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lairofdragonagelore · 1 year

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Somewhere in the Crossroads

This post has compiled the most relevant information during the main quest for completion’s sake. These quests have little “archaeological” value, but since I’m visually covering the majority of the game, I can’t put them aside.

The last minute of the game, after the end of the credits.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Somewhere, probably in a space of the Crossroads, we see Flemeth in front of a mirror. This scene is extremely mysterious because we can't be sure of what she is doing with the eluvian.

This could be a piece of herself being placed in the mirror so she can awake eventually in similar fashion as she did with the necklace in DA2. This is an option that, no matter your choices in game, is always possible.

This could also mean that she is placing Urthemiel in the mirror to save them from being consumed by Solas. She knows that with the destruction of the orb, Solas only has a way to find the power he needs: hers. But this option would make no sense in a game where the player did not save Urthemiel, so this possibility is immediately discarded.

If we read the description of the Dev's notes in the game files [all the game files I'm working with belong to Corseque's works since I don't know how to extract these things] we realise that Flemeth always knew the development of this series of events. She knows that Solas needs her powers, and she won't resist it, but she wants to "pass the essence of her godhood onto Morrigan". Now, there is some chance that the bit of energy she is placing into the mirror is "this essence of godhood". Lore-wise, it seems a bit confusing to me, since I understood that the essence of Godhood in Flemeth is Mythal herself, no? So, she is placing a bit of Mythal for Morrigan to accept eventually? Or this essence is more related to what the elvhen extracted from the Titans?

From the small bits that follow in the scene, we obtain some confirmations:

This seems to be the Crossroads, since we see Elven Tree Statues in the background.

Flemeth recognises that the orb belonged to Fen'Harel [”your orb”], despite its game file name [Mythal_orb]. It seems that originally was meant to be her orb, probably lent to Solas, but that was changed to make it his orb.

Combining it with information that Solas gave us in the Frostback Mountains: Attack to Haven, we know this orb accumulated his energy while he was in his slumber.

So, this orb increased in energy as Solas stayed in his slumber. While, according to the game files, Flemeth’s had a small bit of Mythal that she nurtured through the ages. It seems to imply that both powers are equivalent, so I’m inclined to suspect a bit more that the orbs are related to the power of godhood, and Solas has it in the shape of an orb because he never made it part of himself [according to his mosaics in the Elven mountain Ruins], while Mythal had this power inside her.

Flemeth cultivated the power of Mythal because she knew Solas will need that power, eventually.

He calls it slumber, not Uthenera [I personally think that the game series hints us that the Uthenera is a more messed-up and horrifying process than mere slumber. But I need to work in a long post about Uthenera.]

After his slumber of thousands of years, he was too weak to unlock the orb, so he tried to use Corypheus and kill him in the process. It clearly failed.

He would prefer to pay for his mistake, but he seems to have a unique role or power to make his People return. Would this imply that he is the only one able to destroy the Veil and join the Waking World with the Fade again?

We get the confirmation that Mythal and Fen'Harel were old friends, as all the ruins we visited along the game seemed to suggest.

A moment before consuming Flemeth, we see a very particular effect. I'm not so sure if it can be understood as the following, but it seems to visually suggest what we have been suspecting for a while: Solas [like all the elvhenan] has been a spirit [or better said, an entity of the like] bound to a shape. This similar effect has been seen in Hakkon, when the spirit shape overlapped the dragon's head in a teal-greenish-like colour. Now, we also know that Solas has been this way since the time of the Evanuris [his own words at the end of Tespasser], so, if this interpretation is correct, he has been bound to shape even before the creation of the Veil.

UPDATE Jan 2023: Mrs-guache has added an extra relevant detail and a gif in a different angle in their post [here].

Checking the game files, Mrs-guache found that Solas’ effect on his head is called “fadewisp head”, the same one used for the orange wraiths we find in-game.

The place where both are met is an elvhen ruin. Unlike anything else we saw before, this eluvian is protected by both of them, one at each side of the mirror. The size of the eluvian is immense too.

When Solas consumes Flemeth, her face looks like turned into stone? There is some greyness to her face that ends up covering her completely. I don't think we saw this effect before in any other moment of the game. It’s not exactly petrify. She is like turned into “ashes” [it’s not stone, but it’s certainly extremely grey]. It's also curious that this power is similar to what we see that Solas uses against the Qunari in Tresspasser: they turn into stone with just a flash of his eyes.

Symbolically speaking, it is also curious that entities of fluidity like the elvhen could manage a power so related to the stone, the titans, and therefore, the reinforcement of reality. Maybe in this detail there is a hint about why the Evanuris godhood [aka, power] seems to be related to titans. But there is no hard evidence on this, and it’s a topic for another post anyway.

The following scene is Solas’s face, with all the power he needs for his goal. His eyes glow in a cold blue, and he is surrounded by a dark smoke effect.

These were effects we saw in Flemeth when trying to control the person who drank from the Well,

as well as in Abelas, when he tried to destroy the Well of Sorrow.

I can’t stop thinking that, taking into consideration the decade of time difference and the engine, it’s a similar effect to the DAO Archdemon, just in a more blueish hue. It’s also described as such in the book Last Flight. I’m not saying they are the same, but there may be a connection. It always surprised me that these powerful elves had such an ominous and “dark” effect associated with their magic.

An interesting gem that Corseque showed in her post, is that it seems that Morrigan was meant to witness this last scene when Solas consumes Flemeth, but it was removed from the game. I personally think it doesn’t change much. Morrigan seems to be able to use some eluvians, so it makes sense that she may have ended in this place. Probably, originally, it was going to be a situation that would justify the moment when she acquired her godhood, but it seems she will do it eventually when she finds out this eluvian where Flemeth placed that godhood essence.

Update 2023: Gaider shared in a twitter a flux diagram where we see part of the cut content of this scene

In particular, the important section is this one:

Solas seems to drain Flemeth but not killing her, it’s the drinker of the Well of Sorrow who does it, probably removing the effect of the Whispers, free of any bound related to Mythal’s essence [the Well of Sorrow has a bit of her essence to work]. This is cut content and I’m not fan to explore this too deep because we don’t truly know to what point this may still apply into the story. What seems interesting in this cut content is that this is the last command that Mythal tells to the Inquisitor when she implied that there was a still a command she wanted to from them, it’was not the right moment yet.

In any case, this was Solas’ intention since the moment the orb broke, that’s probably why he looks so heartbroken in the scene wher he picks the pieces of the orb: he knows he has to kill Flemeth, and potentially, transform himself in the process. He tried to work his feeling through the mural we find in Skyhold, but he could not manage to finish it. The dragon is dead, and the wolf acquires a dragony-shape. This emotion is so deep and strong, than in Tevinter Night, we learn that he ended up feeding a demon with similar shape: a black wolf of dragony style called Regret.

The story was well known—the Elder One, the false god Corypheus, had torn a hole in the sky to steal power from the heavens. He couldn’t be killed until his blighted dragon was dead, and the Herald, the Inquisitor, had somehow countered with a dragon of their own. And there was a dragon on the panel, with an Inquisition blade in its neck. But according to the story, both creatures had fallen first, leaving the final victory to the Inquisitor.

But here, unfinished, was the outline of a beast that stood over both dragon and sword. This was not the battle, or the victory. This was after. And the beast was not a dragon. The outline alone might have allowed that assumption, but now, filling with black and red, it was something other. The creature was reptilian, but also canine. The snout was blunted and toothy, but edges came to a point in houndlike ears. As the mass of plaster filled the shape, it began to rise, revealing scales and tail, and paws with talons. It looked like two figures painted on either side of a pane of glass, then viewed together, their forms confused. A wolf that had absorbed a dragon, and now stood crooked over all.

[...] The beast regarded him in silence, looming, and then its plaster lips spread into a smile far too quickly. “I am the heart of what was here.” As it spoke, it raised an arm—one of three—and pointed at the fresco panels in order. “An echo that has breached the Fade.” The creature’s arm finished its path at Sutherland’s friends. “And I can still the bravest blade or magic.”The limb folded into the creature’s layers, each movement adding to the rasping sound. It rose to its full height, as high as the panels would’ve allowed, and bellowed its name so loud that dust fell from the walls.“I am Regret!”

[...] “I am the regret of a god, you—!”

--Callback, Tevinter Nights.

#flemeth #solas #Howling Fen'Harel statue #Dragon Mythal statue #eluvian #main quest #elven tree statue

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lairofdragonagelore · 1 year

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Arbor Wilds: Temple of Mythal - Part 3

Main Quest: What Pride Had Wrought

The Temple of Mythal was a place of justice, where petitioners walked religious rites of passage in order to have their pleas for justice heard by Mythal. According to some, it is also the site of some mysterious religious artefact called the vir'abelasan.

This post contains the following sections

Entrance to the Temple

The Rituals

Ancient Crypts: Red Templar's way

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

Entrance to the Temple

The entrance to the temple is enormous. Its door is waiting for activation via the rituals/puzzles. At its sides there are two gigantic, decayed mosaics of Mythal. In the small corridor of the door, there are four Dragon Myhtal statues. In the corridor, we find this curious vallaslin ink object that we had only seen it before in the The Lost Temple of Dirthamen.

The Rituals [Puzzles]

In this post, Diirthata-ma shows the name of the game files [I’m unable to have access to these by myself] which represent the puzzles. I thought it could potentially give us some hints about the statues used in them. So, the name of these ritual I use here were given by the game files.

Elgar'nan Ritual

The first puzzle, the easiest and shortest one, is named Elgar'nan ritual. It's decorated with archer statues [that by now I suspect we can consider them as Shadow Sentinels], and on a rail of one of the stairs that lead to the puzzle, we find a small Red inuksuk. So far, I still keep the interpretation that these objects are related to sacrifice and blood.

The entryway to this puzzle is decorated with a Sylaise's golden mosaic. I feel this is very fitting, since Elgar'nan is fury of great power [read the codices in the Temple of Mythal and in Vir Dirthara related to him] while Sylaise is as brutal as him considering the only non-Dalish codex we have: Song to Sylaise. Both figures are entities of fury, fire, and wrath in some degree. Sylaise seems to be a bit envious or competitive even.

Fen'Harel's ritual

The second puzzle, with a lever, is Fen'Harel's ritual. It’s a puzzle with two potential interpretations: One, ironically, is that this puzzle needs you to be trapped in order to solve it [as a meaning to represent how he sealed the others gods, including himself (Cole says the wold chew his own leg to escape), to save the world], probably a poetic twist implemented by the Devs than something that the original Elvehan would have considered in the creation of this ritual. Another interpretation [more in-game and more “Evanuris”] is that this is the trickiest puzzle because the lever, and thus it represents Fen’Harel in the sense that you need cunning to solve it. [Unlike what wiki says, you don’t need to fail first to solve it. It has several different ways to be solved without failing it, it’s just a matter of tricks.]

To no one's surprise, it has several statues of Fen'Harel, in sitting and howling position.

Dirthamen's ritual

This is the longest one, which needs you to jump across different levels of the puzzle. It starts in the part of the chamber decorated with Elven Owl statues, and finishes in the one decorated with Elven hart statues. Due to the fact this is a puzzle that represents Dirthamen, gods of knowledge and secrets, it seems to present a duality [owl and hart] as usually Dirthamen/Falon’Din seem to exist in the iconography.

That the owl is present here, seems to have some reason: we have read in the game a codex saying that the owl could be considered the messenger animal of Dirthamen [as well of Andruil], but the hart seems to be a curious association. We know that the unreliable Dalish Tales relate hart figures with Ghilan’nain [for example, Ameridan did it in the DLC], and in the The Lost Temple of Dirthamen (Part 2), we find a red mosaic of Ghilan’nain [this association a bit more trustworthy]. In the codex Ancient Elven Writing [detailed and analysed in Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal], there is a subtle relationship between Ghilan’nain and a servant of Dirthamen.

Therefore, Dirthamen and Ghilan’nain may have had some particular kind of relationship which is not clear to define with the information we have in game. It could have been an alliance or a rivalry of some kind. Honestly, considering Dirthamen’s dual existence with Falon’Din, I would have expected this puzzle to have more visuals of Falon’Din, as all things related to Dirthamen have and vice-versa.

The entryway to Dirthamen’s puzzle is decorated with June's golden mosaic, which triggers the codex The Mystery of June, detailed and analysed in Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal.

The only reason I can find to explain why two of these puzzles have entryways with mosaics of June and Sylaise, is because both of them have a portfolio of crafting in common. In the codices Vir Dirthara: Raising the Sonallium and in Song to Sylaise [detailed in Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara and in Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal] we can see that Sylaise is also dedicated to some aspect of the arts of crafting or related to architecture. Both of them may have been responsible of the construction of many of these buildings, in my opinion.

Once the puzzles are finished, the main door to the temple glows in blue and we are granted the access to the Petitioning Chamber.

Ancient Crypts: Red Templar's way

If we follow the hole on the ground left by the Red Templars, we have access to something that the game names “Ancient Crypts”. When we ask Morrigan’s opinion on this place, she says that it looks more like a fortress than a Temple.

The crypts present the most creepy murals from the post Nation Art: Elvhen

This place has decorations and structures similar to Dirthamen’s Temple or in general, similar to any elvhen crypt [like Dinan’Hanin]. As all elvhenan crypts, they are made with rough stones, and less decorated door frames and arcs.

The walls have these typical paintings. The only one I didn’t find is the Armoured figure from Nation Art: Elvhen. We even find these reptilian drawings in the Temple of Mythal. This repetition in so many elvhen places makes me consider this as part of a lore we don’t understand yet, and not just a Bioware joke about krogans.

From dozen and dozen of screenshots we see most of the object we have seen in crypt-like scenarios like the Lost Temple of Dirthamen: different inuksuit, urns, Elvhen funerary lid, generic dead bodies, and some Red inuksuk [I kept this cute one, so small].

It’s in the crypts where we find Untranslatable Elven Writing which is Abelas’ confession about how he and his people at the temple endure their duty. Details in the post Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal.

Ahead, we find another: Unreadable Elven Writing, which narrates about a unique and brutal weapon developed by Andruil, a golden spear. It’s not clear if this is like a codex that represents the main rival of Mythal. We can imagine that Andruil may have had a lot of resentment towards Mythal since they both fought and Mythal erased her memory of how to access to the Void [codex Elven God Andruil, detailed in Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal].

One of the many chambers of this crypt has a pair of Fen’Harel statues with the painting of the elves in battle. This makes me strengthen the idea that this mural painting represents a Rebellion more than a battle.

Next chamber, we find a broken Dragon Myhtal statue, with the painting of the dragon on the wall [which in several other situations seems to be a dragon that guides the painting of the elves ridding into battle] and in another section of the wall, we find the slaved elves, without face and heart. There are more snuksuit and more paintings of elves with vallaslin.

In one of the darkest chambers, we find an isolated statue of a hart.

Arbor Wilds: Temple of Myhtal - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

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