#gods.... how they destroyed Tevinter....

[lairofsentinel]

Every chantry symbol in Miranthous is wrong. Every detail, every big statue, every enviroment has been designed so carelessly in this game. They don't even know that the Imperial Chantry has a particular symbol that separates them from the Orlesian Chantry of the rest of Thedas...

[dirthenera]

Ok I need to get this out with the news about devs being fired dropping.

There will be spoilers for Veilguard here so proceed with caution.

EA fucked the game, and the more I think about it, the more angry I am with them.

It all starts with one choice- the devs wanted the veil to come down in that opening, and EA told them no. Told them they couldn’t bring the veil down at all.

It was never going to be a player choice- it couldn’t, it would create two entirely different worlds leading forward, so it would have to be something outside player control, and they were told no.

The veil coming down was outside forces and the veil staying up was Rook’s choice. And had to be Rook’s choice.

Because of that, our Rook could never see the veil coming down as a worthwhile option. Which means we could never engage with it as a reality. We could never ask what that would look like, or question the morality of the veil, either practically, or as a thought experiment. No companions will bring up what it might be like in any positive way or even just as an “I wonder.”

We only get to see veil =bad so Rook must be right.

They cut Solas’ elven followers because having even *one* npc on his side for noble reasons would make us question too much, and we were not allowed to have an opinion other than veil =good, because the devs were hamstringed by it.

No companions ever discuss what it could be like without the veil, and they *should*. Can you imagine Emmrich and Bellara debating it? Emmrich absolutely fascinated by how it would impact spirits and they wouldn’t need to possess anyone or anything, Bellara leery after seeing so much wild magic in Arlathan but wondering if uninterrupted etheric flows would create more stable magic over time. Taash surprising the party by being way more cool with it than expected due to their Rivaini upbringing, and more open to that than necromancy.

Lucanis and Harding being firmly against it to the point it causes some friction in the team, Davrin just staying out of it because he doesn’t get it and doesn’t want to. Harding has a moment of questioning at a weak point after reminiscing about Cole, and wonders how many like him there could be if the veil did come down.

Neve feeling extremely mixed about it, between it possibly allowing a reshuffle of power in Tevinter, removing the ability for mages to make deals with demons, but also upset at the potential raw chaos.

But we never even get to look at that. Because there was no option there. Even if each character landed on veil=good, we never even got to have the discussion, because we couldn’t do anything with it.

And we can see how that spirals out and created a much less morally complex game than we’ve previously gotten. Rook is the good guy because they said so, Solas is the bad guy who, despite being beyond willing to talk to anyone who will listen to him, refuses to expand on what the veil coming down looks like. Because he can’t. Because then we might agree with him.

We’re only allowed Varric’s point of view, which makes sense for the beginning, but there was never an option to expand it. There is one single dialogue option where we can tell Solas “whoops didn’t know that.” But that’s the beginning and end of that train of thought.

They even set us up as this FANTASTIC foil to Solas, having meddled in a ritual we didn’t understand and unleashing multiple blights and elven gods, essentially destroying the south, blighting most of the north, partially destroying a city, and a countless death toll. But taking actual responsibility with that isn’t allowed- because we may sympathize too much with Solas. Because we clearly did the right thing because the veil is still up. It’s not even addressed in the regret prison! Solas tells you thousands would still have died if he took down the veil, but thousands did die as a direct result of Rook meddling. And nowhere can you acknowledge that.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

The thing that still gets me is. Look. Culture wise. Lore wise. Why are ANY of the factions who side with the elven Gods actually siding with them. Obviously the darkspawn are controlled by Ghilan'nain so that's fine but:

The Venatori; largely upper class Tevinter mages, are working with the ELVEN gods???? The elves they believe are so beneath them that they quite literally form a slave class? And they're just willing to be subservient to them without any pushback whatsoever???

The Qunari; strong philosophical/religious philosophy which does not incorporate God-like figures. Culturally very against the idea of chaos (which Ghilan'nain and the blight very much symbolise). From what I can see, the Antam left the Qun because they believed that it wasn't following it's own principles well enough; are they really going to randomly start following gods from some bas religion. FURTHER these gods are powerful mages. Qunari historically are very against powerful mages. I mean, there's a whole DLC about how they decide Solas is a huge threat on sight and needs to be eliminated immediately.

And THEN you have the fact that these two factions, the ANTAM WHO ARE INVADING TEVINTER AND ACTIVELY MAKING SLAVES OUT OF TEVINTER CITIZENS AND DESTROYING THE MINDS OF TEVINTER MAGES are going to just be fine with working with THE TEVINTER IMPERALISTS WHO BELIEVE THAT TEVINTER SHOULD RULE ALL THEDAS AND THAT MAGES ARE GREAT.

Surely these two groups should be the MOST diametrically opposed to working with one another because even if they can wipe out everyone else together, for either to achieve their stated aims the other HAS to cease to exist.

It would be interesting if they were sorta going at this like...the way that the Soviet Union and the US worked together in WWII but then it erupted into a cold war once their mutual enemy was defeated. Or if the gods were hiding the fact they were working with both of them. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

It's just. It's a wild choice. It's basically 'evil people work with evil people no matter what' which is categorically just not how things work.

[mythalism]

The lore drop that bothers me the most with how it's glossed over is that ancient elves were actually spirits and how, without delving more into what spirits actually are, it ends up diminishing them as a people & undercutting their complexity. Even Solas says they reflect the world, a pure embodiment of an emotion, but then what does that say of their society, of their goals and aspirations, hell, even of their war crimes? I'm not trying to argue they're not people, it's just sad that the best exploration of it remains in Awakening with Justice and the only one who argues for their personhood is this game's chosen antagonist. That this is the direction they chose for the people they heavily coded as indigenous makes it all the more egregious that they're relegated to set-dressing (Crossroads, Hall of Valor) or a couple of examples to show some of them are Good (I miss how in Inq, Compassion is said to be a rare spirit and easy to corrupt, Cole is terrified by what he almost became and could become, and in VG u find 2 who are mostly fine, if a bit rattled. Harding even compares them to a mabari puppy??but I digress). Ofc they couldn't humanize the spirits more bc then we'd have to contend with how we're supposed to want them to stay fenced in for all eternity for the safety of the status quo. All the while, their earthly descendants have been invisibilised or killed off-screen, with the exception of a small group u can save and that's used as an opportunity to showcase Solas's growth and how bad the Venatori are. Ancient elves don't exist, city elves are functionally the same as any other npc, and the Dalish have been replaced by the Veil Jumpers, who are totally cool with anyone plundering - I mean, exploring their ruins and seem mostly concerned with isolating dangerous artifacts and shoving them in a museum, hmm... Honestly, I gave up when Irelin said it was easy to forget about the halla. Thank fuck Merrill isn't in this cus she'd be Cyrian. Others have pointed out how nonsensical it is they're all fine with their gods being fake, but also real and evil (yet still invoke the Creators & Mythal and wear vallaslin), so I'll move on to the real horror for me: that none of them knew. There's a banter between Bellara & Emmrich that turned my stomach where he says that elves originally being spirits was a working theory some of them had (oh, to be a fly on the wall during THAT racist debate!), once again placing humans as the natural custodians of elven history and it's all so cruel that it's world-breaking for me. It's awful that elves were abandoned not only by their 'gods', but by what it turns out are their brethren. Am I supposed to believe that for millennia they prayed to their gods, but they only ever spoke to Tevinter magisters? That spirits never shared anything about their common past with the elves? Why did Mythal keep them in the dark? The Dalish have taken great pains to ensure every scrap of history is preserved and shared, despite the genocides, but I guess oral history doesn't count (and they never thought to use spirits? ig they weren't interesting enough to be reflected by spirits either, otherwise they could've found out even more from that) and most of their books and artifacts got stolen/destroyed by humans, too bad the ancient elves never felt any kinship to them, they could've used the lore boost.

1/2

[carolinaspring]

The Veilguard Didn't Save The Veil.

First off, I don't think Veilguard is a bad game. Alone, it's okay. As a DA game, and a game that was set up to be a sequel to Inquisition, it felt a little hollow to me. Again, I don't hate the game, but it just felt off.

No Keep carrying over aside, my main complaint with the story is this:

Solas' main motivation for taking down the veil changed.

Hold on! Hold on! Hear me out first...

1) His purpose is to take down the veil "for his people" and reclaim the time of the elves.

He stated to Flemmeth in Trespasser that "The people... They need me." In fact, he has stated and hinted at this multiple times prior to this game.

I know some of you could still argue that that doesn't change, but the way it is never talked about in Veilguard makes it appear like it has. Allow me to better explain with point two...

2) His regret was largely for his people, not himself or Mythal.

Regret was supposed to be the theme of Veilguard. Okay, nothing wrong with themes, and we saw in Tevinter Nights that a Regret demon formed in Skyhold from Solas' stay there. So, I didn't mind this being what they tried to showcase more in this game. My problem was what his main regret was showcased as.

Solas, being immortal, undoubtedly lived long enough to have much to regret. I do too, and I'm in my twenties! But never has he ever hinted at or stated before the game that he is motivated to take down the veil to make himself feel better for the unforseen consequences of it's creation, nor that he is doing it still because of Mythal.

He once destroyed the world (unintentionally) for the one he loved, and now he is doomed to destroy the ones he loves to "save" the world.

THAT is something to regret. THAT (to me at least), is more narratively interesting. But I digress into point three. . .

3) The veil was going to come down anyway.

Don't scream at me yet! I swear I have proof!

How many times throughout Inquisition did we hear him say "The veil is thin here"? Yes, yes, I know the Breach and rifts didn't help, but this has been happening throughout Thedas before that happened.

The veil has been thinned since it's creation due to wars, sacrifices, blights, ect. (See picture below and where they coordinate.)

Even with the Evenuris and old gods that are still trapped, it was coming down. Solas had to do something! Reguardless on how you feel about HOW he is going about it, you can at least see WHY.

Even with Solas trapped in the fade, the veil will come down eventually, because it was never meant to be made to begin with. Maybe it will be thousands or millions of years, but it will come down, which means...

4) Trapping Solas in the fade is not a permanent solution.

Seriously, though I doubt we are ever getting another DA game, if we do, they should at least address this.

P.S.

Thank you for reading. I just needed to start this conversation because I haven't seen anyone address this yet. 😭

[nerdsandqueens]

Whenever I do my lore exploration and deep dives into the codex entries of the Dragon Age series, there are always these hints of the culture of the Dalish and those in the alienage, but it never fully describes what they are.

As the series began to focus on a narrative about manipulation from on high, it completely dropped the exploration of what the people of the elves took to define and shape their culture. The reclaiming of the vallaslin was but one exploration, but there needed to be more.

Inquisition drip-fed us lore with the expectation of being expanded upon in Dreadwolf, but we ended up getting little to nothing in the renamed Veilguard.

Andruil is arguably one of the most wicked of the Evanuris as equated to Andoral the Appraiser of Slaves. And it is implied that Evanuris slavery became the blueprint of Tevinter slavery.

But Andoral is also the God of Unity, and Andruil is symbolized by the Tree, of Arlathan, and the Vir Tanadhal. The DA rpg guide redefines her third tenet in a manner that evokes unity.

Additionally, it is highly likely that the Vhenadahl "tree of the People" grown at the center of alienages may be in reference to Andruil.

While we can assume it is intended to be a cruel joke of time that Andruil is seen as a symbol for community and strength in numbers when in reality she profited off the blood of her people en masse, but I argue it is far more interesting to ponder what symbol she became to the elves in their revised history. This informs us of elven culture. And by the reveals in Veilguard itself, and implications in Inquisition, there may have been something in her original nature as a spirit of Purpose that lent some credence to these retellings.

While the game paints the fables of the Evanuris as a far-too-benefic retelling of history, it does not erase the fact that the elves told these benefic stories to serve purposes in their new culture. Andruil was once the subjugated wilderness. Now she is both the forest sheltering the Dalish and the Tree of the People of the alienages.

The exploration on Andruil is just a primer however to the sheer abandonment of elven lore and exploration of their culture. Most upsetting and relevant to me is Ghilan'nain's association with guidance, the halla, and particularly the aravels. Some of the most iconic aspects of elven culture in the current era are associated with her.

The diasporic nature of the elves is intrinsic to her lore. Arguably, her fable "The Mother of the Halla" is a tale of victimization by an irreverent and rapacious person that parallels the elves loss of history from humans and more overt situations in the city elf origin in DAO with being preyed upon.

Like the tree of Andruil, the halla become symbols of elven defiance, resilience, and pride despite attempts at being humbled.

Instead, to further the narrative of manipulation on high, we are only given the reality of Ghilan'nain herself as the one who lures the unsuspecting into the dark to disappear and be utterly unmade. Is she simply the corruptor? Or a corruption of being lured, cut open, and gutted? An allegory that needs no elaboration. There is still enough information inspired by old lore in the game that makes me speculate that there was more to Ghilan'nain than just "Evil scientist".

The Evanuris were symbols of elven history and culture as much as they were actual figures in that history. Veilguard's focus on portraying them as villains that even the elves must overcome, paves the way for the entire culture of elves to be erased in the same manner. Their gods must be destroyed and nothing associated with them was anything but evil. The dissonance between the elaborate fables of lore and how the games play out is deafening.

[rook-laidir]

Even more Rook banter!

Rook: Hey, Taash. Do you think you could use your fire to make things move?

Taash: What do you mean?

Rook: If we were sitting on something and it had wheels, and you sat in the back and breathed fire, would it start to move?

Taash: Huh. Dunno. Wanna try it?

Rook: Yes!

~~~

Rook: So what’s your kill count? Do you keep track?

Lucanis: I am a professional assassin. Of course, I keep track.

Rook: So what’s your number?

Lucanis: That depends - are we counting the people I have to kill in order to get to my contract? Henchmen? Lackeys? Antaam who happen to be in the area?

Rook: Point taken.

~~~

Rook: Does Spite have his own kill count or do you share?

Lucanis: If he needs to use my limbs, it’s my kill.

Spite: No fair! My kills!

Rook: Don’t worry, Spite, I know they’re yours.

Spite: More killing!

Lucanis: Mierda.

~~~

Rook: So…we’re spirits.

Davrin: No, we’re not.

Rook: Ancient elves were.

Davrin: We’re not ancient.

Rook: How do you know?

Davrin: I watched you nearly drown in the Treviso canals, Rook. That’s not ancient elvhen spirit behavior.

Rook: Hey!

~~~

Neve: You escaped Tevinter slavery, something the slave owners pride on being nearly impossible, and the first thing you did was join up with the Lords of Fortune?

Rook: It wasn’t the first thing I did. The first thing I did was cough my lungs out from almost drowning. Then I scrounged up enough gold to buy a sandwich, and then I joined up with the Lords.

Neve: Was that always the plan?

Rook: I wanted to join when I was a kid and by the time I was free, I didn’t exactly have a backup plan. Where else was a charming scoundrel like myself supposed to go?

Neve: “Charming,” is that what they call it?

Rook: No, most people call it “pain in the ass,” but I prefer “charming.”

~~~

Neve: You know, we might have time to stop by The Lamplighter later. Maybe catch one of Cida’s shows.

Rook: Neve Gallus, are you trying to make me like Minrathous?

Neve: Hardly. I’m not wasting my time trying to achieve the impossible. But if you insist on coming back to Dock Town after everything, the least I can do is show you the parts that aren’t terrible.

Rook: And I thought I was supposed to be the sweet one.

Neve: You are.

~~~

Rook: Still have some time to catch Cida’s show? Maybe stop by Hal’s?

Neve: Is this your way of saying you like coming to Dock Town now?

Rook: Maybe I just like the people.

Neve: That’s what will get you every time. The people have a way of sticking with you.

Rook: Here’s hoping.

~~~

Neve: Do you ever miss Rivain?

Rook: Hard to miss it when we have an Eluvian that lets me make a day trip out of it.

Neve: Fair. I meant staying there. With the Lords of Fortune.

Rook: Yes, but no, but also kinda? It’s complicated.

Neve: That’s home for you.

~~~

Harding: So I have good news and bad news.

Rook: What’s the bad news?

Harding: The bad news is Assan ate most of the chocolate chip cookies my Ma sent us.

Rook: Aww, your ma made cookies?

Harding: That was the good news.

~~~

Rook: Hey, Emmrich! Do you think it smells like updog here?

Manfred: *happy hiss*

Rook: No, you gotta wait for him to ask what it is first.

Emmrich: *tired sigh*

~~~

Bellara: Rook, I was wondering -

Rook: I didn’t break it.

Bellara: Oh, no, not that! Wait, what didn’t you break?

Rook: Nothing!

~~~

Bellara: Rook, are you ok?

Rook: What do you mean?

Bellara: Our gods are trying to destroy the world!

Rook: They’re not my gods.

Bellara: I know, but it makes everything about us, elves, I mean, so much more complicated.

Rook: I know. And I know people are going to use this as a reason to treat us worse than they already are. But right now, I just want to stop them.

~~~

Bellara: I know you’re not Dalish, but how come you never…

Rook: Cared about the Evanuris?

Bellara: Only if you’re comfortable answering! Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have asked.

Rook: I don’t really care about any gods, elf or not. None of them ever came when I needed them to.

Bellara: Right…sorry.

Rook: You don’t have to keep apologizing.

Bellara: Sorry. Shit. Sorry!

[mllemaenad]

Nope, I am caught again on the tragedy of Andraste as a dwarf and the Maker as a titan.

I mean – what would a titan ask for? What did it ask for?

Valta too: the first thing she says when she connects with her titan is "Too loud ... the song ... stop". Any encounter with a titan is defined by its song – by its desire for isatunoll.

Valta's titan is explicitly quieted by its connection to her. Harding's titan is less stable, and you must undertake an additional quest to help her achieve emotional equilibrium.

In Andraste's case, it seems very much as though her Maker was not soothed by its connection to her, or at least not enough to avoid catastrophe. It screamed for connection; for isatunoll.

How could Andraste even understand what it was asking for? A surface dwarf, or perhaps even half-dwarf, with no access to the history of the dwarven people. There wasn't even anyone to ask! The dwarven empire had recently been annihilated by the First Blight. Even if you went digging for lost secrets – good luck finding them.

Her Maker sings. It craves that song, and desires that all its children should sing with it.

So ... okay! She sings! She leads all her followers in song, some of which at least may be based on her hazy understanding of the things it told her – although this is oral history, so what exactly those things were is lost to time. And so then, maybe, her Maker could be:

But then, of course, it stops being about Andraste or the titan at all. The bit of the Chant of Light that prophecies the successful return of the Maker in response to the songs of his followers was written by Kordillus Drakon, first emperor of Orlais and one of Thedas's most infamous evil conquering bastards. It was written long after Andraste's death and has nothing to do with anything she saw or could do.

From every corner of the earth The Chant of Light echoed, And the Maker walked the land With Andraste at His right hand. And they reached the gates of Minrathous, Where once a terrible fire swept The Light of redemption from the face of the world, And there, the Lady of Restitution Drew her shining sword And plunged it into the ground at her feet, saying: "All sins are forgiven! All crimes pardoned! Let no soul harbor guilt! Let no soul hunger for justice! By the Maker's will I decree Harmony in all things. Let Balance be restored And the world given eternal life." – The Chant of Light: Canticle of Exaltations

I mean – that's some solid bullshit based on absolutely nothing, right there.

It was convenient for Drakon that the idea of collective singing is present in Andrastianism, because it gave him a mandate to conquer and convert. But while Andraste is both a singer and a warrior in legend, those two things don't seem to be directly connected. She and her followers sang together, but she seems to have been largely driven to destroy Tevinter. It was the target of her rage, as the empire that had dominated Thedas and held her in slavery – and likely in some garbled sense the target of her Maker's rage too, as the Old Gods are mouthpieces of the evanuris.

But if you're smart, and as much as I despise him Drakon seems to have been an intelligent man, then it is a logical and politically useful step to link those two things. You must conquer Thedas in order to spread the Chant of Light and ensure the Maker's return.

Thing is, though ... that was never going to work. A choir made up largely of humans and elves, singing a bunch of patchwork folk hymns and occasional bit of political propaganda, isn't going to do a damn thing. That's not what the titan meant. That is a song, but it is not the song.

All those Exalted Marches and forced conversions, the schism with Tevinter, the destruction of the Dales ... from a political perspective they achieved their aim, sure, in delivering yet more wealth and power into the hands of the already wealthy and powerful ... but from a religious perspective it was all for nothing. Complete waste of time.

The Maker likely exists. And it likely does desire a song above all else. It is the core of its being. The thing that was taken from it. The road back from Tranquility.

But I guarantee you none of these Chantry people know the words.

Ah, that's what's frustrating about Veilguard. Half of it is just ... infuriating bullshit I wish I'd never heard. But the other half of it is just ... a fascinating idea they utterly failed to develop.

Never mind the business about the elves being spirits, imagine hitting the Andrastian faithful (in either Chantry) with that one. The Maker is real, and he wants you to sing, but you don't know the words. The Chant of Light isn't the right song.

Not only do you not know the words, you probably can't know the words. You aren't a Child of the Stone. I mean: maybe you are, there are dwarves in the Chantry, but statistically you probably are not.

Oooh. But you know who does know the words, or at least a version of them? The bloody darkspawn, that's who. The darkspawn know at least a part of the song the titans sing.

And you know who was right? The Empty Ones, that's who.

The Empty Ones were a small and short-lived cult based in Nevarra and known for worshipping the blight and, by extension, the darkspawn. Some confuse the Empty Ones with followers of Tevinter's Old Gods—a reasonable mistake since Archdemons are said to be tainted Old Gods. However, it is clear from the histories that the Empty Ones did not worship Dumat and his ilk, but the blight itself. Following Andraste's death, many of her followers fell into a deep despair. They believed that the Prophet's betrayal and execution marked the beginning of the end of the world and that the Maker's wrath would soon come upon them. The most fatalistic of them all gathered together to prepare for their doom. They called themselves the Empty Ones, for they saw themselves as worthless husks, ready to be swept away by the Maker's hand. It is unknown what passed then, but over time, the Empty Ones grew to believe that the blight was to be the tool by which the Maker would end all of creation. They preached that it came from the Void, a place of nothing, and that returning to the Void was something to be celebrated because it meant an end to all pain and all suffering. Some mistakenly take this to mean that the Empty Ones worshipped evil, but that is an oversimplification. The Empty Ones believed the world to be beyond redemption, and that it was the Maker's will that it be destroyed completely. There are tales of Empty Ones scouring the Deep Roads, searching for darkspawn, whom they saw as the blight's prophets in order to assist them in bringing about the next Blight. Predictably, the beginning of the Second Blight saw the end of the Empty Ones. The entire cult made its way to the Anderfels, where they stood in the path of the encroaching darkspawn and, singing in praise of the oblivion that was to overtake them, were consumed. —From Before Andrastianism: The Forgotten Faiths, by Sister Rondwyn of Tantervale – The Empty Ones

I may never recover from how little Veilguard actually talked about the implications of any of this.

[el-bellanaris]

One thing that really stuck with me in datv was during the regrets of the wolf series of missions was a comment made about Solas's actions from Bellara after watching the third regret.

"I mean, they were terrible. No question. But what he did? It didn't just stop them. It destroyed our culture. Our world."

Now if you agree with Solas's actions in this memory Bellara will reply with:

"Even as he destroyed my/our people's world? Locked away who we were?"

I kind of just remember being baffled here because in a previous conversation Bellara even mentioned that the old gods were like Tevinter nobles, not just pure beacons of terror and war. But then to equate the entire culture of the Elves being purely related to who leads them seems so ignorant. Both as a person generally you wouldn't really think that and as an elf in the world of Thedas it completely ignores the entire thousands of years of history to find some simple answer. Some bad guy to blame the world's problems on.

Especially as someone who played as an Elven Inquisitor, it really left me in shock. I think of my Inquisitor standing in the Dales, looking at at ruins of old Elven culture that frankly doesn't make sense to her. I understood at that point that Fen'Harel was the big bad in her own religion, that my character should feel a since of distaste at seeing his statues. But then I was confronted with dozens of statues of him, ranging from a decent size to being the size of a dragon and then to probably about 3-5 times that size sitting on top of a mountain. All of these statues gave me the sense of protection that the Dread Wolf watches over this valley. There is even a shrine to the Dread Wolf himself, something so out of my understanding of why. It felt wrong, he's the bad guy so why did the people who no longer live here revere him so much? It was only finding out that Fen'Harel was twisted in his current perception, that he was a symbol of rebellion who locked away the gods at price of retribution for his friend and in order to free the elves from their oppressors did it start to make sense.

I was Solas first. “Fen’Harel” came later... an insult I took as a badge of pride. The Dread Wolf inspired hope in my friends and fear in my enemies… not unlike “Inquisitor,” I suppose.

(Curtesy of @/daitranscripts)

He was a symbol of rebellion, an inspiration and beacon of freedom amongst the ancient elves. Much like the Inquisitor and Inquisition he became much larger then himself.

I still didn't quite understand it so I went down a rabbit hole on the wiki and through the World of Thedas book to understand exactly how everything came to be.

A general basic recap of what transpired for the Elves from the creation of the Veil until now

So in short the Veil was created before the humans arrived to Thedas, which would have been around the time Solas fell to his deep sleep. There is no exact when this happened but the human's arrival was at about -3100 Ancient and the elves first noticed the "quickening" of their lifespans in -2850 Ancient. Ancient meaning how many years before the forming of the Chantry, so about 3000 years before the first age some 950 years ago at the time of Veilguard (so in total 3950 or so years ago).

Sorry going on a tangent but I find this difference in time interesting, I wonder if the ancient Elves started to notice their children and children's children aging and dying quickly and how horrific that must have been to watch.

Back to the timeline, so Arlathan was eventually conquered by the Tevinter Imperium around -975 Ancient resulting in the Elves becoming slaves to Tevinter until the first Exalted March led by Andraste herself and assisted by Shartan, an Elven man who led the Elven slaves against the Imperium around the year -180 to -170 Ancient.

The result of this long war was the Elves were granted the Dales in the year -165 Ancient to make their own and were free from the hands of oppression once more. They founded the city of Halamshiral - meaning the end of the journey, and lived in their new home whilst keeping human contact low through the protection of their own legion called the Emerald Knights.

This didn't last forever, eventually the first Emperor of Orlais during the first age united Orlais through making the Chantry and their worship of Andraste the official religion. This created unrest between the humans and Elves as they still clung unto their old gods. I'm not going to go into it too deeply but after tensions rose, the second blight happening and a rumours of human sacrifice from the elves to find some answer to the blight the Exalted March of the Dales was declared between 2:10 and 2:20 Glory (700 years before the events of the games). This holy war ended in the Elves losing their second homeland and resulted in:

The creation of alienages for Elves to live in human cities where they were often treated as second class citizens and left to be servants to the humans.

The formation of the Dalish, nomadic Elves who did not want to live under human rule and clung onto what little scraps of their ancient culture they could

The ban of the worship of the Elven pantheon, resulting in city Elves who live in alienages to forget their own history and the Dalish living in rebellion of the Chantry

The erasure of Shartan throughout the Chantry teachings of their own history

So after a good 700 years the Dalish living amongst themselves seemingly started to misunderstand their own history and twisted the fall of the Evanuris to portray Fen'Harel as the bad guy. It seems that the Elves of the Dales remembered enough but during the separation of the Elves into small clans this all changed.

In summary, after 2000 years without godly interference from Solas or anyone else, the Elves survived on their own with new lifespans and then spent about 800 years enslaved by humans. Then founded a new second homeland that inevitably fell after nearly 400 years and was forced to live in tiny groups failing to ever grasp at power.

So back to the events of the game

The game wants us to just believe that all of that history is somehow purely the fault of one man, who sought after the end of a long tyrannical rule of Elgarnan and wished purely for the freedom of his people. Something they succeeded in having for a decent amount of time but ultimately it was the human's greed and eventually arrogance over their own religion that led to the downfall of the Elves and the complete eradication of their own culture.

Solas sees this world as a mistake, the result of a terrible decision and after learning about everything that has transpired in the Elves long bloody history I can sympathise with his thought process. I could not imagine waking up to seeing how the world had torn to shreds my own people's culture and then seeing them forced to live in small groups without ever being able to actually know their own history. Tearing the Veil isn't a good idea and I think Solas is short sighted for thinking it would simply fix anything but I can understand that he wants to give his people back some scrap of power.

He's mourning so much loss and has to live in a world that is is happy to exist on the graves of his people. There is not a single living being at the point of Inquisition that could understand his thoughts (some of that is his fault as he murdered Fallassan). I can understand why the Inquisition could not change his mind at that point, it's difficult to just say don't do it when you don't really understand the weight of his choice and how much it this world existing must utterly destroy Solas, and how in order to keep going he has to think about it all an end to a means. How else can he keep swimming in the same water that must drown him with his own existence.

So I don't exactly understand Bellara's way of thinking here, she is Dalish and cares so deeply about the history of her people but lacks the basic understanding of her people's history which is largely at fault of the humans and the Chantry. She wants to learn so much from reading the books in Solas's home and fixing the archive spirit but doesn't seem to understand the world she is living in right now and how it came to be. Being Dalish would mean she should know about the stories of her people at the very least. She is presumedly from a clan that resides near Arlathan or just generally in the North of Thedas so surely she should know about Tevinter and their bloody history and she would hopefully understand the results of the Exalted March on the Dales.

It truly bothers me as someone who played Inquisition right before Veilguard. How I spent so much time immersing myself into the world as an Elf and had to really come face to face with the build up and tearing down of my own understanding of the world and what that meant for my Inquisitor. Now a lot of this information is pulled from a 3rd party source (The World of Thedas Vol 1) So it's hard to say that the Inquisitor would know every detail written here but the Inquisitor is a leader, a person who was thrust into a role by the Chantry to help people and travels the world. She knows what the difference between herself and the City Elves are. She knows how the Elves are treated in Orlais and Tevinter both from personal experience as being served at Halamshiral and shown in a conversation with Dorian.

We… don’t have Dalish clans coming northward… for obvious reasons.

(Dorian when discussing the background of the Inquisitor if the player character is Dalish in Inquisition)

So surely from this, Bellara should know that being Dalish it just isn't safe to live in certain parts of this world because she is simply not welcome and will be treated like barely a person. But this one line just completely derails her as a person, how can someone so obsessed with her own people's history just not understand exactly what history is. It isn't the results of leaders and and major world ending events, it's the little actions of so many individuals that create the world state as it is right now. And even these actions of leaders are still built up from the help of others. The Inquisitor succeeded because their cause was assisted by so many people. Rook wouldn't have succeeded against fighting the gods and winning if not for the direct help of dozens of people but suddenly about 4000 years of history is the result of one man's actions?

Solas locked away the gods yes, but all he did was destroy the current political system at the time. Killing a King, Empress or Archon would not erase the entire culture of the people they led. It would simply mean a position has opened up. Yes this would leave the people in disarray but the people are still alive, their culture would not be instantly forgotten. Creating the veil fundamentally altered the entire world but that still does not equal the destruction of the Elven culture.

Now I love Bellara so much as a character but as someone who became so obsessed with the history of the Elves because of Inquisition this just feels like such a shallow attempt at making us have a reason to hate Solas while fundamentally not understanding your own character.

[crossdressingdeath]

Y'know, I emphatically did not and do not want an "agents of Fen'harel" faction. If I was the betting type I'd put money on that getting canned because someone in the writer's room paused and said "Hey, guys, we've been getting complaints about how we treat the elves and especially the Dalish for over a decade now, maybe we shouldn't write in a faction of elves who are supporting genocide". I remember even back when I first played DAI in 2017 seeing comments I agreed with about what a bad look it was for Bioware to say elves were joining up in huge numbers with a guy whose explicit goal was destroying Thedas. But I do wish DAV had engaged with it just a little bit; just enough to point out that... yeah, eventually it would've become clear to Solas's followers that he was trying to end their world. We see a little bit of it in Tevinter Nights when he makes an effort to recruit Charter; her response is basically "even if you're right and your plan won't kill me it's going to kill the human woman I love, fuck no". Of course Solas has no followers left! Any he did have left probably ditched after he drowned Minrathous in demons, insisted he "had plans to minimize the damage", released a couple of evil gods (which was Solas's doing, stop falling for his nonsense, the ritual goes wrong when he stabs Varric and not when Rook knocks over the statue) and then got stuck in the Fade, either because they realized his genius plans would at best have absurd amounts of collateral damage or because they wanted all that death and were mad he was trying (or at least claiming he was trying) to mitigate it.

[bleeding-star-heart]

Just finished the game, and holy shit

The entire elven pantheon is dead. I mean, at the end, either Bellara or Neve (whoever's kidnapped) tells you that Elgar'nan is the only thing holding up the Veil. And they're right, because after his boss fight, the Veil instantly shatters. My theory: Solas killed at least one or two elven gods during the opening scene of Veilguard. Sure, he claims he was transferring them deeper into the Fade, but as the game's events establish, Solas is a lying liar who lies. Firstly, it's possible for him to do this because, as most fans know, the Grey Wardens killed five Archdemons over the course of nine centuries. The Reddit AMA leaves it ambiguous as to what happened to the trapped Evanuris each time that happened. The writers say it "broke their minds and bodies" for certain, but even then, they don't elaborate on what that means. They say that "a couple may have survived as shells", implying certain Evanuris died pre-Solas's ritual. But they don't say which ones and they don't say when these deaths happened. Plus, if killing an Archdemon was enough to instantly kill a trapped Evanuris, it'd be in Solas's best interests not to do his little ritual. All he'd have to do was sit on his heiny and wait for the next two Blights to occur. And since the ancient Tevinter magisters, according to him, only released "a trickle" of the Blight, he'd likely be perfectly fine with doing that. However, given that: -Solas is so insistent on tearing down the Veil this instant, no ifs and or buts, -doesn't get involved at all with the Grey Wardens on his own initiative (unlike Flemythal)

-appears to hold the Grey Wardens in a sort of contempt

It seems to me that just killing an Archdemon every naturally-occurring Blight doesn't do the trick when it comes to eliminating the Evanuris. The Grey Wardens have not been unintentionally destroying the Veil this whole time; they have merely been making it possible/easier for Solas to do so. Waiting for the next two Blights to roll around will not accomplish a lot, if you consider it from Solas's perspective. Minimum reward for maximum carnage.

So yes: Solas was low-key committing deicide during the interrupted ritual. How he planned to kill the two deities who still had Archdemons, I'm not sure. But I know he was killing whatever "shells" of the Evanuris were left.

[lotreckk]

ive decided to post it here too!!! information about my rook, yay

aethius "mercar" // rook for the veilguard, ma da’ise for the certain god of vengeance

age: 38? (he doesn't know the exact date)

height: ~5'3"

mbti: istj (close enough)

pronounce & sexuality: he/they demisexual

race & origin: tevinter city elf

class & subclass: mage, spellblade (knows basics of blood magic, but keeps quite about it)

faction: shadow dragons

"romance": elgar'nan

short description:

among the shadow dragons, aethius is known as an elf who literally forced ashur to accept himself into the organization by spying on their operations and presenting a pile of venatori corpses as "an offering". aethius asked them for help in finding information about his missing friend, a laetan scholar, named celestine mercar, in exchange for aethius's own service and skills. always silent about his past, he never quite fitted into the shadow dragons, still considering the world to be a strictly hierarchical structure with slavery and suffering being the inevitable elements of life. however, he loved minrathous, and he was smart and efficient, eager to slay the venatori, slave traders, even some magisters, viewing them as pathetic rot, destroying tevinter from within. he possessed the strange amount of knowledge about tevinter history and rituals too and easily navigated through different kind of ruins, including those under minrathous. after a while, aethius learned to trust tarquin and ashur. that was how they found out that he had once been a slave, although aethius dropped this information as casually as the fact that he had always loved cats.

one day, he got acquainted with varric, who was searching for the traces of "the dread wolf" in tevinter for lady-inquisitor lavellan. though, the shadow dragons were too busy, solving their own problems, aethius agreed to help varric. his reason was simple: they learned that there would be venatori mages at the slave market deal, who both might know about the dread wolf and not long ago had been in the same tevinter ruins, that celestine had been interested in. their plan worked but they caught an eye of tevinter authorities. thus, ashur and tarquin talked aethius into joining varric in his hunt for the dread wolf, who turned out to be fen'harel, the ancient elven trickster-god, whom aethius called fenrir for a while, according to tevinter tradition.

funfacts:

- aethius is obsessed with maps & has a detailed map of the catacombs of minrathous.

- he speaks with an accent & inserts words in tevene into his speech. in elven, he knows the basic set for tourists & random names of ancient artifacts.

- aethius prayed to lusacan once in his life (it didn't help, but as a moral support).

- dalish culture makes less sense to him than tevinter culture & stories about the ancient elven empire.

- he has a habit of drinking the most terrible coffee.

- slave traders & the venatori back in minrathous call him "that damned incaensor" (derogatory slang for a magic-using slave - dangerous but useful if controlled) and he wears it with pride. yes, he is very dangerous for them.

backstory:

aethius was born into slavery in minrathous and the entire period of his life up to the age of 15-16 often merges into a blurred canvas in his memory. his master, magister arida, was an altus mage engaged both in politics and in the study of ancient tevinter, in particular, the former temples and sanctuaries, dedicated to the old gods, which had not been yet transformed into the circles of magi. he craved to possess the knowledge of the remnants of powerful magic in such places.

when aethius's magic manifested, his master taught him some basics because it was still dangerous to leave an ignorant child without any control over his magic on his own. though, magister arida quickly returned to his studies, and that's why aethius's magic has always been of the chaotic destructive type, something practical yet unstable.

aethius became a kind of a personal errand-slave-boy who was taught to silently and effectively clean up the mess after magister's rituals (and so he learned about blood magic). because of this, his relationships with other slaves and servants were bad, but he didn't really care about it as long as he could have been a useful instrument for his master. magister arida praised the old gods, explaining their "silence" by the decline of tevinter and its people. but even the unworthy hands, such as the hands of some dirty little elf, could shed blood in the name of the great dragons.

when aethius was about 16, his master found a place called sanctum lusacan under minrathous and conducted some experiments with magic and old rituals there. this lasted until an incident occurred in which magister arida came into conflict with his "colleagues" and they killed each other right in the sanctuary. this event was both horrifying and spectacular with spells flashing and summoned demons screaming around. aethius managed to hide in this chaos. it was the only time in his life when aethius actually prayed. aethius knew this place was sacred and he knew that his master wanted to hear the voices of the old gods. so he prayed for lusacan's grace because he reaized that really didn't want to die. the gods remained silent but this helped aethius to calm down somehow. for the first time, aethius decided something for himself and run away, though he did feel guilty about it.

shortly after, he met his future best friend and short-time crush - celestine mercar, a young laetan mage and scholar, who was more into history and the past than anything else around him. celestine needed a qualified servant who would accompany him on his travels and fieldwork without reporting to his father every step. aethius's position was not completely legal in tevinter, but somehow he became celestine's assistant (normal assistant this time) and, then, his closest friend.

they travelled a lot for some time, visiting ruins in different parts of thedas. celestine was very interested in old tevinter and its connection to ancient elven empire. though he was never one of those mages and magisters who praised the dominance of tevinter. celestine was first and foremost a scholar. thus, aethius listened with feigned reluctance to his friend's endless chatter about history and somehow remembered many random facts to this day. besides, he read some of celestine's books to entertain himself during long nights without anything better to do. it was also then that aethius learned to use magic properly and gained experience in exploring ruins and dealing with what one might encounter there. the thin threads of connection between arlathan and what tevinter people use in their country to this day began to fascinate aethius too. although he could never see himself as being "elven enough", he sympathized with these stories through the tevinter lens.

celestine had to get married after his father's death, since he inherited the family title. he had to settle down in the city and give up endless trips, and aethius stayed with him, periodically doing his own things in minrathous or traveling somewhere for his friend. unfortunately, celestine's wife, to whom celestine was deeply attached, died, leaving behind a child. celestine, depressed because of the inability to finish his projects and the death of his wife, shut himself off from the world in his cabinet, absorbed in books. lucero mercar - his child - was taken care of by servants and sometimes by aethius. it was not a pleasant experience for any of them, because lucero themselves felt unwanted and unloved, and aethius believed that children should be raised like in a military barracks on the principle of "learn how to swim or drown".

by the age of 18, lucero ran away from home, tired of their broken household. aethius did not know where they had gone, but he suspected that they headed to anderfels, because lucero loved heroic stories about the grey wardens. celestine also "disappeared" one day, leaving without telling anyone where he was going. aethius was left alone and lost again, still struggling to find his own path in life without dedicating himself to someone else.

so, aethius decided to at least find his friend and that was the reason why he joined the shadow dragons - they had information about all kind of things. aethius has never been an ardent supporter of the fight against slavery, not believing that there can be a future without rigid hierarchy and order. however, he had his own standards for who should be the leader of the people, so he was happy to eradicate the venatori, slave traders or any other enemy of the shadow dragons he considered undeserving of their position.

he met varric after a while, got entangled in the unimaginable events, which against his own will put him into a leading position, met a lot of people and, apparently, gods too. these events forced aethius to come face to face with all the fears, doubts and identity crises that he had avoided all these years, convincing himself that his life was "normal" and that he, not a person, but a tool, was simply not capable of living in any other way.

in addition to unwilling meetings with solas in the fade, aethius found his mind accidentally connected to another elven god, who was much more insistent in continuing conversations in aethius's dreams. aethius tried to avoid sleeping for days at a time because talking to lusacan- elgar'nan caused him an emotional turmoil worse than solas's remarks about his decisions. however as their communication developed further, aethius discovered in his mind a conflicting interest in elgar'nan, a subtle desire to understand a man whose views partly coincided with how he himself perceived the world order.

aethius reluctantly and slowly changed some of his beliefs during the veilguard events, healing his old "wounds". and so he began to wonder whether elgar'nan had always been the embodiment of tyranny, or he had been corrupted. whether he had changed and hardened himself so much in the conviction of his own righteousness to protect and guide his people that the spirit he had been before has faded into obscurity.

personality traits:

- aethius is efficient and goal-oriented, always does his job well and feels it his duty to correct mistakes if he makes them. aethius can be very dedicated to his cause, however often not because of his beliefs but because he is determined to finish the job.

- he tends to be straightforward to the point when people consider him rude. although aethius really has a venomous tongue, he often just hates unnecessary small-talk. he can be sarcastic in a good mood, though his jokes are often dry and dark.

- he has a sharp mind, attentive to details, and easily invents ways to solve problems, always making plans. however, in everyday life, it is very difficult for him to change his views and get used to something new.

- aethius might be judgemental at times. it is difficult for him to apologize and express care verbally. he hates the concept of regrets, considering those who justify themselves and cry about the past as liars and hypocrites, if not weaklings. and so he does repress his own regrets, he hates feeling sorry for himself or acknowledging his own pain in any way.

- aethius prefers order to chaos, struggling to understand the concept of freedom, of life without rules and restrictions. it has been a long time since he was this child who wiped the blood from the floors of his master's mansion with an empty gaze, but he has his own standards, rules and ideals by which he lives. aethius would never admit it, but he does crave approval too, maybe even recognition of his old and hidden pain, which sometime makes it easy to influence him.

- deep down, aethius is a loyal and deeply attached person to those he trusts. it is hard for him to let people go to the point when he refuses to accept celestine's and varric's deaths he learns about during the events of the veilguard.

abilities:

aethius is good with knives and daggers, combining their use with his magic.

he mainly uses fire and lightning elements. aethius is familiar with the basics of blood magic and knows how to use it, although he rarely does it. he has not received a theoretical magical education and it is sometimes difficult for him to control his connection with the fade, though he is not afraid of spirits and demons.

he knows many random facts about the history of thedas and quite a lot about the history of ancient tevinter, dragons and arlathan in the works of tevinter scholars. in addition, he is familiar with some rituals of worship and prayers to the old gods.

aethius draws maps and it helps him calm his mind. thanks to this, he also easily navigates unfamiliar terrain.

[cadaveerie]

spoilers for DA2, DAI, DATV (from things seen in the first Dragon Age: The Veilguard gameplay reveal, and from the character designs and descriptions) and Tevinter Nights (The Horror of Hormak)

Trying to guess what gods Davrin and Bellara's vallaslin represent

Long post ahead. TLDR at the end!

I suppose that someone has already made some comparison like this, but I couldn't find any post that compares the images like this so I'm doing one!

Firstly, the source: The chart in which the vallaslin were assigned to their gods for the first time was posted by Matt Rhodes (post).

The vallaslin used in that chart are from Dragon Age: Inquisition, so we don't have an official confirmation for the vallaslin of DAO or DA2. The designs are different in those two games, but they're similar enough to make a guess. For further reference, aside from the confirmed DAI version I'll try to assign the vallaslin that I suspect might be Davrin and Bellara's to their respective DAO version.

Now, the post itself is under the cut:

Davrin - Ghilan'nain

Ghilan'nain is the elven goddess of guides and navigation. She is often called the Mother of the halla—white deer-like creatures revered by the Dalish and used to pull their aravel, or "landships".

Comparison to DAO's, this is the most likely to be Ghilan'nain's vallaslin, in my opinion. This image belongs to codexapocryphal, who made this post. After looking at all the vallaslin, I agree with them that this is the one that's most likely to be Ghilan'nain's.

Ghilan'nain is my best guess for Davrin.

The reasoning:

Theme

The Mother of the Halla, a goddess closely related to animals, who loves and protects them, and who herself became the first halla. The goddess that created countless monsters so wild that she had to destroy most of them after her beloved pleaded her to stop (Codex: The Ascension of Ghilan'nain). And possibly, she might have been the one responsible for the events of The Horror of Hormak, a story in Tevinter Nights that narrates how two Grey Wardens find a temple that, coincidentally, is full of halla horns symbolism in its columns, and in which from a strange pool come out horrifying mutated darkspawn and monsters. There's also some other symbolism in the story that suggests that it might be Ghilan'nain's doing, but that's the most obvious one (aside from the fact that the pool is straight up creating monsters, as Ghilan'nain is known to do).

She is also said to help Dalish hunters find their way home when they're lost. And all of that -- the hunter, the monster and the animal elements, sound very accurate to Davrin, who is both a monster hunter and one of the Grey Wardens that were assigned to raise a griffon (perhaps he loves animals like she does, that'd be cute :D).

Additionally, if it turns out that it's indeed Ghilan'nain's vallaslin, we will probably end up getting this information in-game, since Ghilan'nain is one of the gods that Solas (and Rook) freed by accident. Oops.

Design

Based on the design alone, I think you could easily see a halla's horns in it. However, I think it can be a little hard to properly identify which vallaslin we are talking about by only looking at the forehead, since some of the designs look very similar to each other, especially in the forehead region.

Having said that, I think that if we look both at his forehead and chin, the Ghilan'nain vallaslin design from Inquisition is the most similar to Davrin's, since both vallaslin occupy the forehead and the chin only and the "horns" are making similar shapes.

Other reasons

One of the reasons why I believe it might be hers as well is because it would make a very interesting conflict for Davrin. The monster hunter who has to fight this... monster-looking creature, that on top of that is the goddess his vallaslin represents?

And it's even crazier if we consider what Solas reveals to f!Lavellan in one of their romance scenes: that the vallaslin are actually slave markings that nobles forced their slaves to get. I wonder what Davrin (and Bellara, and a Dalish Rook) would think if they knew this... And I wonder what a god would think if they saw an elf with one of their symbols on their face. Would they believe they're a slave dedicated to them? Who knows, if some of the theories out there are true, perhaps the gods themselves could have some control over them. Not sure how likely that is, but it would be interesting and add yet another layer of drama (and maybe it's reaching, but it reminds me to what happens if you bring Anders with you to the Deep Roads in the Legacy DLC, that he turns against the team. I wonder if something like that would be possible if you bring Davrin along and have to fight this goddess at some point. tbh I love this trope.. I know it's too extra but I hope it's true lol).

Other options

If not Ghilan'nain's then I believe the other most likely options are the following:

Mythal's (complex version), The All-Mother, the patron of motherhood and justice (the flip side of vengeance):

and Falon'Din's, the god of death and fortune who guides the dead to the Beyond:

And the both of them is because even if they have a cheek part that Davrin's doesn't have, it's similar enough to his in both the "horns" aspect and the chin. At least enough, I suppose... I still think it's way more likely that it's Ghilan'nain, though. For the rest I can't seem to find enough similarities to even suggest them... but here is all of them, in case you want to check:

link!

Bellara - Dirthamen

Dirthamen is the elven god of secrets and knowledge.

Comparison to DAO's, this is the most likely to be Dirthamen's vallaslin, in my opinion. This image belongs to codexapocryphal, who made this post. After looking at all the vallaslin, I agree with them that this is the one that's most likely to be Dirthamen's.

I know that for this one, the DAO and the DAI one don't seem that similar to each other, but I believe that there's still similarity, especially in the cheeks. Since this is speculative it might not even be the right comparison, but it's not that relevant either way.

Dirthamen is my best guess for Bellara.

The reasoning:

Theme

The Keeper of Secrets, he is the god that gave the elves the gift of knowledge. Both him and Falon'Din, his "twin brother", would venture into The Fade often to learn secrets. He's also said to have gifted the elves the gifts of loyalty and faith in family.

It's pretty clear that this would make sense for Bellara, since she's a Veil Jumper, the people that explore the ancient ruins of the Arlathan Forest looking for ancient secrets of the elves. And Bellara herself is described in the EA website as "obsessed with discovering the ancient secrets of ancient Elvhenan". This god seems to be a perfect patron for her.

Contrary to the dynamic that Davrin might have with Ghilan'nain, the other god that escaped as we saw in the gameplay reveal was probably Elgar'nan (if you want to know why, you can watch this video by Jackdaw). So if Bellara's vallaslin is Dirthamen's, then she wouldn't have this sort of connection to one of the gods that escaped as Davrin does for having Ghilan'nain vallaslin (although it would have been funny, but I suppose it's better this way, to give each character their own personal struggle facing this. And at the end of the day, both of the gods that escaped are still part of the pantheon she follows, so it'd be significant for her as well regardless of who was released).

Design

Compared to Davrin's, this is a bit harder to figure out, as the two vallaslin look significantly more different. To me the most relevant part when we compare DAI Dirthamen's design to Bellara's are the geometrical shapes, especially the triangles, as this shape (in this form of... dots, almost) is never found in other vallaslin.

And I think that the design in her cheeks is also kind of similar to Dirthamen's in DAI, as they are little triangles/diamonds that go across a longer curve. It could be a reach though... I'm not super confident in this one, but considering the other options, this one seems like the most similar.

Other reasons

Relevant to her overall design and her vallaslin, it seems that the triangle (and geometric shapes, but mostly the triangle) is a relevant motif for her. She's full of them all over her outfit... although as seen in the concept art below, it's not so much a "her" thing as it is a general theme for Veil Jumpers. I also suppose that they took a lot of their style from the elvhenan and their ancient artifacts that they found in the Arlathan Forest.

Other options

The one that in my opinion looks the most like it could be Bellara's, aside from Dirthamen's, is June's, the elven Master of Crafts, a god of crafts and building. I believe this because of the little dots June's has under the eyes, which I think look similar to what Bellara has in her cheeks, and also to those she has right below her eyebrows. The forehead part also looks... kind of similar to hers. One of the biggest differences is that June's DAI vallaslin goes down the neck, and hers doesn't (and doesn't even have anything on the chin, but Dirthamen's DAI one also has something on the chin).

I've also seen some people suggest Sylaise's (the complex version), the goddess of all the domestic arts, or Falon'Din's, the elven god of death and fortune who guides the dead to the Beyond... but to be honest I just don't see enough resemblance, and I don't think thematically it makes as much sense as Dirthamen's does.

And once again I leave the picture of all of DAI's vallaslin in case you want to check:

and the link, again!

And that's all! Sorry if this was too long!

Keep in mind that at the end of the day we know that the vallaslin are different depending of the region, so that's the in-game reason why they're different. That and of course, there can always be slightly changes, especially in this game since it's been 10 years since the last one came out.

Do you agree or have any other take? If you have other theories for this or you spot any mistake, please let me know! Thank you for reading :D

TLDR: It's Ghilan'nain for Davrin and Dirthamen for Bellara, probably? But we're just guessing here.

the DAI vallaslin images from the wiki, they were uploaded by KeladinStorm and  Evamitchelle so shoutout to them!

Edit 1: Confirmation for Bellara

[broodwoof]

forever thinking abt solas and sera as extraordinary foils of each other

elven history v. elven modernity is a big thing but just as major imo:

rebellion

solas is the dread wolf, the trickster god of rebellion and deception. we know now that it's more nuanced than all that, but he did lead a rebellion - and with good cause!

sera is a modern rebel, and what does solas do? he tries to share his experience with her. he talks about the tactics of rebellion, the choices to be made, the difficult things that lay ahead. sera listens and then rejects it and he's so confused. she's a rebel, she obviously cares about people, why won't she take it all the way?

but her reasoning is about avoiding his consequence and he doesn't even see it. she doesn't want to kill or ruin all nobles bc to do so would plunge everyone into chaos and she recognizes that. solas plunged all of arlathan into a chaos so profound it destroyed it

in a lot of ways, sera is wiser than solas, wiser about people, about reaction, about cause and effect. he went to extremes in order to free slaves and to punish the evanuris. she knows that nobles are awful and that servants and workers and all the people who provide for them are abused and misused, but she doesn't think wholesale destruction is the answer and she isn't wrong

and what's the difference? imo, community and experience. solas is such an academic, distanced from those he seeks to protect, and can be very paternalistic. sera has lived these things. she talks about how some of the red jennies make enough coin to retire and how the ones who do good are fine but others end up being the target of the jennies. she knows how people can change

also: the red jennies scare the nobles. there's power in that. it's far from perfect, but that doesn't mitigate the very real power in it. what if instead of destroying everything, solas had led a rebellion that put fear in the hearts of the evanuris? what if he forced them to confront that they, too, could face the consequences of their actions? it wouldn't have been easy but it would have prevented the absolute destruction that followed

and he! doesn't! fucking! see it! he doesn't see that sera's reasoning is about avoiding his mistake! he doesn't see that sera's wisdom grounded in experience counters his naivete grounded in an academic pursuit of justice!

which imo is all the more reason to believe he's a spirit. he had, and perhaps still has, a very simplistic view of things like this. if there is an injustice you fix it. you don't live with it and change it by degrees, you don't try to alter it at the root, you just Fix It, whatever form that takes. the evanuris are bad? imprison them. simplistic punitive justice. to sera, the nobles are bad? make them, THESE nobles, fear reprisal. give power and anonymity to the people being hurt. but don't get rid of all the nobles only to have to start the process over again

and we don't know the full form of solas' rebellion, granted. he may have tried many things for a long time. and arlathan appears to have been much worse than thedas is now - even tevinter doesn't seem as bad as arlathan is vaguely implied to have been. but he still destroyed... everything. he killed so many innocents. and yes, again, his situation was different - he talks about the evanuris destroying the world if he didn't stop them. perhaps he's right. it's not a 1:1 comparison, I get that. but they are still very profound foils of each other, and I find his insistence that sera should follow his path to be a fascinating bit of insight into his character, continuing to opt for extreme measures

[apostaterevolutionary]

So another thing I want to talk about post-veilguard re: the lore. There's been plenty of long explorations of the de-fanging or just skipping entirely when it comes to the political stuff and I think the topic's been covered pretty well by others at this point, so I won't dwell on that. But I do want to talk a bit about the higher, more mystical lore with respect to gods/religions and the direction it's taken since inquisition's dlcs. Because... ngl, I didn't love it then, and I don't love it now

(Veilguard spoilers, but this also is about inquisition's dlcs too)

So. First off: I have not actually played the descent or trespasser. Because, at the time they were released, I was playing on previous gen consoles and thus I literally could not buy them even if I’d wanted to (and at the time, I did want to). I maintain that was incredibly dumb 10 years later, given trespasser was the actual ending of the game locked behind a price tag, but let's not beat skeletal horses huh lmao

Anyway. So I have only read about the events of those on the wiki/in people's posts (I don't enjoy watching let's plays unless it's someone doing something weird so). I own all the dlcs now, as I now have a computer that can run the game and I bought all of them, but every attempt to replay inquisition since my insane fervour when it first released has failed. I just can't finish the game, so I can't play the dlcs. Anyway. All of this to say: my knowledge of what happens in them may be skewed and even wrong. But I'm gonna talk about the topics anyway, so please feel free to chime in if I’ve got something wrong

So firstly: the titans. I remember really not liking this development when the dlc came out cause like. What? I read the wiki page then (and again recently, cause I remembered very little lmao) and honestly I still don't like it cause it just feels so... at odds with everything else in the lore? Idk. I still don't get how it fits in with absolutely anything. Feels out of nowhere and doesn’t really fit. But okay, they’re here now, and I’ll talk about their tie in to the rest of the lore later. But suffice to say: it just felt like a weird thing then and I maintain it does now too. Like it just doesn’t fit and feels like a weirdly forced addition. I guess that’s personal opinion but I gotta say it

But the bigger part of this is. The sort of... removal of all religions in Thedas for the sake of just. Elves were everything? At first, I really disliked the rewriting of elven gods as tyrants cause it's like... the simple, silly elves mourning everything they lost but actually what they lost was oppression and slavery even worse than today!!! That has implications I really dislike. But now it's... okay Tevinter gods? Well, people worshipping dragons makes sense, even if they weren't really gods - sike! They weren't just dragons either, they were fucked up dragons controlled by the elven gods. The elven gods which aren't even gods, but really just random people. Except those people were also fade spirits made physical. But still not gods! It's important that they are not in fact gods and just powerful mages! Oh also the maker is bullshit too and Solas was the maker, at least in the context of the golden city story (I'm actually fine with the maker and that story specifically not being real it's just. The combo of everything, you know). Also the elven not-gods destroyed the titans too! So also dwarven problems were their fault too! And destroying the titans created the fucking BLIGHT!!! You know, the worst thing to ever exist! Everything comes back to just these guys!!!

Like. It’s all Solas and the Evanuris all the way down. Everything is just them. It makes the world feel so… small. I don't like how everything's just narrowing in on one thing here? Fantasy with different races and religions are fun because it's like. I found the original stories interesting. The story of the elven gods and the forgotten ones being locked away by a trickster so that only he remains is such classic myth shit. I enjoy that. Lyrium being a weird, magic rock that just exists and also it’s poison? Yeah, that makes sense - we have radioactivity in real life lmao, why can't rocks be weird in a land of magic. The blight just. Existing as an evil thing, either as a result of the golden city story or something else - that’s also fine. And as much as the andrastian religion has done some terrible stuff (and the like. it just being christianity but jesus was a woman this time is kind of boring), the concept of worshipping an absent god is actually pretty interesting

And now it just feels like

Idk to me it feels so limited to just boil all of these interesting mythologies and beliefs down to just... well it was all the Evanuris. Everything was the Evanuris. Also they weren't even gods, they were just terrible. There are no gods in this world. If you want a religion, better bring paragon worship to the surface or go join the Qun cause apparently they're the only ones who have any kind of factual stuff going on in their religions (for now, at least lmao)

I recall seeing a post somewhere asking why no one in this game is religious at all. Well, I think this is why: most of the religions are about to not exist anymore. The dwarves are mostly okay, cause paragons are just ancestors, they were real people (though I'm sure there are some who's history has been distorted). Like the titan thing is a thing but idk how bothered most dwarves are by that, it’s not really brought up much. The Qun doesn’t have any sort of deity that we know of so like. They're okay. Except they don't have a military so. That's a problem for the nation, which could lead to the religion ceasing to exist if anyone decides to conquer them back after all the shit. Idk. I'm an atheist irl lmao so this feels kinda weird to harp on but it is very weird to me for a fantasy game to just. Destroy all the gods and beliefs like that. I suppose it's a unique choice but still... Why

(I also just remembered we still have the Avvar I guess, but they worship spirits, no? Which are also not really gods, but at least that’s also a believable religious concept. I’ve never seen a fantasy setting with no real gods before honestly. It’s a very bold choice, one I’m not sure I like)

And maybe! I'm missing something, either something that was maybe hidden in a codex or book I haven’t read or something that happened in one of the dlcs I haven't played but. Idk. The world of thedas feels just so small and cramped now that we know that everything most citizens of the world has ever believed was false and just boiled down to a small handful of old timey tyrants. Even the falseness I could deal with, but the limiting of just. Oh it was all just these guys. That’s it. All them. That's just... I don't like it. The larger context of dragon age lore is… idk it’s been getting smaller and smaller since the end of inquisition and I don’t like that

I started drafting this partway through playing and one of the things I also talked about was ‘where the hell are future games going to go now???’ but now I’ve also seen the secret ending and that… once again implies there’s something bigger behind absolutely everything? I sincerely hope that’s in a like. Subtle influence thing and not ‘oh yeah, Loghain and Bartrand were actually ~manipulated~’ way cause taking away their agency makes them infinitely less interesting characters (plus Bartrand already has the lyrium idol as part of the reason he did what he did). Like pls don’t let this turn into an idea that people can’t just do terrible things. Please, we really don’t need that. That may not be where it’s going but idk, that got my hackles up lmao

AND apparently in the reddit AMA they said they were done with the Evanuris’ story but like… the Evanuris were just everything that’s ever been believed in? I guess they don’t have to personally show up but… idk I kinda figured there’s no way to get away from them now. Also Solas, is still kicking around, even though presumably with the veil being tied to him... assuming he did get out or was freed again, he wouldn't kill himself to tear down the veil, right? Right??? This isn't an issue that may come up one day????? I kinda feel like it's a little bit of a plot hole

But that’s kind of a side point. The larger thing here is how we see the major religions and mythologies in Thedas all just converge on the same thing, a thing which is no longer an issue so. They’re mostly just gone? I can’t imagine the chantry is going anywhere soon (though with the south so thoroughly fucked, who knows, maybe too many people died and the religion will die too cause the political power structure is completely gone – if Tevinter didn’t get a new, good leader during veilguard I’d say they’re definitely going to take advantage of the weakness of the south to make their empire big again. Also ngl I actually think that would be an interesting thing to happen but oh well lmao). Not only are there no actual gods in Thedas, almost every religion was actually this one group and that’s it. That’s just so bizarre to me and I don’t like the implications. Fantasy settings and religions and deities go hand in hand and I guess they don’t have to but. It does feel like the world is smaller now, not bigger

Idk I don’t really have a real big conclusion here it’s just. Why do this? Why tie so much of the lore back to just one group? A group you’re also apparently done with now? And with the secret ending hinting at yet another group that even more things are going to be tied back to… This feels like very simplistic storytelling, not complex storytelling to me. And I don’t like that

[lillotte17]

I am apparently back on my Art History Bullshit in re: DATV, because we're walking around Arlathan and we found a pair of the golden Fen'Harel's Mourning statues and Rook and Co. make a quip about how Solas must be responsible for them being there which is just...

1) He would not do that. Paint himself in various stages of grief and/or as a way of expressing/preserving events as he experienced them? Yes. Sure. Insist that people erect golden statues of him everywhere? No. Absolutely not. He was trying to get people to NOT label him as a god.

2) Arlathan continued to exist after the creation of the Veil!! It caused massive devastation and it weakened the elves as a whole, but even so, the empire did not collapse in on itself overnight. That means that the people who lived through the end of the reign of the Evanuris, and knew first hand what both they and Solas had done (or at least as much as they could glean through propaganda) either chose to leave the statues of Fen'Harel standing after he raised the Veil OR they ADDED the statues after the Veil?

Both options seem strange. It's possible that even after the destruction wrought by the Veil, enough of the elves were grateful to be free from the Evanuris that they elevated Solas to godhood and complete veneration. At least for a while. And then when Tevinter invaded and elvhen culture was scattered and destroyed, they became bitter towards him again and blamed him for their losses. It feels like a stretch though. Those statues are EVERYWHERE.

Elgar'nan is also petty af. He burned the memories of certain feelings from the minds of every living being. He erased the name of 'The Healer' from every record and mural in the Empire. (which I low-key suspect was Solas, but who knows). There is no way he would allow Fen'Harel statues -GOLDEN Fen'Harel statues!!- to practically line the streets of Arlathan. Why would he want to see the Guy His Wife Still Thinks About on every street corner??

It's in DAI, too. He's got statues in the Dirthamen Temple. He's got ENORMOUS ones in the Exalted Plains. He's paired frequently with not only Mythal, but with Ghilan'nain's halla/hart, and Andruil's owl. There are probably more wolf statues than any other symbols to an elvhen god, with the possible exception of Mythal.

By contrast, Elgar'nan...doesn't really have a symbol that we see anywhere repeatedly? Which is so strange. If he's the "real" head of the pantheon, and he was the most powerful of all the Evanuris...where is he? If he needs the love and adoration of everyone in his empire, why isn't his face plastered all over everything?

It just...doesn't make a lot of sense. I get there being a million Fen'Harel statues in Mythal's temple. And even in the Deep Roads during Trespasser because like...who cares that's just an old mine built from a defeated enemy. But like...1/3 of the statues in Arlathan are Fen'Harel?? What??