#they're like foils to the chaos emerald | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

descendant-of-truth · 1 year

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Well guys I did say in one of my tags that the Prime!Shadow analysis would be for another time and that time is now because I'm mentally shaking him around like a ragdoll trying to figure out his secrets

What I want to highlight is just, the sheer number of ways he's been set up as the odd one out in the first third of the season alone, and why I find that so interesting. So let's break that down for a minute:

The first thing we learn about him is that he's not Sonic's friend or enemy, but a secret third thing - his rival, as specified later

But despite having a clear label for it in episode 2, Sonic finds this particular dynamic "complicated." Shadow is the only person in his life that falls under that category, and it shows in how he describes him.

"He's a real buzzkill" (negative), "and he rollerskates!" (said with admiration). Sonic complains about Shadow and compliments him in the same breath, which is hilarious but also good for character building

In that same scene though, Shadow momentarily breaks into Sonic's narration to tell him that they're air shoes, not roller skates, which is ALSO funny but once again, he's the only character to do this. Even if it's for the sake of humor, Shadow is given a sort of... protagonist privilege, if you will. He's the only one to break the "Sonic POV," something he does not just this once, but multiple times over the course of a few episodes.

Now, there are other scenes that are from the perspectives of characters that aren't Sonic, but what makes Shadow's scenes different from theirs is that his are used specifically to show that Sonic can be an unreliable narrator.

The very first scene in the show after Sonic happily describes his status quo is the event with the Paradox Prism. A moment that Shadow was 100% there for, albeit towards the end, but who is conveniently left out until we return to the scene in later episodes.

And the framing is just. so deliberate on a rewatch that it hurts, because this is one of the very first shots we see of the show:

...and it takes place directly after Sonic knocks Shadow into a wall and runs away.

Literally the INSTANT Sonic takes his eyes off of Shadow is when the show's story begins, and it starts with Sonic narrating and completely glossing over Shadow's existence

(Is anyone else going insane over this. is it just me. does the implied mental gymnastics happening here make anyone else feel like they're vibrating)

Anyway as I was saying, removing Shadow from the scene with the Prism (even cutting out his voice when he shouts "Chaos Control") keeps us in Sonic's perspective just enough to share in his confusion when he starts to remember the incident more clearly.

(It also implies that he didn't consider Shadow to be important enough to take note of in the first moment we watch the scene, which. oof, sorry Shadow)

He's also missing in the scene where Sonic is first traveling through the void, despite showing up like two seconds after him - another instance where we're kept in Sonic's perspective just enough to miss the bigger picture that has Shadow in it.

Meanwhile, scenes from Shadow's point of view give us all sorts of information; the fact that Chaos Emeralds exist, more detailed effects of Sonic's speed-amplified explosion (it gave him a vision of some sort, which I'm convinced is implying something important about it beyond "it blew up part of a mountain"), how exactly he ended up in the void, why Sonic was late to the fight with Eggman, all that good stuff

It's a pretty consistent theme with Shadow, actually. He's always there to represent the bigger picture that Sonic isn't seeing.

...partly because Sonic keeps forgetting about him, in contrast to Shadow being the only other person to remember who Sonic is.

(I didn't know where else to fit this point in, but Shadow's lost in the void while Sonic is bouncing back and forth between worlds like it's a professional sport. Narrative foils and all that, we love to see it)

But there's another way that Shadow is made distinct from everyone else Sonic knows from the original world, that I think is going to have a big effect on his character development: Shadow doesn't care about sparing Sonic's feelings.

A lot of the conflict between Sonic and his friends is based on the fact that Sonic doesn't listen well, but another thing to consider is that his friends don't really... tell him when he's made a mistake, or what their point of view was, or what exactly he was doing wrong.

Tails? He could have explained that telling Sonic there was a trap was supposed to be a cue not to attack Eggman, and that he thought Sonic knew that, and so him attacking anyway felt like blatantly disregarding his warnings.

Instead, he brushes it off with an "it's fine."

Amy tries to explain that the palm tree gift has a lot of sentimental value to everyone, and yeah that whole situation went poorly, but it doesn't seem like she ever communicated to Sonic that him disregarding it hurt their feelings.

If he was just told that he messed up and explained how he did, you know he would have tried to make it up to them, like how earnestly he apologized to Tails. He could have been working on these problems a lot sooner, but because the others want to preserve their friendship with him and don't like getting into arguments, they don't communicate with him.

Shadow has no such hangups about their relationship. He tells Sonic exactly what his problem is.

...even if Sonic doesn't seem to hear him, and Shadow should really work on the whole "punching to get his attention" thing.

There's a lot of room for improvement here, but my point is that Sonic needs someone to be this upfront and honest with him. Straightforward communication is clearly what he understands the most - Thorn simply asking him (albeit rudely) what he knew about togetherness was all it took for him to really start thinking about that, though admittedly the circumstances around the question probably helped.

And because Shadow has been set up as the only person who still knows and remembers Sonic, the one who has a wider perspective on things than he does, and cares enough about him as a person to try to get through to him in the first place without being held back by a need to maintain a friendly stance with him... he's the perfect person to help accelerate Sonic's character arc.

And, y'know, hopefully Sonic can do the same for him - though it's hard to say what exactly Shadow needs help with (beyond Not Punching People) that Sonic could contribute to, given his little screen time so far.

Case in point: this show is setting up Shadow to be Important in a way that only Shadow can be and I for one am hyped to see it all play out

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic prime #sonic prime spoilers #shadow the hedgehog #analysis #meta #Also yes this is more 'Sonic is clearly neurodivergent' content #I'm not saying he's the only one but like. it's important #This was kind of all over the place but I think it still turned out coherent

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sonicxsideblogarchived · 2 years

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ok but like. insane about the parallels between sonic and chris and shadow and maria im INSANE about it.

now, shadow and sonic, they're usually foils and parallel each other to an extent but the contrast is always the main thing here, not the similarities, yeah?

but in sonic x it's different, obviously theyre still foils but.. they also come across like mirrors of each other. shadow says it succinctly

"it's like looking in a mirror."

but in order to understand the similarities between sonic and shadow we have to understand the similarities between chris and maria so im going to lay out the similarities and how they're also mirrors of each other.

first of all, in a pretty superficial comparison they look very similar and are the same age (well. chris does get older in series 2 but in series 1 both him and maria are twelve.), and they. pretty much have the exact same face, with the exact same eye color.

[Image Description: A screenshot from the anime series Sonic X. Shadow and Maria are reflected on the glass, and you can see the top of the earth through it. Chris is on the right side of the image but is cut off. End Image Description.]

they have literally the same face and that's obviously intentional.

no moving forward, they're just.. really similar in general.

both come from families where somehow intelligence is passed on (examples: gerald and eggman, chuck and chris), have absent parents (though it's differs, Maria's parents never being around is literally never elaborated on to my knowledge and chris's parents are just very shitty and extremely neglectful), have a grandpa who's a scientist etcera.

its INSANE to me how intentionally similar maria and chris are because it's never really payed off in any way. and i doubt this all was just to make chris's moment of convincing shadow to NOT destroy earth more poignant. even molly, who only shows up once has less similarities to maria, who arguably SHOULD be the one with the heavy parallels considering that even with her heavily influencing shadow, only appears in one episode and thus would probably be the one whod be more likely to get more heavy parallels. (also im still mad molly doesn't get much to do except die. she deserved better i think.)

another similarity between them is their relationships with sonic and shadow, both sharing a sibling dynamic with them.

but anyways back to sonic and shadow.

first of all, the fact they look extremely similar according to everyone, which IS a staple but im still going to talk about it.

now it's hard to tell EXACTLY how similar shadow and sonic are meant to look because of how all the mobians (yes, ill be using the term mobian here. there isn't a better term currently so that's the term ill be using) look kind of samey but i think that if we look at how people in universe describe them looking alike we can probably figure it out.

here's what shadow himself says meeting sonic

"I see. We actually do look alike."

"It's like looking in a mirror."

now, i doubt you'd say that if you just happened to look pretty similar, like how siblings look similar, that's like. EXTREMELY similar. and they didn't HAVE to use that phrase but they did so i think we can successfully say that in terms of how alike sonic and shadow look in sonic x, id say they're like identical strangers.

so now onto the other ways they're similar!

first of all, their powersets are very similar. i don't have much to say on this but another thing to note is that in sonic x, being able to use the chaos emeralds is explicitly a power unique to them rather than something ANYONE can do with the chaos emeralds, which i definitely find interesting since from my memory, sonics ability to use the chaos emeralds is the whole reason cosmo sought him in the first place.

but now onto their similarities in terms of personality.

they're both loners, that much is definitely true. sonic spends a LOT of time alone rather than with other people, often literally refusing to hang out with people and shadow, is well. shadow. he doesn't like talking to people and has barely any friends even after the shadow saga.

yet they so deeply care about those who ARE close to them. for shadow this is obviously exemplified with maria being literally willing to destroy the world just because revenge was what he thought to be her dying wish and for sonic, while there are many examples throughout the series ill just stick to just one that's pretty relevant to the conversation.

sonic with chris in episodes 51-52.

these episodes are great for a lot of reasons but we're going to focus on how much sonic clearly cares about chris in these episodes. staying with him the whole time, and being willing to stay with him despite the fact that it would literally freeze time and all of his friends were in his world.

chris and sonic mean a lot to me but that's not what this post is about

anyways tldr the parallels between shadow and maria and sonic and chris make me fucking insane and i wish they elaborated on this more.

#sonic x #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #maria robotnik #chris thorndyke

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themetalvirus · 1 year

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wait WAIT WAIT WAIT HOW DID I NOT CONSIDER THIS DETAIL BEFORE NOW IM A FOOL

egghog posting, also after i typed out the new idea i realized it sounded stupid. need your thoughts

okay. so. since the beginning of the au, i've known in my head that overuse of chaos energy's power literally makes your skin start to boil (akin to a third degree burn) and is incredibly painful (like... a third degree burn). this is why silver has scars on his forehead marking - he is pushed too hard both by eggman and himself to do more than he can reasonably manage.

supers (and the hyper forms by extension) can only be sustained for a certain amount of time before the chaos emeralds are ejected. theres a lot of like. metaphysical Soul Power and Strength and Control involved.

eggman initially plans to have the boys train and hone their attunement to chaos energy (and their misc specific powers and skills) until adulthood. all three of them need to have total control of their souls and bodies, and eggman must have total control of their minds. he needs all three of them to share the load of universe-ending amounts of chaos energy and control it well enough to construct his new, perfect world. the plan is to keep them alive afterward as a reward (and to keep him company and make sure all that work didn't go to waste)

turns out, two of them left. eggman only has full control over one of their minds. and he can't waste time trying to get everything perfect anymore - he wants his new universe now before the others can foil his ultimate plan

the new idea, though: he rushes to the finish line after the other two leave because he knows that sonic will die if he goes through with the plan. all three of them sharing the burden would hurt badly, but with the energy spread out between three people trained their entire lives, there was a chance they could survive. one person couldn't.

on one hand, eggman realizes that sonic is a one and done deal. if he makes eggman's new world, dies, and it turns out that world isn't perfect, he can't really do shit about it. on the other hand, we know that eggman is short-sighted (metal virus) and impatient (ha ha metal virus i am talking about you). he wants power and he wants it now.

that's why he was already taking over the world while raising his "sons" - he wants power. he'll take anything and everything he wants with force and bulldoze over anyone in his way without mercy, we know this. he can't stand waiting to mold the world into what he thinks is best when he can just work on that now. the "ending and rewriting the universe" plan was more of a conceptual finale for the inevitable end of his life. rather, to prevent the inevitable end of his life. we know he'd also probably turn himself into a cyborg or upload his consciousness into the computer or something if he thought he was dying but you know what i mean. plus, he lives for spectacle - turn himself into a cyborg or turn himself into god, which do you think he'd choose?

anyway. when silver and shadow defect, he sees the writing on the wall for that finale. they're too strong to leave frolicking around in the wild. he made them strong, so he knows better than anyone the damage they can cause when they are not on your side. he loses ground quickly, territory shrinking as the resistance makes use of their powerful new tools. he's frustrated.

in this universe, he's very much used to victory. not in terms of the big world-ending plans (they always get foiled), but in terms of capturing territory and developing new factories and bases and what have you. so losing what he felt was secure, a reassurance that he is powerful makes him hungry for a kick of overwhelming power. to show everybody what real victory looks like.

important: sonic does not know that eggman is going to kill him for the sake of the new universe until he is in the process of making it, starts to slowly melt away and turn into primordial ooze, and eventually goes through eggman's memories himself. so the idea is there's now TWO blows to his psyche: not only is there No Love in eggman's mind or heart for him, but he was Literally Going To Kill Him.

in sonic's head, and from what eggman directly told him, they would live in the new, perfect world together as a family. that was, of course, a lie.

those of you who know the clown baby already know how he would feel about that so i'll spare you the details. anyway (deltarune explosion)

#exoticbutterstxt

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kinopioa · 1 year

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The games have Tails as a coward and a bitch, Sonic as a douche, Eggman as a circus clown.....

"Sonic is a douche" Besides Roger's voice sounding like a jock, in what game is Sonic legit douchey? Closest you get is Gens when Amy's groping him. Even in LW he owns up on his issue instead of blaming others, the only offense being directed to the D6 and Eggman, two parties not on any positive terms If you want REAL douchey...

Or better yet

"Eggman as a clown" This is a weird one. Because outside Orbot/Cubot being lame, Eggman himself is fine, generally being consistent in doing stuff for his own sake Most plans aren't bad either, they're only foiled because Sonic's OP, or plot convenience. Chucking him into space didn't do sh- cuz hax Above all he doesn't just "give up" if upsurped or minorly inconvenienced. Eggman is as stubborn as he is selfish provided he has his resources Unlike this

Where IDW he inconsistently self sabotages himself. He also had the emeralds at this point...yet didn't use em

"Tails as a coward" Eh, you're right there, for Unleashed and Forces 1 scene But then IDW literally has him do this

And it's weird, cuz there's no way the infected Chao could've caught up to him flying earlier, Sonic already noted that the zombies don't know how to use their "hosts" skills properly. It was strictly for drama Either that, or people just make him hyper tech boy, or "sidekick", despite Tails growing out of the latter

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carmarriage · 7 months

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So what is Shade Like? How would you picture them getting together?

by jove being asked about my sonic shipping opinions is the best thing that has happened to me all year. Yippee!!

some context on the sonic chronicles story: the knuckles clan (tikal's tribe from sa1) was at war with the nocturnus clan, which was another more technologically advanced echidna tribe that wanted to Do A Conquest or something along those lines. i think sonic chronicles implies that's the reason for the flashback events of sa1. so the knuckles clan is wiped out by chaos, and shortly afterward the nocturnus clan is thrown into interdimensional space jail (?) by an interdimensional space god (?) and they use the alien technology there to get even more technologically advanced. they manage to find a way back to mobius, but time in the interdimensional space jail flows differently, so though they were only in there for some nebulous few years, 4,000+ years passed in the regular world. it's stupid and it's awesome. i haven't played this game in many years so i had to skim the wiki page for a refresher lol

shade is part of the nocturnus clan, she's like an assassin type warrior lady that works as the big bad's blindly devoted right hand man for the first half of the game, then gets betrayed and swaps sides to join the good guys. she's pretty much what you would expect for that kind of archetype, but since it's one of my favorites (ESPECIALLY when done with female characters <3 women's wrongs etc etc) i like her a lot even if the rest of the game isn't very good. because of the ken penders lawsuit (apparently this game riffs pretty hard on some concepts from the archie comics, but i haven't read those so iunno) none of this is canon anymore and we will never see shade ever again. sadge. (apparently ken penders thinks he owns her now and is making her into nfts. this is the worst timeline)

SO my reasoning for being #1 tikade crusader: technically shade and tikal were born/alive at the same time and it's very likely that at least shade knew of tikal, since she's the daughter of the chief of the clan they're currently at war with. it's got some real good romeo & juliet spice to it. i think the contrasts between their characters (calculating warrior on the cusp of turning into a living weapon vs peaceful pacifist who just wants to live in harmony) is sauurrrr good. narrative foils and all that. and the inherent tragedy of it too!! knowing that tikal is going to seal herself in the master emerald!! and shade is going to slip away thousands of years into the future!! no matter what it'll always end the same way!!

many many years ago i had this fanfic concept in my head where shade is sent to assassinate/kidnap tikal for political reasons, but tikal manages to talk her out of it and the two of them bond and begin to meet in secret, and their romance blossoms from there. this is pretty much still the definitive "how it would happen" scenario for me. i like to think their relationship would help them work through the uncertainty in both of their lives and situations and give them a new perspective on what they want for themselves and what they want their futures to be like. it'd be cute if their attitudes influenced each other, like shade deciding she wants to abandon her life of violence and run away with tikal, while tikal decides she wants to stay and fight (figuratively anyway) their circumstances so they can be together.

once the whole thing with perfect chaos goes down, i don't think shade would've been present so she wouldn't know what tikal had done and where she is, and only thinks she died along with everyone else, which is SUCH good drama. i like to think the grief of losing the woman she loved would've caused shade to regress and further entrenched her into the person she is during sonic chronicles, unflinchingly loyal to ix and the nocturne clan, and she would've tried to forget about her time with tikal and just focus on her mission. yum

i still really like this concept.... i'm not good at writing fic but maybe i'll try to do a little comic about it someday. this is all like 2 steps removed from canon in my brain and i need everyone to see them the way that i do because there's so much potential here...... but ya that's why i like tikade

(hey so while writing this i read through tikal's wiki page and apparently she's ALIVE now?? at the end of sa1?? which is funny because all this time i thought she straight up died. like after she reunited wwith chaos her spirit was at rest or some shit. but that's kinda awesome because at the end of sonic chronicles shade is also back on mobius so they could have a reunion, LOVE WINS!!!!)

thank you for reading my post :)

#this took so long to write because i stopped in the middle of it to make a fanmix for them LOL

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actual-mammal · 4 years

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Solas and the Original Elvhen Gods

For about five years I've been sitting on my theory regarding Solas's origins and the true Elvhen gods, and the new BTS trailer has me just revved up enough to post this. (Buckle up, this is gonna get long...)

Since Solas's first concept art was released back in 2014 I couldn't shake the impression that his design strongly resembled a monk/priest of some kind.

Let's attribute this assumption to 50% my loving ALTA and another 50% because I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching The Mummy movies in my youth. And not for Brendan Fraiser, oh no.

Ahem... anyway.

Aside from his very bald, bald head, Solas tends to wear robes and other more ceremonial looking garments. You could attribute that to him being a "god", but I think Solas himself would probably dislike the comparison. Before the DAI came out, we also got some shots of the companions on the armor inventory screens - including some of Solas in his all white base armor.

The Ancient Dreamers

At the time, this was a super exciting detail. I could count on one hand the amount of information we had on the ancient elves, but it was made pretty clear back in DAO that dreamers who achieved perfect Uthenera were clothed in all white. Once my theory of Solas being an ancient elvhen dreamer turned out to be true, I nearly forgot their cultural importance until long after Tresspasser came out. Mostly because I didnt realize so many people believed the rest of the Evanuris were dreamer mages as well.

So quick question, but do we have any evidence to assume that the Evanuris besides Solas were dreamers? Pre-inquisition codex entries made the dreamers seem a separate group of individuals - tasked with the protection of Arlathan specifically - and slain by the elvhen citizens once their magic failed to protect the city from Tevinter. If this lore hasn't been retconned or "misremembered" by the Dalish, Solas was part of an ancient order separate from his involvement with the Evanuris, which he would have felt deeply connected to because of the rarity of their shared magical ability (Marethari tells us dreamers have always been rare in DA2 when you assist with Feynriel).

Prior to Tresspasser, I assumed Fen'Harel was a lone wolf because he turned his back on his "pack", the other elvhen gods. But Solas paints a very different picture in his way of talking about the Evanuris throughout the game. In fact, he seems intent on not associating with them at all, even before their murder of Mythal or his open rebellion. I never get the impression that Solas was fond of the other Evanuris, or considered them enough of a family to warrant the "pack" analogy.

So who were the members of Solas's first "pack" that the Evanuris never lived up to? Probably the original bearers of the other foci. Wolves, up until the fall of the Dale's were seen as guardians and protectors in Elvhen myth (see the Emerald Knights). Perhaps they were also the sigil of the ancient dreamers of Arlathan, who were the city's protectors? That would certainly make more sense as to why wolf statues are everywhere in Thedas, despite Solas full tilt rejecting godhood. This is backed up by the murals in Vir Dirthara, full of wolves, individuals with bald heads, and foci. And they're fighting the titan.

But more on the Titan later.

I find it hard to believe that Solas personally had more surviving sculptures than all the rest of the Evanuris, particularly after he rebelled against them. It would make more sense to me if the wolves represented something greater than Solas individually. Particularly since he's titled, very specifically, The DREAD Wolf, as if there are other wolves that are not.

The Dreamers and Foci

In his first moment of really opening up, Solas tells the Inquisitor that the foci were used to channel power from "our" gods, which is the first time we hear him sounding so connected to Elvhen religion in 20 hours of gameplay. Solas never refers to the Evanuris as gods in a serious tone, so on replay this dialogue caught my attention. Why would a god need to channel power from himself? Do we ever get any hint of a foci belonging to another member of the Evanuris? Checking back on this topic throughout my playthrough, I can't find any instance of the foci being tied to the Evanuris. However Dorian is happy to tell us about the association between the orbs of Tevinter and the Ancient Dreamers. And Solas having one certainly lends credibility to his statement. My next thought became "so what if there were gods that predated the Evanuris, who were powerful spirits worshipped by the Ancient Dreamers using foci?." This assumption certainly makes sense given everything we know after JoH, since it uses the same structure of the Avvar religion (which Solas feels is highly enlightened for their time). It also provides a stronger story link for why we got that DLC in the first place, and hints what may have happened to these god spirits to facilitate the rise of the Evanuris.

The Original Gods

Surely we would have some hints as to who these dieties were this far into the games though, right? Oh wait, we do. My brain hurts to realize the writers even call them THE OLD GODS to make it easy for us. ::headesk:: Combining the lore of the old gods with the myths from the Astrariums and the archetypes of the Evanuris who supplanted them, we could try to guess their original forms. So let's line up the potential original pantheon:

Dumat/Silentir: The God of Justice, the Dragon of Silence. Supplanted by Mythal.

Zazikel/Kios: The God of Freedom, the Dragon of Chaos. Supplanted by Elgar'nan.

Toth/Ignifir: The God of Love, the Dragon of Fire. Supplanted by Sylaise.

Andoral/Servani: The God of Unity, The Dragon of Chains/Slaves. Supplanted by Andruil.

Urthemiel/Bellitanus: The God of the Artistry/Craft, the Dragon of Beauty. Supplanted by June.

Razikale/Eluvia: The God of Wisdom, the Dragon of Mystery. Supplanted by Dirthamen.

Lusacan/Tenebrium: (Owl) The God of Purpose, the Dragon of Night. Supplanted by Falon'Din (Lethanavir)

This makes so much sense when you consider Solas's hatred for the Grey Wardens, who have been systematically destroying the souls of the old gods once they're corrupted into archdemons. But how on earth did ancient elvhen god spirits get bound to dragons and trapped underground anyway?

The Fate of Gods and Dreamers

Back to Vir Dirthara and the Titan murals. We know the foci were used to seal away the blight in some way, because Solas told us (the angry red eyes are always the blight in his murals):

The rest of this will be pretty tin foil, but I think this mural helps illustrate my assumptions of the dreamers' involvement with the Evanuris.

The (bald) dreamers of Solas's order assisted Mythal in defeating the titan.

Sometime afterward, the "dead" titan returned in the form of red lyrium and threatened all of Elvhenan. This assumption is supported by the last codex entry in Tresspasser" where the Elves attempt to "seal away" a danger in the deep roads.

However they accomplished this, part of it required the dreamers to use the old gods power by binding their spirits to the forms of high dragons (just like JoH). These old god dragons are keeping the Blighted Titan "sleeping" which is why darkspawn seek to corrupt them (to free the source).

I believe the sinners judgement from the temple of Mythal also indicates that the dreamers themselves were the high dragons (taking the form of the divine), and why their foci were passed on to the Evanuris after the binding. The Evanuris were then able to use the power of the foci, as well as the vacuum left by the dreamers' absence, to establish themselves as the "new" gods.

So... thoughts?

#solas #dragon age #dragon age theories #evanuris

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