Complete Dragon Age Fandom Blather....

It's my attempt to research the four Wardens who sacrificed themselves to stop the previous 4 Blights to the one that occurs in Dragon Age Origins.  Yeah, I know... I'm a fangirl.   Sue me.

It ended up being way more political than I expected or intended.  But that happens to me sometimes.
   
The first 4 Archdemon Slaying Wardens and a brief history of the Blights


1st Blight  

There is, so far, no canon identity for the Grey
Warden who slew the first and most powerful archdemon,
Dumat. The armor from this Warden is in Awakenings,
at least.

It's interesting to note that this is the only
ArchDemon to survive above ground for as long as He
did. For 200 years humans, dwarves and elves were
hunted into near extinction by this creature's forces.
You'd think the Folks at Bioware would have named this
Warden, seeing as he/she was the first to slay an
archdemonn and the most powerful one at that. 
But I suspect they are holding this info to the side for
DA3--which may have some stop-over at Weisshaupt. 

Also of interest, according to the line up of dates,
the first Blight took the world so by surprise and it
was 90 years before a group of super bad-ass warriors
got together at Weisshaupt to start the Grey Wardens.
Nearly a hundred years of devastation before the ball
even got started rolling!

It took them another 110 years to recruit enough
Wardens and support forces to stop the flood of that
first Blight.  

Kinda puts Ferelden's Blight into perspective.

Also, during that time, the "Chantry" was formally "the
cult of the Maker" and was a little group of dissident
freaks shouting that the Blight was Tevinter's fault.

This is contested in a few places and it
wasn't until the 2nd Blight that the Warden's even officially
converted to Chantry beliefs. Especially on the origins of the
Blight.  Until then (for hundreds of years) they officially
didn't believe the Blight necessarily had anything to do
with Tevinter and they didn't worship the Maker.

If you recall, Duncan says they still think it might be something
very different than the Chantry claims.

I expect that in DA3, considering the crumbling infra-
-structure of the Chantry, we're going to find out that
Tevinter might not be the real source of the Blight, at
least not in the way the Chantry claims.

This 1st Blight caused the Tevinter Imperium to shrink.
A LOT. They once ran most of the continent, including
the south. Directly after the fall of Dumat "Andraste" did
her thing. (She attacked In the aftermath of the Blight...
savvy wench.)  We hear tell of the drought that swept
Tevinter as a result of her calling the Maker's disfavor
upon them, creating a massive famine, weakening and
punishing the Tevintre.  But the fact is,  the Blight caused
draught and famine and the Tevinter had suffered
at ground zero for 200 years. 

Tevinter lost countless amounts of airable land as well as
the bodies to farm it or protect it from invasion. Damage
that would easily take half a century to recover from.
So long before the end of the 1st Blight they were already
failing and weak as Dumat's impressive reign of terror
carried on. 

By the time Andraste organized the cultists under her banner,
the Imperium was already a dying creature, retreating to
smaller borders they could reasonably defend.

So the Tevinter Imperium was less ended by Andraste's
Exalted March than they were just simply already in decline
from the Blight.  Her coming was merely politically advantageous
at a time when in the aftermath of 200 years of incomprehensible
suffering and loss, people needed a "reason" for it all.  A scape goat.

At any rate, she organized and militarized the freaky "Maker
cultists" and started the beginnings of what would down the
road formally become the "Chantry", based around her gospel.

...a paramilitary Jesus with tits.  Actually Muhammad was more of
the paramilitary Messianic figure.  So she was more like a Celtic
Chieftess Messiah with
delusions of grandeur and charisma to waste.

The book you find as a gift for Wynn that postulates Andraste
might not have been the Maker's Chosen but simply a really
powerful mage is given creedence by the fact that she was an
escaped Tevinter slave.  And DA2 you find that the Tevinter
experimented on slaves (mage gifted and not) to find ways to
enhance magical powers without having to experiment on themselves.

Oh, and her named wasn't Andraste.  Her name was Augusta.
Her followers renamed her after her death.



2nd Blight--Ended by the Warden Corin: A Tevinter human male


Even though not as bad as the first Blight, this one lasted 45
years!  Still showing how light Ferelden got off with this
5th Blight. It came about 200 years after the first one.


This Blight erupted right near the Warden's and led to, among
other things, a long seige at even Weisshaupt.  The Darkspawn
movement here seems to indicate to me the desire for solid
annihilation of what they KNOW was their downfall last time.
Making this Blight's surface location almost seem premeditated.
It carried all over though.

During the final battle, the Battle of Starkhaven, the Grey
Warden Corin's lover and fellow Grey Warden, Neriah,
threw herself in front of an emissary's bolt to shield him. She
was slain, but Corin thankfully survived long enough to plunge
his blade into the 2nd Archdemon, Zazikel.

So there you go...  

This was during a political hayday for the Wardens and Orlais
too and was when the the Warden's formally converted to the
Chantry--basically because the bulk of their backup was provided
by the Orlisian Emperors. 

It was that Emperor's son who provided backup for the final fight.
In the near half century this Blight took to stop, the original
Orlisian Emperor who originally helped free up the Anderfels
died of natural causes and his son took up the armies to back the
Wardens.  This whole thing is a great metaphor for Charlemagne's
reign as holy roman emperor, right up through the part where his son
tries to finish his work but isn't nearly the great person and
sort of fumbles the ball.

Weisshaupt "informed" the Emperor that the Anderfels were
independent, for the Wardens. 

Like I said, the 2nd Orlisian Emperor's son was a great guy, but
he wasn't his dad.  Old man Emperor would have smacked the Grey
Wardens about and reminded them that Anders is only still there
because of Orlisian backup during that Blight.


3rd Blight--

Again, there is no Canon identity for this Warden. Which is
sad because the 3rd Archdemon, Toth, is a real creepy badass.

Again, about 200 years since the last Blight.  These first
Blights seemed to be closer together by half as many centuries.
This third Blight was only 15 years long.  But still a lot longer a
battle to wage than occurs in DA Origins.  It wouldn't have
lasted THAT long except that that the Blight darkspawn attack wasn't
ground zero in the middle of the Tevinter or the Orlisian
Empires this time--so they decided to play "neutral" and not get
involved until toward the end when the Warden's twisted their arms.

So the Freeholds got shafted for 15 years until the Warden's
prevailed upon Orlais and Orlais prevailed upon Tevinter and
SOME poor Warden was then able to stop Toth.  

This was due also partly because in the 50 years prior to Toth's
awakening, the Exalted March on the Dales occurred, plus the Freeholds
claimed true independence and even tried claiming more land. So there
was some bitter feelings--as Tevinter had been the Freeholds ally
in the attempt and Orlais its enemy.  That is, until Tevinter betrayed the
Freeholds to make allies of the bigger, more powerful Orlais.  
So when the 3rd Blight came, no-one liked anyone else and it took
the Wardens nearly 15 years to remind everyone that it didn't farkin'
matter who liked who if no one was left alive to hate each other later.

Incidentally, this 3rd Blight happened about 60 years after the
start of the exalted march on the Dales. The march on the Dales lasted
a while and it carried over into war with the Freeholds.  Those elves
were tough little suckers.  Orlais couldn't kick their asses alone, so
they got the Chantry involved which brought forces from everywhere to
kick knife-ear butt.  Otherwise, the elves would still live in the
Dales, free.

This Blight stood out for the sheer massive, uncanny
amounts of darkspawn that flooded out, even by the standards of
previous Blights--with regard to speed.  More numbers were
appearing faster at this time than in any other Blight and I have
a suspicion that it's at this point that brood mothers came largely
into use. The previous Blights lasted longer but built slower, with
the main body of darkspawn seeming to come from plague spread.
This 3rd Blight, they all just suddenly "showed up" in huge numbers
out of nowhere...kind of like in the 5th Blight. Toth is,
unless I'm wrong, kind of the Tevinter God of the underworld
and that whole brood mother thing might well have started with
his sick little ass.

Who knows...

But I really WANNA know the Warden that ended this Blight.  I am
hoping some of the books clear up the names of the two missing
Warden's entombed at Weisshaupt.

4th Blight--ended by the Warden Garahel: elven former Tevinter slave

Andoral was the archdemon this time. Fun fact, the Chantry was
just finishing up another exalted march on the Tevinter Imperium
when Andoral woke up.  It wasn't really "another" whole march, but
the Chantry has all along done periodic military "encouragements"
against Tevinter to convince them to become fully Andrastian.  It's
never worked, as the Tevinter is a mage-ocracy and the Chantry
decries giving power to mages. But, cheery folks that the Chantry are
they keep trying...at the point of a sword.  And Tevinter keeps resisting,
at the end of a staff.  One such notable campaign was ending just as
Andoral was woken and I can't half think that's coincidence.

But maybe it was. But I think there is a force ABOVE ground helping
all the Blights along.

Why?

In the 1st Blight, the Wardens chose a central but remote location
to start-up and kick ass from the inside of Blighted territories
outward.  And the Blight dies a hard death, taken by surprise.
But in the 200 years it held sway, humans aren't eradicated, they're driven down,
owned, put in extreme situations but always there's a mysterious surviving
infrastructure to sort of hold them together behind the curtain.  Why, if Dumat
had that kind of sway for THAT long, didn't he just wipe everything out? 
There weren't Wardens to stop him for almost 100 years.

Cause he was there on someone's sufferance, that's why.  There's more to
the Darkspawn tale that we don't know and the Chantry isn't telling all,
if they even know for sure.

Also something that makes me think this is still driven by forces above ground...

In the 2nd Blight, the whole horde erupts right on top of the Wardens and I
suspect this was because they hoped to wipe them out early.  This smacks of
premeditation. 

In later Blights after the first two devastatingly hard fought and lost
wars, the hordes stop this direct fighting.  As though they either know or
HAVE BEEN TOLD it's not a good tactic.  In the 3rd Blight they
keep to the Freeholds which are far from Wardens.  So Tevinter encourages
the Freeholds to start a war for their independence with the promise that they
will back them so it's all possible to win against the giant Orlisian Empire. 
Then for no real reason they betray the Freeholders to Orlais, leaving the Free-
holds (1)politically unrestful within as they default to tribal tensions, (2) economically
unstable because of strife with Antiva inspired by Tevinter's empty promise of
expansion support, (3) without exterior allies from ANY other land and economic,
military and social pressure from Orlais (and by defacto, the Chantry)

With this 4th Blight they appear In Antiva moving
to the Freeholds again. It's of note that STILL, Neither
place has enough Wardens. And as observed In DA Origins, it's seems they
know where Wardens are. Once the campaign on Antiva and the Freeholds gets
going, suddenly THEN a Darkspawn horde breaks through to the surface right on top of  the Anderfels. A great distraction to keep the Wardens from marching to the rescue of the Freeholds and Antiva.

Orlais' and Tevinter get smacked with a few token darkspawn as
well but have plenty of troops to fight them off and do so easily. 

AND THEN DON'T SEND REINFORCEMENTS ANYWHERE!

The one constant in all this is that every since the first Blight was defeated, Tevinter
politics have coincidentally left the area that WILL later be the root of the next Blight
eruption vulnerable just prior to that attack in terms of interior politics, exterior alies
and military support from the Wardens. 

In the 4th Blight the entire Antivan Royal family is wiped out by the first wave.  Why
would mindless Darkspawn care about making sure that every last one of a ruling
bloodline is decimated right out of the gate?

This shit is tactical.  Darkspawn are unthinking my big fat ass! Not
only are they thinking, plotting little bastards, the 4th Blight
drives home for me even more that they may still have contact with powers
that be in Tevinter.

I need to play DA2 (and 3 when it comes out) so I can substantiate some of
my suspicions.

At any rate, what happens in the 4th Blight is Garahel, the total bad-ass, comes from
Weisshaupt rallying local warriors from that countryside and leads a
massive attack of regular Anders and Grey Wardens to free up the
Anderfels.  Then he gathers Wardens from Orlais and other places and
heads to the Freeholds where he kicks utter darkspawn ass and then unites
their rather tribal chieftan setup under him so he can take the whole
motley body of Anders, Wardens and Freeholders North to face the seat of
the horde, still squatting on top of Antiva.

He engages Andoral in single combat and succeeds, becoming the 4th Warden to
sacrifice himself to stop a Blight.    

I want Garahel fanfic!!!!  Squeee!!!!

*ahem*  Anyway...yeah, I overthink things.