Dwarven Magic

[!RJ_Truth]

So I just completed ....


...The Eternal Hymn. This whole Harding storyline for me just seems to be...... the wrong person. There's been zero sign of Dagna up to this point in the game and the whole, Harding has magic now has felt like she's the wrong person to have this magic. Did anyone think at all about Dagna during the writing of this? If not the one to wield this power, Dagna should at least be part of this story and I'm quite a bit disappointed that she has not been so far.

[AnonymousWizard]

Dagna is a researcher and Orzamar, and would be potentially able to figure out things well in advance of Harding. Notably there wouldn't have been any of the wondering if the Orzamar dwarves still have this stuff, Dagna's got the exact right background to know both that and if this is like topsider magic. She might have fit in the story in a different way, but her role is instead taken by Valta, another dwarf mage/shaman who has practical experience but little theoretical knowledge.

While Dagna would be interested in this, I believe she's not there because Bioware is trying very hard to move dwarves away from the stereotypes that Orzamar represents. Therefore instead of bringing back old dwarven characters and groups the developers instead fired the Kal-Sharok gun and presented an alternative dwarf civilisation that's ruthlessly practical.

More importantly, the key part of Dagna's character is that she's fascinated by what she can never have. It's also worked out really well for her, she's implicitly the second best runesmith in the setting able to make them more than equipment mods and the only character better than her is severely disabled. She'll probably arrive if Bioware does an Act 3 to the dwarven magic arc to help the dwarves actually understand it.

[StrangestEcho]

It would have made sense, but the new writing team didn't care about preserving the canon lore. They retconned so many things because they didn't like to original direction.

[Nightshade878]

Dagna is busy helping the Inquisition (or whats left of it), one can assume. Harding was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and touched a dagger made of PURE lyrium. If you pay attention to what Varric said, not even the dwarves of Orzamar work pure lyrium. I think it's safe to say that if it hadnt been Harding or Dagna, it could have been Varric or any other Dwarf.