I have played through the Jaws of Hakkon when it was first released, and I thought it was okay. But I have finished playing The Descent for the first time just recently and I'm sure everyone else was just as amazed when they've beaten it as I was.
Whilst the Descent was a lot more lore-packed, the Jaws of Hakkon also had some interesting things in it.
I decided to write down my thoughts about implications of some of the events that took place in those DLCs. Obviously, there are spoilers for these two DLCs below. I have yet to play Tresspasser, so I would ask that if anyone comments spoilers for it, that you give a warning.
Spirits[]
One thing JoH was heavy on were spirits and possession. So we've learnt that the Avvar gods are actually spirits in the Fade. One of the gods, Hakkon Wintersbreath was bound to a high dragon. It was bound to a high dragon by Jaws of Hakkon in... a Tevinter ruin. That was some 800 years ago, and it was re-animated by Gurd Harofsen, and how is a topic for another point.
Now, when the Inquisitor faces the god himself, the dragon actually speaks to the party, with a seemingly human voice. The best part, though, comes when the dragon is killed. During the cutscene the actual spirit leaves the decaying body of the dragon and disappears.
The established lore of spirits is that when a spirit dies and returns to the Fade it is reborn as a new spirit of the same aspect. So says Solas during All New, Faded for Her; so say the glyphs during It Remains to be Seen; and when questioned about killing their god, Thane Svarah Sun-Hair says that the spirit has to be killed before it can return to the people.
For a very long time I have supported the notion that Archdemons are in fact arch, meaning powerful, demons, who corrupted humans into worshiping them. Threnodies 1:8 says: "We dreamed up false gods, great demons who could cross the Veil into the waking world, turned our devotion upon them"; Threnodies 5:9-5:10 says "The demons appeared to the children of earth in dreams and named themselves gods, demanding fealty."; Threnodies 5:11 says "Those who had been cast down, the demons who would be gods, began to whisper to men from their tombs within the earth. And the men of Tevinter heard and raised altars to the pretender-gods once more."
So the core of the argument is that the Old Gods were in fact powerful spirits who were bound to high dragons. But due to the taint, the binding got screwed up, and they turned into the archdemons we know. When a non-Warden creature kills the archdemon, the spirit attempts to leave the body and return to the Fade, but it is tainted, and instead of returning to the Fade, it returns to the nearest tainted creature.
It just sounds good to me.
Revenant[]
I mentioned Gurd Harofsen before. When he was undoing Ameridan's time freeze spell, he ultimately turned into a Revenant. I've never really paid any attention to revenants, but this DLC has sparked my interest in the matter. We still miss some crucial piece of info that would explain exactly how Revenants are made. The established lore says that they are a corpse possessed by a pride or desire demons. But there was Gurd, a living human, turned into the revenant.
This whole thing reminded me of the old sidequest in Origins, namely the Black Vials. The quest explains that the area around the vials is cold. The area around where Gurd turned was extremely cold. Maybe something's on, maybe it's a coincidence. The Revenants in this quest were bound by some mysterious group (of more than likely six people) who signed their binding note with prints of six thumbs. I thought it was just some lazy sidequest, but then in Mark of the Assassin, you have the The Du Lac Sign. Aveline picks up a note from a body with the Du Lac crest tattoo. The Du Lac family had some kind of connection to the Black Vials. Also, as a sidenote, in Forbidden Oasis there is an area called "DuLac Path", possibly pointing to the Du Lac family having some kind of importance in the past. I'm sure we will get the missing pieces of lore in the future installments.
Magic in the Stone[]
That's the main point I'de like to bring up in this post. I never really paid any attention to it until Inquisition, and then The Descent.
Gangue[]
According to the codex entry, The Stone builds up negative stuff, and releases it as spirits and/or demons. I haven't figured out how it works yet, but The Stone must have a connection to the Fade.
In Origins we can fight the Gangue shade, Indignant spirits and Forgotten spirits; in Inquisition in the Hissing Wastes there are tombs scattered across the long-forgotten thaig and in them there are shades and rage demons - Ancient Tomb Guardians, and Tomb Guardians - when you mess up the puzzle.
Magister Gallus ponders this issue in his codex entry. His calls gangue a dwarven supersition, but maybe it isn't and gangue is really created by the Stone? He also suspects that the dwarves were able to bind demons through runes. Seeing as Fairel was a runemaker, it might be a possibility.
Fairel was a Paragon who is cited with creating a powerful weapon. When he learnt dwarves use it against other dwarves, he left for the surface, and he was stricken from the Memories. I think the weapon he created has something to do with the Stone, or at least with demon-binding. I think Fairel will be mentioned again.
Titans[]
In Descent we've learnt that deep below the earth there are beings called titans, and that they shape the Stone and lyrium is their blood. There are so many implications surrounding the titans. I'd like to discuss some.
Rock wraiths[]
I wonder if I was the only one who thought that the Guardian was strangely reminiscent of Ancient rock wraith. I think the thaig where Hawke and team went to was really close to another titan city.
Red Lyrium[]
I have yet to figure out how the Red lyrium comes into equation. From what I remember, red lyrium is regular lyrium infected with the blight. But then, you can turn people into red lyrium. How that corelates to lyrium being titans' blood eludes me.
Foreshadowing[]
"The Stone lives beneath Orlais"
I love how the titans were foreshadowed through the series. In the Leliana DLC the axe belonging to the dwarf Tug says "The Stone lives beneath Orlais". Nexus Golem says the same thing. Speaking of which, I think the golem exists only for foreshadowing.
"We were once more than what we are"
Valta says: "I close my eyes and see glimpses of the world that was, before everything changed and the dwarven race broke in two. "
"Amgarrak tapped the blood, spilled within the Stone."
Descent puts this line in a totally different light. Lyrium is the blood of the titans. The experiments with lyrium at Amgarrak affected the Stone.
"The Gauntlet is passed. Only a Shaperate can bring the light. Conversion begins..."
Fighting the guardian would be the Gauntlet, and Valta works at the Shaperate. When the guardian affected her, she began to convert into something else.
But maybe I'm just grasping at straws.
It also says that: "Mathas gar na fornen pa salroka atrast". It gets interesting with World of Thedas 2. According to Leliana, it literally means "At my side find your way in the dark", and less literally something like "I regret the sacrifice of my kin, but we will find our way home". There is a letter she's sent to a friend, where she says that she found some belongings of Tug. She mentions the axe, and another thing with an inscription: "Mathas gar na fornen pa tot isatunoll." She says that nobody knows what "isatunoll" means. The "isatuoll" is written in one of the Sha-Brytol signs.
I am looking forward to finding out the meaning of isatunoll.
But going back to lyrium as blood. One thing bothers me. In Origins, in the Fade mission thera are lyrium veins inside the Fade. I don't know if it was a simple gameplay feature (which allowed us to replenish mana) like the supply caches, or there is actually lyrium in the Fade. Or maybe it wasn't really lyrium, only the demons made it seem like something relatable, and chose lyrium. If there is indeed lyrium in the Fade it makes the titans exist both here and across the Veil. Very interesting.
Kal-Sharok[]
Another thing is Kal-Sharok. When Orzammar closed off the Deep Roads and left Kal-Sharok hangin', it is said that the Kal-Sharokians had to resort to some horrible things in oder to survive. I always assumed it had something to do with darkspawn, like they all ate the darkspawn flesh and became ghouls. But now I think they ate lyrium like the Sha-Brytol. Perhaps they found another titan underneath Kal-Sharok.
Caridin[]
Lyrium being the blood of the titans has some other implications. Paragon Caridin's great invention was the golem. We learn that inside a golem is a real dwarf. It is made by entombing a dwarf inside the stone/steel and then pouring molten lyrium inside. Maybe it's the Stone that makes it move. Maybe it's titans.
Caridin also invented the Spirit Apparatus, which channels the gangue and spawns spirits of dwarves. How it works is yet to be explained.
Enchantment[]
Valta using magic-like abilities was great lore-explaining. I think Sandal has also been gifted by a titan and that's why he's so good at enchanting. But lyrium affects people in different ways. I.e. the stuttering dwarf in Orzammar, and so maybe the titan's gift do as well. Valta remained just as smart as she was, but Sandal seems mentally challenged, or maybe he was already like that and that's why his real family abandoned him.
Titan city[]
Last thing I want to mention is the underground city within the titan. I was seriously amazed by it, as I'm sure was everyone else. The bottom actually looked like the sky. But what I want to mention is now how it looked, but how it sounded. There were bird noises. I don't know if it's just me, but it fascinated me. I had so many questions. Where do these birds live, what do they eat (and is it lyrium?), do they migrate for winter, is there such a thing as winter inside the titan?