#How we feel about meta with horns fellas?

[kirbs-blurbs]

no new art have an old gijinka sketch

[liesandvallaslin]

In the Jungles of Par Vollen

In the jungles of Par Vollen there are a series of pyramids amid ruins of “vast cities”. What we actually know is that they are “largely intact” and we have no idea why they were built. Scholars don’t think that they were tombs, but there were preserved bodies.  Nowhere is the race of these bodies mentioned. Not even to say that they’re human remains. Since some scholars say that the humans came from Par Vollen, it’s easy to make the jump that the bodies there are human remains, but I question that.  

No, I don’t have much in the way of “proof” for this, outside of the fact that the codices go out of their way to say “some scholars”, rather than just “Scholars” or something like that, as if there is no consensus.  I’m also going to ignore the possibility of inconsistent writing on the part of Bioware, because 1) I’m about game lore, not ooc stuff, and 2)they’re consistently really good at encouraging the kind of, “I’m not saying it’s aliens…” rambling that I’m doing here. :D

Renatus of Ayesleigh said in his A Compiled History of the Occupied North,  “We know more of the pyramids than we do of the humans who built them.”  This is, as far as I can find, the only reference to the builders being human. 

Why do I keep on about this? Because I don’t necessarily believe they were built by humans.  Renatus wonders, in his compiled history, how a civilization advanced enough to build these great sprawling cities and pyramids did not leave any signs of resistance to the invasion of Qunari.

He then talks about the remains of temples and stylized carvings that remain, depicting “sea creatures, shipwrights, musicians,archers, and kings” as well as some tall horned figures that are not believed to be Qunari.

Of course it’s possible that they were Qunari. It’s possible that they were what we think of as “Kossith”. But I don’t think they were and I don’t want to talk about the Kossith yet.  Good old Renatus is pretty convinced that we don’t have remnants of battles because the people there welcomed the Qunari because of the horned folks in the carvings. The return of a legend, etc etc. Maybe, or maybe the people who built the pyramids were mostly gone by the time the Qunari came.

Now, let’s talk a minute about this statue at the top of the post. This statue (in the Hissing Wastes) is one of the reasons I started this tumblr in the first place. I know lots of folks think it’s either a Qunari woman, or a desire demon. I couldn’t remember where I took the screenshot, so when I was googling things, I came across this tumblr post: (http://lairofsentinel.tumblr.com/post/111607083211), and while I don’t agree with their assessment necessarily (And that’s one of the fun parts of all this meta stuff-we all can draw completely different conclusions from the same data. :) ), the screenshots in the post made me stop and think about them.

They are screenshots of the same/a similar statue in the Fade. This statue, though, is in tandem with a figure that certainly looks Tevinter/Venatori reminiscent. I feel like I will end up coming back to these two statues in the Fade at some point.

For now, though, I think it’s enough to say that I think the woman depicted in these statues is of the same group that’s depicted as tall and horned in the temples in the jungles of Par Vollen.

When I started writing this post, I assumed the next post would be about what we know about the kossith and how/if any of that fits here. But after the Fade statues, I think next we will be looking at the origins of Tevinter.

(End edit: Yes, I know now that the Tevinter looking fella is beside the horned lady in the Hissing Wastes too.  This just makes it extra clear that Tevinter is where I need to be looking next maybe. :) )