This is clearly something really close to your heart, and I'm sorry if I've offended you. That was certainly not my intention. I disagree about it being tired and stupid, but that's alright. We can have different opinions about a story choice. For what it's worth, if you do decide to do some fix-it ficcing, I'd love to see what you come up with.
I am sorry. It just hurts a lot. I felt like look there is me. They are reconstructinf thinga and it likely isnt accurate and cant be really but they are trying because it is impirtant. And then it is gone. Completely. While christianity gets to exist. Like always. I cant even properly retort to people like cassandra. No i just need to take it. Like always.
*Sends hugs if you want them* I can tell it hurts a lot :((, and one of the HUGE problems with DAI is the lack of diverse responses available. from a game design perspective I can sort of see why they couldn't give a whole lot of extended contact to elven Quizzies, but it can really fuck up the RPing, character, and narrative flow of playing an elf. I get the impression that this is yet ANOTHER example in an endless line of your faith/religion (or fictional religion analogous to yours) being put down and handled shittily, and that makes everything worse.
Important step one is that the gods cannot be evil or awful. Perhaps we may find them morally questionable or cruel. Or overly capricious and mercurial. But they are under no circumstances evil. Any of them. Including Solas' ass. Is Odin evil? No. Is Loki evil? No. Are they assholes? Oh definitely. Was Lugh cruel when he refused to save the lives of Tuireann's sons even as he begged at his feet after they finished the tasks Lugh gave them. Certainly. However he isn't evil. Or even unjust. In fact he was the very epitome of justice when he refused. They murdered his father and then had the gall to lie about it in front of not just Lugh himself but others. And then they had the gall to assume that they could easily complete the tasks which he asked for as a blood price. So murder, lying, cowardice, and arrogance. Yes, the payment was very harsh but it was just. It also displayed Lugh's cleverness and the devotion he has to his family. Very high traits. If he is occasionally cruel. That is important I feel. Very important. So Elgar'nan can still be a vindictive, cruel, vengeful shithead. However that doesn't mean he is evil or somehow not a god worthy of veneration. Hardly. If anything his being a god of vengeance and somehow worthy of veneration is part of why I was fond of him. I also think that they're able to maintain their status as elves. Exceptionally powerful elves who gained the title of god. There is nothing inherently wrong about divine humans. Or I guess elves in this case. To assume that there is is to have a very limited sense of what the word "god" can even mean. Which is a whole slew of things. You could have Buddhism's lack of any specialness to the term and just have gods as another kind of living being. No real different from humans or even ants. Or you can have the high and perfect Theoi, against whom any transgress is a dire wrong. Or you can have god be more of a status one earns. Either way the point is god can mean many things. Your limited view of gods is bad and you should feel bad. Next important thing is that, yes, the Dalish clans can and in fact must vary heavily in their exact beliefs and how they are reconstructing things. That sort of variation is simply natural in religions of any sort and minority reconstructed faiths aren't any different. Why would they be? That the Dalish are wrong in some points I feel is also entirely fair. And in fact needed. When you are working with what is basically fledgling anthropology and archaeology you by nature are going to be wrong to some degree. This then leads to the question of "does historical inaccuracy mean that their religion is 'wrong''. As well as the question of tradition and whether or not things are worthwhile. These are complicated questions and I feel that the best way to go would be to not have an answer that stands out "yes this is the absolute correct thing". Because that is stupid and dumb and also not how religions work. Even remotely. Which I guess leads us to the question of slavery. Is slavery a thing that can have happened and the gods could be involved in? Oh definitely. Religions are not squeaky clean. Even remotely. An example, I suppose would be the matter of physical perfection and beauty in Irish mythology. Basically physical beauty was a virtue. Up there with things like wisdom and honor. Kings could not in any way be marred physically. The slightest blemish or disability immediately rendered you incapable of holding the office mythically. Which sounds pretty fucked up, yes? There are a variety of ways this is dealt with. My personal way is to just deem the entire thing bullshit. Just toss it in the trash. Set it on fire. This is a bad tradition. Burn it. Keep your gods but burn this down. Another way to deal with it is to view beauty instead as a more metaphorical matter. Especially considering the fact that we've no real philosophical base for pagan Ireland to go off. Another still is to actually view physical beauty and hygiene as still very valid and very important virtues. The fun thing about all this? We fight about it. There are nasty fucking spats about the whole beauty matter. Very nasty ones. This is fine and normal. This does all lead to plot complications which I won't know how to solve because I have not finished the game. Hell I never even got to whatever the fuck the main base is. Because I was so furiously fucking pissed. But that is an issue to deal with as things come up. I will say though that Solas needs his rightness knocked down several notches. There can't be a clear answer of "Oh this sucked and they were bad anyway". Or a clear answer at all of any sort. Solas is right about some things, especially factually. The Dalish are right about some things, even if mostly in spirit. The other not Solas gods are right about some things. I feel the most important thing though is that...the Dalish religion needs to be just that. It is a religion. It is at a level of respect that the Andrastian Chantry gets narratively. It is not a fucking plot point or someone's tragic backstory. Can it be involved in plot points or someone's tragic backstory? Oh definitely. However the thing needs to stand on its own and be afforded the respect that a religion deserves. As an example of this, while it's not perfect I do feel that Elder Scrolls does a MUCH BETTER job at handling religion. Even though its gods are often part of the plots themselves, I never really feel that we go "Oh yes everyone who believed in Vivec's teachings is wrong and also Vivec was bad" or decide that there is nothing of worth to be found in Sheogorath's madness. There's no real clear answers provided even though the world's gods are constantly there in your face. And I feel like the various interfaith arguments you see have a sort of realness to them that Bioware has failed at. Repeatedly. At the end of Morrowind I had a lovely sense that, yes, the Tribunal Temple was a religion. A living breathing actually real religion. Alongside other real religions. And part of the wonder of all this is you can see fans of the lore having these complicated fucking arguments about these in game religions and no one has the right answer. They have arguments. Supported by evidence. That is all. The CHIM debates are the sort of shit you see Buddhist monks doing. And that's beautiful. Which was pulled off in part by how the lore is presented and even made in those games. Which would necessitate me coming up with a bunch of such bullshit for elves, Dalish or otherwise. And the Chantry too. Because really I am not fucking satisfied with them either. They probably have the least shit treatment where religion is concerned but it is still not up to my standards.
So really if I do end up writing fic most of it likely won't be like...Fic as most consider it but things more like...In-universe anthropology. Kind of like what I did for a Dark Souls fic. I don't feel it is the best, but this sort of thing is what I consider "up to my standards". Especially since I feel that there are like 20 other scholars at least who have written angry rebuttals about this.
Now I am scared and feel abd again for being stupid. I eant to delete the posts but also no. Obhate this.
@Aondeug I'm also interested in reading more of your thoughts on this in in-universe anthropology form. While I like the game's lore as-is I think it'd be even better with a perspective like yours to inform it. While in the game you can play an elf who tells Solas he's being completely unnecessary amounts of asshole about the Dalish on a regular basis and get him to back off and rethink, there's not as much of it as there should be. A thought - it'd be cool if Spoiler: elven god spoilers the elven gods, in being trapped away probably in the Fade for so long ended up shaped by Dalish belief, rather like the spirit-gods of the Avvar are, and Solas prepares to fight them... only to find out when he releases them that he doesn't have anything to fight anymore.
Thinking about the Avvar, it's a damn shame they're relegated to such a small corner of the DA world because they have their heads on straighter re: spirits than pretty much any other humans. The Fereldens and Orlesians and Tevinters and whatnot sneer at them as barbarians who worship spirits as gods, don't they know their gods are just spirits?? And the Avvar are like, no shit lowlanders, of course they're spirits. Please notice how we also have a much better relationship with them than any of you jokers, oh and also we don't have to keep our mages in prisons because we have a good relationship with spirits. Suck it. Also, the Avvar kill their gods whenever they start getting too big for their britches, which kind of resets the god and gives them a fresh start. Birth and renewal: not just for the physical plane of existence! I imagine this freaks Andrastians right the hell out. :')
That would be rather neat honestly. The idea about them being shaped by the beliefs of thr Dalish while trapped. I sadly dont know enough about the plot tobreally say more though.
You might be interested in knowing that it's heavily implied in the last DLC that at least some of the ancient elves were originally spirits, including Solas. I would not be surprised if this holds true for the rest of the pantheon, which means they're still gods in the Avvar sense of the word, so that implies they can theoretically be reset. Theoretically-- Spoiler: Kind of a well known spoiler about Mythal but a spoiler nonetheless It worked for Mythal, but apparently she only managed to hang on as a spark for what would have been a few thousand years before she attached herself to Flemeth.
That is rather intwresting to me yeah. A thinf to tbink about wjile I work definitely. There is probably a lot one can do with them being both ancient elves and spirits. Abd yeah I heard the Mythal thing. With Flemeth.
One thing I really like are mythologies where humans go to war with their gods and defeat them in brutal and bloody combat. This is a very nice concept. Given the game's lore it might be a concept that would be very apt for my fixfic/fixlore ways. Possibly a thing to combine with Mercury's idea of being separated out of reality reality and the Dalish views of the Powers having ended up shaping and changing them. And really just general conflict with gods that isn't entirely unwarranted on the part of the non-gods. Like gods can be honored and just and worthy of veneration, but that doesn't mean that humanity can't rise up at times and collectively scream no at them. And then force change. I especially like it when that sort of shit is what makes them love or respect us. Veneration doesn't mean blindly following orders or putting up with shit. Sometimes it means refusal or offending them or fighting them into the ground. That's how heroes and gods are made at times! These are things to think about I suppose while I play this damned game. Which is very fun gameplay wise at least. And I do like the characters generally.
...well now I'm curious about your thoughts about the Craft Sequence, where a significant part of the backstory involves a pretty major war between gods and zombie magic lawyers.
Oh? That sounds interesting. Especially the zombie magic lawyers bit. I REALLY love lawyers in religion. Like half my interest in Islam is solely based off lawyers and knowing that the lawyers of Brehon law were magical poets who predicted the future and chanted legal tracts just is the hypest shit.
There was a really nice comic about that bit of the backstory actually - here it is! And the magic lawyers - OK, it's been a while since I read it, but basically magic is intertwined a lot with how the world and society Works. Like, god-power (in cities that have gods) makes the furnaces run and the trains run on time, magic and money are essentially the same (people pay for goods with coins that they imbue with soulstuff, for example.) And, similarly, law and magic are intertwined. Legal battles are magic battles, you use your evidence and precedents and knowledge of law to fight against your opponent, and you draw power via contracts made. The first book in the series is Three Parts Dead, and it's written by Max Gladstone.
See that shit is lovely. And reminds of a fan plane I worked on for a fan set for MTG that I never finished. The set was Islam and Arab lore based and a big thing in the setting was law being magical. And how the five colors manipulated law with their magic. Like trade laws and such were all handled by Black. Blue was in control of one of the major universities, basically a fantasy Beit al Hikma. They also had their own contributions to jurisprudence and their own general focuses and methodologies. Green for example based the bulk of their arguments off tradition. This is how things were done by the teachers in the past and their companions and we need to base new laws off those traditions. Blue meanwhile was extremely fond of arguing by way of analogy and analysis. Which White disliked because it often felt that the analogy went too far and needed to be reigned back in by direct quoting of religious texts. White was the master of textual analysis and jurisprudence based off that.
I still love how much Leliana fucking hates my warden. Also just her religious crisis in general. But her dislike of my warden just makes me happy in particular. Because I can sit there and go yep that sure is a thing that I did. Pissed her off by skullfucking the ashes after days of ignoring her and treating her with great caution for fear that she might get super weird at our Dalish ass. i love you leliana
