#[ cole's pq always makes me think of the southern raiders episode in atla which is one of my fave episodes

[theharellan]

@felandaristhorns​ asked: This might be more meta than headcanon (and you may have already said something about it), but I'd love your thoughts on the parallels between Solas killing the mages who tortured and corrupted Wisdom versus Cole sparing and forgiving (with Solas's guidance and encouragement) the templar who imprisoned and forgot the real Cole.

Hm! I think I’ve spoken about it before, although potentially only in private? I remember talking to Joly once about how it, but it was mostly about how I think comparing the two like it’s apples to apples is weird, especially because the post in particular was one sentence and equivocated what I think are two different crimes. I’m going to do my best to put them into context about the ways I think they’re hard to compare before I compare them just to make myself feel better.

Oh, and before I start, these are just my interpretations of the quests and mostly applicable to how I write these characters here and on my multimuse in Cole’s case.

The Templar who killed the human Cole did so out of negligence and cruelty, Cole was (in the fucked up system of Thedas) the Templar’s responsibility and he failed him. The mages who kill Wisdom do so out of ignorance, mostly, having been educated by that same system which taught them that Wisdom wasn’t a person and thus fine to enslave and pervert. These are both bad things, and some action deserves to be taken in either case,* but they aren’t the same crimes.

Not only this, but they serve different narrative purposes. I see the mages as a foils Solas and the situation he’s in, they did something drastic to protect themselves and a lot of them ended up dying as a result. Also, they fail to recognise the personhood in Wisdom just as Solas fails to recognise the personhood in the world he woke up to. Let them die or stop him, his path isn’t divergent like Cole’s, he’s grateful for your help even if he disapproves of you letting them go. Meanwhile, the Templar in Cole’s is more a springboard for how he’s going to develop from here on out. He represents Cole’s investment in the identity he forged for himself, but there aren’t many traits he and the Templar share as there are with Solas and the mages.

So, we have two different situations featuring characters who serve different narrative functions for our companions. Now that I’ve made it clear that they’re different I can try to talk about the similarities.

The first similarity that comes to mind is actually between Solas and Cole if you take the alternate route, where Cole doesn’t forgive. He keeps the anger, lets it change him, he’s more relatable but a little less happy. If you let the mages go, Solas doesn’t forgive them, he keeps that fury. You can feel that anger going into Tevinter Nights, where his fury about how spirits are being treated in Thedas characterises his appearances. Solas has had a body for a while, so it’s not like this anger has changed his nature, more that I think he knows better than he lets on that he gets the pain Cole is going through by letting this stick to him. Encouraging Cole to forgive is a way to keep Cole from going through what he’s gone through. It’s also I think a result of the Veil and its nature, were the world different I think Solas would have preferred a middle ground, as was possible before the creation of the Veil.

I also think there’s something to be said about vengeance not being a healthy path for them. As I said, Solas doesn’t have a divergent path and reacts with gratitude regardless of if you let him go through with it, but I do think that letting him kill the mages imparts a bad lesson for him. Especially if you buy into my “the mages are Solas” interpretation. For the moment it has no repercussions on Solas’ story, but it still may, and personally I think the Inquisitor who showed mercy to mages who did something terrible to protect people they loved would have a better bearing on Solas’ future (assuming you want him in a better place at the end of DA4) than letting them die. For Cole, we aren’t allowed to pursue that path because his story is divergent, and it would be more dialogue to write, more lines to read, more scenes to code, etc. There are hints that it was planned, but likely had to be cut from the development process for the reasons listed above. I do think that if such an option was pursued, it would’ve been bad for Cole.

I guess the final and most compelling parallel I can think of is how Solas and Cole deal with their own grief versus others’. Cole shows compassion to Solas, who has the death of an empire (or rather, its people) sitting on his shoulders, shows compassion to Blackwall, who had ordered the deaths of civilians and allowed the deaths of children. Wanting someone who committed a crime dead isn’t out of the unusual for Cole (he does approve of execution an equal number of times as Solas does. Fun fact.), but oftentimes when dealing with the pain of people whom many would consider monstrous Cole tries to help them move on from their trauma. Not so for the Templar, who may not have lived if Cole had acted alone that day.

Solas is a fair bit colder than Cole, he’s had to make hard decisions in a way similar to the Inquisitor, and people have died as a result. Yet when dealing with Blackwall he ultimately chooses to accept that he’s changed and, if Blackwall is romanced, Solas is glad he’s found some peace with someone who can love the true him. He’s the only member of the initial party who tries to reason with the mage supremacists that broke from the rebellion, and he, too, finds compassion for people who are considered monstrous-- sometimes literally. His compassion is harder than Cole’s, but undeniably there.

Yet when faced with their own trauma and grief, they both turn to rage. Solas is self-admittedly hotheaded and I think well-aware that it’s not good to indulge that side of himself, and while he doesn’t have enough in him to control himself when it comes to the loss of one of his oldest friends (at least not without outside help), he has enough of a grip during Cole’s quest to advocate a softer resolution for his friend. I wish Cole could’ve played a role in Solas’ personal quest as Solas did for Cole to neatly tie up this package, but alas. I could see Cole stopping Solas, I imagine at that point more of him was bleeding through and he was a good deal louder than usual from Cole’s perspective, but that’s getting into speculation.

In short, I think they’re difficult quests to draw parallels between because they serve very different purposes for Solas and Cole, and the crimes featured in them are different morally. Some similarities can be found in questions the quests raise about vengeance and the fact that Solas may be advocating from the perspective of someone who had to go through what Cole is about to go through. Ultimately though I think the most compelling parallel is the way these characters express their grief and how they help their friends’ handle their grief.

* By this I mean I think the mages deserve education and protection, their crime was a result of desperation and I think they deserve compassion. The Templar I think deserved prison or some kind of judgment, although ultimately I choose forgive because I prefer it for Cole’s development and he comes before everything else.