Andrastian Faith states that the Golden City turned Black, when the Tevinter Magisters entered it. As retribution, the Magisters became the first Dark Spawn. However, Corypheus states that the Golden City was already Black and empty when he and the other Tevinter Magisters entered. It is entirely possible that the Golden City being described as "Black" meant it had been blighted. The Golden City may very well have been the Prison the Dread Wolf trapped the Evanuris and the Blight in.
IIRC the blackening of the golden city was possible to be observed around the time the magisters entered it, if it was blighted long before that time then it should have always been, from the perspective of humans, black which we know is not true
What it seems like is the Golden City was their stronghold/palace. Solas seems to have trapped them in their own seat of power, which is a big f*** you.
@@brakdanych4329 Corypheus himself affirms that what they found there was only blackness. As he was Someone who was manipulated into opening it. People just didn’t consider that what he said was the truth, especially as we had NPCS who gave a sincere opinion that he might have only been lying.
SPOLIER WARNING - though rather a silly statement to put as this is a lore video, alas.... I don't think this is a re-write at all - in fact this is HEAVILY on brand and makes a lot of sense. As someone who has been pouring over every single lick of lore and going on deep dives and replaying DAO, DA2, and DAI to re-read/experience scenes or notes I can say this is not retconning at all, here is why: One of my original theories around the Dragon Age Pantheon was that the Evanuras and the Old Gods of Tevinter/Archdemons were the same and I was trying to match their portfolios to see which old gods were the elven gods -- I was only half right in that, the Old Gods were the enslaved High Dragons of the Evanuris, and in regard to portfolios, the Evanuris twisted the dragons to be in their reflection, Elgar'nan bound Lusacan and Ghilan'nain bound Razikale [which lemme say something, idk if it's because we don't know about the specific details about the Evanuris' lives, but I how does one go from the Mother of Halla to the Monster Maker Queen? Or rather, how does the Monster Maker Queen get the Mother of Halla title? Granted, she did seem weirdly off in the lore that spoke of her]. As for the whole Golden City/Black City greavances - we knew of this in pieces from the previous games, this should come as no surprise - first example: Corypheus "The light. We sought the golden light. You offered... the power of the gods themselves. But it was... black... corrupt. Darkness... ever since. How long?" "The City. It was supposed to be golden. It was supposed to be ours." "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." I initially thought Corypheus was just a mad dude on a power trip, however, DAV makes A LOT of sense when you take into consideration why this man is so fucking pissed and wants to ruin everything because he was lied to. Though one thing that I will put my tin foil hat on for a minute is - his obsession with seeing the light and how much of that is the blight as the severed dreams of titans trying to return? anyhoo quick thought Now going back to the whole debunking of Andrastian faith, while I was like freaking out - it wasn't necessarily in like OMG What is this? It was more OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY CONFIRMED THIS, because there was someone memeing a long while ago saying that Solas is the Maker, which I was like haha, yeah NO. But let's examine Andraste paying special attention to her being an Avaar woman From the Jaws of Hakkon DLC, we know that the Avaar have a unique relationship with the fade and spirits categorically similar to Rivainy practices and the Nivarran Mourn Watch. One can solidly assume, that Andraste was a Mage, while I don't think fully confirmed, I would NOT be shocked about this in any bit (insert another tin foil hat, I wouldn't be surprised if the spirit she communed with/sought mentorship was an aspect shattered shard of Mythal seeing how heavily similar Andraste, Flemeth, and Mythal's marital griefs were) But going back to the concept of Andraste communing with spirits, she could have been enlighten by this history of what happened to the Evanuras in the Fade, specifically citing the portion in the chant of light 'Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him' now we know after Veilguard the FULL extent of what the reverse of this 'commandment' is with the Evanuris enslaving the elvhen people and what they did to the titans and starting the blight - it's legit that a spirit would show this to Andraste and she is like 'yikes nah dawg we aren't doing this' *rough historical interpretation on my end* We also know that visions of the Fade can be vague and not super clear, and based the emotions, feelings, and interpretations of those present at the time. In short, non of the lore drops were a surprise, if anything they were on brand and lead to so MANY exciting questions and areas to explore - 1- we still don't know much about the titans, yes we know the blight is the consequence of tl;dr the titans going through he rite of tranquility ["We called it the Rite of Tranquility: a mind, branded with lyrium, brought to a state devoid of either emotion or sense of self" - An excerpt from Cassandra's tome on the Seekers of Truth, which we know when it was used on the mages, they lost connection to the fade and no longer dreamed, similar to the Lyrium Dagger used to severe the dreams from the titans] But really who are the titans, how are they involved in the lore of Dragon Age? 2- We know to a degree how the elvhen came to be, at least the first elves were manifestation of spirit in bodies of Lyrium, but current elves don't do that, what about the dwarves, I thought the Titans were also some tyrants that enslaved the dwarves (looking at two things - 1) Corypheus mentioning in the Legacy DLC that there was dwarven slavery in the Ancient Dwarven empire, which at this point if we learned from elvhen history,,, yikes, but also 2) Sha-Brytol (if you don't remember, they were the hive mind dwarves that glowed blue in the Descent DLC in DAI) and while DAV kinda paints the titans as victims in this, I am holding my breath, because we thought that the elven pantheon was chill until they weren't 3- Andrastian faith is disproven pretty much, so who is the God/are the Gods of the Dragon Age series, is there actually a Maker? There are SO Many questions and so many interesting lore implications that I refuse to hear 'the lore isn't interesting', it isn't not interesting, you just didn't care to read through all the codices and try to figure things out and got disappointed when that the mass narrative in-game i.e. the Lore of the Maker/Chant of Light which was presented to you on a sliver platter is actually called in question and might not be true. Secondly, I don't think these lore reveals undermine the original dragon age video games, you have to consider the context in which we were playing this first game was (depending on your background) a person that got trusted into the position of warden with no help or anything, and their main objective was to end the blight - very straightforward, there were lore bits provided, yes, however, there was no reason for our warden (or us for that matter) to care. The second game, we are refugees to Kirkwall hosting an *illegal* apostate mage (either as ourselves, or Bethany), we are trying to build a life and make money right until Meredith decides to go ape shit crazy which we then discover that Kirkwall lives above this sess pool of Dark Riturals and Blood Magic Tom Fuckery, it's like living over Nuclear Waste and wondering why everyone is getting cancer. The third game, we have some kind of reason to really dig into the lore, but not really, our goal is to fix the sky - it wasn't until we fight Corypheus and Solas takes off that we stop and are like, wait a minute, something is off here - Veilguard comes in and just opens a window and we learn holy shit now these old codices in the old games make some sense and things are clicking. We need to look at the past games and this game in the context they exist and the POV of the protagonists that lived in them. If anything BioWare has done a mad job at weaving all this together.
When people say "the lore isn't as interesting" a big part of it comes from a problem with fantasy and payoff in explaining mysteries. The writing in Veilguard is so atrociously presented and paced these massive revelations don't come off as satisfying or earned. It's more like the writers wanting to tie the bow on the original lore so they can then introduce "new lore". Not to mention the so called secret ending completely shitting on the agency of some of the more nuanced characters within the series (Loghain for example). This was better off heavily implied rather than bluntly placed right in front of us ingame.
@@omfgzorz1337 I will agree that the pacing in the game was awful - I finished the game in 32 hours, and I didn't even skip the side quests (that were presented to me at least, I probably missed some part of something, still trying to figure it out lol) which again then leans into the rushed feeling of it. As for the secret ending, it did feel cheesy, with that being said I feel like they could have done a better job at presenting it in a way where it highlights this mysterious entity/group/force having some influence while maintaining the nuance of characters like Loghain. For example instead of it being explicit like how Elgar'nan was force whispering into our minds, it could be like putting the slightest pressure on some of the tipping points that would have prevented Loghain from hauling the whole army off - like not in a mind control way, but more of like a you have a 50% of doing one of these two options, I am just going to make one of those options 51% by really emphasizing/making him notice Cailan's naivety or (insert flaw/doubt/etc), where it doesn't strip Loghain of his choice and nuance, but adds another layer that there is a another spoke in this fire --- at least this is what I am hoping for, I do wish it was a bit more implied like you said. But the pacing part is an astute observation that I hope BioWare keeps in mind (hopefully not as long as 10 years from now) because this series is really cool and awesome, and I would hate for them to just want to push things along for profit instead of quality.
@@PaleHorseman98 I agree about Loghain. If he was to keep his agency in the choice that he made (which was NOT contradictory to the person he was. He was a 'by any means nessecary' guy who didn't dwell on decisions long) then he could have been manipulated into thinking Cailan was going to leave Anora and marry Celene by 'Those Across the sea' even though perhaps that wasn't the truth. We find the crumbled letter in the Return to Ostagar DLC that was apparently the last straw for Loghain in believing Cailin was going to marry Celene. So Bioware could easily make this the manipulation of Loghain that caused him to abandon Cailan and the army.
couple things: dwarves are fragments of titans they didnt overlap. they came to be from the physical and emotional bits of titans. harding touching the dagger gave her back the connection to the fade. the evanuris arent the maker, im not even sure they are in the black city. the only thing that's 100% in the black city is the original blight. in veilguard they guess that the golden city is the prison, but from all accounts that's incorrect (tevinter and solas imprisoning picture). solas leaves the blight in the center and the evanuris get sucked into the edges of the circle. that's the veil. the soul prison is most likely the veil itself. that's why nobody can leave it. the black city is just in the fade, so you can probably get to it with the right amount of magic. i think it got sealed off by solas after mythal stored the blight there and then ghilly opened it again and tainted it. edit: its unclear from any lore if the golden city is like arlathan to the dalish, where the physically materialised elves just took someone's previous city and used it as the capital. there's no proof they built it. they did build the surrounding stuff in arlathan, but they could very well be just tenants of the golden city.
Thanks for the awesome reply! It is sad to see people diss the game and the lore for the wrong reasons. As you have said: this is not a rewrite or a retcon, just some missing pieces of a puzzle keen players had already put together.
Gaider and other writers have explicitly stated that they wouldn't reveal whether the Maker was real or not, so Veilguard's lore only shows the events told in the Chantry aren't as one-sided as they suggest... like a lot of world religions.
Weather or not its a good change, its clearly the intended plan from the start. Seven Elven Gods, Seven Old Gods, The singing of Lyrium, the Singing of the Calling. Cole makes reference to solas "Making the earth forget". its all hinted
Andraste was born a year after Dumat fell, and she heard the voice of the "Maker" It's been theorized since Origins she was either the Old God Baby of Dumat, or had the wisp of Mythal due to the common themes of betrayal they share. And the old Bioware forums were filled with theories on the Elven gods being connected with the the Tevinter gods, but the numbers didn't add up. Inquisition removing the Dread Wolf and Mythal from that number cemented the connection. And we never knew the true origin of the Darkspawn. The very first line in the game series is "The Chantry teaches us..." The Chantry was made by fallible bias humans centuries after the First Blight began. Corphy telling us in DA2 that the city was already blighted makes the Chantry's claims even more dubious. Flemeth telling mage Hawke they could never transform into a dragon implies it is not something even gifted mages are capable of. And the blighted Lyrium Idol in Dragon Age was the first bit of evidence that the blight predated the Blights. There was no retcon. The evidence has always been there. And while I largely dislike the new art direction of the Darkspawn, it should be known the common mobs we fight aren't Darkspawn as we know them. They're just ghouls, who lore says are usually in the vanguard of Darkspawn forces but were never really saw in high numbers until Veilguard but there were a sizable number in The Origins DLC.
indeed, in my opinion this explanation has been coming since origins, if something, i would congratulate them for a 4 games spawning explanation, the only thing lackin is andraste and kunari origins, also althoug it is never mention i thing blood magic has a direct connection with the bligh, i mean lyrium is the blood of the titans, the bligh is their spirit corrupted by pain an suffering, that also infects their blood, aka red lirium, all is just BLOOD MAGIC but instead of normal being they como from the inmense titans, but form where the titans come from? the dragons? the kunari?? and far more interesting, the humans, from where they arrived to thedas?
@@luisfer071 Yeah, that sucks they didn't give more clues on where the Qunari came from. Were they creations of Ghili'nain (Pyramids on Par Vollen were found with pictures of big horned humanoids and these Pyramids predate the arrival of modern day Qunari) or were they a split off faction of elves that took becoming Revears too far which explains their connection to dragons? More clues would have been nice. Also yes, more clues to Andraste's connection to Flemeth/Mythal and Shartan/Solas would have also been nice.
"There have always been theories" can cover pretty much anything. People always come up with all sorts of bullshit. And this IS bullshit. It's just a cheap ass attempt to up the ante, and it started with Inquisition. "Everything you know is wrong" is what happens when the new writers take over and don't respect the source material.
It’s not a retcon. Retconning is when they just pretend like a certain thing was always the case. Dragon age has always taken the stance that the official history is not the actual history. Throughout the earlier games you were always meant to question the stories of the chantry.
Look it might not a be a retcon because this is the direction that the writers took the lore....but boy is it a fucking stupid ass direction and poor execution. By doing this the writers have pretty much destroyed 2 of the 4 major religious philosophies in their world. AND for the Chantry they have destroyed it in a way that will likely see NO change in the first place except for the players. They went and essentially destroyed the whole human side of spirituality in Thedas with this and what happens... The way they executed this kind of reveal and reactions to it.... its too non-chalant. Hell even the characters that do react are reacting like they heard of a hurricane occuring across the continent while talking over tea. This kind of revelation happens and the Veilguard lacks something like a Cullen Lelianna or Cassandra. Veilguard lacks an actual devout character to have a whole fucking crisis or freak out over this shit....hell nobody freaks out other than a "oh shit".
The thing is there was no retcon. Origins and Inquisition left so many hints that this was the case and that the Chantry was wrong that by the time I saw these scene I learned almost nothing new. The story Bellara tells is from the codex in Inquisition. You find it in the temple of Mythal. Solas was counting the dead Archdemons on his desk. Cole mentions in trespasser that the Ancient elves were spirits that made bodies of the earth. The war with the Titans and the creation of the Blight is seen in a mural in the deep roads in Trespasser. Origins also had a codex stating that what if the Archdemons are not the Old Gods, and what happens when they all die. In Inquisition Cassandra wonders if the Archdemons are simply pets to beings that no longer exist. The world of thedas also mentions that the elves believe the gods are trapped in the black city. In Origins the Darkspawn worship an altar with a halla head. In addition a statue of Dumat was found in elven places in Inquisition. That and much more hints, including the fact that there was an unreachable golden city in the fade and nobody knew what happened to Arlathan.
The Maker being fake and the entire Andrastian religion not being true is a big retcon. Elves all being spirits is a BIG retcon. The Blight NOT being retribution from the Maker is a HUGE change to the world.
@@VideoGameSophistry I agree with the faberofwillandmight8758. There is plenty of lore in the earlier games to indicate that the beliefs of the Chantry are mythology that has only tenuous connection to reality. Even during Dragon Age Origins I got the sense that the Chant of light was more mythology than actual fact. I never got the sense that the Maker was real in universe. People believed he was but the actual evidence was (in universe) more ambiguous. What stuck out for me is that Corypheus, one of the magisters who penetrated into the City in the Fade, stated in both DA2 and Inquisition that the City was already black. After Inquisition, I was fully onboard with the theory that the Black City was in fact a prison for the blighted Evanuris. Now I will concede that, from what I have seen, as someone who hasn't(and won't) play Veilguard(until possibly I can pick it up for super cheap second hand) that the game is written terribly, but IMO the lore is there
I mean to be fair as soon as we found out about Mythal I reckon that was it for the chantrys faith anyway I mean do we believe both the elven gods AND the maker are real? The original elves being spirits with bodies forged of Lyrium was a wild reveal I mean as the franchise goes on we will of course find out more and more information. I mean we still dont know where humans came from, The Qunari came from somewhere far away being chased by a devouring storm. The forgotten ones, Forbidden ones, Executors? There is still a lot of information to come out as the franchise expands.
@@VideoGameSophistrydid you read their comment? They just highlighted how it isn’t a retcon because it’s literally established in lore already. It doesn’t retcon that there is a maker however, because humans already existed, we now know humans PREDATE elves.
I don't think any of the major stuff revealed in VG is a retcon. It was always how it was supposed to play out. People have had this theory since Origins and VG proved them right. Why would they change the origins of everything anyway? In an interview YOU had with David Gaider, he says he handed off all the plans to Patrick Weekes. The people who have been saying this is all retcons don't know the lore as well as they think they do. The clues were always there.
Exactly my opinion. Every lore revelation in VG is something we already theorized about since Inquisition. The only thing I haven't heard before is that the Blight is born from the cut dreams of the Titans, which leans to the grim vibe of the series too.
I personally don’t feel the lore was retcon per se (we lack info to confirm), but do feel it was a little unearned. Or at the very least, not needed. In writing, one thing that can keep a story memorable is its lore. Not just the lore itself, but the lack of it. This is often why stories heavily imply certain events and let everyone come to their own determinations. Keeps the mystery and talk of the story going for years to come. When all the answers are laid out, the intrigue and mystery is gone. One of my biggest issues is that more of this lore should have been available in the main story, as there were certain other beats like the ending of Harding’s story make no sense to me at first. Back to the origins of the blight, the time line does make sense and I attributed the changes to the blight in this game being from the elven gods manipulating it. While a little hazy between when the Magisters got to the golden city and the tainting of the first archdemon by the architect, it all does fit. Perhaps the blight hung around a little bit before the first blight took place, who’s to say. Just my 2 cents
2 things have become clear. The original elves were spirits, and that humans predate the elves. It's said that after the Maker created his first children, the spirits, he created the physical world of Thedas. The spirits looked on in jealousy at the Maker's new creation and sought to be apart of it. Literally nothing in the game disproves the existence of the Maker. Elg and Gilly want to become gods because they know gods exist.
tbf, it makes more sense than just 'cosmic wizard did everything'. As much as i DESPISE this game this is one of the few parts of the lore that actually made sense. The Origin of the blight was not a punishment from the god of everything, it was the remnants of the titans having lost their war with the ancient elves and having their concious mind severd and turned rabid.
Correct. I suspect the reason why this part of the lore made sense is because they used the source document the original writers put together a long time ago to tell this part.
They were an exception born of a mutation within the darkspawn, this was then expanded bya joining ritual created by the archetect using grey warden blood, but as a whole, it is unnartual - even for them. Itliterally drove some darkspawn mad.
@@Whoami691 yes, but it was still something that happened, and there were Darkspawn that took to being freed from the song of the Old Gods. Even if it’s not a viable solution, the idea of just saying “yeah, there’s definitely a 0% chance of ever coming to an alternative solution to this situation besides killing” feels…ehhhh. Although that’s just my take on it.
@@zxshadowxz well consideing the process required to restore PART of a darkspawns mind it becomes a practical impossibility. The joining ritual for the grey wardens itself is often fatal and requires the blood of darkspawn and an archdemon - not soemthing easy to come by. Now you need to create a SECOND ritual using warden blood (the survivors that is) in a process that has a 50/50 chance of driving darkspawn utterly insane. Realistically its not possible or reliable. it was worth a shot and works on a very small scale but on the horde? Yea, notpractical.
Evanuris are the creators of the blight is pretty much an established theory since long ago. The evanuris being the big bad evil is pretty much established since long.
The Veilguard stuff isnt a retcon, rather i believe this is what the creative team has been building to since DA2 at least. Now the question really is, could this have been revealed better in a better game and the answer is yes.
Removing the maker from dragon age ruins the setting. Dragon age setting relays on the lore of the chantry, you must never prove or disprove it. Removing the maker removes mystery from the world.
@@roiking2740 Except they didn't. The only reasoning that follows that line of thought is that: (If the Chant of Light is false) = (Maker must also be false) Which isn't a valid line of reasoning. All that proving the chant of light false proves is that one Holy document is not in fact infallible. And even that argument might be too strong a claim as its only one line of the chant; which itself can be interrupted several different ways. To quote Jowan "Darkest before the dawn, lo here comes the sun." In real life the myriad historical and physical false claims of Sacred texts only resulted in the faiths shifting away from literalism.
@ bro ok if it were most Lines I would agree with you but the line we are talking about is comparable to Jesus dying on the cross. The entire chant of light is built on that line, the first thing you see when you start to play is that line ITS THAT IMPORTANT. So no by stating the golden city isn’t golden, the magisters didn’t taint it and are not to blame for the darkspawn you render the Maker a false god. He maybe a pagan god but he isn’t a true god nor the creator of the universe.
@@roiking2740 Neat fact, we have no reputable primary sources on the crucifixion. We have third and fourth hand accounts claiming to be translations of accounts of the apostles in a language they didn't speak, dating to centuries after the event in question. Yet that fact doesn't stop people from asserting it as a real event. That's the interesting thing about faith. As for Andraste, the two canticles which directly speak of the black city can be reconciled with the events of the game the same way the location of divinity in the Abrahamic faiths did historically. AKA; moving the goal post. We can start with the simple idea that the Black city of the Fade is not the city described in the canticles; which well convenient is plausible. A stronger argument however would be that Andraste simply misinterpreted the vision's sent by the Maker. And those are just the most direct solutions to the problem from a world building standpoint.
@@Mister-Thirteen Which again disprove the Maker existence as much as disproving Jesus never died for our sins. My point is not that it is not dis-proven, My point that it is dis-proven. Saying Andraste misunderstood the Maker vision would mean that the Maker gave her an insufficiency vision making him flawed which means the Maker is not a true god but a false god. A true god is omniscience, all powerful and all good. Stating Andraste visions were flaw would mean he is not all powerful or all knowing which would rendering him a false god. If the Maker lied that would mean he isn't all good or all powerful which would mean he is again a false god. The pagan gods are flawed because they are man who were made into gods. In Thedas pagan gods are like the Elven gods super powerful spirit but as much as powerful a spirit can be its not a god. its still a mortal creature with flaws and venerability. Making the Maker into such a creature defeat the point of having him in the story. The Maker was not supposed to be dis-proven or proven. the chant of light was not design to be false or true. its supposed to be a matter of belief that mimics christian theology. By making the chant of light false you are making its creator false and there for a false god.
It's been speculated for years that the Evanuris were actually the old gods and responsible for the blight. There's even been speculation that Solas is the Maker, so none of this is exactly retconning anything.
There should have been far more nuance about the Tevinter Gods and their connection to the Evanuris. You have to remember that Hakkon (A High Dragon you fight in Inquisition) is seen as a true Avvar God and his essence is complex.
Not to mention Solas wouldn't have been enraged at the idea of exterminating the "Old Gods" in "Inquisition" if they were just glorified batteries for his enemies...
@@Revan498 Solas explains why later. They’re connected, and he underestimated the kind of bond that exists between said dragon and those connected.H even said something in Trespasser that wasn’t given much importance at the time: Corypheus found the means to “effective immortality”. What did he do? Bind a dragon to himself so he can’t die, and it blindsided Solas when his plan to use him and watch the Magister kill himself failed.
@BlackfangDragon again, that doesn't explain why he's upset at the idea of the Wardens killing them. At best, the dragons were his most hated enemies' pets, at worst, a sorce of power for said enemies. And yet he gets enraged st the idea of them all being killed in their sleep. Now, if the dragons were actually shape-changed elves trapped in dragon form after losing their power to The Veil, then Solas getting upset over their deaths would make sense...
@@Revan498 Because their life force is what fuels the spell. If the dragons die the Evanuris dies too, we know as the Elven Gods souls always died they tried to hijack Grey Wardens in past blights. He planned on creating a new prison for the Blight and the remaining Evanuris while letting the rest of the Fade be free regardless of the damage.
Except killing the dragons merely makes them mortal. The game does not explain why it works differently for the five dead evanuris than it doee for elgar'nan and ghilan'nain Also... So what? If the sole purpose of the spell is to imprison the evanuris.. Why not kill the evanuris? It's not as if he WANTS the veil. It was a necessary evil from his pov
The idea that Veilgaurd retconned anything is really without merit based on everything we've seen in the series from the beginning. Remember that anything regarding the Maker, Andraste, and the Chant of Light is all Chantry dogma, not a actually telling of Thedosian history. The revelations in Veilguard were all hinted at as being the true history since Origins.
Um it was already known by everyone before veilguard was even announced that the blight was most likely created by the elven gods and had something to do with the titans. But I guess you don’t pay attention to the previous games.
DAv isn't a retcon. As early as the 2nd hour of Dao Wynne comments and muses if the chant of light is truth or allegory. These bread crumbs are left again and again. They're also several things like the urn of sacred ashes that are supposed to be reminders of an omnipotent will
The chantry lied about everything to fit their narrative. The blight is the angry dreams of the titans, solas made a weapon that turned titans into the first tranquils, which is why dwarfs can't dream. Also dwarfs were a gollum slave race made by the titans, the elves freed them from being mindless slaves unknowingly.
No, the Chantry tried to make sense of the puzzle using the few peices that had at the time - its literally what people do. All we did was find a few more peices.
@@Whoami691 That's true. David Gaider always said that they would never reveal whether the Maker is real or not. Despite all these revelations, we also now know that humans predate the elves thereby still leaving the possibility that the Maker exists.
I would say its because he knew what was going on with the blight and the fact that Corypheus was able to control the wardens through the blight connection (plus he is against blood magic which was used during the rituals to summon the demons perhaps?)
I don;t think he ever fully trust them - they bare the taint, and as he knows EXACTLY what the taint and blight is, he feels they are all just ticking time bombs - but he can;t just come out and say that, so deflects to their own hubris and ignorance as the reason for his anger.
@@theshadowblade6dg340 he was retconned to hate blood magic. he expressed academic interest in it in Inquisition. This comes from the replacement lead writer for Veilguard having a hate boner for blood magic and basically anything morally ambiguous.
The Archetect was the only one of his kind, and he himself appeared to be a mutation. the awakened darkspawn onluy came about because the archetect created a ritual using grey warden blood. My guess is that once the taint is taken into a being with a soul - like the titans uused to be - they regain some aspects of their sentient mind, so when the soulless darkspawn are joined by the archetect, the rabid unbridled rage is dulled slightly and part of their sentience is restored. of course you cannot restore the titans mind this way, but on a small scale it can potentially help the darkspawn become more than rabid monsters.
@@Whoami691 He was one of 7. The magisters sidereal. But other than those 7 who had direct contact with the black city as the evanuris did, correct. The inverted joining ritual, while novel and limited in its success, would likely not realize meaningful viability anytime soon, if at all.
@@Whoami691 The The Architect was High Priest of Urthemiel and the leader of the Builders "who constructed monuments to the glory of the gods" according to the Great Plan. He was one of the Magisters Sidereal that broke into the fade and lost his memories. So he is very much like and the comrade of Corypheus. Your lore knowledge is outdated and it doesn't explain awakened darkspawn. The Blight should not be independent of the Titans.
@@DS-wr5lw Of anything the Architect and his colleges immunity to the influence of the taint is hard evidence of them being the creators of the darkspawn. Could be that by being at the center of creation (the golden city) the Magister change themselves to become immortal but as a result created the darkspawn and blacken the golden city? This theory holds up cause 1. the architect and his college are immortal, like archedemons they jump to the next darkspawn and resurrect. 2. the darkspawn can be influence by their present much like the archedemons. Meanwhile we don't get much evidence that the darkspawn and the blight were created by the elves or the titans. the black city already blacken? nope that evidence, Cyhriphios is mad and the architect lost his memory. it could be safe to assume non of the magisters remember what has happens during their time in the golden city thous they are unreliable witnesses. To me its seem bioware just looked at forum theory and took them, easier to source plot devices than create them themselves.
I actually love the lore, this has confirmed many things and has some intruging twists. Dreams in this lore are more powerful than we ever comprehended.
Not the biggest fan of it either, but i think it's too early to judge. If they actually get to expand on it i'm sure they'll tie it into the lore. They did mention the executors in the previous game, so it's not completely out of the scope of the lore. I think it mainly feels cheap bc it feels like they're trying to milk the series. They probably could have finished the story with this game, by making the blight disappear or be contained with the death of the last evanuris and the awakening of harding's titan power
Well given that there is no evidence of blood magic, it's not mind control. It's something else. My guess is something not unlike the various spies many factions have. Put the right people in the right place. Have them bend the right ears and get them to lean into what they're already feeling (giving them a little push as joker would say) and you can alter the course. Not unlike flemeth I suppose.
I wouldn't call it a retcon that the Andrastian faith is based on falsehoods. It's been hinted at rather unsubtly that it is wishful thinking at best in basically every Dragon Age, at least in certain paths. And from their perspective at the time, enough of the Tevinter magister/old gods story was close to the truth as far as they could possibly have known. No, the criticism of this game is that you cringe with uncanny valley feelings everytime you look at a character or face and they are generally not particularly well made, which is kind of key to a RPG, especially one where you are supposed to recognize some of the characters.
The elves were the shapers of the fade while the titans were the shapers of the stone. Based on reveals, the black city was essentially elven palaces that served as a prison for the blight and the evanuris were used as the seals to contain it. (Red lyrium in the raw fade in DAI supports this claim) Based on arguments between Solas and Elgar'nan in the quest to free the Dalish in Arlathan Forest, evidence suggests Andruil located the Blight at the behest of Elgar'nan and Mythal struck her down and sealed the Blight away with wards so nobody knew where it was. (Likely in a pocket of the crossroads if I had to guess). But over time, the wards were weakening and the evanuris were catching on, so Solas warned Mythal. But in the end, they struck her down, which drove Solas to create the veil. And with the Evanuris sealed away as well, there was nobody left seeking the Blight. Until the magisters, at the urging of the Executors, breached the black city and brought back the blight with them. Why the Executors (and those they serve) would want that is still a mystery.
Mate the writer actively inside this game try to disprove the maker existence. Once by changing the origins of the darkspawn and twice by changing Andraste to being Mythal.
I had already theorized about that the elven gods were somehow connected to the Golden city. I also theorized that something else was going on with Morigan and her lore. But this did answer a lot of questions. But also left us with more questions. Many believe that, andraste had the memories of mythal then went to flemeth. If they do continue this storyline, we do need to figure out how to free the titans from their nightmares… that needs to be the next step in my opinion.
I don’t think it’s a retcon, there were hints and open ends left just for this to come about. It supports the theme of pride a hubris, which isn’t exclusive to humans but to the elves who were responsible for basically everything in their pride and the Blight was the result of their sins. The Blight being released back into the world by the ancient Magisters was because of prideful ambition of a few humans. Not saying the Chant of Light is wrong, but history and the past can be contorted and changed to fit certain narratives of local cultures. The lore itself is vague enough to leave things open and intentionally be vague on details so it calls into question if it literally happened. I think within the lore Andreste was real, but looking at her statues like the older ones then compare them to the idol of Mythal and their form is quite similar. The only difference really being the crown but that can be due to gradual cultural changes like Orlesians adding their own artistic style to the image. What if Andreste was one of the hosts for Mythal’s spirit fragments like Flemeth? So it’s not a retcon the seeds and wholes were there to sprout and grow and fill in those holes since the very beginning. The truth of the blight itself supports the overall theme of pride and the horrible consequences of such a sin within dragon age. Solas himself is even a spirit of pride, he would be the embodiment of this theme
It doesn’t seem to be a retcon to me really. By Inquisition at the latest, it was pretty well implied that the elven gods were associated in some way with the blight, the Tevinter gods, and the Titans. It always seemed kinda obvious that the Chant was going to have only kernels of truth at best. This all doesn’t mean there isn’t a deity out there in Thedas that’s basically the Maker, though.
You're mistaking the theories people had within thedas about the world around them as retcon when its really that one theory proved to be true, they never said the maker was real or that the chant of light was correct, the entire series has been proving the chantry wrong at almost every turn because we as a player are supposed to be finding out the world was more complicated than the chant
Wonder if anyone else \has ever noticed how skull-like the Black City's shape is Perhaps it's the skull of a defeated Titan? Would explain why the blight was trapped there with the elven "gods"
It's a very thoughtful analysis of the subject, in my opinion this new lore is well implemented in the global view about the Evanuris, the Blight and the origin of the Black City. But yes, it also sounds very convenient for the story they wanted to tell in this game. And what about the Maker? Was he all made out? What about Andraste and the Chantry? They just disregarded all of that completely... I want more.
The Architect, Corypheus, and Solas all had hints that the overall world building was as much a lie as that pact with the children of the forest on game of thrones. Remember the golden city was already blighted, and the questioned belief killing all the archdemons would end the blights as examples.
Most of interesting parts were hinted since origins. It's a continuity. They alas added poor "modern" narrative and mindset (i mean, at that point you expect them to meet up at starbuck), modern character "depth", word soupe, and pronoun lecturing.
Glad I found this. New to Dragon Age but Veilguard's storytelling has neither the heft nor dignity of recent fantasy games that precede it. I am likely a snob, and perhaps this was meant for kids, but I can't finish the game. After 30 hours, I set the combat to Storyteller (oh, the irony) just to get through the story, but decided to find out on RUclips and be done with it. Not sure what 'return to form' really means, but at least I know wtf 'Blight' is now.
It kind of makes sense,it proves how the architect and coryipius were made into those forms and had that power same for thr elven gods we have seen their form does look similar to theres but controlled.
Going to be real, my characters always said the maker stuff was bullshit. In Inquisition I always shot down any idea of my character being chosen. It turned out that we stumbled in the room and got the mark.
my only change tbh, or I guess a headcanon, would be keeping the old gods are bound to the Evanuris thing but have them work independently once the veil came down, awakened but free from their influence. - in a world with their masters the Evanuris gone they were the most powerful force in Thedas, but their bodies were trapped beneath the earth, only able to explore through dreams. So they took to replicating what their masters did, and became gods to the Tevinter people. Maybe it was a corypheus type 'reach heaven' plan or maybe they were still obsessively trying to free their masters by breaking into the golden city, but it makes the outcome kind of tragic - these enslaved high dragons following in their oppressors footsteps, undone by the blight they accidentally unleashed. Then now with veilguard, razikale and lusacan are back firmly under their old masters control. At least then the archdemons can stay their own big bad and not just become the guard dog of x evanuris. They're the guard dog whose master disappeared, then followed their master only to become rabid and, well, dragon age: origins'd. That's just my opinion lol
In the first 3 games we always follow the chanty point of view, but like the catholic church in real life, that's just 1 believe. Now we are looking the elf point of viewn, and figuring out even the elf gods are actually just elf seeking power. That relate with the real world... I really like it.
The new DEI Bioware is surely unaware of the old story-making rule known as "Show, don't tell." I loved looking at the Black City in Origins/Awakening DLC and imaging if there is someone in there in this castle on the top of that hill on the central island in the Fade. What the writers have done has made it just a convenience plot hole.
pretty much, DEI is ruining everything. We reached the point that airplanes are falling from the sky, no one should be shocked that every game and movie sucks now, it should be expected.
Excellent video. I don't particularly mind this retcon. The Chantry has always been a little suspect in their treatment of the elves and their zealous guarding of their own history - what did they know and when did they know it? This revelation would leave the followers of the Andrastianism with a choice - does the Maker truly not exist and they need to look elsewhere for guidance, or were the Evanuris just grasping ankle biters, while the Maker is the one true capital-G God, creator of the Universe, not just the golden city. As for the hidden ending, while it was presented in somewhat of a ham fisted manner, it does set up an intriguing possibility of some cloak and dagger future game with the protagonist fighting against a shadowy opponent. But I'm sure that is many rewrites and years down the line.
These aren't retcons. The previous games clearly stated they were merely theories and nobody knew what the truth was. Now, we have seen the truth. That's not a retcon. That's called a historical discovery.
This made me furious when I found out. Bioware really decided to just demystify everything. I don't even see how there can be a DA5 after this. It feels like Dragon Age is officially over.
I have a feeling you just played DA Origin and take it face value didn't read into codex,novels and focused on its sequels that hinted since DA2 Legacy and DAI even banter between Solas and Blackwall gives and it come across shock to you well you can look over concept arts of Origin and find Darkspawns designs are twisted Elven Design.
It's like this modern age of writing forget that sometimes people are sick, assholes, and unsympathetic. That some people do things solely based on their own selfishness and ambition. Sometimes there is no past trauma that led them down this road. Sometimes, people are born with a few screws loose, born with chemical imbalances. Not every villain is a tragic hero or tragic villain turned to the darkside to try and do a greater good. The path to hell isn't always paved with good intentions. Sometimes the insane want to pave the path to hell based on their own sick designs. This whole sympathetic villain crap is getting so damn old.
I mean to be fair the lore not being true and something that people came up with isn't new and was around in the last game I think the real issue is it just being explained to you instead of you discovering the lies
The only thing I couldn't grasp there were never old gods to begin with and they were just alternate names for the elven gods when they used their dragons as a conduit from their prison in the fade to the real world? If so, what happened to the rest of the pantheon and the "souls" e.g. Kieran even though veilguard ignored his existence.
My take is that when the Darkspawn found the Archdemons and corrupted them, the respective Evanuris tied to that Archdemon had their soul joined to the part of the soul within the Archdemon. So the Evanuris in the prison went into a dream like state and their soul went fully into the Dragon. So every time the Archdemon was slain by a non-Warden, the soul hopped into a Darkspawn thereby becoming the Archdemon again. So when a Warden killed the Archdemon, the soul would crash into the Wardens soul and cause mutual destruction of both. So with the Archdemon's soul destroyed, there was nothing left to return to the Evanuris in the prison. Leaving the Evanuris either brain-dead or just dead. The case with Urthemiel, the soul went to Morrigan's fetus and was reincarnated into something else also leaving nothing to return to the respective Evanuris in the prison.
Wait a second. If Solas formed a Veil to trap Evanuris and blight... Why did he trap spirits there too? 17:00 No. That was awful retcon. Though... Yes, I might admit. It's not as awful as "secret ending". Awful too, but still undermining huge part of previous games, not like you know, everything.
So I’ll tell you why this is mostly good. The.. delivery… is a touch exponential. The games before drew the mythology out and and also put a lot of disturbing and scary unsettling tone into it. This one is less… lone soldiers against the scary world where everything is dangerous… and more… marvel movie. You’re a super hero now. Lol. And that’s fun… but the tone is changed. I don’t blame BioWare. I blame EA. But the lore… is still fine. See all of this has all been hinted at and when you’re a crazy DA conspiracy nut like me… most of this game checks out Cus I guessed most of it in the decades worth of waiting. The chant and the maker are not fully disproven. The elven gods are not…. Gods. There’s still room for higher beings. And here is a big one that still connects to “the maker” When seekers are made…. They undergo the sundering… their dreams are cut away from them and they are made tranquil…. However…. A spirit of FAITH comes and heals them. Reconnects their dreams. And that process reinforces them like how templars reinforce reality with lyrium. Why would a spirit of faith exist? And why is it the only spirit that can heal a person’s sundering? Faith cures the blight. In a sense. An emotion so strong it connects a spirit to a person and potentially the maker… and becomes the conduit through with the maker can heal people. Also the chant of light might not have started out with anything in their scriptures to do with the golden city…. That may have come later when it was clear there was a golden and now black city and they had to shoe horn in all this mysterious stuff into the chant of light Cus none of it made sense so they just said “maker did it”
Interesting concept and probably the one thing they should keep a mystery in the lore. Doesn't matter what the Maker is, be it a human, a spirit, a titan's echo, or even an elf. That's what makes it faith.
I’m not really against what’s revealed everything lines up with the established lore and the darkspawn looking different I don’t have any real problem sure I miss their classic designs which were a throwback to classic orcs and goblins but their new appearances gives them unique for dragon age.
Agree about the DAV clownspawn, I mean darkspawn. They should have also included some of the old forms. I guess they were saying the released gods mutated them all quickly into the new DAV darkspawn. Emissaries and some Alphas could speak but maybe the released gods made them stupid like the rest now? I think the demons were the more noticeable change. They went from manifesting with visible bodies to being collected trash spirits in DAV.
Gotta say everyone saying it's changed everything is false. They didn't retcon it they just added truth to it.. The maker part is pretty much Christianity soo it turning out to be mostly made up by people to guide is realism. And the whole story line of makers city if you look into the written and extra conversation lore rather than quick run isn't a lie but a half truth. Old gods were weapons of the elf "gods" and humans being humans love and worship dragons. Soo they spoke to humans pretending to be dragon gods to enter the "Golden city" and meet become gods. The city was the prison that solas made for the elf "gods". Their elf gods were blighted and used the blight (they didn't create it) so their prison was full of it and hence when the humans (early darkspawn) broke in they released the blight but not the gods. And they search for their old gods (archdemons = elf god familiars = old gods) which called to them with a song from the blight. At no point does it say the elf made the blight they used it. The maker kind of exists but it's pretty much solas and it's a prison not a palace. And humans doing what humans do and changed it to fit their wants. Look at real life Christmas, Halloween and many other religious holidays are pagan stuff renamed to fit new religions same with andrastian faith. The blight is disconnected spirit/blood of titans essentially their ghosts trapped and mad so the elf gods didn't make it. They may have caused it wasnt made by them. Also the maker can still exist if you wanna believe it soo hard just like Christianity. There is no science to prove alot to disapprove it. But still something had to make the titans and elf's before them so there is a maker it just wasn't the humans one. But yeah new designs are crap but yes no one wants 15 minutes cutscenes about identity. And not everyone believes and wants young religions like muslim or Christianity to be the truth in their games. We wanna fight dragons and enjoy a story. You should also disclaim that the video is YOUR UNDERSTANDING and not fact
If the writing had been good and they kept with the choice carry over and the 4 man team and switching between your characters. If the dialog between you your followers was more and divers if the the romance was more than one kiss and a last min lets sleep together because I almost lost you.( i played orgins after this and i forgot how soon you could actually sleep with Zev before even starting a relationship) so many time my love interests said something my rook should have responded too but just stood their awkwardly. I could have got on board with Solas version of the black city and the elves starting the blight if not for all the other crap.
This has already been speculated though. You also have to understand that the chantry and their doctrines are thousands of years old and should be taken with a grain of salt. Even when I started DAO, i always thought the Chantry's teachings sounded a bit like propaganda. Plus, there's the Tevinter version of the tales. I guess what I'm saying is, this bombshell of a lore actually makes sense. The truth is often more dissappointing compared to the fairytales.
I wouldn’t see it as a retcon. It’s the answer to a mystery. Religion is inherently myth and is subject to change, this is no different and while it answers mysteries, it poses new ones like if the maker isn’t real, who or what convinced andraste? Probably someone in the secret ending
Okay, considering what I've learned from the times I played DA; I've always gotten the impression that the Chantry was full of shit. We see evidence of this in later games; especially in Inquisition. So, it appears that here in Veilguard; we're beginning to see the truth that the Chantry has twisted and/or hidden since they came to power
IMO the Chantry is just trying to make sense of the fragments of information they have and so weaved thi tale because 'well, it all seems to fit, so why not?'.
My only question is.. why the rest of the evanuris didn’t make an appearance? I didn’t play the game myself, but in all the cutscenes I have seen they were completely ignored besides Andruil? And even then.. no mention of her whereabouts as of the events of Veilguard. Where are the other 5 evanuris?
It's possible they're dead. Five archdemons are dead, and probably needed the dragons to retain immortality. When the dragons died, so did they over time. Razikale and Luscan are E and G personal dragons.
@ I mean I recall in inquisition that Solas said something to the effect that immortality was simply just part of being elvhen. Further evidence is the ancient elvhen that you meet in the Temple of Mythal in inquisition. The Veilguard really just left us with 0 explanation on the fate of the remaining Evanuris, and it seems like we will not be revisiting the ancient Elves going forward, if there is another game coming down the pipeline.
Dead. The means they used to secure their immortality is the same as what Corypheus did. However the ritual to make Grey Wardens works ensures they did with them, unless Kieran exists and Morrigan performs the ritual that puts June/Urthemiel inside her son Kieran. But like Mythal it’s only a wisp of what once was.
Want to add it’s not clear what exactly is different about Corypheus that he can hijack Grey Wardens without dying, but that’ll likely be answered in the future since the other tainted Magisters are still around.
Trust you audience. When their dragons died they were no longer immortal. The veil was sustained with their lives. When they became mortal the veil drained them dry and they died.
I had no issue with the revaltions in the game given that they made a lot of thing make more sense to me. The chant of light always felt wrong to me. Given its extreme dogmatic vilifying of mages and to be honest every other race than humans. In reality we have seen thing belived to be true for centuries proven wrong time and again so it seems only logical the same would be true in a fantasy universe also. I have played all of the games from the perspective of a mage and often as an elf as well and have often questioned both the beliefs of the elves and the humans. The cor message of both faiths is the same as those of real faiths and the failings are in how people choose to interpret them as is ture in reality. The blight revaltion again made sense as I have often questioned why dwarves could not dream or do magic when every other race can. I can see why thes truths coming to light might make someone uncomfortable but agin it is no different to the response we would find in reality.
People will defend this with "Oh, but this was hinted at for a while!" takes, like they have already in some comments. You're ignoring what else they do. It's not just "OOPS! JUST ALL ELVES!" Lore now, they also destroyed everything, literally everything related to the old games. I make no exaggeration to that either. From the Free Marches south, in notes and convos in the game is all destroyed by the blight. Literally every game prior involved only those locations. So not only is all the lore established from the very first sentence in the opening of the first game just wrong now, but also every place and person we met now just destroyed and dead. Every person and place you met in DA2 and Inquisition are also gone and destroyed now, except for the inquisitor themself.
first of all, we don’t know at all which companions or people died from the last games ? shit even ur romance from inquisition sends a letter in veilguard so wdym with everyone died? 😭 and you can’t except for a world changing blight to ignore the south just cause we played there? bro pls
@@fkaluis "No bro, all the people you met are fine. Just the homes, lands, buildings, they're all fine bro. No bro, they put in the effort bro, see? They made a letter talking about it once bro. Calm down bro. It's not that bad bro. It's just literally every place we ventured in every previous game bro, and none of the north bro. Shut up bro."
@@Sircool1 “none of the north” you clearly haven’t played this game cuz you literally have to make a choice between two cities on who gets obliterated by the blight ? even other maps like hossberg wetlands show how bad the blight has gotten due to the elven magic accelerating it
That seems to be the case yes. When the old god soul (the link to the evanuris) either passes into a grey warden or a nonblighted person, said link is severed and thus, the linked evanuris perishes. This is why Solas was so against the Grey Wardens seeking out the old gods deliberately. Because he knows that while a fraction of the blight is bad...the blight in its entirety is even worse.
@@aliverakran777 correct. All evidence points to the only way an evanuris survives the loss of an archdemon is if they are present in the physical world. If they are in the fade at the time it happens, they don’t survive
@ no. Because the evanuris serve as the seals to the black city. So if two things are true: 1)All the evanuris are dead AND 2)Solas does not possess the power at the time to relocate the blight and seal it with wards as mythal once did (which he did not at the time of adamant) The blight, in its entirety, would be unleashed upon the world. With nobody powerful enough to seal it away, that would spell doom for the world
with all due respect it was never "established", the whole point was that it was unreliable narration, that the story of the maker and the golden city was at best unsubstantiated, corypheus showed this in DA:I when he said that they "broke into the golden city and it was empty" so in da:i we know that the truth is not totally what the chantry said, hardly a retcon, the chant of light was said to be true by thoe who believed in it, in thedas there are different cultures with different religions, the origins were just finally explained, and all theories that were thought of prior to the game are rendered naught
The blight wasn't created by the evanuris. It was a result of the sundering of the titans. We always knew the evanuris were the old gods, the connection was not yet fully discovered. But we did assume it was the evanuris souls in the archdemons.
I agree it's retconned because they have taken everything mysterious about the lore from previous games, into everything is elves. People who keep saying that it has been hinted since bla bla bla, forget they were just theory and not facts. Faillguard happened and decided to look up fan theory hype and said yep let's go with everything was all elves because we're too lazy to make dankspawn, maker and old gods separate from the elves as a whole...
Or Veilguard continued was was pretty clearly set up since the beginning. Also, since when should we even think that the maker is real? Also again, Darkspawn technically come from dwarves, not elves.
The elven gods created the blight and the maker is probably fake seems reasonable with the lore. Why did Trespasser Solas want to tear down the Veil if the majority of the Blight was being contained by the Veil? I didn't play DAV so apologies if the game explains this. Does DAV end with all of the blight being put back into the Veil?
The blight is imprisoned within the Black City (still a theory) together with the Evanuris. Solas wants to tear down the Veil without fully destroying the prison that holds the Evanuris and the Blight. He HAD plans to "move" them into a new prison while he destroyed the Veil and put everything back as it was in the time of the Elves.
It’s not a retcon if they hinted at most of these things being true from the beginning of the game. The religion of the maker and the chantry was created long after the fall of the original elven empire and they’ve dropped hints across every game that the black/golden city had nothing to do with the maker, even corepheus mentioned the city was already black, supporting the fact that Solas trapped the elven gods with the blight there. I dislike most of the game lore that they’ve tarnished but this is literally the only part that actually makes sense and ties into the previous games
Just blame the elves for everything! That is master writing for you! So happy the franchise is dead after this fiasco. Next comes the corpse of Mass Effect.
It's not retcon though. It confirmation of theories crafted as far back as Origins. The clues were always there in all three games that the Blights, old gods, and the Evanuris were all connected. The word 'retcon' being used by those coping by people who utterly hate the game and lumping these revelations with the bad writing of it or people who just don't like the truth of these revelations.
@andrewvincent7299 I enjoyed the lore dump and the game as a whole. I wish the game had mentioned the origins of humans. I'm sure it won't be as epic as Spirits, Titans, or Dragons. The only thing I remember is that the humans arrived in Thedas from somewhere else.
@@drsaddomia I think the real problem is the delivery of such important lore revelations. It should have been uncovered slowly as the game went on as opposed to Solas dropping a 3 min exposition dump. But yeah, the origins of humans should have been given more clues. Especially with the hint of a threat beyond the sea in the secret ending.
Honestly the previous cannon made no sense. We already knew that solus made the veil and that basically crashes the whole cannon. If he made the veil then how could piercing it be the original sin which made the maker turn from the world? If the cities were in the fade and the waking world before the veil happened how could the golden city be the makers city? If piercing the veil wasn’t the sin then why the darkspawn and why do the dwarves state that the darkspawn come from underground not the magisters anyway? If the darkspawn DID come from the magisters how did the brood mothers start to cause the explosion of darkspawn?
I think they rushed and fucked up, it makes hell of a sense (thanks to huge build up from past 3 games otherwise it would be horse shit) but it's not it.. It feels wrong, I wish original writers finished story in book or something like it and give Dragon Age justice it deserves because EA Bioware never will.. Thanks for nice and short video what happens because it would pain me to play game that I love ruined so badly thanks to woke and super bad writers..
This video makes me want to play Veilguard. I’m only interested in the world of Thedas, the real world politics is the only thing that prevents me from buying it, maybe when it gets cheap to $5, I might try it just for the sake of the lore. The world of Thedas, The Maker, The Darkspawn of Dragon Age Origins is, was interesting mystery the first time I played it.
yea there are no "real world politics" in this game. if you're so triggered by the existence of that one qunari companion just don't bring them with you and ignore their sidequests (just look up on youtube the qunari lore that's revealed in Taash's quest). if you want a "traditional" DA experience, bring Davrin and either Lucanis, Emmrich, Harding, or Neve with you.
Andrastian Faith states that the Golden City turned Black, when the Tevinter Magisters entered it. As retribution, the Magisters became the first Dark Spawn. However, Corypheus states that the Golden City was already Black and empty when he and the other Tevinter Magisters entered. It is entirely possible that the Golden City being described as "Black" meant it had been blighted. The Golden City may very well have been the Prison the Dread Wolf trapped the Evanuris and the Blight in.
IIRC the blackening of the golden city was possible to be observed around the time the magisters entered it, if it was blighted long before that time then it should have always been, from the perspective of humans, black which we know is not true
Solas says as much during 2:30. So I guess Solas is the Maker 😆
It is and the theory was established long ago
What it seems like is the Golden City was their stronghold/palace. Solas seems to have trapped them in their own seat of power, which is a big f*** you.
@@brakdanych4329 Corypheus himself affirms that what they found there was only blackness. As he was Someone who was manipulated into opening it.
People just didn’t consider that what he said was the truth, especially as we had NPCS who gave a sincere opinion that he might have only been lying.
SPOLIER WARNING - though rather a silly statement to put as this is a lore video, alas....
I don't think this is a re-write at all - in fact this is HEAVILY on brand and makes a lot of sense. As someone who has been pouring over every single lick of lore and going on deep dives and replaying DAO, DA2, and DAI to re-read/experience scenes or notes I can say this is not retconning at all, here is why:
One of my original theories around the Dragon Age Pantheon was that the Evanuras and the Old Gods of Tevinter/Archdemons were the same and I was trying to match their portfolios to see which old gods were the elven gods -- I was only half right in that, the Old Gods were the enslaved High Dragons of the Evanuris, and in regard to portfolios, the Evanuris twisted the dragons to be in their reflection, Elgar'nan bound Lusacan and Ghilan'nain bound Razikale [which lemme say something, idk if it's because we don't know about the specific details about the Evanuris' lives, but I how does one go from the Mother of Halla to the Monster Maker Queen? Or rather, how does the Monster Maker Queen get the Mother of Halla title? Granted, she did seem weirdly off in the lore that spoke of her].
As for the whole Golden City/Black City greavances - we knew of this in pieces from the previous games, this should come as no surprise - first example: Corypheus
"The light. We sought the golden light. You offered... the power of the gods themselves. But it was... black... corrupt. Darkness... ever since. How long?"
"The City. It was supposed to be golden. It was supposed to be ours."
"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."
I initially thought Corypheus was just a mad dude on a power trip, however, DAV makes A LOT of sense when you take into consideration why this man is so fucking pissed and wants to ruin everything because he was lied to. Though one thing that I will put my tin foil hat on for a minute is - his obsession with seeing the light and how much of that is the blight as the severed dreams of titans trying to return? anyhoo quick thought
Now going back to the whole debunking of Andrastian faith, while I was like freaking out - it wasn't necessarily in like OMG What is this? It was more OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY CONFIRMED THIS, because there was someone memeing a long while ago saying that Solas is the Maker, which I was like haha, yeah NO. But let's examine Andraste paying special attention to her being an Avaar woman
From the Jaws of Hakkon DLC, we know that the Avaar have a unique relationship with the fade and spirits categorically similar to Rivainy practices and the Nivarran Mourn Watch. One can solidly assume, that Andraste was a Mage, while I don't think fully confirmed, I would NOT be shocked about this in any bit (insert another tin foil hat, I wouldn't be surprised if the spirit she communed with/sought mentorship was an aspect shattered shard of Mythal seeing how heavily similar Andraste, Flemeth, and Mythal's marital griefs were) But going back to the concept of Andraste communing with spirits, she could have been enlighten by this history of what happened to the Evanuras in the Fade, specifically citing the portion in the chant of light 'Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him' now we know after Veilguard the FULL extent of what the reverse of this 'commandment' is with the Evanuris enslaving the elvhen people and what they did to the titans and starting the blight - it's legit that a spirit would show this to Andraste and she is like 'yikes nah dawg we aren't doing this' *rough historical interpretation on my end* We also know that visions of the Fade can be vague and not super clear, and based the emotions, feelings, and interpretations of those present at the time.
In short, non of the lore drops were a surprise, if anything they were on brand and lead to so MANY exciting questions and areas to explore -
1- we still don't know much about the titans, yes we know the blight is the consequence of tl;dr the titans going through he rite of tranquility ["We called it the Rite of Tranquility: a mind, branded with lyrium, brought to a state devoid of either emotion or sense of self" - An excerpt from Cassandra's tome on the Seekers of Truth, which we know when it was used on the mages, they lost connection to the fade and no longer dreamed, similar to the Lyrium Dagger used to severe the dreams from the titans] But really who are the titans, how are they involved in the lore of Dragon Age?
2- We know to a degree how the elvhen came to be, at least the first elves were manifestation of spirit in bodies of Lyrium, but current elves don't do that, what about the dwarves, I thought the Titans were also some tyrants that enslaved the dwarves (looking at two things - 1) Corypheus mentioning in the Legacy DLC that there was dwarven slavery in the Ancient Dwarven empire, which at this point if we learned from elvhen history,,, yikes, but also 2) Sha-Brytol (if you don't remember, they were the hive mind dwarves that glowed blue in the Descent DLC in DAI) and while DAV kinda paints the titans as victims in this, I am holding my breath, because we thought that the elven pantheon was chill until they weren't
3- Andrastian faith is disproven pretty much, so who is the God/are the Gods of the Dragon Age series, is there actually a Maker?
There are SO Many questions and so many interesting lore implications that I refuse to hear 'the lore isn't interesting', it isn't not interesting, you just didn't care to read through all the codices and try to figure things out and got disappointed when that the mass narrative in-game i.e. the Lore of the Maker/Chant of Light which was presented to you on a sliver platter is actually called in question and might not be true. Secondly, I don't think these lore reveals undermine the original dragon age video games, you have to consider the context in which we were playing this first game was (depending on your background) a person that got trusted into the position of warden with no help or anything, and their main objective was to end the blight - very straightforward, there were lore bits provided, yes, however, there was no reason for our warden (or us for that matter) to care. The second game, we are refugees to Kirkwall hosting an *illegal* apostate mage (either as ourselves, or Bethany), we are trying to build a life and make money right until Meredith decides to go ape shit crazy which we then discover that Kirkwall lives above this sess pool of Dark Riturals and Blood Magic Tom Fuckery, it's like living over Nuclear Waste and wondering why everyone is getting cancer. The third game, we have some kind of reason to really dig into the lore, but not really, our goal is to fix the sky - it wasn't until we fight Corypheus and Solas takes off that we stop and are like, wait a minute, something is off here - Veilguard comes in and just opens a window and we learn holy shit now these old codices in the old games make some sense and things are clicking. We need to look at the past games and this game in the context they exist and the POV of the protagonists that lived in them. If anything BioWare has done a mad job at weaving all this together.
When people say "the lore isn't as interesting" a big part of it comes from a problem with fantasy and payoff in explaining mysteries. The writing in Veilguard is so atrociously presented and paced these massive revelations don't come off as satisfying or earned. It's more like the writers wanting to tie the bow on the original lore so they can then introduce "new lore".
Not to mention the so called secret ending completely shitting on the agency of some of the more nuanced characters within the series (Loghain for example).
This was better off heavily implied rather than bluntly placed right in front of us ingame.
@@omfgzorz1337 I will agree that the pacing in the game was awful - I finished the game in 32 hours, and I didn't even skip the side quests (that were presented to me at least, I probably missed some part of something, still trying to figure it out lol) which again then leans into the rushed feeling of it.
As for the secret ending, it did feel cheesy, with that being said I feel like they could have done a better job at presenting it in a way where it highlights this mysterious entity/group/force having some influence while maintaining the nuance of characters like Loghain. For example instead of it being explicit like how Elgar'nan was force whispering into our minds, it could be like putting the slightest pressure on some of the tipping points that would have prevented Loghain from hauling the whole army off - like not in a mind control way, but more of like a you have a 50% of doing one of these two options, I am just going to make one of those options 51% by really emphasizing/making him notice Cailan's naivety or (insert flaw/doubt/etc), where it doesn't strip Loghain of his choice and nuance, but adds another layer that there is a another spoke in this fire --- at least this is what I am hoping for, I do wish it was a bit more implied like you said.
But the pacing part is an astute observation that I hope BioWare keeps in mind (hopefully not as long as 10 years from now) because this series is really cool and awesome, and I would hate for them to just want to push things along for profit instead of quality.
@@PaleHorseman98 I agree about Loghain. If he was to keep his agency in the choice that he made (which was NOT contradictory to the person he was. He was a 'by any means nessecary' guy who didn't dwell on decisions long) then he could have been manipulated into thinking Cailan was going to leave Anora and marry Celene by 'Those Across the sea' even though perhaps that wasn't the truth. We find the crumbled letter in the Return to Ostagar DLC that was apparently the last straw for Loghain in believing Cailin was going to marry Celene. So Bioware could easily make this the manipulation of Loghain that caused him to abandon Cailan and the army.
couple things:
dwarves are fragments of titans they didnt overlap. they came to be from the physical and emotional bits of titans. harding touching the dagger gave her back the connection to the fade.
the evanuris arent the maker, im not even sure they are in the black city. the only thing that's 100% in the black city is the original blight. in veilguard they guess that the golden city is the prison, but from all accounts that's incorrect (tevinter and solas imprisoning picture). solas leaves the blight in the center and the evanuris get sucked into the edges of the circle. that's the veil. the soul prison is most likely the veil itself. that's why nobody can leave it.
the black city is just in the fade, so you can probably get to it with the right amount of magic. i think it got sealed off by solas after mythal stored the blight there and then ghilly opened it again and tainted it.
edit: its unclear from any lore if the golden city is like arlathan to the dalish, where the physically materialised elves just took someone's previous city and used it as the capital. there's no proof they built it. they did build the surrounding stuff in arlathan, but they could very well be just tenants of the golden city.
Thanks for the awesome reply! It is sad to see people diss the game and the lore for the wrong reasons. As you have said: this is not a rewrite or a retcon, just some missing pieces of a puzzle keen players had already put together.
Gaider and other writers have explicitly stated that they wouldn't reveal whether the Maker was real or not, so Veilguard's lore only shows the events told in the Chantry aren't as one-sided as they suggest... like a lot of world religions.
Weather or not its a good change, its clearly the intended plan from the start. Seven Elven Gods, Seven Old Gods, The singing of Lyrium, the Singing of the Calling. Cole makes reference to solas "Making the earth forget". its all hinted
Andraste was born a year after Dumat fell, and she heard the voice of the "Maker"
It's been theorized since Origins she was either the Old God Baby of Dumat, or had the wisp of Mythal due to the common themes of betrayal they share. And the old Bioware forums were filled with theories on the Elven gods being connected with the the Tevinter gods, but the numbers didn't add up. Inquisition removing the Dread Wolf and Mythal from that number cemented the connection.
And we never knew the true origin of the Darkspawn. The very first line in the game series is "The Chantry teaches us..." The Chantry was made by fallible bias humans centuries after the First Blight began. Corphy telling us in DA2 that the city was already blighted makes the Chantry's claims even more dubious. Flemeth telling mage Hawke they could never transform into a dragon implies it is not something even gifted mages are capable of. And the blighted Lyrium Idol in Dragon Age was the first bit of evidence that the blight predated the Blights.
There was no retcon. The evidence has always been there.
And while I largely dislike the new art direction of the Darkspawn, it should be known the common mobs we fight aren't Darkspawn as we know them. They're just ghouls, who lore says are usually in the vanguard of Darkspawn forces but were never really saw in high numbers until Veilguard but there were a sizable number in The Origins DLC.
indeed, in my opinion this explanation has been coming since origins, if something, i would congratulate them for a 4 games spawning explanation, the only thing lackin is andraste and kunari origins, also althoug it is never mention i thing blood magic has a direct connection with the bligh, i mean lyrium is the blood of the titans, the bligh is their spirit corrupted by pain an suffering, that also infects their blood, aka red lirium, all is just BLOOD MAGIC but instead of normal being they como from the inmense titans, but form where the titans come from? the dragons? the kunari?? and far more interesting, the humans, from where they arrived to thedas?
@@luisfer071 Yeah, that sucks they didn't give more clues on where the Qunari came from. Were they creations of Ghili'nain (Pyramids on Par Vollen were found with pictures of big horned humanoids and these Pyramids predate the arrival of modern day Qunari) or were they a split off faction of elves that took becoming Revears too far which explains their connection to dragons? More clues would have been nice. Also yes, more clues to Andraste's connection to Flemeth/Mythal and Shartan/Solas would have also been nice.
Cool. But why do the Ogres also have that same dumb cartoonish design then?
"There have always been theories" can cover pretty much anything. People always come up with all sorts of bullshit. And this IS bullshit. It's just a cheap ass attempt to up the ante, and it started with Inquisition. "Everything you know is wrong" is what happens when the new writers take over and don't respect the source material.
It’s not a retcon. Retconning is when they just pretend like a certain thing was always the case. Dragon age has always taken the stance that the official history is not the actual history. Throughout the earlier games you were always meant to question the stories of the chantry.
no it's a recton stop coping.
@@thanellen8757 It's really not. Cry about it.
@@joshuasegarra4239 no you!
@@joshuasegarra4239
It's a retconm
Look it might not a be a retcon because this is the direction that the writers took the lore....but boy is it a fucking stupid ass direction and poor execution. By doing this the writers have pretty much destroyed 2 of the 4 major religious philosophies in their world. AND for the Chantry they have destroyed it in a way that will likely see NO change in the first place except for the players.
They went and essentially destroyed the whole human side of spirituality in Thedas with this and what happens... The way they executed this kind of reveal and reactions to it.... its too non-chalant. Hell even the characters that do react are reacting like they heard of a hurricane occuring across the continent while talking over tea. This kind of revelation happens and the Veilguard lacks something like a Cullen Lelianna or Cassandra. Veilguard lacks an actual devout character to have a whole fucking crisis or freak out over this shit....hell nobody freaks out other than a "oh shit".
The thing is there was no retcon. Origins and Inquisition left so many hints that this was the case and that the Chantry was wrong that by the time I saw these scene I learned almost nothing new.
The story Bellara tells is from the codex in Inquisition. You find it in the temple of Mythal.
Solas was counting the dead Archdemons on his desk.
Cole mentions in trespasser that the Ancient elves were spirits that made bodies of the earth.
The war with the Titans and the creation of the Blight is seen in a mural in the deep roads in Trespasser.
Origins also had a codex stating that what if the Archdemons are not the Old Gods, and what happens when they all die.
In Inquisition Cassandra wonders if the Archdemons are simply pets to beings that no longer exist.
The world of thedas also mentions that the elves believe the gods are trapped in the black city.
In Origins the Darkspawn worship an altar with a halla head.
In addition a statue of Dumat was found in elven places in Inquisition.
That and much more hints, including the fact that there was an unreachable golden city in the fade and nobody knew what happened to Arlathan.
The Maker being fake and the entire Andrastian religion not being true is a big retcon. Elves all being spirits is a BIG retcon. The Blight NOT being retribution from the Maker is a HUGE change to the world.
This was the most boring possible direction for the lore to take.
@@VideoGameSophistry I agree with the faberofwillandmight8758. There is plenty of lore in the earlier games to indicate that the beliefs of the Chantry are mythology that has only tenuous connection to reality. Even during Dragon Age Origins I got the sense that the Chant of light was more mythology than actual fact. I never got the sense that the Maker was real in universe. People believed he was but the actual evidence was (in universe) more ambiguous.
What stuck out for me is that Corypheus, one of the magisters who penetrated into the City in the Fade, stated in both DA2 and Inquisition that the City was already black. After Inquisition, I was fully onboard with the theory that the Black City was in fact a prison for the blighted Evanuris. Now I will concede that, from what I have seen, as someone who hasn't(and won't) play Veilguard(until possibly I can pick it up for super cheap second hand) that the game is written terribly, but IMO the lore is there
I mean to be fair as soon as we found out about Mythal I reckon that was it for the chantrys faith anyway
I mean do we believe both the elven gods AND the maker are real?
The original elves being spirits with bodies forged of Lyrium was a wild reveal
I mean as the franchise goes on we will of course find out more and more information.
I mean we still dont know where humans came from, The Qunari came from somewhere far away being chased by a devouring storm.
The forgotten ones, Forbidden ones, Executors? There is still a lot of information to come out as the franchise expands.
@@VideoGameSophistrydid you read their comment? They just highlighted how it isn’t a retcon because it’s literally established in lore already. It doesn’t retcon that there is a maker however, because humans already existed, we now know humans PREDATE elves.
So refreshing to see a comment section of people correctly recognizing that revealing an in-universe religion to be wrong isn't a retcon lol
I don't think any of the major stuff revealed in VG is a retcon. It was always how it was supposed to play out. People have had this theory since Origins and VG proved them right. Why would they change the origins of everything anyway? In an interview YOU had with David Gaider, he says he handed off all the plans to Patrick Weekes.
The people who have been saying this is all retcons don't know the lore as well as they think they do. The clues were always there.
Exactly my opinion. Every lore revelation in VG is something we already theorized about since Inquisition. The only thing I haven't heard before is that the Blight is born from the cut dreams of the Titans, which leans to the grim vibe of the series too.
"but but but Solas the god of lies told me that there was no connection!"
Veilguard retcons a lot but yes the blight thing was theorised long ago as being the work of the evanuris
I’ve theorized this since origins but it could have been done so so much better in theory it’s fucking awesome
Agreed
I personally don’t feel the lore was retcon per se (we lack info to confirm), but do feel it was a little unearned. Or at the very least, not needed.
In writing, one thing that can keep a story memorable is its lore. Not just the lore itself, but the lack of it. This is often why stories heavily imply certain events and let everyone come to their own determinations. Keeps the mystery and talk of the story going for years to come. When all the answers are laid out, the intrigue and mystery is gone. One of my biggest issues is that more of this lore should have been available in the main story, as there were certain other beats like the ending of Harding’s story make no sense to me at first.
Back to the origins of the blight, the time line does make sense and I attributed the changes to the blight in this game being from the elven gods manipulating it. While a little hazy between when the Magisters got to the golden city and the tainting of the first archdemon by the architect, it all does fit. Perhaps the blight hung around a little bit before the first blight took place, who’s to say.
Just my 2 cents
2 things have become clear. The original elves were spirits, and that humans predate the elves.
It's said that after the Maker created his first children, the spirits, he created the physical world of Thedas. The spirits looked on in jealousy at the Maker's new creation and sought to be apart of it.
Literally nothing in the game disproves the existence of the Maker. Elg and Gilly want to become gods because they know gods exist.
tbf, it makes more sense than just 'cosmic wizard did everything'.
As much as i DESPISE this game this is one of the few parts of the lore that actually made sense. The Origin of the blight was not a punishment from the god of everything, it was the remnants of the titans having lost their war with the ancient elves and having their concious mind severd and turned rabid.
Correct. I suspect the reason why this part of the lore made sense is because they used the source document the original writers put together a long time ago to tell this part.
“The Darkspawn are mindless, there’s no getting through to them.”
So we’re just pretending The Disciples aren’t a thing?
They were an exception born of a mutation within the darkspawn, this was then expanded bya joining ritual created by the archetect using grey warden blood, but as a whole, it is unnartual - even for them. Itliterally drove some darkspawn mad.
@@Whoami691 yes, but it was still something that happened, and there were Darkspawn that took to being freed from the song of the Old Gods.
Even if it’s not a viable solution, the idea of just saying “yeah, there’s definitely a 0% chance of ever coming to an alternative solution to this situation besides killing” feels…ehhhh.
Although that’s just my take on it.
@@zxshadowxz well consideing the process required to restore PART of a darkspawns mind it becomes a practical impossibility. The joining ritual for the grey wardens itself is often fatal and requires the blood of darkspawn and an archdemon - not soemthing easy to come by.
Now you need to create a SECOND ritual using warden blood (the survivors that is) in a process that has a 50/50 chance of driving darkspawn utterly insane.
Realistically its not possible or reliable. it was worth a shot and works on a very small scale but on the horde? Yea, notpractical.
Literally the architect. They pretty much forgot or destroyed anything from the previous games.
@@Whoami691not unless the architect makes it for mass use which should have been done in veilguard they really hate the previous games.
Evanuris are the creators of the blight is pretty much an established theory since long ago. The evanuris being the big bad evil is pretty much established since long.
Yea I agree I’m pretty sure your right.. I saw this coming long time ago
The Veilguard stuff isnt a retcon, rather i believe this is what the creative team has been building to since DA2 at least. Now the question really is, could this have been revealed better in a better game and the answer is yes.
Removing the maker from dragon age ruins the setting. Dragon age setting relays on the lore of the chantry, you must never prove or disprove it. Removing the maker removes mystery from the world.
@@roiking2740 Except they didn't.
The only reasoning that follows that line of thought is that:
(If the Chant of Light is false) = (Maker must also be false)
Which isn't a valid line of reasoning. All that proving the chant of light false proves is that one Holy document is not in fact infallible. And even that argument might be too strong a claim as its only one line of the chant; which itself can be interrupted several different ways.
To quote Jowan "Darkest before the dawn, lo here comes the sun."
In real life the myriad historical and physical false claims of Sacred texts only resulted in the faiths shifting away from literalism.
@ bro ok if it were most Lines I would agree with you but the line we are talking about is comparable to Jesus dying on the cross.
The entire chant of light is built on that line, the first thing you see when you start to play is that line ITS THAT IMPORTANT. So no by stating the golden city isn’t golden, the magisters didn’t taint it and are not to blame for the darkspawn you render the Maker a false god. He maybe a pagan god but he isn’t a true god nor the creator of the universe.
@@roiking2740 Neat fact, we have no reputable primary sources on the crucifixion. We have third and fourth hand accounts claiming to be translations of accounts of the apostles in a language they didn't speak, dating to centuries after the event in question.
Yet that fact doesn't stop people from asserting it as a real event. That's the interesting thing about faith.
As for Andraste, the two canticles which directly speak of the black city can be reconciled with the events of the game the same way the location of divinity in the Abrahamic faiths did historically. AKA; moving the goal post.
We can start with the simple idea that the Black city of the Fade is not the city described in the canticles; which well convenient is plausible. A stronger argument however would be that Andraste simply misinterpreted the vision's sent by the Maker.
And those are just the most direct solutions to the problem from a world building standpoint.
@@Mister-Thirteen Which again disprove the Maker existence as much as disproving Jesus never died for our sins. My point is not that it is not dis-proven, My point that it is dis-proven.
Saying Andraste misunderstood the Maker vision would mean that the Maker gave her an insufficiency vision making him flawed which means the Maker is not a true god but a false god. A true god is omniscience, all powerful and all good. Stating Andraste visions were flaw would mean he is not all powerful or all knowing which would rendering him a false god. If the Maker lied that would mean he isn't all good or all powerful which would mean he is again a false god.
The pagan gods are flawed because they are man who were made into gods. In Thedas pagan gods are like the Elven gods super powerful spirit but as much as powerful a spirit can be its not a god. its still a mortal creature with flaws and venerability. Making the Maker into such a creature defeat the point of having him in the story. The Maker was not supposed to be dis-proven or proven. the chant of light was not design to be false or true. its supposed to be a matter of belief that mimics christian theology. By making the chant of light false you are making its creator false and there for a false god.
It's been speculated for years that the Evanuris were actually the old gods and responsible for the blight. There's even been speculation that Solas is the Maker, so none of this is exactly retconning anything.
There should have been far more nuance about the Tevinter Gods and their connection to the Evanuris. You have to remember that Hakkon (A High Dragon you fight in Inquisition) is seen as a true Avvar God and his essence is complex.
Not to mention Solas wouldn't have been enraged at the idea of exterminating the "Old Gods" in "Inquisition" if they were just glorified batteries for his enemies...
@@Revan498 Solas explains why later. They’re connected, and he underestimated the kind of bond that exists between said dragon and those connected.H even said something in Trespasser that wasn’t given much importance at the time: Corypheus found the means to “effective immortality”. What did he do? Bind a dragon to himself so he can’t die, and it blindsided Solas when his plan to use him and watch the Magister kill himself failed.
@BlackfangDragon again, that doesn't explain why he's upset at the idea of the Wardens killing them. At best, the dragons were his most hated enemies' pets, at worst, a sorce of power for said enemies. And yet he gets enraged st the idea of them all being killed in their sleep. Now, if the dragons were actually shape-changed elves trapped in dragon form after losing their power to The Veil, then Solas getting upset over their deaths would make sense...
@@Revan498 Because their life force is what fuels the spell. If the dragons die the Evanuris dies too, we know as the Elven Gods souls always died they tried to hijack Grey Wardens in past blights.
He planned on creating a new prison for the Blight and the remaining Evanuris while letting the rest of the Fade be free regardless of the damage.
Except killing the dragons merely makes them mortal. The game does not explain why it works differently for the five dead evanuris than it doee for elgar'nan and ghilan'nain
Also... So what? If the sole purpose of the spell is to imprison the evanuris.. Why not kill the evanuris? It's not as if he WANTS the veil. It was a necessary evil from his pov
The idea that Veilgaurd retconned anything is really without merit based on everything we've seen in the series from the beginning. Remember that anything regarding the Maker, Andraste, and the Chant of Light is all Chantry dogma, not a actually telling of Thedosian history. The revelations in Veilguard were all hinted at as being the true history since Origins.
Off the rip, you're off. They discovered the blight and the magic of it. However the blight comes from red lyrium and the madness of the titans.
Um it was already known by everyone before veilguard was even announced that the blight was most likely created by the elven gods and had something to do with the titans. But I guess you don’t pay attention to the previous games.
No, it wasn't. Certainly not in DAO or DA2.
@ nobody said in those two kid. Go back and play inquisition you casual
The chantry was never a reliable narrator, doesn't feel like a retcon to me just a reliable narrator debunking the unreliable one
DAv isn't a retcon. As early as the 2nd hour of Dao Wynne comments and muses if the chant of light is truth or allegory. These bread crumbs are left again and again. They're also several things like the urn of sacred ashes that are supposed to be reminders of an omnipotent will
"Ambitious, brilliant and unconstrained by anything you would understand as morality."
stop it, Solas I'm blushing.
The chantry lied about everything to fit their narrative. The blight is the angry dreams of the titans, solas made a weapon that turned titans into the first tranquils, which is why dwarfs can't dream. Also dwarfs were a gollum slave race made by the titans, the elves freed them from being mindless slaves unknowingly.
No, the Chantry tried to make sense of the puzzle using the few peices that had at the time - its literally what people do.
All we did was find a few more peices.
@@Whoami691 That's true. David Gaider always said that they would never reveal whether the Maker is real or not. Despite all these revelations, we also now know that humans predate the elves thereby still leaving the possibility that the Maker exists.
@@andrewvincent7299 that doesn't make sense because Andrastian faith was established thousand years after the fall of Arlathan.
@@andrewvincent7299no they dont
The delivery of these revelations are so badly done that it's a disservice to the buildup.
Ok, so why Solas is mad, of you choose to forgive the Grey Wardens and let them stay in Orlais to help the Inq?
I would say its because he knew what was going on with the blight and the fact that Corypheus was able to control the wardens through the blight connection (plus he is against blood magic which was used during the rituals to summon the demons perhaps?)
I don;t think he ever fully trust them - they bare the taint, and as he knows EXACTLY what the taint and blight is, he feels they are all just ticking time bombs - but he can;t just come out and say that, so deflects to their own hubris and ignorance as the reason for his anger.
@@theshadowblade6dg340 he was retconned to hate blood magic. he expressed academic interest in it in Inquisition. This comes from the replacement lead writer for Veilguard having a hate boner for blood magic and basically anything morally ambiguous.
@@MFenix206which is dumb because out of a anybody, Solas should know all magic is Blood magic, so he should be that mad
@@jorgeakira44 yeah, he is literally wielding a weapon made of blood when he first appears in DA:V.
So how does this explain the awakened darkspawn? They still had the blight even when they were severed from the song.
The Archetect was the only one of his kind, and he himself appeared to be a mutation. the awakened darkspawn onluy came about because the archetect created a ritual using grey warden blood.
My guess is that once the taint is taken into a being with a soul - like the titans uused to be - they regain some aspects of their sentient mind, so when the soulless darkspawn are joined by the archetect, the rabid unbridled rage is dulled slightly and part of their sentience is restored.
of course you cannot restore the titans mind this way, but on a small scale it can potentially help the darkspawn become more than rabid monsters.
@@Whoami691 He was one of 7. The magisters sidereal. But other than those 7 who had direct contact with the black city as the evanuris did, correct. The inverted joining ritual, while novel and limited in its success, would likely not realize meaningful viability anytime soon, if at all.
@@Whoami691 The The Architect was High Priest of Urthemiel and the leader of the Builders "who constructed monuments to the glory of the gods" according to the Great Plan. He was one of the Magisters Sidereal that broke into the fade and lost his memories. So he is very much like and the comrade of Corypheus. Your lore knowledge is outdated and it doesn't explain awakened darkspawn. The Blight should not be independent of the Titans.
@@DS-wr5lw Of anything the Architect and his colleges immunity to the influence of the taint is hard evidence of them being the creators of the darkspawn. Could be that by being at the center of creation (the golden city) the Magister change themselves to become immortal but as a result created the darkspawn and blacken the golden city?
This theory holds up cause 1. the architect and his college are immortal, like archedemons they jump to the next darkspawn and resurrect. 2. the darkspawn can be influence by their present much like the archedemons.
Meanwhile we don't get much evidence that the darkspawn and the blight were created by the elves or the titans. the black city already blacken? nope that evidence, Cyhriphios is mad and the architect lost his memory. it could be safe to assume non of the magisters remember what has happens during their time in the golden city thous they are unreliable witnesses.
To me its seem bioware just looked at forum theory and took them, easier to source plot devices than create them themselves.
I actually love the lore, this has confirmed many things and has some intruging twists. Dreams in this lore are more powerful than we ever comprehended.
I'm far more disappointed in the extra "Illuminati-ish" end scene.
Now that's actually a retcon and a big "fuck you" to everyone...
Not the biggest fan of it either, but i think it's too early to judge. If they actually get to expand on it i'm sure they'll tie it into the lore. They did mention the executors in the previous game, so it's not completely out of the scope of the lore. I think it mainly feels cheap bc it feels like they're trying to milk the series. They probably could have finished the story with this game, by making the blight disappear or be contained with the death of the last evanuris and the awakening of harding's titan power
Well given that there is no evidence of blood magic, it's not mind control. It's something else. My guess is something not unlike the various spies many factions have. Put the right people in the right place. Have them bend the right ears and get them to lean into what they're already feeling (giving them a little push as joker would say) and you can alter the course. Not unlike flemeth I suppose.
I wouldn't call it a retcon that the Andrastian faith is based on falsehoods. It's been hinted at rather unsubtly that it is wishful thinking at best in basically every Dragon Age, at least in certain paths. And from their perspective at the time, enough of the Tevinter magister/old gods story was close to the truth as far as they could possibly have known. No, the criticism of this game is that you cringe with uncanny valley feelings everytime you look at a character or face and they are generally not particularly well made, which is kind of key to a RPG, especially one where you are supposed to recognize some of the characters.
black city isnt maker city doesnt make him fake because still some1 must have created the fade and world right
Yes! Even the Elven Gods never claimed to have created the world or the fade. They themselves were spirits
Exactly. We also now know that Humans predate elves in the world.
The elves were the shapers of the fade while the titans were the shapers of the stone. Based on reveals, the black city was essentially elven palaces that served as a prison for the blight and the evanuris were used as the seals to contain it. (Red lyrium in the raw fade in DAI supports this claim) Based on arguments between Solas and Elgar'nan in the quest to free the Dalish in Arlathan Forest, evidence suggests Andruil located the Blight at the behest of Elgar'nan and Mythal struck her down and sealed the Blight away with wards so nobody knew where it was. (Likely in a pocket of the crossroads if I had to guess). But over time, the wards were weakening and the evanuris were catching on, so Solas warned Mythal. But in the end, they struck her down, which drove Solas to create the veil. And with the Evanuris sealed away as well, there was nobody left seeking the Blight. Until the magisters, at the urging of the Executors, breached the black city and brought back the blight with them. Why the Executors (and those they serve) would want that is still a mystery.
It's been a while, but I think we run into one of the frist Darkspawn in the games and he rants about the city turning black.
Mate the writer actively inside this game try to disprove the maker existence. Once by changing the origins of the darkspawn and twice by changing Andraste to being Mythal.
I had already theorized about that the elven gods were somehow connected to the Golden city. I also theorized that something else was going on with Morigan and her lore. But this did answer a lot of questions. But also left us with more questions. Many believe that, andraste had the memories of mythal then went to flemeth.
If they do continue this storyline, we do need to figure out how to free the titans from their nightmares… that needs to be the next step in my opinion.
Where is the retcon? I’m confused.
I don’t think it’s a retcon, there were hints and open ends left just for this to come about. It supports the theme of pride a hubris, which isn’t exclusive to humans but to the elves who were responsible for basically everything in their pride and the Blight was the result of their sins. The Blight being released back into the world by the ancient Magisters was because of prideful ambition of a few humans.
Not saying the Chant of Light is wrong, but history and the past can be contorted and changed to fit certain narratives of local cultures. The lore itself is vague enough to leave things open and intentionally be vague on details so it calls into question if it literally happened.
I think within the lore Andreste was real, but looking at her statues like the older ones then compare them to the idol of Mythal and their form is quite similar. The only difference really being the crown but that can be due to gradual cultural changes like Orlesians adding their own artistic style to the image. What if Andreste was one of the hosts for Mythal’s spirit fragments like Flemeth?
So it’s not a retcon the seeds and wholes were there to sprout and grow and fill in those holes since the very beginning. The truth of the blight itself supports the overall theme of pride and the horrible consequences of such a sin within dragon age. Solas himself is even a spirit of pride, he would be the embodiment of this theme
Spot on. People calling these revelations a retcon are coping hard.
Unwarranted?
It doesn’t seem to be a retcon to me really. By Inquisition at the latest, it was pretty well implied that the elven gods were associated in some way with the blight, the Tevinter gods, and the Titans. It always seemed kinda obvious that the Chant was going to have only kernels of truth at best.
This all doesn’t mean there isn’t a deity out there in Thedas that’s basically the Maker, though.
You're mistaking the theories people had within thedas about the world around them as retcon when its really that one theory proved to be true, they never said the maker was real or that the chant of light was correct, the entire series has been proving the chantry wrong at almost every turn because we as a player are supposed to be finding out the world was more complicated than the chant
Wonder if anyone else \has ever noticed how skull-like the Black City's shape is
Perhaps it's the skull of a defeated Titan? Would explain why the blight was trapped there with the elven "gods"
It's a very thoughtful analysis of the subject, in my opinion this new lore is well implemented in the global view about the Evanuris, the Blight and the origin of the Black City. But yes, it also sounds very convenient for the story they wanted to tell in this game.
And what about the Maker? Was he all made out? What about Andraste and the Chantry? They just disregarded all of that completely... I want more.
The Architect, Corypheus, and Solas all had hints that the overall world building was as much a lie as that pact with the children of the forest on game of thrones. Remember the golden city was already blighted, and the questioned belief killing all the archdemons would end the blights as examples.
The new lore seems so much less interesting than it was before
Any lore retconning into 'super magical elves' ruling the world is dumb.
@@SavageDragon999 It was always hinted that super magical Elves were rulers at one point. Evanuris were always said to be big bad before Veilguard.
@@TheMarquisLovenorn always? Show me where in Origins they hinted that the maker is fucking bald egg head?
I like this lore better
Most of interesting parts were hinted since origins. It's a continuity.
They alas added poor "modern" narrative and mindset (i mean, at that point you expect them to meet up at starbuck), modern character "depth", word soupe, and pronoun lecturing.
Glad I found this. New to Dragon Age but Veilguard's storytelling has neither the heft nor dignity of recent fantasy games that precede it. I am likely a snob, and perhaps this was meant for kids, but I can't finish the game. After 30 hours, I set the combat to Storyteller (oh, the irony) just to get through the story, but decided to find out on RUclips and be done with it. Not sure what 'return to form' really means, but at least I know wtf 'Blight' is now.
Hey, remember when Bioware said they would NEVER confirm or deny the existence of the Maker? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
The Maker is bullshit. Like all gods are.
@@smellycatbutts Reddit is down the hall and to the left
It kind of makes sense,it proves how the architect and coryipius were made into those forms and had that power same for thr elven gods we have seen their form does look similar to theres but controlled.
Going to be real, my characters always said the maker stuff was bullshit. In Inquisition I always shot down any idea of my character being chosen. It turned out that we stumbled in the room and got the mark.
my only change tbh, or I guess a headcanon, would be keeping the old gods are bound to the Evanuris thing but have them work independently once the veil came down, awakened but free from their influence. - in a world with their masters the Evanuris gone they were the most powerful force in Thedas, but their bodies were trapped beneath the earth, only able to explore through dreams. So they took to replicating what their masters did, and became gods to the Tevinter people. Maybe it was a corypheus type 'reach heaven' plan or maybe they were still obsessively trying to free their masters by breaking into the golden city, but it makes the outcome kind of tragic - these enslaved high dragons following in their oppressors footsteps, undone by the blight they accidentally unleashed. Then now with veilguard, razikale and lusacan are back firmly under their old masters control.
At least then the archdemons can stay their own big bad and not just become the guard dog of x evanuris. They're the guard dog whose master disappeared, then followed their master only to become rabid and, well, dragon age: origins'd. That's just my opinion lol
Just make the archedemons the elven gods physical bodies. Easy fix.
In the first 3 games we always follow the chanty point of view, but like the catholic church in real life, that's just 1 believe. Now we are looking the elf point of viewn, and figuring out even the elf gods are actually just elf seeking power. That relate with the real world... I really like it.
The new DEI Bioware is surely unaware of the old story-making rule known as "Show, don't tell." I loved looking at the Black City in Origins/Awakening DLC and imaging if there is someone in there in this castle on the top of that hill on the central island in the Fade. What the writers have done has made it just a convenience plot hole.
DEI? Is your brain broken? BYEEEEEEE
pretty much, DEI is ruining everything. We reached the point that airplanes are falling from the sky, no one should be shocked that every game and movie sucks now, it should be expected.
@@VideoGameSophistry Taash got more screen time than Varrik...
Excellent video. I don't particularly mind this retcon. The Chantry has always been a little suspect in their treatment of the elves and their zealous guarding of their own history - what did they know and when did they know it? This revelation would leave the followers of the Andrastianism with a choice - does the Maker truly not exist and they need to look elsewhere for guidance, or were the Evanuris just grasping ankle biters, while the Maker is the one true capital-G God, creator of the Universe, not just the golden city. As for the hidden ending, while it was presented in somewhat of a ham fisted manner, it does set up an intriguing possibility of some cloak and dagger future game with the protagonist fighting against a shadowy opponent. But I'm sure that is many rewrites and years down the line.
Keep inmind we havent heard what happen ro the other gods so in theory unless something happened in the fade they are still in there
This is no weirder then learning that the collectors were the protheans or that the Reaper were made by giant jerk wad squids
But that means also going by the new lore and morigans headseat andraste was also a host of mythal.
These aren't retcons. The previous games clearly stated they were merely theories and nobody knew what the truth was. Now, we have seen the truth. That's not a retcon. That's called a historical discovery.
This made me furious when I found out. Bioware really decided to just demystify everything. I don't even see how there can be a DA5 after this. It feels like Dragon Age is officially over.
There is still one more enemy to face, which lines up with what Mike Laidlaw said about 5 core games. The Executors (and who they serve)
"We're never gonna get through to them" Uhh...Dragon Age Awakening?
I have a feeling you just played DA Origin and take it face value didn't read into codex,novels and focused on its sequels that hinted since DA2 Legacy and DAI even banter between Solas and Blackwall gives and it come across shock to you well you can look over concept arts of Origin and find Darkspawns designs are twisted Elven Design.
Just feels like more the usual if you ask me. Nothing can simply be just "pure evil" but a sympathetic villain. A victim of other "evil"
It's like this modern age of writing forget that sometimes people are sick, assholes, and unsympathetic. That some people do things solely based on their own selfishness and ambition. Sometimes there is no past trauma that led them down this road. Sometimes, people are born with a few screws loose, born with chemical imbalances. Not every villain is a tragic hero or tragic villain turned to the darkside to try and do a greater good. The path to hell isn't always paved with good intentions. Sometimes the insane want to pave the path to hell based on their own sick designs.
This whole sympathetic villain crap is getting so damn old.
@andrewvincent7299 Straight up facts!
I mean to be fair the lore not being true and something that people came up with isn't new and was around in the last game
I think the real issue is it just being explained to you instead of you discovering the lies
The only thing I couldn't grasp there were never old gods to begin with and they were just alternate names for the elven gods when they used their dragons as a conduit from their prison in the fade to the real world? If so, what happened to the rest of the pantheon and the "souls" e.g. Kieran even though veilguard ignored his existence.
My take is that when the Darkspawn found the Archdemons and corrupted them, the respective Evanuris tied to that Archdemon had their soul joined to the part of the soul within the Archdemon. So the Evanuris in the prison went into a dream like state and their soul went fully into the Dragon. So every time the Archdemon was slain by a non-Warden, the soul hopped into a Darkspawn thereby becoming the Archdemon again. So when a Warden killed the Archdemon, the soul would crash into the Wardens soul and cause mutual destruction of both. So with the Archdemon's soul destroyed, there was nothing left to return to the Evanuris in the prison. Leaving the Evanuris either brain-dead or just dead.
The case with Urthemiel, the soul went to Morrigan's fetus and was reincarnated into something else also leaving nothing to return to the respective Evanuris in the prison.
Wait a second. If Solas formed a Veil to trap Evanuris and blight... Why did he trap spirits there too?
17:00 No. That was awful retcon.
Though... Yes, I might admit. It's not as awful as "secret ending". Awful too, but still undermining huge part of previous games, not like you know, everything.
He didn’t realize the ramifications of the spell. They told us that in Inqusition and that’s why he wants to tear it down after seeing the results.
So I’ll tell you why this is mostly good.
The.. delivery… is a touch exponential.
The games before drew the mythology out and and also put a lot of disturbing and scary unsettling tone into it.
This one is less… lone soldiers against the scary world where everything is dangerous… and more… marvel movie. You’re a super hero now. Lol. And that’s fun… but the tone is changed.
I don’t blame BioWare. I blame EA.
But the lore… is still fine.
See all of this has all been hinted at and when you’re a crazy DA conspiracy nut like me… most of this game checks out Cus I guessed most of it in the decades worth of waiting.
The chant and the maker are not fully disproven. The elven gods are not…. Gods. There’s still room for higher beings. And here is a big one that still connects to “the maker”
When seekers are made…. They undergo the sundering… their dreams are cut away from them and they are made tranquil…. However…. A spirit of FAITH comes and heals them. Reconnects their dreams. And that process reinforces them like how templars reinforce reality with lyrium.
Why would a spirit of faith exist? And why is it the only spirit that can heal a person’s sundering?
Faith cures the blight. In a sense.
An emotion so strong it connects a spirit to a person and potentially the maker… and becomes the conduit through with the maker can heal people.
Also the chant of light might not have started out with anything in their scriptures to do with the golden city…. That may have come later when it was clear there was a golden and now black city and they had to shoe horn in all this mysterious stuff into the chant of light Cus none of it made sense so they just said “maker did it”
Interesting concept and probably the one thing they should keep a mystery in the lore. Doesn't matter what the Maker is, be it a human, a spirit, a titan's echo, or even an elf. That's what makes it faith.
I’m not really against what’s revealed everything lines up with the established lore and the darkspawn looking different I don’t have any real problem sure I miss their classic designs which were a throwback to classic orcs and goblins but their new appearances gives them unique for dragon age.
Agree about the DAV clownspawn, I mean darkspawn. They should have also included some of the old forms. I guess they were saying the released gods mutated them all quickly into the new DAV darkspawn. Emissaries and some Alphas could speak but maybe the released gods made them stupid like the rest now?
I think the demons were the more noticeable change. They went from manifesting with visible bodies to being collected trash spirits in DAV.
Gotta say everyone saying it's changed everything is false. They didn't retcon it they just added truth to it..
The maker part is pretty much Christianity soo it turning out to be mostly made up by people to guide is realism.
And the whole story line of makers city if you look into the written and extra conversation lore rather than quick run isn't a lie but a half truth. Old gods were weapons of the elf "gods" and humans being humans love and worship dragons. Soo they spoke to humans pretending to be dragon gods to enter the "Golden city" and meet become gods. The city was the prison that solas made for the elf "gods". Their elf gods were blighted and used the blight (they didn't create it) so their prison was full of it and hence when the humans (early darkspawn) broke in they released the blight but not the gods. And they search for their old gods (archdemons = elf god familiars = old gods) which called to them with a song from the blight.
At no point does it say the elf made the blight they used it.
The maker kind of exists but it's pretty much solas and it's a prison not a palace. And humans doing what humans do and changed it to fit their wants. Look at real life Christmas, Halloween and many other religious holidays are pagan stuff renamed to fit new religions same with andrastian faith.
The blight is disconnected spirit/blood of titans essentially their ghosts trapped and mad so the elf gods didn't make it. They may have caused it wasnt made by them.
Also the maker can still exist if you wanna believe it soo hard just like Christianity. There is no science to prove alot to disapprove it. But still something had to make the titans and elf's before them so there is a maker it just wasn't the humans one.
But yeah new designs are crap but yes no one wants 15 minutes cutscenes about identity. And not everyone believes and wants young religions like muslim or Christianity to be the truth in their games. We wanna fight dragons and enjoy a story. You should also disclaim that the video is YOUR UNDERSTANDING and not fact
If the writing had been good and they kept with the choice carry over and the 4 man team and switching between your characters. If the dialog between you your followers was more and divers if the the romance was more than one kiss and a last min lets sleep together because I almost lost you.( i played orgins after this and i forgot how soon you could actually sleep with Zev before even starting a relationship) so many time my love interests said something my rook should have responded too but just stood their awkwardly. I could have got on board with Solas version of the black city and the elves starting the blight if not for all the other crap.
This has already been speculated though.
You also have to understand that the chantry and their doctrines are thousands of years old and should be taken with a grain of salt. Even when I started DAO, i always thought the Chantry's teachings sounded a bit like propaganda. Plus, there's the Tevinter version of the tales.
I guess what I'm saying is, this bombshell of a lore actually makes sense. The truth is often more dissappointing compared to the fairytales.
I wouldn’t see it as a retcon. It’s the answer to a mystery. Religion is inherently myth and is subject to change, this is no different and while it answers mysteries, it poses new ones like if the maker isn’t real, who or what convinced andraste? Probably someone in the secret ending
Okay, considering what I've learned from the times I played DA; I've always gotten the impression that the Chantry was full of shit. We see evidence of this in later games; especially in Inquisition. So, it appears that here in Veilguard; we're beginning to see the truth that the Chantry has twisted and/or hidden since they came to power
IMO the Chantry is just trying to make sense of the fragments of information they have and so weaved thi tale because 'well, it all seems to fit, so why not?'.
And after this people wonder why Dragon Age fans are driven mad.
Imagine being a Dragon Age fan and ever thinking that the Chantry was right lol
My only question is.. why the rest of the evanuris didn’t make an appearance? I didn’t play the game myself, but in all the cutscenes I have seen they were completely ignored besides Andruil? And even then.. no mention of her whereabouts as of the events of Veilguard. Where are the other 5 evanuris?
It's possible they're dead. Five archdemons are dead, and probably needed the dragons to retain immortality. When the dragons died, so did they over time.
Razikale and Luscan are E and G personal dragons.
@ I mean I recall in inquisition that Solas said something to the effect that immortality was simply just part of being elvhen. Further evidence is the ancient elvhen that you meet in the Temple of Mythal in inquisition. The Veilguard really just left us with 0 explanation on the fate of the remaining Evanuris, and it seems like we will not be revisiting the ancient Elves going forward, if there is another game coming down the pipeline.
Dead. The means they used to secure their immortality is the same as what Corypheus did. However the ritual to make Grey Wardens works ensures they did with them, unless Kieran exists and Morrigan performs the ritual that puts June/Urthemiel inside her son Kieran. But like Mythal it’s only a wisp of what once was.
Want to add it’s not clear what exactly is different about Corypheus that he can hijack Grey Wardens without dying, but that’ll likely be answered in the future since the other tainted Magisters are still around.
Trust you audience. When their dragons died they were no longer immortal. The veil was sustained with their lives. When they became mortal the veil drained them dry and they died.
I had no issue with the revaltions in the game given that they made a lot of thing make more sense to me. The chant of light always felt wrong to me. Given its extreme dogmatic vilifying of mages and to be honest every other race than humans. In reality we have seen thing belived to be true for centuries proven wrong time and again so it seems only logical the same would be true in a fantasy universe also. I have played all of the games from the perspective of a mage and often as an elf as well and have often questioned both the beliefs of the elves and the humans. The cor message of both faiths is the same as those of real faiths and the failings are in how people choose to interpret them as is ture in reality. The blight revaltion again made sense as I have often questioned why dwarves could not dream or do magic when every other race can. I can see why thes truths coming to light might make someone uncomfortable but agin it is no different to the response we would find in reality.
This is not a retcon. This was all indicated in the first game.
People will defend this with "Oh, but this was hinted at for a while!" takes, like they have already in some comments. You're ignoring what else they do. It's not just "OOPS! JUST ALL ELVES!" Lore now, they also destroyed everything, literally everything related to the old games. I make no exaggeration to that either. From the Free Marches south, in notes and convos in the game is all destroyed by the blight. Literally every game prior involved only those locations. So not only is all the lore established from the very first sentence in the opening of the first game just wrong now, but also every place and person we met now just destroyed and dead. Every person and place you met in DA2 and Inquisition are also gone and destroyed now, except for the inquisitor themself.
first of all, we don’t know at all which companions or people died from the last games ? shit even ur romance from inquisition sends a letter in veilguard so wdym with everyone died? 😭 and you can’t except for a world changing blight to ignore the south just cause we played there? bro pls
@@fkaluis "No bro, all the people you met are fine. Just the homes, lands, buildings, they're all fine bro. No bro, they put in the effort bro, see? They made a letter talking about it once bro. Calm down bro. It's not that bad bro. It's just literally every place we ventured in every previous game bro, and none of the north bro. Shut up bro."
No it doesn't
@@Sircool1 “none of the north”
you clearly haven’t played this game cuz you literally have to make a choice between two cities on who gets obliterated by the blight ? even other maps like hossberg wetlands show how bad the blight has gotten due to the elven magic accelerating it
Ferelden was ravaged by the Fifth Blight, and your entire party can survive. What are you talking about? lmao
So it’s the elves fault and we should do what Elder Scrolls Ysgramor did :p
Eh? The Evanuris did not create the blight. It was just a result of their war against the Titans.
What happened to other 5 gods. Are they dead when their dragons died ?
That seems to be the case yes. When the old god soul (the link to the evanuris) either passes into a grey warden or a nonblighted person, said link is severed and thus, the linked evanuris perishes. This is why Solas was so against the Grey Wardens seeking out the old gods deliberately. Because he knows that while a fraction of the blight is bad...the blight in its entirety is even worse.
@lordofgingers But warden were killing the dragon. Due to killing of dragon, these Evanuris are dead. Kindly indulge me.
@@aliverakran777 correct. All evidence points to the only way an evanuris survives the loss of an archdemon is if they are present in the physical world. If they are in the fade at the time it happens, they don’t survive
@@lordofgingers so why was Solas angry with warden. If they are killed, it is good for thedas. Is it not ?
@ no. Because the evanuris serve as the seals to the black city.
So if two things are true:
1)All the evanuris are dead AND
2)Solas does not possess the power at the time to relocate the blight and seal it with wards as mythal once did (which he did not at the time of adamant)
The blight, in its entirety, would be unleashed upon the world. With nobody powerful enough to seal it away, that would spell doom for the world
So they pretty much just confirmed that all the theories and lore are all wrong but right
Every answer should bring 2 more questions this failed at that
This isn't the Blight, this is the Sickness.
with all due respect it was never "established", the whole point was that it was unreliable narration, that the story of the maker and the golden city was at best unsubstantiated, corypheus showed this in DA:I when he said that they "broke into the golden city and it was empty" so in da:i we know that the truth is not totally what the chantry said, hardly a retcon, the chant of light was said to be true by thoe who believed in it, in thedas there are different cultures with different religions, the origins were just finally explained, and all theories that were thought of prior to the game are rendered naught
They literally retconned Solas' whole story from Inquisition and Trespasser.
How?
They absolutely butchered Dragon Age lore. Unforgivable
Bro how?
The blight wasn't created by the evanuris. It was a result of the sundering of the titans. We always knew the evanuris were the old gods, the connection was not yet fully discovered. But we did assume it was the evanuris souls in the archdemons.
I agree it's retconned because they have taken everything mysterious about the lore from previous games, into everything is elves. People who keep saying that it has been hinted since bla bla bla, forget they were just theory and not facts. Faillguard happened and decided to look up fan theory hype and said yep let's go with everything was all elves because we're too lazy to make dankspawn, maker and old gods separate from the elves as a whole...
Or Veilguard continued was was pretty clearly set up since the beginning.
Also, since when should we even think that the maker is real?
Also again, Darkspawn technically come from dwarves, not elves.
@@krasmasov6852 lies they came from brood mothers :3
@thanellen8757 Lmao and where do broodmothers come from?
tainted females of the blighted of each race :3
@@thanellen8757 And since the blight comes from dwarves...
The elven gods created the blight and the maker is probably fake seems reasonable with the lore.
Why did Trespasser Solas want to tear down the Veil if the majority of the Blight was being contained by the Veil? I didn't play DAV so apologies if the game explains this. Does DAV end with all of the blight being put back into the Veil?
The blight is imprisoned within the Black City (still a theory) together with the Evanuris. Solas wants to tear down the Veil without fully destroying the prison that holds the Evanuris and the Blight. He HAD plans to "move" them into a new prison while he destroyed the Veil and put everything back as it was in the time of the Elves.
The Blight was imprisoned before the creation of the veil.
It’s not a retcon if they hinted at most of these things being true from the beginning of the game. The religion of the maker and the chantry was created long after the fall of the original elven empire and they’ve dropped hints across every game that the black/golden city had nothing to do with the maker, even corepheus mentioned the city was already black, supporting the fact that Solas trapped the elven gods with the blight there. I dislike most of the game lore that they’ve tarnished but this is literally the only part that actually makes sense and ties into the previous games
Death to the Knife-Earred Demons, Agony Upon the Knife-Earred Demons send the spawn-crafters screaming back into the fade they crawled out of
Just blame the elves for everything! That is master writing for you! So happy the franchise is dead after this fiasco. Next comes the corpse of Mass Effect.
I actually enjoyed the retcon. All previous explanations were speculation anyway, taken as fact by Thedas.
It's not retcon though. It confirmation of theories crafted as far back as Origins. The clues were always there in all three games that the Blights, old gods, and the Evanuris were all connected. The word 'retcon' being used by those coping by people who utterly hate the game and lumping these revelations with the bad writing of it or people who just don't like the truth of these revelations.
@andrewvincent7299 I enjoyed the lore dump and the game as a whole. I wish the game had mentioned the origins of humans. I'm sure it won't be as epic as Spirits, Titans, or Dragons. The only thing I remember is that the humans arrived in Thedas from somewhere else.
@@drsaddomia I think the real problem is the delivery of such important lore revelations. It should have been uncovered slowly as the game went on as opposed to Solas dropping a 3 min exposition dump. But yeah, the origins of humans should have been given more clues. Especially with the hint of a threat beyond the sea in the secret ending.
@andrewvincent7299 Is the secret ending, with that voice that taunts us throughout the game?
Honestly the previous cannon made no sense. We already knew that solus made the veil and that basically crashes the whole cannon. If he made the veil then how could piercing it be the original sin which made the maker turn from the world? If the cities were in the fade and the waking world before the veil happened how could the golden city be the makers city? If piercing the veil wasn’t the sin then why the darkspawn and why do the dwarves state that the darkspawn come from underground not the magisters anyway? If the darkspawn DID come from the magisters how did the brood mothers start to cause the explosion of darkspawn?
Solas is the Maker
I think they rushed and fucked up, it makes hell of a sense (thanks to huge build up from past 3 games otherwise it would be horse shit) but it's not it.. It feels wrong, I wish original writers finished story in book or something like it and give Dragon Age justice it deserves because EA Bioware never will..
Thanks for nice and short video what happens because it would pain me to play game that I love ruined so badly thanks to woke and super bad writers..
This video makes me want to play Veilguard.
I’m only interested in the world of Thedas, the real world politics is the only thing that prevents me from buying it, maybe when it gets cheap to $5, I might try it just for the sake of the lore.
The world of Thedas, The Maker, The Darkspawn of Dragon Age Origins is, was interesting mystery the first time I played it.
That's stupid. 'Real world politics' don't affect this game at all. Play it, you'll like it.
yea there are no "real world politics" in this game. if you're so triggered by the existence of that one qunari companion just don't bring them with you and ignore their sidequests (just look up on youtube the qunari lore that's revealed in Taash's quest). if you want a "traditional" DA experience, bring Davrin and either Lucanis, Emmrich, Harding, or Neve with you.
play it if you like world and lore its worth it and if you like gray wardens even better!
It wasn't a retconn. It's was just underwhelming like most answers to historical conundrums happen to be.
trash