Le gustaba el sabor que tenía el aire en la cima, dulce y fresco como un melocotón de invierno. Le gustaban también los pájaros: los cuervos de la torre rota, los diminutos gorriones que anidaban en las grietas entre las piedras, el viejo búho que dormitaba en el desván polvoriento sobre la armería... Bran los conocía a todos.
Y, más que nada en el mundo, le gustaba estar en lugares a los que nadie más podía ir, y ver la mole gris y dispersa de Invernalia de una manera que ningún otro veía. Así, todo el castillo era el escondite secreto de Bran.
He liked how it felt too, pulling himself up a wall stone by stone, fingers and toes digging hard into the small crevices between.
He always took off his boots and went barefoot when he climbed; it made him feel as if he had four hands instead of two.
He liked the deep, sweet ache it left in the muscles afterward.
He liked the way the air tasted way up high, sweet and cold as a winter peach.
He liked the birds: the crows in the broken tower, the tiny little sparrows that nested in cracks between the stones, the ancient owl that slept in the dusty loft above the old armory. Bran knew them all.
Most of all, he liked going places that no one else could go, and seeing the grey sprawl of Winterfell in a way that no one else ever saw it.
The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Shattered Library; Broken Tower and Scholar's Retreat
The Shattered Library, or Vir Dirthara, are ruins of an ancient elvhen library, suspended between the Waking World and the Fade. It was the living knowledge of the elvhen empire that comprised libraries of every city and wisdom of every court. When Fen'Harel created the Veil, it weakened magic, making elvhen cities and structures crumbled. Vir Dirthara was one of the countless elvhen marvels that were intrinsically tied to the Fade and dependent on its presence that the Veil fractured. Now it is a series of floating isles that barely have any connection one another.
This place is divided into different sections:
Entrance
Courtyard
Broken Tower
Scholar's Retreat
Sundered Hall
Lower Archives
Inverted Ward
[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]
[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]
Broken Tower
From the entrance we can see most of the rest of the isles of the Shattered Library that we will have access via eluvians. In this case, the Broken Tower at the right and the Scholar’s Retreat at the left.
From the Courtyard we have access to them via the eluvian with the Bull horn-head creature on its top. By standing in front of the eluvian we can see our destiny; I love this visual detail.
Unlike the case of the eluvian with the Sun-head creature on top of it, in this case, the destiny eluvian does not have a Bull horn-head on its top.
The Broken Tower's main characteristic is a set of eight statues that we saw a bit overused in Crestwood: surface. They were located in a subterranean cave as means for illumination without any other element that may imply ancient elvhen presence. However, they were used in elvhen places too in a more consistent way: we found them in The Lost Temple of Dirthamen as holders of the pieces of the High One, or in the Cradle of Sulevin, as holders for the pieces of the sword. Here, they keep a brazier of Veilfire in their hands and they surround a spherical elven Tree Statue, which is again related to energy or power [it cracks with similar power than the Anchor].
The interpretation of this configuration is a bit hard for me since I want to keep as close to an Occam’s razor as possible, using most of the time the valuable context that surrounds the configurations. The only clue we have nearby this place is the book The Treachery of the Wolf, that will be found in the isle of Scholar’s Retreat:
The pages of this book—memory?—warn of a terrible danger, a wolf with slavering black jaws and pits for eyes. The Evanuris—the elven gods—stand in a ring around it, as if preventing it from attacking.
If we don’t consider Fen’Harel in the group of Evanuris, there are eight remaining elvhen gods: Andruil, Ghilan'nain, Elgar'nan, Dirthamen, Falon'Din, Mythal, June, and Sylaise, each of them may be represented with one of these strange hooded skeletons [I’m not a great fan of this interpretation]. Of course, this book is mere Evanuris propaganda against Fen’Harel, I do not take it seriously. But if this has some reflection in the puzzle of the Broken Tower, it would mean that the Elven Tree Statue is related to Fen’Harel in a deeper way than I expected since the Evanuris are recognising that equivalence Tree= something related to the Dread Wolf [this connection seems fair because, if we remember the Forgotten Sanctuary, the tree was central in the entrance, and was over the replica of Fen’Harel in the dark room of the Silent Tower]. Therefore, the idea of Solas inspiring the mythology of the Maker seems a bit stronger, since the stained glasses of Andrastian Chantries depict the Maker with a swirly tree in his heart. For more details about what I’m talking about, read the first mosaic of Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins]. In conclusion, these statues may have represented the Evanuris/gods, and the tree is just the power that the Dread Wolf embodies that must be controlled. Since this Library connected cities and courts, it must have been an environment very related to the highest classes of the elvhenan, mages and nobles, so the art displayed here must have basically been Evanuris propaganda. However, this is a mere speculation and nothing of this can be confirmed.
In the Broken Tower there is a big Elven Archer statue in a corner, pointing out to the next isle: the Scholar's Retreat.
In the upper floor we find another eluvian which will send us to the Scholar’s Retreat. Here, we meet another piece of the archivist. More details about this interaction in “The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Shattered Library; The Archivist“
Scholar's Retreat
The eluvian leads us to the Scholar’s Retreat’s middle floor. Walking upstairs, we reach to what looked like a big chamber with a mural.
Before focusing on the mural, we can see that there are some skeletons around. We see more remains of the people trapped here when the Veil was created.
A particular detail called my attention here: a skeleton close to a paint palette. This makes the skeleton look like the ancient author of the painting, who fell or died in the process of creation. This allowed me to toy with the possibility of not assuming Solas’ authorship immediately [but still keeping in mind Occam’s Razor].
With the creation of the Veil, many elvhen got stuck in several isles of this library, unable to activate the paths. Some of them seemed to be completely ignorant of the nature of the Veil, but others had some understanding of it and even knew that Solas disappeared soon afterwards its creation [read Shattered Library; The Archivist for more details].
The Veil weakened magic [said by The Archivist], and all things related to magic crumbled. Hence, I imagine that creating the memory-books where history has been recorded since forever in the Elvhenan empire was now impossible. So some of the survivors may have resorted to painting murals in order to leave a written record of what caused this catastrophe: the Veil. In this interpretation, this mural would not be of Solas’ authorship, and it would represent the last record made by an Elvhenan.
Cons of this interpretation:
The person should have had a deep understanding of the Veil, which seems unlikely. The Archivist has recorded people who understood the Veil in a broad manner, but not with this depth.
The mural is falling apart. It seems to have been painted on when the wall was undamaged. You notice this when you look at the highest part of the mural.
The strongest rebuttal of this interpretation, for me, is in the way Solas is represented as a normal elf, and not as a monster, which is how these elvhen were seeing him at the moment of the catastrophe.
So, this interpretation is a bit bland despite having some visual elements that may support it in the beginning.
The simplest interpretation [Occam’s razor- friendly] is that the mural’s author is Solas, who painted it before the creation of the Veil. We know he meditates and thinks about the actions he will take through paintings. He may have made it in the Library because he probably was researching about the theory that would allow the creation of that barrier. He may have consulted records/books of similar magic to come up with this spell. This interpretation removes the three previous cons:
It’s undeniable that no one but Solas has an extensive knowledge of the Veil in order to create a mural explaining it. As a result, the Qunari came here, trying to study it in order to learn how to straighten the Veil. This mural has valuable information about the Veil, it is the book “How to create a Veil”, basically.
The mural image is half fallen apart, which makes sense if this mural was painted before the catastrophe, as a “sketch” or “notebook study”.
Solas is represented as a bald elf, wearing a humble moss-green robe that we see repeated in all the other murals.
So, as a conclusion, I strongly believe this mural was painted by Solas, as a study of how to create the Veil, while processing the regret that this was going to cause him. We know he tried to do something similar with the Death of Flemeth, but he could not finish his mural in that case [I’m not sure if it was truly lack of time, or just his immense regret preventing him from finishing it].
On the desks there are mostly qunari notes, showing us that the Qunari were studying this painting very seriously and with mathematical formulas. Who knows, maybe this whole chamber was Solas’ when he was not Fen’Harel yet, and he behaved more like a spirit of knowledge/wisdom/teaching/gathering secrets. We know he has a profile that can be considered at times very scholarly. Behind this mural we find the note The Treachery of the Wolf [the Evanuris propaganda].
The mural of the “Creation of the Veil” is really a headache to interpret. I think it’s a bit easier now that we got the last mural of DA:D, where the Golden City is explicitly contaminated with Red Lyrium, but still I have a bad time with the “silver and golden bubbles” around the Veil.
They seem to represent the Archdemons, but each bubble has a connected, smaller, black bubble attached to the main one, which is not clear how we can interpret it. Bound processes? Parasite entity? Blight itself?
The central semicircle seems to be the Veil. It contains a circle of darkness with 14 “eyes”, or what looks like dark peacock feathers, as a symbol of pride. Inside, there is another circle that looks like a [Chantry] Sun, also interpreted as a "sphere of fire" [this brings to our minds Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads, which is something that appeared after Myhtal’s death]. It’s position is similar to where we usually find the Golden City, and by now, thanks to one of the DA:D trailers, we know it’s infected with Red Lyrium, so the connection I’ve done time ago about Fire, Anger, and Red Lyrium in the Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara seems to be strengthened a bit more with this. If the darkness around the fire sphere is Blight, we have several things “trapped” inside the Veil: The main danger is the Red Lyrium [or sun?], which is central. Trapped around a symbol of pride and darkness. I would consider this sphere as potentially the place where the Evanuris and the Blight are trapped. Then, the Fade isolates this dark and red sphere, to finally be contained with the Veil [dotted line of green and black].
At the sides there are two balls. The golden one in elvhen style usually is related to the Evanuris and Divinity. It’s placed exactly over the figure that displays a halo of divinity, but seems to suffer some “perversion”, because the lower part of his robe looks stained.
The intense blue ball speaks to us, without a doubt, about lyrium, and it’s over the figure that holds what we know from the mural of the Death of the Titan as a Titan’s heart [asterisk symbol]. Both balls [blue one and golden one] look like elvhen orbs. It’s not clear if it is the representation of all the uses than a single orb may have, or if it tells us that there are many kinds with different functions. Both spheres have wiggling lines that, so far, we have concluded in posts like “Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins“ that they are related to the slavery of the Vallaslin [as the mural of the lifting of the vallaslin seems to imply too]
It's not clear in which direction we should read this mural: from left to right or vice versa. There are more details and interpretations I’m holding about this mural but I will write them in the corresponding post of “Murals in DAI”.
Behind the mural, we see a corridor blocked with purple fire, meaning that Solas was here recently, and may have fought the Qunari that wanted to learn more about the creation of the Veil. In this corridor is where we find the book with the Evanuris propaganda against Fen’Harel: The Treachery of the Wolf.
In a corner of this room, we can see a Dragon Mythal statue. It is strange to see it here because we have not seen any so far in all the Library.
In the upper floor of the Scholar's Retreat we find another of these Sitting Fen'Harel statue with a Stone in Razikale-Ceremony-style giving us instructions about how to solve the puzzle. The reward is Rime, which description is bland and means nothing in our current context.
Finally, in the lowest floor, we find another red dragon egg, surrounded by candles. It allows us to activate another portion of the path towards the eluvian held by the golden hand at the entrance of the Library.
Bran and a Pup with no Name - The Direwolves of Winterfell Episode 4.1 is out now! It took a while because Bran and Summer are so important to our understanding of the direwolf bonds in general. I wanted to make sure I got this one right, hope you enjoy! https://youtu.be/0EwoSCHFPOw
Thanks so much to the artists, including tumblrs:
@vkcoleart on deviantart.comfor You Will Fly(0:14)|Stark Direwolves(3:25)| Jon Snow(6:34)|The King Who Lost the North(10:19)| The Wild Wolf(10:19)|Tyrion Lannister()
@ertacaltinoz for You will Fly(1:00)|A Song of Ice and Fire(14:25)
@gaystannis for A Thousand Eyes(1:07)| How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have (2:17)
@sir-heartsalot-blog for Arya and the cats(1:11)|House Stark(6:22)
@thlbest-blog for Jon Snow and Ghost(1:24)
@sam18artworks for Stark with their direwolves (1:39)| The Things I Do for Love(9:34)|Three Eyed Raven(9:43)
@hed-ush for Game of Thrones - Bran III(1:46+cvr)| Game of Thrones - Bran IV(3:45+cvr)| Game of Thrones - Bran I(4:10+cvr)| Game of Thrones - Bran II(7:48+cvr)| Game of Thrones - Tyrion I(9:18)| Game of Thrones - Catelyn III(10:12)| Clash of Kings - Bran I(14:37)
@shebsart for Bran(2:33)|His Name is Summer(3:13)|The wolf was looking at her(12:43+cvr)
@sanrixian on sanrixian.com for Summer(3:19)
@minuiko for Sansa + Arya on Request(6:43)| Robb Carried Bran up to Bed(21:06)
@an-artist-who-loves-got on tumblr.com Bran AGoT - Rickon wild as a winter storm(6:45)
@nhaundar for #275 The Watch(9:08) Kerim-b on deviantart.com Game of Thrones - Dire Wolf(9:23)
You know how in S1 they showed twincest in the tower at the end of the epi with Bran peeping in? Could this be same but with Bran, Sansa and Jon in the tower where Bran reveals who Jon really is?
Dear nonny,
if we would get a mirroring scene of the twincest at the end of episode 1 that does not only reveal RLJ but Jonsa as well I would freak out. I mean the parentage reveal as such does not come as a surprise for the audience just for Jon, but Jonsa....
I would love to have some pre-parentage reveal angst, a kiss perhaps? But how would Bran come to the Tower? I can picture Jon and Sansa to go there to talk unperturbed and having heated discussions that reveal the UST. They could be observed by someone else. Tyrion as a Lannister would be a nice parallel. And we would fear what Tyrion would do with the knowledge.
A fitting place for RLJ reveal would be the weirwood tree I think. It is the place where truth is spoken under the eyes of the Gods.
I fully expect episode 1 to show the tension in Winterfell and an end of the episode with Jon learning about RLJ. We might get a broken tower scene. In the books it is pretty clear that the broken Tower is very important and it was revisited several times in the show as well, the last time in season 5 with Sansa looking up to that tower. I would love a parallel like that.
