Warning: This is 8000+ words long. TLDR at the very bottom.
As I played Dragon Age: Inquisition for the third time and the fourth, I began to notice some connections between the various pieces of lore that are revealed to us throughout the game; in this case, the relation that songs or voices (I’ll refer to this generally as music or chant) has to magic and religious/spiritual beliefs throughout cultures in Thedas. In the main game, Solas and Cole are the main characters through which the significance of music is highlighted. However, it wasn’t until playing through the Jaws of Hakkon DLC that I began to formulate ideas as to how music relates to magic, and it wasn’t until I began to read the World of Thedas Volume 2 that I discovered another possible element of significance: meter and rhyme.
Let’s begin with the dialogue of the characters in DAI proper. The first clue to music having significance is when you speak to Solas regarding the magic of the ancient elves. “Some spells took years to cast. Echoes would linger for centuries, harmonizing with new magic in an unending symphony.” Granted, this statement alone is nothing more than a romanticized analogy, but it’s important to note that this Solas’s description of it. Given his true identity, we shouldn't be quick to dismiss his words.
Cole is the other character in DAI who mentions music often; again, his nature as a spirit implies that this is no mere coincidence. His dialogue is littered with mentions of songs, the following lines being a sample:
- (Emprise du Lion) [Near Red Lyrium.] “It sings... sick music.”
- (Crestwood) [Approaching the flooded lake.] “It sounds different. The water changes the song.”
- (The Western Approach) “The darkspawn are below us. A long way, but still singing.”
- (Dialogue with Dorian) “I thought I had to [eat and sleep]. But I don’t. The Old Songs can pull me.”
- (Dialogue with Varric) “You’re quiet, but the old songs still echoes inside, almost like Templars.”
- (Dialogue with Varric) “Do you write to reach across? To hear the song that was sundered?”
- (Dialogue with Vivienne) “[Spirits] pool around you… hearing only your song.”
He consistently refers to magic as music throughout the game, implying that it must be done intentionally.
Next, we should look at the information unveiled in the Jaws of Hakkon DLC, which hints at why music would be significant. Two codex entries, The Return and From a Mage's Journal, clearly demonstrate that music is instrumental in Avvar culture concerning the summoning of spirits (which they call gods). [NOTE: if you want more context on The Return, read The Death and The Mourning first.]
The next piece of evidence is essential to the storyline of JoH: when Gurd Harofsen attempts to pull the god Hakkon Wintersbreath into his own body. He does this by repeatedly chanting the following:
"Sing the song of savage Hakkon, born in battle, bloody bladed...
Wintersbreath to wrack the lowlands, cold to cut and kill the hated.
Meet the might of Mountain-Father, crush the creed of Korth the Callow...
Leave the Lady lost and lonely, scour the skies of spirits sallow!
Gurd Harofsen, called The Cutter, wyvern-slayer, lowland-bane...
Begs of Hakkon, bring his body bloody blessings, cold and pain!"
[Note the use of rhyme here. I'll speak more about this in a bit.]
This last bit of JoH diaogue reveals more specifically how music in used in relation to spirits. After Hakkon is defeated, Thane Svarah Sun-Hair says, "Now we can sing him back to life where he belongs, in the land of dreams." So it seems that music is used not only to pull spirits across the Veil in the physical world, but also to revive those spirits in the Fade. Some interesting food for thought.
While the characters of DAI and the lore revealed in JoH are significant, there are two more major factors of Thedas lore that involve music - the Templars and the Chant of Light. The relation to music to the Chant of Light is obvious, of course, and the Templars say they hear music when they ingest lyrium. The Templars' experience with lyrium is curious - it also supports this theory that music has significance in magic.
Warning: the following tinfoil is far less substantiated than that which precedes it.
Lastly, as I read The World of Thedas: Volume 2, I noticed that when the Maker speaks in the Canticle of Silence (Part 3, stanzas 5-7) of the Chant of Light, his three stanzas end in couplet rhymes.
(5) The darkness planted by your betrayers in your hearts I see.
Did you not know, when you chose to revere them over Me?
(6) On blackened wings does deceit take flight,
The first of My children, lost to night.
(7) No more will you bear the Light,
To darkness flee and be gone from My sight!
Obviously, whoever wrote these words was not present when the Golden City was breached; what's more, we now know from Corypheus that no Maker sat upon the throne. However, these were the only lines I've seen in the Chant that rhyme at all - and I feel this was done intentionally (perhaps by the DA designers?) to draw inquiry. Why must these lines rhyme? Why is it only the Maker's stanzas that end in this style?
I have two possible answers regarding this. Either these lines imply that they were meant to be chanted in the same way Gurd Harofsen chants to draw Hakkon into his body; or that they sound different because they were written by someone other than the author of the rest of the Canticle of Silence. My money's a bit more on the latter since the couplet of stanza 5 does not seem like it is invoking anything; it's merely a question, whereas the other two couplets seem like they could be part of a spell.
But I'll elaborate on the rhyme theory. Another place where rhyme and poetic devices show up is in Gurd Harofsen's chant, as I mentioned earlier. Sure, it just sounds cool, but it doesn't need to rhyme. Remember when Mythal is invoked at her shrine? The drinker of the Well of Sorrows does not need to formulate some fancy poem to get her to show up. Gurd Harofsen, however, did. Seeing as how summoning Hakkon into himself was literally a last-minute plan, I highly doubt he'd do this just for shits and giggles.
This part of the theory can also reference real-world lore. Think of magical incantations and spells that commonly appear in fantasies - many of them rhyme. Simple phrases like "Abracadabra" and "Hocus Pocus" are ubiquitous, and I believe the Harry Potter universe employs some rhyming spells (although not commonly, I think). I'd try to look into this more, but I've suddenly gotten really lazy. I also need to look into the actual validity of this theory instead of just pulling it out of my ass right now.
So, that's it. Sorry for the dissertation! I just feel like like "song", "voices", and "music" came up way too often throughout the game and DLC for it to not be an intentional move on the DA team's part. If there's anything information you guys can add or any rebuttals as to my theory or its parts, I'd be glad to hear it. Note that I never played the DAO DLCs (although I know the general events of Awakening), the Mark of the Assassin DLC for DAII, and that I've just started chapter 3 of WoT2 (never read the first volume), so if there's anything in those or any related tinfoil that might affect my claims, point them out to me.
Also... I personally have a question involving the meter of Gurd Harofsen's chant. Does anyone know what it is, if it even has a name at all? Another piece of Avvar lore, the Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe, Avvar-Mother, has another meter that I can't specify. Granted, I absolutely despise reading poetry, so my knowledge of it is minimal.
TLDR; Song can be magic in Thedas? At least, it's implied in DAI and JoH that song is sometimes involved in magical rituals (the "singing to life" of Avvar spirits, Cole's many references to song, Templars hearing songs while taking lyrium, etc.). Also rhyme might be significant, but that theory is as thin as bargain-brand toilet paper. Let me know what you think!
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