"The Tranquil, ironically, resembles sleepwalkers, never entirely awake nor asleep. They are still part of the Circle, however, and some might say they are most the critical part."
— World of Thedas Vol. 2
Tranquility, we obliviously know and can tell when someone is Tranquil. They are hardly anything close to being humane.
Not too specific, but Tranquility is and could be a lie. It is a fabrication of fear versus control over magic. And although it is quite effective to produce much of that result, this Rite can be undone.
Hello Thedosians and welcome back to my blog/channel. Speaking about the Tranquil is quite the hard task, it goes beyond nature we've seen throughout Thedas and quite literally works against itself.
While the ritual for one to turn Tranquil is a secret passed down throughout the ages, we still have not faced the specifics that require one to be in this state. So let us get some background behind the Rite of Tranquility:
Rite:
We called it the Rite of Tranquility: a mind, branded with lyrium, brought to a state devoid of either emotion or sense of self. The rite was required to achieve the true peace that could draw a spirit of faith from the depths of the Fade. A difficult task, considering a Tranquil mind is all but invisible to these beings. The candidate must be pure. If the candidate proved worthy, the spirit would touch his mind... and he would be freed from Tranquility as well as made into a Seeker in truth."
— An excerpt from Cassandra's tome on the Seekers of Truth
The Rite of Tranquility was created for the members of the first Inquisition. But they soon found out that this type of ritual would not work properly for the first mage who joined their Order.
When the rite was completed, this mage could no longer use their spells/magic in general, and thus, the Order then believed that the mage could not be threatened into 'demonic possession', or so they thought.
Being the last Inquisition leader before re-establishing again, Ameridan feared that the Rite of Tranquility's knowledge could be abused against mages, so he opposed wide-spread use of this Rite. While that was inevitable when the Inquisition split, it soon became a use during the reign of the Seekers of Truth, thus, they used it frequently on mages in the Circle's towers, and kept the ritual a secret over the ages.
As we know mages can undergo the Rite if they do not wish to perform the Harrowing. As for forcing the Rite on mages, Chantry law forbids performing the Rite without significant provocation. "Provocation" means that the mage either cannot control their magic or is not willing to do so. The Rite also cannot be done with just the Knight Commander's request, but also has to be approved by the Knight Enchanter as well. But if the Knight Enchanter is considered 'weak or ignored', they can override the Circle and perform the Rite if a mage deems to fall into what the Order believes to be unmanageable.
Ritual:
The Rite involves the use of a lyrium brand.
"We called it the Rite of Tranquility: a mind, branded with lyrium, brought to a state devoid of either emotion or sense of self."
—An excerpt from Cassandra's tome on the Seekers of Truth
As a result, the Tranquil have the seal of the Chantry's sunburst engraved on their foreheads, but you know, not in Origins (blame the technology, even tho vallaslin/dwarven caste system exists lol)
As we know, Tranquil do remember the ritual because they remember their past selves, and are capable of having memories. But unfortunately, the Tranquil are not permitted to speak of the Rite or other secrets of superiors.
In Asunder, Pharamoud was a Tranquil who was studying the Rite under the Divine's order, due to the lack of understanding this Rite in general, which we know this was because the Seekers kept it hidden, confirmed by Cassandra.
"The ritual was required to achieve the true peace that could draw a spirit of faith from the depths of the Fade. A difficult task, considering a Tranquil mind is all but invisible to these beings. The candidate must be pure."
— An excerpt from Cassandra's tome on the Seekers of Truth
We know that the first step to the process is lyrium branding when lyrium branded, this connects to the Fade directly. Meaning that lyrium is what reverses the link to the Fade.
Other than that, we don't know much after that process, since the regular ritual for the Seekers takes years of fasting and meditation into this type of state. As for mages in the Circle, it almost seems instantaneously that they are made Tranquil and are unlikely taking a year off for that type of process but more forced into this unknown ritual dramatically...
Effects:
"You can tell a Tranquil from the sunburst marking burned into the mage's forehead and their deliberate, monotone manner of speech. As a side effect of the rite, a Tranquil loses all capacity for emotions, as well as the ability to dream... and although free will persists, they rarely exercise it"
— World of Thedas Vol. 1
We know the effects makes most mages not able to perform their magic since the Fade has been cut out from their essential use of power. The Tranquil also have a keen sense of focusing on the most tedious tasks due to their amount of concentration. (which emotions got in the way of that)
Tranquil are also capable of free will, as baffling as that might seem, they have a logical sense in what they are dealing with and choose to pick a side they believe is right, or do so to avoid opposing those who remain in power.
For instance, Maddox, Samson's tranquil assistant, who has poisoned himself and can not be saved had his own volition to join Samson's side for a cause even the Tranquil believed in.
They are, however, methodical to a fault. They are not taken by inspiration, and some might say what they lack is intuition. The fact that they do not get bored and take no pleasure out of creating takes much of the motivation away for them to change their methods or seek to create something different unless there is a clear reason to.
Most of the Tranquil known, use lyrium to enchant items, providing the Circle its main source of funding. They are resistant to lyrium's effects and would be mostly unaffected by raw lyrium unless they spend too much time in its presence.
The Cure:
The lie, as many might know, is that becoming Tranquil is in-curable. That these effects remain forever, and as that might have been the belief passed down throughout the ages, the Seekers knew about this Cure-all along but did nothing to help those who were wrongfully forced into this Rite.
Tranquility is only a ritual for those who pass the test to become 'pure', and by getting touched by a spirit from the Fade made those worthy to pass. This is the same as the many experiences we have seen throughout Thedas. Anders friend Karl Thekla loses his Tranquil state when reached out in contact by Justice. He describes the experience to become overwhelming, Karl confesses that he does not want to live as an emotionless puppet serving the templars, and he begs Anders to end his life.
Reversing this Rite is not only dangerous to one who has been permitted in a Tranquil state, but can affect demonic possession over this one's mind. Pharamound was possessed by a demon, yet the demon even regretted coming onto a Tranquil, for the demons main goal was to reach out to the Waking world either way.
Spirit or Demon, if they reached out to touch a Tranquil's mind, they would be cured. But it's hard for one to be reached out because they become invisible to inhabitants of the Fade. They are also undesirable since a demon looks to possess an individual because it wishes to experience life. To them, a Tranquil is no better than an inanimate object or worse, a Tranquil will resist. Thus it would take a spirit medium to coax the spirit or demon into reaching across the gap between the Fade and the mortal realm and touching the Tranquil's mind. As for the Seekers effect over the ritual, the one must be willing to be touched by the Spirit of Faith, thus the Cure for one who is Tranquil must be willing to be cured.
The Lie:
Let's get a little deeper, as before I discussed the main components of Tranquility and the main lie that existed throughout Thedas as the 'incurable/irreversible ritual that effects a mages life forever'. While yes, that is one of the lies of Thedas, there's something that we might need to address:
"You must understand, I awoke in a world where the Veil had blocked most people’s conscious connection to the Fade. It was like walking through a world of Tranquil."
— Solas, Trespasser DLC
Solas, believes this world to be in a Tranquil state, that the people weren't as they were meant to be, they had lost everything that made the laws of Thedas normal. I think the problem I have seen with Solas' struggle is to believe that many of the people he believes to be Tranquil are just the effect of his outcome against the Pantheon. Regardless of being Tranquil, the lie is we believe is that becoming Tranquil is the worse outcome, yet that's ironic because we are playing a world of Tranquility in general. Ancient things have fallen asleep, spirits no longer recognize this waking world resulting in their corruption, and we are believing that this was meant to be.
The lie we are experiencing here is our current world state is far from being alive. Like a Tranquils mind, its a nightmare unable to awake from its dream and is even unaware it's a dream. Overall, the overreaching point I'm trying to nail here is that Tranquility is surrounding all of Thedas, no matter how much we can fix it.
For the elvhen people unable to see their lost past of destroying their world, for dwarves unable to connect to the Titans, and for the humans seeking control or domination over magic, we fail to see the overreaching block that connects the Fade into the waking world we know as the Veil...
Thank you for watching, if you have any questions or comments leave them below and I would love to hear about all of your theories too! If you want to follow me on any other social media, read about this on my blog, all of those links are down below in the description as well.
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