Why Mages Wear Hoods! A Theory (And Also a Theory About the Ancient Elves)

Warnings:Discussion of fantasy imperialism. Otherwise just a lot of insufferable deep lore nerdery. Consider yourself warned.

Hoods seem to be a common accessory for mages across Thedas, from Ferelden to Tevinter (as confirmed on page 73 of The World of Thedas Volume 1). As with “robes,” the word “hood” may be used somewhat loosely, and somewhat interchangeably to the word “cowl,” both denoting anything from the classic hood to turbans and other cloth headwear.

It should be noted that not all mages wear headwear at all; we see plenty of unhooded mages, inside the Circles and outside. Dalish mages, in particular, do not appear to wear hoods as a general rule; I don’t think we’ve ever seen headwear on a Dalish Keeper or First in the games. It also is worth noting that other classes may also wear hoods or cowls. The Hooded Couriers in Origins are not mages so far as we know. The “elven cowl” which appears in both Dragon Age IIandDragon Age: Inquisition, is seen on elves who are laborers and (so far as we know) not mages. The term “cowl” is sometimes used for what are actually helmets in DA2. The “Helm of the Champion” for a rogue Hawke, despite its name, has the appearance of a hood. But meanwhile the mage Champion armor, which despite its name could hardly be called a “robe,” features the classic mage hood. So it’s not only mages who wear hoods, but the hood or cowl is pretty much the headwear for mages—Circle, apostate, or magister—across the entire continent.

The World of Thedas states hoods as an essential part of mage fashion in Tevinter almost as a matter of course, which led me to consider the question: why do mages wear hoods, anyway? Why is this particular accessory ubiquitous across Thedas, transcending vastly different fashions and cultures as well as laws and attitudes around magic?

The item description for the Apprentice Cowl in Origins reads: “Circle towers are frequently drafty. The senior enchanters distribute these to the apprentices in the winter. Where they come by the cowls, however, is a mystery.” However, this just seems to explain the particular design of the Apprentice Cowl, which closely covers the neck and ears. The Enchanter Cowl in the same game has this description: “This hood is velvet; the embroidery is stitched into protective runes. The feathers are purely decorative.” We know, then, that the mage’s hood serves both a protective and a decorative function. But protective runes could presumably be applied to any type of light headwear, so the question remains: why hoods?

The Doylist answer, of course, is almost certainly that the designers of the first game made an aesthetic choice common to fantasy worlds and the series has rolled with it ever since. But I think there’s a potential Watsonian explanation as well, one that the series might have embraced along the way and will eventually make explicit. So if you’ll indulge me, here’s my theory!

We have limited visual depictions of the ancient elves or elvhen, mostly limited to artistic depictions such as mosaics in elvhen ruins, but they all seem to have one particular thing in common with each other and with the few surviving elvhen we meet in Inquisition: they don’t have hair. Solas, the Sentinels, the mosaic representations of the Evanuris: all bald. (Even Zathrian, who is not an ancient elf but has let his clan believe he has regained the immortality of the elvhen to hide his connection to the werewolf curse, wears his head hairless, so I think this might be a thing the Dalish know or at least suspect.) I lean toward thinking the elvhen didn’t have hair until they became mortal, though it’s also possible they wore shaved heads as a cultural choice. Either way, though, bald elves.

The Sentinels that we meet in the Temple of Mythal appear to be elvhen who have survived to the present day. They all appear to be bald, and most of them wear hoods as a part of their uniform, regardless of their combat style.

I’m probably not the first to suggest this, but I think the elvhen didn’t have hair, and because of that I think hoods were commonly worn in Elvhenan simply to keep one’s head warm. They probably had nothing at all to do with magic; they were simply a comfortable fashion choice. When humans arrived and conquered what was left of the crumbling empire, we already know that they learned, or stole, a lot of things directly from the elves, from magical skills to architectural styles. I think hoods were just one more piece of elvhen culture that humans took for themselves, associating the style with magic simply because they associated elves with magic at the time, thus making it desirable. It caught on, and the mage hood spread wherever humans did, and became a part of human culture so ubiquitous that no one even thinks to ask, now, why mages wear hoods all over Thedas.

If the hood’s origins are elvhen, why don’t Dalish mages wear them? Well, the easy answer is that it’s just one more piece of elvhen culture that was lost; they don’t remember the origins of the mage hood any more than humans do. Unless preserved by magic, cloth items are unlikely to survive in ruins for decades. A hood also doesn’t make as much sense for combat when you live and practice magic mainly outdoors in forests, because it obstructs peripheral vision and could actually pose a danger. But even if the Dalish did know the hood was originally elvhen, there would be no reason for them as reconstructionists to assign it specifically to mages, because in Elvhenan, no such distinction existed. The hood was simply something elves wore.

Arguments against:

There’s concept art of Solas with hair. Certainly the first counterpoint I would raise against my own theory. However, I’d argue that a) concept art isn’t canon; b) concept art isn’t always made with full knowledge of all the deep lore, especially lore that’s yet to be revealed; and c) had they decided to go with Solas having hair in the present day, it might have been because he had the ability to magically change his appearance to better blend in with modern elves. It may have been decided that it was more important to keep him bald to give us that clue toward the ancient elves’ appearance. From The Art of Dragon Age Inquisition:

When exploring the final appearance of Solas, we tried many hairstyles. None seemed to evoke the ageless wisdom required by the character more than a bold, bald head. (p.69)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There’s at lesst one Sentinel elf model with hair in Heroes of Dragon Age. I did notice this on the wiki! I am not sure how canon we should consider HoDA, and I’d lean toward considering it less canon than the main games and books, but that could be considered a strike against the theory.

So, what do you think? Did ancient elvhen have hair? Why do mages wear hoods from Tevinter to Orlais?