The moment Solas’ ritual went wrong and the Veil was raised, can you imagine the total chaos? He tore the Fade away from the physical world and forced magic behind a barrier that had never existed before. That act alone would’ve changed everything - spirits, magic, minds, and how the Fade itself worked from that moment on.
Been thinking a lot on this the last couple of days. Ancient elves had lived with constant contact with the Fade. Spirits existed with everyone and the Fade was woven into the world naturally. When the Veil went up, that connection was severed all at once. The vast majority of living minds (elves) would’ve suddenly vanished behind a barrier spirits couldn’t cross safely enough. Elgar’nan destroyed an emotion, the spirits tied to it died so I think we can apply the same logic here. Remove the source abruptly, and logically many spirits wouldn’t have survived. Others would break or twist immediately and the violence of that moment would’ve been overwhelming, not just physically but psychologically - for both elves and spirits.
The Fade itself would’ve been completely destabilised. If spirits and the Fade reflect the world, then at that moment it would’ve been reflecting shock, pain, fear, and destruction with nothing holding it together. I imagine it like a kind of big bang - like a violent rearrangement of the world.
Solas was damaged by this too. His regret memories show cracks running through his body, and Matt Rhodes' art shows blood being pulled from him during the ritual. This nearly killed Solas. Like other ancient elves, Solas was made of both the physical world and the Fade - so the Veil didn’t just break the world - it tore through him as well. (Me noting the blood being pulled from him and wondering if that's what went wrong and why he gets trapped in Fade Prison eventually - because his own blood is tied to it).
So then Solas falls into uthenera.
I don’t think this starts as dreaming for him. I think he goes into full on blackout mode at first. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t affected by what was happening. Even without awareness, the chaos of that time could still have been absorbed by him subconsiously.
The closest comparison I can think of when thinking of Solas in uthenera during this early time is being underwater in an ocean during a violent storm. You wouldn’t see the waves, but the water itself would be violent and disorienting. You wouldn’t need to be fully conscious to be affected by that.
Over time, things would begin to settle. Elves who survived the fallout regroup. Spirits adjusted as best they could to the new reality. The Fade continued to reflect the world, but now in a completely different way.
But all the while, Solas is drifting. For a long time, I don’t think he was conscious in any meaningful sense. As centuries passed and his sense of self slowly stabilised, I think his awareness would come and go. He wouldn’t always understand what he was seeing as his mind, spirit, and body weren’t yet aligned.
Perhaps this is where the fables and legends of him patrolling the Fade come from - Solas drifting through the Fade as his awareness faded in and out - perhaps he didn't even have control over his mental form in the Fade leading to more fearful depictions of him such as 'Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf, gleefully patrols the Beyond to feast upon the souls of the dead'.
As the physical world of Thedas changed, then it makes sense that the Fade would change with it. Humans and new generations of elves spread, other races - and their fears and beliefs and ways of thinking began to affect and shape the Fade. Solas would have been carried along that process, even if he wasn’t fully aware of it.
I think over long stretches of time, he became more conscious. As his mind wandered the Fade and he himself stabilised more, he began to understand what had happened while he slept. He would’ve started encountering others from his time, like Felassan (and I imagine they were searching for him as well, across those long centuries), and started learning about history. But the Fade wouldn't have been the one he remembered. When he finally does wake he wakes into a system that works differently. And in my opinion, he had to re-learn how to navigate it.
“As I slept, spirits of the Fade showed me glimpses of wonders I had never imagined… I learned how to defend myself… I learned how to control my dreams with full consciousness.”
“Glimpses of wonders I had never imagined” isn’t how you talk about a place you already know well. It’s how you talk about something that’s changed enough to present something Solas never experienced before. When he says “I learned,” I think he means that literally.
While he hides behind the façade of his experience being of "the Fade" to conceal his identity, I do believe he genuinely had to relearn it's navigation. The veil changed the rules so to speak. I don't imagine learning to defend himself in the Fade was his default before the Veil - but after? Most likely. And he had to learn how to control his dreams in order to move within the Fade at all. Which is also why he makes the comment about blood magic. In this new reality he's come to learn blood magic weakens his connection to the Fade. Why would he use such magic at that point if he's only awake a year before joining the Inquisition? He loves the Fade and needs to access it.
Can you imagine the different states of mind Solas must have passed through during uthenera, and then what it was like to wake physically into modern-day Thedas for the first time? His "birth" into the world? How fractured that “beginning” must have been for him, and how much it would have affected the way he understood the world and his desperation to fix his mistake.
Thinking back on some of the things I wish the games explored more, I’ve always found uthenera, that immortal "sleep" that ancient elves like Abelas and Solas used to escape the world instead of dying, as deeply interesting as it is unsettling. The idea that you could just… check out for centuries because reality got too bleak, and that maybe even since everyone was immortal there might not be space for younger people... yike.
Anway it makes me think a bit about how people sometimes deal with grief or trauma in real life by putting themselves on autopilot or "sleep walking", going through life kind of disconnected and waiting for something to change. Uthenera just takes that to a literal and physical extreme, but I do wonder about the trauma implications behind it. As an immortal, what do you do when you life feels so hard you don't want to be present to live through it?
One thing I really wish Dragon Age explored more is what that choice actually does to a society over time, too - like, what does it mean for a community when a whole generation decides to sit out and just wait, maybe for hundreds... thousands... however many years?
Do the people who stay awake feel abandoned, or resentful, or maybe hopeful that those sleepers will fix everything when they wake up?
And what happens if they do wake up, but the world has moved on without them? Clearly that was the case for Abelas and the other elves at the Temple of Mythal (and Solas, though he seemed more cognizant about the amount of change he'd find).
I’d also love to see the games show what it’s actually like for someone to wake up from uthenera in the moment rather than just hearing about it in the past tense. I know that another game isn't likely but... a guy can dream. RIght?
Songs and elements that sing and whisper in DA Lore
Dragon Age presents us a lore which has an excess of things that sing. Some of them seem to be related to the same source, while others appear to be alternative songs or corrupted versions of the first ones. It's still not clear if all of them are related to an original source. Each of the concepts that has a Song has a lot of lore attached to it too.
In the present post I gather all the pieces of lore I found related to each title, summarised the most important concepts and ideas from them, and drew a general conclusion about the song of that particular object. Since some of them are related, I will be a bit repetitive in some items. At the end of the post a general, integral conclusion will be shared.
Main objects with songs attached to them:
Lyrium
Templars and Dwarves
Titans
Red Lyrium
Old Gods, Archdemons, and The Blight
Elves and Uthenera
Magic and Fade
Extra things with unclear songs
[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]
[This post belongs to the series “High Speculation”]
Lyrium
Lyrium has had a song since DAO. The mining cast of the dwarves say they can hear it and that's the reason why they can find lyrium veins easily [Lyrium (Origins), Lyrium]. Lyrium in crystals also keep memories at the hands of the Shaperate, and produces indestructible metal when combined with iron. [Orlais: Shrine of Dumat]. Lyrium is also used to write the memories of the Shaperate, sever a mage’s mind from the Fade [make them tranquil], and it was a key element in the construction of Caridin’s golems [ which uses molten lyrium, Caridin's Journal].
Justice when nearing large lyrium container in Kal'Hirol Trade Quarter: "This...this substance...sings to me. Do you hear it? I did not know something so beautiful could exist."
Justice [after giving him the lyrium ring]: What is that sound? Such beautiful singing. The stone within this ring… is it lyrium? [...] When mortals dream of lyrium in the fade, it is not like this. The song saddens me, but it is breathtaking. Of all the things I have seen in this world, this is the most precious. I will keep it at my side as a reminder that even in misfortune, good can be found.
Lyrium also sings to the spirits in the Waking World: When we give Justice a lyrium ring, he says that it has a beautiful song that summons an ache in him [probably this is the Sadness of the Titan]. He also states that lyrium doesn't sing in the Fade and regrets his inability to bring the music there for the other spirits to hear.
Wynne rummaged through her pack, pulling out a large bottle filled with a glowing blue liquid. Pure, unrefined lyrium. Even from here, Rhys could hear its faint song, a melody that played in his head and danced upon his skin.
In the book Asunder, a Mage sensitive to speak with spirits, Rhys, can hear its song.
This staff gives a faintly audible hum when touched: A wistful tune, as if it were thinking of a faraway or forgotten place.
We can notice this song with the staff Isana's Song.
As the Titan's blood runs through Valta's veins, she claims there is loneliness to its song. [Ending of dlc, The Wellspring]. Lyrium carries a song that explains that the dwarves were broken into two [ Titans ].
However, there are some codices such as Kolg's Journal, that show that an excess of Lyrium produces a maddening song, that it's not clear to which point it's truly the Titan's song or merely lyrium poisoning. Due to the artificial way of connecting to the Titan through consumption and fusion of their bodies with Lyrium, the Sha-Brytol may be in a similar state of mind.
Conclusion on Lyrium: The Lyrium certainly carries the song of the Titans’ Fall and how their children were split into two different kinds of dwarves. Sensitive mages, dwarves, and spirits can hear this song in the lyrium but not to understanding it. Only a deeper connection like Valta’s would allow it eventually. The song summons ache and loneliness.
Templars
"You take it like medicine at first, the lyrium. Your whole body sings with it, like the Maker's own fire. You're not scared of anything, not even abominations. After, it even takes away the nightmares. But the ration's too small. If they don't give you enough, your hands get cold. The sky starts to press down on you. Little things slip away. So you have to stay." [Confessions of a Lyrium Addict]
Cole, If Cullen is told to take Lyrium again: "He sounds right again with the chains in place, but the music makes him sad."
Inquisitor: Can you tell me more about how the templars feel to you?
Cole: They feel older than they look. They’ve been changed, and their bodies are incomplete now. The lyrium helps, but their bodies always want to connect to… something older. Bigger than they are. That’s why they block magic. They reach for that other thing, and magic has no room to come in. Like when I listen to Varric.
This makes us suspect that lyrium causes a kind of slavery [addiction if you drink it, or forced shape in Ancient Elven codices; Fen’Harel’s mountain ruins ], which can be connected with the concept of "lyrium vallaslin" we talked in other posts.
Templar's body and modern dwarf’s body want to connect to the Titan through the small bits of Lyrium in their blood. This is what causes the block of magic: the Fade cannot enter in their bodies because the need to connect with the Titan is bigger. Magic has no room.
This lets us infer that the Sha-Brytol tried to force an artificial re-connection with the Titan by drinking lyrium and fusing their bodies with it. We can assume that this insanity may have been caused by the despair they felt when the connection was broken.
Conclusion on Templar: Templars of course can hear the song of the Lyrium after drinking it, giving them an overwhelming sense of power. Lyrium usage, through consumption or otherwise, always causes a kind of slavery. It prevents magic, since the constant need to connect to the Titan thorough the small bits of Lyrium in their blood system blocks any attempts of the Fade to “enter” their bodies.
Dwarves
Solas: Do you ever miss life beneath the earth? The call of the Stone?
Varric: Nah. Whatever the Stone - capital S - is, it was gone by the time my parents had me.
Solas: But... do you miss it?
Varric: How could I miss what I never had? But say I did have that sense, that connection to the Stone. What would it cost me? Would I lose my friends up here? Would I stop telling stories? I like who I am. If I want to hear songs, I'll go to the tavern.
Solas: You are wiser than most.
If the inquisitor is a dwarf, Cole will say: "You’re too bright. Like counting birds against the sun. The mark makes you more. But past it… The stone, still there, silent and reaching up for the blood that walks. No dreams with the cord cut. You sell it."
Cole: I like traveling with Dwarves.
Varric: Glad to hear it, Kid.
Cole: You're quiet, but the old song still echoes inside, almost like Templars.
Cole: Do you write to reach across? To hear the song that was sundered?
Varric: I'm... not sure what that even means, Kid, but probably?
Cole reinforces the idea that Dwarves have an echo of the "old song", I imagine, it's about the song that Lyrium carries: the Titan’s fall and its pain.
When Cole speaks about dwarves calls them “blood that walks” [Titan’s blood].
Dwarves have no magic ability because they are constantly reaching to the Titan, preventing the magic/Fade to enter in their bodies.
Apparently, it is implied that if a dwarf can access to the connection to the Titan, they can dream [since the cord would have been restored]. So, was the Titan always connected to the dreams, and therefore the to the Fade so the original dwarves could dream? However, Valta stops sleeping when she connects to the Titan, but she has access to any space and time, so she seems to be living the Reality with the flexibility of the Fade. In a sense, does she live Reality as if it were a dream? The implications of this bit of information are wild.
This confirms a bit the interpretation of the Mural “The Death of a Titan”, where we find a green Fade-like colour around the heart of the Titan: Titans may have been connected to the Fade originally? Or they controlled the Fade as much as Reality as Massive Shapers?. This makes the connection with the old unreliable Dalish lullaby about Mythal [Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 3] more impossible to understand.
Conclusion about Dwarves: Dwarves apparently could dream when they were connected to the Titan. It’s not clear what this exactly means since Valta stops sleeping when she connected to the Titan in the same way the ancient dwarves did. However, she bends reality as if it were made of Fade. Once the connection was severed, the dwarves became “silent or quiets”, with faint echoes of the Titan’s song in their blood. The constant desire to reach this connection or to reach the Titan, prevents the Magic from entering inside their bodies, hence they are unable to perform magic.
Titans
Cole: I like travelling with Dwarves.
Varric: Glad to hear it, Kid.
Cole: You're quiet, but the old song still echoes inside, almost like Templars.
Cole: Your stories aren't real. But then people read them and they are!
Varric: Get the readers invested and you'll have them forever.
Cole: So many people reading, dreaming, feeling. Spirits spill around the veil making shapes. Reality from writing!
Varric: I've got fans in the Fade? Well, that's something. Shame I'll never meet them.
Cole: Do you write to reach across? To hear the song that was sundered?
Varric: I'm... not sure what that even means, Kid, but probably?
There is a book from the time of the Paragon Orseck Garal, which describes the stone as singing: “I awoke to the singing stone. Our kingdom trembled at the Titan’s hymn”.
Cole, when he reaches the Bastion of the Pure (descent): "It's singing. A they that's an it that's asleep, but still making music."
After the first fight with the Sha-Brytol in the Bastion of the Pure (descent):
Cole: It sings softly under the silence. The Stone took him back. He's home again.
Valta: Somehow that brings me comfort.
When entering the Overlook (Trespasser) "Songs screaming far away. It wants to wake up but can't remember how. No one should be here."
When walking along Excavated Caves, he refers to Qunari:
Cole: The stone sings. The song scares them. It's the wrong song, the wrong blood. They don't know how we stand it.
Dorian: If we can convince them to stop murdering us for just a few years, I'm open to a cultural exchange.
“Its blood now flows through me, and its song fills the gaps in our history. I close my eyes and see glimpses of the world that was, before everything changed and the dwarven race broke in two. Something caused the Titans to fall, and the fate of my people fell with them. The Titan wants me to know. No, more than that. It wants me to understand. There is a loneliness to its song.” [Valta in Titans]
Cole describes the Titans as an "it" in singular, and they sing "the old song".
The song of the Titans is about loneliness and the Fall of the Titans that also caused the fall and fracture of the dwarven race. This most likely refers to the war against the elves: The Fall of the Titans, the sundered of the dwarves, and a forced sleep through ages as the Elvhenan mined their bodies and did "something else". This story is partially told from an Elvhenan point of view in the mural “The Death of a Titan”.
Cole seems to imply there is one last titan: "A they that's an it". Valta also speaks at the end of the dlc about the loneliness of the Titan. It’s not clear if there is a last one of their kind or it’s a loneliness due to the disconnection from its children, the dwarves, or due to this eternal sleep that the titan is submitted.
Titans are sleeping but producing a lonely, aching music unconsciously. They forgot how to wake up. However, their song echoes in the blood of the disconnected dwarves.
Apparently, Dwarves keep trying to "fully" hear this song, and that's the origin of their "constant reaching" that blocks magic from them.
The Stone is always singing under the silence, and apparently this song scares the Qunari because "it's the wrong song, the wrong blood". It’s impossible for me to interpret this, even when we know the wrongness of the Qunari’s blood is because they are a created/experiment race.
When Valta connected with the Titan, she stopped sleeping at all, and has no sense of time, past, present, future, nor distance. She seems to be able to violate all the [The Cardinal Rules of Magic].
According to Cole, there are many other songs that seem to imply that keep the Titan unable to wake up. “Songs screaming far away. It wants to wake up but can’t remember how.” This is the reason why I personally suspect Uthenera is related to a song/spell chanting sustained forever [as the codex Raising the Sonallium seems to imply elvhes could do in the past].
Curiously, Corypheus and the Archdemons displayed a similar or the same ability that the Titans: they were “asleep, but still making music.” We know both of them unconsciously produce an song despite being sleeping that causes blighted creatures to reach to them in a compulsive way.
Since Valta’s blood now carries Lyrium too [but in a different way to the modern dwarves, or the Sha-Brytol, or the Templars], she can hear and translate the song that explains that part of the ancient dwarven History. Even though Valta is only hearing one voice: the Titan’s voice, it seems a similar situation to the Well of Sorrow; an entity with access to the mind of Chosen Ones who can understand it.
The only odd piece of information I gathered about Titans that I can’t fit in all this list is this one:
Cole, as he walks through the Forgotten Caverns (descent): "It’s wrong here. Too many whispers. The song is wrong. Chords cut to silence."
We are close to the Titan that will be connected to Valta, so these songs are not the ones Cole listen later in The Wellspring. Since this is the level where we meet the Sha-Brytol, I assume they are the whispers? But this is extremely strange because the lyrium sings one song [the titan’s, not many different songs or whispers], and the Sha-Brytol have fused their bodies with lyrium and drink it and feed on it. Unless Cole is referring to the remnants of dwarves that he can heard below all that lyrium: these may have been the original sundered dwarves who, disconnected from their Titan, lost in despair, passed through this insane process of fusing their bodies with the lyrium to get closer to the titan in an artificial way. Valta, once connected, calls them “lost dwarves”, which would make a bit of sense for Cole to call them “chords cut to silence”. So Cole is hearing the dwarves below all that stuffed lyrium and not the lyrium itself? This confuses me a bit.
Conclusion on Titans: The Titans have an "old song", filled with loneliness about the Fall of the Titans and the sundered dwarves that were disconnected from them. The song may speak about the Elvhenan who forced them to sleep and forget how to wake up while their bodies were mined and "something else" was done to them. This song still echoes in the blood of the modern dwarves, but apparently not in the Sha-Brytol’s ["Chords cut to silence"]. This same song scares the Qunari because "it's the wrong song, the wrong blood".
This curious connection between the Titans and their dwarves feels similar to the connection that the servants of Mythal have through the Well of Sorrows to her. It’s also curious how similar Corypheus and the Archdemons can produce a song to make the blighted creatures become compulsive in reaching them. It seems a “bad, perverted” version of the same mechanics that affects the dwarves in relation to the Titans and prevents them from having magical abilities.
Red Lyrium
"Red lyrium isn't the weak stuff they fed you all your life. The song is deeper. It's got a will of its own [...] Soon you won't need to stop to hear it. Practice, and the song will always be in your blood." [Red Templar Archers]
Cole in Emprise du Lion; near red lyrium: "It sings... sick music."
Cole in the Darvaarad, near red lyrium: "The song is different, but the pieces fit together".
Cassandra: Cole, you killed Lord Seeker Lambert so he wouldn't hurt people.
Cole: Yes. Thank you for remembering. Sometimes people forget me.
Cassandra: Is that why you went to Therinfal?
Cole: Most sounded the same, but the leaders they listened to were hurt, hollowed, sick with a new song. They swallowed lies until they sang with darker music. The sound hollowed them. I wanted them to stop me if I harmed people, but I had to stop them instead. Oh, wait. You had a question.
Inquisitor: Can you tell me more about how the red templars are different?
Cole: The red lyrium is different, darker. Daggers under the skin. It eats you inside until you're nothing. They hear a different song. The song behind the door old whispers want opened. They are dead and dark and done.
The red Lyrium has a sick, dark, deeper song to it.
I'm not sure what Cole means when he says that the song is different to the normal lyrium, but “fits together”. Is this a way to say both lyrium are singing complemented songs?
The most meaningful comment of Cole about the red lyrium is "The song behind the door old whispers want opened". This comment connects the Red Lyrium directly with the concept of "Old Whispers", which makes us remember the codex Whispers Written in Red Lyrium. In this codex we read about entities that were in the Dreams before being sealed. This can be interpreted in several potential candidates: 1) If the Titans truly were able to sleep and walk in the Fade original, a possible interpretation is that the Red Lyrium’s whispers may be the consciousness of all the titans that can’t awake, 2) the Evanuris sealed by Solas through a bound process, or 3) the entities that Tevinter considered the Old Gods; but this piece of information is based on the unreliable Chant of Light. After all, it’s only in the Chant of Light that we are told that the “old whispers” are related to the archdemons/old gods.
[Speculation] We know the Magisters Sidereal entered the Black City and saw it empty [Corypheus’ words in Legacy and his memories in Shrine of Dumat], but we also know, thanks to the last mural of Dread Wolf, that the Black City is infected with Red Lyrium. If we take into consideration the codex above, and we assume these whispers belong to the Evanuris, we can conclude that the Evanuris may have been bound or sealed to Lyrium. Since Solas seems incapable of using Red Lyrium on purpose, the contamination may have happened accidentally when he forced the bound process. We also know through Zathrian story that these strong bound process may produce curses or infections that can spread, so I suspect that Solas’ banishment may have caused an unexpected contamination that required extra layers in the Fade to contain. Another possibility, removing the old lore content of Zathrian is that simply bounding Andruil caused the contamination of the rest because she was already contaminated with Blight or Red Lyrium [Elven God Andruil]
Conclusion on Red Lyrium: The red Lyrium has a sick, dark, deeper song to it that "fits normal Lyrium's", even though it is a different song. Red Lyrium seems to be associated with "Old Whispers" that wanted to be released. They could be related to Titans [if they were truly able to dream originally], the Evanuris sealed by Solas, or the unknown entities that the Tevinter called "Old Gods".
Old Gods, Archdemons, and The Blight
“The Old Gods are dragons.”
The Architect chucked with amusement. “Is that all they are, human? Is that such a small thing, then? Are there so many such creatures in the surface lands that they are not something of wonder?” [...] “I do not know what an Old God truly is,” the Architect admitted. [...] “I have never seen such a creature in my lifetime. Nor do I know if doing so would be a good thing. All I know is that the call of the Old Gods is a thing of perfection.” It turned to look at Bregan again, its expression indiscernible but its tone soft and sad. “We are things of darkness, human. You know this better than any other might. To us, the call is the only light we shall ever know.” [Book The Calling]
“The Grey Wardens have never been successful in wiping out our kind. Four times we have found one of the ancient dragons slumbering in their prisons beneath the earth, the beings you call the Old Gods.” The Architect looked off into the distance, its demeanor melancholy. “They call to us, a siren song we cannot resist. We seek them out, and when they rise up to the surface, we follow. We cannot resist. And when your kind drive us back down, the cycle begins anew.” [Architect in The Calling]
Isseya heard a faint, strange melody seep into her mind. She had no sense of it as actual sound; rather, it seemed to come from within, almost as if she were humming the tune to herself. She could never have imagined such a song, though. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard. Aching and ethereal, it seemed to pull her toward a memory of nostalgic bliss that she had somehow lost—but that she would do anything to recover. Anything at all. [Book Last Flight]
“The corruption that allows us to sense the darkspawn, and protects us from their taint, also causes us to experience some things as they do. The Archdemon’s call is among them. It’s the same song you’ll hear when the Calling comes upon you, and it will grow stronger as the corruption sinks deeper into your bones. Someday, if you wait too long, you won’t be able to resist. Your duty is to answer the Calling while you still have the choice.”
“Does that happen faster because we hear the Archdemon’s song?” Isseya asked.
Turab shrugged in a clanking of steel and silverite. “It might. It comes a little differently to each of us.”
Avernus [DLC: Soldier’s Peak and Avernus’ notes]: " I am starting to hear things, even while awake: A voice—more beautiful than any other—that calls to me from the depths. In my dreams, I see the Black City, and I am drawn towards it. There is something there, an answer to what this taint is, this taint that we share with the darkspawn..."
“What happens if the Old Gods perish? Does the song die with them?” [Awakening, The Architect's Notes]
Only comment of Cole when stepping in front of the Shrine of Dumat: "This is a sad place, filled with old pain. People spoke here, and something listened, until it didn't."
Those who consume Darkspawn's blood can hear the song of the Archdemons [Ghoul (Inquisition)]
Cole, in Western approach says two lines: “The song never sang for them. They were lucky.” [Probably about warden who died in duty without experiencing the Calling, or he may be referring to the Call of Corypheus] and “The darkspawn are below us. A long way, but still singing.”
"It scratches at my thoughts, the music almost a voice, at once unearthly and beautiful. I found myself humming it aloud a few days past. Where once it intruded, it now feels a natural part of my mind's course. It coils around memories I hold dear [...] and inserts itself into them, so that I could almost swear that music, that sense of a presence watching and calling, had always been a part of what I remember. [...] I should not find it beautiful. I must remember the corruption and recognize that my mind is slowly losing the wit to differentiate between this world, and that which would consume and destroy it. [...] But if I am to die, after all I have given, can I not at least allow myself the pleasure of the song's beauty?" [Regarding the Calling]
"I hear a song in my head. It's deafening. The most beautiful thing I've ever heard. But I don't hear it with my ears. It's in my brain. A blissful sound. This must be the call for which the darkspawn yearn, what causes them to dig so feverishly." [To Be Corrupted]
“I can't explain the sound—the song—but I knew. It's a poison that grows in the mind, then consumes the body.” [Warden Ailsa's Diary]
The song of the Blight sometimes is a set of sounds or a voice.
The Old Gods, or their corrupted version the Archdemons, sing a song of "perfection". The Blight and the blighted creatures are things of darkness, and this song is the only light they will ever know, creating a compulsion to reach it.
The song they hear is mixed with their dearest memories, building up the compulsion. The song is ethereal and aching too, an extreme beauty.
Avernus in particular feels a voice directed towards the Black City, which will answer his questions about the Taint.
The song intensifies during the Blights, so the Grey Wardens may end up suffering their Calling in a premature way.
It's not clear if the song will die with the extinction of the Old Gods.
The only true reference that Cole does to an Old God was in the Shrine of Dumat. I'm saying "true reference" because we can't be sure that these dragons trapped underground are the same Old Gods that the Tevinter heard in their dreams in the beginning of times. So far, Cole does not say they sing, and he describes the place as an "old pain". He uses "old pain" usually to describe elves, but I think here the context is different: the old pain is in the whole Shrine, probably when Dumat stopped talking to his priests, and the people worshipping him entered in despair.
There is only one case of a person who was free of her Calling, as well as the Taint: Fiona. Her conditions may have implied a pregnancy by a dragon-blooded man [Maric] that may have caused a resistance to the Taint; or her previous possession by a spirit/demon. This last situation may have given her extra resistances to the Blight since we know Seekers, who are touched by spirits after a year of being tranquils, are resistant to things such as Red Lyrium.
Corypheus can reproduce a song similar to the Old Gods’ even when he is unconscious, since he did it at first as he was sleeping. Grey Warden mages were the most sensitive ones to this calling.
Conclusions on Old Gods, Archdemons and the Blight: The Archdemons' song and the song in the Taint are the same: it's a beautiful set of sounds, a song, or a voice of immense beauty, that mixes itself with the dearest memories of the blighted creature, and creates compulsion. Clearer minds know this song comes from the Black City. It is suggested that killing the Old Gods would not end the song because the origin of it is not the Old Gods per se, but the inside of Black City.
Elves and Uthenera
The elven song Uthenera seems to be translated as a process where they sing, rejoice, but there is sorrow too [In Uthenera].
Elvhen weep as they enter Uthenera. It's a sad event, more than a relief to an eternal life [A Flowering Imago, and Untranslatable Elven Writing]
Flemeth returns to life in DA2 when Merril narrates a part of the Song Uthenera.
If Cole is a spirit, and walks along Excavated Caves, he will say: "The songs are old here. Sleeping sadness already forgotten. I can’t help this hurt." [He says songs, so I assume it's the Elvhes. The titan's song is usually one.]
Cole in the Deep Roads, where we find the chamber with the Uthenera elvhen in Trespasser: “They're all singing. Coffers, coffins, corpses that aren't dead. A song crying out in the dark.”
Cole: There are songs in every part of you, Sera. Soft silly sibilant, sighing in silence, waiting for you to hear them.
Sera: Could someone please shut him up. Or I’m going to shaft him in his creepy, little eyes.
Cole: You...you called me “him”. Thank you!
Cole: You are quiet, Solas.
Solas: Unless I have something to say, yes.
Cole: No, inside. I don't hear your hurt as much. Your song is softer, subtler, not silent but still.
Solas: How small the pain of one man seems when weighed against the endless depths of memory, of feeling, of existence. That ocean carries everyone. And those of us who learn to see its currents move through life with their fewer ripples.
Cole: There is pain though, still within you.
Solas: And I never said that there was not.
Uthenera seems to be a very sad process more than a relief to eternal life. Always that an elvhen enters Uthenera, there is weeping and sadness. It gives the impression of being a process without return.
Cole speaks of "old songs" when we head towards a Chamber of Uthenera.
When we see the Uthenera coffins, Cole reinforces the idea that they are singing. This brings to our minds the idea implied in Raising the Sonallium [“The well-dressed elves' shouting grows so loud, it can be heard over the magic.” It seems to imply the spell is related to some communal chanting].
Elven bodies naturally have songs associated with them. Cole detects Sera's songs who are ignored by her, and Solas', which is quieter and sad.
Conclusion on Elves and Uthenera: Elves seem to have songs associated with their bodies. It’s not clear if the Uthenera allows the elves to maintain a song while eternally slumbering, or their natural, intrinsic song is what Uthenera uses to keep these songs. In any case, entering Uthenera is a sad, weeping process, implied that has no turning back, and it’s seen more as a final death than a relief.
[I will eventually make another post about Uthenera in a more global approach beyond its song-aspect]
Magic and Fade
The Fade or the Magic also have a song, that may be the one associated with the elves:
Dorian: Cole, do you hear magic?
Cole: Yes. I do. Don't you?
Dorian: Spells sometimes makes a sound but... I don't think we hear the same thing.
Cole: Don't your spells whisper things to you? What is and could be, music in the mind of strange, far away places?
Dorian: Not lately.
Cole: Then we don't hear the same thing.
Cole: Do you feel spirits move around you when you cast a spell? Bits of them push through with your magic, tiny, a wisp of a wisp, free before falling back. They pool around you, water in a cup, defined, deafened, hearing only your song. They want to skate, scintillate on skin. You made them them. Their Maker.
Vivienne: Now. I need. A bath.
Cole: Dorian is like you, Vivienne.
Vivienne: I think not.
Dorian: Vivienne, the poor thing is trying to pay you a compliment. How so, Cole?
Cole: The Veil sings around both of you. It whispers through you and makes you both brighter.
Vivienne: The same could be said of any mage. Beyond that, I have little in common with a noble from Tevinter.
Cole: No. For most mages, it's a tool. A toil. You make it you.
Cole on Inquisitor who specialised on Rift Magic: “The Fade sticks to mages. Little figments, flitting, floating free, then forced into shapes. Fire, ice, lightning. You use the Fade itself. You make it charged but not changed, channelled enchantments. It’s strong and pure. And loud. You ripple like water when the tone is dropped. Solas is the same, but quieter. The Fade is his friend. He doesn’t need to look to know where it goes. Vivienne is crisp and cool. The Fade dances, darts, lashes and leashed. Dorian pulls at pieces, pushing them to bodies. I like him more when it’s just fire. And the Venatori are dark and hard and cracked and old. They pull the Fade with blood and pain and ancient lying whispers. […] [Rift Magic] is familiar. It reminds me of me.”
"The ancient dwarves who inhabited this place could not have known, as they are deaf to the song of the Fade " [ Note From the Silent Quarter, from Hissing Wastes]
Conclusion on Fade and Magic: Spells are cast tapping into the Fade, and apparently, this is from where the songs and the whispers come from. Sometimes it’s implied they come from the Veil too. It's also described that the Mages produce a song that attracts spirits and shapes them into magic, ironically turning the mage into their Maker [this is an interpretation very close to Zathrian and the Lady of the Forest]. The Fade used in order to cast blood magic seems to invoke ancient lying whispers. We have an unreliable source [the Chant of Light] which claims that the blood magic was taught by the old gods, while the Fel grimoire [a bit more reliable] claims it was the Forbidden Ones were those who taught it to humans, so this may imply that casting magic makes use of the songs of different spirits in the Fade. These ancient lying whispers could be connected to the Red Lyrium whispers and to Cole's line: "The song behind the door old whispers want opened".
Extra things with unclear songs
Cole, in the Shattered Library; Courtyard: "Your hand hurts. A heartbeat. Not yours. Hammering the beat of a song in its final verse. I'm sorry."
Here, Cole refers to the Anchor, and its song may be related to the same song that we covered in the Magic and Fade [after all, the Anchor is made of Fade energy]. Combined to this bit follows:
In Solasan Temple, Coles says once the inquisitor collected all shard: “It will open now. They can all sing together”
Where Cole seems to refer to the small pieces of energy we find in the sarcophagi of the Solasan Temple, which want to join the Anchor. These songs seem to be related to the Fade too.
Cole, in Forbidden Oasis: “Digging and delving like dwarves. Do they hear the old song, too?”
Cole refers with this line to the miners in the Forbidden Oasis, thinking they are like dwarves, drawn to the “old song”=Titans.
Cole in Fallow Mire: So many old songs under the water.
I’m a bit confused with this one. In Fallow Mire we have people who died due to a plague. Many of them ended up as walking corpses inside the water. If Cole is referring to something underground, we have no idea about it, since it was never implied that Fallow Mire had any ruin or the like underground. So my guess is that the spirit of the people, trapped in the corpses, are the ones making the song. But this is weird too, since humans do not seem to have a song. At least Cole never suggested that. Only dwarves and Elves have it.
Cole as he approaches the flooded lake in Crestwood: It sounds different. The water changes the song.
We know that under Crestwood there was a strange dwarven ruins which had Paragon statues but also Tevinter ones that resemble a bird or a dragon [Tevinter bird]. This confuses me a lot, because Cole refers to one single song. Is there a titan below Crestwood?
Cole, in Storm Coast: “The temples have a lot of keys. They all sing, but never the same song.”
Again, I’m not sure what he is referring to. This is Storm Coast, and there are no Temples, and underground there is only an old place of business exchange between dwarves and surfacers. Below there, we find the Titan of the Descend dlc, although along the way we find some chambers with Claw of Dumat and Tevinter birds that may be considered a “kind of temple”. But this would imply that these gods also have a different song to the titan deep below? I’m super confused with this one.
Dorian: Do you need to eat, Cole? Or sleep?
Cole: I thought I had to. But I don't. The Old Songs can pull me.
In general, we know that Cole speaks of the Titan’s song as “the old song”, while the elves have different old songs. In this line he may imply that the Old elvhen songs pull him into the Fade when he sleeps? Or to the Black City? I’m not sure how to interpret this one.
What Cole reads in one of banters where he simply reads Solas' mind for some seconds: "He hurts, an old pain from before, when everything sang the same. You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't. They sleep, masked in a mirror, hiding, hurting, and to wake them... (Gasps.) Where did it go?
Solas: I apologize, Cole. That is not a pain you can heal. "
This may imply that all these small songs we found in different places, were all the same: The titans, and the Fade’s song, and the elves’ and the lyrium’s. I’m not counting on their corrupted versions. They seems to be the other part of the songs that were broken.
General Conclusions
In Principle, there are FOUR songs: the Titan’s, the Red Lyrium’s, the Archdemon’s and the Elves’.
First song: the titan’s
It seems very clear that the Lyrium, as a titan's blood, carries the song of the Titans. A sad, lonely song about the fall of the Titans and the disconnection with their children, producing two different kinds of dwarves. Some with the echo of the song [modern dwarves], others apparently silent [Sha-Brytol?].
Modern dwarves have no dreams and can't manipulate magic because there is no room for the Fade to enter them, since they are all the time reaching to this original song and to the Titan.
Apparently, when the Titan was whole and the dwarves were part of it, they had an unclear connection to the Fade, dreams, and magic to a point where the modern limitations of magic did not affect them.
Due to the consumption of Lyrium, Templars sound a bit like dwarves, and we can even consider them “artificial” children of the Titans. However, they are chained to Lyrium, reinforcing the idea that Lyrium can be used to create a kind of slavery. In the Templar's case, this slavery comes from the addiction to it.
The Qunari fear this song in the lyrium, but it's unclear why. It may be related to their own nature of being a race created through experiments. Maybe their fears comes from an unconscious perception that their wrong blood was created through the use of painful procedures based on lyrium?.
Second song: the Red Lyrium’s
Red Lyrium is a different song to the Titan's; it is darker, deeper, sick, but it seems to "fit" together. It’s associated with a song that uses whispers to ask for the gates to be opened. It may be related to blood magic as well due to the link Cole does with the Venatori magic.
It’s not clear what the entity that whispers into the Red Lyrium is. It may be Old Gods, Evanuris, or Titans [if they were capable of dreaming before the war against he elvhenan].
Third song: the Archdemons’
Another song comes from the “corrupted Old Gods”, the Archdemons, and the Blight in general which seems to point out to the Black City. This song seems independent of the Titans', but quite closely related to the Red Lyrium’s.
Curiously, the Archdemons and the Blight seem to have a lot of common mechanism with the Titans and their blood: Lyrium. It’s as if the Blight were a creation trying to imitate the characteristics of the Lyrium. What I mean is: The Blight works for the Archdemons in a similar way as the Lyrium works for the Titans: they carry a song related to them and their needs. In the case of the Archdemons, it’s a song that inspires compulsion to awake them and free them [even beyond the dragons itself, since Avernus can feel the call towards the Black City]. In the case of the Titans, it’s a song to reach their children and know the truth of the past and connect the dwarves to them.
The natural children of the Blight are the darkspawn, born from broodmothers, while their “artificial” children are the wardens and the ghouls [those who connect to the Archdemon through the consumption of blighted blood], all of them suffering compulsion as a sort of slavery. The natural children of the Titans are the dwarves that were severed from them, while their “artificial” children are the Templars [and Sha-Brytol?] who connect to them faintly through the consumption of Lyrium suffering addiction as a sort of slavery.
I think that due to these common mechanisms, and taking into account their differences and subtleties, it looks like “someone” tried to emulate the lyrium’s powers and its relationship with the Titans, and created the Blight and attached it to the dragons. I would not be surprised if the Evanuris created the Blight trying to emulate the Titan’s power and their control over the dwarves as a means to slave elvhenan in another level, and ended up creating the Blight, trying to attach it to the only dragon we know for sure among the Evanuris: Mythal, killing her in the process [but this is a speculative motivation, I think the Evanuris may have had many other reasons to develop a new kind of slavery of their own people by using Titan-like mechanism].
Fourth song: the Elvhen and the Fade’s
The Elvhes and the Fade have mixed different songs. It’s implied that Uthenera may be a process to sing forever to, probably, control the slumber of the Titans [this is also a speculation].
It’s not clear what’s the meaning of the song in the body of the elves. Each of them seem to have several different songs one another. They seem not to fit well neither with the Titan’s song, nor the Red Lyrium, nor the Archdemons’. This song in the elves may be a red herring to confuse us in identifying the Titan’s and the Archdemon’s songs.
Is Solas still immortal or is he going to age and die too? How does elvhen immortality work anyways? The legends say they started aging quicker after the Veil was formed so does that mean that in addition to whatever uthenera was they also aged really slowly? Or did they stop aging when they reached adulthood? What do you think?
At least as we currently understand it:
Elven bodies and minds did not age past a certain point. (This is per Dalish legend and what Solas says.)
That is, until an elf chose to enter uthenera, in which then the body would start to age again--albeit very slowly, as it could take centuries--and eventually die, if they did not wake. Or if they were murdered in their sleep, like what was discovered in The Masked Empire.
My current theory is that before entering uthenera, elves would pass on their knowledge to a well like or the Well of Sorrows through the ritual described in the Carved Elven Tablet in DA:O; filling the special jug with water, praying before the altar, taking a single sip, and then dumping the remaining water back into the well. (Or in DA:O, the pool of what was perhaps once a well?)
The elves were also not immortal in the sense that they could not be killed; they just did not die from natural causes, like age or disease. But they were still capable of dying in battle, for example.
When the Veil went up and they were cut off from the Fade, everything went to shit, and the elves all started to age again.
Except, my theory is, for those who were in uthenera at the time, because while their bodies were in the waking world, their spirits/minds were in the Fade. And that would explain why there are a few mysterious elves like Felassan and the Sentinel Elves still around. Abelas says that the Sentinel Elves stay in uthenera when not awake to defend the temple, too.
Solas told us, that he fell in uthenera after casting veil. What if he literally fell unconscious somewhere in a desert? Without an opportunity to find some safe place.
I’m watching my playthrough of DA:I as Vhenaste in the Temple of Mythal again because I’m gathering all my ideas about a fic I want to write about her and her loss/crisis of faith, and there’s really a lot of awesome material to mine here for it. (Such as now having an in-character explanation for why I had her do the rituals but also jump into the crevasse - her priority became Samson, but she still has a major need to maintain a connection with her people. She wants to learn, but the idea off the rituals possibly being part of an obeisance to a god - even Mythal, the one whose vallaslin she wears - no longer sits well with her. She doubts. So she does the rituals just in case. (I never ever want to slaughter the Sentinels but I also hate missing out on loot and codexes and whatnot. Doing the rituals before jumping lets you have both loot and an alliance.))
And down in the catacombs is the other piece of “elven writing” that you can’t translate or understand unless you drink from the Well of Sorrows. The specific piece you find down there is the Untranslatable Elven Writing:
There are whispers fom the Well of Sorrows. It's impossible to understand the entire text, but certain parts suddenly reveal a shadow of their original meaning.
"We are trapped. The ones born here do not understand the keenness of what we have lost, or why so many of their elders weep as they enter uthenera. The new ones are faithful to Mythal, but do not understand what she was in her fullness. Without the wise to lead them, they will lose what they should have been.
I will teach them. They must serve. We must prepare for those who cast Mythal down. I shed my name the day I began her service. I shed my new one again, now that she rests. I will only be known by the sorrow that cuts my heart."
For a moment, there is a feeling of wrenching loss. Then it fades.
“We are trapped. The ones born here”... this is *after* Solas has created the Veil. “I shed my new one again, now that she rests.” Abelas doesn’t say, “now that she’s dead,” he says “rests.” Uthenera.
The way Flemeth and Solas talked about Mythal and her being killed, one almost imagines her being vaporized or torn to pieces or something equally horrible. But even Solas had said during Trespasser that, “The first of my people do not die so easily.”
Does this mean that, instead, she’d been injured so grievously that she had go into Uthenera to heal? If so, Solas creating the Veil while Mythal is in Uthenera seems to have massively screwed up her recovery. And Flemeth spoke of what she carried as a “fragment” - could it be that Mythal’s true body lies somewhere, still technically in uthenera? Flemeth is definitely gone as a Vessel. Did what she sent through the eluvian (either just “her” fragment or also the Old God Soul) in the DA:I ending cutscene go off to her real body?
If any of this is right, and I’m just guessing here, we may have seen the end of Flemeth but we definitely haven’t of Mythal.
