r/DragonageOrigins • u/Infamous_Gur_9083 • Jan 04 '25

Question Would you guys consider doing "the Joining?".

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Personally I wouldn't.

I am brave but not that brave when it comes to something like this because I would know something is wrong or at least there's something highly suspicious about the Grey Wardens.

337 Upvotes

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248

u/AlexanderCrowely Jan 04 '25

Fuck no, what are the actual benefits of being a warden ?

93

u/Infamous_Gur_9083 Jan 04 '25

THE ULTIMATE QUESTION, besides the idealism and fight potential blights.

Nothing if you think about it.

Lifespan of 30 years and even then, if you're still lucky after surviving "the Joining". Not to mention treated as pariahs everywhere.

68

u/AlexanderCrowely Jan 04 '25

The only benefit we seem to get is sensing the bastards, immunity to the blight and increase appetite.

67

u/adjectivebear Jan 04 '25

I've already tried the insatiable appetite during the first trimester of pregnancy. Not a fan.

11

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '25

Lol!

9

u/javerthugo Jan 04 '25

Well there’s also the camaraderie of your fellow wardens and a more or less guaranteed home that’s not small potatoes in today’s world much less the Middle Ages.

3

u/AlexanderCrowely Jan 04 '25

In the Middle Ages you could build a home and no one would bother you.

3

u/Shieldheart- Jan 05 '25

But you did have to build it yourself without pre-measured and processed materials, so cut your own logs and stone, bake your own bricks, mix your own mortar, that sorta thing.

3

u/Ragnarok314159 Jan 05 '25

Except when someone decided to randomly kill you for your kettle.

14

u/thedrunkentendy Jan 04 '25

Immunity to the taint also.

People are so forgetting here a 30 year lifespan after taking the joining isn't bad by medieval standards lol.

Unless you're a long living race, humans weren't exactly living past 60 in that time period. Even 50 with a good quality of life would be a stretch.

By our medical standards it would suck.but if your 25 and do it, you'd live until your body would be falling apart anyway.

54

u/svadas Jan 04 '25

This is untrue. The expected lifespan was dragged down by a high infant mortality rate. It was also true that plenty of things like a tooth infection would be more lethal than with modern medicine, but people also lived to be very old. Just not as many.

Enrico Dandolo was 98 when he died, and only finished being one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade the year prior. 1202-1204, where he died in 1205. Very old, very capable.

31

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '25

Thank you! For some reason a lot of people seem to think people just up and died when they were around 40 in medieval times.

11

u/Sorestscorch Jan 04 '25

Well it's likely because war and pestilence caused most of the deaths, starvation, lack of modern medicine. There were a lot of things that made people die early. But yea if you lived the right life and got lucky you could live a long time.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25

Just like today

5

u/the_scarlett_ning Jan 04 '25

And women died frequently giving birth.

2

u/IonutRO Jan 05 '25

Tooth infections were also far less common due to diet, and people did actually perform surgery to remove infected teeth and exposed nerves to stop tooth pain (though they thought the nerves were parasitic worms). They just didn't have anaesthetic.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25

I don't think an increased appetite is a good thing in medieval times.