#da elves

[knife-eared-jan]

Ok, as much as I have been hyping and playing 12 hours a day since it got out (still in Act 1 though, bc I'm a slowass player and completionist), I feel like I have to say something that is getting hard to ignore at this point... and I wanna preface this by saying that I am loving a lot of aspects of the game and I adore the writing when it comes to the companions, who I am obsessed with.

And maybe this will get better yet, as I generally heard the writing picks up once the story progresses beyond picking up all companions..

But I'm starting to get quite upset at the way the writing just does NOT care about the established lore and the politics of Thedas like at all, when to me - and many others - that richness, nuance and depth of the world is what makes the games so special.

(Spoilers below)

I looked past the way the elves in Arlathan just seemed to know that their gods are evil and Solas is "kind of a dick" but was right about that. When, you know, that made him basically the Satan of their pantheon up to now.. It was after all the tutorial stage of the game and I understand that you wanna ease newcomers into the lore. I could also handwave it in-universe with Morrigan being there - she could have filled the Veiljumpers in on the discoveries of the Inquisition or even what the Well told her.

It felt a bit weird that our contacts in every other faction just accepted this huge revelation without a blink, but again it was the early stages and I also get that having a discussion about it 6 times with different faction leaders would have been incredibly tedious. So I ignored that. And yeah, at least the First Warden found it hard to swallow.

The fact that they brushed aside the gods finding elven subjects - many of whom after all still worship them - with one sentence from Solas was disappointing though. Instead they chose to ally them with the Venatori and the Antaam who are the pure evil factions with no nuance or motive to side with them besides a comic book level of hunger for power. They didn't even throw in a sentence about the gods maybe speaking to the Venatori through the Archdemons to get them on their side or how it's very ironic that the Venatori, who want to make Tevinter great again, stoop to working with the pantheon of the people they oppress because they see them as lesser and other. No political exploration of the massive lore implications at all.

It really hit me when I picked up Davrin and he commented how Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain blighting the world would really endear us (elves) to the rest of Thedas - this was the first time anyone actually mentioned the political impact of the elven gods being real, freed, evil and blighted on modern day elves at all, when this should be HUGE. It should be ugly. It should be complex. It should be explored in as many examples as bloodmagic and the oppression of mages was in DA2. It should be a central point of Act 1. (This btw made me love Davrin so much in that moment because this was the first time in the game for me when I actually felt like talking to a Dragon Age elf and even just that one line felt like home.)

And now I just did Taash's first companion quest and it seems Qunari lore is also being ignored (except for the gender aspect of it, which I look forward to). Taash's mum was a scholar and had a baby and the only problem about that was that it could breathe fire and was special but otherwise all would have been dandy? Like she would have just been allowed to keep Taash long enough to find that out about her baby if she was living under the Qun? That directly contradicts everything we know about how the Qunari's culture around reproduction and childcare works.

Sorry to be negative and talking myself into a rage - I know it's not something people want to see rn. But like, I realise you have to brush over some lore intricacies for brevity and to make it digestible for new players. But this is a world initially inspired by Wheel of Time and ASOIAF, both of which are interesting because of the depth of ficitional cultures, lore and politics, and hence it's also what gives Dragon Age its appeal. And now they take us to the most politcally interesting areas on the world map and just get rid of all of political depth?

That's really disappointing. Imagine if Winds of Winter dropped all political themes just because there's several previous books and it's been some a lot of years.

Also, I managed to play DA2 before I ever played Origins and they could introduce me to a vast established background of lore just fine back then.

Sorry. Rant over. But I had to get that out of my system.

[lovestruckthedasbard]

Me in DAO, DAI, BG3 and probably in DAV too..

I am so predictable it's not even funny.

[proffbon]

The game keeps trying to make me apologize to Harding on behalf of all elves or something as my only race-specific dialogue option, but no! That's not what I or my Rook would say. The Evanuris screwed both of our people over! We're gonna kicked their asses for both of our people!

[wesslesprout]

Idk if this is controversial but I rlly liked the elf design changes in DA2, their noses and their big eyes idk its so good

[propenseverbosity]

Might fuck around and make up new elven words for asexuality (because my Rook is ace and so am I!)

So far I've only got one but I think I like it.

"Isalath'nas" - To desire one's soul/heart, (rather than desiring them sexually)

[wolfwhisperertf]

Is no one gonna talk about the fact that Solas said he “does not wish to live as a human” when Mythal asked him to form a body? Not an elf, not a dwarf, a human! So elves got the idea to become people from humans? Right! Right?

[grapecaseschoices]

have a question about elf rooks ...

so. are all elf rooks former tevinter ally slaves? or is that just lords of fortune elf rooks?

bc i just did the bird feeding quest with taash. and i admit i was NOT expecting that. i didnt think they would acknowledge elves and their treatment in tevinter -- or elves and their treatment at all, outside of 'the world hates us and this blighted mage situation is gonna make it worse'. [at least where i am in game thus far]

[jo-luizen]

All of @cullenakingirog OCs are amazing. This is Narra and Guita. I hope I did them justice.

[beast-of-mosss]

I learnt that elves eyes can see in the dark like cats and I am thinking is that it's like night time in skyhold, and you hear talking. You approach the noise, wondering who is talking this late at night, and as you round the corner-BAM!

[chanafehs]

skyhold maid to a dreadwolf hunter? never underestimate a lesbian

[leopardmuffinxo]

daddy davrin ♡

[knife-eared-jan]

Wait what?!

It is 2024 and this is the very first time I have heard this information about WHY she has all that banter about magic.

Are you saying all those tinfoil theories about her having a second arc about magic in DA4 and even that she is somehow a tranquil Andruil for a DECADE now are all because of them not cleaning up properly after changing her subclass flavour and not any hints or themes or something intended at all???

I guess that's also what that dialogue about her just knowing how to do archery without any training are about...

This is insane!

[proffbon]

Uuuuuuh...

Okay. A lot to unpack here.

First of all, I don't know if the dialogue changes if you're from a different faction (which I doubt), but if it doesn't, kind of a weird decision to make every Rook not Dalish by birth.

Like it works for Ruquantriviel because he joined his clan when he was a young adult so he didn't 'grow up Dalish' but... Well, sucks to suck if you want to make a full Dalish Rook I guess.

Second, vallaslin are not just some cool elven tatts you can get at the local tattoo artist. There's a whole ass ritual associated with getting one, they use special ink and your own blood (!) to make it and you can even be denied your vallaslin if you're not ready to receive it or can't bear the process.

So being like "Oh the vallaslin are very sacred to the elves" and then in the same breath "But Dalish don't have a monopoly on being elven so fuck their sacred rituals I guess" is... Strange.

Third, vallaslin aren't sacred to elves. They're sacred to Dalish specifically. Because city elves don't wear vallaslin and it doesn't mean they're somehow less elven. It just means they practice different elven traditions. But this phrasing... kinda implies the former.

This one just seems like another victim of lumping all the elves, Dalish and city, Andrastian and Creators worshipers, brought up among elves and non-elves, into one category of 'elves' as if that makes it better.

Or at least the victim of awkward wording.

[deimcs]

THE DRAGON AGE SAGA + elven companions.

[ritmund-jpg]

My art with Velanna in The Coming Storm - this is a non-commercial charitable Dragon Age artbook by Ukrainian artists one of whom I am very happy to be!!

[an-established-butt-dent]

Waiting patiently for news about Dragon Age in 2024 like.....