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[Dean_the_Young]

"No one is innocent." - Leliana. 

 

And Leliana is objectively wrong. Innocence, when taken from broad meaningless abstracts and actually applied to specific contexts and crimes, is quite easy. All you have to do is not be guilty of a specific crime.

 

 

 

Killing those humans will not bring Zathrian's family back. They are dead forever and so should they who killed them suffer forever as well. They did not kill and rape Zathrian - they did that to his children. So the only way to get revenge is to do the same - curse them and all who descend from them.

 

 

Torturing their descendants- descendants who did not kill or rape Zathrian's children- will not make the perpetrators suffer one iota more. The perpetrators are already dead. They don't care, nor do their children who are also dead, nor do their children's children. They're all already dead.

 

Zathrian's revenge was satisfied centuries ago. All Zathrian has now is spite against the uninvolved who never harmed him or his daugher.
 

 

Eye for an eye, a son for a son.

 

 

Even if this were true, Hamarabi's code called for a limitation of vengeance, not an infinite perpetuation of it forever. It's equivalence in kind in the singular, not infinite. 'Justice', or revenge, would have to have been satisfied at the first retaliation.

 

Zathrian's vegeance under such a code would only have been permitted for the first child. Every person afterwards is Zathrian's unjustified crime, and thus his victims are entitled for someone of Zathrians.

[Xilizhra]

I consider both Zathrian and the werewolves to be assholes for attacking the uninvolved. A truly just ending, in my mind, would involve curing the curse, but then bringing the werewolves back to the Dalish to face justice for the other Dalish they murdered/transformed.

[Gervaise]

The getting in touch every 10 years is to exchange new lore discoveries and discuss any major events that have occurred in the clans in between time.   The basic traditions and customs that the Dalish follow were established back in the time of the Dales.   That is what they are all meant to be following.    It is not a high school reunion, with people living separate lives according to different customs in their own homes, and just having a small commonality because they went to school together.   It is a whole way of life.   Look at the Jewish people.    They have been scattered to the ends of the earth but when two Jews come together, they can recognise one another by the common traditions and culture that they have maintained down the years despite never having got together.   There are some variations between different groups but not in core beliefs and traditions.    That is what I am getting at with the Dalish.    There would have been certain traditions and beliefs that would have been what they took from the Dales and before they split up into smaller clans, it would have been agreed that this was what they were trying to maintain above all else in remaining free.   It is their racial and cultural identity.   It matters to them.   If a clan feels free to just willy nilly change things that is not being Dalish.

 

Now when a problem arises between Arlathvhens that their lore doesn't seem capable of dealing with, the Keeper and the clan are going to have to make the best of it and then refer back to the gathering of the elders (Hahren'al) for their opinion on the matter.    This is what happened with the issue of Zathrian when it came to light.   They discovered that after all these years he hadn't discovered the secret of their immortality but in fact had undertaken a forbidden ritual using manipulation of life and blood.   The elders then condemned this action as a crime against nature.   They understood why he had done it, but they did not condone it.   So if a Keeper turned up down the line doing the same thing, this would not be in keeping with Dalish customs as established by the Hahren'al.  

 

I repeat the actions of Zathrian were not that of a typical Dalish and the clan leaders condemned it at the next Arlathvhen.  

 

What Marethari did in DA2 was only typical in that Merrill was banished for refusing to give up magic that was specifically outlawed under Dalish tradition.  Much of the time she very much acted against Dalish tradition in persistently putting her clan at risk for the sake of a person who had left the clan through her own choices.

 

As for the narrative in DAI, let alone in Masked Empire, that is the whole problem.    The writers are increasingly making the Dalish appear less sympathetic to the player so setting them up to be destroyed without anyone being particularly upset over the matter.   That's what PW did in Masked Empire in making such a extreme caricature of Dalish belief.   They even made it far easier for Lavellan to get their clan killed than have a successful outcome.   I'm pretty sure the Dalish PC is the only one who can potentially lose their entire family in a war table mission.

[Dean_the_Young]

I consider both Zathrian and the werewolves to be assholes for attacking the uninvolved. A truly just ending, in my mind, would involve curing the curse, but then bringing the werewolves back to the Dalish to face justice for the other Dalish they murdered/transformed.

 

Truly a dedication to justice. When will you apply the same standard of group accountability to the rebel mages?

[Xilizhra]

Truly a dedication to justice. When will you apply the same standard of group accountability to the rebel mages?

Well, all the ones who were attacking innocents were pounded into the dirt by me, and the rebels in Redcliffe were punished for their actions against Ferelden by Ferelden, so I'd say justice was already handled.

[Zero]

If he only stated that in DAI, I would agree, he would likely be trash-talking the Herald, trolling him/her  to show how superior he is.  Every word would be suspect.

 

But, he stated very similar things back in the Legacy DLC, where he was confused from his recent awakening, didn't know who he was talking to, and had no reason to lie.

 

Similarly, his memories at the Shrine of Dumat by implication bolster his claim: "They spit on our deeds and claim we brought darkness into the world.  We discovered the darkness.  We claimed it as our own, let it permeate our being."  Again with no way of knowing anyone but he would discover this.

 

While I agree with you, sadly this means nothing in-universe. For an example, Mother Giselle quickly dismiss that as "lies he told himself because he cannot bear the shame" when Inky told her about what Corypheus said. AndI wager that's the standard position of the Chantry, whatever the truth.

 

While, the game heavily implies every elf in Thedas (even the Dalish) bought Solas' version about what happened with the Evanuris, without an opportunity of no one challenging that version, not even the Inquisitor. 

[Zero]

I consider both Zathrian and the werewolves to be assholes for attacking the uninvolved. A truly just ending, in my mind, would involve curing the curse, but then bringing the werewolves back to the Dalish to face justice for the other Dalish they murdered/transformed.

 

And they would have been most likely pardoned, because Zathrian injured so many of their ancestors, most of them innocent, that the numbers of dead or transformed Dalish are nothing in comparison, and there is no way Zathrian's clan can re-pay that. 

[Dean_the_Young]

The getting in touch every 10 years is to exchange new lore discoveries and discuss any major events that have occurred in the clans in between time.   The basic traditions and customs that the Dalish follow were established back in the time of the Dales.   That is what they are all meant to be following.    It is not a high school reunion, with people living separate lives according to different customs in their own homes, and just having a small commonality because they went to school together.   It is a whole way of life.   Look at the Jewish people.    They have been scattered to the ends of the earth but when two Jews come together, they can recognise one another by the common traditions and culture that they have maintained down the years despite never having got together.   There are some variations between different groups but not in core beliefs and traditions.    That is what I am getting at with the Dalish.    There would have been certain traditions and beliefs that would have been what they took from the Dales and before they split up into smaller clans, it would have been agreed that this was what they were trying to maintain above all else in remaining free.   It is their racial and cultural identity.   It matters to them.   If a clan feels free to just willy nilly change things that is not being Dalish.

 

 

This is historically illiterate. 'Jewish culture' is also extremely diverse and frequently internally contradictory, famously so. At many points in history has been highly fragmented as groups thoroughly sought assimilation in widely different societies. 'Jewish culture' as a singular is more the product of anti-semitic conspiracy than fact.

 

Jews in most of history, including the present, have not been interchangeable with eachother in core beliefs and traditions because their core beliefs are, like most population groups, determined by culture and heavily by where they live and the communities with which they reside. Assimilated Jewish Germans had far more incommon with Germans than they did with Jews of France, who were more like the French than the Jews of the Middle East, and so on. The belief that they were all alike with a common, alien identity is the product of anti-semitic conspiracy theories of international jewish cabals and resistance to the sort of social integration that Jewish communities frequently and actively sought. Jews have a shared religion and traditions, but cultural values are shaped by communities and the Jews were (and are!) as diverse as the many nations they've assimilated into. So are their interpretations of their shared faith- the phrase 'two jews, three opinions' exists because there isn't a singular interpretation of religion or identity that all practicing Jews fall into. There is constant, vibrant disagreement on anything you want, from interpretations of doctrine to how it should be applied in real life. There are jews who care deeply about religion, and there are Jews who barely give a **** about it. Jews are no more culturally monolithic than Christians.

 

If you wanted Dalish as culturally united as Jews, you got that.

 

If you wanted Dalish as culturally united as the antisemtic creation of the monolithic jewish archetype, but different, you were kidding yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now when a problem arises between Arlathvhens that their lore doesn't seem capable of dealing with, the Keeper and the clan are going to have to make the best of it and then refer back to the gathering of the elders (Hahren'al) for their opinion on the matter.    This is what happened with the issue of Zathrian when it came to light.   They discovered that after all these years he hadn't discovered the secret of their immortality but in fact had undertaken a forbidden ritual using manipulation of life and blood.   The elders then condemned this action as a crime against nature.   They understood why he had done it, but they did not condone it.   So if a Keeper turned up down the line doing the same thing, this would not be in keeping with Dalish customs as established by the Hahren'al.  

 

 

The Hahren'al doesn't establish what Dalish customs are. What Dalish actually do the other 9.9 years of the decade establishes Dalish customs are. If Keepers (plural) down the line keep doing the same thing, it is a Dalish custom no matter what the Hahren'al publicly espouses. Your cultural practices are what your culture practices on a regular basis, not what it claims it will practice once a decade or so.

 

Legally, blood magic is forbidden in Tevinter. Culturally, it's a tolerated and ongoing practice, whether it's publicly acknowledged or not.

 

 

 

 

 

I repeat the actions of Zathrian were not that of a typical Dalish and the clan leaders condemned it at the next Arlathvhen.  

 

 

 

Political gathering condemns unpopular thing after it fails disastrously. Shocking!

 

 

What Marethari did in DA2 was only typical in that Merrill was banished for refusing to give up magic that was specifically outlawed under Dalish tradition.  Much of the time she very much acted against Dalish tradition in persistently putting her clan at risk for the sake of a person who had left the clan through her own choices.

 

A Keeper risking a clan as an extension of their own biases and concerns is an established Dalish tradition in the clans we see. They're an authoritarian system which amplifies the authority's personal biases, whatever they are.

 

Nor was Merrill banished for defying Dalish law. Dalish has no law, or court to appeal. She was banished for defying Marethari's directions. She would not have been banished in a different clan whose Keeper disagreed with Marethari.

 

 

 

As for the narrative in DAI, let alone in Masked Empire, that is the whole problem.    The writers are increasingly making the Dalish appear less sympathetic to the player so setting them up to be destroyed without anyone being particularly upset over the matter.   That's what PW did in Masked Empire in making such a extreme caricature of Dalish belief.   They even made it far easier for Lavellan to get their clan killed than have a successful outcome.   I'm pretty sure the Dalish PC is the only one who can potentially lose their entire family in a war table mission.

 

 

 

Alternatively, since you seem to have a problem with every single instance in the media of the Dalish presentation, the problem is actually that you mis-understood the Dalish from the start, and each new iteration continues to fail to validate it.

 

It's fine to be upset that the Dalish aren't what you wanted them to be- the idea of the proud, noble savages heroicly resisting injustice as they valiantly struggle for what should be rightfully theirs, a group whom you wanted to restore to their lost claimed glories. There might have been a good story in that. But it doesn't make it bad writing if that was never the story Bioware wanted to tell with the Dalish.

[Dean_the_Young]

Well, all the ones who were attacking innocents were pounded into the dirt by me, and the rebels in Redcliffe were punished for their actions against Ferelden by Ferelden, so I'd say justice was already handled.

 

So the answer is 'no' and 'never.' Got it.

[bzombo]

Let's not forget Bioware's open favoritism towards the Templars by way of giving them far more content in Inquisition through the War Table then the Mages.

It's their game. They can favor anything they want.

[Reznore57]

I consider both Zathrian and the werewolves to be assholes for attacking the uninvolved. A truly just ending, in my mind, would involve curing the curse, but then bringing the werewolves back to the Dalish to face justice for the other Dalish they murdered/transformed.

 

I think werewolves loose their minds after well they are turned to werewolves...so it would be complicated to punish them for something they had no control over.

 

You even get a small side quest in DA2 (if you made peace between elves and those humans) one human is chased by a group of Dalish who wants to gut him and he says he's sorry and all that but the elves don't care.

If you protect the human  you get another small group of Dalish fond of suicide by Hawke.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

The defence I am giving further up is based on how it appears to a Lavellan who is not in a romance with Solas.    He never gets told about the slave markings.   In fact if you kill Corypheus quickly enough, you never even get his mocking comments.     All he sees is the vallaslin being removed by Fen'Harel.    So nothing about nobles marking their slaves.    He also never met Felassan and when talking with Briala, just gets told ancient elf society was not much different from modern ones.

 

It's been a little while since I played Trespasser, but I'm pretty sure I remember my Trevelyan learning that vallaslin associated with slavery just from the Sanctuary of the Dread Wolf. 

 

There have been instances of people willingly working on a religious monument with great industry without them being slaves.   In fact working on cathedrals and abbey buildings was a useful way of supplying employment in the local community and the people put heart and soul into the effort because it meant something to them.   When you see the thousands of elves maintaining a magical ritual that builds the Grand Sollanium there is no mention of slavery and it is unlikely that unwilling participants would be able to maintain that amount of concentration in the job at hand.    It is also unlikely that thousands of servants/slaves could have built that statue in a single afternoon without magic.   The memories of the reaction to his action do not suggest that people were pleased and relieved to be free of their gods; on the contrary they wanted them back.  

 

Now I don't dispute that at the end the Evanuris had become corrupt.   May be that is the nature of things.   Solas seems to suggest as much.    It could also have been because of something external acting upon them, such as red lyrium.    That seems to be sufficient to turn anyone into a raging megalomaniac. 

 

What I am trying to get at is how culpable were the entire pantheon in Mythal's death.   What led up to it?    I don't know how long Solas had been around but apparently there had been thousands of years of elven history when the empire was built, the great magical structures he admired were put into place, magic was used by all people as easily as breathing and he recalls it all with nostalgia.   He even admits that the Evanuris weren't always seen as gods and therefore likely they weren't tyrants either.    They could well have been the guides and teachers that the Dalish remember but this was before the war that started them on the road to corruption.  Presumably the Evanuris became generals in the war because they were considered best able to lead or the only ones willing to do so.   So instead of simply saying that the entire Dalish belief system is invalidated by what the gods became, it might be better to question why this happened?

 

It doesn't sound like it would be hard to build a massive statue in a day with a thousand slaves in a time before the Veil. I also don't think the implication was that all Elvhen were slaves to the Evanuris, but again, Orlais and Tevinter have classes of people who are not universally downtrodden. If those two nations fell, there would be Orlesians and Tevinters that wanted the old system back.

 

I don't think the Evanuris were ever truly benevolent, but regardless, the entire Dalish system IS invalidated because their gods were never gods. They were all tyrants with a god complex. Even if they weren't at some point, the entire Dalish religion was spawned from the fact that the Evanuris were corrupt.

 

 

Just look at Andrastrianism.   It was started, so we are told, by someone who wanted to free her people from tyrants and slavery.    Then the faith was first adopted by the chief of those tyrants, in a blood bath of his rivals, and slavery exists to this day under the banner of the Maker.    Down south, another tyrant, Drakon, achieved hero status because of his efforts in the 2nd Blight but he also wiped out numerous other religions and rival cults to the Maker, until only his own remained.  Yet Andrastrianim is celebrated as a great unifier.    Like hell it is.   It is a convenience that keeps the corrupt rulers in power.

 

Before tearing down the modern world, perhaps Solas should think more carefully as to why things go wrong.    Still if I could get rid of all the corrupt systems of government in Thedas in one fell swoop, without the ordinary people suffering as a result, I'd sort of go for it.   What a minute, isn't that what the Qun were going to do?    Of course, naturally I didn't want them to succeed.   

 

Still the actual system of governance currently promoted by the Dalish is actually a pretty good basis for a bigger community.  Just remove the requirement for the Keeper/Guide to always be a mage.    They believe this is how their ancient world was governed and for all we know, perhaps early on that was the case.    That's why simply rubbishing their belief isn't good enough, particularly when we are constantly asked to uphold political systems that seem no different to that which Solas condemns.   You do actually need laws that people abide by and someone to lead, just not the ones we currently have.   If any of the rulers in Thedas actually upheld the moral code of the Maker, I wouldn't have such a problem with Andrastrianism but as it stands, it is a dead faith: their god doesn't respond to them and they don't live their lives by his teaching.

 

Solas also tends to change his motives in the narrative.   First he raised the Veil because  he wanted to punish the Evanuris, then he says if he hadn't done so, the Evanuris would have destroyed the world.    So he destroyed the world of the elves, to prevent the destruction of the whole world but was upset because in stopping the latter, he didn't anticipate the former?     How were they going to destroy the world?    How is putting everything back as before going to change anything?    Even if the corrupt Evanuris were destroyed, how can he be sure a new set of super elves wouldn't arise to rule over the rest once more?

 

I also get this nasty suspicion that the way the narrative is going, we are going to discover the Evanuris were really responsible for the Blight, thus leading to yet more suffering for the elves as people blame them for that and ultimately a lot of dead elves because they end up on the wrong side from our hero PC.    If that is the case, I think I'll just decide not to play.

 

You're putting a great deal of emphasis on how Andrastian characters like Hessarian and Drakon are just murderous corrupt tyrants, while at the same time putting emphasis on how the Evanuris were maybe once benevolent guides that were driven mad by somehow outside force. Even though Drakon's crimes cannot possibly match theirs. There's also no way that the bloodbath of the Transfiguration could possibly have matched up with the amount of lives lost during say, the cataclysm Solas caused.

 

There's no real evidence that The Evanuris were noble leaders that were corrupted by anything other than their own greed. You seem to be very willing to believe the worst in Andrastian leaders, so why not the Evanuris? Compared to the characters you mentioned, the Evanuris are the ones that seem to be written as way waaaay worse on a scale of "shades of grey morality" that Bioware often uses.

 

You talk about the god things that the Evanuris might have done, yet ignore the good things that those Andrastian characters definitely did do. Hessarian temporarily ended millennia of magocratic oppression of Tevinter's downtrodden and curbed the abuses of blood magic. Drakon forming an empire is the only thing that saved the Anders from complete extermination. 

 

And Hessarian, Drakon, or even Meredith at the height of her madness were never megalomaniacal enough to claim to actually be gods. And as I said, given that Andruil already had a god complex before "being driven mad by the void," it's seems likely to me that the Evanuris got that way on their own.

 

I also don't think Solas mentioning more than one motive for imprisoning the Evanuris as him changing his story. Him believing the Evanuris deserve to be imprisoned is not mutually exclusive with him believing they were about to destroy the world.

 

It is poor writing to suggest the reason clans are so different is living in seclusion when we are told they have a major gathering of the clans every 10 years specifically to exchange lore and keep in touch, so they will maintain a commonality between them.   Different clans may react in different ways to their neighbours depending on the region they are in and some may be more hostile with humans than others.    Some have turned to banditry.    However, those that have moved furthest away from traditional culture and values likely wouldn't bother attending the Arlathvhen at all.

 

The clan in Masked Empire was about as extreme as you can get.    Thelhen's opinion about the city elves and the clans that assist them was in complete contradiction to what we have witnessed and been told before in codices.   They are not "poor cousins, lost to us forever" because the Dalish are maintaining their ancient culture specifically against the day when they have a homeland that both Dalish and city elves can enjoy, when they can teach the latter the things that have been lost.    They may look down on city elves who remain in the human settlements allowing themselves to be oppressed but that is specifically because they would welcome them into their clans if they no longer wanted to submit to this.   That is why they have the mantra "We are the last of the elvhen and never again will we submit."    That is what it means to be a Dalish, no one tells you how you should live, least of all the humans.  

 

The way the clan was depicted in Masked Empire was specifically to "excuse" the actions of Briala and company in allowing them to be torn apart by a demon.   Also to make it seem as though Felassan had been right to keep her from joining the Dalish and Briala was wrong to think that the Dalish were at all concerned about the kin in the cities.   Also the idea that the Dalish had devised some sort of torture that they use on captives as a form of amusement.    This almost justifies the stories that the Chantry spread about the barbaric elves.    Yet once again, is in complete contradiction of Dalish culture, namely the Vir Assan.  "Strike true; do not waver.  And do not let your prey suffer".    

 

The whole rubbishing of the Dalish belief system, together with their own character assassination in Masked Empire and DAI, seems to me to be setting them up for a fall in future games.    No doubt, knowing the amount of anti-elf sentiment in the fan base, they hope that reducing any sympathy we have for the Dalish will negate any potential backlash against their demise.      I think it is a pity that they have done this to the Dalish.   I never regarded them as perfect and my sympathies tended to be more with the city elves, but after what has been done to them recently, and having thoroughly immersed myself in their culture to play my Lavellan, I am now resentful at this turnaround and manipulation of established lore about them to make them appear the villains and therefore disposable.

 

I pick up on a lot of anti-elven sentiment on these particular forums, but I would expect the're still pretty popular among fans in general.

 

And I would imagine that Bioware is doing all this various "anti-elfy" stuff because they still feel like the fanbase gives them too much sympathy. I don't think they wanted the fans to see them as innocent victims as much as they did. Or at least that's just my guess at why they decided to go in this direction.

[Inkvisiittori]

Torturing their descendants- descendants who did not kill or rape Zathrian's children- will not make the perpetrators suffer one iota more. The perpetrators are already dead. They don't care, nor do their children who are also dead, nor do their children's children. They're all already dead.

 

Zathrian's revenge was satisfied centuries ago. All Zathrian has now is spite against the uninvolved who never harmed him or his daugher.
 

 

Even if this were true, Hamarabi's code called for a limitation of vengeance, not an infinite perpetuation of it forever. It's equivalence in kind in the singular, not infinite. 'Justice', or revenge, would have to have been satisfied at the first retaliation.

 

Zathrian's vegeance under such a code would only have been permitted for the first child. Every person afterwards is Zathrian's unjustified crime, and thus his victims are entitled for someone of Zathrians.

 

When they killed Zathrian's children they also destroyed any future children they might have had - thus ending far more than just one life. This could be Zathrian's justification for cursing all their descendants.

 

It will not make the perpetrators suffer any more, but it might help Zathrian cope with the pain his children's death has brought him.

 

If you side with Zathrian and help him destroy the Lady and her werewolves it is over, either way... I don't know if he even then will be ever able to forgive or forget. Would it help him at all to try to make him see the light and make peace with the descendants of those who murdered his family? Maybe... or maybe it is just far too late.

 

The blood of those dalish elves who were killed by these werewolves is on Zathrian's hands. I wonder what that makes him feel? Does he feel horrible remorse or is he still too blinded by his lust for revenge to care? Perhaps both. 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

The blood of those dalish elves who were killed by these werewolves is on Zathrian's hands. I wonder what that makes him feel? Does he feel horrible remorse or is he still too blinded by his lust for revenge to care? Perhaps both. 

He was willing to rather let his entire clan die than to lift the curse, so we know the answer to that. 

[Zero]

It will not make the perpetrators suffer any more, but it might help Zathrian cope with the pain his children's death has brought him.

 
Maybe for the first decades... maybe the first century, and that is just insane. But for whole centuries? Because there is evidence that Zathrian lived for almost 300 years. That's just blind hate. And does a great disservice to all the Dalish clans, because all the other people will saw is an evil mage cursing a lot of innocent humans, and will say "all Dalish are the same, the Chantry was right". Meanwhile, the good Dalish (we know those exists) will be painted in the same colors as Zathrian's.

[Smudjygirl]

I would argue that the revelations made about the dwarves and elves also disprove much of the Andrastian stuff.

Maker made the veil, except he didn't

Maker sealed away false Gods. We know he didn't seal away the elven Gods. We still don't know what the Old Gods really are. Maybe one and the same.

The fade was as much a part of the world as everything else, so is likely not where the Maker plays chess with peoples lives.

And the Golden City has been stamped with "very likely not the case" if we go by Cory.

The only accurate thing I remember is that dwarves were not made by the Maker, which seems to be the case. But I'm not well verses in the dwarves of DA.

But even if the Chantry is wrong, that doesn't mean the Maker, or a Maker, doesn't exist. Which is what I understood by the "will never tell" thing.

Depends on your perspective, I think

[Pasquale1234]

As for the narrative in DAI, let alone in Masked Empire, that is the whole problem.    The writers are increasingly making the Dalish appear less sympathetic to the player so setting them up to be destroyed without anyone being particularly upset over the matter.

As near as I can tell, the entire reason they were oh-so-sympathetic to start with is because we were led to believe that they've been repeatedly victimized by humans. Add that to a general appreciation for stories about the noble savage (for the Dalish) and sympathy for oppressed minorities (city elves), and you have a pretty good formula for eliciting a great deal of support.

Now we're finding that elves may not have been the victims of human intervention, but that they may have wrecked their own happy home. I see the dismantlement of elven myths, legends, and casting blame on everyone but themselves as a good thing, for instead of looking to the past for their identity, they will be freed to create a new one and a new future.

[thesuperdarkone2]

I consider both Zathrian and the werewolves to be assholes for attacking the uninvolved. A truly just ending, in my mind, would involve curing the curse, but then bringing the werewolves back to the Dalish to face justice for the other Dalish they murdered/transformed.

Funny how that a form of that is an actual ending: cure the werewolves then kill them for their crimes

[Inkvisiittori]

 Maybe for the first decades... maybe the first century, and that is just insane. But for whole centuries? Because there is evidence that Zathrian lived for almost 300 years. That's just blind hate. And does a great disservice to all the Dalish clans, because all the other people will saw is an evil mage cursing a lot of innocent humans, and will say "all Dalish are the same, the Chantry was right". Meanwhile, the good Dalish (we know those exists) will be painted in the same colors as Zathrian's.

 

That it was Zathrian who cursed the werewolves wasn't public knowledge, I don't think. It was the Warden and his companions who discovered the truth. Even the Clan did not know the truth.

 

Revenge is a personal matter. Zathrian didn't seem to be insane to me. We also have to remember that death is not exactly the same thing for elves as it is for humans - they still remember the days when they were immortal. It's unnatural for them. When Solas created the Veil the elves became mortal like other creatures, but I don't think it happened immediately. They began to slowly notice the change. It was around the same time they met humans for the first time and this is why they blamed them. It was a misunderstanding and they must have been very frightened. 

 

Codex entry: Twins in Shadows implies that elven relationships are too complex for humans to truly comprehend. Whatever the truth, the deaths of Zathrian's daughter and son must have affected him so deeply, that he just could not let go of his grief. Even 300 years after their deaths and the deaths of those who killed them hunted him so that he refused to end the curse, even though it was now affecting even his own people... This is the same man who saved Lanaya from the bandits and even made her, an outsider, his apprentice. So he clearly cares for elves, even those who are not born dalish. 

[thesuperdarkone2]

So the answer is 'no' and 'never.' Got it.

Will you give the Templars the same treatment? My guess is probably not

[Mlady]

Revenge is a personal matter. Zathrian didn't seem to be insane to me. We also have to remember that death is not exactly the same thing for elves as it is for humans - they still remember the days when they were immortal. It's unnatural for them. When Solas created the Veil the elves became mortal like other creatures, but I don't think it happened immediately. They began to slowly notice the change. It was around the same time they met humans for the first time and this is why they blamed them. It was a misunderstanding and they must have been very frightened. 

 

Flemeth speaks of men like Zathrian and I think this fits him best: "Men's hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature"

[thesuperdarkone2]

As near as I can tell, the entire reason they were oh-so-sympathetic to start with is because we were led to believe that they've been repeatedly victimized by humans. Add that to a general appreciation for stories about the noble savage (for the Dalish) and sympathy for oppressed minorities (city elves), and you have a pretty good formula for eliciting a great deal of support.

Now we're finding that elves may not have been the victims of human intervention, but that they may have wrecked their own happy home. I see the dismantlement of elven myths, legends, and casting blame on everyone but themselves as a good thing, for instead of looking to the past for their identity, they will be freed to create a new one and a new future.

How can the dalish start a new future if humans try to kill them if they stay in one place for too long

[Dean_the_Young]

When they killed Zathrian's children they also destroyed any future children they might have had - thus ending far more than just one life. This could be Zathrian's justification for cursing all their descendants.

 

 

It would also be insane.

 

Hypothetical prevention of life- who knows, maybe she was a lesbian, or was sterile, or would have been caught fornicating with a Halla and choked and shame and died the next day- is not the same as inflicting harm on actual, living people. Being a ****-blocker and preventing someone from getting knocked up and starting a thousand generations is not the same as actually killing a thousand people. One is an unfounded hypothetical- the other is real. If you wish to argue on the basis of unfounded hypoathetical could-have-beens, you'll have to also defend why your hypothetical is any more valid a basis for condemnation than any other. Maybe Zathrian's daughter would have given birth to Dalish Tito. Maybe she would massacred her people, in which case your logic would require us to thank her killers.

 

It would, in other words, be really stupid.

 

 

It will not make the perpetrators suffer any more, but it might help Zathrian cope with the pain his children's death has brought him.

 

 

Zathrian's angst is not a justification for torture and magical mutilation of innocents. Grief-stricken parents deserve therapy, not a license to sadism.

 

 

If you side with Zathrian and help him destroy the Lady and her werewolves it is over, either way... I don't know if he even then will be ever able to forgive or forget. Would it help him at all to try to make him see the light and make peace with the descendants of those who murdered his family? Maybe... or maybe it is just far too late.

 

 

You know what would have also helped him get over it?  Eating a poisonous herb and dying in his sleep. Or becoming an abomination. Either one would have ended up killing a lot fewer innocent people than what actually happened.
 

 

The blood of those dalish elves who were killed by these werewolves is on Zathrian's hands. I wonder what that makes him feel? Does he feel horrible remorse or is he still too blinded by his lust for revenge to care? Perhaps both. 

 

 

As someone already pointed out, we know exactly what Zathrian was willing to do- let his people continue suffering rather than stop spiting the innocent. Sure, he was willing to murder his victims to save his people, but it's pretty apparent he thought even death was too good for the werewolves.

[Dean_the_Young]

Will you give the Templars the same treatment? My guess is probably not

 

Your guess would be woefully ignorant, then. I've always been up for equivalent Mage/Templar tribunals as a part of the peace and subsequent reconciliation process.

[Gervaise]

As you say, the Evanuris are implied to be way worse than the normal shades of grey that Bioware use.   Why is that?  Surely it goes against the way they normally depict things.  Why did they have to remove the Dalish belief system so comprehensively, so they have no alternative but to be atheists, unless they want to roll over and accept the religion of their oppressors?    I'm only trying to find an alternative to Solas' version because normally we are given a more balanced view of things.   The fact is though that the gods that the Dalish revere are not the Evanuris, they are the Creators.   They even have a different collective name.  The Dalish remember them as guides and teachers of the community. Isn't it conceivably possible that their tradition is about an earlier period before the war that led to their elevation to godhood?    There was clearly a period when they were not gods but simply guides and teachers as the Dalish lore suggests.   The Dalish do not mimic the gods as they were as tyrants.   When in the Dales they did not have slaves.   The humans may not have destroyed their main empire but the Tevinter did destroy the elven community in Arlathan Forest and did their best to obliterate any evidence their history and culture.   Is it any wonder that I feel sympathy for their situation.   Are you telling me that from the beginning the writers wanted us to despise the Dalish and this latest development is their reaction to our failure to respond as they wished?

 

The way it is headed is that the Evanuris are going to be made responsible for everything, including the Blight.   Where is that going to leave any of the elves, let alone the Dalish?   Likely forced by the writers to join Solas and then be killed in large numbers.   

 

Mind you, I think they are setting up the dwarves as well for a rubbishing of their traditions because of the reveal about the Titans and the fact that there is evidence of the Shaparate tampering with the records.

 

Drakon wiped out every religion and every cult to Andraste that did not agree with his own version of the faith.   There is a great deal of blood on his hands in the spread of his faith.    What we have now is likely not what Andraste intended.   There is no guarantee that we even have all her words.    Why does no one question this?    Why should my Dalish PC or my city elf PC accept a faith that we can patently see to be the creation of Drakon?    

 

Why are the historic aggressors the Avaar, who have repeatedly attacked the lowlanders, been given such a positive depiction of their culture compared with the Dalish?  Why couldn't the Dalish gods have been simple spirits like the Avaar?     May be my Dalish Inquisitor will adopt the Avaar gods instead?   He is after all an honorary member of the Avaar.