The idea that the male figure is two being pulled across the Veil and manifesting physically works really well with the idea that Mythal caused a spirit of Wisdom/Pride to manifest and that was Solas, especially given Solas's reaction to it in TN. What if that's the moment that the idol is depicting?
Hey Caitie, first thing, thankx again for the shout out, and second, there was one thing I had forgotten to add to my red lyrium post is, Varric doesn't just have a chat with Blackwall about it, there's also the chat he has with the Inquisitor about it, and that's how you get Varric's red lyrium companion mission. Here's that. Inquisitor: What makes it so special? Varric: Regular Lyrium can mess you up pretty badly, But you have to ingest it for that to happen. Red Lyrium messes with your mind when your just standing near the stuff. You hearing singing, get violent, paranoid. And then it does creepy shit. Makes things float. Brings statues to life. It also turned Kirkwall's Knight-Commander to Lyrium. Everybody's been kept at least a hundred paces away from it since. Sorry about not adding this to my previous post.
A triptych (pronounced TRIP-tick) is a three panel painting, with the center usually be the largest one and the main focus of the subject. Sometimes the two smaller panels fold out to reveal the center, sometimes there are carvings along the sides, but that’s basically it - three panels for one paining. One of the more famous one is The Gardens or Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, whose paintings would strongly influence modern concepts of how heaven and hell are depicted, which is probably why the artists decided to put several Andrastian triptychs in the game, to give Orlais a more pseudo-Renaissance era feel with some of the in-game artwork.
Thanks for the shout out Caitie! Glad all that Andraste Mambo-Jambo was well explained! So, about the Drakons being related to the Valmonts, you didn't find anything because likely there isn't anything to find. I actually posted this on Antonio's question, but here it goes: _The Valmonts are actually nobodies with little royal blood to speak of before they rose to the throne. In a quick TLDR; A random captain named Lambert Valmont decided to ignore his orders during the final battle of the fourth blight and charged into battle with his men, which ended up saving the Antivan King who gave him a daughter to wed and the first titles the family had. He returned to Orlais, which also gave him titles. Then, his sons went on to win a Civil War against a (supposed) usurper named Xavier Drakon. So, in one generation these ballsy mofo went from randos in the Imperal Army to Emperors (and a Divine, too)._ But with your video I actually thought that maybe Lambert Valmont might have been a bastard of the Drakon line (from female lines or not), and that's why he was a Captain in the Army and not a minor noble or something, so I went a bit deeper. The Codex Entry that mentions Lambert at all (and from where I pulled all of this from - Codex: The Lion of Orlais) implies that once Lambert returned to Orlais, the Emperor sorta reluctantly gave him titles. Titles for which the nobility started calling Lambert 'The Swaggering Lion'. From my view, it seems like good old Orlesian snobbery to snide at the new commoner-made-noble and not the elevation of a bastard line or matrilineal line that has royal blood. Of course, since this is all inferred, it's still possible that he still was a bastard or from a matrilineal line but tbh I quite doubt it, there would have to be a mention of it somewhere and there just isn't any. I admit that it's a steep rise and coming relatively out of nowhere for a common family and there aren't many IRL historical parallels to the meteoric rise of the Valmonts. The only one I know of is the Justinian line of the Byzantine Empire.
Oh gods, that actually made me think. Suddenly I love the idea of red head Andraste. Also imagine Liliana as a descendent of her. Given some of the oddness with her
You've talked a bit about this theory before, but rather than Mythal, I'm a big fan of the theory that Andraste was like Kieran, and contained Dumat's soul. The fact such a soul was then lost to human violence might even explain why Flemeth is so eager to keep Kieran under her wing or take his Old God soul with her in the present day.😊
I had a question/theory about origins of the Blight: have you talked on your podcast about the influence of Tolkien's works on Dragon Age? As examples, Valinor, land of gods and elves (sources of magic), was separated from Middle Earth by the Shadowy Seas ("veil"). The god of evil, Melkor wanted the spark of creation that his father Eru had, but the lust for power led to Melkor's downfall and introduced chaos into Middle Earth, corrupting the land and its creatures (i.e. creation of the orcs). In a similar way, the Evanuris and/or Forgotten/Forbidden Ones may have experimented with lyrium and the heart of a Titan, because they wanted the spark of creation: control over the mutable Fade and also the ability to focus reality, fashion a physical world, like the Titans. The Blight may have been a side effect of trying to combine these opposite forces, almost like the fantasy equivalent of splitting the atom. Regarding the Veil: Perhaps Solas accelerated a natural process, where the physical world, Thedas, was separating over the ages from the Fade, just as Middle Earth was moving further away from Valinor.
Thanks for all these videos! I'm a fan of the DA TTRPG and all these lore videos are a great reference and refresher I can listen to while working, etc. I must admit I never finished the DA:O game and I've never played DA2! But your vids make me want to go back and play them!
hi, first time commenting!......what if the red lyrium idol isn't growing its arms and other appendages back...because it is missing the Dread Wolfs ORB!! I mean the rest of the thing regrows,as it were ...could be that it was the base for Solas' Orb . it can't regenerate those parts unless the orb is brought back...BTWs been obsessed with DA since DAO, like your channel. let me know if this idea makes any sense.
So idk if I missed a correction or what the original video was but I remember you mentioned demons could only affect their appearance to those they are possessing however in inquisition it’s said by Daniel to Cassandra that a demon was masquerading as the lord seeker in Val Royeaux. If so could this be an illusion? I doubt a demon could fool so many Templars and a seeker in a public location. Or could this be the end result of the grown inside people demons? Or since we know he was working with the demon could this be something else entirely? If u alrdy made a correction to this I apologize that I missed it I enjoy listening to the channel while play DA so I could have missed it
The demon that masquerades the Lord Seeker in Val Royeaux is an Envy. An Envy demon being a literal representation of Envy, their unique ability is to disguise themselves as someone else. You actually encounter one in the templar quest in Inquisition and it's mentioned that Envy demons are really rare to encounter due to their ability to disguise themselves. Also the Envy demon wasn't possessing the Lord Seeker, it was physically in Thedas (most likely cause of a rift) and then used it's Envy ability to disguise itself as the lord seeker.
I love the theory that the fade is the Jungian collective unconscious of all of the stories (real or fabricated) of Thedas, rather than a perfect carbon-copy of what happened. Imagine the fade for 21st century America where all the spirits are just...... batman. And maybe some slendermans in there.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought there was more than a few hints at the idea of incorrect and misremembered histories in Thedas in DAO. Don’t know that they had the full story nutted out at that point but I think they were already toying with that idea long before DAI. As for whether or not Andraste was a mage I still think it would make sense if she was, as by the sounds of it her feats were far beyond the realms of most mages. Much like people still calling the Inquisitor ‘Herald of Andraste’ even if s/he is a mage because other mages cannot close rifts. Also worth pointing out how easily Varric can exaggerate your feats to near mythical levels for both Hawke and the Inquisitor even in this world of magic simply by telling them in a matter of fact way and leaving out the less than glorious details.
This is to "cheap" thing to do in my opinion. Everything is elfish, everyone was mage. This take a lot from the world. I think that they never will say anything about her. Because it is just a lore full of mystery from a thousnd years
@@Just_a-guy I think you're right, but I don't think the interpretation is cheap. Andraste could have been a mage that never used magic, but spoke to the Maker in dreams. Or she was made tranquil in a way we don't grasp and was touched my the Maker and that did something. Or she was a Dreamer made tranquil by being killed in the Fade and then touched by the Maker. Or she could be a non-mage human. It really doesn't matter what Andraste was, as long as the belief in the Maker is true because belief in him is paramount to everything. It doesn't matter in the Dragon Age what happened almost 1000 years ago. It matters what they believe today. Just like it doesn't matter if people believe Andraste is a mage and did everything without the Maker, and that the Maker is just a spirit, or a forgotten one, or a lie. But that's also why they aren't ever going to confirm the existence of, essentially, God. And to be honest, I feel that confirming the existence or non-existence of the Maker would be the cheapest thing they could ever do. Because it's not about truth within that world, but faith. And not even the PC is going to be able to do convince the Divine and the whole world that the Maker doesn't or does exist. That's something each person within that world does on their own.
@@Pink_Sinthetic Yea she could, but I just dont want to know anwser because i think that it is better with some unknown legend this give the world more realism
The idea that the male figure is two being pulled across the Veil and manifesting physically works really well with the idea that Mythal caused a spirit of Wisdom/Pride to manifest and that was Solas, especially given Solas's reaction to it in TN. What if that's the moment that the idol is depicting?
The robotic silence gave me a jumpscare happy spooktober lol😂
Hey Caitie, first thing, thankx again for the shout out, and second, there was one thing I had forgotten to add to my red lyrium post is, Varric doesn't just have a chat with Blackwall about it, there's also the chat he has with the Inquisitor about it, and that's how you get Varric's red lyrium companion mission.
Here's that.
Inquisitor: What makes it so special?
Varric: Regular Lyrium can mess you up pretty badly, But you have to ingest it for that to happen. Red Lyrium messes with your mind when your just standing near the stuff. You hearing singing, get violent, paranoid. And then it does creepy shit. Makes things float. Brings statues to life. It also turned Kirkwall's Knight-Commander to Lyrium. Everybody's been kept at least a hundred paces away from it since.
Sorry about not adding this to my previous post.
A triptych (pronounced TRIP-tick) is a three panel painting, with the center usually be the largest one and the main focus of the subject. Sometimes the two smaller panels fold out to reveal the center, sometimes there are carvings along the sides, but that’s basically it - three panels for one paining. One of the more famous one is The Gardens or Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, whose paintings would strongly influence modern concepts of how heaven and hell are depicted, which is probably why the artists decided to put several Andrastian triptychs in the game, to give Orlais a more pseudo-Renaissance era feel with some of the in-game artwork.
Thanks for the shout out Caitie! Glad all that Andraste Mambo-Jambo was well explained!
So, about the Drakons being related to the Valmonts, you didn't find anything because likely there isn't anything to find. I actually posted this on Antonio's question, but here it goes:
_The Valmonts are actually nobodies with little royal blood to speak of before they rose to the throne. In a quick TLDR; A random captain named Lambert Valmont decided to ignore his orders during the final battle of the fourth blight and charged into battle with his men, which ended up saving the Antivan King who gave him a daughter to wed and the first titles the family had. He returned to Orlais, which also gave him titles. Then, his sons went on to win a Civil War against a (supposed) usurper named Xavier Drakon. So, in one generation these ballsy mofo went from randos in the Imperal Army to Emperors (and a Divine, too)._
But with your video I actually thought that maybe Lambert Valmont might have been a bastard of the Drakon line (from female lines or not), and that's why he was a Captain in the Army and not a minor noble or something, so I went a bit deeper. The Codex Entry that mentions Lambert at all (and from where I pulled all of this from - Codex: The Lion of Orlais) implies that once Lambert returned to Orlais, the Emperor sorta reluctantly gave him titles. Titles for which the nobility started calling Lambert 'The Swaggering Lion'. From my view, it seems like good old Orlesian snobbery to snide at the new commoner-made-noble and not the elevation of a bastard line or matrilineal line that has royal blood. Of course, since this is all inferred, it's still possible that he still was a bastard or from a matrilineal line but tbh I quite doubt it, there would have to be a mention of it somewhere and there just isn't any.
I admit that it's a steep rise and coming relatively out of nowhere for a common family and there aren't many IRL historical parallels to the meteoric rise of the Valmonts. The only one I know of is the Justinian line of the Byzantine Empire.
Andraste confirmed the first cleric in Thedas xD
Oh gods, that actually made me think. Suddenly I love the idea of red head Andraste. Also imagine Liliana as a descendent of her. Given some of the oddness with her
You've talked a bit about this theory before, but rather than Mythal, I'm a big fan of the theory that Andraste was like Kieran, and contained Dumat's soul. The fact such a soul was then lost to human violence might even explain why Flemeth is so eager to keep Kieran under her wing or take his Old God soul with her in the present day.😊
7:02 Theseus' Shartan
I had a question/theory about origins of the Blight: have you talked on your podcast about the influence of Tolkien's works on Dragon Age? As examples, Valinor, land of gods and elves (sources of magic), was separated from Middle Earth by the Shadowy Seas ("veil"). The god of evil, Melkor wanted the spark of creation that his father Eru had, but the lust for power led to Melkor's downfall and introduced chaos into Middle Earth, corrupting the land and its creatures (i.e. creation of the orcs).
In a similar way, the Evanuris and/or Forgotten/Forbidden Ones may have experimented with lyrium and the heart of a Titan, because they wanted the spark of creation: control over the mutable Fade and also the ability to focus reality, fashion a physical world, like the Titans. The Blight may have been a side effect of trying to combine these opposite forces, almost like the fantasy equivalent of splitting the atom.
Regarding the Veil: Perhaps Solas accelerated a natural process, where the physical world, Thedas, was separating over the ages from the Fade, just as Middle Earth was moving further away from Valinor.
Thanks for all these videos! I'm a fan of the DA TTRPG and all these lore videos are a great reference and refresher I can listen to while working, etc. I must admit I never finished the DA:O game and I've never played DA2! But your vids make me want to go back and play them!
The impression I got was that the Valmont line is related to Drakkon the same way Queen Elizabeth II is related to the Tudors.
Love all your videos. Great work!
9:39 "the canticle of shit"? What xD
hi, first time commenting!......what if the red lyrium idol isn't growing its arms and other appendages back...because it is missing the Dread Wolfs ORB!! I mean the rest of the thing regrows,as it were ...could be that it was the base for Solas' Orb . it can't regenerate those parts unless the orb is brought back...BTWs been obsessed with DA since DAO, like your channel. let me know if this idea makes any sense.
On DAI I prefered playing mage for the elven armor and more importantly for sentencing the villains to tranquility :)
So idk if I missed a correction or what the original video was but I remember you mentioned demons could only affect their appearance to those they are possessing however in inquisition it’s said by Daniel to Cassandra that a demon was masquerading as the lord seeker in Val Royeaux. If so could this be an illusion? I doubt a demon could fool so many Templars and a seeker in a public location. Or could this be the end result of the grown inside people demons? Or since we know he was working with the demon could this be something else entirely? If u alrdy made a correction to this I apologize that I missed it I enjoy listening to the channel while play DA so I could have missed it
The demon that masquerades the Lord Seeker in Val Royeaux is an Envy. An Envy demon being a literal representation of Envy, their unique ability is to disguise themselves as someone else. You actually encounter one in the templar quest in Inquisition and it's mentioned that Envy demons are really rare to encounter due to their ability to disguise themselves. Also the Envy demon wasn't possessing the Lord Seeker, it was physically in Thedas (most likely cause of a rift) and then used it's Envy ability to disguise itself as the lord seeker.
@@sveipr good to know I’ve only done the Templar quest once way back so I didn’t remember that detail
I love the theory that the fade is the Jungian collective unconscious of all of the stories (real or fabricated) of Thedas, rather than a perfect carbon-copy of what happened. Imagine the fade for 21st century America where all the spirits are just...... batman. And maybe some slendermans in there.
having my name butchered is so funny. I wonder if we'll have answered about the idol or about so many of our present questions and theories in DA4.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought there was more than a few hints at the idea of incorrect and misremembered histories in Thedas in DAO.
Don’t know that they had the full story nutted out at that point but I think they were already toying with that idea long before DAI.
As for whether or not Andraste was a mage I still think it would make sense if she was, as by the sounds of it her feats were far beyond the realms of most mages. Much like people still calling the Inquisitor ‘Herald of Andraste’ even if s/he is a mage because other mages cannot close rifts. Also worth pointing out how easily Varric can exaggerate your feats to near mythical levels for both Hawke and the Inquisitor even in this world of magic simply by telling them in a matter of fact way and leaving out the less than glorious details.
because I can now and it’s hilarious 😂
This is to "cheap" thing to do in my opinion. Everything is elfish, everyone was mage. This take a lot from the world. I think that they never will say anything about her. Because it is just a lore full of mystery from a thousnd years
@@Just_a-guy I think you're right, but I don't think the interpretation is cheap. Andraste could have been a mage that never used magic, but spoke to the Maker in dreams. Or she was made tranquil in a way we don't grasp and was touched my the Maker and that did something. Or she was a Dreamer made tranquil by being killed in the Fade and then touched by the Maker. Or she could be a non-mage human. It really doesn't matter what Andraste was, as long as the belief in the Maker is true because belief in him is paramount to everything. It doesn't matter in the Dragon Age what happened almost 1000 years ago. It matters what they believe today. Just like it doesn't matter if people believe Andraste is a mage and did everything without the Maker, and that the Maker is just a spirit, or a forgotten one, or a lie. But that's also why they aren't ever going to confirm the existence of, essentially, God. And to be honest, I feel that confirming the existence or non-existence of the Maker would be the cheapest thing they could ever do. Because it's not about truth within that world, but faith. And not even the PC is going to be able to do convince the Divine and the whole world that the Maker doesn't or does exist. That's something each person within that world does on their own.
@@Pink_Sinthetic Yea she could, but I just dont want to know anwser because i think that it is better with some unknown legend this give the world more realism
Screamed seeing my comment!