Well Shit: The Elvhen Ritual (Part 4 of 4)

We have examined why the Well of Sorrows was so important to the ancient elvhen Sentinels, the origins of the Vir’abelasan, and whether Dirthamen’s Temple once contained a Well as well.  

If our theory that the Well of Sorrows is more than a plot device for Inquisition, and that it and many other important story elements for the rest of the Dragon Age series were previewed in earlier games, then it stands to reason there should be something like the Well of Sorrows in Origins or DA2.  And it is there. 

In fact, most of our Wardens drank from the Well, which could lead to a “Well, shit!” moment for the Warden if they are still alive (and make an [unlikely] appearance) in DA4.  

The ruins in the Brecilian Forest are extremely interesting.  There are so many important details in them that they could be a series of posts unto themselves.  They, and the ruins in the Dalish Origin, point to elves and humans living together side by side after the Veil was created for hundreds of years before Tevinter shows up.  

The Wiki says that the Brecilian Forest ruins are probably Tevinter in origin, but honestly that seems highly unlikely given what we find in them and the history we learn from the elf trapped in the spirit crystal.  There are signs that indicate these ruins once used eluvians as doors in some places and the presence of what is almost certainly a Well of Sorrows.

Before we get into the details of who created this well, let's first examine if it is actually a Vir’abelasan.  There are many indications that the “fountain” in the depths of the temple was used to prepare the honored elven elders for uthenera, just like the Well of Sorrows.  When you pick up the tablet that starts the Elven Ritual quest you get a message that says:

The text could be interpreted as a funerary ceremony, but when you read the codex entry for the tablet, it details a process that seems very similar to the ritual that occurred when servants of Mythal placed their memories and knowledge in the Vir’abelasan before entering uthenera.

A Warden who didn’t know anything about the Vir’abelasan would, of course, have interpreted these scenes as some sort of cleansing ritual, but post Inquisition the image of an elf with vallaslin standing in a pool pouring something into the ‘water’ while being revered by other elves takes on another meaning.  

There are differences, of course.  There doesn’t seem to be an altar near the Well in Mythal’s Temple, and the “Well” is very small.  The Warden doesn’t seem to gain any great insights or whispers that help them understand the ancient mysteries.  Problematic, but not necessarily a sign that it was not a Well.  So what else do we have?

There are some other indications that there is a “will” or force influencing the actions of people who come in contact with the Brecilian Well/Fountain.  In the text describing the Warden’s thoughts and actions while interacting with the Fountain and altar are very interesting:

Some force or intelligence subtly prompts the warden away from ‘common’ mistakes, like leaving an offering.  It is interesting that small mistakes such as the offering are acceptable, but once the clay jug becomes involved shades punish those who do the ritual wrong.  It is interesting that shades attack the warden if they drink all of the water from the jug, leaving nothing to pour back into the fountain.  These shades can be defeated with relative ease, but it is a stern reminder to do the ritual correctly.  

The warden can still finish the ritual correctly even after the shades attack them, which again suggests that this ritual was supposed to be idiot proof.  It was more important to the creators of the ritual that it be finished than it was for it to be done correctly the first time.  This suggests that they expected the people performing the ritual to not know the proper forms of the ritual and that they might need a second chance.  This is suggestive and we will circle back to this idea in just a moment.

This may not be conclusive proof that this Fountain is a Well of Sorrows, but the totality of the evidence is certainly pointing that way.  The images inscribed on the tablet alone make it more than likely that the elves who once lived in the ruins knew about the ritual performed in Mythal’s Temple.  Now we have a few other questions to answer:  Is this an original Well of Sorrows?  A remnant that was revived by later generations of elves?  Or was it a recreation of a Well by elves who were not clear about exactly how to do the ritual?

Well Shit: Dirth of Knowledge (Part 3 of 4)

Previously on “Well Shit”, we deduced that Mythal’s Well was used to keep sensitive information in the hands of loyal (*cough* geas: ie magical binding for instant loyalty and controlability) followers, and that it may have originally been used to help elves and spirits manage emotions and personality which would make it more difficult for them to live in the Fade.  

The Well appears to have been essential to the Sentinels’ ability to preserve Mythal’s wisdom.  So why wasn’t the Well despoiled along with the rest of her temple?  Did the Well only contain the knowledge of the priests who survived the attack on Mythal’s temple?  Or was the destruction of her temple merely meant to break her worshipers’ will?  Could the geas binding the will of the Well’s recipient been enough to keep her rivals at bay?  Or did they already have all the knowledge they could have gained from Mythal’s Well from another source?  There was, after all, an elven god devoted to knowledge and secrets...

It would stand to reason that Mythal wouldn’t be the only Evanuris to have an ultra secure pool of knowledge just for the most faithful of followers.  Of all of the elven gods, Dirthamen seems even more likely than Mythal to keep a repository of hidden knowledge.  Does Dirthamen have a Well of Sorrows?  There is a pool of water in the inner sanctum of Dirthamen’s Temple.  Could this be the remnants of Dirthamen’s Well of Sorrows?  Or could his Well have been secreted somewhere else?  There are some interesting hints in the Lost Temple of Dirthamen that may indicate what happened to the knowledge collected from ages of priests who served The God of Secrets.  And it seems to be more of a horror story than a sad tale.

In visiting Mythal’s temple, we gained insights into how the ancient elven religion functioned.  Supplicants seeking her aid, judgement, or merely worshipping their goddess would complete rituals to show their devotion and worthiness to receive Mythal’s mercy.  Dirthamen’s temple seemed to have worked in a similar fashion, although supplicants had to demonstrate their worth before they ever reached the temple.  Elves seeking Dirthamen had to find his temple first!   Cue the quest for veilfire runes in the Exalted Plains:

Although the runes were moved when the elves reclaimed the Dales, their purpose remains the same.  Those who sought knowledge or aid from Dirthamen first had to prove their intellectual merit.  

Once the seeker found the temple, what would they have found?  Most of Dirthamen’s Temple look like catacombs a nightmare might question hanging out in.  Was it always like that?  And were Dirthamen’s followers always so...messed up?  

I see couple of possibilities: 1) The outer areas of the temple could have been another trial for supplicants, testing their mental toughness.  2) The temple was retrofitted to become a burial place after Dirthamen’s priests became so paranoid that they locked themselves in the temple and took their secrets to their graves (in the truest sense of the phrase).  3) It is also possible that Dirthamen’s priests once worked in tandem with servants of Falon’din to teach elves entering uthenera how to let go of their mortal forms to reach deeper levels of the Fade and find the knowledge they desired.  If elves entered uthenera in Dirthamen’s Temple, then the bodies might have been those trapped there when the Veil was created or they were deliberately killed in the war that came after, as Briala, Felassan, and their companions found in The Masked Empire:

4) Or the Dalish did it.  (More on this possibility later.)

But I digress.  What about the possibility of Dirthamen having a Well?  He’s the god of knowledge, for Void’s sake, so he must have had repositories of knowledge.  That was his whole ‘divine’ purpose.  So where are all the secrets?  Again, there are a couple of possibilities:

As alluded to in the analysis of “The Lost Temple of Dirthamen” codex above, Dirthamen gave his priests secrets to ‘hold’ for him until he took them back.  Could those secrets have been from his Well of Sorrows?  Did these secrets die with them?  Were they supposed to die with them?  Given that Mythal’s Well puts a geas on whoever partakes of the well, perhaps Dirth did the same.  Were the priests actually murderously paranoid or did their geas force them to bind that knowledge at the cost of their lives.  A final failsafe.  Perhaps the blood magic ritual the priests feared from the High Priest was actually an attempt to break the geas so that the knowledge of the temple would not be lost.  

Another possibility is that Dirthamen’s Well could not be stolen from his temple...because it wasn’t in his temple.  One thing that is very interesting about that ruin is that there are no effigies to Dirthamen (unless those death’s head statues are supposed to be him).  There are halla statues (Ghilan’nain), Mythal in her dragon lady form, and even statues of Fen’Harel near the entrance of the temple and in the innermost sanctum.  But there are more images of one particular elven god than any others: Falon’Din.  He is everywhere.  This leads to an interesting possibility.  In the oldest elven records, Dirthamen and Falon’Din are never directly named.  

Or it the “lost” temple really wasn’t lost.  Not only did treasure hunters find the temple, but they were well into the process of reassembling the High Priest.  If they could do it, so could many others.  In fact, we know that the Dalish discovered and moved all of the runes necessary to locate the temple when they settled in the Dales.  Dalish relics, like inuksuit and inunnguaq stone markers, are scattered throughout the ruin, and perhaps they were the one who buried so many bodies in the ruins.  In the almost 300 years that the elves ruled the region, it stands to reason that they sought out and recovered every piece of their heritage that they could put their hands on.  (The Dalish are, perhaps, following centuries of tradition from the Dales.)  I cannot help but think that Dirthamen’s temple would have been pretty high on their priority list and, while we players often think that our characters are the only ones badass enough to brave all these dangerous ruins, it is pretty clear others made it to this temple first.  While I doubt they were able to recover all of God of Secrets knowledge, I really hope they found some of it.   

[I wonder if the shield, Dirthamen’s Wisdom, was returned by Dalish worshippers after the fall of the Dales while they were interring a deceased loved one (a Keeper, perhaps) in the Temple.  There are tons of Dalish relics in the Inner Sanctum so they seem to have made it in there as well.]

I wonder if Dirthamen would only use one means of protecting his secrets.  A god of wisdom wouldn’t put all of his eggs in one basket, would he?  So perhaps he had several “Wells of Knowledge” hidden in different ways to prevent any one person or groups with ill intent from obtaining his wisdom.  Whether any of these measures were enough (or even existed) remains to be seen.  

The final possibility is the one alluded to in this post’s introduction: Could the elves who destroyed Mythal’s Temple left her Well of Sorrows intact, not only to avoid the geas, but because they already had all the knowledge they needed?  Solas tells us that the Evunaris were generals before they were gods.  Was Dirthamen to the Evunaris as Leliana is to the Inquisition?  Their spymaster?  If that were the case, his temple would have been the first stop for anyone seeking the knowledge to overthrow the Evanuris.  The priests of Dirthamen seemed certain that someone was coming for their knowledge.  Could it have been Solas’ rebels?  Some other faction, perhaps based out of Arlathan itself?  Something in the Fade sure seems to believe that Dirthamen was betrayed, and what greater betrayal could there be than for someone to steal your life’s work.  

The sword in the back could even indicate it could have been someone close to him?  Falon’Din, or perhaps Ghilan’nain, might fit the bill.

It is even possible that part or all of Dirthamen’s secrets were stolen before the Fall of the Elvhen Empire.  The “Sinner” gained the ability to transform into a dragon at Ghilan’nain urging.  Morrigan gains the exact same ability if she is allowed to drink from the Well of Sorrows.  Did the Sinner drink from Dirthamen’s Well?  If Dirthamen had been robbed once, he might have gone to extreme measures to protect his remaining secrets, including giving that knowledge to his most loyal priests with a geas to take his secrets to their graves.  

So what does this add up to?  A whole lot of maybes...but pretty interesting maybes.  The most likely end for Dirthamen’s Well of knowledge is that it died with his priests’ madness.  I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that one of the less likely, but more dramatic, scenarios turns out to be the truth.

So far we have only visited two of the Evanuris’ temples in game: Mythal’s and Dirthamen’s.  At least, as far as we know.  There is, however, a very interesting ruin with human and elven ties that sure seems to have Well of Sorrows.  The problem is, it’s hard to say whether it is an original, a remnant, or an attempt at a recreation.  The Brecilian Forest is our next stop.

-MM

Think you missed part of the “Well Shit” series?  Here are our previous posts:

Part 1: Searching for the Secrets of the Elvhen Gods

Part 2: Origins of the Vir'abelasan

Part 3: Dirth of Knowledge

Part 4: The Elvhen Ritual

Well Shit: Origins of the Vir'abelasan (Part 2 of 4)

As we noted in yesterday’s post, Mythal’s temple existed for ages before the creation of the Veil and the loss of elvhen immortality.  We have every reason to believe that the Well of Sorrows existed in those ages when the Evanuris waged war against the Titans, ‘tamed’ the land, exiled the Forbidden Ones, and reached the pinnacle of their powers.  What would the Well have been used for during the glory days of Arlathan?

Origins of the Vir'abelasan

Certainly it was important to preserve the knowledge of the elder elves, but there may have been another purpose for those entering uthenera to leave their memories and will in the Well.  In recent post, we examined why spirits like Cole, Justice, and Command can become trapped in the waking world.  Memories and painful experiences act like an anchor, preventing spirits from being able return to the Fade.  An interesting question is whether this would also be true for elves who entered uthenera in ancient days before the Veil.  

According to the elves who lived in the Dales, the ancient elves: 

In essence, these ancient elves wanted to the do the reverse of Cole becoming more human in Inquisition.  Elves entering uthenera were casting off the pain and memories in order to become like spirits.    Without their memories and identity weighing them down, they would be able to search the depths of the Fade like spirits, perhaps even answering the prayers of their descendants with wisdom from the Beyond.  Properly trained and prepared elves could also reach parts of the Fade where even spirits were unlikely to go:

Even the name of the Well makes sense in this context.  The Well was a repository for all the pains and sorrows of an elf who was tired of all they experienced in the mortal world.

 If our theory about elves being descended from spirits who became corporeal Thedas dwelling beings, then leaving part of their essence in the Vir’Abelasan before entering Uthenera might have been an essential step to ensure that the elf reconnected with their spirit-ual roots.  It would likely make it easier for them to obtain the ultimate connection to the Fade, which would allow them to be fed by the Fade itself.  In The Masked Empire, Felessan said that:

The Fade fed these dreamers like it feeds Cole when he has a corporeal body.  It is only when his connection to the Fade weakens that he starts to need food.  The reverse process happened with elves who achieved a spirit-like connection to the Fade.

But uthenera did not have to last forever for the ancient elves.  Dreamers could return after wandering the Fade after a short time or many ages (ie Solas).  They might even have been able to wander the deepest parts of the Fade and still be “themselves” if/when they returned from the Beyond.  In order to truly travel through the Fade like spirits do, ancient elves likely needed to be more spirit-like themselves.  The Well would have provided an easy way to recover a sense of self, and will, for an elf returning from uthenera who had become so spirit-like that they have been cleansed of their identity and forgotten much of who they were (and whom they served).  The Well would have provided a simple way to download and upload knowledge and personalities.

The reverse also seems to be a possibility.  Spirits who spend a large amount of time in the physical world seem to develop stronger wills and a greater sense of self, which can also lead to a “corruption” of the spirit.  This appears to be exactly what happened in The Jaws of Hakkon.  Hakkon was summoned and bound in the corporeal body of a dragon and was no longer able to speak to the Avvar augurs in the Fade.  Hakkon became so corrupted that he could only kill and could no longer provide wisdom to the augurs.  

The Avvar in Stone-Bear Hold advocate for Hakkon to be killed so he can be reborn and purified.  There is a cost for this level of purification.   Death seems to be a total reboot for a spirits as they loses what memories, identity, and will they have managed to accumulate.  Such was the case with Solas’ spirit in the All New, Faded for Her quest.

The Wells could have provided a way for spirits to cleanse themselves of negative emotions, as well as allowing elves to be cleansed of their pain and experiences before entering the Fade.  And let’s face it, the priests of the Evanuris probably know a lot of shit that could be very damaging to the elven gods if it fell into the wrong hands.  Plus they probably know some of the dirty ass secrets that the Evanuris did to maintain their power and that knowledge would likely fuck with the priests’ heads.  In other words, they had extra incentives to give up their memories and take a long walk in the Fade.

So the Wells probably once served as a way for the servants of the various elven gods to pass on their knowledge, but also to imprint a geas to keep them loyal.  It could also cleanse spirits of grounding emotions and influence so they could return to the Fade with less difficulty.  So why wouldn’t the other Evanuris have had a Well of Sorrows of their own since they had so many obvious benefits?  Answer: They did!  We just have to locate them...and we are pretty sure we have at least two other examples of Wells of Sorrows.

-MM

PS - We are trying not to overwhelm people with too much info in one post, so this is part two of four.  The rest will posted around this time over the rest of this week.  You can also find search for posts by topic on our Navigation page.

Other posts in the “Well Shit” series:

Part 1: Searching for the Secrets of the Elvhen Gods

Part 2: Origins of the Vir’abelasan

Part 3: Dirth of Knowledge

Part 4: The Elvhen Ritual

Well Shit: Searching for the Secrets of the Elvhen Gods (Part 1 of 4)

So anyone else think that there are more “Well of Sorrows” in the series than just Mythal’s?  It’s clear that groundwork was laid for shit to go down with the elven gods, their eluvians, the titans, and much more since the beginning of the series.  It stands to reason that there may well have been other Wells shown earlier in the series...so let the speculations commence!

The Well of Sorrows

Mythal’s Well is in an interesting place in her temple.  The innermost sanctum.  A sacrosanct place meant only for her most trusted servants, not everyday worshipers or those seeking her judgement.  According to Abelas, Mythal’s servants deposited their knowledge in the well so it wouldn’t be lost when they entered Uthenera.  

Now I don’t know about you folks, but that seems like a very inefficient way to collect information you may need again some day.  The Vir Dirthara, on the other hand, seems to be completely composed of memories that the archivist spirit, Ghil-Dirthalen, tended so that they would be easily accessible to knowledge seekers from all parts of the elven empire.  The Shattered Library was used for recording memories for those entering Uthenera as well regular and irregular record keeping, such as elves trapped there when the Veil went up.

The fact that memories could have been recorded in a more organized fashion, but were instead dumped into the Vir’Abelasan suggests that this knowledge was not meant for general consumption and was not meant to be viewed repeatedly.  It was collection for a chosen recipient, someone worthy of and talented enough to hold the collected ages of wisdom that was gathered from the temple guardians.  A “chosen one”, in other words.  Someone prepared and willing to take all of the information that the Well contained, an idea that is eerily similar to Corypheus’ plans for Calpurnia/Samson.  A vessel for the knowledge in the Well.  A living archive who would be able to access relevant information in the blink of an eye or the whisper of a thought.

This implies that Mythal’s priests know shit that one would not want circulated among the general public.  Add a geas to keep the recipient loyal, even if they happened to not be one of your followers, and you have a system that could pass on sensitive information with a reasonable surety that it would remain in the family.  Only later did it become a repository for everything that the guardians of her temple knew so it would not be lost as their immortality faded.

-MM  

 PS - We are trying not to overwhelm people with too much info in one post, so this is part one of four.  The rest will posted around this time over the rest of this week.  You can also find search for posts by topic on our Navigation page.

Part 1: Searching for the Secrets of the Elvhen Gods

Part 2: Origins of the Vir’abelasan

Part 3: Dirth of Knowledge

Part 4: The Elvhen Ritual