#dragon age spoilers

[fatale-distraction]

First thing Elgar'nan does is go tear down every single Orlesian statue at the Pools of the Sun and have a dip surrounded by the crumbling, smoldering ruins

[the-northern-continent]

Rhythm and Breath in Dragon Age: Inquisition

Inquisition plays around with a couple recurring rhythms:

iambic pentameter (dagger skill tree, Maryden)

trochaic tetrameter (Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe)

the cadence from the song Hallelujah (Solas)

Many folks have already written technical comparisons of these different rhythms, but I specifically wanted to talk about how they handle breath.

Without even paying attention to the word content of these rhythms, the breath patterns help set the mood. Are my breaths regularly spaced? Am I gulping for air? Am I breathing slowly and calmly?

As we go through the different rhythms, try reading them aloud to see where your breath lands.

Iambic Pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a five (penta-) foot meter, where each foot is an iamb. An iamb is a two-syllable “da-DUM” sound, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. So each line has 10 syllables total.

Here’s an example from the dagger skill tree, with the feet color-coded:

You leap through shadows to attack your foe

With deadly strikes that hit them from behind.

Before your target turns to face your blow,

You move to stealth, impossible to find.

If we read this aloud, we find that 10 syllables is a lot! There are very few mid-line commas, so we naturally want to breathe between lines. But each of those breaths needs to last for ten syllables. If we don’t want to pass out, we’re reading the lines a bit faster than we normally would.

The iambs add even more forward momentum. Since we need to save more breath for the second syllable in each pair, we hurry slightly faster over the unstressed syllables.

Because we keep repeating that same syllable count and stress pattern, the overall effect is one of speed and precision. This is a rogue rapidly making blow after blow after blow with their daggers, hitting every single time. This is Maryden rattling off each sentence with perfect poise and musical training. There’s no time here for thinking; no room for mistakes. The next line is going to be ten syllables too. And the next. And the next.

Trochaic Tetrameter

By contrast, the Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe only has 4 (tetra-) trochees (DUM-da) per line. On every other line, the final unstressed syllable is dropped (catalexis).

That’s a lot of jargon, let’s color code the feet:

Tell the tale of Tyrdda Bright-Axe

mountain maker, spirit’s bride:

Free, her people, forged in fastness

made in mountains, hardy hide.

This is a classic meter, often found in nursery rhymes and folk songs. Because there’s only 8 syllables per line (plus lots of mid-line commas), we can read each line at a casual pace, without speeding up. The catalexis adds extra emphasis to the rhyming lines, since we get to the last (7th) syllable with more breath to spend. And even within each foot, we don’t have to manage our breath as much, because the stressed syllable comes first.

This creates a comfortable rhythm that lends itself to memorization and recitation. We can easily imagine this saga being passed down beside a campfire.

Hallelujah

Since the Hallelujah cadence comes from music rather than poetry, it has an additional kind of stress, the mid-measure secondary stress.*

We don’t exactly have feet, but we can color code each measure:

I lay in dark and dreaming sleep

while countless wars and ages passed.

I woke still weak a year before I joined you.

For the first two lines, each measure is 4 syllables long, so we get 8 syllables in each line, similar to the Tyrdda poem. If we read it aloud, it’s easy to do it slowly and thoughtfully. The secondary, quieter stresses also create an echoing effect, which emphasizes that Solas is thinking about the past.

Then the last line goes absolutely bananas. It abandons the unstressed-stressed repetition and gets much longer, flying up to 11 syllables — even longer than the 10-syllable lines in iambic pentameter.

Additionally, Solas tends to glue the first two lines together, which is SIXTEEN syllables, so they sound closer to an octameter** than the tetrameter(ish) sound of the original song.

The overall effect is of someone trying to be measured and thoughtful, but partway through he gets hit with nostalgia and the lines spill out in a long breathless rush. Bro has to speak quietly so he doesn’t totally run out of air.

*Music theory sidebar: Leonard Cohen’s original version is in 12/8 time, so the secondary stress isn’t as prominent. It shows up in one or two verses, but not all. A lot of the subsequent covers, including k.d. lang’s, sound more like 6/8. That means every measure has a 2-beat count: 1-2-3 4-5-6. I think the 6/8 version fits Solas’ speech pattern a bit more. But he’s not singing, and secondary stresses are harder to place. Syllables don’t have to align 1:1 with melody notes (in fact, in Hallelujah there are several places where the syllable alignment changes from verse to verse). So someone else could easily hear a slightly different stress pattern.

**This implies a cursed version of Solas where the last line is omitted and he’s actually syncing his speech to Modern Major-General.

[oohyoubigsneaky]

Woke up and have been spiraling this fine morning about how IF Varric does in fact die (even by accident) in that beginning scene, my Hawke is not going to like…. NOT kill Solas and I’m having a HARD time reconciling that mentally between her fierce love for her husband Varric and my Inquisitor’s undying love for Solas.

I’ve also been listening to the Ryan Elder/Kotomi version of ‘Live Forever’ on repeat about it and crying so…. Send help.

[esthesiaart]

Are you ready for the Solas Silverhand experience?

[geopvnk]

not to dragon age post on main but i'm still losing my mind over varric's face in the gameplay reveal as he says "please" and how he actually lowers bianca again and just . ok ser master viscount tethras are you talking to solas here or are you talking to anders or are you talking to bartrand :/

[gensemporium]

Soooo like, what if Solas & Varric get flung into the Fade after they interrupt the ritual & Varric tries playing "I Spy" like he did with Cassandra? Yes? No?

[pinacoladamatata]

my husband: are you alright?

me, staring at my old dragon age timeline spreadsheet and thinking about long Solas and Mythal have been alive and how it's so fucking long it doesn't even fit on the screen: ....yeah

(the purple line at the bottom is roughly how long solas was in uthanera. we have no idea when he was born. so could predate the timeline entirely. The bright Green and Red are roughly when Mythal had to be killed/the Veil created)

[vaamiel]

uhhh if y'all aren't out here sitting in the DAVe gameplay reveal waiting room, you should be because the Dragon Age team is just dropping info in the chat! Here's what I've caught:

[mushroomstairs]

(more dragon age hype) so if solas is stuck in the fade... he could make some friends in there, right

[dent-de-leon]

soft hearted Crow Mr. Lucanis my beloved...

[fatale-distraction]

Elgar'naan

[the-northern-continent]

Fen’Harel may seem stressed, but this is important enrichment for him. For optimal health, trickster deities must be pursued by 2-5 larger, angrier deities at all times. This allows them to express their natural instincts to Run, Deny Involvement, and Proclaim Themselves “Just A Little Guy”.

[enormousgrapefruit]

oh how the turn tables

[tekehu]

DAVRIN, the Grey Warden

[furubabasket]

Hear me out. Now that we can be trans. Transmasc dwarf Rook who named himself after Varric and is absolutely mortified to meet the guy in person and have to introduce himself

[hrtiu]

Me until Veil Guard comes out