KnightofPhoenix wrote...
As for the patch, I think they are delaying it a bit. Not sure when it comes out but I think it's close. That's for PC at least. Not sure about consoles.
Funny enough, I emailed volunteering to help with the beta patch and wasn't picked but was emailed yesterday to test the new version with the dialogue bug Terra found. It mostly works for all of my Origins guys but the dialogue with Ariane about the child still doesn't come up on my PCs imported into WH from Awakening. But whenever its released, it'll likely come on PC first seeing as they don't need to go through Sony or MS that way.
MKDAWUSS wrote...
Is it possible that Flemeth had a role in creating the Blight so the Old Gods to be released to basically uproot the Chantry? That could create an interesting dynamic, and totally gray things up by making it a fight between (what we'll call) the Second Tevinter Empire and the Chantry.
But then again, IDK if BW wants to get into religion all that much...
Thats sounds plausible- Flemeth does hint that the danger posed from this Blight is even greater than many realize in Origins- maybe she means that stopping the Archdemon is only the beginning- a Xanatos gambit, if you will.
But I'd wager that the "change" MOrrigan is hinting at somehow involves the supposed collapse of the Chantry in DA2. That plus the scene in the trailer with Flemeth leading some army of mages against Templars makes me think FLemeth is up to something- and I wouldn't be surprised if it involves the Old Gods or darkspawn in some way.
I hope BioWare gets more into the religion though- they don't need to have the Maker come down or anything crazy like that, but if they explored more of the religion from the "What qualifies as divine?" sort of angle that might be neat. Maybe have the Old God Baby once he's a bit older go around all Jesus like performing miracles with some people worshipping him like Andraste while he may not be divine necessarily but simply have the soul of an Old God, which for all we know is just the soul of a dragon. Is that truly divine? Is that truly worth worshipping?
Gaider posted this
rather lengthy post on the Old Gods and religion in DA a while back and I think its a good read:
David Gaider wrote...
AndreaDraco wrote...
I wasn't looking for a certain answer about the Maker. I like that the developers left something up in the air, without explaining everything with tons of exposition. I am more interested in the relationship between these three systems of belief (Chantry, Tevinter, Elves) and how they include/exclude each other.
The cult of the Old Gods (I don't call it "the Tevinter religion" mainly because that, to me, speaks of the Imperial Chantry -- which is based in today's Tevinter Imperium) didn't contradict the existence of the Maker. Quite the opposite. The people of ancient Tevinter were aware of the existence of the Golden City and ascribed to "the Maker" (though this Creator was not called this until the appearance of the Chantry) the creation of the
world. The Old Gods were not creators, though they were supposedly also not created. The Old Gods were outside of the Creator's Plan and showed up to whisper to mankind and teach them magic. According to the Chantry, they turned mankind away from their regard for a remote Creator (who ruled remotely and never interacted with his own creations) and that this is what made the Creator abandon the Golden City... though there is argument that the cult believed the Creator had abandoned it long before and that they were adrift, rescued by the Old Gods. Modern sages say that this is attempt to explain the hardships that the early human civilizations faced, and not evidence of the Maker actually being absent.
So when Andraste showed up much, much later, she was advocating a return to the "rightful" worship of the Maker... it was not a belief that came out of nowhere.
As for the elves, their understanding of their own religion is incomplete. The whole truth was lost along with Arlathan and their immortality -- much of their lore was kept by a tradition of apprenticeship, handed down from the knowledgeable to the young, and this relied on the fact that the knowledgeable were eternal. Slaves also had less opportunity to spread their lore, so the sudden aging of the knowledgeable meant that much of this information was simply gone after several generations. This, of course, is their belief: the ancient Imperium maintained that the elves were never immortal to begin with, and that their lore was lost simply because the Imperium forbade its teaching.
Even so, the ancient elves did write things down, and so some scraps have been recovered. Thus the Dalish have slowly reassembled a religion from those pieces of lore, though how complete it is cannot be known. Even so, a few things are factual. For one, the original elven religion predates the cult of the Old Gods by a long time. Could the Old Gods have been based on the elven gods? Possibly, but there's nothing to suggest the elven gods were ever dragons, and certainly the contempt the Imperium held for elven culture makes it unlikely that they would think elven gods were worth worshipping. Consider also that it was the Old Gods that taught humanity its magic and encouraged them to destroy Arlathan -- why would elven gods do this? One could point to the Forgotten Ones (look at the codex entry on Fen'Harel for their mention) and suggest that they had reason for vengeance, though that would probably be against Fen'Harel and their good brethren and not against the elven people themselves, no? Still, all of that depends on how much of the knowledge given by Dalish tales is complete.
In terms of the elven religion's view of the Maker (or lack thereof), it might be interesting to point out that the elven creation myth doesn't stem from their gods. According to Dalish understanding, Elgar'nan and Mythal, the Father and the Mother, did not create the world. They were born of the world. The world was always there, and while it doesn't indicate the presence of a single creator that made the world it also doesn't necessarily contradict it.
The modern Chantry, however, does say that all these other gods are false. It doesn't say they never existed (though the elven legends are dismissed as just that, for the most part, but that's a carry-over of Imperial belief), but merely suggests that the Maker was long ago forgotten and that He is the only god that is worthy of true worship. The fact that His creations turned away from Him is shameful, and it is only by proving our worth to Him once again that the world will become the paradise He intended.
All of this is, of course, open to interpretation. That's part of the point of faith, if you ask me. Were some god to appear on earth and tell everyone How It Really Is that would destroy the very idea of faith -- though at that point one would have to ask: is such a being really a god? What is a god? What ideas are really worth worship? To me, that's the notion that's worth exploring. Beyond that, all conjecture is welcome. ../../../images/forum/emoticons/smile.png
Modifié par Brockololly, 15 septembre 2010 - 02:03 .
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. Since its revealed that the Architect inadvertedly created the blight with Urthemial by trying his joining ritual, it would be a cool plot twist to reveal Flemeth having worked with him as well (of course to an extent and for HER means only).
