Are you ready for this shit? You might want to excuse yourself, this isn't going to be pleasant.
[click for complaints]"Of course she'd known about the Calling. Everyone who had ever heard of the Grey Wardens knew that someday the darkspawn taint that the Wardens absorbed during the Joining would overwhelm them, driving them to madness and death."
I understand not being into the minor parts, not everyone is as obsessed as we are, but couldn't Bioware have found someone who had fucking played the game. Everyone knows about the Warden Joining, taint and Calling? It's explicitly a fucking secret. Maybe the author didn't finish playing the game, that's understandable as it's a long game, but this happens right at the beginning.
Okay, time to see what the author had to say in their defence. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.
' it's true that at the beginning of DA:O it seems like nobody knows that particular internal mystery of the Wardens, but then later other characters act like they do know.'Which characters? Anora - the ruling monarch -
( ... )
I remember back when the idea for the very first read-a-long was put forth, I was very worried that it would just be people ripping the book apart and I didn't want to be a part of that.
I'll have something nice to say next chapter, promise.
I've let it stew for three days but I still have nothing nice to say. Maybe eventually. For now, I agree with all you said above. Warden secrets? What secrets!
She doesn't even need to know about it before she joined. She could have found out about The Calling after she joined and gone through all the same emotions. What bothers me the most about the lore violations (I'll go into detail about this when the Qunari mention comes up) is they don't serve any purpose. If they happened to drive a character or plot point, then I could swallow it, but the book would stay exactly the same if it were lore correct.
Yeaaaaaaah. The stuff with the Calling annoyed me. :P
Part of me wants to say that, maybe, the secrecy thing has grown up over the last four centuries since the last Blight. We don't know if it's always been a secret, only that it is in 9:30.
The only suggestion I have is that the Anderfels are pretty much the opposite of Ferelden in terms of Wardens. In the Anders the Wardens are a part of every day life, with the constant darkspawn fighting, while Ferelden kicked the Wardens out for a few hundred years.
So maybe "everyone" is "everyone is the Anderfels"
Completely separate from the story and lore issues, I'm finding it remarkably easier to summarize the chapters in this book compared to The Masked Empire.
It's a writing style difference, I'm sure, but either the chapters are a helluva lot shorter, or Merciel is doing a helluva lot of throat clearing exposition padding info dumps here early on.
Actually, her chapters kind of remind me of the one long fic I wrote with only two things of any import happening every one. :P
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[click for complaints]"Of course she'd known about the Calling. Everyone who had ever heard of the Grey Wardens knew that someday the darkspawn taint that the Wardens absorbed during the Joining would overwhelm them, driving them to madness and death."
I understand not being into the minor parts, not everyone is as obsessed as we are, but couldn't Bioware have found someone who had fucking played the game. Everyone knows about the Warden Joining, taint and Calling? It's explicitly a fucking secret. Maybe the author didn't finish playing the game, that's understandable as it's a long game, but this happens right at the beginning.
Okay, time to see what the author had to say in their defence. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.
' it's true that at the beginning of DA:O it seems like nobody knows that particular internal mystery of the Wardens, but then later other characters act like they do know.'Which characters? Anora - the ruling monarch - ( ... )
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I'll have something nice to say next chapter, promise.
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Part of me wants to say that, maybe, the secrecy thing has grown up over the last four centuries since the last Blight. We don't know if it's always been a secret, only that it is in 9:30.
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So maybe "everyone" is "everyone is the Anderfels"
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(The comment has been removed)
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It's a writing style difference, I'm sure, but either the chapters are a helluva lot shorter, or Merciel is doing a helluva lot of throat clearing exposition padding info dumps here early on.
Actually, her chapters kind of remind me of the one long fic I wrote with only two things of any import happening every one. :P
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So far, it's okay...I didn't really pick up on the Calling being a secret, but I guess I'm just out of touch on the lore.
Interesting (or not) how Garahel is being built up as this nice, good-looking, jokester who's just going to die...
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