More Warden Stuff in VG
Was playing Veilguard the other day and another thing stood out.
So : before anyone gets uppity about it, VG got a lot about the Wardens just straight up wrong. We know this. If you don't know this or somehow think they didn't... I dunno, educate yourself. But, one thing that can be taken one way or the other, is during the Siege of Weisshaupt, Davrin will comment that he's hearing the calling because the Archdemon is like right there. And it's giving him a splitting headache. The reason I say it can be taken one way or the other is because we don't really know exactly how long Davrin's been a warden.
Okay, so, maybe the writers were just kind of subbing "calling" in for "hearing" or something. But. "The Calling" when talking about Wardens is the end. It's the thing they hear that they cannot resist anymore. It's the taint in their blood (love how they didn't use that word anymore) having grown too strong. See, Wardens are very very slowly turning into Darkspawn. The magical ritual (joining) they undergo just basically prolongs the inevitable. It's not a "cure". They know this. We know this. That's why so many of them got so desperate in Inquisition. The Calling = The End. But, none of them thought there was a blight going on. Because that's different. They know the difference because at that time, there would have been a lot of Veterans of the 5th Blight still hanging around and they would have remembered what the archdemon sounded like. So, they would have known that Cory's dragon wasn't actually an archdemon.
So, when Davrin says he can "hear the calling" it's... not entirely accurate. He can just hear the Archdemon. We know he should be able to. Now... he should have been able to all along. Ever since the Archdemon woke up. He should have been having nightmares about it. He should have been hearing it. Faintly, but still. So should all of the wardens. But if they had kept that lore in the game, there wouldn't have been this whole "first warden doesn't believe Rook" thing. Because the first warden 100% would have been hearing the Archdemon going "hey wardens, it's me, ya boy".
And seeing as how wardens have a shelf life of about 20 years, there's even a chance that some of them might have been around during the last blight. But, it would be only a few and they would have been very new wardens at the time. But at the very least, the wardens would have known it was something different than their joining nightmares where they were getting echoes of that archdemon.
So yeah, we can see how using the right words can actually matter. DA Vets playing the game would have been like "WHOA!? Calling, what?!" Vs. "Oh, well yeah, a'course you can hear the Archdemon." Another thing about wardens hearing an archdemon, they would have known it was coming. Not "there's rumors that there's an archdemon". No, they would know. No rumors needed.
It's just one more warden thing that VG got so twisted. This is the problem when long established lore is just... ignored and/or contradicted. It causes this continuity and immersion break when playing. Even for new players, it can be confusing. There's all these terms just being tossed at you during a fight sequence and they mean next to nothing so the severity falls flat. Like okay, Davrin has a headache because the dragon just fucking roared right there, Rook probably has one too, man.
