why is Liliana or how ever you spell her name not dead in dragon age inquistion?

[Walterfryguy]

I mean I set it up that I killed her with the urn in the creation of story thingy, yet she lives? does she at least say she survied the attack? Kinda seems stupid to have that there if you can  not change it up a little???

[Fred_vdp · Accepted solution]

This event is mentioned in Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition. In DA2 during one of Sebastian's personal missions, and in DA:I you can ask her about it at some point in Haven.

In short: she doesn't know exactly how she survived, but her hypothesis is that the Maker believed it wasn't her time to go yet.

[Fred_vdp · Accepted solution]

This event is mentioned in Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition. In DA2 during one of Sebastian's personal missions, and in DA:I you can ask her about it at some point in Haven.

In short: she doesn't know exactly how she survived, but her hypothesis is that the Maker believed it wasn't her time to go yet.

[INsaneyAC]

Basically she is heavily woven into the story of DAI, so for those people who have a world state where she is dead, you get a vague explanation of why she is alive now. In comic book stories this is called "retconning," or changing the history of your world to make current story lines possible that were not possible given how things happened before.

Happens alot on long running television shows when characters are killed off due to contract disputes with the actors, then the actors come back later in the show's run and writers have to "rewrite history" to make this possible.

[Fred_vdp]

Doesn't it only count as a retcon when there's no explanation whatsoever? In Family Matters, for instance, one of the Winslow kids suddenly doesn't exist anymore, and all the characters act like she never existed.

[JupixFIN]

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@Fred_vdp wrote:

Doesn't it only count as a retcon when there's no explanation whatsoever? In Family Matters, for instance, of one the Winslow kids suddenly doesn't exist anymore, and all the characters act like she never existed.

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Retroactive continuity can take many forms.

Leliana is a great character and because her death in DAO isn't canon for most players, for most she's also a welcome sight in the DAI story. Therefore it makes sense from a real world perspective for the developers to retcon her back into life even for the minority for whom she was dead.