#was literally thinking a few hrs ago about writing a post about dwarves and golems and lyrium and magic resistance and souls........

[danielnelsen]

Hey first I want to say that I really like your in depth posts on Dragon Age! Can I ask if you have any information and/or insights on the Jainen Circle from Legends? And do you think it's canon?

Everything That Happens Involving the Jainen Circle of Magi:

The First Enchanter is Jendrik whenever DAL is set (it's canonically sometime after the start of the 5th blight, but imo it's more specifically set somewhere from 9:34-9:37).

Sometime before you arrive in Jainen, the Circle is overrun by demons.

The leader of the local dragon cultists, Deymour, sends his lieutenant, Guillen, to kill Jendrik. If you head too far into Jainen without going to the Circle, Jendrik will die, otherwise you save him. If you save him, he's too wounded to help you so he just...leaves, I guess. He doesn't get any dialogue or a sprite or anything.

When you fight through the Circle, you fight both templars and mages (who are fighting together). I don't think you fight any demons until the very end, which has one desire demon as a boss.

The source of the demon(s) is Deymour who, as part of the overarching plot of DAL, is hosting a shard of a pride demon's soul in him. It's not explicitly stated that he summoned the demon(s), but his whole pride demon thing and also his general involvement (asking Guillen to kill Jendrik) is a pretty good indicator.

No matter the outcome, none of this is ever mentioned again.

Is the Jainen Circle Canon?

Nothing from DAL is canon.

That said, most of the game can be stretched to fit into canon (even Eiton being 'born Tranquil', fight me), and the Jainen Circle isn't any less realistic than anything else in DAL. Honestly, the main potential conflicts with canon are probably:

The times when we've been told how many circles there are (either 14 or 15; it's not even consistent). There are more than that listed on the wiki, even without including Jainen. However, quite a few of those Circles only have references from hundreds of years ago and may not exist anymore, so even 14 is enough to include Jainen as one of them.

Kinloch Hold is generally discussed in canon as THE Circle in Ferelden, replacing Denerim's Circle in 3:87. Maybe Jainen's just smaller or too remote or something, idk.