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[Gervaise]

My Lavellan's interpretation of the incident was initially that if there had been a female humanoid figure in the Fade who bestowed the anchor upon him then it might just as easily be a sign that his gods were returning to the world.   He had the vallaslin of Mythal and had always dutifully prayed to her for help, even though his elders were also teaching that their gods were locked away and couldn't act.   However, there also seemed to be this belief that if they honoured the gods sufficiently and remembered what it was to be real elves, their gods would return.   Oddly enough a very similar belief to Andrastrians if you think about it.     So when people were asking him what he made of it, I really wanted to be able to say "I'm the chosen of Mythal", but had to settle for saying "I am not the Herald of Andraste".    When Solas informed him that the orb was really elven that seemed to confirm his belief.   Corypheus called him a thief but he saw it as the anchor being attracted to its rightful owner.   Unlike the human worshipers though, when the truth was revealed about the events at the Conclave, he accepted that he had been wrong in his thoughts on the matter, but was rather annoyed that the Andrastrians didn't think admitting the truth was important.    Then in quick succession he discovered that Mythal had been murdered, so definitely had nothing to do with it, and then Mythal was alive, albeit in the guise of a human.  

 

By the end of Trespasser he was rather cynical about the religions on offer since none of them seemed to be telling the truth.    Still his People's gods definitely existed and the bit about them being locked away was correct as well.   Solas even seemed to admit they weren't always bad but were gradually corrupted by power, so looking to them as role models based on the Dalish idea of how they once were and a warning about the misuse of power, had some merit.    He has virtually started a new religion for any that will listen based on the true elven heroes of Shartan, Ameridan and Garahel.    Like the Dalish themselves, these elves achieved what they did without the aid of gods, simply using their own natural talents and acquired skills.    But again, they are role models as a inspiration as to what you can achieve, rather than figures to be worshipped or interceded with.     One elven blessing does still hold good "May the Dread Wolf never hear your step."   Currently he is the only actual "god" active within Thedas and whilst he would deny his godhood, he is still taking godlike decisions on behalf of the world and is a very real and present danger.  That blessing is equally applicable if you don't want him to harm the person and if they are intent on tracking him down.

[Zero]

In short, don't look for logic in the things fictional beings choose to believe.

 

I also don't care about the believes of fictional beings. But I do care about compelling and logical writing in the stories I spend my time playing games or reading books. And how the writers used the Herald of Andraste concept was a waste of a concept that used right would have been an interesting plot device. 

[BansheeOwnage]

They treat you as a criminal, until you stop the breach from expanding and making it rain demons from the sky. Only then do they treat you as saviour and even then not everyone. That comes after you face Corypheus and survive getting mountain dropped on you.

Also the commoners probably still like you in tresspasser. Just not the nobility, which is kind of justified, since again you plastered their countries with your flag every chance you got and then refused to remove those flags after the immediate crisis was over.

Yeah, they treat you like a criminal until you sort of stabilize the Breach, which happens about five minutes later. Fickle, these Andrastians are. Especially considering even with the Breach sort of stabilized, it's still causing ridiculous havoc and harm. Like I originally said: They treat you as a saviour long before saving the world.

 

As for Trespasser, it's unfair to say that I refused to remove the flags (and the Keeps, etc.), because Bioware didn't give us any chance to make any of those decisions. Instead, they railroaded us into being on bad terms with Ferelden/Orlais because of a two-year gap with no control over anything.

[fhs33721]

Yeah, they treat you like a criminal until you sort of stabilize the Breach, which happens about five minutes later. Fickle, these Andrastians are. Especially considering even with the Breach sort of stabilized, it's still causing ridiculous havoc and harm. Like I originally said: They treat you as a saviour long before saving the world.

Well you at the very least stop the demons raining from the sky and hole in the sky from growing, so you at least save the world in the short term there. And as said it's only the people in Haven itself that treat you as savior after that and not even all of those. To the world at large you are still some small heretic cult who only manages to get away with declaring you as the second coming of Andraste because every major power in the area is to occupied with their own problems to do anything substantial about it.

[Big I]

What they are thinking is maybe, just maybe, in this incredibly dire apocalyptic situation with all of creation unravelling, the Maker might bestir its lazy ass enough to offer just the slightest bit of help. 

 

What, the previous five Blights weren't enough?

 

I don't get the portrayal of the Chant of Light in the games. It explicitly says that the Maker does not, ever, intervene, and won't return until the Chant is sung from all four corners of the world. And yet Andrastians routinely ignore that.

[fhs33721]

What, the previous five Blights weren't enough?

They didn't tend to unravel the very fabric of existence itself, so I guess no?

[Gervaise]

When the rift in the sky opened up, the common people at least thought it was a sign of the end of the world.   According to the Chant that would herald the return of Andraste and the Maker.    Which explains the title they give to the Herald.     I presume that after you defeat Corypheus and two years of relative stability everyone acknowledged that perhaps it hadn't been the end of the world after all.    The irony in this is that if Solas' plan had gone as intended then in fact the tearing open of the sky would have been the beginning of the end of the world, since he would have recovered his orb, stepped through the breach and torn down the Veil, resulting in a fiery chaos.   

 

The explanation for why this didn't happen, at least on the part of some Andrastrians, like Giselle, would be that the Maker ensured you arrived at that moment in time and gave Justinia the strength to resist the hold over her long enough to knock the orb out of Corypheus' hand and towards you.   Why would he do this?   Because it wasn't his decision to destroy the world just yet.   Mind you, that makes you wonder what would have happened if Corypheus had been blown to pieces in the explosion, since even if you had the anchor, Solas would still have had his orb and could manipulate events into giving him his desire result.     So it would seem that the Maker must have also ensured that Corypheus learned how the obtain effective immortality, unless that was simply the result of causing him to be infected with the Blight.    The Maker certainly works in mysterious ways!

[Big I]

When the rift in the sky opened up, the common people at least thought it was a sign of the end of the world.   According to the Chant that would herald the return of Andraste and the Maker. 

 

Is it? I wasn't aware the Chant had any apocalyptic prophecies in it. I think the Guardian of the Urn mentions something about Tevinter cumbling into the sea, but that's all that springs to mind.

[Gervaise]

You need to read the extracts of the Chant in World of Thedas 2, specifically the prophesy of Drakon called the Canticle of Exaltations:Prophesy.  He allegedly received this vision in -12 Ancient and it was a major impetus for him to spread his version of the Chant to all the world because he believed he had been specifically authorised to do so by the Maker.  This prophesy was apparently re-written by him several times (odd don't you think?) before he "allowed" Justinia I to include it in the Chant.   Drakon is considered nearly as important as Andraste in the Orlesian Chantry and was given the title of "Anointed" on his death.   Here is just a sample:

 

"The air itself was rent asunder, spilling light unearthly from the waters of the Fade, Opening an eye to look upon the Realm of Opposition in dire judgement."

Then Andraste appears and descends from on high and proclaims: "All heads bow!  All knees bend! Every being in the Realm of Opposition pay homage, for the Maker of All Things Returns to you."

 

The Realm of Opposition is referring to Thedas itself because when the Maker first created it he said "Here, I decree Opposition in all things."

 

Now the reaction of the Guardian of the Urn to Leliana's claim to have received a vision from the Maker is interesting.  He basically says that her claim must be false because only Andraste has ever been privileged with direct communication from the Maker.    Of course the Guardian reflects the beliefs of those people who originally erected the Shrine but we cannot be sure exactly when they cut themselves off totally from the outside world.  

 

Back when Drakon started to spread his version of the Chant, there were apparently many different cults to Andraste and the Maker spread across southern Thedas.   They all had their own rituals, traditions and version of Andrste's words, which in the case of some of them must have included the belief that only Andraste in all creation had received a vision from the Maker.   Drakon is said to have unified these disparate beliefs by the sword.    Some of them were dangerous cults, focussed on bringing about the end of the world, some were harmless fertility cults like the Daughters of Song, who even refused to take up weapons to defend themselves.   May be there were others who challenged Drakon's assertion that he was the Maker's prophet like Andraste, having received a special vision, and he persecuted them as well.    He is known to have conquered into well into modern day Ferelden before the 2nd Blight called his attention back home.   I wonder if it was during his time there that the cult of Andraste's Ashes retreated up into the Frostbacks to their ancient shrine and were lost to the outside world.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

You need to read the extracts of the Chant in World of Thedas 2, specifically the prophesy of Drakon called the Canticle of Exaltations:Prophesy.  He allegedly received this vision in -12 Ancient and it was a major impetus for him to spread his version of the Chant to all the world because he believed he had been specifically authorized to do so by the Maker.  This prophesy was apparently re-written by him several times (odd don't you think?) before he "allowed" Justinia I to include it in the Chant.   Drakon is considered nearly as important as Andraste in the Orlesian Chantry and was given the title of "Anointed" on his death.   Here is just a sample:

 

"The air itself was rent asunder, spilling light unearthly from the waters of the Fade, Opening an eye to look upon the Realm of Opposition in dire judgement."

Then Andraste appears and descends from on high and proclaims: "All heads bow!  All knees bend! Every being in the Realm of Opposition pay homage, for the Maker of All Things Returns to you."

 

To use your own words Gervaise:- "The clergy in Lothering seemed to suggest that Leliana was a heretic for believing the Maker could have given her a vision; the Guardian at the Shrine said categorically that only Andraste was ever privileged to be spoken to directly by the Maker, so what are you meant to make of Drakon's prophetic vision?"

 

This is Drakon's vision, not Andraste's vision. Andraste had died 200 years before Drakon. If only Andraste was ever privileged to have spoken directly to the Maker, then Drakon's vision is as heretical as Leliana's vision and therefore should not be given much thought by those who profess to follow Andraste's teaching. Otherwise, they would be following the teachings of Drakon as opposed to the teachings of Andraste and Southern Chantry should not be Andrastian Chantry but Drakonism Chantry.

[Gervaise]

I am well aware of the implications of our knowledge of Drakon's vision, which is never revealed in game but only in World of Thedas 2.   I was including it here to explain why the common people might regard you as the Herald of Andraste, because the tearing of the Veil was said to be the prelude to the end of the world.   The ordinary people probably don't even know that the vision was that of Drakon.    It is simply part of the Chant that is recited everyday in their places of worship.   All they would really pick up on was that it begins with the sky being torn apart and some time after, Andraste returning.   So the figure in the Fade is Andraste, preparing to return, and she bestows her gift on the Herald to prepare for and announce her imminent arrival.

 

The contradiction between what the clergy taught in Lothering, what the Guardian says at the Shrine and the discovery that Drakon was claiming his own special vision to justify his religious zeal was the thing that pretty much finished me in taking the Andrastrian faith seriously as presented by the Orlesian Chantry.    It isn't the Andrastrian faith but the Drakonian faith     Just as you could argue that the version up in Tevinter isn't the Andrastrian faith but the Hessarian faith.   Still at least he was much closer to the actual events and his voice of the Maker encouraged him to show mercy to Andraste.    Mind you it also apparently encouraged him to go out and have a bloodbath with the adherents of the old gods 10 years later, so from that point of view he is not that much different to Drakon.

 

How about a new plotline in future games - The Search for the True Faith of Andraste.

[Gervaise]

I've just come up with another reason why if the faithful thought that figure was Andraste, it had to be the end of the world.    According to World of Thedas the Chantry teach about the Fade that "When the living die, their souls enter the Fade and, if they are faithful, pass through to join the Maker at His side.   The wicked and unfaithful, however, are stuck in the Fade, doomed to wander endlessly.  

 

So if the figure with you in the Fade wasn't Andraste, then by Chantry teaching it must be a doomed soul.   What would a doomed soul be doing there giving you a gift that closes rifts?  It had to be Andraste but since she normally resides with the Maker beyond the Fade, then if she is there she must be preparing to return.

 

Which has somewhat strange implications for what later occurs in the Fade at Adamant.   Why would anyone think that was anything other than a spirit impersonating Justinia?   If it was the soul of Justinia then by the Chantry's own teaching, she is damned and doomed.

[Illegitimus]

What, the previous five Blights weren't enough?

 

I don't get the portrayal of the Chant of Light in the games. It explicitly says that the Maker does not, ever, intervene, and won't return until the Chant is sung from all four corners of the world. And yet Andrastians routinely ignore that.

 

No.  They weren't.  As far as the Andrastians are concerned the Blights are the punishments from the Makers for one of humanity's three great sins and it isn't quite as explicit as you say.  The Chant says the Maker won't "return" until the Chant of Light is universal but there's wiggle room in that.  It might be possible for the Maker to operate indirectly.  Nor is this theological dispute all that different from the question in real theology of whether the devil has any power. The default position is that it doesn't, but that doesn't keep a lot of people from thinking differently.