dragonagetheories

[dragonagetheories]

This is an excerpt from my work-in-progress large meta examination on thet qunari from DAO through to DATV. But since that is taking a long time, I thought it might be worth it to post this piece alone now, since it works on its own as well.

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The Qunari Design

In Dragon Age: Origins (DAO) the qunari all had the same brown metallic skin. This is because the developers only bothered to make one skin tint for the use of Sten, the qunari companion. They gave this skin tint to every other qunari NPC as well. This is also why there is only the one hairstyle that Sten uses for qunari, with the few NPCs either being bald or using his same hair. Essentially, Sten was the blueprint for all qunari, originally.

No qunari have horns in DAO like they do in the rest of the franchise. According to developer David Gaider, the qunari were always meant to have horns, but did not in DAO because it would have meant Sten couldn’t wear a helmet. This led to the lore decision that some qunari are born hornless as a rare genetic quirk, to account for the later change in design.

Dragon Age II (DA2) saw a drastic change in how the qunari look. Unlike the elves, humans, and dwarves in DA2, the qunari do not use head morphs allowing for individual designs; they have standardized creature models. (The only exception in the base game is the Arishok, who has his own special model.) The qunari moved from having Sten’s brown skin to grey metallic skin, their eye sclera was changed to black, and they were given the horns the developers originally wanted.

It is a well-known fact that DA2 was under immense development restrictions that led to all kinds of cut corners. However, it is worth pointing out the negative impact of choosing an entire race’s design functionality as one of those cut corners. The qunari in DA2 are, for the most part, treated like nothing but unthinking monsters for Hawke to squish, no different than giant spiders or darkspawn. Making them all look the same adds to this effect; they are stripped of any sense of personable traits.

A medium between DAO and DA2 was reached in Dragon Age: Inquisition (DAI), through introducing the player’s ability to make a qunari protagonist. DAI allows the player to choose between few brownish and a few greyish skin colours for their qunari character. The black sclera was changed to white again, as the qunari use the same eye texture and colouring functionality as all the other races. The character creation works just the same for qunari as it does for any other race, allowing for individual appearances left to the player’s imagination. However, as far as NPCs go, there are no qunari in the base game of DAI, making Iron Bull as a companion the only qunari presence until the Trespasser DLC. This does not leave much room to judge the appearance of other qunari characters.

DATV is just like DAI in its character creation capabilities, with the one expansion being the player can make their character have black sclera like in DA2 if they so choose. For all DATV’s faults with the qunari, at least we can say that the character creation is great. Taash and their mother Shathann also have lovely, unique designs. Where things become uncomfortable with the qunari designs… is in the Reavers.

It is established lore from the previous franchise installments that Reavers gain their special powers through drinking draconic blood, though these Antaam Reavers have been altered by Ghilan’nain. My personal assumption is that blighted dragon blood was used. Regardless of how these Reavers came to be, they are unprecedented, horrific monsters, and it is only ever qunari that we see subjected to this kind of disfigurement. This really doubles down on turning them into standardised monsters like in DA2.

Going through all these qunari design changes can make a player’s head spin. But I believe it is an important, visual example of an overarching theme with the qunari: the developers have never really cemented what they want them to be. The writing throughout the years suggests the same.

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Stay tuned for the full piece sometime in the future, where I will get into the writing!

[dragonagetheories]

Here’s a “theory iceberg” I made for the Dragon Age series, it’s a list of theories I’ve seen floating around in the fandom, organized in tiers - from extremely popular to obscure/tinfoil/crack theories. Feel free to tell me what other theories I should’ve included and if you disagree with how I arranged the iceberg.

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dragon age fans!!! do you want to give your upcoming veilguard oc a niche theodosian hobby, or decide on the 3 books that your hero of ferelden took with them to read while searching for a cure for the calling? look no further! my google doc, LEISURE ACTIVITIES OF THEDAS, has an ongoing collection of non-lethal activities in thedas for your oc creation needs, including 14 pages of in-universe books! this does not sound like a lot but it is a lot!

it's not a finished document by any means, and i will continue to add to it when i can. if you have any suggests for things i missed or would like to help contribute, please shoot me a dm! 💃💖

[dragonagetheories]

What to read before The Veilguard drops

Yes people, we have homework. In case you missed it, or need to refresh that memory because hey, it's been a while, here's a quick short list of what to (re)read in preparation for this new entry in the series.

Books:

From Tevinter Nights: Down among the dead men (introduces Emmrich and Manfred), The wigmaker job (introduces Lucanis).

The Last Flight, last novel released somewhere around DA: Inquisition. Takes the action to Weisshaupt, Grey Wardens HQ, and jumps between that present and the past explaining how the Griffons became extinct during the Fourth Blight. Will explain where Davrin's griffon came from.

Comics:

Magekiller. It's pretty introductory overall, set around Inquisition but it introduces "magekillers" as a job some people do. While in Tevinter Nights Lucanis is introduced as an Antivan Crow seems he's decided to change careers so it can't hurt to learn a bit about it.

The missing. Gives us Varric and Scout Harding already working together, and introduces us to Neve.

Short Stories:

Posted a while back in the BioWare page for Dragon Age day as crumbs to feast on while we waited, and waited, and waited..I recommend reading all of them simply because most people may have missed them and they add to lore and characters that while not among the new companions may still make an appearance and be relevant in Veilguard.

Of course I recommend reading EVERYTHING if possible, it all adds more layers and flavor and we know Solas is in the details, we can't miss a thing, but I think if you're short on time this counts as light reading enough to know where you'll land when Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally arrives.

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personally, if i were the hero of ferelden trying to find a cure to the calling, my first port of call would be the wilds flower that saved my tainted dog in ostagar. but what do i know!

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You can interpret these however you like, and I’d love to read your ideas for other origins or extending these ones in the tags (etc)!

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*For apostates part of any origin that doesn't already exist, just choose that origin!

If you want to expand on any ideas you have for any of these, I'm very interested in reading about them in tags, comments, or reblogs!

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there's a lot of dragon age media out there other than the games. novels & other official books, visual novels, movies & shows... please raise awareness to not spread literally ALL the pdfs and videos around. please be responsible here.

(and uh. also let me know if you have a working version of dragon age legends that doesnt crash when you try to go to orzammar)

[dragonagetheories]

Who the fuck are the Daefads???

Reading the Enigma of Kirkwall codex entry and caught a throwaway line:

“It is as we thought. The quarries of Kirkwall were found after the city was sacked by the Imperium and after they started constructing the city. The Imperium found the mineral wealth, not the indigenous people. The histories give conflicting accounts on who lived here before the Imperium. Some say the Alamarri. Some say the Daefads. We do know it was a barbarian people who had little need of the metals in the hills.”

The Daefads? Is this another group of humans? Are there still Daefads around? BioWare WTF stop namedropping things to never expand on!

Well we can now cross off the Orth as being the most unknown people in Thedas I guess. I’ll have to add them to my Humans of Thedas post as just one big “unknown.”

[dragonagetheories]

things i really like about iron bull

bull evaluates the world through a framework that is easily-altered and based on very particular interpretations of reality. i’ve seen people criticize the character on the basis that his claims about his nation conflict with canon - that iron bull cheapens the qun as described by characters like sten or the arishok - but i think it’s more interesting if this is intentional. it's easy to read bull’s idiosyncratic, highly personalized understanding of the qun as a consequence of the fact that he is an extremely unreliable narrator.

the fact that ideas like “truth” or “reality” are mutable to bull makes it more interesting that his greatest fear is madness. his principles are built on sand, a cobbled-together collection of maxims either generated by the qun or invented by bull himself in an effort to limit internal inconsistencies in his worldview and keep himself sane. he is afraid of alterations to them because he recognizes how unsteady his foundational beliefs are and how easy it would be for him to collapse into a position where he is no longer able to evaluate what is real and what is not.

panoptic surveillance. there is a cop in bull’s head that cannot be killed because he has built his entire self around the cop. his interactions with vivienne touch on this idea, but don't follow it as far as i'd like. bull is traveling with a pseudo-tamassran, and this would have been a good opportunity to show how bull behaves when he believes he is being surveilled - her presence should provoke a clearer reversion to how he behaved in qun territory, when he’s not tailoring his behavior to be more palatable to southerners. all this is doubly good because of how heavily vivienne's story rests on the illusion of power as a potential basis for actual power.

his interactions with solas explore some really interesting ideas around capability. both bull and solas are proceeding from similar fundamental assumptions: both are sympathetic towards the global underclass and believe that the people who constitute it should live full, dignified, "happy" lives to whatever extent possible. bull's essentially using amartya sen's capability approach as applied to the idea of freedom: the practical achievability of freedom under feudalism is nil, so it is concretely less free than his own society, one with massive restrictions on speech and association that still guarantees the material well-being of its population. here, solas prioritizes the right to “think freely," partially because he believes mass political action is impossible if this right is not secure but also because he does actually believe that the freedom to strive, even in the face of inevitable failure, is more valuable than singlemindedly pursuing the universal freedom to live. this argument is the most interesting one they ever have with each other. “is essentialism… good?” obviously no. “should mages… rights?” yes duh. “can you construct a society that is equitable without protecting individual liberty? if the right to live/succeed/be "free" is not practically achievable, does it matter whether or not it is formally protected?" what da fuck keep talking

blackwall is so well written and, as is usually the case, his presence in a party with bull makes both characters better. if you make your living by violently enforcing the edicts of your state, is it necessary to learn to take joy in violence? if you are a man who takes joy in violence, must you outsource your moral decision-making to something else - a code, a commanding officer, a cause - in order to limit your range of potential action and avoid becoming a monster? is it too great a risk to make moral decisions independently if you like hurting people? both of these men chase causes that will grant a purpose to their violence, and they do so because they suspect exactly the same things about themselves.

the “real self” versus the “performance.” if you pretend to be someone convincingly enough that any external observer would believe you to be that person, have you become them? if you constantly speak and behave in a particular way, if your entire impact on the world is indistinguishable from the man you’re pretending to be, are you that man now? does the intentionality matter if the impacts are exactly the same? if you pretend to be a good person for long enough, are you good? bull tentatively tells us “yes,” but the path he takes to get there is circuitous and dependent on his quest decisions. what if the answer is “no?”

things i do not like about iron bull

the fact that weekes gets regularly sidetracked from these ideas and instead has bull make 97 consecutive dick jokes

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Details that spoke to me while replaying DA:O

Because the DA team really has been working on their lore and plot since the dawn of time.

Zathrian’s words about betrayal that would work so well for a certain someone else, too:

Dalish Warden to Zathrian: “How could you betray our people?”

Zathrian:

First mention of the Seekers, chasing outlaws mages from the Imperium:

The description of carvings on an ancient elven tablet that eerily resembles that of the Well of Sorrows:

Theories about Andraste being a powerful mage, as World of Thedas 2 also mentions. This would explain the “miracles” ascribed to her, her half-sister’s mysterious disappearance, and Andraste’s visions and episodes of trance. It would also give points to the theory “Andraste was one of Mythal’s first vessels”:

Sten correctly predicting the future moves of the Qunari and their attempt at conquering the South:

Flemeth’s Grimoire which bears Mythal’s symbol, the leafless tree:

First mention of an ancient elf - an Arcane Warrior - escaping their physical body to live as formless spirit, in this case inside an amulet. We will find another mention of this ability of the elves only in Trespasser, in the text related to the Exile of the Forbidden Ones.

On the altar used for the ancient elven ritual described on the tablet (see above) is etched the image of a wolf:

“Mined from the living.” Could this be about the Titans?

There are other little things, but I felt like these were the most jarring and interesting. It’s also good to remember that the devs recently confirmed that they planned the truth about the elven gods and Fen’Harel since from the very beginning of the series. Kudos to them.

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Is it just me or is it like… Solas holding out his hand in a ‘Stop!’ gesture to the wolf (arguably his persona as the dreadwolf) foreshadowing something? I’ve always found it weird in all the murals of Solas after being discovered as the dreadwolf (tarot card, in the elvhen ruins, etc) he’s always leading the dreadwolf.

But now instead of leading it, being haunted by it, embracing it… it’s like he’s confronting it. Maybe in DA4 we’ll have Solas regretting his actions a little bit too late since, as seen in the first image above, everything is on fire and the statue/idol has been corrupted by red lyrium.

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- By the Ancestors, what’s gotten into you, my boy? - Enchantment? - That’s more like it. 

[dragonagetheories]

Note: A Letter in an Abandoned Home

The stone calls to me. In my dreams, as i shape it with chisel and hammer, it shapes me in return. My flesh twists, claws and fangs ripping forth. The light in the sky makes the stone so much louder.

The cave in the hills has good strong stone. I can shape it into something strong enough to keep me safe, if I hurry.

Jenden, if you're having the dreams, go talk to the templars. The war doesn't matter. Their job is to help when things are too frightening to deal with alone, and the only reason the templars didn't find you as a child is because your parents hid you away.

If carving helps you, here's a map to an old cave I stumbled on a few years back. I think it has the stone you like.

[dragonagetheories]

The Ages of the Chantry Calendar

The Chantry calendar marks time by Ages, with each age being 100 years long. Before the conclusion of an Age, the scholars of the Chantry come together to name the next one, based on predictions of what the next 100 years will bring.

(descriptions were taken from The World of Thedas, Volume I)