Analysis and speculation of Statues: Tevinter Mosaics
These are an annoying collection of Ancient Tevinter mosaics spread all over the game. These mosaics were long ago destroyed and scattered, and despite collecting them, the final image we can get ingame is rather poor. However, I think its lore is more than important in addition to the small details we can make out from each image.
For each mosaic I gathered three different visual means [since, as I said, the mosaic in game is terrible to distinguish]
The first one belongs to a piece of concept art shared on twitter, where I can see the drawing of the mosaics much better than in any other place. Sadly, two of them are cut off.
The second belongs to the game files. The problem with these is that sometimes they are over-textured or the tiles are disorganised in the file, so the drawing is not so easily distinguishable. Still it’s a good option to see details inside some particular tile.
And the third one belongs to what we have in the game, with the addition of having used the mod restored mosaics, which colours parts of it to make the shapes easier to understand. Still it’s a mess, though.
Once a mosaic is completed Gatsi Sturhald will share his knowledge about it. He believes the tiles to be Tevinter in origin, due to the tool markings and the grain of the tiles. The material may have come from the Hundred Pillars, mysteriously engineered spires that look like stone but are actually a form of mortar.
[This post belongs to the series “Analysis and speculation of Statues”]
We know, guided by Gatsi's opinion, that these mosaics belong to an early age of Tevinter. So they are supposed to be earlier than the presence of the Qunari in Thedas. Even though Gatsi does a good job to read these mosaics, I want to be very aware that his vision and interpretation of them tend to be based on modern biases, specially andrastian one.
We also know that all of them [at least the original ones] were made by the same person, a woman that Gatsi describes as having a deep knowledge of the stone, being Tevinter, and dealing with self-hate. I personally wonder how much of a possibility is for her to be a dwarven too, since the relationship between dwarves and Tevinter is really old and predates the blights.
The title of the following sections offers a link to Gatsi’s original explanation of each mosaic.
The Mason's Tales: Freed Are Slaves
Information given by Gatsi:
Gatsi implies that this mosaic shows something different from what its title means.
This carving has been done with two different hands meaning the original one was modified later. It implies that the magister and his company replaced seven figures that were in the original version.
The slaved qunaris are from the original piece.
Speculations and inferences:
The slaved qunaris are from the original piece, so this means that qunari existed and were slaved to Tevinter long time ago before the first record of seeing them in Thedas. This makes more concrete the idea dropped by Corypheus about the Qunari being a crafted race / mistake that was tried to be hidden a posteriori.
If originally there were seven figures, it seems reasonable to suspect they used to represent the original sidereal magisters that entered the city. Shamed by the responsibility of being the reason why the Blights developed later, the mosaic may have suffered this change in the amount of leader figures on top of the slaves. Or like Gatsi says, maybe a rich person acquired the mosaic and wanted to be part of it.
The Mason's Tales: Invasion
Information given by Gatsi:
He identifies seven magisters. Only five detailed. The other two have been chipped away with a rock [probably vandalism, done poorly due to lack of time or fear]
He suspects that those that were chipped away displayed symbols that may have brought some conflicts.
There are no stairs.
The castle is too high, giving the impression that it's falling on its own weight. [He says this is obvious for anyone with a sense of Stone, which gives the impression that the information we are receiving here is that this place belonged to the Fade, where the physics are unnatural, The Laws of Nature in the Fade]
There is a mishmash of styles. He is expecting only Tevinter, but he can see elven style in the background
Speculations and inferences:
We can see the drawing much better in the concept art. The perspective messes a bit the shapes.
The magister far at the left seems to have a spike-hat and, what caught my attention a lot, seems to be bare-feet. Which is an impossible habit for a Tevinter, but a natural thing for an elf [1].
The second magister on the left, close to the camera, has a bald head and a symbol of an eye. Along the game, there are many symbols of the like: we have seen one in the mural of Titan's heart: a single eye on its head [5]. There is also an ancient constellation currently called Visus, which represents an eye with “spikes”, similar to this symbol. Sadly, we only have the explanation with chantry biases. It seems that the ancient interpretation has been lost [these ancient interpretations predated Tevinter Imperium and some of them seem to be related to Elvhen]. Another Eye I found in concept art is Flemeth herself. Sadly, none of these eyes reproduces exactly that symbol.
I'm not so sure if we can assume that the symbol on the back of the magister is Urthemiel's hat or Falon’Din’s.
The third magister seems to have a strange hat with many pointy things. It's not clear if the pointy extensions at the sides of the head are pointy ears. It could suggest another elf.
Two magisters have a staff. One of them looks like a three or two headed-dragon staff [not sure if we can relate it to Tyrdda's Staff model, or to staff of corruption, the other, the one called Architect's Legacy or stormbreak.
The background looks like elvhen architecture
The Mason's Tales: Sacrifice
Mosaic that shows two hands: meaning the original mosaic was altered later.
It has detailed faces of those who are sacrificing creatures. It means they wanted to be remembered. They are important people.
The sculptor hates this scene, so she carved a "do not do this" mosaic.
Gatsi suspects the sculptor to know the stone deeply [he says it in the mosaic of Freed are slaves] and suspects she is Tevinter who hates these Tevinter costumes. He describes it as self-hate.
He identifies the many skulls around as representation of sacrifices, but two of them stand out: two horned skulls of bigger size that remind him of Qunari. He understands it's natural to see qunari so early in the history to appear in these mosaics simply because the hate that Tevinter has to them in the way they treat mages.
He suspects the presence of Qunari so early motivated the Magisters to rush into the invasion to the Fade.
He identifies a third Qunari: the victim in the middle. But its horns have been chipped off to make it look like a human sacrifice.
Speculations and inferences:
Clearly for the player, this mosaic, in combination with Kieran's words and Corypheus' words in the final battle, gives us a good hint to consider the Qunari not only a crafted race, but most probably created by Tevinter as sacrifices to potentiate their blood magic rituals.
The faces of those who observe the sacrifice are, in my opinion, covered with masks. Some of them remind me a lot to the profile of the Colossus statues, others look like wearing masks of demons or even Orlesian ones, which makes no sense. [updated note below]
It’s interesting how they removed the horns from the central figure here, but not on the skulls or in the mosaic Freed are slaved. My supposition is that this sacrifice may have been an important figure among the qunari, maybe a rebel, maybe one of the few figures from the Qun which image would have increased the rage and feed rebellion of the slaved qunaris. Another possibility is that it would give the idea that sacrificing qunari provides more power [or harder consequences] than using elves.
Some of these masks seem to have a slight resemblance to the dragon masks/skulls we saw in DAO.
[updated note]: It makes a lot of sense for these Tevinter masks to remind us the Colossus, simply because they belong to Tevinter design. There are a set of images where the devs gathered all the elements of Tevinter to have an overall idea of how its design looks like, and in it, they added the Colossus, so it seems reasonable to assume this is Tevinter.
On the other hand, There it a drawing in the Chant of Light from the book World of thedas Vol. 2 which depicts an Old God whispering that looks pretty close to these Colossus as well as the masks. [the ironical resemblance of these profiles to Thane from Mass Effect may not be casual]
The Mason's Tales: The Archdemon
Information given by Gatsi:
He says it represents a single archdemon, and head is a reaction to one of the lines coming from the magisters.
There are seven magisters
The dragon doesn’t care about the magisters that seems to hit it, however, it gives an eyeful to the one who misses the ray.
There are no faces on the Magisters, so they are not important. There is a purpose on this: she wanted to carve Tevinter ages itself, so these magisters are, in fact, Tevinter ages: four ages of Tevinter where they are part of the dragon, two of them where they damage it, and one where they miss the point entirely and eats them.
Speculations and inferences:
I wonder if this is truly an archdemon, considering these carvings may have been older than the time of the Blights, this is why I like the concept that Gatsi explains: about being part of the dragon, or the "old god"
The concept art calls this piece “dragons”.
This mosaic is totally original, without alterations.
Sadly, there is not much to speculate about this mosaic because the games have not given a lot of information about the “ages of Tevinter”. There is not much information to understand what means “ages when Tevinter was part of the Dragon” or “Ages that hurt the Dragon”. Tevinter is a very old Imperium, and its History has never been shared in the South, apart from the Chantry version of the invasion to the Golden City.
The Mason's Tales: The Fall
Information given by Gatsi:
He remarks that the characters are in fire.
The seven magisters entered the city and became “blighted” [even though he has just said fire a moment ago], unable to distinguish which way is up as a form to represent madness.
Gatsi explains a detailed polish technique that seems to be on the tower and on the bearded skull mainly, and a bit more on the rest: it makes the stone look like a glass and shine, as if they were burning
The bearded skull was the main target of this effect, the one who may have "opened" the door.
Speculations and inferences:
I like the concept of the fire, because despite being blighted, Corypheus and Architect both have a design that seems to imply that their skins were melted, not only blighted.
The beardy skull may have been Corypheus, as leader of the sidereal magisters. However, it’s strange since it has pointy ears.
Gatsi is assuming every figure here is a Tevinter (human), but the main target has pointy ears
The background shows typical elvhen towers falling, which makes sense since it has been implied in Trespasser that the Golden City may have been an elvhen palace.
There is not much "blight" in this scene, but fire. It makes you wonder what this event was about and how much of this event has been reflected in local tales where fire consumes people or cities.
The Fall seems to have a Tevinter interpretation of the break in the Golden City. However, given that they are covered in fire and not Blight, and some of the characters have pointy ears, I wonder if this is not more about the Fall of Arlathan or the Elvhenan empire from a Tevinter perspective.