#the antaam are relevant here too i guess

[watcher1ngellvar]

There's a parallel somewhere about criminal syndicate boss Makal Damas saying "Docktown's ours," in the conversation about freeing it from the venatori and fifth talon Viago de Riva repeatedly saying "the crows rule antiva, and treviso will be free" while local "corrupt" government pushes against the crows presence but I don't have the expertise to put it together.

[theharellan]

so far i’ve read three trees to midnight, horror of hormak, and callback. i’m trying to practise restraint and leave the last story until i’m at least done with my initial read-through of the material most relevant to my characters which ksjdf. is very hard but here’s notes i’ve taken so far:

oh and btw pls dont r/b this!

if you want a pretty good demonstration of why solas and cole speak with discomfort about how spirits are used in thedas, “wisp darts” may be a pretty good example. it’s likely the wisps aren’t fully-formed spirits, more akin to the pieces of pieces cole refers to the mortalitasi using. still a pretty callous way to use something that has some presence, even if it’s not a person.

there’s a reference to a talented tevinter mage healer being able to reattach arms with magic, through use of spirits.

there is a lot of discord among the qunari rn, both within different arms and without. the bas-taar, the antaam keeper of bas slaves, essentially, thinks of the ashaad with disdain-         “even the black-and-white-striped vitaar that painted the huntmaster’s face was  drawn to symbolise sight, finding, rather than battle and power, as befitted the antaam.” funnily the huntsmaster is actually not antaam but ben-hassrath, therefore a priest, but that his attitude doesn’t draw notice indicates this isn’t abnormal for the ashaad. so like not only do at least some of the antaam and ben-hassrath have beef, but there’s beef within the antaam.

if i read it right, the dwarven deep roads gave way to purely elven ruins, and the warden narrator notes that this isn’t completely unheard of. not only that but there are dwarven carvings of elves, and it’s only later the elven bas-relief take over. i’ll prob need to reread to wrap my head about it, i wonder the relation between the dwarves and elves there.

fucked up as the art itself was, i love the glimpse we got into true elven art. the lack of age made me pause-- solas indicates that spirits can preserve things, so it could be that, or could someone be upkeeping it? and the change the art went through, going from healing to putting the hurt (the taint?) into people. whether this is just ramesh’s perception changing or magic idk, but i also wouldn’t be surprised if ancient elven magic shifted as the viewer looked at it, too.

solas’ reasoning for discomfort abt the wardens grows tbh when i think about the art. while the wardens don’t change themselves the way (what i assume to be) ghilan’nain’s creations have, they are still taking the blight into them oftentimes unwillingly. it’s the sort of parallel that would be difficult to let go to say the least.

there was a yellow-green lyrium stone hanging from the ceiling, something we’ve apparently only seen before in the hissing wastes (around rifts). cole makes reference to it being a result of venatori trying to make red lyrium “less angry,” which i guess would make sense given all the blight around the lyrium? but who knows if they’re connected. it’s a pretty good bet that green lyrium is somehow touched or related to the Fade/sky in ways the blue stuff isn’t.

a lot about the spirit of regret made me wonder both about it and about solas. there was a lot to it that didn’t match up to solas’ motivations-- glee in the dread that was coming, for example, doesn’t match, calling itself the regret of a god. this is honestly expected as spirits don’t create perfect replicas, tho still interesting. and that what felled it wasn’t a lack of regret, but an ownage of said regret. idk i feel it has greater implications for “demons” because things like pride, desire, rage aren’t bad but natural human emotions, and sometimes necessary or even good. this ramble is just becoming the plot to pixar’s inside out. regret was a good and i wish things had ended less violently for it, even if it will likely reform in the fade. i will be putting more stuff out abt regret tbh b/c i like to think it and solas spoke prior to him leaving the inquisition but for now i’ll leave it be.

the implications for solas? - “I regret acting alone!” / “I regret using my friends!” / “I regret now!” as sutherland himself notes it seems like he was echoing the regret that drew it to skyhold, and all these things apply to solas 1000%. the thing about solas’ relationship with regret is that while he does “own it” in the sense that he will admit regretting-- a lot of things, and often-- his relationship with it is pretty unhealthy and doesn’t lead him to new paths, at least not as of now. he’s regretful but also feels stripped of other choices. - “There might have been a better choice, said a thought it had not been allowed.” this line makes me think about inquisitors who vowed to redeem solas, specifically thora, but what else is new there. namely, the lines at the end of his trespasser screne aren’t so much in the spirit of “save our friend from himself, if we can” but “i’ll show you there’s another way.” which is much closer to how i imagine the threat solas poses could be nullified (without just pure opposition, anyway, which imo may solve the solas dilemma but would just be slapping a bandage on a world that’s bleeding out). - that the final fresco became the scene of flemythal’s death and that the figure was both lupine and reptilian obvs confirms that it was absorption and not possession which, thanks i hated that theory for many reasons. whether the implication is that solas has lost some of his own identity as a result or it’s merely symbolic we’ll see, i guess. i do personally hc that it changes his relationship with his own magic and not necessarily for the better. - tbh the moral sutherland and the order from divine victoria is interesting considering-- regret did accept and move on? which has implications for more than just solas but spirits in general. idk i’ll talk abt this one more once a) i reread it and b) i read the other relevant stories for solas b/c i know there’s more

on a brighter note, it was sweet and so good to see the inquisition from the POV of people not in the inner circle. i loved the note of skyhold being stripped bare by people taking keepsakes, and how much it meant to sutherland

overall so far i think my fave has been three trees to midnight, i thought the chemistry between the characters rang the most true. i’ll have to go back and reread down among the dead mean as i know it has spirit-relevant stuff but i wanted to read horrors of hormak......... so.

oh i wanted to add if you’d like more coherent summaries, i’d suggest felassan’s tevinter nights tag. everything i talk abt in here will prob end up rewritten on solas or my multimuse (like the qunari stuff is relevant to tetrak) rn it’s just........... words.