649 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

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

 

By making compromises and working on creating conditions where humans won't try to kill them if they stay in one place too long. They've done it in Rivaini, and there are absolutely things they could change about themselves that would make co-location far easier.

 

We know that the primary reasons they get chased off at an institutional level- and that's really all it is, a shooing rather than a deliberate attempt to hunt and kill- in a lot of places is because of their deliberate choice of mage policy. If they didn't insist on mageocracy and simply let mundanes be their history-keepers and leaders, the Templars wouldn't give a damn and the Chantry would only care in so much that bushwhacking occurs. Not bushwhacking humans is easy- it takes more effort to do than not to do- and compromises could be made about what happens to their mages.

 

There's actually a number of compromises that could be done. Might a Dalish clans in a Kingdom simply refuse to have any mages, and trade them to other clans to be someone other kingdom's problem? They could easily turn over mages to the Circles for training and safeguarding and Templar goodwill, with a possible negotiation of those mages being allowed to keep Dalish lore/visit Dalish clans and regularly interact. Or, if the Dalish clan was really convincing and credible and committed to a nomadic way of life, perhaps they could negotiate to bring the Templar oversight in- that a Templar maintains nominal oversight, and walks with the clan, and can mediate conflicts with human villagers.

 

 

If the mage issue is resolved, the single biggest institutional barrier to the Dalish being sedentry is removed. It'd be a compromise, sure, but compromises will have to be made if the Dalish wish to live in other people's kingdoms. Mage policy is the most within their power to affect. Once the Templars no longer send them moving, they're just funny heathens like the rest of the minor cultures the Chantry doesn't bother too much with, like the Avaar. Distant, dangerous, often heretical, but not particularly threatening so long as they don't actually threaten. The modern Chantry doesn't drive off heathens for being heathens- and depending on how the Dalish negotiate their mage issue, the arrangement with the Chantry can even become part of their protections from more secular fear and opposition.

 

 

 

Alternatively, if the inherited customs of being slaves to super-mages is too much to compromise, the Dalish could always pull an Avaar and build a society on the distant reclusive edges of modern civilization, and simply do their mage business so far away that the Chantry doesn't really care. I hear far southern Thedas is lovely this time of year.

[Dean_the_Young]

 

 

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.   

 

 

 

Or, alternatively, stop trying to cling to myths of past glory and start building a future of their own without trying to create a mythic past. Even if it's humble, it can be real, while the imagined past never was.

 

 

 

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? 

 

What makes you feel it was positive? They're impoverished, uneducated, largely unorganized people who are in frequent contact with themselves and others and who venerate often ambivalent and occasionally malevolent beings of their own creation. They have a short-term society which has little prospect of becoming greater and is less about benevolent progress and far more about general ambivalence, and while their magic/spirit policy is of interest it's far from ideal or a practical solution for the social ills of the rest of the continent.

 

 

Why couldn't the Dalish gods have been simple spirits like the Avaar?  

 

 

Could? No one's said they couldn't have been. They could have been anything. The Dalish gods also could also have been non existent and an entirely unsubstantiated myth.

 

The better question is- why should 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.

 

Sure, why not if he's that desperate for something to worship?

 

He's also a religious icon, so he could totally adopt Andrastianism.

[Zero]

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.

 
By the time the next Arlathvhen takes place, everyone knows about it.
 

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.

 
No. They don't remember something they don't have lived. The only current elves that remember immortality are ancient elves like Solas, Abelas and their private club of racist supremacist, that don't share their knowledge with poor "not-even people" current elves. And this includes the Dalish as well. 

 

What Dalish have is stories about the ancient, immortal elves. But for at least the last 2000 years they have experimented death as every other humanoid of Thedas. Zathrian was a normal modern elf, driven mad with hate and grief, and willing to left his own clan die (a possibly ending of Nature of the Beast) only because his blind hate and his inability to forget.

[Zero]

By making compromises and working on creating conditions where humans won't try to kill them if they stay in one place too long. They've done it in Rivaini, and there are absolutely things they could change about themselves that would make co-location far easier.

 

We know that the primary reasons they get chased off at an institutional level- and that's really all it is, a shooing rather than a deliberate attempt to hunt and kill- in a lot of places is because of their deliberate choice of mage policy. If they didn't insist on mageocracy and simply let mundanes be their history-keepers and leaders, the Templars wouldn't give a damn and the Chantry would only care in so much that bushwhacking occurs. Not bushwhacking humans is easy- it takes more effort to do than not to do- and compromises could be made about what happens to their mages.

 

There's actually a number of compromises that could be done. Might a Dalish clans in a Kingdom simply refuse to have any mages, and trade them to other clans to be someone other kingdom's problem? They could easily turn over mages to the Circles for training and safeguarding and Templar goodwill, with a possible negotiation of those mages being allowed to keep Dalish lore/visit Dalish clans and regularly interact. Or, if the Dalish clan was really convincing and credible and committed to a nomadic way of life, perhaps they could negotiate to bring the Templar oversight in- that a Templar maintains nominal oversight, and walks with the clan, and can mediate conflicts with human villagers.

 

 

If the mage issue is resolved, the single biggest institutional barrier to the Dalish being sedentry is removed. It'd be a compromise, sure, but compromises will have to be made if the Dalish wish to live in other people's kingdoms. Mage policy is the most within their power to affect. Once the Templars no longer send them moving, they're just funny heathens like the rest of the minor cultures the Chantry doesn't bother too much with, like the Avaar. Distant, dangerous, often heretical, but not particularly threatening so long as they don't actually threaten. The modern Chantry doesn't drive off heathens for being heathens- and depending on how the Dalish negotiate their mage issue, the arrangement with the Chantry can even become part of their protections from more secular fear and opposition.

 

 

So, your solution is for the Dalish to relinquish their culture, give themselves to the Circle (one of the worst institutions on Thedas), and live in poverty conditions without rights like the first group of elves that submitted to the goodwill of the Chantry?

[KaiserShep]

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.

Who cares about Zathrien's feelings? If you convince him to sacrifice himself, the body count is much smaller.

[Dean_the_Young]

So, your solution is for the Dalish to relinquish their culture, give themselves to the Circle (one of the worst institutions on Thedas), and live in poverty conditions without rights like the first group of elves that submitted to the goodwill of the Chantry?

 

If you ignored everything you actually quoted, sure, why not? You're not paying attention anyway.

 

If you're condemning any compromise or culture reform on any part of their culture as 'relinquishing' and treat it as a horrible thing, I'd have to ask you what about their sacrosant culture right now you think is so great that it deserves service. They're bitter, angry, ignorant, impoverished, as self-victimized as not, and committed to losing fights that are destroying them. They're also self-destructing and fragmenting as a culture as modern events and actual (as opposed to mythic) history overtake them.

 

The Dalish way of life is already doomed. They want it to be doomed, because even their own cultural zeitgast is the idea that they'll stop being nomads and start being a civlization again some day. None of them actually want to wander around on the cusp of attritional eradication forever more.

 

The Dalish culture will irrevocably change anyway. If it's going to change eventually anways, why not choose changes that benefit them sooner than never? Compromise is going to happen. It's not the same as total surrender.

[Inkvisiittori]

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.

 

The justifications people make for doing the horrible things they do are often stupid. 

 

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

 

I'm not looking for a justifications. I'm interested in Zathrian's reasons for doing what he did. He clearly thought what he was doing was right. It could as well have have been matter of principle or simply not being able to let go of what had happened, instead of a way to deal with his pain, like I originally suggested.

 

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.

 

Clearly he did not think so. He kept himself alive with magic for so long - just so the curse could not be lifted? That could imply that he clearly was not yet satisfied with his revenge. He didn't want to let the suffering of the werewolves end.

 

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.

 

I agree, it does seem that even if it caused him emotional distress to see his own people suffer from the same curse he had created as punishment for the humans, it was not enough to make him end the curse itself. 

[Dean_the_Young]

The justifications people make for doing the horrible things they do are often stupid. 

 

Are in agreement that what Zathrian did was horrible, then? You make it sound like you have some doubts.
 

 

I'm not looking for a justifications. I'm interested in Zathrian's reasons for doing what he did. He clearly thought what he was doing was right. It could as well have have been matter of principle or simply not being able to let go of what had happened, instead of a way to deal with his pain, like I originally suggested.

 

 

Zathrian was a stupid bigot. Whether he thinks it was right is irrelevant to it actually being justified.

 

 

 

Clearly he did not think so. He kept himself alive with magic for so long - just so the curse could not be lifted? That could imply that he clearly was not yet satisfied with his revenge. He didn't want to let the suffering of the werewolves end.

 

 

So what?
 

 

 

I agree, it does seem that even if it caused him emotional distress to see his own people suffer from the same curse he had created as punishment for the humans, it was not enough to make him end the curse itself. 

 

 

So what?

[Inkvisiittori]

Who cares about Zathrien's feelings? If you convince him to sacrifice himself, the body count is much smaller.

 

"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."

[Inkvisiittori]

Are in agreement that what Zathrian did was horrible, then? You make it sound like you have some doubts.

 

Of course what he did was horrible. Was that ever in doubt?

[Zero]

If you ignored everything you actually quoted, sure, why not? You're not paying attention anyway.

 

If you're condemning any compromise or culture reform on any part of their culture as 'relinquishing' and treat it as a horrible thing, I'd have to ask you what about their sacrosant culture right now you think is so great that it deserves service. They're bitter, angry, ignorant, impoverished, as self-victimized as not, and committed to losing fights that are destroying them. They're also self-destructing and fragmenting as a culture as modern events and actual (as opposed to mythic) history overtake them.

 

The Dalish way of life is already doomed. They want it to be doomed, because even their own cultural zeitgast is the idea that they'll stop being nomads and start being a civlization again some day. None of them actually want to wander around on the cusp of attritional eradication forever more.

 

The Dalish culture will irrevocably change anyway. If it's going to change eventually anways, why not choose changes that benefit them sooner than never? Compromise is going to happen. It's not the same as total surrender.

 

 

Magic is part of Dalish culture, whatever the mages were in Arlathan, and whatever the Chantry believes about magic. Maybe is not sacrosanct for humans, but is important to elves. Is like if the Qun came and destroys human culture. It's not important for Qunari, but means a lot for humans, because it's their identity, their heritage, whatever if that culture's foundations aren't what they believe. 

 

Your solution is to surrender all mages, either exiling them to other kingdoms, or sending them to a prison for life: the Circle of Magi, with their corrupted templars. Yeah, some templars are good people, but those are a minority, the exception. Most templars are self-righteous bigots who believe superior to mages because their religion and oppress and humiliate even human mages, why not elven mages, who are already an oppressed people.

 

That or permit an exterior authority (again, a templar) to have power in the affairs of a clan. Maybe clan got lucky and got a Cullen-like templar, a good man or woman who cares for the elves' wellbeing. But most of the templars would kill the Dalish on sight just because they're elves. Remember, in Orlais is legal to kill elves if you have a rank (like Chevaliers). Why the majority of templars would be different? 

 

The only solution I agree with you is that of the Dalish leaving their ancestral lands and go to live where humans will not bother them. 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."

Ah, a Joseph Stalin quote. Nothing endears people to your side like quoting easily one of the worst people in human history. 

[Dean_the_Young]

Of course what he did was horrible. Was that ever in doubt?

 

Yes. You post things like-

 

"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."

 

-in lieu of actual arguments and then frame your counter-arguments to people's condemnation as a defense of him and his actions.

 

If you repeatedly reject a condemnation and contest even it's accuracy, you are rejecting the validity of its conclusion. In this case, 'making innocent people suffer is bad' was met with 'no one is innocent' and then a rationalization on behalf of Zathrian's crime.

[Inkvisiittori]

Ah, a Joseph Stalin quote. Nothing endears people to your side like quoting easily one of the worst people in history. 

 

It's a good quote, nonetheless. 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

It's a good quote, nonetheless. 

Donald Trump, is that you?

[Dean_the_Young]

Magic is part of Dalish culture, whatever the mages were in Arlathan, and whatever the Chantry believes about magic. Maybe is not sacrosanct for humans, but is important to elves. Is like if the Qun came and destroys human culture. It's not important for Qunari, but means a lot for humans, because it's their identity, their heritage, whatever if that culture's foundations aren't what they believe. 

 

Your solution is to surrender all mages, either exiling them to other kingdoms, or sending them to a prison for life: the Circle of Magi, with their corrupted templars. Yeah, some templars are good people, but those are a minority, the exception. Most templars are self-righteous bigots who believe superior to mages because their religion and oppress and humiliate even human mages, why not elven mages, who are already an oppressed people.

 

That or permit an exterior authority (again, a templar) to have power in the affairs of a clan. Maybe clan got lucky and got a Cullen-like templar, a good man or woman who cares for the elves' wellbeing. But most of the templars would kill the Dalish on sight just because they're elves. Remember, in Orlais is legal to kill elves if you have a rank (like Chevaliers). Why the majority of templars would be different? 

 

The only solution I agree with you is that of the Dalish leaving their ancestral lands and go to live where humans will not bother them. 

 

So it's not that you don't read, you just don't comprehend what's being raised, along with a dash of True Elf and then reducto ad ridicularum about how compromises can be negotiated. Got it.

[Inkvisiittori]

Yes. You post things like-

 

-in lieu of actual arguments and then frame your counter-arguments to people's condemnation as a defense of him and his actions.

 

If you repeatedly reject a condemnation and contest even it's accuracy, you are rejecting the validity of its conclusion. In this case, 'making innocent people suffer is bad' was met with 'no one is innocent' and then a rationalization on behalf of Zathrian's crime.

 

I would say making anyone suffer is bad, regardless of how 'innocent' or 'guilty' they are (as those terms are merely a point of view...)

 

Miscommunication sometimes happens. I was merely interested in discussing the character and his motives. 

[Reznore57]

Magic is part of Dalish culture, whatever the mages were in Arlathan, and whatever the Chantry believes about magic. Maybe is not sacrosanct for humans, but is important to elves.

 

Magic is important for 3 people in Dalish clans , the Keeper and her/his apprentice.

At least in Merrill clans they weren't even practising magic in front of others.

I'm pretty sure most Dalish really don't care about magic.

[MisterJB]

So it's not that you don't read, you just don't comprehend what's being raised, along with a dash of True Elf and then reducto ad ridicularum about how compromises can be negotiated. Got it.

 

I would also add generalization regarding the temperament of Templars alongside the ridiculous notion that a sole Templar would be dangerous when massively outnumbered and that a Chantry willing to compromise would be sending Alriks to Dalish clans so they can create intercultural accidents.
 

[KaiserShep]

"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."

So I guess I should be glad that my City Elf Warden chose to have the werewolves wipe out the Dalish.

[IHaveReturned1999]

This thread of The Chantry reminds me of good ol' George.

Spoiler

[Zero]

So it's not that you don't read, you just don't comprehend what's being raised, along with a dash of True Elf and then reducto ad ridicularum about how compromises can be negotiated. Got it.

 

What compromises? Those they have with the city elves? Or those they actually signed with the mages and failed so miserably to uphold? Or even those they also failed to uphold with the Templar order? The Chantry hasn't a good reputation at the time to uphold their compromises. Only a fool will make a compromise with an institution historically known to withhold their promises if things don't go the way they wanted.

[Illegitimus]

 

 

With that in mind, it's unsurprising that the Inquisitor can't be a City elf. After all, can you honestly see a City Elf Inquisitor being able to sit in the same room as Celene, knowing that the empress ordered the deaths of thousands of elves? Or that Celene leads a nation where thousands of elves are crammed into a small living space inside of Orlais' capital that's barely the size of Denerem's market square? Or that Orlais' celebrated Chevaliers have a graduation ritual that involves slaughtering elves to "test their blades"? Or the fact that according to the History of Ferelden codex, Ferelden elves were sold as property by Orlesians during the Occupation? And how does this reflect on the Chantry that not only is Orlais the empire that formally organized the Chantry, but that Orlais remains the nation that's closest to the Chantry?

 

The answer is yes.  I can easily see that.  That's not why the Inquisitor can't be a City Elf.  What I can't imagine is the final conversation with Solas if the elf was a city elf.  There were a bunch of "everything you believe in is no more than a quarter true" revelations aimed at Dalish elves that would just fall flat if the elf wasn't Dalish in the first place.  The big Dwarf revelation only came in DLC, but it did come and more or less justified their inclusion.  

[Inkvisiittori]

No. They don't remember something they don't have lived. The only current elves that remember immortality are ancient elves like Solas, Abelas and their private club of racist supremacist, that don't share their knowledge with poor "not-even people" current elves. And this includes the Dalish as well. 

 

They don't remember what it's like, that's true, but they still remember that they once were immortal. That's what I meant. 

[Jedi Master of Orion]

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.  

 

I don't know why they Bioware decided to go this direction with the elven religion. As I said, I was not happy about it. But while most things are intended to be grey, Bioware does go pure evil with some characters. A few Tevinter magisters come to mind, so do many of the characters in DA 2.

 

And yes of course you're right that the Dalish have very specific view of the Creators that is very different from the cruelty of the Evanuris, but the fact that they believe the Creators are gods at all must be based on the height of the Evanuris' corruption. Before that they weren't believed to be gods at all. I honestly think the implication is supposed to be less that the Dalish legends were based on some real period of benevolent rule, but more that the elven religious tradition was shaped by nostalgia for a time before they were enslaved by the Imperium, and so they eventually forgot about the brutality of their own rulers.

 

I'll say this abut Descent though, I actually thought it improved the credibility of certain dwarven religious beliefs. We always knew the Shaperate's record keeping was meticulous and detailed but also corrupt and politically motivated. That wasn't even a secret in Dragon Age: Origins. The fact that they don't have records of certain things is not a surprise. But I don't think DA had ever really explained what a Stone Sense even was before. Before Descent, I suspected it may well have just been a dwarven superstition. We also don't really get clear answers about exactly what the relationship between the Stone and Titans is. Afterward, Valta seems to have new unexplained powers after connecting with the Titan.

 

Regarding the Avvar and the Dalish, as I also said, my guess is that (especially since we never really learned as much about them until Jaws of Hakkon) the Avvar don't have a history of being considered noble victims by the fans, so there was no desire to try to "level the playing field" when it comes to fan sympathy. I did notice that even the friendly Dalish you first meet in The Exalted Plains basically even laments how xenophobic his own people are.

 

That said I don't think the Avvar religion would work for the Dalish and more than any other outsider. The Dalish believed their gods were real beings, not just various generations of spirits manifesting their ideas of them. That might work for the Avvar religion, but I think if that were the case the Dalish religion as it currently exist would still be discredited. Maybe not quite to the same extent as it is now, but still. 

 

Also it's pretty huge oversimplification to just describe Andrastianism merely as the religion of their oppressors. It is also the religion of the prophet who freed them from slavery and the religion of their own founding hero. And as Ameridan and the Canticle of Shartan both show, there was an elven religious tradition of Andrastianism present even in the Dales. Just because the Chantry has tried to erase the memory of that doesn't mean elves or anyone else would be right to do that same.

 

If it's not under Divine Leliana, then joining the institution of the Chantry itself would be a bad choice, but I can definitely see the appeal of the Cult of the Maker for Dalish who learn more about its forgotten traditions. I actually imagine at least one of my Dalish protagonists would convert to it after learning the truth of the Evanuris.