One of the most interesting creatures or characters that you come across during Dragon Age: Awakening, which is a DLC for Dragon Age: Origin is the Architect. This is a unique darkspawn emissary as he has developed a will of his own and doesn’t respond to the call of the Old Gods. He also has the ability to talk unlike all other darkspawn. And during the course of the DLC, you have the option to help or reject/defeat the Architect. But what exactly does he want? And what does that mean for the games?
The Architect wasn’t always a darkspawn, he started out as a Tevinter magister who entered the Golden City with Corypheus and five others. Like all the magisters, he was cast back to Thedas to become the first of the darkspawn. But unlike Corypheus who was imprisoned and retained his memory of his life before, the Architect does not remember his former life. He just knows that he is unique and spent years learning how to free darkspawn from the group mind and give them independent wills and intelligence. In order to do this, darkspawn would need to intake Grey Warden blood during a process similar to the Joining.
In its discussions about its goals with the Warden Commander in Awakening, it does not mention its previous plan to force other races to take in the taint, and appears to instead wish to give Warden blood to all the darkspawn in order to give them self-control and free them from the call of the Old Gods. In doing so this would stop any further blights from occurring since they wouldn’t hear the calls of the Old Gods.
However, not all darkspawn that go through this “joining” ritual agree with the Architect’s plan. One of these is The Mother who leads a revolt against him wising for the simplicity of the time before.
To Help or To Refuse
Towards the end of the DLC, the Warden-Commander is confronted by The Architect who proposes working together to stop The Mother and prevent all future Blights.
If the Warden-Commander doesn’t side with the Architect, they will have to kill it as well as Utha. Before the battle, the Architect mournfully apologizes to Utha, remarking that it will be unable to keep its promise to her after all. This also means that darkspawn will still be subject to the call of the Old Gods, and blights will continue to happen in the future of Thedas.
If the Warden-Commander sides with the Architect, the Mother will reveal that the Architect’s botched attempt at making Urthemiel into a disciple was the cause of the Old God’s corruption and thus the cause of the Fifth Blight. The Architect however will keep its word and assist with its magic during the battle regardless. So it’s revealed, the Architect doesn’t know exactly how to the ritual correctly and helping him doesn’t change anything… if anything, might lead to another blight happening soon.
Which would you choose? I switch it up every time I play or whenever I want a different world state for a new game of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Love ya,
Mae Polzine
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