#Eth's is short bc she doesn't have much to say on religion

[impossible-rat-babies]

#30dayDAchallenge

Day 12: Religion

I realize I am a day behind and I’ll hopefully get myself back on track today.

Under the cut bc of length...

Darva Lavellan: 

Darva is faithful to the Dalish patheon. He keeps to the habitual rituals of the gods, particularly The Way of the Three Trees, as he was raised with such principles.

He’s familiar with the vows his mother and father took as craftsman and healer, respectively.

Later on, he adds in the code of the Vir’Banal’ras which goes back to the Dalish assassins. (Fun fact: After he makes a more permanent move to Tevinter, he takes on the more professional aspects of being an assassin for the sake of protecting both Dorian and the members of their growing political faction.)

He hates being made into the symbol of Andraste; he doesn’t necessarily hate her, but he hates being made into this figure of a religion that has caused his people hundreds of years of pain. It feels ironic in the worst way possible.

Thus, he clings more to the Dalish traditions and worship. He doesn’t want to be seen as someone who has lost that and he doesn’t want to wake up to find that in himself.

With the Well of Sorrows, he gets angry at the people around him for what they say. It’s all this history of his people, staring him in the face and Cassandra remarks about how it’s rubbish and Morrigan explains it to someone who already freaking knows.

He knew from the moment that he was going to be the one to partake of the Well, regardless of what Morrigan had to say. Him being the Herald of Andraste is a fucking lie, so that argument is tossed out of the window. Yes, he leads the Inquisition, but if they succeed then it won’t be needed. It’s temporary. He’ll always be an elf, no matter what he does.

He’s upset by what happened to Mythal and how the truth is reinforced by Solas. She was the best of them and she was killed for it. With that, it almost seems justified that he created the veil to lock them away. Almost. (He did destroy what made the elves who they were when he did that and thus they’ll never live up to his standard of the elvish people he knows.)

The whole mess with the Evanuris and Solas puts him in a bad mental space after the conclusion of the Exalted Council. I talked about a lot of it during the Mind Matters on day 4, but his faith is deeply shaken. He doesn’t know what to do with himself; he can’t make sense of it in his head, he feels wrong when he looks at the tattoos on his face… It was all he knew for a majority of his life and it was all destroyed.

Part of him thinks Solas is just lying about it. He can’t think to rationalize it in any other way. Still, something doesn’t sit right and he still loses his faith.

Fen’Harel is getting a fist in the face and killed for wanting to destroy this world. The elves are going to perish with it and he’ll be all alone in his mistake that killed the entire world.

“All of this started with fanatics and arguments about the next world; it’s time we start believing in this one.”

Eth Tabris: 

She’s agnostic and not a particularly pious individual to either the Chantry or the elvhen gods. If she had to be partial to one or the other, it’d be the elvhen gods because of her mother’s faith as a Dalish elf.

She thinks the Chantry could be a force for good as Leliana talks about it in Inquisition. Eth saw the comfort the Maker brought Leliana and the peace she found in the Chantry. Eth would like a Chantry like that. One of support, healing and comfort. Not one filled with politics and corruption.

Neither the Maker nor Andraste have done her any favors and especially the Chantry. She finds her fists more reliable than faith in a god.

With Awakening and subsequently Inquisition, she sees how much being named the Herald bothers Darva. She doesn’t think he’s the big religious figure to start with and after the trip in the Fade, she’s just reassured that she was correct in her thinking.