Confession: I hate how the kossith are referred to as Qunari as a people. They are only Qunari if the follow the Qun, and any race can be Qunari.
To anyone in Thedas who doesn’t know any better, they’re all Qunari. The culture and the religion are one and the same thing.
“But what about the followers of the Qun who aren’t big, horned people?”
Properly, they’re viddathari. But since nobody would know what that means, you can call them “elven Qunari", “human Qunari" or what have you. They are, after all, exceptions to the rule.
“But what about big, horned people who aren’t followers of the Qun?”
Properly, they’re Tal’Vashoth. Again, since few would know what that means, they’d just be called Qunari (to their annoyance, but they’re likely used to it).
“But that’s confusing!”
No, it’s really not. It’s about as confusing as “Jewish", and insisting on “kossith" because it’s mentioned in a few codex entries makes about as much sense as insisting someone of Jewish descent be referred to as either Ashkenazi or Sephardim— as if that would be clearer for most people.
Of course, when I bring this up I get a round of “ohhh, Gaider’s upset again.“ I’m not upset in the slightest. Kossith is simply an antiquated term that would be used by neither the Qunari nor the Tal’Vashoth and has never even been heard of by anyone else in Thedas, so it’s not apt to be used in-game anytime soon. Thus people insisting on its usage as “proper” when most people who’ve even played the game have never heard of it just makes me scratch my head. It’s bizarre, particularly on the odd occasion when someone schools another fan about it— like they’re just not educated enough to know they should be confused.
We’ll call them Qunari. If we feel the need to distinguish from the norm, either in terms of race or religion, we’ll do so… and the only people who’ll be confused are those who enjoy overthinking it.
okay but
this still doesn’t make sense
Comparing Qunari and their various layers of ethnicities to Jewish people, who are also of many various combinations of nationality and ethnicity, doesn’t quite make sense because deep down all Jewish people are still the same species. They are all still human. Humans, who are the only sapient humanoid species on the planet.
As opposed to qunari who are not. They share Thedas with (at least) three other races of similar builds and body types. Each species has its own name because each species is different and, thus, really does require its own identity.
What people are arguing is the semantics of identifying different qunari from each other when we know, from in-game lore, that not all qunari follow the Qun. Just from the game, we have
- Qunari in general, those who are the big grey giant folks who follow the philosophy of the Qun, and the most common ones we meet in general.
- Tal’Vashoth, those who vehemently oppose the Qun with violence and criminal acts for reasons unknown
- Fog Warriors, those who want freedom from both the Qun and the Imperium but who don’t seem to want to destroy the Qun in the same way that the T’V do.
- The race from which the Qunari came from, who may or may not still exist in their former homeland
- Non-qunari like Maraas who do not wish to be in the Qun but who are not associated with the T’V or the Fog Warriors or whoever
- Possibilities of those who are unable to come home, like Sten would have been if the Warden doesn’t get back his sword, thus they are Qunari by belief but cannot be said as Qunari by association because they are effectively exiles
- Any other number of the race who have been born outside of the Qun, such as those who are enslaved by the Imperium; the World of Thedas featured art like this, and the Qunari and Imperium have been fighting for so long that I honestly would be surprised if there weren’t many slaves of qunari origin born into slavery in Tevinter.
So this is where it gets confusing for fans. We KNOW that those who follow the Qun are Qunari. No one’s debating that. Tal’Vashoth, also, gives us a clear identity of who they are and what they do!
But what about those like the Fog Warriors who aren’t Qunari but also not Tal’Vashoth? Fog Warriors presumably have individuals who aren’t qunari but human and elvish, but what do we call the others who are Qunari-but-not-Qunari-anymore? Or what about individuals like Maraas or Armaas, who don’t have association with the Qun, the latter of which gets openly offended if you call him as such, if I recall correctly? What are we supposed to call them? Qunari? Qunari-who-aren’t-really-Qunari? Kinda-Qunari?
We’re not talking about social constructs here, but rather what the actual biological species is supposed to be called. Thedas is too large for every single of this species to actually be Qunari. This trips up a lot of fans whether they’re doing fanfic or RP or meta or whatever.
It also confuses me on a base level because I think even the Qunari themselves would realize that words linking one to their species are in fact necessary and helpful. What are they gonna tell each other when they encounter a disease that only affects them but not the others? “Only treat those of us who tend to be tall and have horns and shit, kadan"? Qunari are supposed to be efficient, and to know the value of words. It comes off as poor world-building to me that a culture obsessed with perfection and knowing everything and control would completely blow off any words that would identify the very real reality that they are not the same biological species as elves, humans, and dwarves.
tldr: this is not about reading too much into stuff, it’s about basic failure within the lore of understanding how language works — both among real fans and the fictional characters themselves — in regards to identifying markers that are important to whatever they’re talking about when we’re talking about who/what someone is outside whatever militant form of Taoism they follow. This isn’t a debate about what the PEOPLE OF THEDAS call them because we KNOW they’re all gonna call them ‘qunari’ regardless. This is an ongoing debate of what we the fans are supposed to call them.
(also man if you’re gonna jab at people for overthinking crap, you helped create the wrong frandom, bro)
Kirkwall Was Totally Built On a Hellmouth 