#datv critial

[mozzawind]

"You can sense the Blight?"

"Many from Kal-Sharok can. somewhat. Long story"

Hey, so- fun idea Stalgard, maybe you can- i dont know, TELL US THAT STORY?!

[lillotte17]

Okay, so I'm sure the people who have been around here since DAI remember the outrage over the idea that there were no elvhen gods and they were basically just the Elvhenan version of modern day Magisters because it was just like...tearing down all the core beliefs held by the Dalish, who are a struggling and oppressed people. And also basically, "elves tore down their own kingdom and everything is their fault."

It never bothered me all that much at the time, although I definitely saw where those people were coming from. They clarified some of this in Veilguard, and I was glad to see that it was "No, the humans still showed up and tried to completely wipe us out when we were minding our own business, so that's on them."

But now we have new strains of "elves ruined everything" that I am having a MUCH harder time dealing with.

The Titans.

Not even the sundering of the Titans, which is a horror of its own, but at least with that you can say, "there was a war, and the elves were trying Not To Die." Which is not an excuse of blatant war crimes, but its at least some kind of rationality.

Being colonizers is bad enough. Stealing land and resources from other people. Enslaving them. Killing them. All terrible, but at least like...a typical brand of terribleness. People do that.

They carved the flesh and blood from Titans to make their own bodies.

Elves only exist as a race in Thedas through acts of horrible unforgivable violence.

Like...what the fuck. What do you do with that? How do you make reparations for peeling off someone else's skin so you can walk around wearing it like a suit so you can pretend to be A People?

And the game like...barely registers the horror of that. It turns it's focus on "oh elves were spirits?!" Instead of "wait wtf do mean we only have bodies because we tore chunks out of other living beings to make them?!"

And to that end; why don't elves have a resistance to lyrium, if they made their bodies from it? Why don't they have other similarities to dwarves, if they were carved from the same stone? They cut out SO MUCH WITH THE DWARVES AND I AM FOREVER SALTY ABOUT IT. THE STORY OF THE DWARVES AND THE ELVES ARE INTRINSICALLY INTERTWINED, HOW DO YOU KEEP CUTTING THEM OUT OF THINGS?!

And furthermore, as a person who has had Solas at Blorbo Status for over a decade, this is just... This is the worst one, for me. He wouldn't bind a dragon because of his firm morality about not enslaving thinking creatures, but building a body out of one is fine, I guess. A body he didn't even WANT. And for what? because his bestie asked him to? Wtf kind of rationale is that? And then he participates in cannibalizing their blood and their bodies to build the wonders of Elvhenan and THAT'S sure not on his regret wall. It just...feels so at odds with his own morality, and it's the FIRST THING he did for his downward spiral.

It's bad enough that I kind of want to write it out of my personal canon somehow, because not only does it kind of push HIM past the point of no return, it really does set up the whole "elves should be blamed for everything, actually."