#(MORE LORE HINTS)

[theethoslab]

Absolutely losing my mind over Scar’s stream today

He was already talking to Etho while catching ocelots

Joel logs in and Scar immediately asks if Etho wants to go visit him

We get so many Etho lore crumbs (although he doesn’t fully confirm anything except having stubble and trying to get rid of 2 extra house generators)

They hang out for like 2 hours doing nothing hut chatting

Eventually Scar leaves but forgot that he left his ocelots at Etho’s because he was so excited about boat boys that he never brought them home

[pande-monty-um]

When Jacob is the architect of his own misery.

An Until Dawn style au but Jacob developed a way of making his own little brainwashed wendigo army.

[vigilskept]

gnashing my teeth thinking about how veilguard talks about the gods only as a joke when they could've gone somewhere truly crazy.... you're so right.

Yeah... you get it. It's just such a missed opportunity!

I don't even mind the jokey tone they use a lot of the time, because we all joke about things we struggle to understand/cope with.

Except Veilguard refuses to let you even try to broach the subject beyond that surface level. In fact, when it does let you engage with it at all, it manages to make things even less nuanced!

I'm just going to talk about Bellara's quest here since it's the most directly linked with the elven gods, and it's already a lot. Fundamentally, her companion quest is asking us two things:

Should elves be blamed for the actions of the Evanuris?

Should they preserve any of their past at all?

The first one is absurd to even begin with. It's not even a good or interesting take on the (very christian!) question: "Are we responsible for the sins of our ancestors?"

The Evanuris are not the ancestors of modern elves. Dalish religion implies that modern elves descend from those who the rebels never freed from slavery to the Evanuris.

This setup is already awful without looking at any of the parallels Bioware has (intentionally) drawn between the elves of Thedas and Jewish/Indigenous people. I have to put the rest of this under the cut because I genuinely don't think it can be shortened without making it sound flippant. In the context of the coding of the elves, the theological/social implications of all of this are so much worse.

TLDR: the indigenous/jewish coding of the elves makes bioware's treatment of elven religion in veilguard thoughtless at best, cruel at worst. they did not have to write themselves into this corner. there was a way of handling this lore reveal without the implication of elven religion (again, jewish/indigenous coded) being obsolete

So, the religion of the Dalish was part of their enslavement. It's the belief they were forced into by the cruel gods they are still devoted to. That's already pretty bad. How could it get worse, you might wonder?

Whether Bioware deviated from their initial inspirations for the elves or not, the implications for these lore reveals in light of those parallels are particularly cruel. Those two core questions in Bellara's quest? Yeah. Those have both been levied against the oppressed groups that Bioware chose to draw inspiration from. Both historically and presently. To justify atrocities against them.

And to be clear, Bioware does not deviate from or subvert the usual indigeous and jewish-coding of the elves in their writing here. If anything, they end up actively endorsing a very significant element of antisemitic and anti-indigenous sentiment.

Indigenous-Coding

Advocates of colonisation have always justified it by arguing they were 'saving' groups of people who were stuck in the past. They had been ‘left in the dark’ through ignorance of Christianity. In the more secular sense, this was framed as Europeans having journeyed through history to reach enlightenment, while the rest of the world was still in an ‘uncivilized’ state.

Christianity and progress had to be brought to these people to save their souls and bring them into the future with everyone else. Their Gods? There were only two possible ways to frame those. Either they were not real at all, or they were evil. Either way, they were obsolete.

In the Americas, these arguments were still used when corralling indigenous children into residential schools or tearing them from communities through the adoption system. Governments pushed the idea that they had to be forced to assimilate because they were 'backward' in their practices and beliefs.

In the settler-colonial state Canada, where Bioware is based, it's still common enough to hear people justify all of this as having been done "for their own good." Even those who admit that the ways colonization was perpetuated were cruel will still try to defend it by telling you, "it was bad, but their ancestors weren't saints either."

Sounding painfully familiar yet? A little uncomfortable in the context of Bellara's questline?

Jewish-Coding

Since the dawn of Christian Church, Jewish people have had a very fraught place in Christian theology. Christianity claims that that the coming of the messiah in the person of Jesus Christ makes the religion of Judaism obsolete. Christians believed the obvious answer to this problem was that Jewish people should convert.

When many did not, they were labeled as ignorant, obstinate, stuck in the past. They were so focused on their history that they couldn't see the truth which had been revealed in the present. There’s a significant legacy of this idea in Christian artwork with depictions of Synagoga blindfolded next to the clear eyed Ecclesia. You still hear echoes of this sentiment in antisemitic language today.

As for the nature of the Jewish God... there is some deviation here. For some Christians, He is God the Father, and He is good. For others — and this idea has been around from early Christianity till now — He is the Creator of the material world, but He is evil.

There are innumerable variations of Christian gnosticism that probably wouldn't be productive to get into on a Dragon Age Blog. What I need to underline here though, is that the idea of the Old Testament God as the devil/the demiurge/fundamentally evil, has been used to justify atrocity towards Jewish people for over a thousand years.

Should elves be blamed then? For the sundering of the Titans? For the Veil? For the Blight? For the evils of this world, created by their Gods?

Implications for Veilguard

Not only is religion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard often devoid of nuance or ignored outright, when the game does engage with it at all, it does so in a way that quite literally draws on these incredibly harmful antisemitic and anti-indigenous sentiments that have been (and still are) used to perpetuate real harm.

To be clear, I don't think the writing here intends to endorse the idea that elves should be blamed for any of what's going on. Bellara's anxieties are being projected onto her people as a whole while she grapples with what this all means for her, I get that. In fact, you could be generous and read some of this as a critique of this particular kind of anti-indigenous/jewish bigotry.

However, I don't think that absolves the writers of any of the implications they've created by confirming that the elven pantheon did exist and was canonically evil.

Elements of Dalish/elven culture might be preserved after all this, but the conclusion the game railroads you into is that their religion is obsolete. Just like Judaism. Just like the many Indigenous religions around the world. Except in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it’s no longer just the bigotry of outsiders claiming that to be the case. It’s now the objective truth of the setting.

Going forward, the elves of Thedas can keep their culture, but they can’t practice their religion. If they continued to practice, they would be framed the way the Venatori are: evil and stuck in the past. This really can’t be overstated: this is the exact rhetoric that has justified centuries of violence and oppression of Jewish and Indigenous people. This rhetoric is still around and still weaponized.

It’s so cruel to create an in world ‘lineage’ that draws so heavily from their cultures and histories, then validate the rhetoric that has been used to hurt them. At best, it’s thoughtless. But as a company based in a settler-colonial state, this is something they should’ve put thought into, given that they chose to code their elves and Jewish and Indigenous. That was their responsibility, actually.

What gets me about all this is that they actually didn't need to force that conclusion at all. They could have kept the Evanuris as cruel tyrants without demonising the Creators and their worship at the same time.

The Evanuris weren't always Gods. They weren't even always rulers.

In Trespasser, when asked how they became Gods, Solas tells Lavellan that they did so slowly. That it started with a war. That fear bred a desire for simplicity. For right and wrong. For chains of command. That generals became respected elders, then kings, and finally gods.

Veilguard confirms all of this. The addition it makes is that before all this, the first elves were spirits who made their bodies out of the Titans. This all occurred over the course of thousands of years.

None of this needs to be retconned in order to allow for a respectful yet nuanced portrayal of religion!

TLDR pt2: bioware, u could’ve avoided literally ALL of this by making the evanuris part of a priestly class who seized power after the war with the titans. it wouldn’t even have undermined ur lore! u could’ve kept dalish religion alive! u could’ve implied complex political dynamics for your ancient elves without even having to write it! why didn’t you even try?

Trying to Fix This Mess

Say the elves took their bodies from the Titans and settled the lands of Thedas. Say the Titans even allowed this for a time. The dwarves were made from their own bodies after all.

Yet the elves didn't have the same connection with the Titans as the dwarves did. They had no stone-sense, so they couldn't understand the Titans' song.

Generations down the line, some of them took too much from the Titans. More than they were willing to give. That was when the Titans lashed out, making the earth tremble so that all the elves had built crumbled beneath them.

And what if the firstborn among the elves had taken up priesthood to guide the younger ones. They were closer to spirits than the elves that were born into this world, and so the younger ones looked to them for guidance. Maybe they were the ones who were trusted to reach out to the more powerful of the spirits who chosen stay in the Fade, their old kin who preferred to keep their distance from the physical world to preserve the essence of what they were. The spirits of Justice, of Benevolence, of Craft. Those who the elven people paid homage to, and trusted to preserve them in turn.

So when everything seemed to fall apart, the elves turned to their Keepers, their priests, and asked of them what they ought to do. How could they make the earth stop shaking? What would they have to do to be at peace again?

Whatever the spirits themselves may have responded, many of the Keepers (among them the Evanuris) took up arms and chose war. They saw it could be won so they fought, sundering Titans from their dreams and stilling the land.

And yet there was no peace.

Some Keepers sought to hold on to their power as generals, and wanted to wage war on new shores to keep it. Some Keepers thought they had already gone too far, claiming they had acted without the guidance of the spirits who hadn't wanted war.

These Keepers could've caused chaos and endless bloodshed, so the Evanuris formed their alliance to suppress the others. Likely, they thought they were doing so for the benefit of all the elven people. More war meant more death, and it was needless now that the land was still. And even if what they did to the Titans was wrong, it was done and they could not fix it. Better to silence those who meant to stir up fear among the people.

The Evanuris fought until they were the last faction left, naming the few holdouts the Forgotten Ones. They were praised for bringing peace to Elvhenan, and trusting in their guidance their people crowned them as rulers.

Yet some dissent always remained. None of them were infallible. They were no longer spirits, they hadn't been for thousands of years. They were now more accustomed to command than to priesthood after all that war. They had drawn on the power they had stolen from the Titans to gain the advantage over their enemies, and the corruption of the Blight was starting creep in, ever-so-slowly.

Maybe some of the people, unhappy with their rule, started to voice the thought that was expressed by their rival Keepers once more: that the Evanuris had grown distant from the spirits. That Elgar'nan didn't serve Justice anymore. That Mythal had strayed from Benevolence.

So Evanuris took the mantle of godhood for themselves. It was only for peace and stability.

It would be too dangerous if anyone could claim they were deviating from the will of the spirits, so they would claim they were those great spirits. Elgar'nan was Justice, Mythal was Benevolence. They would use their rule only for the benefit of the people, not abuse their power.

And there you go. None of what I've written above can't be neatly incorporated into the existing lore of Veilguard. It leaves the elves of Thedas precisely where they started in Dragon Age: Origins. Distant from their ancient Gods, trying to pick up the pieces of their forgotten past.

[valfeathers]

i be like *thinks about L’s childhood* *thinks about L’s childhood* *thinks about L’s childhood* *thinks abo—

[agentark]

do you ever think about how in the literal very first scene with Rebecca, we learn that Unit Bravo had no idea she even had a kid

she chose UB and The Agency over the detective so consistently, so frequently, that her team didn't even consider that she had some kind of life outside of them, with someone waiting for her at home

[gethoce]

Quick silly Valfrey asking their next @kirbyoctournament opponent Sir Meteor what dinosaurs even are. (They all died with the old world and Valfrey doesn't even know there was anything before she was born, naturally no knowledge on dinosaurs.)

Sir Meteor belongs to @what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me

[roguesend]

Davrin and Assan were foretold

If you’ve paid any attention to Thedas lore, you will at least have heard the mention of Garahel, hero of the Battle of Ayesleigh that put an end to the Fourth Blight, canonically said to be the most famous Warden in history prior to the Hero of Ferelden.

The name “Garahel” stands for much of what the Grey Warden Order values most and would prefer to be known for: Pride. Honor. Selflessness. Warden Garahel was a notable elven hero whom even humans must revere for his bravery and sacrifice as slayer of the Archdemon Andoral.   The Warden’s legendary charm, intelligence, and keen political sense drew countless allies to battle against the darkspawn hordes of the Fourth Blight, a fight that lasted well over a decade. In addition to recruiting Wardens from the Anderfels and Orlais, Garahel negotiated the support of Free Marcher royalty, creating a united army that finally broke the infamous siege of Hossberg, setting into motion the end of the Blight. War and circumstance shaped the young elf into a canny commander. He was very aware that Blights are not defeated by a single hero. He once noted to his sister Isseya that “heroism is just another word for horror.”   Less well documented is the person behind the legend: the golden-haired elf, whose green eyes twinkled as he shared a story, told a joke, or flirted shamelessly. It is written that people from all walks were drawn to Garahel, as his manner and wit drove life’s unpleasantness from their minds and allowed them to think of a better tomorrow.   As a Warden recruit in the Fourth Blight’s early years, Garahel made his first griffon flight in 5:12 Exalted on a beast he’d only just met and would dub Crookytail. The odd griffon was not solid gray like most of his brethren. Crookytail’s feathers were tinted with dusky brown; white patches decorated his chest and belly. One of his ears flopped forward, and he had a distinctive, bushy tail with a prominent kink in it—giving him his name. Nevertheless, Crookytail’s strength, speed, and exceptional ability to find advantageous cracks in darkspawn formations made the beast and his rider one of the Grey Wardens’ best battle teams.   From their first flight, made to rescue the nobles of Antiva City from the pressing darkspawn hordes, to their final battle at Ayesleigh in 5:24 Exalted, where they sacrificed all to slay Andoral, Garahel and Crookytail were said to be inseparable. – The World of Thedas Volume 2, 2015

Does any of this remind you of someone? There is no doubt Davrin and Assan are meant to mirror Garahel and Crookytail.

Davrin stands for pride, honor and selflessness. He is a notable elven hero revered for his bravery and sacrifice, especially if he is chosen to lead the second team in act 3. He is charming, intelligent and sets into motion the end of the Blight by fighting in Hossberg (Wetlands). War and circumstance shapes him into a leader. He is aware that Blights are not defeated by a single hero. We’re all going on about how attractive and witty he is. He goes to battle alongside a griffon he has only just met, and said griffon is more brown than gray or white, with one floppy ear and a bushy tail. Together they make one of the Grey Wardens’ best battle teams, and from their first battle to their last, they’re inseparable.

Garahel had a sister by the name of Isseya, and it’s exactly the Isseya you think it is.

Even during the Fourth Blight, few knew the name of Garahel’s younger sister, Isseya. While her brother was outgoing, charming, and prone to heroism, Isseya was more modest and enjoyed studying and building her formidable magical skills. Her focus and determined nature, however, made her arguably as important to ending the Blight as her brother. He landed the killing blow upon the Archdemon; she helped ensure the survival of those most affected by the horrors of the age after Andoral’s defeat.   One of Isseya’s most important achievements was enchanting makeshift aravels: wagons, boats, any conveyance large enough to fit a number of people. These were fastened together, held above the ground by her skillful magic, and pulled by teams of griffons. Isseya conceived of and executed the first of many journeys using the aravels to move citizens of Wycome out of the Blight’s path and safely to Starkhaven.   Isseya’s other major impact on Thedas reached beyond the Blight and was both a blessing and a curse. As the desperate times called for equally serious measures, she turned to her fellow mage Calien to learn the basics of blood magic to fight the darkspawn. In trying to save a griffon that had been tainted by a darkspawn bite, she used a process similar to a Grey Warden Joining and inadvertently started a chain of events that led to the extinction of all griffons in Thedas.   However, it is rumored that, shortly before she left on her own Calling, Isseya found a way to preserve a clutch of griffon eggs, protected with a complex weave of magical guards. It is written that she hoped a like-minded mage could recover the eggs and perhaps find a way for the mighty griffons to again soar through the skies of Thedas. – The World of Thedas Volume 2, 2015

Not only were Davrin and Assan foretold, the entire Grey Warden storyline was. BioWare planted that seed almost ten years ago as something to potentially return to in the future, and they deliberately tied it into Veilguard.

[boxofoxberry]

important origins!petra update!!! wanted to try and make her more blaze-like without altering her design too bad (due to lore reasons) so i was like. just make her go more blaze-like in certain conditions. so BAM

[aseuki]

Our radiant sun...

[dailydegurechaff]

Today's Daily Degurechaff is... Regular Tanya is on vacation day 5 - Nobility AU

[ahalliance]

still thinking about antoine semi-rping on main during the qsmp meta talk with etoiles, florence and zerator last night . why did this dude scoff when étoiles started talking about the resistance . why did he start asking him why he’d possibly want to kill federation guards and disagree with étoiles calling them mean/bad people . you are currently discussing this while playing on the mc server that contains La Tour de Merde you can Nawt give me lore jitters like this…..

[loktauri]

WHA!Trigun AU. Where the main quartet are all pointed hats. Knives and Vash were found together. And Tesla is just taking a little swim I promise :)

[elizabethrobertajones]

I could be your angle... or yuor devil..,

[blaithnne]

I’ve put off posting this for months because I wanted to find my comics so I could talk about how she fits into this one story wise, but I’ve officially given up on that so AT LONG LAST here’s Lauren in The Midnight Giant!

Comic Lauren is younger and a little less mature than her show counterpart, she has less of a parental role towards Hilda and enjoys messing with her. She’s considered a lot less…reliable by her mother. But she genuinely tries, she does everything she can to help her family and prove to her Mum that she’s capable, but that’s a little hard when Johanna’s focus is on Hilda’s shenanigans so often…

Some individual drawings!

[sixxxer]

what do you MEAN the people who received screeners of ep 7 & 8 said it was some of the saddest stuff they've ever seen??? i just watched ep 6 and im sobbing and falling to the ground

[captainshyguy]

thinking a little recently about trivia based fandom vs transformative based fandom, and how cleanly these can be divided into reddit and tumblr fandoms respectively a lot of the time, and how foreign only doing the first is to me from an artist perspective