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I think one of my favorite character choices for inan and her clan are that they loves wolves and wolf imagery and get pissy when ppl equate wolves to SOLELY the dread wolf. Like they’re a family unit social hunting pack animal!!!!!!!!!!! Its the PERFECT METAPHOR for a aggressive “””””””dalish””””””” clan living in the anderfels and surrounding area!!!!! That one fucking asshole doesn’t have a monopoly on it!!!!!!!!!!! He dOeSn’T eVeN hAvE fRiEnDs!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Every time i come back to dragon age and solavellen i am once again reminded about how WIDELY different inanallas is from like 99% of all other lavellans and how they keep getting weirder over time. The not being phased by the crestwood breakup or the dread wolf reveal is consistent from day 1 tho and hilariously the place i’m always thrown for the loop when i see solavallen posts about someone’s lavellen being upset or something after the break up bc like???? Wow wild. We really did make totally different guys.

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I’ve been out of the dragon age and solavellen holes for so long and hearing via posts that most fics and shit are of lavellens going against his plan and trying to stop him is SO wild to me bc i made like 3-4 lavellens and 2 romanced him and ALL of them are pro-Kill The Veil

Like what do you mean that’s not the primary stance????? You ppl SUPPORT THE VEIL????

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This might be kinda stream of consciousness but I am deep in hyperfixation mode and I yammered on for like 2 hours to unsuspecting victims friends who hadn't played the game and surprisingly made myself feed kind of better about The Varric Thing in the process, so I want to see if I can get it down coherently somewhere...

I am still disappointed that they killed him the way that they did. Let's just get that out of the way. I don't think it was a satisfying ending for his character. Not to mention Epler coming out and admitting verbatim that I was correct in my earlier assumption that they literally only chose to kill him to make people hate Solas. So, you know, trying to get me to hate my favorite character by making him kill one of my other favorite characters. Thanks. Real two for one special as a fan.

But anyway, Varric is dead. And Solas uses his visage to talk to Rook outside of his Time Out Box, which Epler says (with what seems to be a typical lack of insight) that Solas does this to 'keep Rook off balance, but the Fade had other ideas.' (paraphrasing) ...Right. Solas didn't know how the Fade would react to his mind magic. SOLAS. Didn't understand how the FADE works. Inside the LIGHTHOUSE. You know, the part of the Fade HE BUILT.

*rolls eyes so hard I can see Andraste*

I wish we got more information about the limitations of what Solas can actually do with this power, and how it actually works. There wasn't really a point in the game where it made sense to explain it to us, but... Yeah. The best I can tell, I think the Varric we see is mostly Rook's memory of him, and what they expect to see and hear from Varric. He's a wish. Of course Solas' memory of Varric is in there too, and he is also controlling the dialogue that happens. Solas was (and in some ways still is) a spirit, and he reflects what people expect to see in him, and this seems to continue even as he's masquerading as someone else. His version of Varric is almost Too Nice, tbh. He does not Bitch nearly enough. And I think that's because it's just...not what Rook wants or needs to hear. Solas is being Your Good Friend Varric, who never gets mad, and always wants to listen to you, so you will trust him and Tell Him Things.

Which, the knee-jerk reaction to this (as intended) is: That's Fucked Up!

And...yeah. It is.

But then I started thinking about what Solas COULD have been doing with this power. He actually tells us in the game that he has done this to people before. He spent 12 years fucking with a warlord's head so that he heard nothing but laughter. The first time I heard that, I was thinking like...a whisper campaign spreading embarrassing stories, but if you listen to how he phrases the explanation, he says that literally EVERY sound he heard became laughter. That is mind manipulation babeyyy! He is a Dreamer! He can murder people in their sleep and make them see anything he wants them to see in the Fade. You know, where Rook and Co. are living. He clearly has restrictions on this power from being in his Time Out Box, but his connection to Rook is WAY stronger than he acts like it is.

If you can make someone see things that aren't there, you can pretty much manipulate them into doing anything. You can terrorize them with their worst fears. You can isolate them by making it seem like their friends and love ones hate them. Heck, you can just make sounds and lights that interrupt their sleep constantly, and that alone will eventually break someone's mind.

Solas needs Rook to bust him out of jail. He also needs them to Not Die, so that they CAN bust him out of jail. He knows Rook will not take his support (or even most of his advice) as the Dread Wolf. So, he puts on a Varric mask, and becomes their friend. Which seems like it must take a lot of concentration and power on his end. He has Varric take a lot of sudden naps. But still. He is their friend, their mentor, the kind voice who always tells Rook that they are capable and the right person for the job. I wish the game had leaned into this more, actually. That Rook could REALLY lean on Varric in times of distress, and Varric would talk them down, so when you got to the end you're not just mad that you got tricked, but you are ALSO sitting with the fact that like...the only reason Rook was keeping their shit together was because SOLAS took up Varric's mantle as your guide and your emotional support.

That you had to deal with the fact that Solas is both Fen'Harel the God of Lies, AND the voice of kindness and Wisdom guiding you through your perils.

Because THAT is Good Soup. THAT is the moral grey goodness that so much of the game sanitized. Because the idea that Solas did something Fucked Up, but it's also the only reason you won, is kind of his Whole Deal. That's the WHOLE POINT. That he is Wisdom AND Pride. He's a loyal friend AND a lying liar who lies. That the healer has the bloodiest hands, and sometimes the only way to save the world is by being kind of an asshole.

And I don't really feel like there is a place for Rook to really come to that realization. Which is disappointing. And possibly intentional. Ugh.

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Let's talk about Mythal & Emotional Abuse

This post is long, buckle up! I am going to go through Mythal's dialogue to spirit worm Solas, and break down why it has signs of emotional abuse.

Why go to such lengths, you may ask? I have seen too many boo-boo-the-fool takes on this topic across social media, and it has become clear to me that many people have no clue what emotional abuse even is.

I am not worried about the people who simply enjoy Mythal's character, if you are a fan of her, power to you. I will also say that Solas is still ultimately responsible for himself and his own choices. What bothers me is the ignorance on the subject of abuse. So here we go...

What is emotional abuse? Here is one of the article's that I am basing this off of, take a look if you are interested -

Emotional Abuse can manifest in many different ways. How Mythal behaves does not have to check every single box of abuse, but just enough to see a pattern.

PART 1 - The de-wormification of Solas

Let's go through the whole exchange and look out for - violation of boundaries, unrealistic expectations, isolating, invalidation, superiority, and emotional blackmail.

Mythal: "You have long observed the world. Why not consider joining it?"

There is nothing wrong with her opening lines on the surface. It's a bit of soft temptation, no biggie, right? It's a softball framing of what she actually wants from him, which is 'please inflict horrible pain on the Titan's to create a body, so that I can benefit from using you".

'But she is doing it to create peace!', the naysayers might say, 'she wants to end the war!' Yeah, the war she and the Evanuris started by pillaging the Titans to create bodies in the first place.

As far as emotional abuse goes, this fits 'unrealistic expectations'. The article I referenced gives some examples, "making unreasonable demands", "Expecting you to put everything aside to meet their needs." It is also 'isolating'. In that, she is asking him to leave his home and spirit life behind to serve her needs.

'B-but she's just asking, not demanding, he could just say no', the naysayers cry! Okay, let's find out what happens when he DOES, in fact, say NO.

Solas: But I have no desire to live as humans. I have the fade. Besides, I think you underestimate the danger. When you took the glowing stone to build your body, did the earth not shake?

Here we see Solas say no, attempt to set boundaries, and state the harm to himself and others that acquiescing to her will cause.

Now is a good time to bring up the voice acting. Solas sounds notably younger and afraid in this memory. There are parts where his voice is shaky, it conveys FEAR over what he is being asked to do. The way he sounds here reminds me distinctly of how Cole sounds.

So, does our ever-benevolent Mythal respect his boundaries or listen to his fears? Does she know that no means no? OR does she ignore all of that and continue to pressure him into the result she wants?

M: "The lyrium gives us the strength we had when we were of the fade. We are the best of physical and spirit. I need your wisdom. To withstand the louder voices who would go to far, like Elgar'nan."

"I need you."

In terms of emotional abuse, this is where the meat is. We have 'violation of boundaries', 'invalidation', 'superiority', and 'emotional blackmail'. All in one fell swoop (swooping is bad).

Solas has already said no, ignoring this and continuing to push is violating a boundary. Asking him to change his very form of existence is a major violation of his person-hood.

Imagine if someone told you they wanted you to help them with a task, but in order to do so, you had to get full body plastic surgery, or turn into an alien, or some huge physical transformation that will permanently alter your life. This is a blatant overstep, and not something that someone who cares about you would ever ask.

The 'invalidation' comes in with what she doesn't say. Notice, how she doesn't address the point Solas made about the danger and the earth shaking. She deflects.

An example of 'invalidating' can be "refusing to accept your feelings by trying to define how you should feel". It trivializes your feelings, or it redirects your feelings into something better suited to the abuser.

Solas' fear about the danger is trivialized by her lack of response to it. Ignoring his point implies that his feelings on it do not matter. He sounds frightened when he talks about it, and...she deflects using 'superiority'.

I think even the most die-hard Mythal fan can admit that she carries herself with an absolute air of superiority. It's one of her defining traits. Here she dismisses the dangers of using the Titan's to form bodies by pointing out how superior it is to do so.

The entitlement of "The lyrium gives us the strength", and "We are the best of physical and spirit" establishes her stance on being a higher power. This implies that she sees her lyrium body as being superior to simple spirits, which extends logically to Solas (by her logic, just a mediocre wisdom spirit in comparison).

Solas says "Hey, no, I don't want to do this because it is harmful and scary. I am happy as I am.", she comes back with "but don't you wanna be superior and powerful like me?" The flip-side of that is that it means she doesn't think he is good enough as 'just a spirit'.

Cue 'emotional blackmail', considering that she ends up using him for war, his spirit form isn't good enough for the task. He must irreversibly (as far as we know) change his very existence in order to become 'good enough' for her needs.

This is the clearest manipulation that Mythal uses in this exchange. The repeated "I need" (and this is the one that leads him to giving in) Some examples of emotional blackmail from the aforementioned article include, "Manipulating and controlling you by making you feel guilty; giving you a guilt trip", and "Using your fears, values, compassion, or other hot buttons to control you or the situation".

She presents the idea that the louder Evanuris need to be kept in check to appeal to Solas's values and compassion. She name drops Elgar'nan specifically, likely knowing that Elgar'nan is a hot button area for Solas.

The naysayers might be confused by this one too, 'She only asked for help with keeping the Evanuris in check. What's so terrible about that?' It's not so terrible on the surface, but paired with everything else it piles on to the manipulation.

Once again, there is a flip-side to her words that subtly imply, 'If you do not take physical form and help me with this conflict the world will get worse. I will be outnumbered by the less reasonable Evanuris. The consequence of failure will be on YOU, after all, I told you I needed you.' This is major guilt tripping, and it works. It works so well he internalizes it for millennia.

S: This is madness. You must know that. (sighs/shaky intake of breath) I will always follow where you go.

He is still trapped in the mindset of 'If Mythal's attempt at building a peaceful world fails, it is his fault. If her vision for the Elvhen people falls apart it is because his wisdom wasn't good enough'. So, he had to transform into something better, more powerful, into Pride, to meet her expectations, and if his actions since taking physical form/becoming Pride all led to failure and more suffering, then it was all for nothing.

He was violated and has perpetuated violation in her name for NOTHING. That is an unbearable way to live and it breaks him until Mythal takes a shred of accountability for her part of it and releases him from her "service" at the end.

I am tempted to go into the parallels with both Solas' and Cole's personal quests in DAI, but this is long as hell already.

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Just struck me that I still don’t know whether the Veil should be taken down or not.

For ten years, I’ve read Solavellan stories of Lavellan fighting tooth and nail to prevent the Veil from coming down. These stories were from the very reasonable perspective that “What’s done is done. Modern Thedas has problems just as the Pre-Veil world did. You need to let go of your regrets and live with the consequences. You can make change here and now in the present.” In pretty much every Solavellan story that tackles this topic of Past v. Present, Lavellan is using her political influence to secure serious change for elves and greater protections for the Dalish especially. These stories are not in favor of preserving the abusive status quo. Rather, Lavellan convinces Solas that his place is at her side teaching the elves the truth of the gods and the past and using his Wisdom to change hearts and minds as he always wished.

But for people who want the Veil to be taken down, the arguments can be summarized as the Veil being the status quo, and its continued existence is perpetuating it. The world was meant to be magical; the Veil must be undone to bring the world back to what it normally was. The elves deserve their power and magic back, etc. etc. One could argue that Solas keeping the veil up is him still bound to his past decisions, and worse, folding to the pressure of the status quo and betraying his role of rebeller.

The biggest point of contention for me is that it is not made clear in the slightest what exactly will happen if the Veil is taken down, and while I’m all for the destruction of oppressive systems, when it comes to something like literal MAGIC, I feel like I’m well within my right to be skeptical and apprehensive since Solas is pointedly vague about the specifics. In Trespasser, he says, to paraphrase “..even if this world must die”. The word die is not expounded upon. Die, how? Are we talking the abstract, metaphorical meaning of the word “die” (i.e. the French monarchy ‘died’ and a republic government was born from it), or do we mean a more visceral “die” (i.e. it’s gonna be like a nuclear reactor meltdown and people are going to keel over like they stepped into the Elephant Foot room in Chernobyl because of the sudden tsunami of magic re-entering the world), or do we mean both?

Solavellan fics have taken this to mean what is essentially a global genocide that will destroy most people, and thus the arguments with Solas over the years have been, to sum up a few examples, “You killed a world. You would kill a second world to bring back the first?” and ‘We *are* just as real as the ancient elves were. You need to accept that we are, and accept that the Elvhen empire is gone.” and “We are (elves) are not lesser than our ancestors, we are different. This world is no more broken than the one before. You had all the magic in the world and the elves used it to enslave and kill one another and tranquil the Titans. In this world we have far less access to magic and similar issues with slavery and the Chantry and Tevinter mageocracy. The suffering is just as widespread, but the magnitude is lesser by several degrees (the difference between the devastation and suffering incurred from medieval warfare v. modern warfare).”

The contention of not wanting Solas to tear down the Veil hinges on this ambiguity, and of Solas not seeing the modern elves as real or his people.

Now we can argue: “Solas is lost in the sauce of regret and more than a little blinded from culture shock and nostalgia in his motivation to tear down the veil since half of it stems from his wish to bring back the eminence and power of the ancient elves.’ —-From this we can only surmise what his intentions are here, even. Does he mean elevation and equality (elves will be more powerful but not necessarily treated as superior to the other races—separate but equal), or does he mean ‘the elves were far more powerful and superior to other races in their own way, and we are restoring that’, with the implication that, like elves in other fantasies, they’ll have powers and eminence that could overshadow the other races, and that is simply how nature intended it to be (read: sneaking in some soft social darwinist essentialism))—-‘but yes, the Veil does need to come down because the byproduct will be that elves and mages get more power’.

And beyond that resides a semi magical ecological reason: his wish to see magic and spirits meld with the world once again since that’s how it originally was. The Veil, he states, is unnatural.

What is also confusing is between Trespasser and Veilguard, Solas remains inconsistent on who “the people” are. In a memory he says “the people need me”. Veilguard makes it out like he’s somewhat quietly accepted the modern elves as his people. Probably lesser or somewhat rendered inferior by their supreme distance from the elvhen empire and their lack of magic, but still his responsibility, the living legacy of his mistakes.

I suppose the thorn in my brain is that

The ironic thing is that I’m all for the destruction of the status quo and oppressive systems so long as there’s a clear, cohesive game plan. Fucking go nuts. But when it comes to change in fictional worlds, I get really nervous, probably because most people don’t know how to write or plot out massive societal change in a way that’s believable or well-thought out since fiction can’t ever competently account for the infinite fractals of perspective and experience under such tumultuous events. There is always going to be some glaring oversight since fiction authors are forced to cram a thousand different affected elements into a single narrative, and you will always end up with a story that either leans pro-revolution or anti-revolution, even if it’s a 51%/49% split. Someone is going to be unhappy with the argument made by the text in question. Someone is going to argue that it doesn’t account for X, Y, Z…

Where am I going with this.. Yeah I’m conflicted about the “to tear down the veil or not” because it is so wrapped up in one man’s personal emotional journey. Liberals like to inexplicably twist and weave individual stories into revolution narratives in order to 1) humanize a large abstract political movement but also 2) Use the character as a personification of the movement, with their personality and morality a direct reflection of the morality, and thus validity, of the movement.

It’s an ouroboros of logos and pathos ethos. We can sympathize with Solas because of the cause he champions. By way of literary device, our view of the cause is (deliberately or unconsciously) meant to be influenced by Solas’s personality: the face of the Rebellion and of elf emancipation, a thoughtful, somber, conflicted man with many huge blunders and misjudgments under his belt. He means well, but will his plan work? Perhaps it’s best that everything be left alone. He’s the one with the power to pull it off, but how many of his plans have backfired? This along with the aforementioned ambiguity of what will happen to the world when it’s torn down leaves us with a discordant uncertainty. We want elves to have rights, we want mages to be more free, we want spirits to not be so easily corrupted.

The writers clearly want the Veil to be kept up. It’s “the right thing to do” because tearing down the Veil will mean the “death” of modern Thedas. The fact there isn’t an outright statement of “yeah this is what will happen during this ‘death’” is used as a discouragement, but I feel like that sticking point was written in a day and age when people had fucks left to give about the system, when there was still a healthy fear of unknown risk and a preference for a theoretical scenario where change is slow, regimented, monitor-able, with casualties all but 0.

The game peddling this same fear of change in 2024 is being given to a world that is now more and more commonly scoffing at reluctance to implement systemic change for fear of the unknown. “Who cares, elves deserve rights.”

But is the world Solas is promising actually possible? He has done so many things that have resulted in disastrous, world-changing, life-ruining, unintended consequences. We simply don’t know how modern bodies will react to a sudden global influx of magic to the atmosphere, how many benign spirits will become corrupted when they’re suddenly in direct contact with mortals who are just stewing in their negative emotions that will be undoubtedly heightened by the apocalypse. There are bubbles of the Veil that act all funky and get Veil jumpers killed all the time. Those are simply bubbles.

Varric: People are dying

Solas: That’s what people do

All art is political. It all has a message. Unintended, intended, subliminal, explicit, personal, popular interpretation, weird tinfoil hattery.

The cognitive dissonance, or discomfort I feel is that Solas’s story exemplifies two simultaneous arguments: One, that you need to move on past your regret. You need to live here, now. Life is making mistakes. You may make the largest mistakes, you may work every day to atone for them, but at a certain point you need to accept that this is what life is. You can mourn, you can grieve, you can even still feel pangs of guilt and shame, but you have to be more than that, more than a martyr. Some people are not meant to be the hero. You should focus on putting good into the world now, changing it for the future, not to seek out the past.

That is a beautiful tragic sentiment, especially when the sorrow and guilt are magnified a thousand-fold by the knowledge that your actions have led to the death and suffering of so many in your sincere pursuit of protecting people. When does the sense of responsibility and duty become a spiral of self-destruction? When is the time to stop when all of your efforts make things worse and worse? Solas was a man who took action when action is clearly not in his wheelhouse because the grass is always greener for him. He cannot live with making huge pyrrhic choices because he empathizes so keenly with all sapient life and the tragedy of “what could’ve been”…

But then the second underlying argument posed by the upkeep of the Veil, if you’re Epler: Revolution is bad. Change even for a good cause is bad. Live with the shit rules you have.

idk I’m just getting my thoughts down. I guess I’m still pro- preserve the Veil solely because my personality forbids me from committing to such a choice without knowing the full list of side effects, which Solas (or maybe the writers themselves) haven’t thought out. And again it’s really weird because I don’t have these same reservations about real world social justice and progress. 😶

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why must the guard dog characters unquestioning devotion to their master be born from trust or some shit cant they be manipulated into it. raised into it. brainwashed even

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old dai banter going around.. i miss my good friends solavellan the funniest couple i know

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she’s so sick of them

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john epler: solas has no real regard for the lives of the people who followed him

meanwhile:

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Lauren Kelly, Senior Character Artist at BioWare

Varric Tethras

Solas

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i think the disconnect with people trying to “um, actually” the whole “solas cares about people despite what epler says” thing is that there is a distinction between what solas says and what solas does. Solas *says* that experiencing the lives of current elves is like walking through a world of tranquil, but a romanced Solas concedes that he was wrong by the end of Trespasser. Solas says a lot of things that sound like his attempt at a coping mechanism due to empathy exhaustion but ultimately do not translate to his motives or his actions.

The only reason he opposes the Qunari in Trespasser is because he hates the idea of the people he has resigned himself to ultimately killing having to live under the shadow of war and suffering or under the Qun for the remainder of their time alive. Like…………… there is no greater inherent contradiction than that. And it is because who he is, at his core, is a being of immense empathy that was bastardized and fashioned for war. HE is a walking contradiction.

To say that he doesn’t care for the people that followed him, past or present, demonstrates a marked misunderstanding of the character that is whatever if it’s from a fan but is INCREDIBLY CONCERNING from the NARRATIVE DIRECTOR of the game that is ABOUT THAT CHARACTER!!

Especially considering i played the game and i SAW how that narrative got spun and it rendered attempts by party characters to understand Solas asinine and grating because it resulted in dogwater writing like “JUST BECAUSE HE’S SAD DOESN’T MEAN HE’S NOT DANGEROUS” and some wacky shit like solas using spirits as cannon fodder and being incredibly blasé about it because that was Epler’s understanding of what a Morally Grey™️ character has to be.

I cannot tap the sign more vigourously but Trick Weekes is quite literally quoted as saying Solas’ fatal flaw is that he cares TOO much. So i don’t know i’m not great at math but something’s not adding up besties!!!!! Which is it???!!!!?????

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Senior Character Artist Lauren Kelly: "I created the face for Solas in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Responsible for the highres sculpt, bakes, textures, and wrinkle/tension maps. Blendshapes created by the talented Jill Harrington and EA Create team." [source]

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Everyone: dirthamen is connected to dumat

Razikale: am i a joke to you?

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infinitely funny that solas is this powerful god that was worshipped for centuries albeit against his will and commanded spirits and legions of ancient elves in a rebellion

is the same solas who allowed himself to be bullied non stop by inquisition companions who had no idea what he was. imagine being revered for millennia and then suddenly sera is blowing raspberries anytime he speaks, varric’s calling him “chuckles” after his feared mantle of the dread wolf, being subjected to inappropriate spirit sex questions and the skyhold joke that he doesnt like tea, which he deliberately plays into purely for the sake of everyone’s amusement. he was completely content to be the butt of the joke.

the relief from being seen as a god-general of rebellion and lies to an unwashed apostate hobo ... being in the inquisition truly must’ve been the best year of his life

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I keep seeing posts about Solas' "arrogance" when it comes to tearing down the Veil - that he thinks he's the only one who knows what's best for Thedas, and no one else could possibly understand because it's all "past their comprehension."

But that's not it at all. If you have low approval with Solas, you can confront him about not doing enough to help the Dalish, and he admits that he probably could have done more but that he's tired of fighting and losing. The Inquisitor has a choice of how to respond, but if you suggest he seek the support of his friends, he will tell you he's learned not to do that.

You can get a similar conversation with Solas when he asks what you plan to do with the power of the Well of Sorrows. You can literally respond "I'm not arrogant enough to think it's my decision alone" and tell him you intend to rely on the collective judgement of your friends because you trust them. And he'll respond, "I know that mistake well enough to carve the angles of her face from memory."

It's not arrogance that keeps Solas from talking to his friends. This is a learned behavior where he's trusted the people he cared about and who he thought cared about him, and ended up stabbed in the back over and over again.

Solas isn't afraid of admitting himself wrong. He will do so with a high approval Inquisitor. He'll admit fault or allow his views to be challenged during party banter. He's not afraid of or demeaning of other view points - so long as his are also respected.

He even tells a high approval Inquisitor "it would be too easy to tell you too much." He WANTS to tell them. He wants to share his plans. But he's been burned too often. And if you romanced him - he's likely been burned by past lovers too. He just can't take the risk that you'll betray him - as experience has taught him will likely happen.

Solas knows he's been wrong before. He knows he could be wrong again. He'd likely love to have another person or two or more who he could brainstorm his plan with to iron out the holes he can't see. But he can't do that because he doesn't know for sure that you won't stab him in the back.

His refusal to talk to someone isn't arrogance. It's avoidant behavior learned from trauma - possibly PTSD - the man walks Cole through a freaking panic attack, for Christ's sakes. He knows what that's like.

I just want to hug him and tell him the people he trusted were assholes and the fault was theirs and not his.