I do think that the next game needs to have more lore on the Forgotten Ones. Focusing on who, what they are and things they have done to Thedas. As there are still lot's of unanswered questions. I agree that it is likely that Malvernis is an FO and that it is unlikely that he has been killed. Maybe the Malvernis defeated by hawk was a servant or maybe someone corrupted by them? Or a fragment of a greater whole? I really do not know, as it gets very guess worthy in this part of the DA Lore.
(My apologies, this became perhaps unnecessarily in-depth but when you mentioned languages my brain went OH! I KNOW A BIT ABOUT THIS! and things escalated from there.) Okay so for context, I'm not a linguist, but I am a conlanger. I am familiar but don't actually know any ancient languages, for clarity I checked online to make sure what I'm saying is it least generally correct. And over the years I've examined as much of the Thedosian "languages" as I can to find meaning, origin, or at the very least patterns. Qunlat and Dwarven seem pretty consistent with being your super basic conlang, while Elvhen shows clear signs of being a cipher that has then been built on to make it seem slightly less ciphery, and also probably harder to break. Having said this, I'm pretty confident that Malvernis is Tevene not Dwarven, or at best a loanword in Dwarven from Tevene. With what little we know of Tevene, it's impossible to tell the linguistic context in-universe but form wise it does seem pretty pseudo-Latin which it makes it easier to deconstruct. Malvernis, the actual name the devs chose for this entity, is probably at least loosely based from two Latin adjacent words I can think of. I think "Mal-" is probably from "Malus", an adjective that means something like evil, bad, wrong, hurtful, destructive, unlucky etc, and the origin for the English prefix "Mal-" in words like malformed, maladapted, malnutrition etc. "-vernis" might be linked to the Latin word "vernīs" which is the ablative/dative form of "verna" which is noun that means like a home-born slave. Due to the mythos surrounding The Pestilent One however, I think "-vernis" might have more to do with the Old French word "vernis" or "verniz" which means varnish or veneer, which itself might have roots in the Sanskrit word "varṇa" which means colour, kind, covering etc. Now obviously Tevene isn't literally a real language (it's barely a conlang imo) so this should all be taken with a grain of salt, but it can't be entirely a coincidence that these real life words both fit the entity and/or the traits ascribed to him (them, it?). I'm pretty sure in-universe it's not a direct translation of "Pestilent One", and I think in this case "The Pestilent One" might be something akin to an Avvar's name-legend. Possibly due to having something to do with the taint (maybe proto-taint???), but seriously what isn't at this point.
Thought you were going to suggest it, and then you didn't, so I'll say it: What if the prison was originally built for Malvernis? The Dwarves could have forgotten about it [(they did kind of have nearly their whole kingdom destroyed and killed) Or what if Corypheus was deemed more dangerous? (Or, it's even possible if the Grey Wardens straight up stole the prison, because doing anything to stop the blights could include stealing super high tech prisons to try and lock away blighted Magisters they don't know how to fight/kill])
If Malvernis was our first encounter with a Forgotten One, I just want to say it was seriously anti-climatic. I didn't even notice him on my first play through.
Since the circumstances would be so similar to Corypheus, I doubt (or maybe hope) that Malvernis being released into the world will be a large plot point in any future official DA content, but if it does happen and someone doesn't mention the similarity and make a pun on "Hawke released two monsters? Gee, that's some LEGACY" I'm boycotting DA.
I can't recall which codex entry it is but I believe there is mention of either the forgotten or forbidden ones forsaking the people and leaving their earthly form. My theory is that he might be a former elven God not one of the evenuris mind you. If that is the case the evenuris are in the fade/behind a eluvian that's locked. And the others are in the abyss. Now following the theories about the sky underground in the decent DLC it might be that this character my have escaped his prison made by fen-herel. But that's what I think
Trevor Fitch I believe the codex entry you're talking about is about the Forbidden Ones, not the Forgotten Ones. That said, you still could be right! I'll talk more about all that when I make an episode for the Forgotten Ones.
You know what would make a lot of sense? What if all of these "ones" were originally written down in the time of the Elves or something. What if their names are all of Elven making and when translating their names from Elven to the human tongues, they directly translated the accompanying pronouns? For example, in informal Elven writings they would be called, for instance, the "forgotten people". When translating this, the translators took this informal approach as their proper names and translated it as the "Forgotten Ones". We see weird translation quirks all the time in real life. An example would be tense and number changes when speaking a foreign language. (I forget which culture, but when these people speak English they ask questions in the third person instead of the second person because the second person doesn't exist in their language. Example: "What does Mary want?" instead of "What do you want?")
Ok, just going to add one thing... in lore there is another being that could spread pestilence and eat other - listed in codex entry of 'A different darkspawn?' ;)
Sigh... I'd like to be a linguist too. I'm a huge language and literary culture nerd. Also, I can't help but think after seeing this video that maybe Hawke accidentally freed the Pestilent One. Finally, I love the new schedule, I love seeing more of your videos, I don't think this one feels rushed or suffered - there isn't a lot available on this topic to begin with. But maybe if you need to adjust for your sanity's sake, maybe focus on making two videos a month? (March is a month with 5 Saturdays, after all so things like that can feel overwhelming, certainly.)
I do still favor the idea that Malvernis was one of the magisters sidereal. Looks human, sounds Tevinter, is a mage, is powerful. Spectral magic is ??? for me still though!
Yeah, that encounter with the intelligent darkspawn was less than 200 years ago. So, the madman being around as a darkspawn like Corypheus and the Architect is totally plausible.
@@TheKingdomEntertainment I was wondering, actually, whether he could have been seen in the darkspawn by the dwarves in the deep road we get a codex about (I think maybe that was covered by Ghil), and then also be the one who you can encounter as Hawke.
The history of this mostrosity ALONE almost screams that Thedosian history MUST have spanned far further than a mere 9 ages. I mean, there had to be time for whole Thaigs to be swept aside by such an entity, like Unicron gripping down on a subterranean Cybertron. I wonder if there aren't Samsara cycles in this mythology, too (that WOULD explain the conflicting genesis myths).
I do think that the next game needs to have more lore on the Forgotten Ones. Focusing on who, what they are and things they have done to Thedas. As there are still lot's of unanswered questions. I agree that it is likely that Malvernis is an FO and that it is unlikely that he has been killed. Maybe the Malvernis defeated by hawk was a servant or maybe someone corrupted by them? Or a fragment of a greater whole? I really do not know, as it gets very guess worthy in this part of the DA Lore.
Wow I have never bothered with this side-quest and now I need to make sure I finally do it on my next playthrough.
(My apologies, this became perhaps unnecessarily in-depth but when you mentioned languages my brain went OH! I KNOW A BIT ABOUT THIS! and things escalated from there.)
Okay so for context, I'm not a linguist, but I am a conlanger. I am familiar but don't actually know any ancient languages, for clarity I checked online to make sure what I'm saying is it least generally correct. And over the years I've examined as much of the Thedosian "languages" as I can to find meaning, origin, or at the very least patterns. Qunlat and Dwarven seem pretty consistent with being your super basic conlang, while Elvhen shows clear signs of being a cipher that has then been built on to make it seem slightly less ciphery, and also probably harder to break.
Having said this, I'm pretty confident that Malvernis is Tevene not Dwarven, or at best a loanword in Dwarven from Tevene. With what little we know of Tevene, it's impossible to tell the linguistic context in-universe but form wise it does seem pretty pseudo-Latin which it makes it easier to deconstruct. Malvernis, the actual name the devs chose for this entity, is probably at least loosely based from two Latin adjacent words I can think of.
I think "Mal-" is probably from "Malus", an adjective that means something like evil, bad, wrong, hurtful, destructive, unlucky etc, and the origin for the English prefix "Mal-" in words like malformed, maladapted, malnutrition etc.
"-vernis" might be linked to the Latin word "vernīs" which is the ablative/dative form of "verna" which is noun that means like a home-born slave. Due to the mythos surrounding The Pestilent One however, I think "-vernis" might have more to do with the Old French word "vernis" or "verniz" which means varnish or veneer, which itself might have roots in the Sanskrit word "varṇa" which means colour, kind, covering etc.
Now obviously Tevene isn't literally a real language (it's barely a conlang imo) so this should all be taken with a grain of salt, but it can't be entirely a coincidence that these real life words both fit the entity and/or the traits ascribed to him (them, it?). I'm pretty sure in-universe it's not a direct translation of "Pestilent One", and I think in this case "The Pestilent One" might be something akin to an Avvar's name-legend. Possibly due to having something to do with the taint (maybe proto-taint???), but seriously what isn't at this point.
Thought you were going to suggest it, and then you didn't, so I'll say it: What if the prison was originally built for Malvernis?
The Dwarves could have forgotten about it [(they did kind of have nearly their whole kingdom destroyed and killed)
Or what if Corypheus was deemed more dangerous?
(Or, it's even possible if the Grey Wardens straight up stole the prison, because doing anything to stop the blights could include stealing super high tech prisons to try and lock away blighted Magisters they don't know how to fight/kill])
If Malvernis was our first encounter with a Forgotten One, I just want to say it was seriously anti-climatic. I didn't even notice him on my first play through.
Since the circumstances would be so similar to Corypheus, I doubt (or maybe hope) that Malvernis being released into the world will be a large plot point in any future official DA content, but if it does happen and someone doesn't mention the similarity and make a pun on "Hawke released two monsters? Gee, that's some LEGACY" I'm boycotting DA.
I can't recall which codex entry it is but I believe there is mention of either the forgotten or forbidden ones forsaking the people and leaving their earthly form. My theory is that he might be a former elven God not one of the evenuris mind you. If that is the case the evenuris are in the fade/behind a eluvian that's locked. And the others are in the abyss. Now following the theories about the sky underground in the decent DLC it might be that this character my have escaped his prison made by fen-herel. But that's what I think
Trevor Fitch I believe the codex entry you're talking about is about the Forbidden Ones, not the Forgotten Ones.
That said, you still could be right! I'll talk more about all that when I make an episode for the Forgotten Ones.
How does being a forgotten explain being able to turn into a dragon?
You know what would make a lot of sense? What if all of these "ones" were originally written down in the time of the Elves or something. What if their names are all of Elven making and when translating their names from Elven to the human tongues, they directly translated the accompanying pronouns? For example, in informal Elven writings they would be called, for instance, the "forgotten people". When translating this, the translators took this informal approach as their proper names and translated it as the "Forgotten Ones".
We see weird translation quirks all the time in real life. An example would be tense and number changes when speaking a foreign language. (I forget which culture, but when these people speak English they ask questions in the third person instead of the second person because the second person doesn't exist in their language. Example: "What does Mary want?" instead of "What do you want?")
Ok, just going to add one thing... in lore there is another being that could spread pestilence and eat other - listed in codex entry of 'A different darkspawn?' ;)
Sigh... I'd like to be a linguist too. I'm a huge language and literary culture nerd.
Also, I can't help but think after seeing this video that maybe Hawke accidentally freed the Pestilent One.
Finally, I love the new schedule, I love seeing more of your videos, I don't think this one feels rushed or suffered - there isn't a lot available on this topic to begin with. But maybe if you need to adjust for your sanity's sake, maybe focus on making two videos a month? (March is a month with 5 Saturdays, after all so things like that can feel overwhelming, certainly.)
I do still favor the idea that Malvernis was one of the magisters sidereal. Looks human, sounds Tevinter, is a mage, is powerful. Spectral magic is ??? for me still though!
Would the timeline line up with the theory that the magister who became the madman who was seen by dwarves to eat another of the first darkspawn?
Yeah, that encounter with the intelligent darkspawn was less than 200 years ago. So, the madman being around as a darkspawn like Corypheus and the Architect is totally plausible.
@@TheKingdomEntertainment I was wondering, actually, whether he could have been seen in the darkspawn by the dwarves in the deep road we get a codex about (I think maybe that was covered by Ghil), and then also be the one who you can encounter as Hawke.
The history of this mostrosity ALONE almost screams that Thedosian history MUST have spanned far further than a mere 9 ages. I mean, there had to be time for whole Thaigs to be swept aside by such an entity, like Unicron gripping down on a subterranean Cybertron. I wonder if there aren't Samsara cycles in this mythology, too (that WOULD explain the conflicting genesis myths).
Malvernis might be the unnamed 8th Old God