Hello Thedosians and welcome back to my channel, today I'm going to explain one of the elven secretive order out there, yes, the Emerald Knights. Now there's no surprise if you've played Inquisition to understand who this enigmatic group is. Yet, there seems to be something off when you enter the Din'an Hanin, if you look into theories regarding this Emerald Knight society, there are tons of theories, so, without further ado, lets discuss all of the information we have, and maybe even more to come with these theories.
What are the Emerald Knights?
The Emerald Knights are a believed militaristic force of Dalish warriors protecting the Dales against forces. They are depicted to ride with wolf companions, and hallas, while knowing the knowledge of preserving their ancient culture and language.
History:
Not much is stated when these Emerald Knights came from, specifically if the Second Exalted March was on the Dales it could go beyond into the Ancient times with Andraste, and spefically, Shartan. Shartan was the face-head of the elvehn race who fought alongside Andraste, as she would promise a land that was destined theirs. The Dales was theirs, promised from Maferath and was known as the Long Walk:
"We called our journey the Long Walk, for that was what it was. We walked with what little we had on our backs. Some walked without shoes, for they had none. Whole families, women with infants, the old and young alike--all of them made their way across the land on foot. And if one of our people could no longer walk, we carried him, or sometimes left them behind...
And the gods rewarded those of us who did not waver by bringing us to the Dales. Our people called the new city Halamshiral--"the end of the journey." And for a time, it was home." - Gisharel, keeper of the Ralaferin clan of the Dalish elves
If the Emerald Knights forces started up from Shartan, they are probably from the ancestors of slaves, or even reaching to the point of ancient elves, but pure speculation. What we know is that this force became the militaristic group to protect their land, around this time where it hits the Ages becomes the problem: two races telling two different stories.
As we know Dragon Age's timeline is very mushy because of races telling different stories to obviously gain word that their race is superior. Like the elves and humans, I will try to be nuetral as I can, but its hard when one story fills the gaps, and the other doesn't mention on at all, but lets get on with it:
For the Humans, they created the Ages for the Andrastian diety to represent her teachings, but as we know of the Andrastian faith, it was no more than a small cult at the time of this Age. But Kordillius Drakon I Orlais, destined to have this faith as an organized religion, in which we call this the Divine Age.
For the Elves, they were taking the long walk destined by Maferath respecting his wife's request to Shartan, they finally call this place their home. Alongside Orlais, humans were coming over as missionaries and what we know as templars, but I believe not just the templars, the Inquisition, let me explain:
While this was happening the Inquisition was the militaristic force to show Andrastian faith all over Thedas, once established throughout Orlais, their next was to spread over to Nevarra, in which, it was done. As we know and might have suspected that the Inquisition only followed the leaders of Kordillius Drakon, maybe Maferath before, and as well as Divine, so they had no leader at that time. The Inquisitor around this time happened to be a good friend of Drakon, in which we know as of Ameridan who came from the Dales, maybe even was a part of the Emerald Knights, although highly sceptic of that factor.
So in this Age, I cannot really see conflict between two races, but rather, irritation, yet we do still see some sort of resistance between these types of cultures, but it does seem to get pretty worse later on, despite their peaceful promises.
I think the conspiracy for being against the elves regarding the humans in general, was magic, and in fact the elves did harbour a lot of that factor due to their history of Arlathan as we know now, these elves regarded them as secrets due to what Tevinter did with their magic. The problem with both of these races, is that it seems that the humans forgot that this area of Dales was from the promise of Andraste that they would be left alone. And the elves forgot that the humans do care about them, or at least, they feared that they were getting to exclusive and isolating themselves away from specifically helping the world from Blights, yes, Blights. During the Second Blight, Tevinter forces were running out of forces to withstand Archdemon Zazikel, the Wardens became Andrastian, but then as it grew bigger, they asked for the elves' help, but, they refused, and that led to hostility against the elves in general. Nice job.
But it all led to the Second Exalted March: The Emerald Knights began to have conflict that arises from themselves, as we know, Elandrin became star-crossed-lovers with a human in the village of Red Crossing, named, Adalene.
He fell in love with a human woman and planned to run away with her which led to the Knights fearing that he would betray their secrets. What ever that may mean, I'm suspecting maybe to plan and attack humans? Or maybe it had to do with something else; specifically, magic that would fear most humans anyways due to the up rise of the Chant for humans.
Elandrin, one of the knights, fell in love with a human woman, Adalene, who lived in the Human village of Red Crossing. Knowing he would have to swear himself to the Maker to reside with her outside of the Dales, Elandrin willingly agreed to do so, reasoning that Maker was just as absent as the elvehn pantheon and so his 'worship' was irrelevant in either case.
The other Emerald Knights realized Elandrin's intentions and, assuming his change of loyalty meant he would reveal their secrets to the humans, sent a squad of Knights, led by Elandrin's sister Siona, to Red Crossing to retrieve him, where they encountered Adalane waiting for him.
Adalane caught sight of Siona, and mistaking her for Elandrin, ran toward her, only to be shot by Siona. The men of the village heard Adalane cry out and came to investigate. When they noticed the Knights, they immediately attacked, but stood no chance against the elves. Elandrin finally arrived after the fighting had stopped, and moved to embrace Adalane's body, where he remained until human reinforcements arrived. Finding only dead humans and a bloody elf, the humans had no interest in an explanation, and immediately shot Elandrin, later disposing of his body in a nearby river.
This, was in fact, the beginning for an Exalted March: and as most of you know - that was the future of a constant downfall of the elvhen society, and as well as hostility for both of the races in general.
As much as I would love to discuss about the remaning future; let's bring it back to the Emerald Knights. Their main mission was to bring in the elvehn gods and pantheon into their culture before most of tevinter forced upon them with worshipping Dragons and the Old Gods.
We know about some of these Pantheons and this leads to the next problem regarding the Emerald Knights as a whole -
Elvehn Legends/Myths:
Wolf Companions -
"Traveling through the Emerald Graves in the Dales, one will see dozens of carven stone wolves. The Dalish call these the Knights’ Guardians. In the days of elven Halamshiral, wolf companions walked alongside Emerald Knights, never leaving the side of their chosen knight. Wolf and elf would fight together, eat together, and when the knights slept, wolves would guard them. The statues were erected in memory of their unbreakable bond." - An excerpt from In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholarby Brother Genitivi
What we know around the Emerald Graves is that this sort of statue of a wolf for them was considered as a safe ground. But later on for the Dalish and even for ancient elvhen, this statue is represented as the trickster elvehn god Fen'Harel. I know it's already stated that wolves are pretty close in tie with Fen'Harel, but to this extent for the Emerald Knights?
"You know what the Dalish say to their dogs? 'Take the Dread Wolf by the ear if he comes'..." - Merrill
My only guess is that maybe the Emerald Knights actually emulated to what the ancient elvhen had done when the Veil wasn't present. Their ties with actual elvhen lore led them to maybe even worship the Dread Wolf. But that's as far as I'll go for that part with the Dread Wolf - because it didn't seem like this was the only god they worshipped, it was the former pantheon as well -
In the Din'an Hanin, we see several blessings of Falon'Din - who was known as a Guide for the Dead aka the Elvehn grim reaper. Besides those blessings, going deeper into this Tomb stands a lot of coincidental mysteries and subtle meanings behind symbols and statues around these Tombs... What do they mean?
One to take in note is the Circle emblems/symbol that stands out for this tomb, and it's seen quite a lot. Yet in elvehn texts and lore, that type of stuff is only mentions as "two spheres; not five"
The only close depiction that might come close to this type of emblem could be most known as Solas' tarot card. If you wanna read more about that theory though, I'll link it below, it's quite interesting.
Another item in the Tombs looks of what looks to be a toad, and a dark dragon statue with a gaurd. Which raises a huge concern about what do the elvehn know to this extent of their history. This statue is what is to be the resemblance or symbol known for Dirthamen. I have no idea to why this God would have any help to the Emerald Knights except for elvhen secrets.
Dirthamen, known for being the Keeper of Secrets must have been a huge influence for the Emerald Knight because they might have wanted to know the secrets of their elvhen history. In general, that raises a red flag due to the codex of Dirthamen's earlier problems throughout history of being the 'First sinner'. Why did they want to contact such a God?
Another statue to take in note is the Mythal statues, as expected, except for the macabre looking one for Mythal, I mean it could have a fun little side job for one of the environmental artist working for this game - but it just seems off putting when there's Dirthamen's statues within the mist of the Tombs.
I believe that's the problem with the Emerald Knights; their secrets were much higher than they could have expected, rumors and hostility against the humans was becaue I believe that they knew the reason behind the Veil, and yet believed it was necessary to worship the Elvehn Pantheon in a false way.
I mean, the rumors from Orlesians were discussing taking babies and young ones from the edge of the humans borders and sacrificing their lives to the Elvehn Gods, to what extent of a rumour needs to be that drastic for elvehn to be feared? my guess, was the problem of secrecy, the elves did not what to influence more magic onto humanity because that resulted in worse things to come; maybe even to their decision in refusing to help with the Blight because they knew deep inside that this was the world was; a stripped world of an abomination, and soon, they blamed the one who tried to save them all. Fen'Harel.
Thanks for watching, and if you have any other questions, or some theories, comment them below, and I would love hearing and discussing about them! Also, a lot of people actually read my posts and blogs on my website and Tumblr and I wanted to say thank you for taking your time to read this.
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