I’m replaying Origins because it’s been a while, and I got to the part with the Dalish, and I’ve been noticing the similarities between Solas and Zathrian. Yes, they are both bald elven mages who lived a long time. But no, go deeper than that.
Zathrian talks about the pain he carries, how he’s lived for so long that pain has become ingrained in him, and he’s not certain he’s even capable of letting it go anymore.
And there’s a conversation between Solas and Cole to similar effect:
Cole: You are quiet, Solas.I don’t hear your hurt as much. Your song is softer, subtler, not silent but still.
Solas: How small the pain of one man seems when weighed
against the endless depths of memory, of feeling, of existence.
And that’s just really interesting to me, personally. And then I’m watching the cutscene between Zathrian and The Lady and I notice something else.
You know that scene in Inquisition where Solas leads you to Skyhold and he always has the same staff no matter what you have him equipped with?
And I’ve always thought that was strange. Why would the devs to that? Like, “We need him to have this staff in this scene. No, we’re not going to tell you why. Just do it.”
GUYS! IT’S ZATHRIANS FUCKING STAFF!
I’ve always been interested in the parallels between Solas and Zathrian, specifically their tragic backstories.
Zathrian was devastated by a violent event that stole his children from his arms. He took his vengeance by placing a curse on the perpetrators, locking them away from their bodies and forcing them to live separate from society. But what happened in the end? It all backfired on him, and the curse he had placed on his enemies long ago was now killing his own people.
It’s all rather familiar, in that respect, isn’t it? The question is: Will Solas, too, be forced to sacrifice his life in order to break the curse he also placed, inadvertently or not, on his People?
;__; I’m playing Origins for the first time and am on the Zathrian quest and I’m like hmmm. So interesting, the parallels.
I am going to break some hearts here, but I have thought about this a lot, too, and I think that Zathrian’s fate foreshadows Solas’ too.
Like Zathrian, Solas is very attached to his decision, believing he is doing the right thing in the end. Like Zathrian, he questions his thoughts when an empathetic person questions him, but he still does not waiver.
For Zathrian we are given the choice to a.) kill the werewolves (what Zathrian wants), b.) kill the elves (what the werewolves want) or c.) convince Zathrian to sacrifice himself for the sake of his clan – those he cares about.
I think that by choosing whether to redeem or stop Solas we are choosing between an option similar to a & c. Stopping Solas entails hunting him and his followers down, stopping them at all costs. Redeeming Solas, at least in my opinion, is not going to mean convincing him to drop everything and return to the Inquisitor or whatever. Solas is too old and overcome with feelings of remorse for killing his people. He would not be happy remaining in the world as it is when the world he knew before was so much better in his eyes. He could adapt, but he won’t.
I think that after a long battle where he is defeated, he will have a change of heart and choose to sacrifice himself to prevent or reverse something he has started. He will still die.
The difference between the two options will not be whether or not he does, but rather if he dies alone or in the company and service of those who care about him.
What they said^^^^^^^^^^^ that last line, seems far too hinted at ingame.. and i know its a verrry strong possibility.. the thing i wanna know is,, why the hell would weekes act like theres hope, if the best we have is, he dies surrounded by his friends? lmao thats a kick in the guts for alot of us.
Foolishly, I hope it goes somewhere along the lines of :
Solas starts to believe in the ex-inquisitor, his friend/lover/or both, Perhaps he can let his plans go, perhaps there is another way?. but then his friend/lover is cut down (much like andraste was, either stabbed or burned at a stake) he, overcome with grief will go back to his plans, sacrificing his own mortal life to be in the fade where the spell must be broken from the golden city perhaps?
but alas, a spirit of hope has made their way there and it is non other then his friend/lover , who convinces him to stop.
Therein hes died, but he isnt alone. They remain with him.
I may be wrong but on the war table in inquisition Solas gives you the quest to find Zathrian’s staff.
While I think it’s entirely possible that Solas will just be Zathrian on a higher scale, I feel like that’s also ignoring a crucial point:
We’ve seen Zathrian’s story.
`I know it’s not uncommon for writers to echo larger plots within smaller ones as foreshadowing, but typically speaking, you also don’t want to just rehash the exact same outcomes over and over again. Part of the appeal of exploring the same theme multiple times lies in examining different possible outcomes and variations on it.
So again, while I see this as highly possible, it’d also be the… how to put it… boring way to go?
Like, take DA2 for example. DA2 likes to examine no-win scenarios and the limitations of heroes. So we get stuff like the inevitable qunari attack on Kirkwall mirroring the inevitable destruction of the chantry at the end. In both cases, with the Arishok and Anders, there are two characters whose destructive courses cannot be reversed, who have been provoked and left in situations they see as impossible to resolve without violence.
Just like Zathrian and also just like Solas. But within these categories, while you can boil things down to ‘do they live or not’, there is also still plenty of variation in the actual scenarios and outcomes. For example, you have to sacrifice a companion – Isabela – in order to spare the Arishok’s life. But you don’t have to sacrifice anything to spare Anders. In Zathrian’s case, he cursed the humans who had attacked his clan and his children in revenge. But so far, what we’ve gleaned from Solas is that he was acting more from necessity, to stop the evanuris in their tracks.
We can also refer to Loghain, on that front. In DA:O, Loghain also believes that he is acting from necessity to stop a greater threat, because he’s underestimated the darkspawn and fixated on Orlais. Not… entirely unreasonably, given the history of the Wardens, but certainly unrealistically for the world around him. I think it’d be fair to guess that, with his limited understanding of the future he’s created, a lot of what Solas sees as necessary action may also be unrealistic to his actual intentions, and operating on past trauma and fixations.
And Loghain, despite doing some pretty heinous shit (see: the alienage) can actually find satisfaction in working with the Wardens, if you choose to spare him.
So basically what I’m getting at is that this is all fascinating and the parallels are definitely real, but don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.
honestly the Chantry recruiting templars from their orphanages, WHERE THEY PUT THE CHILDREN THEY TAKE FROM MAGES, is so fucked up
what do you think the Chantry tells those kids tho
Child: What happened to my parents?
Sister/Brother : *noncomittal grunt* *vague hand gesture*
I mean, there’s really only two options here: either they tell them “your parents are monsters and we took you away from them because you’re a monster too and monsters don’t deserve parents,” or they lie through their teeth and tell them “your parents didn’t want you” or, perhaps more kindly, “your parents are dead”
Of the these options I’m inclined to believe “your parents didn’t want you” is the most oft-repeated, since of the two cases we’ve seen of women giving birth in the Circle and being forced to give up the child (Wynne and Fiona,) both came with a hefty dose of victim-blaming towards the mother. In both cases the mother is made to feel guilty for “choosing” to give up the child even though there was no choice whatsoever.
Would the kids of mages ever find out?
The Templars could eventually see babies being taken from mages. And they have to ask permission to get married. Mages blooded ones could get told no.
Would mage born templars be warned they stand a greater risk for having mage kids?
If the chantry wants to cut down on the number of mages then they want to stop mage blooded people from “breeding” like they do for mages right??
That is the beauty of taking mage orphans as Templar recruits: it keeps them under the Chantry’s eye. They stay in the same prison, albeit on the other side of the bars. The Chantry will be able to keep close track of them and if they or any of their family ever shows signs of mage talent, they can be put right back in the Circle immediately.
Also, it’s possible that mage-blooded Templars are actually more effective at Templar skills. Alistair doesn’t even need lyrium to use them. Meredith (whose sister was a mage) gets final boss powers simply from proximity exposure to red lyrium. So that’s likely another reason why the Chantry would recruit Templars that way. Lyrium is expensive, and you don’t need as much for the not-quite-a-mage recruits and they’re easier to train.
now, that’s an interesting theory
I wish there was a side quest or war table mission or even a full plot twist where the inquisitor would find the records of all these families who were essentially bred out of existence (because the key to this level of surveillance would be impeccable records) and have the choice to publish these records for the rebel mages to find their parents, their children, their siblings either within their own sides or out in the world or even on the other side. Templars would know why they were denied permission to marry. Both sides would have to reconcile this new layer to their identity: “My son is a templar in Kirkwall.” “I have siblings in the Montsimmard Circle.”
And when both sides have grieved and raged and reconnected they would look at the Chantry who did this to them—who pitted them against each other for no easily defensible reason—and burn it down.
Something to keep in mind about magic in Dragon Age:
Spirit magic is dangerous. Spirits are sentient beings, and while their natures tend to make them more predictable than most people (because they are very driven towards the concepts they embody), an improperly educated or unprepared mage can easily find themselves overwhelmed by the spirits they interact with. It’s a danger that’s magnified by the disconnect between the waking world and the Fade. Mages are brought up with a lot of preconceptions about spirits, and many spirits don’t really understand how the world beyond the Fade actually works. So even with good intentions, things can go awry.
Blood magic is dangerous. First of all, because it’s magic – a highly volatile and potentially even explosive force – that is being fueled by bodily fluids. Blood magic requires that at some point, someone gets injured. Even apart from the nature of the magic itself, that’s going to carry risks. Self-harm can easily become addictive, too, so even benevolent blood mages who only use their own blood are running risks by making a habit out of regularly cutting themselves open. And of course, less benevolent mages can be driven to access blood in ways that are immoral.
But what gets way less attention is that lyrium is dangerous too.
Untreated lyrium is a toxic substance, and it’s also highly addictive. Mining it is risky and difficult work, that often carries the danger of encountering darkspawn. Many of its actual properties are unknown, and even its true source was only recently rediscovered. And it is basically Titan blood, so, a form of blood magic in and of itself. Just, amplified because the blood is coming from a specific type of god-like being. Lyrium can carry the Blight, at which point it becomes red and even more potent, volatile, and dangerous.
The lyrium market revolves around the chantry. The chantry provides Circles with lyrium and approves their use of it as a magical power source, and the chantry requires templars take lyrium in order to fuel their abilities and control them via addiction. They are the only legal surface distributor of lyrium – acquiring the substance from anyone else means getting it from smugglers. This is a big component of how addiction is used to control the templars. Being ousted from the templar order means no longer having legal means to acquire lyrium. Mages attempting to operate outside of the Circles will also not have legal access to lyrium.
The only reason for the chantry to endorse the use of lyrium, is because they can control it. It is a physical substance which they can trade, stockpile, withhold, or even destroy. Spirits cannot be controlled by the chantry – they are too numerous and highly difficult, in most circumstances, for non-mages to contact. So, spirit magic is stigmatized, and heavy emphasis is put on the concept that all spirits are demons and all demons are dangerous monsters that want to possess mages.
Blood magic is even more difficult to control, because everyone has blood. There is no way for the chantry to effectively monopolize the distribution of it. Ergo, blood magic is highly criminalized, with harsh penalties – primarily execution or tranquility – enacted on anyone caught using it.
This is a big reason why dwarves are not treated quite so badly as elves or vashoth when it comes to the chantry, and the societies around it. Dwarves mine lyrium. While the chantry could certainly arrange an exalted march to try and claim places like Orzammar or Kal’Sharok, that would mean overseeing mining operations in a subterranean city state frequently beset by darkspawn. So, as long as the dwarves are willing to do near-exclusive business with the chantry, the chantry is willing to let them maintain control over their own kingdoms.
All of these balancing acts are bigger determining factors for the social strata of Thedas than the legitimate risks presented by certain kinds of magic, or certain kinds of philosophies towards it. The Avvar are not taking greater risks by interacting with spirits, than a templar is by taking lyrium, and someone like Merrill, who can balance blood magic with spirit deals and traditional Dalish spells, isn’t actually taking stupid risks compared to someone like Wynne or Anders, who became abominations after a lifetime of absorbing misinformation on the nature of spirits.
Magic is dangerous. Most things are dangerous. Being a farmer is dangerous if you mishandle your animals and they trample or gore you. Being a doctor is dangerous if you mess up your hygiene and spread diseases from one patient to yourself or others. Being a chef is dangerous if you don’t prepare your ingredients properly and poison somebody. The thing about Thedas is that the chantry is basically going ‘animals are dangerous’ and ‘cutting into people’s bodies is evil’ and then also going ‘folks need to eat’. Demons are dangerous. Blood magic is evil. Lyrium is necessary.
The trick is to focus only on very particular and self-serving facts, and reiterate them over and over, until they become the issues people are most familiar with when they think of the related topics. It’s a common form of misdirection that you see in propaganda. Lies are risky, because lies can be disproved. Selective truths, on the other hand, can be way more effective at misrepresenting a situation in the long run.
And that’s what is going on with the different sources of magical power in Thedas right now.
The Hero of Fereldan and the False Herald / A Haircut
Lavellan always loved stories, but now they dread their own.
***********
Mahariel looks at the Inquisitor—the former Inquisitor, this false herald that has shaken the skies with a gesture, and thinks that they are young. Young as two hunters she’d once known.
I do feel that their pasts and upbringing are very similar. The way they choose to deal with their personal history and their drama are wildly different.
Zevran was orphaned shortly after birth. He was raised in a brothel until the age of seven, until he was bought by the Crows. He didn’t join the Crows, he didn’t have a choice. If you bring Zevran with you to the Circle tower and into the Fade, you can see a taste of what his upbringing was like. An orphan, raised in a brothel, bought and sold, but Zevran wants to live as much as he wants to die so he tries to be ‘worthy’ of the Crows. Of the eighteen recruits that went through training with him, only two survived – Zevran, and Taliesen.
Fenris was born to an elven slave in Tevinter, and had a sister. By all means, he could have even had a happy childhood. That was all taken from him when he participated in a ‘tournament’ to have his mother and sister freed. (”You said you didn’t ask for this, but that’s not true. You wanted it, you competed for it.”)The reason why he fought was lost to him, and anything that came before. He effectively orphaned himself. His master became his whole world and so Fenris tried to be worthy of him. There were likely many experiments, but only Fenris survived.
Zevran throws himself at the Warden because it’s a chance to be free of the Crows. A chance to die and pretend that it’s not the outcome that he wanted. Unless you’re deep into a romance with Zevran, he never talks about what happened to him and how he feels about it. Any companion dialogue that tries to pry into his past and what he’s done is immediately shut down. With humor and jokes, because it’s easier to shift the topic and chuckle than it is to face it. He lies and laughs because he can barely process his own guilt and depression. It takes him so long to open up to the Warden.
Fenris wears what’s been done to him like armor. Besides the fact that there’s hardly anyway to hide it – it’s literally embedded in the skin. No you can tell, just from the way he is and acts and how he’ll openly admit he was a slave. It’s noticeable in his idle animations, and the way he stands and runs. He is always looking left and right, over his shoulder. Shifting from foot to foot, slightly hunched over so he can reach his sword easier. He’s afraid. He doesn’t trust his freedom, he doesn’t trust Kirkwall, he barely trusts himself. The first time you meet him, he runs into that mansion shouting, “face me! Danarius!” As if he isn’t scared to death.
Zevran doesn’t believe himself worthy of love and affection but Fenris craves it like water. Fenris risks everything to find Varania, to find his family. He probably knew, from the moment he first started thinking about finding her, about the risk of Danarius. He states it when he asks Hawke to come along – he believes it’s a trap. But he still goes. He’s spent so long running and lying to himself that he could take on Danarius by himself, but the only time he ever faces Danarius is to get to his family. This thing that he wants so badly betrays him, gives him up to the monster who tortured him, and unless Hawke talks him out of it, Fenris will kill Varania.
Taliesen was the only other recruit that survived with Zevran. They grew up together, trained together, went on missions together and were close friends. They were likely the only friends they had. Family. The two of them probably got each other through Crow training by support of each other. After a year of being free, of being with the Warden, Zevran faces his one and only friend from his horrible past. If the Warden has shown that Zevran is worth more than his guilt, than his regret, than his past, then Zevran will kill Taliesen.
Fenris fought for his freedom. Tooth and nail, he ran. Looking over his shoulder at every turn, not knowing whether or not the stranger on the street is a hunter or not. Every person is a risk, every connection a chain.
Zevran fought for his freedom. He asked for an impossible task, because death is the only freedom he could see. Keeping a knife under his pillow, not knowing whether or not the Warden might kill him. By leaving the Crows, he passed his chain to the Warden.
Hawke asks for nothing in return for Fenris’s friendship. They aren’t looking to use him as a bodyguard, a weapon, a mindless beast for their will. They ask him on every job, pay him coin, help him find the freedom he’s looking for.
The Warden asks for nothing in return for Zevran’s friendship. They never order him to kill some helpless target, they give him a purpose and sense of will he never had. They ask him to train them, give him gifts, help him find the freedom he’s looking for.
Both Zevran and Fenris initially walk away from the romance. Fenris is confronted by the fact that he isn’t whole and that the shackles of being a slave still rankle around his soul.
Zevran tries to show affection but can’t put it into words, can’t admit that he is more than a Crow anymore.They taught him not to feel but now he is, and that makes him that orphan again, makes him vulnerable.
Zevran laughs through his pain. Fenris wears it on his sleeve. Fenris is angry with what’s been done to him. Zevran is miserable with what he’s done. Fenris breaks bottles against walls, Zevran attempts to lose himself in pleasure. They both have found some sort of freedom but doesn’t know what it means or where to go from there. They want connections but fear them, want to be loved but are afraid of betrayal.
And when they’ve put distance between their past and those who held their chains? They both have dry wit, are extremely clever, flirt with ease and with charm, and are able to be themselves. Hawke and the Warden help them make peace with what’s been done to them and help them face the future.
I find it interesting that they both use the same line when in a romance with the Warden and Hawke – “I am yours.” I think it must have stunned the Warden and Hawke at first. Especially knowing their history. But – they aren’t submitting themselves back into slavery. They give their feelings willingly because they want to, because Hawke and the Warden have earned it.
They are both incredibly complex and layered characters. If they sat down and talked, I think they’d find they have a lot of common ground.
Alright guys I’ve been thinking a lot about the Redcliffe Arc in DA:O and you know I’m serious about this because I’m actually using grammar
A big portion of the spiderweb of my thoughts is this: killing Connor is so amazing in narrative, the voice-acting for Isolde is top-fucking-tier, the way the characters react is absolutely STUNNING. It is seriously one of the best scenes in the ENTIRE game and that’s tea
Isolde’s character and VA was paid dust by this fandom, who characterized her as the Orlesian whore who married for power and never loved her family and was bitchy all around. Make her as evil as you need her to be because she didn’t like your fave when he was a kid. Okay, yeah sure. But HEAR ME OUT. Killing Connor opens up a whole new dimension in her character, it opens up fucking six. Six whole ass dimensions. It’s an AMAZING option in story-telling. But it makes me feel bad. Like really bad. Like I just murdered a kid when I the player know there’s another option that could have made everyone happy. And that right there is my issue with this arc
I think the only flaw in this arc is the option to recruit the Circle’s help. Everyone who gets too heartbroken at choices like killing Connor (like me) chooses the Circle because there is literally no consequence. It ALWAYS ends happily. You vanish for at least two days to make the trip, probably more akin to 3-5 if you haven’t already saved the Circle considering how terrible that whole ordeal is (and then try getting enough sleep during it), and NOTHING BAD HAPPENS. THE DEMON IS JUST CHILLIN
There absolutely should have been some consequence to leaving because without any it makes this option far too safe, too easy, and it creates a superiority complex about it being the “only moral option” and if you do anything else – you’re a dick. The point of the Redcliffe Arc to me is there is no Good and Moral option, only what your character thinks is best at the time
If villagers in Redcliffe had died while you were away, or the zombie attacks had returned and wiped out half the town, or something terrible happened inside the castle like Teagan getting killed by the demon then there would FINALLY be depth to the choices. I wouldn’t feel like I could just take this potentially week long trip, go to the Circle, save everyone, and make a big fucking happy ending and only ever feel like I can choose THAT choice because I know there isn’t any consequence and it makes me feel happy I did the “Right Thing.” If shit went down while the player was away from Redcliffe it would force the player to think more about what they were actually doing. To really think about the actual Grey Morality^tm that BioWare loves so much
Who’s life is worth sacrificing? Potentially the lives of a whole town or one little boy’s or his mother’s? Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Does going to the Circle actually become the evil option to fandom because it sacrifices a town all for one nobleborn person? And I don’t just want these questions to be something that I as a storyteller decide my character is thinking. I want to SEE THE RAMIFICATIONS OF MY ACTIONS IN-GAME. I wish there were CONSEQUENCES to being some good and virtuous saintly hero all the time!! It’s naive to think there wouldn’t be any and I’m disappointed the game didn’t acknowledge that reality. How in the world can a character grow like that? How can a story be built like that?
ajklsdfja;lskdjf sorry to waste your time I’M JUST PETTY about how even in the Good Ol Days of Origins BioWare still didn’t get grey morality and also that Lady Isolde has been ignored at best and mischaracterized to hell at worst
U RITE
Or like hell, at the very least they could make it mandatory for you to leave all your team mages (and maybe like 90% or even all of your team as well) behind to keep the demon at bay (good luck getting to the Circle with just the doggy as your companion). That would have at least cost you something, if you still want to have a choice that leads to a somewhat happy ending.
I mean, I like grey morality, but I still prefer the idea of having the third option that is incomparably harder to achieve, but still achievable. I like happy endings, just… make me work for it, don’t give it away like that.
funeral-biscuit 