Elven questions, and a theory

[darkrose]

I got my new laptop! It's amazing--I can play DA in the way it was meant to be played, with decent graphics and without long pauses between keyboard entry and action.

I'm trying to finish my third Mira playthrough, and it's raised some questions about the elven history and lore as presented in the game.

Questions first:

1. How many towns in Ferelden have alienages? Canonically, Denerim and Highever are mentioned, but Amaranthine City doesn't seem like it's big enough to support an alienage, and we certainly don't see one in Awakening.

2. The thing about elves not being allowed to carry weapons--is this something Howe put in place, or is it actual law? Does it only apply to the alienage itself? It comes up in fic a lot, but no one apparently blinks when Mira and Zevran are running around town conspicuously armed and armored. (And yeah, hardly anyone recognizes you as a Grey Warden either, but I'd like to at least pretend like there's some consistency here.

3. Does the Chantry actually, you know, DO anything in terms of social issues? I guess they take in orphans, but based on the City Elf origin, they only show up in the alienage if you pay them to officiate a wedding; certainly the sister at your wedding is pretty ineffectual when Vaughan kidnaps half the wedding party.

4. Why, exactly, did some of the elves choose to move to the human cities and live as third-class citizens after the destruction of the Dales? I could understand if they were already there, but it seems odd that at least half of them would follow their oppressors rather than the rest of their people.

I do have a theory on this, based on something Lenaya says. If you talk to her, she mentions that there was resistance to her training as Zathrian's First because she wasn't born Dalish. She explains that the Dalish elves are descended from the nobility of the Dales.

To me, this suggests that the split between Dalish and city elves is class-based, and that while the nobility swore never to bow to defeat, the commoners either couldn't or wouldn't go with them if it meant wandering homeless forever. I can easily see Joe or Jane Ordinary Elf saying, "Look, I'm not a very good hunter, and I've got two small children--I'm supposed to become a permanent refugee just for the sake of pride? Fuck that shit." I think it gives an interesting twist to the Dalish contempt for "flat-ears"; there's some guilt underlying that attitude.


ETA: mousestalker answered question 4 here. Thank you!

Comments

[prisoner_24601]

Not to mention the how a lot of polytheistic gods (like the greek pantheon for instance) were made up of total crazy psychos, lol. And while, yeah, the gods could intervene on your behalf and you could make offerings to them, really what you wanted if you were smart was for the gods not to notice you and leave you the hell alone, because more often than not, their interference in your life made things worse. And people still worshiped them.

Also not all religions have the concept of heaven and hell or a reward in the afterlife either. Even the greeks who sort of had a concept of an afterlife (which came late to their oral tradition), it wasn't something that was generally fun - in the best case scenario, you were a shadow of yourself walking endlessly in the Elysium fields. So I could see people worshiping this sort of absentee, disinterested god. It doesn't seem any odder than a lot of other religious traditions out there.

[ashstoner_021]

And even on that note, wasn't the Elysium Fields restricted to heroes only? My mythology is very fuzzy at best, but it always seemed that if you were a common person (this is speaking in Greek/Roman mythology of course), that you crossed the river Stix and spent your afterlife in Hades. You didn't have a choice. Which frankly, sucks to be a dead person D:

[prisoner_24601]

Yeah I think you're right about Elysium being restricted to the great heroes, same thing with Tartarus too. Being a douchebag wasn't enough to get sent there - you really, really had to piss off one of the gods to be singled out for that. Everyone else derped around in Hades as a shade, I think.

It did suck to be dead in that mythology, lol. If I'm remembering the Aeneid correctly (which is roman, but you know, same difference), he goes down and does a tour of the underworld and the great heroes are all like "Dude, I would take just one day of being a normal peasant again rather than being down here." Now Norse mythology had the right idea. Valhalla was infinitely cooler.

[ashstoner_021]

Hell to the yes on that. Vikings are just awesome. Period. XD

[jannifer]

For the Greeks, life was everything. It was large and all encompassing -- to fight, eat, drink, love, think, have friends and family -- all of the things being alive brought. Being dead and not in torment was no substitute for life, hence the shadowy nature of Hades. This view shows itself in their heroes also -- an immortal spirit which knows it should be divine trapped in a mortal body. It is the spirit's striving for immortality that drives the hero's quest for greatness so that his memory, at least, will be immortal.

[sleepyowlet]

Weeeeell, the thing with the souls (shadows) in Hades is that they were to be reborn. This is actually Persephone's job - to have them drink the waters of Lethe (River Amnesia) and send them back up to a new life.
Valhalla... brawls, eating all day and as much mead as one can drink - where can I sign up?
Nah, joke, I already did, this is actually kind of my religion :). There are parts of the Edda that can be interpreted in such a way that the souls in Hel (that's where the word "hell" comes from, though Hel is described as both cold and damp) are waiting to be reborn - it's just unclear if that happens continuously or after Ragnarök.
The thing about old polytheistic religions (which the elvish religion is modeled after) is that the gods are personified forces of nature, which are both potentially positive or destructive. So all gods have a light, benevolent and a dark, malevolent aspect, which is very confusing for people who grew up in a society with the notion that a god is only good, and everything destructive is evil.
What I find interesting about the Chantry, is that there is no opponent to the Maker, like God and the Devil. Yes, there are Fade Demons and Abominations and Blood-Mages, but that isn't quite the same. There is a Creator, but where is the Destroyer?

[scarylady]

There is a Creator, but where is the Destroyer?

Holed up in the Black City with his feet up, one assumes :o)

[niniane]

Elysium fields were restricted to the elites only.

That said, in the Odyssey, Achilles is very definitely not there. Likely as Homer didn't give any credence to the Elysium fields.

People assume that the Ancient Greek religion was like this orthodox thing, inline with say, the Catholic Church of the modern era. This is patently untrue. There were a lot of conflicting religions, theories, cults, etc. floating around. People would worship different gods in different places, believe in different afterlives (reincarnation was super popular, as it is in most Indo-European religions), etc. So it's hard to say exactly what a given ancient Greek would believe, as there wasn't a set religion per se. And people often *didn't* have problems with different religions the way we do. It was more like "OK, well, you have these gods that do X, we have a sort of equivalent god. Maybe they're the same, maybe not. Whatever. I guess we both pray and hope that we get rain or whatever."

That said, most of the gods were pretty batshit crazy, at least in existing myths (Homer, etc.)

[prisoner_24601]

Oh yeah, there were all sorts of crazy cults, tons of gods that got absorbed from other religions as well as ideas like reincarnation, and worship of family deities too. And you have to remember too that these beliefs were spread out over centuries as well as well as the different Greek city states and then eventually the enormous Roman empire. So there's no real orthodox version of stuff.

I suppose the closest would be the Homeric versions of the Odyssey and Illiad (and Homer... he probably wasn't even one person - but an oral tradition passed down for generations until written down). Virgil's Aeneid (which was, heh, written as propaganda for Augustus Caesar, lol) was centuries later with an entirely different culture. So yeah, there's no real orthodoxy when it comes to their religion.

[ashstoner_021]

Oh I'm not assuming anything. I was just stating what I remembered hearing from when I was in school. Which granted was long enough ago that the info is fuzzy at best lol.

Are elites the same as heroes? Or is that something entirely different? If it's the same then I couldn't see how Achilles would be there anyway, because doesn't it take being the son of a god to be a 'hero'? See, my mythology is really rusty. I should fix that.

The very idea of the Ancient Greek religion being compared to teh modern Catholic Church is very... oh my. I don't see how people could make that comparison, but I'd like to be a fly on the wall in their minds, that's for sure.

And yes, reading about the gods/goddesses was like reading a soap opera XD

[niniane]

It really depends on Elysium. In general, it didn't seem to be a widely held belief. (Again, Homer just dumps everyone in the same place.) So assuming that some people get it and some don't is sort of goofy, as most people didn't seem to believe in it to begin with.

Some religions/cults promised Elysium equivalents to their followers. But in general, the idea seemed to be that you vanished into some sort of nebulous cloud after death. It was not a good thing. Again, mileage varied by time period/where you where/what gods, cults, etc. you chose to follow.

I don't really mean to imply that anyone would state that they're the same. But I do remember thinking, when I first started studying Greek myth, that there was some kind of "canon". There really wasn't. Some people would get really into the cult of, say, Dionysius, and others would be initiated in the Elysium mysteries, and others didn't care much about religion at all and probably just gave their sacrifices to Zeus. And what they all believed was really, really different. Even the "classic" stories, like Homer and Hesiod vary a lot. When you start throwing in guys like the Orphics, it gets really, really complicated. There's no real modern analog. It would be like if some people claimed that Jesus was the son of Mary and God, while others were like "who is this Mary? We're pretty convinced that the mother of Jesus was named Bridget, and she lived in Italy".

[darkrose]

Not to mention the how a lot of polytheistic gods (like the greek pantheon for instance) were made up of total crazy psychos, lol. And while, yeah, the gods could intervene on your behalf and you could make offerings to them, really what you wanted if you were smart was for the gods not to notice you and leave you the hell alone, because more often than not, their interference in your life made things worse. And people still worshiped them.

There's a difference though, because in a polytheistic pantheon, the gods are more powerful than you, but they're also demonstrably imperfect, and not omniscient--and they're present.

The Maker has turned his back on humanity. You can't pray to him, because he's not listening. You can't sacrifice to him, because he's not paying attention. You literally don't get anything out of worshipping him. Leliana is considered a fringe radical for suggesting that the Maker is present and loves his people.

[prisoner_24601]

Oh I definitely see what you're saying. It is sort of an oddball belief system. I guess my point really is that people believe in all sorts of weird religions, so it doesn't seem that farfetched to me that they'd believe in this one.

I mean, if you ask the average Christian about why they believe in God, I don't think many that I've known would say "Because I get stuff from him and he helps me out" or more likely "Because God loves me and forgives my sins." (Even though possibly that's what's going on - hard to say - I'm not a Christian.). Most Christians I've known sort of approach it from the idea of "This is the Truth, and that is why I believe it and have faith, even though I have certain problems with parts of my religion, etc..." So it's possible the worship of the Maker sort of comes from that standpoint - that is "Well, it sucks that he's sort of indifferent, but this is the Truth and therefore what we believe."

[amhran_comhrac]

I may be late to the party, but FWIW, there does seem to be a heaven/hell analogue in the Andrastian religion.

One chant verse mentions wandering "the Beyond" as a punishment:
Though all before me is shadow,
Yet shall the Maker be my guide.
I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond.
For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light
And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost.
Canticle of Trials 1:14 (from The Calling)

The verse regarding maleficar also says "They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones.
They shall find no rest in this world
Or beyond."
Which would also imply some kind of afterlife punishment.

None of the verses specifically state a heaven, although some kind of reward or peace is implied in several for people with faith. But in the Fade quest Niall will say this when he's dying "I do not fear what may come. They say we return to the Maker in death, and that isn't such a terrible thing." Also, if anyone dies when defending Redcliffe the next morning the priest will say this "Now they walk with He who is their Maker. Long may they know the peace of His love."

So it does seem to be that they have an afterlife, it just isn't mentioned heavily. Not sure if that's a reflection on the religion not holding it over people, or just that it doesn't come up in conversation with the people the warden encounters.