Драгонэйджпедия, Околофилософские измышления
Фух, переписывала двести раз, так что глаза уже повылазили, и ошибок, поди, миллион. :( Но чего сказать-то хотела, все равно прослеживается довольно смутно, пошла оплакивать свою писательскую бездарность.
It is always interesting to see how the time and different interpretations of the facts influence the history. Governments, which like to use the history as an approval of their authority, can also manipulate it. As a result, it is hard to say where is the truth is in our knowledge about the past. The history of elves and humans in Thedas gives us a lot of examples of such changes and it is sometimes ironic to compare them with the events of our world.
One of the most obvious examples is the story of Shartan. He was the leader of the elven slaves, who joined Andraste in her rebellion against Tevinter. He was one of her closest friends and he has given his life trying to protect her from capturing being captured. The Chantry has admired his sacrifice having include these facts into the religious books and a canticle of Shartan for a long time was a part of the Chant of Light, which sounds in all Andrastian temples of Thedas every day. However, the canticle was removed from the Chant after the destroying destruction of Dales, because it was a little bit disturbing for the people to kill the elves and to sing about them in the prayers at the same time. Any mention of Shartan was declared heretical and even all Chantry art, which included elves, was also destroyed. Therefore, nothing stopped people anymore to consider the elves to be an inferior race, which doesn’t deserve more than leftovers anymore.
Not only humans were responsible for this estrangement, however.
After the founding of the new elven homeland in Dales, the elves cut themselves off from their human neighbors. They just tried to maintain their independence and to regain the lost glory of Elvhenan but lack of the real memories pushed them practically into inventing the new ones. The stories about immortality and the golden cities were sorrowful, and it was just a logical step to declare somebody responsible for this painful loss. The humans were the obvious target and in a couple of centuries, the elves have convinced themselves of this version so hard much that they would not even listen to the truth: Elvenan has never was been a place of everybody’s / universal happiness and grace as they wanted to think.
It was a cruel and insidious country, no better than despicable Tevinter. Elves waged internecine wars amongst themselves for the ages. There were crystal palaces and magnificent magic features, but they were built using the blood of thousands of the slaves. Their gods also were not such an example a role model of wisdom and mercy as the legends say. Firstly, they were not the gods but just extremely powerful mages, who started as generals during the war, then became respected elders and finally declared themselves to be the gods. They fought and betrayed each other, demanded sacrifices and executed disobedient ones. Nothing except their enmity has destroyed Arlathan and has deprived elves of everything. However, a tendency to blame evil strangers than and not to accept one's own fault it is a known psychological fact, so elves have preferred to forget about it and to hate humans rather than their own kind.
Therefore, throughout the Second Blight, which desolated the lands of Orlais, the elves of the Dales remained neutral and unhelpful. There were the rumors that when the city of Montsimmard was nearly destroyed by darkspawns an elven army watched was watching from a nearby hilltop and did doing nothing. This apparent indifference and non-Andrastian religious views escalated the conflict between races and so fueled further increasing hostility so much, which that it finally led to the destruction of Dales.
All of the above proves that an every race has its own arrogant fools, who prefer to identify themselves through a the hate to others, and that the good relationships are much easier to destroy than to create.
It is always interesting to see how the time and different interpretations of the facts influence the history. Governments, which like to use the history as an approval of their authority, can also manipulate it. As a result, it is hard to say where is the truth is in our knowledge about the past. The history of elves and humans in Thedas gives us a lot of examples of such changes and it is sometimes ironic to compare them with the events of our world.
One of the most obvious examples is the story of Shartan. He was the leader of the elven slaves, who joined Andraste in her rebellion against Tevinter. He was one of her closest friends and he has given his life trying to protect her from capturing being captured. The Chantry has admired his sacrifice having include these facts into the religious books and a canticle of Shartan for a long time was a part of the Chant of Light, which sounds in all Andrastian temples of Thedas every day. However, the canticle was removed from the Chant after the destroying destruction of Dales, because it was a little bit disturbing for the people to kill the elves and to sing about them in the prayers at the same time. Any mention of Shartan was declared heretical and even all Chantry art, which included elves, was also destroyed. Therefore, nothing stopped people anymore to consider the elves to be an inferior race, which doesn’t deserve more than leftovers anymore.
Not only humans were responsible for this estrangement, however.
After the founding of the new elven homeland in Dales, the elves cut themselves off from their human neighbors. They just tried to maintain their independence and to regain the lost glory of Elvhenan but lack of the real memories pushed them practically into inventing the new ones. The stories about immortality and the golden cities were sorrowful, and it was just a logical step to declare somebody responsible for this painful loss. The humans were the obvious target and in a couple of centuries, the elves have convinced themselves of this version so hard much that they would not even listen to the truth: Elvenan has never was been a place of everybody’s / universal happiness and grace as they wanted to think.
It was a cruel and insidious country, no better than despicable Tevinter. Elves waged internecine wars amongst themselves for the ages. There were crystal palaces and magnificent magic features, but they were built using the blood of thousands of the slaves. Their gods also were not such an example a role model of wisdom and mercy as the legends say. Firstly, they were not the gods but just extremely powerful mages, who started as generals during the war, then became respected elders and finally declared themselves to be the gods. They fought and betrayed each other, demanded sacrifices and executed disobedient ones. Nothing except their enmity has destroyed Arlathan and has deprived elves of everything. However, a tendency to blame evil strangers than and not to accept one's own fault it is a known psychological fact, so elves have preferred to forget about it and to hate humans rather than their own kind.
Therefore, throughout the Second Blight, which desolated the lands of Orlais, the elves of the Dales remained neutral and unhelpful. There were the rumors that when the city of Montsimmard was nearly destroyed by darkspawns an elven army watched was watching from a nearby hilltop and did doing nothing. This apparent indifference and non-Andrastian religious views escalated the conflict between races and so fueled further increasing hostility so much, which that it finally led to the destruction of Dales.
All of the above proves that an every race has its own arrogant fools, who prefer to identify themselves through a the hate to others, and that the good relationships are much easier to destroy than to create.