interest in worshiping her as the Bride of the Maker. HUMANS might have believed all that "Bride of the Maker" stuff, but there's no evidence that the elves did. Most evidence points to them feeling respectful and grateful to her for helping them them, but not of wanting to use that new freedom to worship the ground she walked on nor worship yet another human god (after only recently gaining their freedom after centuries of human oppression).

 

And honestly, like I said before, if the elves did wish to take their admiration further, they would have done so on their own time, on their own terms.

 

Remember that for centuries before the Chantry was formed, there was no formal, organized religion for the Maker or Andraste. There were just a bunch of scattered "cults" around Southern Thedas (like the one you encounter in the Hinterlands), with different people worshiping these entities in different ways, some with more influence than others. Then Emperor Drakon I of Orlais turned his "cult of the Maker" (the largest at the time) into the Chantry, and went around assimilating and outlawing smaller cults, then conquering and converting his neighbors. 

 

Keeping that in mind, as Ashagar pointed out, there's also evidence that there were also various cults inside the Dales that worshiped various entities besides those of the dominant elven religion. (Again, there's evidence that there was a cult that worshiped the Forgotten Ones! A big no-no to the Dalish.) It's possible that they could have had their own little cult of Andraste, if they were interested in worshiping her at all, where they could worship her in their own elfy way. They didn't need fancy human missionaries from their fancy new human religion coming into sovereign elven territory, telling them who and how to worship.

 

We have elves like Ameridan that didn't think believing in Andraste's Maker and maintaining an elven culture were incompatible, though his outright syncretism was probably unusual.

 

And he's presented as the exception, not the rule.

 

The point of my post was that the state religion of the Dales was geared toward legitimizing the ruling class, the Mage Keeper hailing ruling class.  They have a vested interest in keeping other faiths out, especially one that vilifies mage rule.  The commoner however might have a different view, especially considering the elves' latest experience with mage rulers.  Then along comes the religion of their liberator...  I don't think the elves would have seen missionaries as such a threat if they found no significant converts.

 

Wait a second. You just blew a hole in your own theory for me.

 

If, as you claim, the Dalish are all descended from Dales nobility, and all Dales nobility were mages (which, btw, I've never seen any evidence for; I've never even seen that claim outside this thread), and only Dales nobles rejected Andrastianism, and it was only out out of this self-serving agenda to keep out the religion that preaches "magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him" because it undermined the legitimacy of mages as the ruling class, then how come only a tiny fraction of the Dalish are mages? (And how come mage city elves are pretty common each generation?)

 

I know it's not to the extent that Tevinter's oldest, most powerful mage families would have you believe, but there is a bit of genetics in Thedas magic. In general, mages who have children tend to have mage children (Wynne to Rhys, Malcolm to Hawke and Bethany), and children discovered to have magic are usually revealed to have many other mages in the family. (Peasants can't keep track of bloodlines the way nobles can, but nobles who do... Isolde reveals that Connor is a mage because magic ran strong in her family, and Leandra reveals that magic ran strong on the Amell side too, since her cousin popped out dozens of mage babies.) There are exceptions, of course: Fiona had Alistair, Malcolm had Carver, etc. But by and large a mostly or all mage family yields mostly or all mage children.

 

Since the Dalish are pretty reclusive and know that elf x non-elf = non-elf child, it's unlikely that they married and bred with any but other Dalish elves and the occasional city elf who joined them. If all Dales nobles were mages and the Dalish are all descended from Dales mages, then how come the vast majority of the Dalish are non-mages? With only one, two, or three mages per clan? Because of the genetic nature of magic, according to your theory it should be the other way around, with most Dalish being mages and only a few non-mages here or there. (And city elf mages should be nill, if all Dales peasants had been non-mages and only Dales peasants converted to Andrastianism.)

 

 

 

 

No. I think I'm going to take the elves at their word, and say there's fair evidence that they were telling the truth: that they did't like being subjugated by humans, that they wanted their own homeland and freedom partly to rebuild their own culture and worship their own religion (which reveres elven magic and elven gods). That by and large Andraste was well-liked and well-respected as a person, but not popular as a figure of worship (until humans conquered and forcefully converted the elves en masse). And that by and large elves resisted converting to Andrastianism because they don't like humans once again undermining their autonomy by telling them once again what to do or who to worship.

[Illegitimus]

SPOILERS AHEAD

Some lore has been made available, particularly concerning the final years but I am more interested about what occurred in the early days that led to the set up in the Dales.  Specifically, how did the priesthood of the elven gods gain such dominance over elven thought?   Let me explain my reasoning.

 

When the elves first arrived after the Long March it is unlikely they were following the elven gods, although may have had some folk tales with them in.    Later Dalish lore has their storytellers saying that it was the elven gods who rewarded them for their persistence in reaching the end of the journey.    That has to be a later development.    Surely the only god the elves would recognise as assisting them was the Maker?    Even if Shartan had fallen at the same time as Andraste and the Maker apparently did not intervene, nevertheless Maferath and his sons honoured the assistance of the elves and gave them their Homeland as promised.    So who would you be more grateful to, the god who supported the crusading army or the gods who had never answered your prayers?

 

That assumes that the elves thought that the Maker had in fact supported the crusading army which is not necessarily the case.  Of course like typical polytheists they may have just added the Maker to their pantheon, only to eject him again after the fall of the Dales.  

[MisterJB]

Whoa, Bessie! I never saw any proof of that.

 

World of Thedas Volume 1, page 43 the OOC chronology presented in the book:

 

-171 Ancient "At the Battle of the Valarian Fields, the elven slave Shartan takes Maferath's side and leads other elves in the fight against their Tevinter opressors. He later converts and is made a disciple, only to have his writings supressed following the Exalted March of the Dales."

 

 

[Mykel54]

The issue here is magic. Tevinter was like elvhenan reborn, having a magocracy plus slavery. Those elf slaves with magic probably considered it a "gift from the gods", Merrill says so, and goes forward into saying how "once, all elves had magic" - the idealized past, and the same thing Dorian says in DAI "the lower masses are placated because they think: one day my grandchildren will be a mage".

 

Also, being an slave with magic in ancient Tevinter was probably better than a simple labourer, as the Calpernia short story shows - there is a use for magic wielding slaves that is different from common stock.

 

It makes sense to think that the elf slaves of tevinter, through all their years of history, maintained the basic idea that magic was a gift (just like tevinter society thought), and that those blessed were the only ones capable of communicating with the gods (dreamers, as the gods are locked in heaven). So the gods weren´t completely dead, they were just exiled.

 

The teachings of Andraste clashed with this elven slave culture, and as converts picked up, they questioned the legitimacy of the elven mages having authority over the non mages, interpreting the ancient elven gods. These proto-keepers saw Andrastianism as a threat to both the ideal elven society (passed down from Arlathan) plus more practically their own positions of power in that society. I can see elves being concerned about losing their language and the few things they remember from their golden age, so i imagine why not everyone wanted to give up that.

 

In a way the more conservative, favouring the status-quo, like the nobles, priests, magic-users, would favour maintaining the old society. The lower classes (much like christianism did in the roman empire) or the more progressive, unwilling to cling to an uncertain past and hope for something better, would favour a regime change - thus converting to Andrastianism, apparently Shartan was one of those. There was also the political pressure from humans to convert, so it was the expedient thing to do. With all these forces pushing to change society, it makes sense how Ameridan is shown.

 

In the end it seems like the conservative party won, making stuff up like the "quickening" (being close to humans shortens their lifespan) and overall protecting the position of the elven mages as the ruling class. Also favouring isolationism: preserving the language and trying to rediscover more, avoiding humans customs "corrupting" the true elven society - after all they wanted to recreate Arlathan, not create a new society based on a new god shared with humans. There is also the religious/political issue of the Chantry leadership: the Divine is human (and was picked by Drakon), so not everyone would be willing to accept a human having authority (through religion) over the elves.

 

Obviously not all elves were like that, so after the exalted marches on the dales, only the most invested in the old system (mages, nobles, priests, etc.) refused to surrender and went into exile instead, forming the dalish clans.

[In Exile]

Don't be so quick to dismiss it. Early Elves and early codex entries from that period point time and time and time again to that divide.

I wish I had time for this debate - I really do - but I sadly can't at this time. I will say this however: these are not contemporary codex entries. They are all historical accounts, and so post facto. While they're the best resource we have, I would rely on them as the objective truth of what had happened at the time. Even the counter-cultural narratives that come up later, those are still more supposition than anything. We rarely see firsthand accounts.

 

In fact, the only contemporary evidence I think we ever get about the Dales come 1) from Ameridan (and he tells us very little) and 2) from the Emerald Knights journal, which is more a stream of consciousness rant than a historical account. 

[Eliastion]

(...)

The teachings of Andraste clashed with this elven slave culture, and as converts picked up, they questioned the legitimacy of the elven mages having authority over the non mages, interpreting the ancient elven gods. These proto-keepers saw Andrastianism as a threat to both the ideal elven society (passed down from Arlathan) plus more practically their own positions of power in that society. I can see elves being concerned about losing their language and the few things they remember from their golden age, so i imagine why not everyone wanted to give up that.

(...)

"Elven mages having authority over the non mages" is your assumption rather than a fact confirmed by any in-world sources.

Modern Dalish are led by Keepers but it should be also noted that even there some non-magical non-religious leadership is supposedly present, depending on the clan.

You start with the assumption that Dales = mage-controlled theocracy and work from there, but even your starting point is debatable to say the least.

 

 

But, when we're talking about the Dalish, I'd like to suggest a bit of an... unorthodox view of how Dalish elves and City Elves actually got started.

As for Dalish, I think the idea of nobles running away could have much to do withe the role of nobles - one can assume that nobles at the time were the backbone of military. In fact, that's how nobles tend to start: they get authority and very real power as professional military. In Thedas this origin is pretty much lost in Orlais and Tevinter but can still be clearly observed in Ferelden - we have peasant conscripts and volunteers in times of need but the whole military command as well as the army's elite are nobles, landed or otherwise.

We could easily assume that things worked like that in Dales too. Large part of their fighting force - and overwhelming majority if you only count the professional soldiers - would be nobility. Seeing how military (especially professional soldiers and officers), priesthood and leadership in general were the most likely to get purged by invading forces, it's not surprising to see these grooups over-represented among the refugees.

But that was not all, I believe. As I said, nobility and professional likely intertwined to the point of being largely one and the same. This would make nobles running away from Dales not only an escape (with their families and closest subordinates) - it would be, at least in part, a retreat of remnants of the military. And this could've been, in fact, considered (well, at the time) to be a temporary measure. Think about it - we have accounts (though with broken timeline since the fall of Dales was probably intended to be much more recent than it ended up to be) of Dalish Clans fightiing Avvars (and delivering a decisive defeat to them) right after retreating from the Dales. Seeing how Avvars are no pushovers it suggest pretty considerable strength of what should be just a bunch of refugees fleeing the persecution. So they were either very numerous or adept at fighting or both. Perhaps what actually happened was more or less organized retreat of the remaining leaders and military?

Orlais was known to invade other countries - but Orlais with its military was not capable of standing up to Dales in the first part of the war. It was only after the Chantry made the stance, playing the religious card and likely drawing lots of volunteers from outside Orlais (the supposed lack of foreign aid probably means lack of official support on nation level - Orlais was loosing too badly to consider such complete reversal plausible with just its native forces). Basically, remnants of Dalish army and leadership could've retreated thinking that in a year or three, once the religious fervor died down and the Exalted March dispersed, they could go back to Dales and liberate the land. This never happened due to Chantry's genocidal "mercy": they started uprooting local population and shipping them (en-masse) out of Dales (when you consider the scale and the means they had available for such transportation AND the accounts of voluntary Long March that started the Dales - you'll see why I call this re-settlement program genocidal). Thanks to this practice, Chantry had reasons to keep whatever forces it brought to Dales from disbanding too quickly while also crippling locals' ability to start an insurrection were the remnants to return. In the end the plan of re-taking the land ceased to be feasible, especially since Dalish remnants weren't all that high on morale and likely started dispersing more and more to secure necessary provisions.

Finally the idea of going back to Dales was put on hold indefinitely. Over the generations the focus shifted to preserving the old ways - and with that change of focus came more and more prominent position of the Keeper - originally more of a scholar and priest as well as an advisor to the leadership of the clan. The fact that his role reflected the shifting priorities coupled with obvious advantages of his magical experience (Dalish move through uncharted woods and cross mountines unnoticed with wagons; I'd say magic plays some part in that) led to emergence of social structure observed among modern Dalish where Keeper holds the role of de-facto absolute leader of the clan.

 

But let's shift our gaze to city elves now - because that's where I really am going to say something controversial. Basically, I believe that City Elves started long before the fall of Dales. We've all read about the Long March - but the accounts seem to imply it was hell. Now, let's think about the elves that lived in lands where Tevinter didn't hold so much power - like (what now is) Ferelden. And of places that supported the rebellion strongly - places where freed elves would've been initially seen as allies, along with the populace that overthrew these same magisters the elves hated...

Is it really sensible to assume all the elves would be willing to leave their homes behind to walk half the continent to mythical land of new elven homeland? Think of all these former slaves - especially those more prized, that spent their life not unlike servants... would they really leave just like that rather than try and make the best of their newfound freedom right where they were living their whole lives? We're told that many ex-slaves gave up along the way and returned to Tevinter - why return if you're just too tired to go on, why not just stay where you are in a pllace where you'll be dirt-poor, perhaps, but not a slave?

I believe the origin of City Elves is really mostly these people. Those that just never participated in the Long March  and those that gave up along the way. And as the Dales was starting up, they themselves were making a living in human lands. Then, when human-elven relations deteriorated, they faced more and more prejudice. When Chantry established alienages, most of their inhabitants weren't the elves re-settled from the Dales but the local elves corralled in these ghettos... Elves that, quite likely, already either adopted Andrastianism or couldn't care less - that's why alienages didn't secretly hold onto ancient beliefs unlike what happened in case of elven slaves (probably under much strictier control) in Tevinter.

Some ex-citizent from Dales were forcibly settled there too, of course (after surviving the re-settlement process) - these brought their stories and ideas and led to the emergence of modern Alienage culture, but the common belief of City Elves that all their ancestors came from the Dales is a myth that doesn't make much sense when you think of it - but probably a myth that won't easily go away because it's kinda useful for both sides: City Elves build their community and solidarity around these common roots while the Chantry and humanity feel better about themselves since the hard life of elves is - to some extent - a prolonged "punishment" for the sins of Dales. It would be harder to admit that they're generally speaking persecuting descendants of people who fought against Tevinter and never actually had much to do with Dales...

Though it should be also noted that even if initially only small percentage of City Elves  actually were from dales, after these hundred of years it's pretty certain that every living City Elf does have some Dalish blood.

 

PS:

As for Dalish - a case could also by made that there could've been quite a few elven tribes living the life not unlike modern Dalish at the height of Tevinter power. After all it sounds quite fishy that with more of Thedas unconquered and even unexplored than today, there would be no group determined to, well, not become human slaves. And smart enough to make their determination into reality. These groups would've probably joined Dales later on, making reconstruction of culture much less of a guesswork than it would've been otherwise - although unlike Dalish, these proto-dalish probably didn't put so much stress on preserving ancient culture...

But they could be the explanation for where the ideas of cult of Forgotten Ones came from - after all these previous elven nomads could've remembered... strange things.