A Look at Marethari from Dragon Age II

[Winter]

For years I've been trying to figure out what I think of Marethari, Merrill's mentor and surrogate mother, as we're told a number of things about her, how she's a great leader of the Dalish and is framed as one of the more reasonable authority figures yet her actions throughout the game don't paint her in the best light. For a while I always had this strange feeling whenever I interacted with her and after finishing She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and going back to DA2 I finally figured out what my feelings about Marethari is. I Hate Her!

I mean I Really HATE her. And the reason I hate her is simply, she's an abusive parent towards Merrill. Not physically abusive but CERTAINLY Emotionally abusive as she checks off almost ever single box for an abusive person. She actively or attempts to alienates those around Merrill, turning the entire clan against her to the point that many of them see her as a monster because that's what Marethari told them Merrill was becoming when Merrill proved that with the taint removed that the Eluvian was not dangerous by nature as Marethari had said it was.

She actively belittles and criticizes Merrill at every turn and does all she can to make sure that opinion is shared by others, be it her clan or Hawke. And finally, she puts Merrill in a position to fail when she, Marethari, allows the demon to possess her WITHOUT telling her clan who, I'll remind you, Marethari spent the better part of a decade turning them AGAINST Merrill so the only conclusion they would come to is that Merrill killed Marethari. And while that's true it only happened because Marethari refused to give Merrill the chance to prove herself.

Some of this is left open to interpratation but for me, Marethari refusing to give Merrill a chance and destroying all safe methods of repairing the Eluvian comes off as less her trying to save Merrill from a terrible fate and more like her trying to prevent Merrill from being proven right about the Eluvian. Much like Nick in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, EVERY Death in Merrill's arc is Marethari's fault. Had she trusted Merrill and didn't turn the clan against her it's likely that NO ONE would have died or, at the very least, the death toll would have been smaller. But she instead put everything at risk to seemingly protect her surrogate daughter but for me it comes off as more of an attempt to make sure that Merrill was proven wrong.

And because of Dragon Age: Inquisition we KNOW Merrill is right and that Marethari might have caused more damage then we know. Minor Spoilers incoming: We know the Eluvians aren't inherently dangerous, we know that Blood Magic isn't inherently evil and we KNOW from not only Inquisition but also from ORIGINS that Spirits DO wish to help mortals with no thought of harming them AND with Inquisition we know that Spirits can be corrupted by the thoughts of a mortal or if the mortal forces the spirit to do something against it's nature.

It's entirely possible that Marethari's, unknowingly, corrupted a Spirit of Wisdom either because she always believed that's what the Spirit was or that her Pride corrupted the Spirit when she offered to let it possess her instead of possibly possessing Merrill. Yes the Spirit does say that it was trapped and that it was goes to possess Merrill but we only learn this AFTER it's possessed Marethari and everything it say could be applied to Marethari and also note how condescending the Demon is to Merrill. It calls Merrill weak, saying that it chose her because of her weakness and obsession and was only using her to get it's freedom. All of which is what Marethari said to Merrill before so while it COULD be the Demon speaking it's just as likely to be Marethari without filter on.

What Marethari is no better then Shadow Weaver and next to Anders is the reason I never look forward to playing DA2.

[CharlesPhipps]

I have a deep and abiding respect for the writing behind Marethari because she's trying to handle the situation with a wise and steady hand but she's having an entirely different conversation with Merrill than Merrill is having with her. They are talking past one another and if you side with one or the other then you are misunderstanding the situation. The writing is quite clear that both of them are wrong and yet simultaneously are operating from perfectly rationale thought processes based on the information they have.

Part of this begins with Blood Magic.

"Is Blood Magic actually evil because of the way you use it and not innately?"

The answer is no. According to David Gaider, creator of Dragon Age, Blood Magic is explicitly a sucker's bet like the Joker putting a big sign over a custard-covered bomb that says, FREE PIE. Blood Magic is not science and Merrill is not Galileo. It's a trap that's designed to ensnare mortals and bring more demons into the physical plane. It can be used for a lot of things but it's gifted directly to mortals via brain-download and designed to be almost impossible to understand. Why? Because it's FREE PIE.

Note: Inquisition is the one game where you can't become a Blood Mage and Hawke is retconned as hating it.

"Would Merrill's plan have worked?"

No, Merrill would have been possessed by the Pride Demon and we would have had to have killed her. That's a major part of the climax. Marathari saved Merrill from possession and death by sacrificing herself. There was nothing that was going to prevent her from being possessed and nothing that could persuade Merrill to stop her research.

"Is Marethari spreading lies about Merrill?"

I dunno, it depends on how you define lies. Merrill terrifies her clan because she's a Blood Mage. This isn't false. She is a Blood Mage. She summons demons, communicates with them, binds them, and harnesses the power of the living to fuel her magic. She's the same dorky nerdy girl with the best intentions as always. The problem is she's playing with Plutonium and there is no actual way to harness it safely.

"Merrill does not listen to a word that comes out of anyone's mouth"

Merrill is deeply up her own ass. I love her but she is. Merrill thinks that once she repairs the Illuvian that everyone will accept her, call her the prettiest pony there is, realize they were wrong about Blood Magic, and make her their Queen. This is not going to happen. Even if she repairs it, no one will accept an Illuvian that was repaired with Blood Magic. It is going to be considered tainted and warped. It is also going to make any future associations with elven magic suspect because Blood Magic is universally reviled.

Merrill doesn't CARE about what they think now or what they're telling her because she expects their culture to conform to HER idea of what is right. As such, she's completely delusional and her research is pointless. As we see in the end when she has a working Illuvian and she's an exile from the Dalish.

[Winter]

We don't actually know if Merrill's plan would have worked or not as she was never given a chance to test it and even if it did the only person at risk would have been Merrill herself but Marethari choose to save Merrill even though doing so would doubtlessly put Merrill in danger of because of the hate her clan and developed for her. Agaim, we can't trust anything the demon says because we don't know if it's telling the truth or if it's Marethari saying what she believes the demon was.

Also keep in mind that Merrill was taking precautions, such as asking Hawke to kill her if the Demon possessed her, to make sure that if anything went wrong no one would be hurt but her.

It's stated, in the game, that Marethari went out of her way to make the rest of the clan hate and fear Merrill by exaggerating how much Merrill was influenced by the spirit (she knows all Merrill did was learn blood magic from the spirit, but otherwise avoided any further contact for years), the point that the rest of the Clan openly despise Merrill as little more than a demon wearing elven skin, even before Hawke even shows up. That's not an opinion, it's stated by a number of Dalish in the clan and by Marethari herself that's what she's been doing.

Note that after Pol's death when Merrill asks Marethari why he reacted the way he did she says that she was the one who told the clan about what was going on and also that she, Merrill, is the one who brought the hatred of the clan on herself. This is Victim Blaming. It's not the abusers fault that they hit their victims the victims are the ones at fault for their own pain. Again, this isn't an opinion, it's stated in the Game!

Yes, Merrill doesn't agree with Marethari about the nature of the Eluvian but again Marethari has made it impossible for Merrill to safely research the Eluvian at every turn. In fact, the only reason Merrill was going back to the Spirit/Demon was because she wanted to learn the password to unlock the Eluvian. It was a last resort NOT her default plan and again, Marethari was the one made looking for any and all other options impossible.

Am I reading to much into this, maybe, but I've had to deal with abusers in the real world so I do have some experience in this matter to call upon.

[CharlesPhipps]

Victim blaming is an interesting way to put it when, again, Merrill is a Blood Mage. Even if she's 100% safe and takes all the necessary precautions, she's begun experiments that will bring down the wrath of the Templars and society at large on their heads if they are found out. Things that run the risk of summoning demons, killing everyone around them, and other things. Experiments that the Keeper as their selected leader has expressly forbidden and she just went, "Eh, tough noogies."

We've seen how Blood Magic can go catastrophically wrong multiple times in the Dragon Age saga, even with incredibly talented thinkers. Warden's Keep was turned into a hellhole of demons and monsters. The Tower of Fereldan was also turned into a nightmarish Hellraiser-esque flesh monstrosity.

The thing that complicates any discussion of Merrill being a victim of persecution is she's absolutely guilty of going against her people's laws and leadership. She's also someone any other Dalish Clan would have killed for what she'd done but was spared because Marethari refused to do it. In a culture that is violently traditionalist, she was just told to go away. Marethari holds out the futile hope that Merrill will come back home.

But Merrill has rejected the Dalish Way for her way that she claims is the right way.

You're right that maybe Merrill could have succeeded in defeating the Pride Demon and forcing the Illuvian to work. In fact, that's literally what happened. Maratheri died at the hands of the Pride Demon and the Pride Demon was killed but Merrill got what she needed out of the experience. Your argument is that her clan would have accepted her if not for Maratheri's rumor mongering.

But would they have? Should they have?

We've seen that Merrill is vulnerable just like all mortals as she turns on Hawke just like the rest of his crew can at the hands of the Demon in the Fade. The Illuvian is her obsession and she thinks that it justifies everything.

[Winter]

Victim blaming is an interesting way to put it when, again, Merrill is a Blood Mage.

Magic is Magic, it matters only how one wields it. Using your own blood or that of a willing participant harms no one. This isn't hyperbole it's shown in the series itself. Yes, we've seen more blood mages then good ones but as you pointed out DAO and DA2 you, as the player, can use blood magic with no real problem so Blood magic, on it's own, ISN'T dangerous.

Was it used to harm people who by mages in the series, yes, but as Dorian and Solas pointed out that the real problem isn't that it's used it's that it's abused. Solas doesn't use blood magic because it weakens ones connection to the fade and Dorian doesn't use it because he doesn't see a need for it. We've seen plenty of mages who were rather nasty pieces of work that didn't use blood magic and plenty of none mages where were just as twisted as any blood mage and they, obviously, didn't have access to blood magic.

And finally, technically speaking EVERYONE in Thedas uses blood magic. Lyrium is literally the blood of a Titan and therefore everyone who uses lyrium is either preforming blood magic, mages, or using a form blood magic to grant them powers, Templars. Blood Magic and, by extension, doesn't really mean anything when you realize that everyone is basically guilty of it. Remember this I'll swing back around to it in a bit.

But to go back to Merrill and Marethari, even if we ignore that everyone who uses lyrium, (so ever mage and Templar we're bet in the series so far) is preforming a form blood magic it wouldn't matter because Merrill's clan is only in this situation because of Marethari actions. Pol's death was a result of him running away from Merrill in terror because of the rumors Marethari started, she flat out states that she told the clan what Merrill was doing and exaggerated how bad it really was.

One thing to keep in mind, is this bit. When Merrill first looked into the Eluvian, Marethari pointed to Tamlen and possibly Mahariel dying after touching it as "proof" that it was too dangerous to investigate further. However, even after Merrill proved the eluvian was only dangerous to handle due to being corrupted by the darkspawn taint, which Merrill purged herself with a cleansing ritual, Marethari immediately pointed to Merrill using blood magic to power the ritual as "proof" that it's still dangerous and still leading Merrill down a dark path.

Merrill wasn't actually going to use blood magic to cleanse the Eluvian, she was going to just use lyrium to cleanse the shared but Marethari refused which lead to Merrill using blood magic. The funny thing is no matter what the ritual to cleanse the shard would have been blood magic no matter what because, again, lyrium is the blood of a titan. Merrill using her own blood is no different then using lyrium so by all accounts Merrill didn't actually do anything wrong. Magic is Magic.

One last thing, Marethari reason for not wanting to restore the Eluvian isn't based on overall evidence or piror experience that she possess and Merrill doesn't (she knows as much/as little as Merrill does) but because the knowledge of how to use the Eluvians was lost for a reason. This is basically Ian Malcolm's "Nature selected Dinosaurs for a reason" 'argument' and frankly it's just as weak as Malcom's "argument" because it's arguing from a position of ignorance.

Marethari knows NOTHING about the Eluvian and Merrill actually learns more about it by actually studying it AND Proves that it's not inherently dangerous when she is able to remove the taint from one of the shards. On top of that we know what the Eluvians really are, teleporters. That's it. That's the dangerous knowledge that was "lost for a reason" and easier means of transportation.

Was there a danger in studying the eluvian? Yes, but honestly not as much as Marethari had claimed and if she had just allowed Merrill to study it safely instead of stonewalling her at every opportunity Merrill might likely have been approached by the Spirit/Demon, might never had learned blood magic, might have found out what it really was a LOT sooner and the clan might not have stayed in the Worst City in the history of Speculative Fiction.

Again, just like Nedry and Nick from Jurassic Park, everything that goes wrong in Merrill's story is ultimately the fault of Marethari. She's the one who turned on the clan on Merrill (which led to Pol's death) she's the one who stays in Kirkwall which posses a greater threat to the clan then Merrill's blood magic ever did (this is even pointed out by just about every member of the clan in DA2 who are all wondering why they're still in Kirkwall after 9 years) and her own death and the possible death of her whole clan, is a result of her A) turning her whole clan against Merrill. B) Prioritizing Merrill over the whole clan and C) Not telling her clan what she was going to do so there wouldn't be any misunderstandings.

Honestly things might have turned out better if Marethari took the clan away from Kirkwall. But she choose to stay and try to stop Merrill from repairing the eluvian and kept trying to tell her to return to the clan. The clan she had spent the better part of a decade turning against Merrill.

In one of my favorite games Tomb Raider: A Survivor is Born, Lara makes a choice that results in her, her best friend/possibly love interest and crew stranded on a island that houses a crazed demigod and a crazy cult that worships her. Lara spends the whole game doing everything in her power to protect Sam and the others and to get them off Yamatai. Marethari makes a series a questionable choices that can lead to the death of her and her whole clan and spends most of her time blaming Merrill for why everything is going so bad.

In the end you are always alone with your choices and I honestly feel that Marethari are the ones that lead to everything so bad.

[CharlesPhipps]

Lyrium being Titan Blood just gives a reason not to use it versus justifying its existence. Better no one uses Blood Magic than everyone.

As mentioned, David Gaider said this was never the intention of the games and that it went contrary to what Blood Magic was supposed to be about. Yes, you can learn Blood Magic but in Origins it's only if you sacrifice a child to a demon in order to get it. In Dragon Age 2, Hawke can learn Blood Magic but it's pretty much established this is greatly out of character as the discovery his father did it even to save his mother is meant to be something that disgusts him/her (and is retconned as the canonical reaction they had in Inquisition).

Blood Magic being a bad idea doesn't mean it doesn't have its uses. Part of the nature of Dragon Age is that hard choices are things that must be made. The Grey Wardens only exist because of Blood Magic allowing them to make themselves pseudo-Darkspawn that keep their humanity and allow them to destroy the spirits of the Old Gods. However, that's not actually a moral validation of it or the danger. It's just that sometimes there's no good choices.

While you raise a point that Marethari is questionable about driving Merrill to Blood Magic by forbidding her to use lyrium, it's a bit of a nonsensical argument that she was "forced" into it. No sane person in Thedas would feel that they are breaking LESS laws by using Blood Magic instead of Lyrium and Merrill continues using Blood Magic after her exile.

But let's actually put aside the morality of blood magic. Let's say, as you suggest, it's just very-very dangerous but not inherently amoral. It still falls under the Keeper's authority to state, "No, don't. Do not touch this. Do not do this." Merrill refuses to acknowledge Marethari's authority as keeper because she believes she knows better and sees her as a mother rather than her boss. Maybe Merrill could continue her investigations when she was Keeper but she chose not to. Maybe you think authority is bullshit but on the Starship Dalish, Marethari is still Captain.

And there's nothing wrong with the argument messing with Blood Magic to fix the Illuvian is too dangerous to risk.

Mind you, we know something that is only implied by Marethari and she's outright keeping from Merrill and the other Dalish. Marethari is friends with Flemeth and thus has direct honest to goddess access to a goddess of the elves who can inform her that the culture they revere is a shit one. The Dalish in Inquisition are revealed to have been the slave caste of the elves and the Illuvians were tools belonging to the Blood Magic using archwizards ala the Tevinter. Recovering their "heritage" is not what the Dalish really want as it's like lionizing the Antebellum South.

While you blame Marethari for not giving anything other than vague reasons for not messing with Blood Magic (albeit, "You could possibly kill us all if it goes wrong" is a self-obvious one), there is a simple question: who is Merrill making the Illuvian for? Her tribe doesn't want her to do it, her mentor (who taught her magic--just not blood magic that Merill had to have learned from demons) doesn't want it, so who is Merrill benefiting by succeeding? We discover the answer in Inquisition: no one. The Illuvian, if repaired, is one more door in the Hall of Mirrors but it's used by no one.

[Winter]

Minor correction, you don't need to sacrifice Connor to learn blood magic, as shown in Chuck's review you can learn it if you have a high enough charm level so it doesn't require you to kill anyone to learn how to use it. Again, magic is magic and it only matters in how one wields it. As for Gaider's comments on Blood magic, that's likely how BM was suppose to be viewed but other writers came in and took a different approach that BM doesn't corrupt the user anymore then regular magic does.

As to you other major question, who is the Eluvian for, this is answered in the game itself she's doing it for all Elves, to reclaim part of their history which the elves are losing more as time goes on. And as for what it could accomplish if she had been able to repair it WOULD have been something else. She would have either found the Crossroads (which would have been a rather massive discovery as Merrill would have found another Bloody plain or reality) or have found out the mirror allows for basic teleportation over hundreds if not THOUSANDS of miles. And neither case would be that dangerous as shown in Inquisition so Marethari's argument that the Eluvian is dangerous and restoring it would only bring ruin upon the Dalish is unfounded.

But we've gotten off topic as to why I dislike Marethari which is that she is, when you get down to it, an abusive parent. I've no doubt that she truly loves Merrill as a daughter but as She-Ra made clear that DOESN'T excuse mistreating and abusing anyone. Whatever Marethari knows or doesn't know from her connection with Flemeth (which I think was just a case off Flemeth helping to kill humans that killed Marethari's husband and several members of her clan) that doesn't give her any right to treat Merrill as she does.

Again, she turns the clan against her, exaggerating how much the Spirit/Demon had influenced her and made sure that the clan was so afraid of her that one of them ran straight into a monster's lair rather then deal with Merrill. That death is on Maretherai's hands yet she says it's Merrill's fault for why the clan hates her. This is a classic abuse tactic "Why Did You Make Me Hit You", this is where the abuser frames events in such a way that implies that it's the victims fault that things are so out of hand.

Did Marethari need to warn the clan that Merrill had learned Blood Magic and was working with a demon? Yes. Did she need to make it out in such a way that framed Merrill in the worst light because Merrill disobeyed her. Yes Marethari was in her right to make sure that there was a risk to the clan but framing everything events in a way that would insure that everyone hated Merrill was wrong.

Yes, she was well within her right to refuse to help Merrill and to tell her that this was a bad idea and the game frames things to make it seem that Marethari is in the right. But there's authors intent and what is actually shown and what is learned as the story goes on. Remember we CAN'T trust anything the Spirit/Demon said, before or after Marethari was possessed.

It COULD have been a helpful spirit that was corrupted into a demon by Marethari's pride or it could have been a demon all along but we don't know that. It's possible that Marethari knew more about the Eluvian because of something Flemeth told her or she could have been arguing purely from a point of ignorance and was assuming it was dangerous purely out of fear of the unknown. But we don't know that. It's entirely possible that fully fixing the Eluvian could have resulted in unleashing some terrible disaster upon the clan or it could have lead to some great discovery that would allow the Elves to reclaim some of their lost history. But we don't know that.

What we do know, and what I have stated to be the case throughout this whole topic, is that everything that goes wrong in Merrill's story. All the deaths and possible deaths of the Dalish clan is the result of Marethari's choices. Pol died because of the lies Marethari told about Merrill, the harassment of the Dalish by the Templars is because Marethari refused to move on from Kirkwall even as the Dalish had run out of animals to hunt. And the possible death of the Dalish clan is the result of Marethari letting the Spirit/Demon to possess her without telling the clan that.

Was Marethari helpful. Yes, without her half human half elf kid chances of recovering would have been far worse. But in the end she did more harm then good and her treatment of Merrill is just plain abusive.

To go over to She-Ra, Catra loves Adora and does care for Scorpia and Entrapta but she was abusive towards them and she pulled many of the same $#!t Marethari did. But Catra came to realize the monster she had become and worked to amend for her crimes. Marethari views herself as completely in the right and justifies her all her abuse towards Merrill in the name of love and to protect her and never once wonders if she is part of the problem and instead puts all the blame on her surrogate daughter.

[CharlesPhipps]

Yes, you INTIMIDATE the demon via Charm into doing it. Scaring the horrifying creature of pure evil into teaching you Blood Magic.

Fundamentally, we disagree about the abuse of Marethari because I find it abusive to think that someone would allow their child figure to endanger her other children. You don't see Blood Magic is dangerous but Marethari knows it's horrifically dangerous and it's a responsibility of hers as Keeper to protect the Dalish from the nightmare that Merill brings down on them.

She-Ra and Catra didn't get a bunch of other children potentially killed by bringing demons into their compound, however well controlled. Marethari's affection for Merrill prevented her from doing something to protect her tribe, where her chief responsibility was, and meant they stayed around a cursed haunted mountain for years waiting for her to come back. It showed her loyalty was to Merrill over her people and that was not a good look.

Frankly, Marethari failed as a Keeper and it should have been more direct in her action against Merill. She loved her way to put down a Blood Mage and instead her half-measures got her killed. No Blood Magic, not even once.

But your opinion is your opinion and it was a good conversation.

It COULD have been a helpful spirit that was corrupted into a demon by Marethari's pride or it could have been a demon all along but we don't know that.

One last bit that confuses me. Merrill doesn't believe in good spirits. This is actually a major part of her reaction to Anders. Merrill would treat a Spirit of Wisdom the same way she would a Spirit of Pride. Both dangerous soulless monsters that exist to be used. It's Anders and Chantry folk who believe in good vs. evil spirits. Merrill says flat out they're both equally dangerous. She also says this is a demon.

[Winter]

Merrill is not a child and neither is the rest of the clan. They are all adults and can make their own choices, good or bad and again, Merrill actions cause less problems for the clan then Marethari's own choices. Again, every death and every possible death are all her fault. No one in the clan dies because of Merrill's blood magic, not one.

Catra DID get a bunch of people killed. She led a war to conquer Etheria and she activated a reality destroying device just to spite Adora. But many fans are willing to forgive that because, well, Glimmer and Entrapta both make EQUALLY bad choices and like Glimmer and Entrapta, Catra admits her mistakes and works to better herself.

True on the point that Merrill doesn't trust the demon but, for me, that shows she's aware of the danger she's dealing with and takes steps to avoid it. Like I said before, when she goes to deal with the demon again she takes steps to ensure that it can't can't hurt anyone besides her. Merrill considers her actions that the threat she faces and thinks of how it can hurt others while Maretherai only thinks about Merrill and just assumes that her choice is the better one.

I myself said we can't trust anything the Spirit/Demon says before or after it possessed Maretherai as we don't know if what it said was true or just a lie. We can't assume that it was a wisdom spirit or a pride demon or if it Wisdom Spirit that was corrupted into a pride demon by Marethari's view of it.

My point was that that we can't use the Spirit/Demon as a means of judging if Marethari or Merrill was right or wrong as we don't know much about it and what we "Learn" about it can't be trusted. We know from Anders that otherwise good spirits can be corrupted into demons ones who take on the opinions and view point of the person they possess with their own views being altered or completely erased.

But at this point we're going in circles, agree to disagree?

[CharlesPhipps]

Merrill is not a child and neither is the rest of the clan. They are all adults and can make their own choices, good or bad and again, Merrill actions cause less problems for the clan then Marethari's own choices. Again, every death and every possible death are all her fault. No one in the clan dies because of Merrill's blood magic, not one

Except for all the people who die because Merrill ignores the order by her Keeper not to do Blood Magic and keeps hanging around them. All of Marethari's decisions are predicated on the idea of trying to keep Blood Magic out of the Clan and Merrill ignoring them. You're saying that the problem is the laws and societal taboos against blood magic but ignoring those exist for good reason. If your position is "Blood Magic is good and everyone who forbids it is an ignorant fool" that's your position but its one that huge chunks of the continent correctly believe is insane.

Merrill is self-appointed to do all of her quest and there's no reason for any of the Dalish or their Keeper to indulge her on it.

True on the point that Merrill doesn't trust the demon but, for me, that shows she's aware of the danger she's dealing with and takes steps to avoid it. Like I said before, when she goes to deal with the demon again she takes steps to ensure that it can't can't hurt anyone besides her. Merrill considers her actions that the threat she faces and thinks of how it can hurt others while Maretherai only thinks about Merrill and just assumes that her choice is the better one.

Counterpoint, Merril's countermeasure is FOR HAWKE TO KILL HER. Marethari makes the decision she does based around the principle that either Merrill being killed or the demon to escape is unacceptable, so she allows herself to be possessed so Merrill survives no matter what. Given the way the demon behaves, there's no way it was going to deal fairly and its a very real possibility that Marethari took a third option to make herself the sacrifice necessary. Yes, it's POSSIBLE no one was going to get turned into a Pride Demon and need to be killed.

But it's very likely that if not for Marethari's actions, Merrill would be dead at Hawke's hands. Yes, that's preferrable to unleashing a Pride abomination. However, it's a pretty awful ending either way.

I myself said we can't trust anything the Spirit/Demon says before or after it possessed Maretherai as we don't know if what it said was true or just a lie. We can't assume that it was a wisdom spirit or a pride demon or if it Wisdom Spirit that was corrupted into a pride demon by Marethari's view of it.

The thing about Merrill is that she flat out would not see a difference. Merrill does not believe in Solas' view of spirits, she believes both are equally evil (or that evil doesn't exist in spirits as they're so binary). So the idea of a Spirit of Wisdom being "corrupted" into a Spirit of Pride is a stupid distinction to her. Both are equally dangerous.

Merrill is probably wrong here but that's just her very Blood Mage-esque viewpoint.

The game doesn't present the possibility that it was a corrupted spirit and Merrill acts like it's a demon so it COULD be that way but it probably isn't or the game would hint at it.