ignylinn

[ignylinn]

Lol for sure. Any activist group squeals with joy whenever someone good at spreadsheets and math joins. They'd never let Tarquin do anything remotely dangerous cause where would they find another accountant?

I could be a Shadow Dragon, too. But like, a really boring Shadow Dragon.

[ignylinn]

Just losing my mind at the implications that the companions have all been trying to help Rook grieve Varric, and Rook doesn’t know

Emmrich, wise and long-familiar with grief, being told by Neve and Harding what happened; understanding why sometimes he overhears Rook’s muffled voice in the Infirmary, talking to no one. He takes Rook to the Memorial Gardens and mentions he talks to his parents, thinking Rook might be comfortable with the same. Rook lights candles and rings bells but Emmrich watches, sorrowed, to see Rook still seems in deep denial.

Neve takes Rook to the Wall of Light; a Shadow Dragon Rook knows just what this means but any Rook can understand the solemnity, the power of remembrance. Neve reenergizes Brom’s light and looks to Rook, hoping Rook will mention wanting to make one for Varric. Rook is kind and comforting to Neve, but Neve is lost in wondering why Rook doesn’t take the chance to open up. She can’t figure it. Maybe Rook just can’t face it, not yet. Maybe Rook does something privately. She isn’t sure but it nags at her.

Davrin’s not big on talking about feelings. He’d rather just move on. But he sees the way Rook seems a little hollow sometimes, a little distant; he sees how Rook takes so quickly to Assan. “Hey Rook,” he says, and invites them to come with him and Assan to safe places in Arlathan, where the woods are clean and green and growing, where real sunlight dapples through the trees. Rook always seems to love these outings, seems lighter afterwards. But Davrin feels a little confused in that Rook never seems to realize the outings are mostly for them.

Taash is another person not big on feelings. But they know how much feelings can twist you up and mess with your head. When Lace tells them about Varric they feel badly for Rook, and think to how they feel when they’re struggling. Epic fights, dragon fights, drinks with the Lords. Taash is perfectly capable of doing all that on their own. But maybe bringing Rook along will help get them out of their head a little bit. Does it help? Taash isn’t sure.

Bellara’s double-versed in grief after what happens to Cyrian. Rook helped her through trying to reach him, and Bellara wonders, in her own pain, if she can help Rook a little bit too. Especially if Rook is elven, teaching Rook about the braziers and the challenges is another tool she can share about her or their people, another way that might help Rook with their grief. Neve’s told her that the Wall of Light didn’t seem to help Rook much, but maybe a different funeral tradition could help them instead. Rook helps her light the braziers and Bellara feels her heart lightening, though she wonders at Rook, who seems more moved by Bellara’s reactions than anything else.

Lucanis is nearly as allergic to dealing with feelings as Davrin is, but he immediately clocks how Neve and Harding are acting, and asks what happened before he joined them. They tell him about Varric and that they’re worried about Rook, that Rook seems to just be shoving those feelings down without dealing with them. Lucanis is no stranger to that, but while it’s fine for him, he doesn’t want to see someone who risked their life to save him share that struggle. He brings Rook to Caterina’s funeral planning to show Rook it’s okay to admit the loss and honor it. When that doesn’t seem to make a dent, he falls back to his standard - lavish meals, small gifts, coffee. He knows it would help him. He just wishes it helped Rook too.

Lace hurts the worst after losing Varric and Lace is where Solas’ magic comes the closest to faltering. Rook can see Lace is down, she’s quiet, she’s afraid after what happens with the gods escaping; but Solas’ magic holds and Rook can still never see quite why. Lace would love to sit over drinks one night and share stories about Varric, but she sees that Rook doesn’t seem ready, and she doesn’t want to push. Instead she writes letters to Ma, to the Inquisitor, to Cassandra, to Aveline, maybe even to Hawke. She writes out her stories with Varric’s old quill and she carries a bolt of Bianca with her. A dozen times she goes to talk to Rook about him, and when she tries Rook turns away or changes the subject. It hurts, but Lace knows she can’t make Rook talk about him, and she hopes in time it will get better.

This just absolutely crushes me the more I think about it 😭

Edit: Varric’s death is Rook’s personal companion quest every other single companion tries to help them with, and can’t 😭😭😭

[ignylinn]

Parallels Between Solas Regret Murals and Chantry Iconography

[ignylinn]

Dalish religion around DATV time

I've been meaning to write this a long time ago, and here I am:)

Firstly, some points I need to make clear:

1. I don't agree with the question "What happens if our divine beings actually exist?". It is a question asked through agnostic lenses. The very starting point of faith is the fact that divine beings do actually exist. The new modus of interaction with the world, however, might be a big surprise for many reasons.

2. Very few fictional settings managed to create a full fledged religious systems of their own, DA is not one of them. It heavily relies on real world religions so that our brains can fill in the blanks with our experiences.

So. The question I see for the Dalish is:

How can our religion cope with the fact that some gods from our pantheon are running amok spreading the Blight?

I prefer this one to "are our gods evil?", cause we don't know anything about ethics and morality in Dalish religion. My bet is on a system where questions of good or evil just do not apply to gods. They do what they do based on their spheres of influence.

But one things they are definitely NOT supposed to do is spreading the Blight.

What answers might be here? I think that Dalish religion can adapt in one way: to work around the fact that these are the actual gods.

It can lead to an upsurge of mysticism in the Dalish, and some complex theologies, like:

- We do not follow actual material beings. There are transcendent places beyond the Veil, where true essence of our gods reside, and it is these essence we believe in, and here we introduce some new practices for this new understanding (dalish becoming gnostics).

- There is the Maker, who first sent the Evanuris to the elves, but they were corrupted. They then send Mythal again - as Andraste - for humans, but this too does not work out. We are waiting for some new figure (dalish becoming messianic)

Or Dalish can just revise the stories, like:

- There was a war with the forgotten ones, and in this war Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain were killed. Forgotten ones assumed their identities and tricked other Evanuris, and these guys we are currently seeing are not actually our gods. By following these two we remember their sacrifice.

- Or even, all our gods were killed in the war. Mythal and Fen'Harel imprisoned only the forgotten ones. Or these two were going to do this, but at the last moment Fen'Harel betrayed Mythal. This produces rather bleak reality, but still viable.

The most fascinating variant is if all these ideas take root in various places or among different Dalish, and the religion just fractures - perhaps temporarily, to then reconcile it into one very different religion.

[ignylinn]

I post here less cause work, and I also decided to finally play bg3, "the true successor to DAO", best game ever etc etc.

And err... errr.... many things ppl accuse datv of not having but bg3 having? These things are... not in bg3?

Like, in bg3 NPCs do not really react to my race (drow, which is slightly weird tbh). I rarely have any race specific or class specific dialogue options, even when situation prompts it. Companions are all pretty straightforward and with little subtlety or nuance.

It is also not very dark, I'd say much less than datv. I mean, it's not a dark fantasy setting, so why would it be, but still that's an argument people make.

I mean, it's a good game and I enjoy it a lot, and it follows a lot of the same video games conventions as datv. The things I pointed out here were non-issues for me, these are just arguments I see a lot. So I was paying attention to these aspects.

But a last bit of evidence that many people were approaching DATV in bad faith, and it makes me so sad.

[ignylinn]

Not since Tresspasser. The Inquisition is about the Veil tearing just a little at some places, and look how fun and wholesome that was.

“Veilguard refuses to address why the Veil needs to stay up.”

No. It does. We’ve been addressing it since Trespasser. Literally the plot of the game. It’s the whole reason we’re here. The Veil stays up cause Solas is wrong to want to kill innocent people to fix his mistakes instead of letting the people of Thedas take care of their home themselves.

Solas isn’t the main character of Veilguard, or Dragon Age. Signed,

-A Solavellan shipper who cares more about the lore than Solas because I know what franchise I’m playing.

[ignylinn]

My second Rook is a Grey Warden. He is a son of two Vashoths. He hates when people call him qunari, because he does not follow the qun. He is firmly and hoestly andrastian. He lives in a hope some day people will stop making assumptions about him and others like him and accept them as just another peoples in Thedas who can be anything and believe anything.

(he is the weirdest character I've created as PC - for me, I mean. Not my typical character)

Has DA fandom wildly changed since the last time I was here? Just saw one of my ficlets got 50 likes and 3 reblogs. One of which was me! I’m glad people liked it but am really puzzled on the ratio. Like, are we not yelling and flailing about each others’ OCs anymore? In the Make Your Own OC fandom? 🥺🥺🥺

Send me a tidbit about your Rook and I’ll share something about one of mine! Let’s yell about our precious blorbos together 💜

[ignylinn]

I’ve noticed something and I’m not sure if this has been mentioned before, but after defeating Ghilan’nain, Rook entering regret prison and after Solas’ speech, Rook awakes/lands at the same place where Solas and them had spoken, but instead they awake in Solas’place with their statue on the other side of the divide.

My idea is, that Rook couldn't possibly regret their own existence ( not sure how else to express this). Since Solas had been in the regret prison before Rook and before they entered the prison for the exchange to happen, Solas was still the anchor until he was able to take the dagger.

Which means to me that he manifested regret that took on Rook’s shape. Which means that he either already regretted what he would do to them to get out of the prison before it even came to it or that regret manifested shortly after he had turned on Rook and left with the lyrium dagger.

[ignylinn]

Been thinking about DA setting in general. Here are some chaotic thoughts.

And I think what we see here european-analogy wise is a transfer from late medieval to renaissance to enlightment during the course of four games.

It is important however to distinguish between in-game time passing and our external understanding of the world. Basically, transfer from one region to another in consecutive games marks gradual passage from one era to another.

And the thing I am thinking about in particular is printing. I mean, they have newspapers in Minrathous. And that's a major part of the culture.

For the record, in real history printed newspapers started in the middle of 16th century. Mass cheap production of knowledge is not an easy fit - I think, even with established rules of magic in DA.

Meanwhile, in DAO we had Genitivi - a classic medieval monk traveling to the other side of the earth and writing inadequate accounts of magical fantasy faraway lands.

With printed newspapers, printed books you lose the need for such figures. Knowledge is distributed much easier - you can allow to produce knowledge for export, not for safekeeping.

So, printing press wise: we have pretty medieval setting in DAO, with knowledge centered in weird local analogues of monasteries/universities.

In DA2 we have an author of the books which many people can read (=more literacy), likely a first author of serial fiction.

In DAI... I'm not so sure.

In DATV they have fucking newspapers and magazines which people have an opportunity to read outside of Tevinter and in pretty isolated communities (see Bellara). Which is a HUGE leap.

I mean, all these things could have been there simultaneously... probably... but we are introduced to them in historical order.

Same goes for culture: the further into Renaissance we get, the more humanistic the society becomes. Cause that's when that was invented. And then, in enlightment, Europe introduces proto human rights, diversity etc., as well as separation of state and religion which is also a thing we see in DATV - a level of secularism we have not seen before in Dragon Age.

We also get a surge in technology: in DA2 Merrill struggled with one eluvian, in DATV we have a surge of elven tech. In-game this is of course uncovered ancient technology, but from the outside - the further we are, the more technology we get.

And finally... the reversal of European invasion of the rest of the world (I mean, some dangerous things in the form of executors and devouring storm) is actually an interesting twist of the history they are replicating.

[ignylinn]

What I love about science in general is how weird humanity's lack of knowledge is in comparison.

I mean... people can use pulsars thousands of light years away to study all kinds of space-time shit.

But how do flocks of birds coordinate? No idea.

[ignylinn]

It feels like kal-sharok was supposed to be its own zone with much more going on but got scrapped in late stages. Maybe the dwarves of Kal-Sharok were supposed to be a faction. I mean, a very large chunk of a city for just one quest?

I pray they unscrap that content.

I wish we spent more time with the Dwarves in Dragon Age.

There’s a near-unimaginable scale of loss, too big to look at, it seems - an entire continent-spanning civilisation, reduced to two cities. Millenia of history, erased, lost and unrecoverable. Even the reemergence of Kal Sharok is tinged and tainted with the echoes of betrayal and abandonment, the relationship too delicate and strained to celebrate. Do we even know who the Titans truly are, to the dwarves? Gods, creators, progenitors? A symbiotic relationship where one part is dead and gone?

The genocide of the Titans goes almost without mention. Elven gods butchered Titans and used their bodies to enter the world and build their empire, and we only mourn Elvhenan. Solas and Mythal severed the remaining Titans connection to the Fade, making them Tranquil. The severed dreams of the Titans mutated and became the Blight that the Evanuris weaponised for their own ends. That blight has been killing the dwarves slowly ever since. War with the darkspawn, the loss of the Deep Roads and the other thaigs is the visible loss, but there’s also a steady decline in population numbers as blight exposure reduces fertility. The dwarves are barely holding on by their teeth.

Dagna, writing to Harding, suggests that Isatunoll was once a sort of collective unconsciousness between Dwarves. Losing access to the Fade lost the Dwarves access to Isatunoll, and now Orzammar has erased mention of the Titans from the Memories, to help maintain and enforce the caste system. To survive, Dwarves seemingly have two choices - to continue the work started by the Evanuris and keep mining the blood and bodies of their Titans while fighting an unwinnable war against the Darkspawn, or abandon it all - their culture, their history, their tenuous and fragmentary connection to the Stone Song - and live safe on the surface as little more than short humans.

Isatunoll - I am/we are (still) here. There are so many juicy, challenging stories here. How could I not want to know more about them?

[ignylinn]

I actually like to watch polite critical videos, cause in many cases I just understand what I like about the part of the game being criticized.

What I like about Rook as a protagonist?

Rook... just chooses to be a protagonist.

It's not a life or death situation for them personally, like the Warden.

Rook is not propelled to their role by a series of unfortunate events, like Hawke.

Rook has the choice to get out of this shit, unlike the Inquisitor.

Rook could go to their faction leader, or Inquisitor, or Morrigan, or Dorian and tell them - look, I'm not qualified for this. I did what Varric asked, I'm out. Tops, I will talk with Solas on your behalf.

I'm pretty sure very few people would blame Rook for that. I'm pretty sure some of these people would take the job.

But Rook just saw some responsibility lying around and actively chose to take it. And, well, their eagerness to take responsibility and to make very hard choices responsibly is what makes them a good protagonist for this story.

And a particularly good protagonist for this story's antagonist.

(Actually I'm not so sure who is the protagonist here technically)

[ignylinn]

I love Taash as nb representation.

I have my issues with wording, though I understand why people are pro modern language.

I love that it is primarily representation not of the community, but for the community.

They are not an the Ideal Oppressed. They are not the Suffering NB/trans.

They are rude, they react emotionally, they become more teenagery after coming out.

And, yes, I see my story, and I see stories of countless other NB people I've encountered in my life.

Their coming out to their mothet - totally valid. They are super stressed, the only thing they want to hear is "you are my child and I love you even if I don't understand wtf you are talking about right now". Because they are so stressed by that point any other reaction looks as negative. I'm sorry they were not able to talk it out later.

They re-live their teenage years in the correct gender, which also happens a fucking lot, that's totally normal, totally valid.

I'm honestly glad bioware had guts to create this NB character, and not some totally chill, wise beyond years but suffering nb/trans.

[ignylinn]

Look, another bad meme! This is absolutely how this would go. I will not be taking questions.

[ignylinn]

So true!

Only one system really changed: circles of mages, and mage rebellion is not even shown: we see the start and we deal we the aftermath.

I kind of hope they will show what happens in Tevinter with the new radically abolitionist Archon...

Otherwise, no. In DAO we influence who will be the next king, but there is no option to challenge the idea of centralized monarchy.

Similarly, in DAI we influence who will be the next Divine, and not the institution of the Chantry itself. But Inquisitor totally could have tried.

There is no reform anywhere.

I'd say Veilguard is the best in this, but still subpar. The Crows changed at some point, possibly because of our actions in DAO. There is a whole political party in Tevinter advocating for radical societal changes. And.... no, that's it. Maybe maybe smth wardens in the future?..

Oh, yes, also I hope we will see what happened with the Qunari after their whole army went rogue.

Just gonna point out to the people misreading your post that Dragon Age games have never been about revolution and changing large systems of power. They have always been, at their core, about what you said Veilguard is about: people surviving and struggling within/against those systems. None of the games end with you toppling world powers (except Trespasser, kind of, when you can topple the world power you built yourself). This isn't new!

Honestly, yeah. I’m also hesistant to act like the other dragon age games were great stories about systems of power and oppression when they were all so bad at it.

Like inquisition was trying to convince us that the mages who fled the circles and want to be free to live their lives in peace were just as bad as the templars who broke from the chantry because the chantry wouldn’t let them murder innocent mages and they wanted to do that real bad so they went rogue and did stuff like locking groups of mages in a building and setting it on fire. It retconned dalish lore to pretend that the dalish abandoned mage children when there were already two mages in a clan, something that is literally contradicted in the same game. Da2 acted like it was impossible for fenris and anders to get along because somehow mage freedom is in direct opposition to slavery abolition.

So like. I don’t think compelling stories about oppression is really the cornerstone of this series people pretend it is. I think it introduces some ideas that people have developed themselves in fanworks and online discussions in ways that are interesting and compelling, and I think people have forgotten that that’s not actually how it goes in the game. The games themselves really just presented these ideas and didn’t really do a particularly good job deconstructing them.

[ignylinn]

Okay, Solas

He executes his evil plan (changes places with Rook)

And what does he use his newfound freedom for?

He just runs around Minrathous saving people indiscriminately and helping out wherever he can. Yes, that People-die-thats-what-they-do guy.

He never even needed to escape the prison to execute his plan. He just needed Elgar'nan dead.

This man is fucking impossible.

But the lesson for both our protagonist and antagonist is they never could do it without each other.

[ignylinn]

I was paying attention to their banter after the events. And what is very evident is that after Minrathous/Treviso they understand each other better than others. The driving force in their relationship (romantic or not) is I've been in your shoes when Rook was making decision. I understand your fear and anguish. I understand why you pleaded for your city.

None of the other companions share this.

Each of them offers support to the other, not out of pity, but out of this shared feeling, and it is the basis of initial trust.

Well, that's my understanding

actually though idle reminded me nevecanis exists and im thinking about it now. why is lucanis' romance locked for rook if you save minrathous but he still ends up with neve.

like, if he didn't end up with anyone else, it'd be easy to say he just can't handle letting someone in (it just makes sense, given his hardened arc). if he ended up with someone else, like davrin or something, then it'd be easy to say that while he doesn't blame rook, he also can't handle being with someone who was involved in the decision that ultimately led to his city being blighted. tragic, but understandable.

but he ends up with NEVE. the person who pushed hard for rook to save minrathous instead of treviso. she is just as involved in that decision as rook is! she directly benefits from rook's decision to save minrathous! so it just makes the fact that he's not romanceable with rook completely nonsensical.

am i missing something??? is there an explanation somewhere in banter or whatever that i haven't seen yet?