#elven fading

[ardafanonarch]

maybe a silly one: thoughts on crablor?

Crab-Lore

For those who have yet to encounter him, “Crablor” is a portmanteau of “Crab” and “Maglor”, i.e., the crab Maglor became after his many ages of wandering the shores in pain and regret. Crablor is fanon. It was born here.

As @faustandfurious wrote in that very post there is no canon about Maglor’s eventual fate. (You can read about the various ways Maglor ended, or didn’t, here).

But the idea of Elven crabification in general does have some basis in canon!

In his writings on Elven fading in Morgoth’s Ring, Tolkien talks about the fëa (spirit) consuming the hröa (body):

As ages passed the dominance of their fëar ever increased, 'consuming' their bodies (as has been noted). The end of this process is their 'fading', as Men have called it; for the body becomes at last, as it were, a mere memory held by the fëa; and that end has already been achieved in many regions of Middle-earth, so that the Elves are indeed deathless and may not be destroyed or changed. The History of Middle-earth Vol. 10: Morgoth’s Ring, The Later Quenta Silmarillion, ‘Laws B’ (p. 219)

This was not, however, Tolkien’s last thought on the matter. In a marginal note on the entry for hröa published in the linguistic journal Parmasan Eldalamberon (Vol. 12), Tolkien revisits the metaphysical implications of Elven fading:

What of a hröa that resists fading? It is not then consumed by the fëa, but compressed by the process of containing it; by which it will in time be overcome, though at great expense to the strength of the fëa, for this at last takes possession of the changed hröa as its ‘casement’.

What?

This note Tolkien clearly did not intend to be seen or interpreted by anyone but himself, and its meaning is rather opaque. What he seems to be describing, however, is a slow process of shrinking and shapeshifting, from body to “casement”, in cases where a hröa resists fading.

Casement as in… shell? As in… exoskeleton? Elves who resist fading become crabs?

Okay, so that probably wasn’t what Tolkien meant, but I can find nothing to contradict it. Let us assume, for our amusement, that the hröa - casement transformation is, or can be, into a crab.

The next question is: Might Maglor have resisted fading?

If one imagines his fate in the published Silmarillion as self-punitive (a reading supported by the alternate versions in which he does in fact commit suicide like Maedhros), it would makes sense that he might resist fading as a sort of release from his punishment. Or perhaps the metaphysics of the Oath had some interference in his ability to fade in the usual fashion.

In which case, Maglor may very well have been one of the Elves who became a crab. Or something like it.

ETA: Happy April Fool's.

[an-established-butt-dent]

I will never tire of the way he looks at his Vhenan in that last scene.

Solas being an absolute mess of a man, blight stained lips and post battle sweat on his brow and yet he has never been hotter.

We need to collectively thank Bioware for their service.

[arlathen]

honestly i wish they'd leaned harder into mythal being an awful manipulative bitch (affectionate). da fans are bad with women who are mean to them who they're supposed to like but apparently LOVE women who suck who are supposed to suck. like ghilan'nain is a highlight of veilguard imo because she's scary and awful. and also has tentacles but let's not get into that.

mythal coercing and manipulating the guy who was most devoted to her, mythal not being too cowardly to do what's right but too shrewd, and that characteristic carries into her millennia as a fragment -- never doing anything to help except to gently tug the threads of fate. coming out with her image unscathed. her dog is still her dog and he only heels when she gives the command. the People who know the truth still cry mythalenaste when they avoid invoking the other evanuris' names. she was the best of them by the narrowest margin and now she's the only one left. they killed her and she outlasted them all. let her lean into it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[unohdukseen]

[felassan]

What kind of spirit do you think Felassan waz?

Swag

[elynnism]

Can we, for a moment, imagine that Cole was waiting for Lavellan and Solas in the fade, smiling and happy and saying softly, “I helped.”

[lovestruckthedasbard]

Bellanaris

[wardensantoineandevka]

look, I simply don't have the patience to entertain argumentations apparently rooted in the idea that everything Solas says about anything is a clear-eyed and fair judgment of what the current state of affairs is, what the implications or consequences of that state of affairs is, how those living in those conditions feel about them, what is the best way to move forward to improve those conditions, and what the consequences of any action he takes in an attempt to correct or fix that state of affairs is going to be.

he's a very interesting character and one that I do find sympathetic, especially after Veilguard, but I find it laughable to take anything he says as even remotely grounded in the reality of Thedas now or that his claims about what is and what will be are authoritative. his tragedy is that he is unable to see outside of his perspective and his desperation to assuage his regrets and guilts over hurting others and the world repeatedly in an attempt to make up for or correct his previous hurtful mistakes, which invariably go wrong, creating a vicious cycle. the thing is that Solas does not want to work with the current reality because he feels guilt and regret over creating it, so he is trying to hit a reset button to restore what he destroyed, believing that such a reset is even possible after the world having already changed so much since, adapted to new material conditions, and is trying to find a way forward and better through it—so, I don't necessarily find it convincing that he understands what the current reality even is and whether this is the best course of action to remedy what harm or pain is happening.

if an argumentation starts from a supposition that Solas has the most clear, sensible, authoritative, and grounded assessment and judgment about what is happening now, what must happen to move forward, and what will happen after he acts, I find it a fundamentally flawed one and thus too tedious to entertain, especially given that the series as a whole is very loud about how everything is being filtered through a flawed perspective

[lizzybeeee]

(Same anon) It's also just a lot harder for me because Solas in Inquisition was trying to take down the Veil in a world that was genuinely shitty to elves, mages, and spirits (nvm that until this game I was 100% sure that he was trying to do this more for the ancient elves, like why else imply there are more out there to Abelas? I guess he was just being polite?) Veilguard depicts Thedas as being largely okay with mages and spirits even outside of Tevinter and pointedly doesn't depict racism against elves outside a handful of throwaway lines. So they had him going at this with the same conviction from DAI, of a man trying to reverse the slow genocide of his people, but they've boiled his motivations down to "The Veil is unnatural" Like. How much more awesome if we could have convinced him not to destroy the world because of a culmination of choices in this game and all the others that made Thedas a kinder place idk man. ngnegnwgnf sorry for ranting in your inbox, I still liked Solas enough in this game but it was really bittersweet that they just dumbed down his motivations. I love your idea for influencing the Inky though, it definitely should have been a choice closer to the end and allowed for more variations (ideally all Inkies should have that, not just the Solavellans)

Hello again, Anon! :)

100% agree that the sanitization of the world and lore absolutely hurts Solas's motivations - especially if you look at it solely from what Veilguard gives us and with no background from previous games. All of the previous games, mostly Origins, were really effective in conveying how shit life could be for an elf - and how inbuilt this prejudice against the elves was in all aspects of Thedas.

The chant of light removing the canticle of Shartan, the march on the Dales, the struggles of the Dalish to simply live, the treatment of elves by the ruling class/chantry/ and others in general...it all painted such a bleak outlook for the elves and showed how ingrained this prejudice was in all aspects of Thedas. They had no way out - the structures of power in Thedas would fight them at every turn - which was why Solas being set up as a way for them to fight against all these systems was so compelling! You want the elves to win - but it will be at the cost of everything else if Solas goes ahead with his plan.

(You can definitely also make an argument that perhaps he's using them just to restore the world from before -> Felassan argued with him about this: to see the world as it was as real and worth improving.)

DATV felt divorced from the previous games, and its reluctance to meaningfully go into issues surrounding the lives of elves in Thedas - all the ugliness that brings - really did nothing to add to Solas's motivations for bringing down the Veil. If anything, I got the impression that he does not see anyone in Thedas as being 'real' and that he's simply doing it out of regret and to soothe his own ego/guilt. If this game wanted me to be sympathetic towards Solas it didn't do a good job of making me feel it, especially when you look at the totality of everything that Solas has done.

What I took from Trespasser was that Solas wanted to heal the wound he had left on the world - the Veil - and what he had inadvertently done to the elves. He had given everything he had to free the elven people from oppression and tyranny, only to inadvertently leave them vulnerable to the same oppression from others -> taking away their magic and long lives in the process. He was so blinded by his goal (stopping the evanuris) that he failed to see what his own actions might have wrought in the process.

Trespasser set up the 'Elven Rebellion 2.0' with a Solas who was torn between the world he once knew and the world it had become in spite of his intentions. Does he truly care about the elven people in current Thedas? Or does he just care about the world that came before? In DAI he was such a fascinating character because he could be so polarizing! People loved him! People hated him! Both were correct!

But starting the game with the ritual, sanitizing the world (no real signs of conflicts about spirits, mages, elves, anything really etc...), and simplifying his motivations to "fix fade -> be immortal/magic -> profit"...it just feels so shallow.

Solas: "Long before we met, I failed my oldest friend. She died for that failure. If I leave the Veil in place, I am destroying the world she wanted."

He spells his motivations out pretty clearly at the end and it's just...Mythal? He doesn't seem to care about the elves that are currently living in Thedas - not even Lavellan. Like you said, in Tresspasser I also got the impression that he wanted stop the slow genocide of his people. But apparently it was 'Mythal All Along'!

The lack of supporters/agents really gives him no credence to say that this is anything that the elves want - elven Rook can even call him out on it and he doesn't care. For a character whose own trauma began with bring coerced into a body he didn't want he doesn't give a shit about doing the same to thousands of other elves.

It's far less compelling, to me at least, than what I felt was set up in DAI: the Dread Wolf, god of rebellion, rallying elves after ages of systematic abuse and oppression with the goal of liberating his people and restoring the world that was - the world he inadvertantly denied them with the consequences of his actions. Instead it's just Solas doing his own thing because he's right and he needs to fix what he did wrong for Mythal.

It would have been great to be able to convince him to change his mind/ pursue another path as a result of the culmination of our actions throughout the series. It could be a nice nod to our past decisions and a nice conclusion to see the results of those choice in missives/codex entries. Same as the 'south can repel the blight' counter idea, have their be some kind of 'convince Solas to pursue another option' tally that demonstrates that this world is willing to change and he should be too.

[teoceearts]

Lord Inquisitor Dalinev Lavellan

Knight-Enchanter, First to the Keeper, and Not Your Fucking Herald

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Man, just realised that Feynriel is now pretty much guaranteed to not turn up in Veilguard, which was actually one of my biggest wants

[pinacoladamatata]

All Solas knows how to do is edge 🙄

[magebutts]

they shoulda let us see rook's reunion with their companions right when they rescued them from the fade prison. cowards.

[biblicalhorror]

Just saw someone saying the datv plot twist was stupid because rook escaped a fade prison in 2 weeks when the elven gods were trapped there for millennia. It's like you people don't even believe in the power of friendship or something

[arlathen]

i went to bed thinking about dad solas. i woke up thinking about dad solas. ive seen people talk about him never having been a child. but the spirits observed the dwarves for... like, an incomprehensible amount of time. they certainly understood what babies were. and at some point elves started making more elves the fun way. and i am certain that was a point of fascination -- we all already know how to speak, but these little elves we made do not. let's study how they learn and how they think and how they develop.

my point is that solas absolutely knows these things. the concept of children is not alien to him. he probably knows more about child development than most people.

[oh-what-the-heck-its-xanthar]

Spoilers from the gameinformer dragon age article below, proceed with caution

AAAAAA so much juicy info in the article!!!

First of all, confirmation that it is gilhan'nain and elgar'nan who got released from Solas's ritual -I totally knew it!!! We should def get to see some of gilha'nan's creatures, I'm giggling and kicking my feet

Also the voice from the end of last years Thedas calls teaser has gotta be Elgar'nan then right???? "All the world shall soon know the peace and comfort of my reign," -I mean that's gotta be him!!!

Second of all - solas getting trapped in the fade and inviting us to his base in the fade -the lighthouse?????? THERE BEING ONE PLATE SETUP AT A HUGE TABLE TO SHOW SOLAS' LONELINESS????? my heart plz

Confirmation of frescoes again, hooray, I need to see them now!! (Praying for a fresco of lavellan if you romanced him cause I'm delusional)

Third of all -more info on arlathan forest and bellara!!! Im so excited to meet her! AND -strife and irelin are confirmed as npcs too yippee!!! I've been flopping back and forth between playing a crow or a veil jumper and this article miggghhht sway me to be a veil jumper. They just seem so fun!

There was loads more in the article too but aaaaa I'm just so excited. Manifesting for Bioware to drop pre-orders and the release date soon plz plz plz