"can you explain this gap in your resume?" I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the Old Gods of the empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. For a thousand years I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world. Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty!
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Something Dragon Age: Inquisition does do so well, and still gives me shivers every single time, is the introduction of Corypheus. It is SO cinematically satisfying watching him slowly emerge from the fire. The shot of the dragon roaring with the moon in the background, ashes blowing in the wind. Corypheus lifting the Inquisitor up off the ground, with how monstrously large he is... and of course, the jaw dropping line that is, "beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty." Just... holy shit.
I almost wonder if half the reason he doesn't hold up as a villain for the rest of the game is just because his first appearance is so peak it was impossible to reach again. Nevertheless, I love the quest In Your Heart Shall Burn so much. Easily one of the best in the entire Dragon Age series, let alone just this one game.
Imagine being Anders and you’re in the deep roads telling Sebastian that “there’s no magical boogeyman who invaded the makers kingdom” and “the magisters who created the darkspawn are just lies made up by the chantry to oppress mages,” and then immediately Corypheus shows up and is like “I am one of the ancient magisters who invaded the makers kingdom and created the darkspawn.” I would die on the spot like that’s sooooooo embarrassing.
I wonder how much they know about Corypheus other people's and plans? I assume Corypheus hides some things, because you would think Calpernia wouldn't approve of so many slavery stuff so idkkkkk … But well, in the inquisition we can be against the values of many of our followers and get their approval down but they are still there because the goal is to save the world ú_ù
Also first 2 pages is canon text from the short Samson story of Paper and Steel
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If there's one thing that continues to infuriate me about DAV it's the lore related to the old gods and dragons in the game. Significant chunks of it make no sense and make the setting worse all around. A lot of it seems to stem from some kind of desire to streamline the lore. So here's a list of all the issues I have with the Old God lore in DAV:
1. The Old Gods are high dragons
So this is the first mistake they made. Turning the Old Gods into high dragons. In the comic books we were introduced to the concept of great dragons and how they were extra powerful and connected to dreamer magic. In the previous games there were several codex entries that hinted that the Old Gods were supposed to be great dragons rather than high dragons.
The Old Gods were like unto dragons, as the first human kings were like unto ordinary men. So it is written in the Tome of Koslun.
-Sten, Those Who Speak
Codex entries: The Old Gods; Dumat, the Dragon of Silence; Dragon Cults, Drake's fall
2. The Old Gods are all female
Now this issue stems from the whole let's make the Old Gods into high dragons part. If they had confirmed that the Old Gods were great dragons they could have side stepped the whole "all high dragons are female" lore by saying that it doesn't apply to great dragons. Instead we get to hear the most contrived reasons for why Elgar'nan calls Lusacan by male pronouns. You could also think that hmm maybe the pronouns are supposed to refer to the soul of the Evanuris inside the dragon, yeah, except they fucked up that part too. Prior to DAV the only Old God confirmed to be female was Razikale and Toth and Andoral were left ambiguous, the rest were male. This meant that if we were to assign Razikale, Toth, and Andoral to Ghil, Sylaise, and Andruil they would match. Now what did they do in DAV:
For some insane reason they keep referring to Toth with male pronouns when they've decided that the Old Gods are high dragons and all high dragons are female and there are no references anywhere to Toth's gender before this. Now, no matter how you assign the Old Gods to the Evanuris you're left with a situation where one Old God and one Elven god are both referred to as a "he" even though the elf and lizard are both female. And you can't even blame this with in game lore of "ooh the 'vints were dumb and couldn't figure out dragon anatomy" when they've been shown to have advanced understanding of dragon anatomy and the grey wardens literally have access to their corpses. The lady of the forest from Origins also refers to Urthemiel as a "he", so it's not a 'vint thing.
And then there's also this blast from the past:
Ben Gelinas was in charge of the World of Thedas books, so Bioware could've changed the gender of the Old Gods for those books too if they had wanted to, unless the gender of the Old Gods was supposed to be some kind of secret and gotcha trick.
3. Disconnecting the dragons from the "sun"
DAV is a game that can't handle a metaphor to save its life which is why we get to hear Elgar'nan going on about the literal sun and night when in the past lore it was implied that the sun was a dragon/dragons in general.
Here we see a bunch of elves imprisoning a dragon with what looks like to be lyrium. (Also you're telling me that there were murals like these in the middle of Minrathous for the past few thousand years while everyone was wondering why the Old Gods are underground, like really.)
Here's what old codex entries said about the sun and elves:
Codex entry: Elgar'nan: God of Vengeance & Codex entry: Mythal: the Great Protector
In both cases the sun is trapped in what sounds like a prison made out of lyrium. The Old God prisons were right next to Titans or huge lyrium deposits based on WoT books, as there was a prison near the Heidrun Thaig where the DAI Titan is, and Note: Ancient Warden Logbook, which says that the wardens broke into what looked like a Thaig when they were trying to dig up an old god.
4. The Old God prison in the western approach
In DAI if you go to the western approach and the mine there you can find the above mentioned note that mentions that there's an Old God prison right under your feet:
Solas also comments: "Someone was digging for things that should have been left undisturbed."
In Asunder Cole comments how he can hear the calling and iirc he was close to the western approach in the following passage:
"And worse, there was the music. He didn't know what it was, but it seemed to come from far, far off. It called to him, but not in a pleasant way-it had an urgency that sped his heart and made his blood burn. The dark creatures, the lurkers, they listened to it. He didn't know how he knew that, but he could feel them out there, craning their necks, raising taloned hands towards that call."
Asunder, ch: 9
But in general there's nowhere said that the prison is empty and pretty much all other blights have started far away from Orlais. So given the fact that this prison still seems to be functional and the archdemon there is referred to as a he it would make sense that this is where Lusacan is imprisoned, right? Now where did Elgar'nan awaken Lusacan? Arlathan forest, on the other side of the freaking map.
5. Erasure of the "dragons used to rule the skies" lore
This is something that is probably only familiar to those who have read the early comics, but Yavana, one of Flemeth's daughters says the following:
"The blood of dragons is the blood of the world."
-Yavana, the silent grove
Your heart beats with the old blood, as well. Where do you think it comes from? It sings of a time when dragons ruled the skies. A time before the veil, before the mysteries were forgotten. Can you hear it?
-Yavana, the silent grove
Yet this whole aspect of the lore seems to have been completely removed from both the game and the art book. In the art book iirc there's one picture with unicorns and dragons flying in the skies but otherwise nothing.
As was shown in the part where Elgar'nan imprisoned the sun he might have been the one responsible for fighting against dragons. The Chant of Light also features the following:
"Until, at last, some of the firstborn said:
"Our Father has abandoned us for these lesser things.
We have power over heaven.
Let us rule over earth as well
And become greater gods than our Father."
The firstborn are the elves and the earth is most likely the Titans so, who is the Father here? Elgar'nan's father is said to be the sun, which might be the dragons. The implication here is that they first defeated the dragons and then the Titans. Yet again, this potential war and dragons ruling the skies are not referred to anywhere. Great dragon blood in the comics was said to grant dreamer abilities.
6. Tying the Evanuris's immortality to the dragons is dumb
So, the Evanuris are invulnerable to death as the dragons give them the body hopping ability and the lyrium murder knife is only needed to get past their protective spells. Well, guess who is not limited by such trivialities? Corypheus. Our dear ancient magister didn't need his pet dragon to body hop, instead he nerfed his body hopping ability by binding the red lyrium dragon. Rook's tactic of first killing Ghil's dragon and then stabbing her who knows how long later with the dagger wouldn't have worked on Cory as he would have recovered from having to reabsorb his power from his dragon and then he would have simply body hopped to the nearest blighted being if he was stabbed to death. Thus the Evanuris have worse immortality than Corypheus does, since they can't body hop without the dragons.
As stated in DAI about Cory's abilities:
Kill it, and his ability to jump to other bodies is disrupted for a time. He can be killed. -Inquisitor
Kill the dragon, and his ability to leap into other bodies is disrupted. He can be slain. -Morrigan
And straight from the horse's mouth:
In short Cory is king and the Evanuris are a bunch of losers and the blight likes to play favorites.
Also, we're in Tevinter and didn't get any proper codex entries about the Old Gods, like wtf.