36 réponses à ce sujet

[Anaeme]

I want to have a substantive discussion about The Maker in Dragon Age, because I believe the concept is being undermined by the games.

 

Please do not bring real world religion into this coversation. Let us have a meaningful discussion focused on the game.

 

 

In game evidence

 

The Maker's presence needs to be more actively 'felt' in the world for the widespread belief currently evident in Thedas to make sense.

 

Remember Thedas is a world where you can visit the world of the dead while you are still alive. So people have gone into the fade and seen that there is no Heaven or Paradise, spirits are just floating around and demons have carved out their territory. 

 

The enviroment in the Fade sucks and there is no Maker anywhere.

 

 

So, why again are people believing in a Maker when they can see with their eyes that the REWARD of being by his side after they die does not exist?

 

If you were living in Thedas can you name one thing that makes it reasonable for you to argue that there is a Maker watching over your affairs?

 

 

 

Developer Actions

 

You can see that anytime something divine arisies in DAI, the developers go out of their way to counter it.

 

So you thought you were a Herald of Andraste...too bad the mark came from an ordinary mundane event.

 

That assumption that the elves had a real Pantheon? ...Ah well you were wrong. They were all mages. All their history and lore was based on misunderstanding

 

The list goes on but the pattern you see is that anytime the player assumes there is no divine involvement, you are always right.

 

 

Question

 

My question is instead of undemining the concept of divinity at every turn, why don't Bioware just get rid of it? 

 

Right now there is not enough in the games to give people living in Thedas sufficient room to believe in a Maker

 

[LightningPoodle]

The Fade looks like that when entered via the Harrowing or through a tear in the Veil. That is what it actually looks like. When you dream, you see what you would see in any real dream a real person might have. Dreaming acts as a mask. It bends to the minds of those seeing it through a dream. A tiny window, a crack in the wall that is the Veil.

[Akiza]

Another discussion about the Maker,how fun!

I'm sure that it will lead to more questions than answers.

[Wulfram]

The Fade is not paradise in Andrastean theology, you simply pass through it on the way to "the maker's side".

[straykat]

The Maker isn't in the Fade. Andrastianism is deist. Not theist. i.e. Their god doesn't care. He left.

 

 

Speaking of which, that's the silly thing about this game's premise. This was established lore before.. there's no reason why so many Chantry people would believe the main character was saved by Andraste. Only people like Leliana were like this in the setting before. It made her odd. Even Wynne criticized her. Now suddenly everyone in Haven is a theist and instantly duped by whatever character we can dream up.

[Illegitimus]

I want to have a substantive discussion about The Maker in Dragon Age, because I believe the concept is being undermined by the games.

 

Please do not bring real world religion into this coversation. Let us have a meaningful discussion focused on the game.

 

 

In game evidence

 

The Maker's presence needs to be more actively 'felt' in the world for the widespread belief currently evident in Thedas to make sense.

 

Remember Thedas is a world where you can visit the world of the dead while you are still alive

 

No you can't.   The Fade is not the world of the dead.   At most it's the place they pass through on their way to a further destination.  

 

The Maker isn't in the Fade. Andrastianism is deist. Not theist. i.e. Their god doesn't care. He left.

 

 

Speaking of which, that's the silly thing about this game's premise. This was established lore before.. there's no reason why so many Chantry people would believe the main character was saved by Andraste. Only people like Leliana were like this in the setting before. It made her odd. Even Wynne criticized her. Now suddenly everyone in Haven is a theist and instantly duped by whatever character we can dream up.

 

Technically Andrastianism holds that The Maker doesn't listen to prayers and doesn't communicate with mortals after Andraste.  That does not automatically mean that the Maker can't and won't intervene as it sees fit, (and in fact the top priest in Kirkwall indicates she thinks that might have happened at one point in Hawke's story).  Also the Herald wasn't dubbed as such by the Chantry hierarchy but by the common folk and not as the Herald of the Maker, but as the Herald of Andraste.  Even if the Maker doesn't intervene that doesn't mean that Andraste necessarily can't.  Loophole!  Even so most of the Chantry hierarchy regard the idea as heresy. 

 

And of course there's the other consideration.  When the "gates of hell" open up and you get a literal invasion of demons, that's exactly the kind of stress that is going to lead to people rethinking their religion.  

[straykat]

No you can't.   The Fade is not the world of the dead.   At most it's the place they pass through on their way to a further destination.  

 

 

Technically Andrastianism holds that The Maker doesn't listen to prayers and doesn't communicate with mortals after Andraste.  That does not automatically mean that the Maker can't and won't intervene as it sees fit, (and in fact the top priest in Kirkwall indicates she thinks that might have happened at one point in Hawke's story).  Also the Herald wasn't dubbed as such by the Chantry hierarchy but by the common folk and not as the Herald of the Maker, but as the Herald of Andraste.  Even if the Maker doesn't intervene that doesn't mean that Andraste necessarily can't.  Loophole!  Even so most of the Chantry hierarchy regard the idea as heresy. 

 

And of course there's the other consideration.  When the "gates of hell" open up and you get a literal invasion of demons, that's exactly the kind of stress that is going to lead to people rethinking their religion.  

 

Yeah, but you have plenty of clerics..and even a Rev Mother and Seeker acting like Leliana now. It isn't just some peasant thing...

 

I can't blame the Orlesians being annoyed with it though. I don't want to be smug about the whole "Herald" thing. I kinda feel sorry for that one priestess...

[Abyss108]

I feel like the OP doesn't really get the entire concept of faith...

[Ashagar]

The fade isn't the world of the dead, its the place where the dead pass though after dying, they go somewhere else afterwards but nobody including the spirits know where only that they pass though the fade.

 

Also the Maker is a entity that baring Andraste's claims was never known for doing much in the world other than creating it, it was confirmed by the developers that the maker is the same creator deity that the ancient Neromenians and the later ancient Tevinter Imperium believed in but even then he wasn't believed to intervene in the world or answer prayers.

[Dai Grepher]

Personally, I think Origins proved the existence of the Maker, and that the story of him and Andraste were historical fact.

 

But this was too much for BioWare. They needed to make it more ambiguous so that the Maker's existence would be something that people would question. So they had Corypheus suggest that the Golden City was black when they found it, which Corypheus then admitted was false at the end of Inquisition. But now they have the stories with the evanuris and the titans and how that fits into the Chantry account.

 

That's all this is, I think. BioWare just wants to make the Maker less of a fact in the series. So they injected doubt. The Gauntlet can now be explained as a titan residing under the temple, or lyrium running all through it, or whatever. Or maybe this was the titan Mythal slayed, and then the Temple of Andraste was built over it. The story about the Veil is also now in doubt. Solas claims he created it. The Chantry claims the Maker created it. Both can't be right. I think Solas is mistaken, as usual.

[Gervaise]

I must say it is the idea that many people seem to have that the Maker will intervene that always causes me the greatest problem.    Back in DAO it was established that the teaching of the Chantry was specifically that the Maker had abandoned the world after the death of Andraste and would not return until the Chant was spread to every corner of the world.     Then Leliana suggested a different idea; that she could feel the Maker's presence in the natural world and that she had received a vision from him.  The quest for the sacred ashes seemed to confirm the story about Andraste as largely true, although Oghren did suggest that perhaps the ashes were able to heal because they were sitting on a huge pile of lyrium and this had in some way imbibed them with its magic.    Nevertheless, the shades of the place, plus the Guardian also seemed to bear out the story.    So belief in the Maker was a matter of faith, since he had not intervened in the world since the time of Andraste, but we had an explanation for this and some additional verification of what was believed by the Chantry.

 

Then in DA2 we had people suggesting they did expect the Maker to answer prayers and Sebastian in particular asking why he had allowed Elthina to die, when you would think he of all people would understand the reason, since he is meant to know the Chant off by heart.     Still both the Maker and the elf gods were still something that both sides could believe in and even Sebastian suggested that the similarity in story, in that both the Maker and the Creators, had apparently stopped being active in the world some time before, might indicate that both might be about the same Divine force.    So the Maker and the other gods were still something that were subject to faith as being neither proven nor disproven.

 

I will agree that much of the mystery has been removed.    We know now that the elven gods were just powerful mortals or more likely a spirit become mortal.    The Avaar beliefs seem to confirm that the ancient gods of both the barbarians and Tevinter were probably spirits too.    This would tie in with the story given in the Chant but for the fact that we know that the Maker was not responsible for the creation of the Veil; Solas was.    This means that practically everything given in the Chant, allegedly from Andraste, about how the world came into being and the division between the world and the Fade  that was meant to be by the Maker's decree when he brought the world into being, was in fact an artificial construct brought into being by Solas.    Not only that but the entire history of Andraste given in the Chant has been disproved by scholars and we now have a completely different version of events.     Then having had the Canticle of Shartan returned to the Chant (how could it have been removed if it was a holy text was something that always puzzled me), we are now informed that Shartan may not have been a single historical figure at all (so what was going on in the Temple of Sacred Ashes?) and the Canticle is likely based on a much earlier elven folktale, that sounds as though it is about Fen'Harel and Mythal.  

 

I can understand why the common folk in Thedas still believe in the Maker, since many of them can't read so won't know what we do, plus they were constantly being lied to about what really happened with the Inquisitor, and may also feel that the miracle of the ashes at the time of the 5th Blight and the miracle of the mark of the Herald, shows the Maker does intervene.    However, I find it hard to understand how individuals who can read, have been party to events and thus know the truth about history and what has been going on, can still reconcile the disparity with what they have always been taught to believe.   For me personally I have to say I agree with the OP and may be next game they should either prove or disprove the Maker once and for all because I find it very difficult to role play a PC as a person of faith in any higher power in the light of everything that has been revealed.    I certainly don't have faith in any of the religious institutions that exist in Thedas.

[TheKomandorShepard]

Personally, I think Origins proved the existence of the Maker, and that the story of him and Andraste were historical fact.

 

But this was too much for BioWare. They needed to make it more ambiguous so that the Maker's existence would be something that people would question. So they had Corypheus suggest that the Golden City was black when they found it, which Corypheus then admitted was false at the end of Inquisition. But now they have the stories with the evanuris and the titans and how that fits into the Chantry account.

 

That's all this is, I think. BioWare just wants to make the Maker less of a fact in the series. So they injected doubt. The Gauntlet can now be explained as a titan residing under the temple, or lyrium running all through it, or whatever. Or maybe this was the titan Mythal slayed, and then the Temple of Andraste was built over it. The story about the Veil is also now in doubt. Solas claims he created it. The Chantry claims the Maker created it. Both can't be right. I think Solas is mistaken, as usual.

 

Origins never proved existence of the Maker , even Ashes that were pretty much only thing that could support Maker existance in Origins had alternative explanation to them .Developers always intended to keep maker existance ambiguous.

[Riot Inducer]

 

I will agree that much of the mystery has been removed.    We know now that the elven gods were just powerful mortals or more likely a spirit become mortal.    The Avaar beliefs seem to confirm that the ancient gods of both the barbarians and Tevinter were probably spirits too.    This would tie in with the story given in the Chant but for the fact that we know that the Maker was not responsible for the creation of the Veil; Solas was.    This means that practically everything given in the Chant, allegedly from Andraste, about how the world came into being and the division between the world and the Fade  that was meant to be by the Maker's decree when he brought the world into being, was in fact an artificial construct brought into being by Solas.    Not only that but the entire history of Andraste given in the Chant has been disproved by scholars and we now have a completely different version of events.     Then having had the Canticle of Shartan returned to the Chant (how could it have been removed if it was a holy text was something that always puzzled me), we are now informed that Shartan may not have been a single historical figure at all (so what was going on in the Temple of Sacred Ashes?) and the Canticle is likely based on a much earlier elven folktale, that sounds as though it is about Fen'Harel and Mythal.  

 

 

 

 You know it's kind of funny, back when DA:O was new I had a sort of "unified gods" theory that the Chantry's Maker was in fact Fen'Harel from the Elven pantheon. The theory was only based on the stuff available at the time and was taking everything the Chantry and Dalish said at face value, but I do love how it's at least partly true. At least some of the things attributed to the Maker were in fact the work of Fen'Harel. 

 

Also do you have a source for Shartan not being a historical figure/based on older elven lore? I have not heard that before.

 

 

The whole thing with the Maker is that he works like an irl Abrahamic religon's god. They are considered all powerful and thus unkowable or distant. Their entirely faith based nature dictates they can be neither proven nor disproven. 

 

The only issue that has occurred imo with how the Maker/Chantry has been handled is that the way the Chant is set up is at odds with the conflicts some  Andrastian characters go through. Mainly when a character questions why the Maker didn't intervene in some event more directly, that should be at odds with the Chantry's teaching, the whole idea is that the Maker is not interacting with the world until the Chant of Light spreads to every corner of the world.  

 

Ironically, however, it should be noted that the Chant itself is a contradiction. The Maker was said to have turned away from the world after he cast down the Old Gods, and even more so when he cast the magisters back to Thedas as darkspawn. Yet seemingly at random Andraste captured his attention, thus creating an example that all it takes is an exceptional mortal to get the Maker to interact with the world.

[Illegitimus]

I

I will agree that much of the mystery has been removed.    We know now that the elven gods were just powerful mortals or more likely a spirit become mortal.    The Avaar beliefs seem to confirm that the ancient gods of both the barbarians and Tevinter were probably spirits too.    This would tie in with the story given in the Chant but for the fact that we know that the Maker was not responsible for the creation of the Veil; Solas was.    This means that practically everything given in the Chant, allegedly from Andraste, about how the world came into being and the division between the world and the Fade  that was meant to be by the Maker's decree when he brought the world into being, was in fact an artificial construct brought into being by Solas.    

 

No.  The whole idea that the Fade was created by the Veil is contradicted by knowing that the older elves tended to put themselves into comas in which their souls would take up residence in the Fade.  Solas did not create the Fade.  The real effects of the Veil are "Spirits can no longer travel between the Fade and the material world without being summoned" and "Most people don't have enough of a connection to the Fade to be trained in magic use".  The Fade and the material world were different things before Solas.  He just raised a "Great Wall" on that border.  

[Ghost Gal]

I'm convinced that the "Maker," if there is one, is just a very powerful Fade spirit created from and/or fueled by millions of idiots' faith. (Much like how Nightmare is a personification of and fueled by mortals' fears.) After all, spirits are created when an idea or emotion gains enough force, then are shaped by the emotions and expectations of mortals. I'll also be convinced Andraste was just a very powerful mage and the "Maker" that gave her visions was just a very powerful spirit that gave her advice and/or went into her (like Wynne and Faith, or Anders and Justice) until proven others.

 

The Maker isn't in the Fade. Andrastianism is deist. Not theist. i.e. Their god doesn't care. He left.

 

 

Speaking of which, that's the silly thing about this game's premise. This was established lore before.. there's no reason why so many Chantry people would believe the main character was saved by Andraste. Only people like Leliana were like this in the setting before. It made her odd. Even Wynne criticized her. Now suddenly everyone in Haven is a theist and instantly duped by whatever character we can dream up.

 

True, but then that's not even the worst ret-con the devs have come up with. Wasn't Haven this deserted town too small for any map, filled with fanatical cultists who'd gone mad from centuries of isolation and started worshiping dragons? Now in DAI suddenly we hear of this Orlesian noble who owns the land? And discussion implies that Haven has been this thriving social/holy hubbub for years; not even a hint that a decade ago the town was filled with eerily quiet horror genre extras who kept muttering, "We don't question tradition" over and over.

 

Anyway, the Chantry preaches that they can get the Maker to care and come back if they can "spread the Chant of Light to the four corners of the earth." In other words, suck up to Him until He relents and comes back.

 

DAI also implies that people's religious zealousness spikes when they're afraid, and suddenly start thinking their god is loving and merciful and looking out for them because it gives them the comfort they need to cope. That is, thinking that a powerful deity is looking out for them is more comforting than, "The deity left, and won't come back until a few more centuries of sucking up." Mother Giselle also seems to be the exception to her sisters in that she also preaches love and benevolence while the rest of the clerics preach dogma and tradition (much like how Leliana was), so it's not too bad of a retcon...

 

Personally, I think Origins proved the existence of the Maker, and that the story of him and Andraste were historical fact.

 

 

But this was too much for BioWare. They needed to make it more ambiguous so that the Maker's existence would be something that people would question. So they had Corypheus suggest that the Golden City was black when they found it, which Corypheus then admitted was false at the end of Inquisition. But now they have the stories with the evanuris and the titans and how that fits into the Chantry account.

 

That's all this is, I think. BioWare just wants to make the Maker less of a fact in the series. So they injected doubt. The Gauntlet can now be explained as a titan residing under the temple, or lyrium running all through it, or whatever. Or maybe this was the titan Mythal slayed, and then the Temple of Andraste was built over it. The story about the Veil is also now in doubt. Solas claims he created it. The Chantry claims the Maker created it. Both can't be right. I think Solas is mistaken, as usual.

 

No, there's been room for doubt from the beginning.

 

DAO mentions that Andraste was a historical person, but whether or not the Maker was real or her claims to divinity were true were constantly brought into question. Duncan starts the opening narration with "The Chantry teaches us..." which implies that the Chantry might not be right. Pretty much every conversation between Leliana and Morrigan questioned the Maker's existence and the Chantry's version of what made the world. Bring Oghren into the Gauntlet and he comments that there's an unusually high and pure concentration of lyrium ore in the place, and around Andraste's Ashes, which could explain all the magic and mumbo-jumbo. You can give Wynne a book as a gift, which basically offers mundane alternative explanations to Andraste's supposed divinity.

 

And, given what we know about spirits now, they could have come to act as the spirits of the past rather than the spirits themselves. Certainly, if you play a Dalish Warden and go to the Gaunlet, the "spirit of Tamlen" is quickly proven to be a bald-faced lie, since you encounter him out there as a ghoul whose mind has been rotted away by the taint, so there's no way his spirit could really be at that temple. Speaking of the Dalish, if you bring Leliana to the Dalish camp she'll comment that the Dalish's creation stories sound a lot like the Chantry's (I think especially the "Fen'Harel imprisoned our gods" sounding like "The Maker imprisoned the Old Gods," though I can't remember), then wonders if they're talking about the same supernatural event / their "elven gods" are just different faces for the Maker.

 

So, yeah. There's been room for doubt from the beginning, and the devs have just been expanding on the history, events, and world outside the Chantry's teachings every game since. 

 

Also, given that the Chantry are a bunch of willfully ignorant, self-propagating history revisionists (I mean, since DAO we've known that they slashed Shartan out of the Chant of Light just because they stopped liking elves, and constantly omit elven and mage heroes from the history books when they don't change them into muggles and humans outright, like in the case of Ameridan), I'll take the word of an ancient elf who was actually there and claims to have created the Veil over them.

[straykat]

 

DAI also implies that people's religious zealousness spikes when they're afraid, and suddenly start thinking their god is loving and merciful and looking out for them because it gives them the comfort they need to cope. That is, thinking that a powerful deity is looking out for them is more comforting than, "The deity left, and won't come back until a few more centuries of sucking up." Mother Giselle also seems to be the exception to her sisters in that she also preaches love and benevolence while the rest of the clerics preach dogma and tradition (much like how Leliana was), so it's not too bad of a retcon...

 

Yeah, I don't understand that. I don't mind it either.. but they need to be consistent. Real people don't switch like that, even under stress. It would shape your whole psychology if you believed you were on your own, more or less.

 

Mostly though, I think they just tried to play with this "intervention" angle because someone in charge thought it was an "awesome" idea, and everyone simply had to go along with it.

[Anaeme]

If an atheist in Thedas enters a debate with someone of faith about the existence of the Maker, the atheist will always win.

 

One comparison that is not perfect is with The Elder Scrolls. You never see the Aedra who created the world, however there is enough of their influence for ordinary citizens to hold a strong belief in them and consistently resist the influence of the Daedra who physically and forcefully impose their will on the world

 

 

In the Dragon Age series enough ordinary people now know that the Chantry story is not true and the organization is corrupt. People have seen things they thought were divine completely debunked

[straykat]

If an atheist in Thedas enters a debate with someone of faith about the existence of the Maker, the atheist will always win.

 

One comparison that is not perfect is with The Elder Scrolls. You never see the Aedra who created the world, however there is enough of their influence for ordinary citizens to hold a strong belief in them and consistently resist the influence of the Daedra who physically and forcefully impose their will on the world

 

 

In the Dragon Age series enough ordinary people now know that the Chantry story is not true and the organization is corrupt. People have seen things they thought were divine completely debunked

 

Why would the Atheist win? The Chantry doesn't make many of the type of claims an atheist would challenge. In both cases, the Maker is gone. It's irrelevant.

 

If that doesn't work though, they could just kill them. There aren't enough atheists to make a difference. lol

 

And not much has been debunked either way. Even Solas leaves room to believe in the Maker. He apparently likes the idea.

[Bardox9]

Trying to apply rational thought to religion is pointless. It's one of those "Seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing." type of things. If we are to treat this as an actual religion,the entire Andrastian faith came about the same way most religions come about. Primitives trying to explain things they don't understand. Her legend as the "Bride of the Maker" likely sprang up the same way your Inquisitor becomes her Herald. "It's divine intervention. It must be. It simply must be."

 

Andraste was likely a mage, as the Tevinters claim, or a mad woman who drank Lyrium like the Templars do. Those talents/magic powers had to come from somewhere. But that would mean she was using magic (in one form or another) and that just wouldn't do for people waging war against mages. "She must be a prophet gifted by god. How else could you explain the "miracles" she performed. "

[Illegitimus]

If an atheist in Thedas enters a debate with someone of faith about the existence of the Maker, the atheist will always win.

 

<snort>  I see nothing to support that claim.  I mean there's no way to persuade the atheist but there's no way to persuade the believer either.  

 

 

 

In the Dragon Age series enough ordinary people now know that the Chantry story is not true and the organization is corrupt. People have seen things they thought were divine completely debunked

 

 

No.  Ordinary people don't know that.  And nobody has seen anything they thought were divine completely debunked.  

[Jedi Master of Orion]

The Alamarri surely would have had mages of their own at the time. I doubt Andraste being a mage in and of itself would have been a scandal to them at the time.

[ArcaneEsper]

As far as Andraste goes, I'm rather fond of the theory where she's an Old God baby.

But in terms of the Maker, I wonder if it's purely an entity that creates? As in, the Maker doesn't intervene because all it's capable of was bringing the world of Thedas into being. Or generally "making" things.

Bioware is trying too hard to leave things ambiguous so it's hard to have these discussions and reach a proper conclusion tbh.

[Bardox9]

The Alamarri surely would have had mages of their own at the time. I doubt Andraste being a mage in and of itself would have been a scandal to them at the time.

At the time, no. But over time the narrative would change in certain ways to make her look more divine instead of a mad mage or Lyrium junky. Which is better for the religion? That Andraste's ashes have curative properties because she was blessed by the almighty Maker OR that a life time of sucking down Lyrium and putting her ashes in a room surrounded by Lyrium viens to keeping the ashes radiated with mana mutated the organic compaounds in the ashes giving them healing properties for alchemical use.

[Bardox9]

As far as Andraste goes, I'm rather fond of the theory where she's an Old God baby.

But in terms of the Maker, I wonder if it's purely an entity that creates? As in, the Maker doesn't intervene because all it's capable of was bringing the world of Thedas into being. Or generally "making" things.

Bioware is trying too hard to leave things ambiguous so it's hard to have these discussions and reach a proper conclusion tbh.

It's also possible that she just had a waking dream and saw a spirit or a demon crafting it's own island in the fade and just didn't understand what she was looking at.

[Navasha]

Well, I am sticking to my belief that the "Maker" is still Solas.   He did in fact "Make" the world in a sense when he split off the 'fade' from the old world.   Why doesn't the Maker intervene?   Well, he's been 'asleep' all this time and he just recently woke up and realized.... the world he "made" was a mistake.    Now he wants to Un-make it.  

 

Seriously,  how would the ancient humans that lived at that time tell tales about the events that happened then?   The elves tell tales of Fen'Harel banishing the other gods.   The humans...  well they had their origin divinity tale origin inspired there as well. 

 

If that isn't the setup for a great story discovery...