#clan sabrae

[crunchbuttsteak]

You want me to look at myself in the mirror? The thing that killed Tamlen in Dragon Age Origins?

[proffbon]

CLAN SABRAE MENTIONED

(But not the fact that the Hero of Ferelden is from that clan because fuck you and your worldstate)

[ghostwise]

Of course. You know I'd do anything for you.

You cannot make me serve against my will.

Every important undertaking carries with it some level of risk.

It's a keeper's job to remember.

and here they are together <3 doodled portraits of the Sabrae kids

[squirrelwithatophat]

Friendly reminder that post-DA2, after helping the city elf refugees, Merrill canonically takes the reconstructed eluvian (which she absolutely did not destroy because only a complete monster would Rival her) back to the clan of her birth, who celebrate her accomplishments in curing the Blight and recovering a vital piece of ancient elven culture and are totally horrified by the way Clan Sabrae treated her after they had been so kind as to entrust one of their precious mage daughters to them. Merrill thus wins the admiration of all Dalish in southern Thedas and settles down happily ever after with her wife Isabela.

Okay fine, by “canonically,” I really mean “because I said so,” but anyone who disagrees with these claims can meet me in the fucking pit.

*throws chair against the wall sobbing* I just want all of my faves to be happy

[dalishious]

Would you be willing to share your thoughts on the writing of Clan Sabrae? Particularly in DAII & Merrill’s relationship with the Keeper & her clan.

I feel like in Dragon Age II, Clan Sabrae is treated rather like shit. From their very introduction, it’s evident that we’re not supposed to like them, judging by the mean-spirited comments made by the party and Hawke.

Just a handful of examples:

“It’s an elven slur for human” –Aveline, misinterpreting the word ‘shemlen’ which is not at all a slur but literally just the word for human in the elven language

“Elven gibberish.” –Carver, referring to the elven language as ‘gibberish’

“In my experience, all Dalish women are crazy.” –Anders, entering the Dalish camp

“By all means, let's go up to the angry wandering elves and say hello!” –Varric, entering the Dalish camp

“It's a lot to ask, but could you two try to be less elfy for the sake of the human present?” –Hawke being sarcastic when speaking with Marethari and Merrill

“Dear Maker! Where did my self-righteousness and pointy ears go?” –Hawke being sarcastic when told there’s nothing here for them after the Keeper’s death

All these comments paint them as angry, self-righteous, crazy s*vages. And yet, if you’re actually nice to the clan, they are hospitable right back, despite Hawke being a human outsider!

And then of course there’s the fact that it’s extremely easy to murder them all in the quest ‘A New Path’. If you don’t pick one specific dialogue option, you are forced to kill them.

[aldruiel-scribbles]

With how important Clan Sabrae became to the story of DAO and DA2 (and how much information we gain of Elvhenan through small details), I think it would've been amazing for the elven inquisitor to be from this clan instead of lavellan. Specially with a certain egg, the eluvians, and the Temple of Mythal. It could've added more weight to their background story.

[elf-luthiel]

Mahariel’s Letter To Lavellan:

To Their Worship, Inquisitor Lavellan: I appreciate your warning regarding Corypheus. Fortunately, my own search has taken me out of the area where the supposed magister is operating, and while I have encountered challenges of my own, they have not involved any weakness related to my Grey Warden abilities. As I have little useful information to offer, please accept the accompanying gifts instead. If, in my quest, I find anything that may be of use to you in your fight against Corypheus, I will send it to you immediately. I have also included a note of a personal nature for Warden Alistair. Please take care of him. Like me, he was instrumental in ending the last Blight. I trust his compassion and his strength above any other's, and I would not go though such effort to overcome our Callings only to lose him to your Inquisition. In closing, I wish you luck. This world of the shemlen is a difficult one for our kind, and I can only imagine the pressure of leading the Inquisition, an organization dedicated to the Chantry, while staying true to the Way of the Three Trees. May Mythal protect you in your quest, and Andruil bless your hunt. Yours, Warden-Commander Mahariel of Ferelden

[cactusnymph]

it makes me go completely insane how your feelings towards the sabrae clan shift when you go from playing mahariel to playing hawke with merrill as a friend in dragon age 2. yes marethari is not cool in either game but still, the whiplash from these people being your home and your family to wanting to bitch slap all of them for treating merrill like this--ugh

[rosella-writes]

Mari Lwyd but it's Clan Sabrae's winter solstice celebration and Hahren Paivel has a carved, be-ribboned halla skull he wears as he goes from aravel to aravel challenging the children to contests of song and stories about Ghilan'nain

[gobs-archive]

I had the honor of participating in the @arlathanxchange this year, and I got @/cartographicalspine on AO3

I chose to do a Merrill/Tamlen fanfic for them, featuring an AU where Tamlen survives and becomes a Grey Warden. I also drew an accompanying sketch for them.

Please check it out on my AO3 account

Fanfic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47283478

Art: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47283844

[sometimesraven]

@febuwhump Day 12: "Can you hear me?”

Fandom: Dragon Age Whumpee:  Female Lavellan

Summary: Lavellan falls off the roof of a building while pranking with the Friends of Red Jenny. Fortunately, it initiates a meetcute.

AO3 Link

~~*———————————————*~~

Miriel had lost count of the hours she had been awake. Her work with the Friends of Red Jenny had been far more hands-on than she had anticipated, given her diminished responsibilities within the Inquisition, and she certainly hadn’t planned on spending all her waking hours chasing dead-end sightings and rumours of Solas’ movements.

Still, in the three years since the Divine Conclave she had grown accustomed to it all. At times she could almost fool herself she wasn’t sick, able to mask the pain and fatigue she had always felt even from herself from time to time. Being a Jenny was a welcome distraction from the world-ending danger she always seemed to be facing.

The problem, however, with ignoring a sickness was that it tended to remind you of its existence at the worst possible moment. Not moments after the pink paint poured from the rooftop onto the head of another masked noble than Miriel’s legs had shaken and given way. She toppled and failed to catch herself in time, landing heavily on a balcony below, and the world faded.

“Inky? Can you hear me?”

The voice was unfamiliar; a low rumble that pierced directly into her chest. Miriel slowly opened her eyes, wincing as several jolts of pain hit at once from varying parts of her body. She automatically reached for her left hand, only to sigh and flop back down when she remembered it was no longer there.

Her arms hurt. Her legs hurt. Her back hurt. She was fairly certain she needed a healer. Instead, she eyed the concerned face above her. Another elf gazed down at her with narrow hazel-gold eyes, greenish-white vallaslin adorning her brown skin like fade-touched serpentstone. The marks were of Falon’Din, she realised with a tinge of sadness.

“Only Sera gets to call me that,” Miriel managed eventually, the act of speaking shooting pain through her chest that had her choking on her own words.

“Apologies, ma’am,” the stranger hummed, her voice holding a similar Ferelden roughness to that of Sera, though flatter like Cullen’s. “Keep still, I’ll heal you.”

A mage? Miriel groaned with equal parts pain and relief as the familiar tingle of magic filled her body, feeling muscle and bone pull back together and her back crack into place. The relief was almost enough to knock her back out, but she forced herself to stay awake; though made no efforts to move.

“There, that should help. Sera warned us you were reckless with your health but I don’t think anyone expected you to take a nosedive off the roof like that.” Offering her a hand, she pulled her to her feet with a surprising strength Miriel hadn’t been expecting. “Nice to finally meet you though. I’m Adris, by the way. Or just Sabrae if you want.”

“Sabrae?” Miriel quirked a brow, recognising the clan name from both her books and Varric’s tales of the Champion. “You’re a Marcher?”

“Nah,” she hummed, “I’d only just got my Vallaslin when the clan moved north, barely more than a child. Decided I’d rather take my chances with the Blight than follow my clan across the Waking Sea.”

There was more to it than she was letting on, Miriel could tell. It explained her accent at least. “And now you’re a Jenny.”

Adris shrugged, “It’s fun, and it makes a difference in little ways. What’s not to love? Besides falling of rooves.”

“I’m never going to hear the end of that, am I?”

“Nope.” Adris grinned a wide, toothy grin and Miriel found herself smiling back despite herself. When was the last time she’d made a new friend, truly? “So. Gonna let me take you home or are you too big for that, Herald?”

Miriel grimaced at the title, “Just Miriel, please.”

“Apologies, your holiness~”

Oh, she was going to hit this elf before long, she just knew it.

[patissonthepumpkin]

Oh, yes, thank you, someone explored it. Haven't seen anyone talking about it.

Also, some buggy thought of mine as of late: when I first discovered this piece of lore about dalish and attitude towards spirits (generally cautious) the whole ordeal with freeing Feynriel in 'Night Terrors', the method proposed by Marethari herself, mind you, feels shifty. There are layers to this whole situation ofc with him being somniari (rare huge magic talent too good to let slip) and half-human. But you know, when you realise that spirits and fade are not usually the first places where dalish traditionally search for answers, everything Marethari does feels off. Heck, that was why they alienated Merril in the first place. Except what Merril did was the last resort to not-very-dalish method for a very-dalish problem, and everything Marethari did was...nothing like that.

I want to talk a little bit about the narrative function of Clan Sabrae attacking Merrill during in A New Path plays within Merrill’s story as a whole, because I’m not sure people realise it’s foreshadowed during Merrill’s introductory quest, Long Way Home. It’s a very easy juxtaposition, in truth, but I’ll start with a disclaimer.

What this post is not about #1: This post is not about the validity of A New Path’s portrayal of genocide. In a game series that both lore internally and lore externally (in its appropriation of the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australia) acknowledges the function of the Chantry, racial supremacy, and settler colonialism on the Dalish, it is disingenuous and tasteless to narratively portray the eradication of entire clans as the fault of werewolves, demons, internal conflict, freak accidents, and mistakes on the part of the player character, instead of as a deliberate campaign. Other people closer to the issues have talked about this in more detail, and I am not going to here. This post is about what the quest as it exists is meant to represent narratively, and not meant as a justification for its larger context within Thedas or our world.

Long Way Home

Hawke: Can’t demons possess Dalish mages?

Merrill: It can happen, and when it does, the clan must hunt and kill their own Keeper.

All the way in Act 1, we have Merrill relaying to us some basic the ins-and-outs of Dalish society. This dialogue is the result of an optional question Hawke may ask, but within a mandatory conversation and not excluded by other dialogue choices, so it’s hard to miss. Pretty much immediately upon meeting Merrill, we discover that she is a mage, and we discover how the Dalish traditionally deal with the threat of demonic possession among their mages. If a mage is possessed, the rest of the clan (presumably the hunters specifically) will hunt and execute the possessed mage.

What this post is not about #2: This post is not about the validity of this practice. It is not about the validity of the death penalty, peer enforced punishment, or the stigma that exists around possessed mages. Obviously between Wynne & Faith, Anders & Justice, the Avvar, and Rivaini Seers, the danger a possessed mage poses may vary, and there are other ways to deal with it culturally. This post isn’t about any of that. It’s about the fact that the Dalish *do* have a tradition and protocol for handling possessed mages, and it is execution.

And Merrill is very dedicated to tradition.

A New Path

Merrill: I’ve called to the spirit, but he doesn’t seem to hear. He was sealed in an artifact on Sundermount. I have to look for him there.

Merrill: But… if things go wrong… if he possesses me. I need you to strike me down.

Merrill calls upon the practice at the beginning of A New Path. She’s had quite the falling out with her clan over the course of the game, but she is still dedicated to the Dalish tradition, and asks Hawke to fulfill the role of her clansmen for her. If I get possessed, you hunt me down and kill me.

This is obviously not what happens during A New Path. Marethari is the one that is possessed. The other members of the clan are nowhere to be seen. Merrill carries out what she sees as her duty as part of the clan and kills the possessed Keeper. And it’s at this point the hunting party arrives.

Hawke: The Keeper turned into a demon. We had no choice.

Ineria: There would have been no demon if it weren’t for this flat-eared bitch!

Feneral: We’ve suffered enough because of this traitor. It ends now!

And then they attack.

So this final act in A New Path becomes a bastardisation of Dalish tradition. There is a possessed mage in the clan, Marethari, but the clan doesn’t gather to hunt and execute her. Instead they turn on the mage who is not possessed. And ultimately that failure to stick to tradition becomes their downfall.

Which is what Merrill has been arguing about with her clan the whole game: they’re turning away from their heritage when they discard the Eluvian, they lack appropriate leadership, they’re willfully ignorant and unwilling to let historical context inform their current actions and, if that doesn’t change, all of it will be their downfall. And, when they attack her during A New Path, she’s finally proven right. Just not in the way she ever wanted.

[proffbon]

Clan Sabrae roadtrips live rent free in my head

[dalish-rogue]

Happy Dragon Age Day from my current worldstate!

💙 Warden Nelya Mahariel (archer rogue, Zevran romance) ❤️ Champion Garrett Hawke (primal/force mage, Anders romance) 💚 Inquisitor Herah Adaar (two-handed warrior, Blackwall romance) 💜 Rook Faye Mercar (veil ranger rogue, Lucanis romance)

[watcher1ngellvar]

Y'all, Veilguard beat the allegations! No opportunity to needlessly slaughter a whole Dalish clan! Woo!

[immawraffle]

“i am their keeper, da'len. it was my duty to warn them. it's still not too late for you to return to us. reconsider—there’s no need for you to live alone” does anyone else feel like a rabid dog