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felassan · 4 years

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The Hero’s Journey to the West

This post is a mix of meta, speculation/conjecture and headcanon.

I don’t think the Hero of Ferelden is ever coming back as a PC or NPC beyond mentions/rumors and Codex entries/letters, but their quest to find a cure for the Calling fascinates me. It always makes me think about the Chinese novel by Wu Cheng’en.

We know that they came back from their trip. We don’t know if they succeeded or not, but since the romanced Leliana epilogues are fairly happy in tone, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to headcanon that they did - at least, in terms of ridding themselves of the Taint. I feel like whether they succeeded in finding a way to allow all Wardens to escape the Calling would be something up in the air, like, kept-back at the moment by the devs; because surely such a revelation would rocket through the Warden order and in a future title might be heard about or alluded to in-game, crop up in a Codex somewhere, color our future interactions with Warden characters on the Wardens’ end, or potentially influence future storybeats relating to the Wardens. (It would be a rather major thing.) In dialogue Morrigan says that if the HoF is successful, it will mean a long life for him/her/them, and perhaps even a long life for all Wardens.

On the ‘when’: Although the Hero was gone by the time Divine Justinia died (per romanced Leliana dialogue), they didn’t leave straightaway after the events of Awakening and Witch Hunt (Heroes who fathered Kieran had not yet met their son at the time of WH), since in DA2 Hawke meets King Alistair and Queen Warden was home at court, and in DAI romanced Morrigan says her partner helped raise Kieran for a time before events transpired to take him elsewhere (which is a reference to his journey).

On the ‘who’: In the ancient novel Journey to the West, the monk Tang Sanzang has powerful disciples who help and protect him on his journey: Sha Wujing, Zhu Bajie and Sun Wukong. In my head there’s a fun parallel here to DA’s four-man parties, and how the HoF is accompanied by - for example - Ariane, Finn and Dog during the episodic DLCs like Witch Hunt. This is purely headcanon, but I always liked to think that some of the Awakening companions that we never heard from again (so not Anders, Justice or Nate) and who in some epilogues mysteriously disappear, accompanied them on the quest for the cure; Velanna, Sigrun, possibly Oghren. (And Dog, of course - Dog in my head never left the Hero’s side after DAO, the notion presented in the games that he sometimes did is odd to me. Why would he, lol?) These characters could easily have a vested interest in wanting to rid themselves of the Taint. And obviously Zevran went with them, if romanced.

There’s plenty of material on which to base speculation about how a cure for the Calling might come about or be obtained, what the cure might involve. You have the case of Fiona, there’s Avernus’ research, there are instances where the Taint was drawn out of living things as with Isseya’s clutch of griffon eggs, the Architect doesn’t appear to be subject to the Call of the old gods and freed some darkspawn from it too, etc. I’m more interested atm in where the HoF went.

Leliana tells us the Warden went "far to the west, to lands that have never known the Blight”. Their search took them out of the area in which Corypheus was operating, and thus beyond the reach of the false Calling that affected other Wardens. During the timespan of base-game DAI, they were still in geographical regions which were reachable in such a way as to allow messages from Leliana’s agents to get to them after Leliana/Morrigan/etc gives the Inquisitor the means to contact them, and for letters from the Hero to be sent back in return. (That could be something essentially handwaved on the part of the devs in order to allow for the mechanic of hearing from the HoF in DAI, though.) Here I’m always reminded of the men of the Night’s Watch taking caged ravens with them in their expeditions beyond the Wall, so that the birds can carry messages back to the manned outposts. I look at the map of Thedas and wonder. Where might they have gone? Where was the western-most outpost of the Inquisition?

West of Ferelden takes you into Orlais, where the effects of Corypheus’ operations were felt. The Hero might naturally have taken the Imperial Highway and passed through settlements like Halamshiral, Lydes, Verchiel, Montsimmard and Val Firmin en-route. Such a route makes logical sense both in terms of convenient travels and the fact that in a war table mission, Leliana’s agents report “scattered references of [the Hero] passing through the area” (said area is not specified, but it makes sense that the Hero would have at times passed through inhabited places, since at times they were sighted). It should be noted however that when this war table mission is undertaken, the card ends up ‘played’ on the western shores of Lake Calenhad. Still, unless you took ship through the Waking Sea, most likely any journey west from Ferelden would have passed through or near that part of the country anyways, due to the sheer size of the lake, the highway following its banks and the fact that Gherlen’s Pass is the only safe route through which to cross the Frostback Mountains, at least in terms of year-round travel.

Anyway, in the western reaches of Orlais is the Western Approach. The Approach was the site of a major battle during the Second Blight - its desolate sands and barren badlands are definitely not lands which “have never known Blight”. And we know from a war table mission that the mines and tunnels of the Gamordan Peaks are infested with darkspawn, that the large darkspawn host that appeared at Val Gamord came from the mountains. Here is where it gets interesting. Were the environs of the Sulfur Lakes, Malcellin Geysers and the Sea of Ash always this way, as in this is the naturally-occurring geological/geothermal profile of the area (volcanic), or are they so wretched because like the nearby Western Approach, the land was corrupted beyond recovery during a Blight? I imagine that the Hero would have largely avoided these areas and the Approach due to this (inhospitable travelling terrain + Blight-touched/probably Blight-touched), and instead at this point struck out more north-westerly for a time.

Doing so would bring someone through or around the Nahashin Marshes. Above we can see the location of Serault in relation to the Approach and the Marshes. There is a crossing point in the Nahashin Marshes used by a merchant in The Last Court, who travelled from Val Chevin through Montfort and Ghislain, before going across the Marshes to get to Serault. Given this and the fact that they’d likely be steering away from the Approach, I can see the Hero following the Highway all the way to Ghislain and then crossing the Marshes on their way to Serault, obviously without going to Val Chevin, which would amount to backtracking.

What then of Serault, the mysterious marquisate located in the far west of Orlais? It’s Orlais’ western-most holding, and per a Codex entry as far west as one can still call civilized. I certainly headcanon that the Hero passed through here before forging further into wilds and lands unknown - here Serault Town has a Tolkienesque “The Last Homely House” feel to it, perched on the edge of it all:

This is the edge of the world. Beyond Serault Town is the Last River, and beyond the river, villages, charcoal-burners, the wilderness.

Per war table missions, Inquisition agents also travel to Serault during the time-frame of base-game DAI - here we have what is likely to be one of or the last place[s] where the Hero could have picked up messages from the Inquisition before ‘jumping off’ into the unknown. Laysh is another possibility, route-dependent (see below).

Serault is a strange place, where “unlikely” things happen. Perchance, was there useful knowledge to be found here? Morrigan herself dwelt here for a time, researching at the Glassworks and working to repair an eluvian. It’s implied she does this regardless of whether the Marquis allows her to or not. Notably, it is Morrigan “who found the lead[s] the Hero now follows in the western lands”. This was probably the “gift” Morrigan gives the Hero in Witch Hunt. She leaves them the stolen Dalish book Ariane was seeking to get back, and "something [else that the Hero] will find of great interest”. (She doesn’t give the something-else gift if he goes with her, but if he goes with her she’d just tell him in-person about what she’d found, so it stacks regardless). That said, when it’s a romanced Warden Alistair worldstate it sounds like he and the Hero found the lead on their own. I enjoy the leads being Morrigan’s gift though as an idea, and as a way of filling in what the heck the gift was.

Courtier’s children in Serault play at “Wardens and Darkspawn”, implying that Serault has either once been touched by Blight or else that tales of Blight and darkspawn and Warden heroics have reached the settlement. “Roads under the earth” (how very Deep Road-esque) are implied to stretch from Seraultine lands to an emergence somewhere in the Vimmark Mountains, there’s a bereskarn in the nearby woods and at one point the Marquis imagines the “tang of Blights�� when a bitter wind blows from the north. I therefore find it unlikely that Seraultine surrounds have never been touched by Blight. Suspect the Hero ventured farther still, through the Applewoods - both the tamer Greenwood and the sinister Deepwoods, into the depths of the Tirashan. I’m obsessed with the Tirashan and its enigmatic denizens. What things they must know... mysterious, forgotten things. Are these elves ancient elves? To whom are they calling? These elves seem to guard their lands very fiercely, so it’s not a crazy idea that if the Hero entered the Tirashan they encountered some. Would an elven Hero have had a smoother initial interaction with them? It’s also not a crazy idea that the Tirashan elves might have knowledge that would have proven useful in the Hero’s quest, given the hints that they call to powers we possibly haven’t yet encountered. Their red vallaslin and apparent propensity for sacrificing people make me think of blood magic, and blood magic has practical uses in combatting Taint (Isseya’s spell on the griffon eggs, Avernus the blood mage, the Dark Ritual which was blood magic-based and ultimately caused the removal of Taint from Urthemiel’s soul, etc).

Say the Hero journeyed farther still. Over/through or under the southern Hunterhorn mountains to the forest or continuing forest on the other side (see the map of Thedas with expanded edges given to us in TN), which is inhabited by who knows what. Here the “Beyond Thedas” sections in WoT are of interest:

For many ages, the world that lies beyond Thedas has been largely unknown to us. Rumors and legends exist, tales of hardy sea captains crossing the ocean in search of treasure or ill-fated forays into the wilds, but they have always been buried under hearsay. Any serious attempts at exploration have been foiled by either the devastation of the Blights or the discouragement of waters plagued by both pirates and Qunari dreadnoughts.

The Hero surely would have researched such scattered references to the ill-fated forays, and sifted through hearsay, as 'homework’ before setting off on their trip. Going deep into the wild western wood is tantalizing in a frontier kind of way, but we can’t ignore the following entry in WoT, which I think was included in this manner for a reason.

Say instead the Hero travelled through the Hunterhorns and the Anderfels, maybe with a detour to nearby Weisshaupt to report in, confer with the First Warden and check the archives in its extensive library in case anything in there could prove useful in their quest, much like the recruit Valya did during her own investigation. The Anderfels are super Blight-blasted, so they would not have stopped there. In terms of travels in this area, I think it’s likely they would have joined a caravan being led by the Green Men order through the Wandering Hills to the distant port of Laysh.

The Voshai are yet another mysterious, unknown culture, and have materials and items that are completely unknown in Thedas proper among their wares. They come from a far-flung place and seem to Know Things. The status of dwarves in their society and their interest in lyrium is interesting, given the link both dwarves and lyrium have to underground places and the Blight. Can the reports of the recent return of the Voshai vessels to Thedas be a coincidence? I don’t think so, in the context of things discussed in this post. What powers and potentials are to be found among the wares of the Voshai that these Tevinter merchants were so keen to mount several expeditions into the wild unknown in search of them, even after several voyages never returned? I think the Hero probably took ship at Laysh (either they managed to secure passage on a docked Voshai ship, or there was an expedition vessel the Hero chartered), and went across the Volca Sea to the lands of the Voshai. Here they could have found a cure, and then a Voshai ship to then take them back to the known Thedosian continent.

A final few notes: You have to wonder, the lands which are untouched by Blight, why is that? Is it environmental - natural barriers or environmental conditions inhospitable to darkspawn? Is it magical protection? Are there limits to the darkspawn/Blight’s realm of influence, and if so, why, and how do these limits work? Does the fabled cataclysm in the lands of the Voshai have anything to do with a Blight (you could definitely describe a Blight as a cataclysm, for one thing)? And why on the new map with expanded edges from TN, along all the borders/expanded space, despite the fact that in WoT the “Beyond Thedas” stuff discusses all directions - why on the TN map is there only one place at the edges with an arrow pointing off into the unknown realms? Granted, it’s not the west Tirashan nor is it the north-westerly Volca Sea, but it is notable and worth mentioning. What lies south-west in the Sundered Sea, and why is it marked like this?

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