#broken tower

Broken Tower

From the entrance we can see most of the rest of the isles of the Shattered Library that we will have access via eluvians. In this case, the Broken Tower at the right and the Scholar’s Retreat at the left.

From the Courtyard we have access to them via the eluvian with the Bull horn-head creature on its top. By standing in front of the eluvian we can see our destiny; I love this visual detail.

Unlike the case of the eluvian with the Sun-head creature on top of it, in this case, the destiny eluvian does not have a Bull horn-head on its top.

The Broken Tower's main characteristic is a set of eight statues that we saw a bit overused in Crestwood: surface. They were located in a subterranean cave as means for illumination without any other element that may imply ancient elvhen presence. However, they were used in elvhen places too in a more consistent way: we found them in The Lost Temple of Dirthamen as holders of the pieces of the High One, or in the Cradle of Sulevin, as holders for the pieces of the sword. Here, they keep a brazier of Veilfire in their hands and they surround a spherical elven Tree Statue, which is again related to energy or power [it cracks with similar power than the Anchor].  

The interpretation of this configuration is a bit hard for me since I want to keep as close to an Occam’s razor as possible, using most of the time the valuable context that surrounds the configurations. The only clue we have nearby this place is the book The Treachery of the Wolf, that will be found in the isle of Scholar’s Retreat: 

The pages of this book—memory?—warn of a terrible danger, a wolf with slavering black jaws and pits for eyes. The Evanuris—the elven gods—stand in a ring around it, as if preventing it from attacking.

If we don’t consider Fen’Harel in the group of Evanuris, there are eight remaining elvhen gods: Andruil, Ghilan'nain, Elgar'nan, Dirthamen, Falon'Din, Mythal, June, and Sylaise, each of them may be represented with one of these strange hooded skeletons [I’m not a great fan of this interpretation]. Of course, this book is mere Evanuris propaganda against Fen’Harel, I do not take it seriously. But if this has some reflection in the puzzle of the Broken Tower, it would mean that the Elven Tree Statue is related to Fen’Harel in a deeper way than I expected since the Evanuris are recognising that equivalence Tree= something related to the Dread Wolf [this connection seems fair because, if we remember the Forgotten Sanctuary, the tree was central in the entrance, and was over the replica of Fen’Harel in the dark room of the Silent Tower]. Therefore, the idea of Solas inspiring the mythology of the Maker seems a bit stronger, since the stained glasses of Andrastian Chantries depict the Maker with a swirly tree in his heart. For more details about what I’m talking about, read the first mosaic of Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins].  In conclusion, these statues may have represented the Evanuris/gods, and the tree is just the power that the Dread Wolf embodies that must be controlled. Since this Library connected cities and courts, it must have been an environment very related to the highest classes of the elvhenan, mages and nobles, so the art displayed here must have basically been Evanuris propaganda. However, this is a mere speculation and nothing of this can be confirmed.

In the Broken Tower there is a big Elven Archer statue in a corner, pointing out to the next isle: the Scholar's Retreat. 

In the upper floor we find another eluvian which will send us to the Scholar’s Retreat. Here, we meet another piece of the archivist. More details about this interaction in “The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]:  Shattered Library; The Archivist“

Scholar's Retreat

The eluvian leads us to the Scholar’s Retreat’s middle floor. Walking upstairs, we reach to what looked like a big chamber with a mural.

Before focusing on the mural, we can see that there are some skeletons around. We see more remains of the people trapped here when the Veil was created. 

A particular detail called my attention here: a skeleton close to a paint palette. This makes the skeleton look like the ancient author of the painting, who fell or died in the process of creation. This allowed me to toy with the possibility of not assuming Solas’ authorship immediately [but still keeping in mind Occam’s Razor].

With the creation of the Veil, many elvhen got stuck in several isles of this library, unable to activate the paths. Some of them seemed to be completely ignorant of the nature of the Veil, but others had some understanding of it and even knew that Solas disappeared soon afterwards its creation [read Shattered Library; The Archivist for more details]. 

The Veil weakened magic [said by The Archivist], and all things related to magic crumbled. Hence, I imagine that creating the memory-books where history has been recorded since forever in the Elvhenan empire was now impossible. So some of the survivors may have resorted to painting murals in order to leave a written record of what caused this catastrophe: the Veil. In this interpretation, this mural would not be of Solas’ authorship, and it would represent the last record made by an Elvhenan.

Cons of this interpretation: 

The person should have had a deep understanding of the Veil, which seems unlikely. The Archivist has recorded people who understood the Veil in a broad manner, but not with this depth. 

The mural is falling apart. It seems to have been painted on when the wall was undamaged. You notice this when you look at the highest part of the mural.

The strongest rebuttal of this interpretation, for me, is in the way Solas is represented as a normal elf, and not as a monster, which is how these elvhen were seeing him at the moment of the catastrophe. 

So, this interpretation is a bit bland despite having some visual elements that may support it in the beginning.

The simplest interpretation [Occam’s razor- friendly] is that the mural’s author is Solas, who painted it before the creation of the Veil. We know he meditates and thinks about the actions he will take through paintings. He may have made it in the Library because he probably was researching about the theory that would allow the creation of that barrier. He may have consulted records/books of similar magic to come up with this spell. This interpretation removes the three previous cons:

It’s undeniable that no one but Solas has an extensive knowledge of the Veil in order to create a mural explaining it. As a result, the Qunari came here, trying to study it in order to learn how to straighten the Veil. This mural has valuable information about the Veil, it is the book “How to create a Veil”, basically. 

The mural image is half fallen apart, which makes sense if this mural was painted before the catastrophe, as a “sketch” or “notebook study”.

Solas is represented as a bald elf, wearing a humble moss-green robe that we see repeated in all the other murals.

So, as a conclusion, I strongly believe this mural was painted by Solas, as a study of how to create the Veil, while processing the regret that this was going to cause him. We know he tried to do something similar with the Death of Flemeth, but he could not finish his mural in that case [I’m not sure if it was truly lack of time, or just his immense regret preventing him from finishing it].

On the desks there are mostly qunari notes, showing us that the Qunari were studying this painting very seriously and with mathematical formulas. Who knows, maybe this whole chamber was Solas’ when he was not Fen’Harel yet, and he behaved more like a spirit of knowledge/wisdom/teaching/gathering secrets. We know he has a profile that can be considered at times very scholarly. Behind this mural we find the note The Treachery of the Wolf [the Evanuris propaganda]. 

The mural of the “Creation of the Veil” is really a headache to interpret. I think it’s a bit easier now that we got the last mural of DA:D, where the Golden City is explicitly contaminated with Red Lyrium, but still I have a bad time with the “silver and golden bubbles” around the Veil. 

They seem to represent the Archdemons, but each bubble has a connected, smaller, black bubble attached to the main one, which is not clear how we can interpret it. Bound processes? Parasite entity? Blight itself?  

The central semicircle seems to be the Veil. It contains a circle of darkness with 14 “eyes”, or what looks like dark peacock feathers, as a symbol of pride. Inside, there is another circle that looks like a [Chantry] Sun, also interpreted as a "sphere of fire" [this brings to our minds Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads, which is something that appeared after Myhtal’s death]. It’s position is similar to where we usually find the Golden City, and by now, thanks to one of the DA:D trailers, we know it’s infected with Red Lyrium, so the connection I’ve done time ago about Fire, Anger, and Red Lyrium in the Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara seems to be strengthened a bit more with this. If the darkness around the fire sphere is Blight, we have several things “trapped” inside the Veil: The main danger is the Red Lyrium [or sun?], which is central. Trapped around a symbol of pride and darkness. I would consider this sphere as potentially the place where the Evanuris and the Blight are trapped. Then, the Fade isolates this dark and red sphere, to finally be contained with the Veil [dotted line of green and black]. 

At the sides there are two balls. The golden one in elvhen style usually is related to the Evanuris and Divinity. It’s placed exactly over the figure that displays a halo of divinity, but seems to suffer some “perversion”, because the lower part of his robe looks stained. 

The intense blue ball speaks to us, without a doubt, about lyrium, and it’s over the figure that holds what we know from the mural of the Death of the Titan as a Titan’s heart [asterisk symbol]. Both balls [blue one and golden one] look like elvhen orbs. It’s not clear if it is the representation of all the uses than a single orb may have, or if it tells us that there are many kinds with different functions. Both spheres have wiggling lines that, so far, we have concluded in posts like “Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins“ that they are related to the slavery of the Vallaslin [as the mural of the lifting of the vallaslin seems to imply too]

It's not clear in which direction we should read this mural: from left to right or vice versa. There are more details and interpretations I’m holding about this mural but I will write them in the corresponding post of “Murals in DAI”.

Behind the mural, we see a corridor blocked with purple fire, meaning that Solas was here recently, and may have fought the Qunari that wanted to learn more about the creation of the Veil. In this corridor is where we find the book with the Evanuris propaganda against Fen’Harel: The Treachery of the Wolf. 

In a corner of this room, we can see a Dragon Mythal statue. It is strange to see it here because we have not seen any so far in all the Library.

In the upper floor of the Scholar's Retreat we find another of these Sitting Fen'Harel statue with a Stone in Razikale-Ceremony-style giving us instructions about how to solve the puzzle. The reward is Rime, which description is bland and means nothing in our current context.