Dragon Age: Absolution Ending Explained: Connections to Dreadwolf and Beyond

The ending of Dragon Age: Absolution confirms a few things fans had already suspected and a few things they hadn't.

Dragon Age: Absolution has plenty of twists and turns in its six-episode opening run. It showed us the Tevinter Imperium for the first time, axed a character from Dragon Age: Inquisition, and gave us a new dangerous artifact to worry about. But all of these pales in comparison to the reveal in the final few seconds of the finale.

Halfway through the season, Hira (Sumalee Montano) kills Fairbanks (Matthew Mercer) and labels him a traitor, telling Miriam (Kimberly Brooks) they should take the artifact they were after, the Circulum Infinitus, to her contact in the city of Kirkwall instead of the rendezvous that Fairbanks had planned. And when Hira eventually reveals her betrayal and attempts to steal the Circulum for herself, she again mentions her intent to work with someone called the Crimson Knight who can be found in Kirkwall. This alone points to a connection with Dragon Age 2, as that game takes place almost entirely in Kirkwall.

Until the final moments of Season 1, we don't know who this contact is but when we finally see the Twins of Kirkwall, the massive statues that guard the city's port, it's not a familiar face we see but a familiar voice that we hear emanating from within a massive deposit of Red Lyrium. For those familiar with the series, there's only one person that could be.

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Why, Knight Commander Meredith Stannard (Jean Gilpin), of course. The moment a Red Lyrium-crusted Templar showed up on screen addressing their commander, it was clear there was only one person this could be. We don't see her as the Lyrium has grown so much that only her eyes can shine through the stone, but we hear her. And based on how she's set her sights on the Tevinter Imperium it seems she's still very much consumed by her desire to wipe out mages. But to truly understand the implications of her appearance, we need to back up a bit.

For those unfamiliar with the games (or in need of a refresher), here's the deal. Knight Commander Meredith was the head Templar at the Kirkwall Mage Tower. She's one of the main faction leaders in Dragon Age 2 where one of your biggest decisions involves siding with either the mages or the Templars in the struggle for mage independence. Mage Towers are common all across Thedas as places where people with magic are sent and kept to be trained, but it's not a great system. Every game goes out of its way to show how mages are mistreated both inside and out of the towers. Mages like Qwydion (Ashly Burch) and Hira of Absolution are considered apostates for practicing magic outside the Circle of Magi. The mages are more or less imprisoned, and the Templars that watch them are often cruel and prejudiced. This was especially true in Kirkwall, a city with especially high tensions between the mages and Templars and a massive refugee crisis after the Blight that caused the city to overflow. The mounting tensions are the crux of the conflict in Dragon Age 2 and Meredith is one of the main players you interact with. After a trip to the Deep Roads, the abandoned infrastructure of the once-massive Dwarven empire, the main character and his crew recovered a Red Lyrium idol, a powerful and corrupting artifact. Due to a series of mishaps, buffoonery, and bureaucracy, the idol ends up in the hands of Knight Commander Meredith.

Over time, the idol corrupted her and even started growing on her like a fungus. At the end of the game, while the city falls into all-out chaos, Hawke (the main character) and his crew confront Meredith who uses the idol to try and fight them off. But she fails. In the end, the Red Lyrium corrupts her entirely, and she becomes a statue. We learn from some offhand dialogue in Dragon Age: Inquisition from Hawke's former companion Varric Tethras (Brian Bloom) that the statue is still there a few years later and that it's grown bigger. He says that everyone's too scared to touch it. And with Dragon Age: Absolution we see this is still the case. Meredith is still in the Red Lyrium, alive, and using the Red Lyrium Templars to carry out her bidding.

When Hira first mentions a contact in Kirkwall, she says they will meet up with them at the Hanged Man, a central location in Dragon Age 2 where you frequently meet with Varric and your other companions. This lulls us into a false sense of security about both Hira and her contact. But once she mentions the Crimson Knight, anyone familiar with the series would immediately understand what that connotes. Hira's willingness to work with the so-called Crimson Knight, who we now know to be Knight Commander Meredith, also shows just how desperately she wants to destroy the Imperium. Hira herself is a mage, and yet she's willing to work with a corrupt Templar bent on destroying them.

The ending of Dragon Age: Absolution confirms a few things fans of the series had already suspected and a few things they hadn't. Knight Commander Meredith still sits in her crystalline prison in the Gallows where we left her two games ago, the Red Lyrium-infected Templars we fought throughout Inquisition are not only still around but seem to be organizing around Meredith, and Meredith, like Solas, has her sights set on Tevinter. We already knew that the main location for the next game in the franchise, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, was going to be the Tevinter Imperium, so it seems that Absolution will not only be bridging the time between games but even be introducing elements that could be a major part of the game itself. Red Lyrium has been a growing presence in the series as a whole, so it follows that it would play a major part in the next installment. It's not beyond reason to assume that, should Meredith survive the crew of Absolution, she and her templars will play a role in Dreadwolf.

Though what exactly Meredith's plans are remains to be seen, one thing is clear: we’re headed back to Kirkwall for the first time since the city went up in flames. What becomes of Miriam and her band of thieves, what happens to her ex-girlfriend who betrayed her, and what Meredith's return means will all have to wait for Season 2.

I'm a writer from Western Colorado who loves all things nerdy.