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[Deadly dwarf]

I generally liked "The Calling" for its depiction of the young Duncan, for the Maric+Fiona storyline, and for the way it shows a complete team of Grey Wardens in action.  I didn't like the last quarter of the book because I couldn't get my mind around the logic of why the Grey Wardens Bregan, his sister Genevieve, and Silent Sister Utha would find The Architect's scheme to end the Blight once and for all in any way appealing.  If the Joining Ritual kills the majority of those who do it and the end result is becoming something akin to a sapient Darkspawn, why would anyone want that for themselves or their people?  Maybe I missed something?  Perhaps as a long-term Grey Warden enters the Calling stage, maybe he/she changes mentally to become less repulsed by Darkspawn and thus becoming one doesn't seem like such a bad thing?  If this was the case, that didn't come across to me as I read the story.

 

Anyhow, this is still a good read before doing a run-through of "The Awakening."  However, I still am left with a couple of questions:

 

(1) How do we get the sapient Darkspawn of Awakening?  And the "awakened" brood mother?  What did the Architect do?  In an old thread, someone suggested this happened when Darkspawn ate dead Grey Wardens.  If this was the case, we should have seen some of them in Origins after Ostagar, when Duncan and the small group of Grey Wardens he had were killed.  And why haven't seen any more of them in DA2 and Inquisition?

 

(2) What is The Architect?  ​I played Inquisition before I played Origins, so when I first saw The Architect, my first thought was that he looks just like Cory.  So I couldn't help but wonder if he was one of the Magisters who corrupted the Golden City with Cory?  Nothing, however, "The Architect" says in the Calling or even in "The Awakening" backs up this theory.  Also, Cory doesn't appear until the DA2 DLC, so it is Cory who looks like "The Architect" and not the other way around.  That still doesn't explain what "The Architect" is.  He doesn't look like any Hurlock Emissary you see in Origins.  So what is he?

 

Finally, this question refers back to Origins:

 

(3) If Fiona is Alistair's real mother, where did that Andrastian amulet come from that was supposedly the only thing Alistair had of his mother?  Fiona doesn't appear to have been Andrastian.  Was it a mistake in the storyline?  Was it simply something Arl Eamon gave Alistair to make him feel less abandoned?

[theskymoves]

(2) What is The Architect?  ​I played Inquisition before I played Origins, so when I first saw The Architect, my first thought was that he looks just like Cory.  So I couldn't help but wonder if he was one of the Magisters who corrupted the Golden City with Cory?  Nothing, however, "The Architect" says in the Calling or even in "The Awakening" backs up this theory.  Also, Cory doesn't appear until the DA2 DLC, so it is Cory who looks like "The Architect" and not the other way around.  That still doesn't explain what "The Architect" is.  He doesn't look like any Hurlock Emissary you see in Origins.  So what is he?

 

Per David Gaider, when asked if the Architect is a former magister:

Spoiler

"(The Architect) is the same type of character as Corypheus, absolutely. Whether he pops up, well, possibly. I think so… I mean, obviously not if you killed him.”

 

Reference: Archive.org cache of interview originally posted here (no longer available on original site, as best I can tell)

 

ETA that while I personally do not believe the amulet Alistair thinks came from his mother was actually Fiona's (because IMO if Arl Eamon's lips are moving, he's lying), I do think  that she was at least nominally Andrastrian (c 9:10 Dragon), based on how she talks about 'the prophet Andraste' in Chapter 5 of The Calling (page 105 of the print edition). Her tone in that dialog is (again, IMO) not that of a non-believer.

 

ETA also

Spoiler

 

The sapient darkspawn (and mad Mother) are the product of the Architect's modified Joining, using the blood of Grey Wardens. (See the DAA codex entry 'The Architect').

[ThomasBlaine]

(2) What is The Architect?  ​I played Inquisition before I played Origins, so when I first saw The Architect, my first thought was that he looks just like Cory.  So I couldn't help but wonder if he was one of the Magisters who corrupted the Golden City with Cory?  Nothing, however, "The Architect" says in the Calling or even in "The Awakening" backs up this theory.  Also, Cory doesn't appear until the DA2 DLC, so it is Cory who looks like "The Architect" and not the other way around.  That still doesn't explain what "The Architect" is.  He doesn't look like any Hurlock Emissary you see in Origins.  So what is he?

 

Finally, this question refers back to Origins:

 

(3) If Fiona is Alistair's real mother, where did that Andrastian amulet come from that was supposedly the only thing Alistair had of his mother?  Fiona doesn't appear to have been Andrastian.  Was it a mistake in the storyline?  Was it simply something Arl Eamon gave Alistair to make him feel less abandoned?

 

(2) It's been a few years but I think either the Architect had some moments as a viewpoint character or it came out during one of its conversations with Bregan. I distinctly remember it talking/thinking about how it started out as simply a normal darkspawn who couldn't understand why all the others were acting so stupidly, until it realized the power of its own mind and started taking charge. It didn't seem to be aware of its own origins, at least. It was also described physically as being pretty much indistinguishable from a normal Hurlock Emissary in Bregan's eyes, which was apparently retconned in Awakening, confusing a lot of players/readers at the time.

 

(3) There's a lot of weirdness surrounding the chronology of Alistair's birth. The best guess I've heard so far is that after 'The Calling' Maric kept Alistair under wraps for a while until the serving girl(Goldanna's mother) he knocked up during a stay in Redcliffe died in childbirth along with her child, and then he took the opportunity to switch Alistair for the deceased baby and got Eamon to support the story. The idea being that Alistair being the bastard orphan of a serving girl was much safer than him being the bastard of an orlesian elven mage warden. Assuming that the locket isn't really Fiona's, it might have belonged to Goldanna's mother and used to sell the fiction, or it might just be something that Eamon made up to make Alistair feel better.

 

Don't know about your first question.

[Deadly dwarf]

Per David Gaider, when asked if the Architect is a former magister:

Spoiler

"(The Architect) is the same type of character as Corypheus, absolutely. Whether he pops up, well, possibly. I think so… I mean, obviously not if you killed him.”

 

Reference: Archive.org cache of interview originally posted here (no longer available on original site, as best I can tell)

 

ETA that while I personally do not believe the amulet Alistair thinks came from his mother was actually Fiona's (because IMO if Arl Eamon's lips are moving, he's lying), I do think  that she was at least nominally Andrastrian (c 9:10 Dragon), based on how she talks about 'the prophet Andraste' in Chapter 5 of The Calling (page 105 of the print edition). Her tone in that dialog is (again, IMO) not that of a non-believer.

 

ETA also

Spoiler

 

The sapient darkspawn (and mad Mother) are the product of the Architect's modified Joining, using the blood of Grey Wardens. (See the DAA codex entry 'The Architect').

 

Thanks TSM!  Always interesting to read David Gaider's interviews and see what he really intended.  Good to see that my thinking regarding the Architect was on the right track.  Sadly, that's one storyline I don't think will be revisited.  As to the sapient Darkspawn, it figures that was in one of the codexes.  I tend to only skim over them during gameplay.

 

(2) It's been a few years but I think either the Architect had some moments as a viewpoint character or it came out during one of its conversations with Bregan. I distinctly remember it talking/thinking about how it started out as simply a normal darkspawn who couldn't understand why all the others were acting so stupidly, until it realized the power of its own mind and started taking charge. It didn't seem to be aware of its own origins, at least. It was also described physically as being pretty much indistinguishable from a normal Hurlock Emissary in Bregan's eyes, which was apparently retconned in Awakening, confusing a lot of players/readers at the time.

 

​I do remember in "The Calling" that the description for The Architect was pretty much in line with the way they are depicted in DA2 and Inquisition:  Descent, nothing particularly unusual about him other than his ability to think separately from the hive.  I can't help but wonder whether the software team that creates the graphic look of the game ever bothers to read the character descriptions made by the writing team in books, etc.  I also remember The Architect not having any special knowledge of his origins.  One could interpret that as some sort of amnesia. 

 

(3) There's a lot of weirdness surrounding the chronology of Alistair's birth. The best guess I've heard so far is that after 'The Calling' Maric kept Alistair under wraps for a while until the serving girl(Goldana's mother) he knocked up during a stay in Redcliffe died in childbirth along with her child, and then he took the opportunity to switch Alistair for the deceased baby and got Eamon to support the story. The idea being that Alistair being the bastard orphan of a serving girl was much safer than him being the bastard of an orlesian elven mage warden. Assuming that the locket isn't really Fiona's, it might have belonged to Goldana's mother and used to sell the fiction, or it might just be something that Eamon made up to make Alistair feel better.

 

That's as good an explanation as any.  In the Calling, no mention is made of the serving girl/Goldana's mother.